Maghreb studies

El espacio numismático ibero-magrebí y los fondos del Museo Arqueológico y Etnológico de Granada

by Salvador Peña

Co-authored with Miguel Vega. Published in 'Al-Andalus-Magreb' 8-9 (2000-01), pp.65-113.

Following a brief state of the art of Islamic Spanish numismatics, there ensues a discussion of the hypothesis that... more Following a brief state of the art of Islamic Spanish numismatics, there ensues a discussion of the hypothesis that broader limits should be considered in the study of coinage and circulation of coins in Islamic Spain. We claim that North Africa and Iberia almost always formed a numismatic entity in many important respects. We discuss mutual influences and common features of coins issued and used both in al-Magreb and al-Andalus in every period of Medieval Islamic history. And finally we present the complete catalogue of Islamic medieval coins at the Archeological Museum of Granada (Spain).

A Symbolist Kinah? Laments and Modernism in the Maghreb

by Monique Balbuena

Published in IGGUD
SELECTED ESSAYS IN JEWISH STUDIES
VOLUME 3 LANGUAGES, LITERATURES, ARTS
World Union of Jewish Studies Jerusalem 2007, p.67-84.

Berber Poetry and the Issue of Derivation: Alternate Symbolist Trajectories, Oxford Handbook of Global Modernism, Ed. Mark Wollaeger (2012): 81-108; available on google books

by Edwige Tamalet Talbayev

Ottoman North Africa and ius publicum europaeum: The case of the treaties of peace and trade (1600-1750)

by Guillaume Calafat

Published in Antonella Alimento (ed.) "War, Trade and Neutrality. Europe and the Mediterranean in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries", Milan, FrancoAngeli, 2011, p. 171-187.

The number of treaties between European and North-African States demonstrates that it is impossible to write a history... more The number of treaties between European and North-African States demonstrates that it is impossible to write a history of European diplomacy in the early modern period without taking into account the complex negotiations with the Ottoman Regencies in the Mediterranean. Otherwise, one would have to ignore the close links between diplomacy and commerce which characterised alliances between the Muslim and Christian worlds, beyond their economic, political, military and symbolic dimensions, and to refuse to take into account actual diplomatic practices in the early modern period and how they shaped the law..

Comercio exterior del Reino de Sevilla a través de los manuales de mercaderías italianos bajomedievales

by Raúl González Arévalo

In "Historia. Instituciones. Documentos" 38 (2011), pp. 219-253

The evolvement of the pratiche di mercatura in the Italian Peninsula permitted access to information relating to the... more The evolvement of the pratiche di mercatura in the Italian Peninsula permitted access to information relating to the principal commercial and financial centres in medieval Europe, which were located mainly on the Mediterranean and in the Low Countries. This article analyses the relevance of the Kingdom of Seville in these texts. We will see that the Italians considered Seville the main centre of trade in the Crown of Castile, and to be the hub of an extensive commercial network that stretched from Byzantium and the Maghreb to Flanders, including Italy and the Crown of Aragon.

"The Visibility of African Identity in Moroccan Music: From Gnawa to Ghiwane and Back." Wasafiri 25.1 (2010): 41-48.

by Ziad Bentahar

"Beyond Harem Walls: Redefining Women's Space in Works by Assia Djebar, Malek Alloula and Fatima Mernissi." Hawwa: Journal of Women of the Middle East and the Islamic World 7.1 (2009): 25-38.

by Ziad Bentahar

"Between nostalgia and desire: l'Ecole d'Alger's transnational identifications and the case for a Mediterranean Relation," International Journal of Francophone Studies 10.3 (2007): 359-376.

by Edwige Tamalet Talbayev

Algeria bans soccer matches during parliamentary elections

by James M. Dorsey

By James M. Dorsey

Fears that anti-government protests in Algerian soccer stadiums and provincial towns... more By James M. Dorsey

Fears that anti-government protests in Algerian soccer stadiums and provincial towns could again spill into the streets of the capital Algiers have prompted the government to ban matches in early May when Algerians go to the polls.

The ban follows failed efforts by the government to persuade soccer officials to speed up this season’s premier league so that it would end no later than May 10, the day of the parliamentary election, rather than on May 22, the scheduled end of the soccer season. Efforts to rush teams through the season’s schedule in a bid to end this year’s league early were in part thwarted by the cancellation of several matches as a result of unusually heavy snowfall this year.

"We're doing our best to accommodate for the obligations of league and clubs. We believe that it is impossible to end the season before May 10th, the date set for holding the election. We've agreed with the public authorities not to schedule any activities during the week of election, provided that the league and clubs are allowed to resume their activities after the election," Professional Football League (LFP) president Mahfoud Kerbadj told the Maghrebia news web site.

