Paper 1, Contraband Modern in the Fes Medina Project

Fez Medina: Creation, Conquest and Contraband-

Professor Khalid Bekkaoui

“A world it is to see, how large, how populous, how well fortified and walled this city is,” writes proudly Leo Africanus (al-Wazzan az-Zayyati al-Fassi) of his native city in the early sixteenth century in his Geographical Historie of Africa. The city, Africanus continues, is magnificent for its fine houses, built with fine bricks and beautifully painted, its sumptuous palaces, and its gorgeous gardens which “abound with fruits and flowers of all sorts.” Visiting Fez, Africanus assures his readers “a man may both satisfy his eyes, and solace his mind.” Fez, for Africanus, deserves to “be called a Paradise.” William Lithgow, who seems to have been inspired by Africanus to visit Fez, says in 1614 in his travel narrative The Total Discourse of the Rare Adventures: “Truly this is a world for a city.”

1. Illustration of Fez from Lithgow

This is the earliest available visual representation of Fez

Fez, one of Morocco’s four Imperial Cities? the others are Marrakesh, Meknès and Rabat?, took its name fromal faas, the Arabic term for the pickaxe. The city was founded on the right bank of Oued Fas in 789 A.D. by Idris I, immigrant from the East and founder of Morocco’s first Islamic dynasty. Signiicantly enough, the foundation of Fez is associated with the creation of Morocco as a state with its own distinctive national and cultural identity.

Idris’s son, from a local Berber wife, and successor, Idris II (791-828), founded a second section of the town on the left bank of the river. He built his palace and moved the capital from Volibulis to Fez, which also became, with the new qisariya (bazaar) Morocco’s commercial capital. The Qarawiyyin, the Grand Mosque of Fez, and the University were founded in 859-862 by Fatima al Fihriyya, daughter of a wealthy merchant. With these additions, Fez developed into Morocco’s spiritual capital and centre of learning.

In the mid-thirteenth century, the Merinid ruler Abu Yusuf Yaqub (1258-1286) built a new town, Fas al-Jdid, the Idrissid section became known as Fas-al-Bali. A wall was built around the city to ward off attacks from neighbouring tribes. The city was populated by the Islamized and Arabized Berbers, Arab immigrants from the East, Moors from al Andalus (Islamic Spain), as well as many Jews, who had their own quarter in Fas al-Jdid, called Mellah. All these races and cultures have contributed to fashion Fez into one of the wonders of the Islamic world. Scholars, traders, and travellers flocked to the city. The twelfth-century Moroccan traveller-geographer al-Idrissi has observed that “This city, the great capital of the empire, is crowded with travellers from many countries: it is the destination of many caravans. Its inhabitants are wealthy and enjoy every manifestation of luxury and the commodities of life.”

With the coming of French colonialism in the first decade of the twentieth century, a new section was added to the city: the Ville Nouvelle, a few miles outside the old medina. The colonizer furnished his city with hotels, bus stations, hospitals, schools, gardens, and of course military barracks.

As a visual symbol of the subjugation of the city, the colonizer decided to erect a new gate on the outer wall of the medina, next to the sultan’s garden in Fas Jdid. Its massive size was deliberately conceived to rival the city’s original gates; its architectural design invoked the Parisian Arc de Triomphe, with two visible crosses decorating each side of the gate. The gate was christened: Bab Boujloud, Porte des Français.

2. Bab Boujloud, dite porte des Français

When Marshal Lyautey was appointed Resident General in Morocco, he was horrified by the French gate, not only by its ugly architecture but also because the gate was secretly developing into a symbol for national resistance. The Al-Qarawiyyine Ulama (religious scholars) were preaching in their Friday’s sermons against the gate. Walking under it, they insisted, would turn the pious Muslim believer into a Christian renegade. Most of the inhabitants boycotted the gate and a rebellion was fermenting. Lyautey was intent on pre-empting such resistance. He ordered the immediate demolition of the gate and the construction of a new one, now in accordance with indigenous architecture and commissioned Fassi architect M’allam Bouzouba to fulfil the project.

