Several readers of this blog have been in touch to ask about my progress on Richard Wright and the question of silver manufactured in Manchester for export to Morocco. Well, I can report at last that I have sent an article called ‘Silvery singing voices:’ Moroccan Manchester and the Puzzle of Richard Wright which sums … More Richard Wright and other silvery matters
It’s good to be back in Rabat after three years away. My old shoe-cleaner has just descended on me where I’m sitting outside the Cafe Fine Brioche, and not just polished my shoes to a luminous perfection, but with much tutt-tutting injected superglue between the toes and the soles where he deemed them to be … More Let them eat Danone!
Sitting in a hospital bed I have been consoled by an excellent new book, English Colonial Texts on Tangier, 1661-1684, by Karim Bejjit of Université Hassan II, Casablanca. If that sounds dry, blame only the title, because the book itself isn’t dry at all. Prof. Bejjit (and I admit an interest in both senses of … More English Tangier – ‘Our little Town, and narrow lines’
As anyone who follows this blog knows, I am rather preoccupied with the question of language. Both the fus7a–darija dimension, and the whole question of foreign languages. (And of course the matter of Tamazight.) To dispense with the first, I have little doubt that the very high levels of illiteracy (a recent op-ed in by Abderrahmane Lahlou L’Economiste quotes … More Bavures and Shibboleths – language in Morocco
In the case of Fnideq, with its extraordinary density of young terrorist recruits (see my last post) I find myself mulling not just over propaganda, but over contagion, and wonder if the tools of epidemiology might not be as useful to understand it as radicalization theory. I don’t of course mean by this simply the glib image of ‘radical Islam’ as … More Herd Immunity and e-pidemics
A couple of weeks ago I was in Morocco for a conference about the Social Media, at Al-Akhawayn University in Ifrane; and then went on down to Rabat for a day or two. It was a visit bracketed by terrorist attacks in Tunis and Sana’a, with much blood shed and much more, I’m afraid, to come. … More The Pied Pipers of Fnideq
An interesting review of cultural policy in L’Economiste this week, stressing quite how much of an orphan sector it is, despite its imaginative minister, with only just over 1% of the public budget. This is what counteracts “the motivation, the good ideas, the wish to inculcate a desire for culture.” The review highlights the “enormous … More Cultural Capital-Formation, by the Book
Being left alone with the car in Rabat (as I usually am when my wife goes to England for a fortnight in June) my mind turns easily to death on the roads. I enjoy halving my journey time into the centreville from Souissi, and nipping yellow-plated through the Mechouar; but the sheer self-centred insouciance and … More Don’t drive in Ethiopia
“No translation,” a senior Moroccan higher education official said to me a few weeks ago, as we talked about postdoctoral research seminars; “Moroccans have got to learn to speak English if they want to join the international world of research.” And almost any other corner of today’s world, too. Whether we like it or not … More Having your gateau and eating it
Last week in Marrakech I bought a couple of interesting silver-plated objects – a sugar-box and tea-caddy made by Richard Wright of Manchester. Wright has, as all Moroccans know, given his name to the silver tea-tray, or rayt, and was also responsible for what must have been enormous exports of silver-plate from the 1830s onwards, … More Mancunian silver
Martin Rose 