The suspension of matches during election week, a period in which rallies and assemblies are banned by law, is designed to free security forces from having to police stadiums where football fans regularly take on President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and the military ever since anti-government protests fizzled out in early 2011.

The suspension reinforces a fragile, tacit understanding between soccer fans and security forces that allows the fans to raise their grievances as long as it is contained to the stadiums. The government fears that militant soccer fan groups or ultras associated with a host of teams, including MC Algiers, Mouloudia Club D'Oran and Jeunnesse Kabyle, while less organized than their Egyptian counterparts, could emerge as a force if the protests again spill into the streets of Algerian cities.

The understanding between the security forces and the fans was made in part possible by the fact that Algeria has been among the most advanced in the Middle East and North Africa in encouraging the emergence of soccer as a professional sport rather than a policy tool for the government.

“In a context of political closure, a lack of serious political debates and projects for society and of a weakened political society, football stadia become one of the few occasions for the youth to gather, to feel a sense of belonging (for 90 minutes at least), to express their frustrations over their socio-economic condition, to mock the symbol of the state’s authority and to transgress the boundary of (imposed) political order and institutionalized language, or the narrative of the state’s political and moral legitimacy,” cautions Mahfoud Amar in a recently published book, ‘Sport, Politics and Society in the Arab World.’

With discontent over lack of water, housing, electricity and salaries pervading the country and erupting almost daily in protests inside and outside of stadiums suspension of soccer matches has become a fixture of Algerian life. The government early last year suspended the league for weeks after protests erupted in Algiers and other cities in the wake of the toppling of Tunisian President Zine el Abedine Ben Ali.

A quarter of the Algerian population lives under the poverty line and unemployment is rampant. Recent protests in Laghouat and other oil and gas cities are symbolic of simmering discontent and have gone viral in social media. The government again suspended soccer matches last year after riots erupted in the Algiers neighbourhood of Bab el-Oued.

“Bouteflika is in love with his throne, he wants another term," is a popular anti-government chant in stadiums, referring to allegations that 74-year old Mr. Bouteflika is behind a spate of recent bombings in a bid to enhance his position in advance of a presidential election in 2014 by raising the spectre of a threat by Al Qaeda’s North African affiliate, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

Mr. Bouteflika, whose health is failing, has lost several of his closest associates over the past year as a result of a military-inspired corruption investigation. His efforts at political and economic reform designed to attract foreign investment and diversify the economy have been thwarted by the military’s desire to retain its privileges by reinforcing the state's role in the economy.

The military has further signalled in advance of the May election that it will adopt a hard line towards domestic unrest as well as AQIM. It recently recalled from retirement Gen. Bachir Tartag to head the Directorate for Internal Security (DSI). Gen. Tartag made a name for himself during the civil war against the Islamists in the 1990s as one of Algeria’s most notorious hardliners and a brutal military commander.

The appointment positions him as a potential successor to aging Algerian spy chief Gen. Gen. Mohamed ‘Tewfik’ Mediene, widely viewed as the number two within the Algerian regime. It comes at a time that there are no clear successors to Algeria’s ageing but opaque military leadership. Gen. Tartag succeeds Gen. Abdelkader Kherfi who was criticized for having failed to prevent the kidnapping of three European aid workers in October of last year and for his handling of the protests in the first quarter of 2011.

Algeria has recently adopted a number of laws that emphasize security rather than reform and impose restrictions on the media, associations and political parties, which according to Amnesty International violate international conventions signed by Algeria.
While signalling that it will take a hard line against anti-government protesters, the government and the military are banking on the assumption that allowing protests in stadiums as a release valve coupled with last year's lifting of the state of emergency, increased subsidies of basic goods and public sector wage and memories of the massive bloodletting in a decade-long war between the military and Islamist forces will stymie activists’ desire to confront the regime head on. That assumption is reinforced by the fact that the experience of popular uprisings in Egypt, Libya and Yemen has so far produced mixed results and the spectre of protests descending into pro-longed bloodshed and chaos as it has in Syria.

With discontent nonetheless continuously manifesting itself, the government and the military are walking a tightrope. The seeming return to the very policies that brought protesters on to the streets of Algerian cities early last year could at any moment again tip the balance.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.

Female lead characters as examples of Bildungsroman heroines in L'Amour, la fantasia by Assia Djebar and Les yeux baissés by Tahar Ben Jelloun

by Bilgen (Billie) Akman

Master's thesis

Revealing picture of Tunisian-German midfielder fuels debate about political Islam

by James M. Dorsey

By James M. Dorsey

This week’s arrest of three Tunisian journalists for publishing a revealing picture of a... more By James M. Dorsey

This week’s arrest of three Tunisian journalists for publishing a revealing picture of a Tunisian soccer player with his girlfriend has deepened secular distrust of Tunisia’s Islamist-led post-revolt government and fueled debate in the Middle East and North Africa and beyond about the true intentions of Sunni Muslim Islamist parties that are emerging as victors from the Arab revolt.

