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The Absent Dimension: Anti-Racism in Mbark Ben Zayda's Amazigh Poetics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 January 2024
Abstract
Racism is a scourge that has not spared any society or community. Moroccan society is not different in its grappling with the legacy of the complex history of slavery and racialization in North Africa. Although social scientists have dedicated much scholarly attention to the study of race in Morocco, they have not accounted for Amazigh language's rich documentation of and grappling with race and racism. Ethnographic work has emerged to explain racial dynamics between Imazighen and isuqiyn (Blacks) or Haratines, but these crucial interventions fall short of examining primary sources in Tamazight to explain how Amazigh communities negotiated racism openly in the public sphere. This article draws on the experience of the Black Amazigh poet Mbark u-Ms‘ud Ben Zayda to demonstrate that racism was not, and is not, entirely silenced in Amazigh-speaking Morocco. In fact, Amazigh sources and terminology reveal that poetic performances in this social environment have not only unsilenced racism but actively grappled with its multilayered dimensions. Adopting a close reading methodology, the article interprets portions of Ben Zayda's poetry and its response to the explicitly racializing compositions of his contemporaries.
- Type
- Special Focus on Amazigh Literature: Critical and Close Reading Approaches
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- Copyright
- Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Middle East Studies Association of North America
References
1 Studies in this growing body of works include: Hamel, Chouki El, Black Morocco: A History of Race, Gender, and Islam (New York: Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2013)Google Scholar; Laura Menin, “Shadows of Slavery Part Two: Race, Colour and Origins in Northwest Africa and the Middle East,” Open Democracy 6 (August 2018), https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/beyond-trafficking-and-slavery/shadows-of-slavery-part-two-race-colour-and-origins-in-northwest-africa-an/; Becker, Cynthia, Blackness in Morocco: Gnawa Identity through Music and Visual Culture (Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press, 2020)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 Silverstein, Paul, “Masquerade Politics: Race, Islam and the Scale of Amazigh Activism in Southeastern Morocco,” Nations and Nationalism 17.1 (2011): 66CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3 Boum, Aomar, “The Life of a Tablet,” in Islam through Objects, ed., Anna Bigelow (New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021), 143–58Google Scholar.
4 Ahmad al-Munadi states that his date of birth was in 1925 while Ahmad Asid lists his year of birth as 1910. However, Moustaoui, who had interviewed ben Zayda in person and grew up in the same region as him, gives 1928 as his birth year. See al-Munadi, Ahmad, Mbark u-ms‘ud (ben Zayda) (Rabat: Al-Ma‘had al-Malaki li-al-Thaqafa al-Amazighiyya, 2015), 7Google Scholar.
5 Sources about Ben Zayda's life are very scarce. There is no complete biography of him, and most of what is available exists on blogs and Facebook pages. The biographical information as well as the poetic samples that I analyze in this article are drawn from these sources: Moustaoui, Mohammed, “al-shi‘r al-amazighi al-munadil didda al-‘ubudiyya wa-al-istirqaq,” in Jam‘iyyat al-jami‘a al-ạyfiyya bi-agadir; A‘mal al-dawra al-ula: Al-thaqafa al-sha‘biyya al-wahda fi al-tanawwu‘ min 18 ila 31 ghusht (Agadir: Jamʻiyat Jamiʻa al-Sayfiya bi-Agadir, 1986): 234–55Google Scholar; Oubella, Brahim, “Shi‘r al-jur'a wa-al-tahaddi fi al-atlas al-saghir,” Tawsna 2 (1995): 21–28Google Scholar; Belkacem Idir, “Ibn Zayda shahid fann dderst: Raqsat ahwash al-amazighi,” Amazigh Afra [blog], http://amazighafra.blogspot.com/2019/11/blog-post_14.html.
7 Brahim El Guabli, “The Sub-Saharan African Turn in Moroccan Literature,” MERIP, https://merip.org/2021/04/the-sub-saharan-african-turn-in-moroccan-literature-2/.
8 Ibid.
9 El Hamel, Black Morocco, 13–14.
10 Al-Munadi, Mbark u-ms‘ud, 7.
11 There is disagreement about whether he was poisoned or whether his death was caused by throat cancer. Moustaoui and Belkacen contend that he was poisoned after he brutally routed and humiliated a white poet during a performance, whereas Brahim Oubella advances the idea that his death was natural. Given the fact that Moustaoui's article was written in 1980 and that he had actually met with Ben Zayda and interviewed him the 1970s while Oubella's was only published in 1995, there is reason to believe that Moustaoui was closer to whatever local society thought about the way he died. He may well have suffered from cancer, but the proximate cause of his death was poisoning, according to Moustaoui. It is difficult to understand the motivations of the writers who try to divert attention to his illness.
12 For more information about this art, see Ahmad, ‘Asid, Imarirn: Mashahir shu‘ara’ ahwash fi al-qarn al-‘ishrin (Rabat: al-Ma'had al-Malaki lil-al-Thaqafa al-Amazighiyya, 2011)Google Scholar.
13 See Zaheur, Lahcen, Al-Adab al-amazighi al-hadith bi-al-maghrib: Al-nash'a 1967–2000 (Ait Melloul: Manshurat Tirra, 2022), 100–10Google Scholar.