The new Boujloud Gate was soon erected, now right at the wall of Fas al Bali. It was fashioned to resemble native gates, though much bigger in size, and was decorated with green ceramic zallij (tiles) on the outside, green on the inside. Its massive wooden doors were furnished with a huge bolt on the outside, to lock up the natives at night or in times of unrest. Lyautey deliberately wanted a massive gate both to emulate the native gates as well as allow him to ride sumptuously on his Arabian steed down the medina in the company of his Franco-Moroccan retinue.

3. The new Bab Boujloud

Soon, he made the medina his temporary abode. Pasha Mnebhi’s palace, located halfway between Bab Bouljoud and Al Qarawiyyine’s university, was converted into his residence. Living in the native quarter instilled the illusion that the subversive city is thoroughly conquered and pacified. Lyautey’s imperialist dream was that his action would persuade many Europeans, especially the French, to come and settle in Fez medina.

In alliance with the colonial propagandist agenda, the press and postcard photography began to portray the medina persistently as a safe and welcoming place for foreign visitors.

4. Illustration from Le Petit Journal Illustré

Europeans settlers, including a woman, ride down the media under the quiescent gaze of the servile natives.

5. Fez Medina from the air, postcard

Fez Medina from the air. Its small size evokes it as a city visually under surveillance.

The illusion of colonial power and dominance is further enhanced by photography. Of all Moroccan cities, Fez is the most heavily photographed and postcarded: its streets, markets, mosques, medersa, gates, are all documented. Its population, customs, and guilds are catalogued with anthropological minuteness and devotion. Looking at the Fez colonial postcard catalogue one has the impression that Fez is a city completely under visual surveillance.

6. Postcard. Maroc Illustré series

French legionnaires on top of one of the houses overlooking the medina. The caption reads: Firing Exercise on the city of Fez. The vigilant eyes of the camera and the cannon are constantly on the look out.

7. Postcard: Panoramic view with crumbling ramparts

8. Postcard: Panoramic view of Fez, with Senegalese French soldiers. Their heads mingle surreptitiously with cactus leaves in a perfect camouflage

9. Photo postcard: Bab Boujloud, from the inside

A European woman and a Senegalese French soldier safely walk down the once hostile and forbidden medina

10. Photo postcard: First French marriage in Fez, 22 October, 1913

The procession, which takes place inside the walls of the native medina, is blessed with the attendance of General Gouraud (who later succeeded Lyautey as Resident General) and a Catholic priest. Its indigenous inhabitants themselves are simply willed out of sight. In addition to the bride, four European women are visible. Native threat is evacuated. The city is made safe for the conqueror and the proliferation of his progeny.

The eye of the camera has access not only to the streets but also interior spaces, which became a recurrent trope in French postcards. The eye of the photographer and his camera are able to penetrate even into private spaces: the courtyard, bed chamber, hammam, and the harem.

11. Postcards: courtyard of a Moorish house in Fez

Two women interrupt their daily chores to glance at the photographer.

Covering the entry of French troops in Fez for the Times newspaper, a correspondent writes in May 26, 1911: “Fez and the tribes are stupefied by the sudden raising of the veil by a European army.” Colonial postcard photography literalizes this metaphorical unveiling. Penetrating native spaces implies the unveiling of the mysterious and exotic Moorish femininity, revealing her beauty and making her available for visual voyeurism.

12. Postcards: In Morocco: Fatma in her interior

Postcard photography confirms 19th century orientalist paintings of the odalisque.

13. Postcards: Scenes and types: Moorish interior

This postcard, sent from Fez on 8 August, 1919, displays at once colonial harem fantasies and anxieties. It shows a trio of semi-nude young girls in a Moorish interior decorated with exotic props. One of the girls is contemplating a photo, the other is playing on her derbouka, while the third ? a model who features regularly in French colonial photography ? gazes fixedly at the photographer/audience with languid, melancholic and somewhat hostile eyes. Here, the imperialist desire to conqueror Fez is translated into a desire to possess the body of the Fassi woman. In a time when women in Morocco were concealed behind walls and veils, colonial photography ? by means of hired models, usually prostitutes ? was keen to unveil them and make them available to voyeuristic consummation.