The three journalists, the first to be detained since mass demonstrations toppled President Zine el Abedine Ben Ali a year ago, were arrested on orders of the public prosecutor for publishing a picture of Tunisian-German Real Madrid midfielder Sami Khedira dressed in a tuxedo with his hands covering the breasts of his otherwise naked German model girlfriend, Lena Gercke.

The three journalists – Attounisia newspaper publisher Nasreddine Ben Said, editor-in-chief Habib Guizani, and foreign editor Hedi Hidhri – are being held on charges of offending public morality. 

Their arrest has focused the immediate debate on Islamist intentions on the threat of a media crackdown to ensure that publishing adheres to religious morals as defined by the country's new Islamist rulers. It follows the pressing of charges against a local television channel for showing Persepolis, a film whose animated depiction of God outraged conservative Salafi Islamists who propagate a .return to the 7th century way of life in the time of the Prophet Mohammed.

Last month, hundreds of journalists demonstrated outside the office of the prime minister to demand an end to restrictions on media freedoms after the appointment of government officials and editors to state television positions.

Fears of a crackdown come a year after Tunisia’s popular revolt was liberated from Mr. Ben Ali’s tight censorship.

“The Islamists don’t like the media and are trying to control it,” says Ahmed Nejib Chebbi, the leader of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party. Mr. Chebbi, a proponent of replacing the Islamist Ennahada party led government with a national unity government. “There is still place for other political forces, they just need to consolidate themselves.”

Mustafa Tlili, the founder of the New York-based Center for Dialogues and an advisor to United Nations General Assembly chairman Nassir Abdelaziz Al–Nasser of Qatar, charges that Islamists are hijacking the revolts staged by protesters whose “slogans were secular for freedom, liberty and dignity… Those that staged the revolution see it being stolen and hijacked…Tunisia’s environment is the Mediterranean and Europe. The Islamists discourse is to withdraw Tunisia from its natural environment and make it adopt Islamist values that are not those of the majority of Tunisians. They reject these values because they are not part of their daily life or vision of Islam,” Mr. Tlili says.

Messrs Tlili and Chebbi, speaking in Sochi, Russia at a Valdei Discussion Club meeting on the revolts sweeping the Middle East and North Africa, made their remarks days after five secular Tunisian political parties announced that they would merge into a single coalition in an effort to counter the moderate Islamist Ennahada party that last October won Tunisia’s post Mubarak election.

In a statement, Tunisia's journalists' union called for the "immediate release of all journalists and the rejection of intimidation against reporters." Thousands of Tunisians endorsed a campaign on Facebook in support of the journalists and to defend freedom of expression.

The government has repeatedly denied accusations it is seeking to stifle the media.

Ennahada officials acknowledge that they are fighting a battle to channel expectations of their rank and file and demonstrate their commitment to a pluralist, democratic society. In perhaps his last article before his sudden death of an asthma attack, revered New York Times correspondent Anthony Shadid quoted Ennahada official Said Ferjani said history would judge his generation not on their ability to take power but rather on what it did with power.

“I can tell you one thing, we now have a golden opportunity. And in this golden opportunity, I’m not interested in control. I’m interested in delivering the best charismatic system, a charismatic, democratic system. This is my dream,” Mr. Ferjani said.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.

Archaeology and the Search for Authenticity: Colonialist, Nationalist, and Berberist Visions of an Algerian Past

by Corisande Fenwick

L’Algérie récurrente et l’Algérie errante dans l’écriture des Françaises d’Algérie

by Amy Hubbell

in Frictions et devenirs dans les écritures migrantes au féminin. Enracinements et renégociations. Ed. Névine El Nossery and Anna Rocca.
Editions universitaires europeennes (02-12-2011).
ISBN-13: 978-3-8417-8146-8
ISBN-10: 3841781462

book abstract:

Cette collection d’articles retrace les différentes facettes de la mobilité inhérente à... more book abstract:

Cette collection d’articles retrace les différentes facettes de la mobilité inhérente à l’écriture migrante au féminin dans différentes aires géographiques, tels le Maghreb, l’Afrique sub-saharienne, les Caraïbes, le Moyen-Orient, le Québec et la France. Ces articles explorent les frictions et les devenirs qui se dégagent de ces traversées transgressives et problématiques. Organisé autour de trois axes : « Le questionnement identitaire », « La violence de l’exil » et « La mémoire fragmentée », cet ouvrage contribue au questionnement identitaire de la migration, ciblant un lectorat constitué de spécialistes en littérature de la migration, mais aussi de passionnés d’écriture au féminin. Les auteures et artistes étudiées dans ce collectif contribuent à l’émergence d’une certaine altérité littéraire qui prend force d’un privé autobiographique déplacé. Les univers narratifs qu’elles créent font ainsi éclater les contradictions des rhétoriques politiques classiques et démontrent que, même dans les circonstances les plus désavantageuses, la création artistique demeure un acte social décisif de transformation.

