Paper 2, Contraband Modern in the Fes Medina Project

Archiving the Contraband Modern in the Fes Medina 

Dr Kaushik Bhaumik

The idea for creating a website exploring the idea of the contraband modern in the Medina in Fes came out of discussions between members of the Ferguson Centre and colleagues at the University of Fes during a conference titled ‘The Twentieth Century: Barbarism or Change?’ held in Fes in March 2005. Key to the conference’s focus was an evaluation of the implications of American neo-conservative policies, modelled on the work of philosopher Leo Strauss, that were beginning to promote the idea of a benign American empire as the guarantor of a stable geopolitical order. In the aftermath of the events of September 2001 in the US, such ideas were being used to justify American intervention – military, political and economic – in what were considered unstable political zones by Western superpowers and their allies. Also under consideration was Samuel Huntington’s thesis about the clash of civilizations – between the democratic West and the authoritarian and tyrannical East. Taken together the positions advocated by Strauss and Huntington allowed the West to classify certain nations and cultural zones of the world as ‘undemocratic’ and ‘un-modern’ societies, as threats to the Western way of life. Indicators of chaos and backwardness included (and still include) corrupt market practices, contraband economies and cultural conservatism. Intervention in such ‘problematic’ areas were justified in the name of extending the fruits of Western liberalism to geopolitical terrains deemed as not living up to such ideals.

However as the conference proceedings made it amply clear such dichotomies are patently problematic and fail to see the actual historical conditions leading to the problematisation of democracy in parts of the world. Indeed, it is possible that it is the failure of democracy itself that is questioned and contested through subversion of the very democratic ideals set up as guidelines for citizens to emulate. More significantly, the subversion of democracy could take the form of a pursuit of the modern through ‘extra-legal’ means when licit pathways fail. A contradiction opens up between an ideational democracy and a democracy that allows citizens to pursue material well-being according to perceived indices of prosperity and comfort. In the light of the neo-liberal critique of non-Western economies as being ‘unmodern’, it is ironic that in many countries such subversion might be the result of the pursuance of liberal economies and policies in the West. These begin to impinge in substantial ways on the socio-cultural fabric of societies thus posing enormous challenges to such societies to modernise towards achieving parity with the geoeconomic yardsticks set up by the developed economies in the West. Indeed many of the perceived indices of well-being arise as much from a limited circulation of imported consumer goods and commodities as from circulating media images of modern day comforts and amenities. The absence of legal markets that allow access to goods symbolic of material well-being leads to the proliferation of possibilities for illegal trading in such goods. In certain parts of the world increasingly ‘informal’ economies are beginning to define substantial aspects of everyday life, informal economies informed by contraband trade in goods and commodities that today define the everyday of global culturescapes – electronic goods, clothes, luxury goods and media artefacts amongst others. Hence the ascent of the ‘contraband modern’ in these parts of the world.

A significant element of the contraband modern is its predominant cultural articulation in the realm of popular culture, a result both of globalisation as well of the subversion of ‘classical’ high cultural norms defining liberal models of democracy. Contraband energies of modernisation lead to a massive expansion in popular cultural production that also articulates the sensibilities of the contraband modern. The contraband modern might itself be seen as a product of the ceaseless blocking of the legitimation of popular cultural norms that reflect the ‘non-classical’ aspirations of individuals and social groups marginalised by the modern. Thus the popular might articulate the contradiction between desire for loosening of moral codes and the moralities of liberal capitalism that cut across, as well as define, class and sexual differentials. As social groups struggle to define economic and cultural freedom against the limits set up by state and market they attempt to open up the boundaries of cultural production and subverting the ‘legitimate’ field of cultural production through the popular. This constitutive character of the popular might itself be seen as the logical outcome of democratisation under the sign of the global that threatens the more conservative impulses of entrenched elites. Thus any study of the cultures of the contraband modern will in the main have to contend with the complex layers of the popular that might span the entire spectrum from libertine values to ultra-conservative orthodox values. However at every level the popular defining the contraband engages with the parameters of modernisation.

The pilot project on the Medina in Fes is designed as an initial documentation and archiving of the various manifestations and textures of the contraband modern. The Medina is a complex configuration of economic and cultural regimes that is undergoing a profound transformation under the geopolitical and geocultural dynamics of globalisation. The contraband forms an integral part of the fabric of the Medina with key consumer goods – both material and cultural – being provided by a complex system of smuggling. The genealogy of the contraband in the Medina is a long one stretching back to pre-modern times owing to the city’s key position in the caravan trading routes of North Africa. With the onset of modernisation of Morocco the nature of the contraband has changed with the state intervening substantially to control the contraband in order to modernise the market economy, as well as stick to codes of Islamic conduct. However, the intensification of the market economy has led to the intensification of the contraband. A walk through the Medina reveals the semi-legal nature of the contraband economy in the area, with smuggled goods being hawked openly on the streets. These goods might range from pirated DVDs of Bombay films to expensive electronic goods. The cable television economy in the Medina is completely dependent on the contraband, with almost all satellite dishes provided for through the black market. Images, sounds and textures of material goods assume contraband hues.

Although the state is officially ranged against the contraband the popular pressures of modern desires forces its hands to tacitly accept the integral presence of the contraband in the Medina. Indeed the Ville Nouvelle where the modern middle and upper classes reside, depends on certain popular contraband pleasures available in the Medina. Thus the contraband culture in the Medina is in the main dedicated to the popular modern that expresses itself in the content of contraband products as well as in the behaviour of the residents of the Medina, especially amongst its youth cultures. The contraband reflects the tensions being generated in Moroccan society with the onset of modernisation in the context of a limited economy and traditional restraints on social behaviour. The contested terrain of the contraband produces its bodily gestural and cultural spatial regimes that encompass law enforcers as well as purveyors and consumers that mirror the intricate social and economic networks that sustain the contraband modern, if sometimes in extremely paradoxical ways. The contraband in turn sustains a large number of institutions including social movements that might be ideologically opposed to the modernising impulses of the contraband. However, in doing so social and cultural movements not only have to accommodate the modern but also assume an expressive character that is shot through with the practices of the contraband. Such tensions are expressed in public behaviour, sartorial styles and cultural preferences in music, film, television or live cultural action amongst others. Such expressions are readily available to anyone passing through the Medina where goods, the rituals of consumption and the spaces in which they are consumed are mediated by agents acting as gatekeepers to the contraband. A documentation of the contraband modern becomes possible through the documentation of the goods, expressions and spaces that make up the Medina.