The significance of the French Bab Boujloud is not confined only to its colonial expressions. The gate had also far reaching commercial implications. The opening of this gate quickly shifted commercial activities from Talaa Kbira (big slope) to Talaa Sghrira (little slope), which presently thrived with traders, diplomats, colonialists, adventurers, tourists.

However, despite all his efforts, Lyautey felt that the imperialist project was still vulnerable. He realized that in order to effectively subjugate the recalcitrant Moorish capital, it was urgent to subdue its traders and artisans, appropriate and recycle their abundant skills and creative energies in the service of the protectorate. That was vital for France’s pacification project. He endeavoured to achieve this by trying to involve the city’s economy in that of the metropolis. First, he was keen to promote Fez as a tourist destination and planned advertisement campaigns to that effect were auickly launched on a wide scale.

14. Tourist Poster promoting Fez as a Tourist attraction

The caption orientalizes the city as a mysterious place.

Together with the promotion of tourism, Lyautey encouraged craftsmen to manufacture goods for the tourist market, which proved quite profitable. Simultaneously with this, the city was penetrated with an array of cheap French products, on which the local population grew increasingly dependent. In effect, the nature of local production as well as the native customs and life-styles began to be transformed.

15. Postcards: Fez merchants are giving a lavish party in Fondouk Najjarine in honour of Marshal Lyautey

Moreover, the Protectorate organized fairs and colonial exhibitions where craftsmen and farmers were urged to exhibit their products to generous European visitors. These fairs, held regularly in both Morocco and France amid spectacular fanfare and press coverage, were designed to persuade the natives of the benefits they would reap from the protectorate as well as convince public opinion at home of the advantages of possessing colonies, being useful resources for the metropolis.

16. Fez Fair Poster. A crier urges the population to visit the fair

17. Fez Fair Poster. Farmers and craftsmen carrying their products to the Fez fair

Another urban innovation, in addition to the Boujloud gate, that the French introduced in the medina of Fez, was the building of a movie theatre, known as Cinema Boujloud, close to the gate. French and cowboy movies were shown; while outside the cinema film-posters with glamorous male and female stars and images from an alien world confounded the perplexed passersby.
Now, having effectively contributed to the pacification efforts and civilizing mission, the Boujloud cinema has gone out of business. Yet, its frustrated customers could still find a substitute in cheap pirated movies sold just outside the cinema.

18. Photo: Pirated DVDs on sale at the gate of Boujloud’s cinema

Walking down Talaa Sghira –Lyautey’s street—one is indeed struck by circulation of contraband items, and images of an increasingly globalized street: mannequins dressed meticulously in the most trendy fashion on display outside the shops, bikinis hanging from elaborately carved wooden awnings, and cyber-cafes bearing the name Amsterdam or California.

19. Photo: Shop in Talaa Sghira

20. Photo: Shop in Talaa Sghira

In contemporary Fez, contraband and piracy of films and music are one of the most important mediums through which globalization has penetrated into the spiritual capital of Morocco. Yet, walking down the median one is increasingly struck by various subtle expressions of resistance to globalization.

21. Photo: Shop in Talaa Sghira

The veiled shopping woman is unconcerned with the provocatively nude female bust and her erect protruding breasts.

22. Photo. Street in Talaa Sghira

A young girl in blue-jeans, a white tank-top, and gold-died hair carefully adjusts the slipping headscarf of her friend, intent on preventing her beauty from being revealed in public.

23. Photo: kiosk displaying Economist magazine

The only available kiosk in Talaa Sghira proudly displays an issue of the Economist magazine with the cover showing a smiling Hizbullah leader. The cover reads: Nasrallah wins the war.