Weber-Fève, Stacey. Re-hybridizing transnational domesticity and femininity: Women's contemporary filmmaking and lifewriting in France, Algeria, and Tunisia

by Amy Hubbell

book review in the French Review

Graebner, Seth. History's Place: Nostalgia and the City in French Algerian Literature. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2007

by Amy Hubbell

book review in The French Review 82.4 (March 2009): 836-37.

Kelly, Debra. Autobiography and Independence: Selfhood and Creativity in North African Postcolonial Writing in French. Liverpool: Liverpool UP, 2005

by Amy Hubbell

book review in The French Review 80.3 (February 2007): 669.

« Les cultes rendus à la tombe du Mahdī Ibn Tūmart à Tinmāl »

by Pascal Buresi

Compte-rendu des Séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, janv-mars 2008, Paris, De Boccard, 2010, p. 391-438

reprod. dans François Déroche et Jean Leclant (éd.), Monuments et cultes funéraires d’Afrique du Nord, Paris, Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 2010, p. 185-231

"Frantz Fanon: Travelling Psychoanalysis and Colonial Algeria." Mosaic 42.3 (2009): 127-40.

by Ziad Bentahar

Los partidos islamistas, ¿nuevos interlocutores?

by Beatriz Tome

published in UNISCI Discussion Papers, Nº 27 (Octubre / October 2011)

En este artículo analizamos la aproximación del gobierno socialista de Rodríguez Zapatero (2004-2011) al Islam... more En este artículo analizamos la aproximación del gobierno socialista de Rodríguez Zapatero (2004-2011) al Islam Político moderado o reformista en el arco mediterráneo. Sostiene que no existe un plan global y comprehensivo para abordar el fenómeno y que la actuación del Ejecutivo sigue dos grandes líneas generales de actuación exterior: (a) europeización de su política exterior y adhesión –e impulso- de los marcos de cooperación multilaterales de la Unión Europea, como el Proceso de Barcelona; y (b) primacía de las relaciones bilaterales con los gobiernos de la zona, lo que dificulta el equilibrio entre intereses y valores. La Alianza de Civilizaciones, convertida en una iniciativa política y cultural, no es un marco válido de análisis ni actuación. Es necesario recurrir, por tanto, a otros elementos e instrumentos de la política exterior española. En el caso del Magreb, se analiza el lugar que ocupan las organizaciones islamistas en las políticas de promoción de la democracia y defensa de los derechos humanos. En Oriente Medio, la implicación española en el proceso de paz y la inclusión o rechazo de los actores de referencia islamista en el mismo.

Co-Operation In The Mediterranean Agricultural Sector, Maghreb And Southern Italy: A Working Hypothesis

by Bruno Venditto

Co-authored with I.Caruso

The starting point of the present paper is the idea that to ensure a sustainable development among the Mediterranean... more The starting point of the present paper is the idea that to ensure a sustainable development among the Mediterranean countries both of the North and south-east shores, it is necessary to exploit the potentialities of each country and use them in terms of co-development rather then competition. The study area encompasses on the one hand the countries of Central Maghreb and on the other hand the regions of Southern Italy. This choice is originated by the fact that both these regional groups show similarities and complementarities. The paper analyses the agricultural sector which still has a very dominant position in the socio-economic structure, of both Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria and in the Southern Italian regions, although at a different degree. Therefore that seems to be the sector on which to focus in order to obtain both economic and social improvements. However it is not possible to look at the Mediterranean agricultural sector development only from a free market point of view, for the presence of the same patterns of production activities in the two groups. In order to avoid clashes, it is necessary, instead, to create a production network able to develop a typical Mediterranean product with which to compete in the international markets. In this context Italy, particularly Southern Italian regions, due to its tradition, knowledge and geographical position can play a well defined role of a bridge between the European Union and the third Mediterranean countries. In the first part, we address the question of the existence of a direct relationship between liberalisation and economic growth through the analysis of the commercial flows, in particular the agricultural ones. In the second part the complementarities in the agricultural sector of both the Central Maghreb countries and the Southern Italian regions are identified, while in the third and last part, an attempt is made try to specify how those complementarities can be transformed in concrete co- operation activities