Maghreb

Sultan of Sultans

Erdogan in Morocco: The Politics of Reception

A widely mediatized and well-timed state visit can double up both as a political opportunity and as a convenient distraction. Such was the case, or as it seems, for Erdogan’s tour in the Maghreb, starting with a first stop in Morocco, followed by Algeria, and ending with Tunisia. Despite attempts at public relations spinning, the violent repression of protests in Turkey has overshadowed international media coverage of Erdogan’s state visits. In Morocco, however, domestic media is more focused on another element of Erdogan’s recent visit: the lack of a royal welcome. While Erdogan’s visit was announced weeks ahead, King Mohammed VI remained in France, where he has been on ...

Roundtable Introduction: Beyond Dominant Narratives on the Western Sahara

In the past few decades, both media and academic scholarship have marginalized the Western Saharan conflict, rendering it largely insignificant within regional and global political imaginations. Beginning as a post-colonial dispute between regional powers in the 1970s, the conflict developed and was exacerbated as North Africa became an entangled site of Cold War rivalries. Following the 1975 Madrid Accords, in which Spain conceded on its promises to the Sahrawi people on honoring their right to self-determination through a referendum, Spain instead split the territory between Mauritania and Morocco. By then, the Polisario Front had grown as an armed struggle group, ...

Lost in the Debate: Beyond Dominant Narratives on the Western Sahara Roundtable

[This is one of seven pieces in Jadaliyya's electronic roundtable on the Western Sahara. Moderated by Samia Errazzouki and Allison L. McManus, it features contributions from John P. Entelis, Stephen Zunes, Aboubakr Jamaï, Ali Anouzla, Allison L. McManus, Samia Errazzouki, and Andrew McConnell.] Following the French military intervention in Mali earlier this year in January, and the hostage crisis in Algeria that soon followed, major world powers briefly oriented their regional focus towards the Maghreb and Sahel regions. In the midst of the escalating conflict in Mali, pundits pointed to Morocco’s geopolitical position as an ...

The Cost of Authoritarianism: Beyond Dominant Narratives on the Western Sahara Roundtable

[This is one of seven pieces in Jadaliyya's electronic roundtable on the Western Sahara. Moderated by Samia Errazzouki and Allison L. McManus, it features contributions from John P. Entelis, Stephen Zunes, Aboubakr Jamaï, Ali Anouzla, Allison L. McManus, Samia Errazzouki, and Andrew McConnell.] The Moroccan regime's reaction and that of its supporters’ to the United States' attempt to extend the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) to monitor human rights was predictable and logical—predictable because, as usual, hooliganism was adorned with the mask of patriotism, both in the media and in ...

The Last Colony: Beyond Dominant Narratives on the Western Sahara Roundtable

[This is one of seven pieces in Jadaliyya's electronic roundtable on the Western Sahara. Moderated by Samia Errazzouki and Allison L. McManus, it features contributions from John P. Entelis, Stephen Zunes, Aboubakr Jamaï, Ali Anouzla, Allison L. McManus, Samia Errazzouki, and Andrew McConnell.] Western Sahara is a sparsely-populated territory about the size of Italy, located on the Atlantic coast in northwestern Africa, just south of Morocco. Traditionally inhabited by nomadic Arab tribes, collectively known as Sahrawis and famous for their long history of resistance to outside domination, the territory was occupied by Spain from ...

Bouteflika : Le mage et l'écran de fumée

Le Président de la République populaire algérienne a quitté le pays le 27 avril 2013 pour être hospitalisé au Val-de-Grâce, à Paris, officiellement à la suite d'un accident vasculaire cérébral sans gravité. Depuis cette date, l'absence du Président fait jaser, et soulève même de plus en plus d'inquiétudes depuis que la presse française a évoqué une dégradation de son état de santé, reprise par des journaux algériens. En dépit des démentis du Premier ministre Abdelmalek Sellal, les incertitudes qui entourent une succession qui apparaît de plus en plus imminente font légion, et avec elles la peur persistante d'une déstabilisation du pays. Dans l'édition d'El Moudjahid du ...

Picturing Algeria

Pierre Bourdieu, Picturing Algeria. Edited by Franz Schultheis and Christine Frisinghelli. New York: Columbia University Press, 2012. [This review was originally published in the most recent issue of Arab Studies Journal. For more information on the issue, or to subscribe to ASJ, click here.] In a poignant interview included in Picturing Algeria, Pierre Bourdieu notes that “Yvette Delsaut wrote a text about me in which she very rightly says that Algeria is what allowed me to accept myself.” Indeed, in recent years, Bourdieu’s early fieldwork in Algeria has been regarded as central to his conceptual apparatus. This edited volume features Bourdieu’s photographs from 1957 ...

Eye on the Libyan General National Congress: Seventh Report

[The following report was issued by Bokra Youth Organization and H2O Team on 8 May 2013. This is the seventh in a year-long series of reports covering the actions of Libya's General National Council. This issue focuses on the period from 15 March to 1 April 2013. Click here to access the previous report.] Eye on the Libyan General National Congress: Seventh Report Introduction The General National Congress held five meetings in this period beginning Sunday March 17, after a weeklong suspension due to the events that were discussed in the previous GNC report. The most significant developments of this period included the approval of the budget, demands ...

Maghreb Media Roundup (May 10)

 [This is a roundup of news articles and other materials circulating on the Maghreb and reflects a wide variety of opinions. It does not reflect the views of the Maghreb Page Editors or of Jadaliyya. You may send your own recommendations for inclusion in each week's roundup to maghreb@jadaliyya.com by Thursday night of every week.]  Algeria New law on associations used to stifle civil society Amnesty International condemns conviction of Abdelkader Kherba, an activist distributing pamphlets on unemployment in the country. Algerian Islamist party picks new leader Nazim Fethi reports that Abderrezak Mokri has been elected as head of Algeria’s Movement ...

Algeria Between “la Boulitique” and la Politique: A Tale of Two Youths

La politique est une réflexion sur la manière de servir le peuple.
 La «boulitique» est une somme de hurlements et de gesticulations pour se servir du peuple. La politique is a reflection on the manner to serve the people. La boulitique is an accumulation of screams and gestures (invoked) in order to use the people. - Malek Benabi Rarely is the noise in Algiers as deafening, or the traffic as disorderly. If young Algerians are often depicted as hittistes, hanging out in public spaces with no visible sense of purpose, this week they have been whizzing around in cars, blaring horns, and singing while waving flags. The flags were not signs of patriotic allegiance, ...