14 Al-Munadi refers to the fact that Ben Zayda even prohibited his wife from continuing the tradition of black women kissing the hand of amghar (“the elder”), which al-Munadi considers a “habit of enslaved men's wives” at the time when slavery was still legalized. See al-Munadi, Mbark u-ms‘ud, 9.
15 Ahmad Asid discusses the qualities of the poet in the introduction to his book Imarirn: Mashahir shu‘ara’ ahwash fi al-qar al-‘ishrin (Rabat: al-Ma‘had al-Malaki li-al-Thaqafa al-Amazighiyya, 2011), 5–22.
16 In fact, much of the way poetry works in the Amazigh context resembles what Roger Allen documents in his book The Arabic Literary Heritage: The Development of Its Genres and Criticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 67.
17 Al-Munadi recounts Ben Zayda's experience and how he received the gift of poetry from his saint. See al-Munadi, Mbark un-ms‘ud, 8.
18 In the Amazigh context, poets have some rituals that they follow, including calling on saints to sustain them during performance. This practice is decreasing now, but it was almost expected from the poet to acknowledge a saint who gave him the gift of poetry.
19 Moustaoui, al-Shi‘r al-Amazighi, 236.
20 See, for instance, this dialogue between Ahmed Outaleb and Lahcen Ajmaa, “Ahwach Ajmaa Avec Otalb 2014,” YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWHrXeu-Jw8.
21 Moustaoui, al-Shi‘r al-Amazighi, 235.
22 Zaheur, al-Adab al-Amazighi, 107.
23 Brahim El Guabli, “Widening the Scope: Conceptualizing the Indigenous Media in the Amazigh-YouTubea” (forthcoming).
24 Oubella, “shi‘r al-jur'a,” 23.
25 See Guabli, Brahim El, “Imaginary Testimony: Dada l'Yakout and the Unexplored History of Enslavement through Abduction in Morocco,” Expressions maghrébines 21.2 (2022): 88–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
26 Gomez, Michael, African Dominion: A New History of Empire in Early and Medieval West Africa (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018), 56Google Scholar.
27 Quoted in Manning, Patrick, Slavery and African life: Occidental, Oriental, and African Slave Trades (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 285Google Scholar.
28 For a more detailed discussion of these terms, see Brahim El Guabli, “Forgettable Black Bodies: Boujamâa Hebaz and the Racial Politics of Amnesia,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East (forthcoming) and Brahim El Guabli, “Racial Transitions: Islam, Transitional Justice, and Morocco's (Re)Africanization,” in The Routledge Handbook of Race and Islam, ed. Zain Abdullah (New York: Routledge, forthcoming).
29 Brahim El Guabli, “My Amazigh Indigeneity (the Bifurcated Roots of a Native Moroccan),” The Markaz, September 15, 2021: https://themarkaz.org/my-amazigh-indigeneity-the-bifurcated-roots-of-a-native-moroccan/.
30 El Guabli, “Forgettable Black Bodies.”
31 Moustaoui, “Shi‘r al-amazighi,” 234–55.
32 Al-Munadi, Mbark u-ms‘ud, 9.
33 Oubella, “Shi‘r al-jur'a,” 23–24.
34 Ibid., 242.
35 Oubella, “Shi‘r al-jur'a,” 21.
36 Ibid., 23.
37 Al-Munadi, Mbark u-ms‘ud, 10.
38 Moustaoui, “Shi‘r al-amazighi,” 234.
39 “Lhint” is derived from “Lhind” (India) and it means steel. When used in this context, it means strength, fortitude, and sharpness. Imazighen particularly prize steel instruments for agricultural work, and that is probably the reason it acquired this meaning. However, I do not know how the word has become associated with India.
40 Al-Munadi, Mbark u-ms‘ud, 10.
41 Oubella, “Shi‘r al-jur'a,” 24.
42 Ibid., 21.
43 Oubella, “Shi‘r al-jur'a,” 27.
44 Ibid.
45 The theoretical possibility of manumission did not mean that Muslim enslavers abided by the rules. They rather found ways to circumvent the religious injunctions to keep the slaves. The literature engaging with Islam and slavery has grown exponentially in recent years, but readers can check out El Hamel's Black Morocco and Brown, Jonathan, Slavery and Islam (New York: Oneworld Academic, 2019)Google Scholar for more information about the politics of manumission and re-enslavement.
47 Ibid.
48 Oubella, “Shi‘r al-jur'a,” 24.
49 Moustaoui, “Shi‘r al-Amazighi,” 243.
50 Ibid., 244.
51 Ibid., 245.
52 Ibid.
53 Ibid.
54 Ibid., 249.
55 Oubella, “Shi‘r al-jur'a,” 25.
56 Ibid.
57 This is the name of the village where he was supposedly poisoned.
58 All the other available version refer to his wife as Zahra and not Aisha. Also, the version cited by Moustaoui calls on Zahra to cry for him and he implores God to make his death softer on his fledgling children. See Moustaoui, “Shi‘r al-amazighi,” 254.