Debating Darija: Telquel and language politics in modern Morocco

Language in modern nation building

Historically, Morocco’s cultural and linguistic diversity stems from cross-cultural encounters, conquests, and colonialism that were a product of its particular geographical position at the intersection of Africa, Europe, and the Mediterranean basin. The area’s indigenous people identify as Amazigh, meaning ‘free men’ in reference to their struggles against external control (Pennell, 2003: 3). The Amazigh language is generally referred to as Tamazight, although it is one of three major dialects spoken in different regions of Morocco and several other dialects are present in smaller pockets. After the Arab invasion in the early 8th century, many Amazigh intermarried with Arabs, particularly in towns and cities, although many rural groups resisted Arab control until the French Protectorate (1912–1956) instituted a ‘Berber policy’ aimed at pacification and incorporation (Wyrtzen, 2011). Today Morocco’s population of 32.3 million is 99% Arab-Amazigh (Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 2014) with the majority Darija-speaking in daily life. However, issues of indigenous autonomy and rights are still contested as Tamazight only became an official language in the 2011 post-Arab Spring constitution, and families are still refused official registration of Amazigh names for their children. Along with ‘Berber policy’, the French Protectorate also brought French educational institutions to Morocco that remained the domain of elites despite Arabization policies aimed at institutionalizing classical Arabic post-independence. Today, French remains the unofficial language of business and government, with Spanish maintaining some influence in the North.

For Morocco, language is clearly what Shome and Hegde (2002) describe as ‘a site of struggle through which the social order is maintained, challenged, produced and reproduced’ (p. 172). Disputes over language are synonymous with disputes over collective memory, cultural norms, and political visions. While the role of language in modern nation building has been widely discussed (Anderson, 2006 [1983]; Bourdieu and Thompson, 1991; Gellner, 1964; Hobsbawm, 1983; Smith, 1996 [1989]; etc.), the practical challenges and political implications of a divided public make it worth examining how language becomes a site of contestation through which the narrative of the nation is constructed and the role media play in these debates.

Anderson (2006 [1983]) argues the rise of national consciousness has historically been dependent on an expanding vernacular print market created by capitalism, a phenomenon he calls ‘print-capitalism’ (p. 40). The connection Anderson draws between increasing the legitimacy of the language used by average people and their ability to imagine themselves as a community with political efficacy is just one example of the role of media in modern states. As a result of print-capitalism, however, a hierarchy of ‘languages of power’ develops so that proximity with printed language defines the legitimacy of various dialects (Anderson, 2006 [1983]). In a 2010 editorial titled ‘Le Marocain, incha Allah’ Benchemsi (2010b) quotes linguist Louis-Jean Calvet to make a similar point that ‘a language is never more than a dialect that has succeeded politically’, and concludes ‘for now, our Darija is in a political battle’. That print-capitalism in Morocco did not coincide with the rise of the vernacular, but rather the institutionalization of Arabic and French means Darija remained a largely unwritten language far outside the ‘languages of power’. Traditional stigmas identify those who speak only Darija as illiterate, and the language is subject to the limitations of regional dialects and lack of codification. Perhaps most important, however, is classical Arabic’s association with religion (as the sacred language in which the Qu’ran was revealed), thus forging a link between the language and the legitimacy of the monarchy, which claims descent from the Prophet Mohammed and acts as the religious authority of Morocco. Likewise, Darija lacks the prestige of the long literary tradition in fus’ha, which links Islamic civilization with history and allows Muslims to offset the influence of Western cultural products – or at least acts as a defense mechanism against a globally embattled Islamic culture (Embarki & Ennaji, 2011: 181).

Instead, Telquel’s position embraces the inclusivity of Morocco’s mother tongue versus classical Arabic and French, which tend to be the domain of an educated elite. It also promotes gender equality in a country where Darija-only speakers are more likely to be women, as well as education in a language more accessible and malleable for the average Moroccan, who studies have shown prefer to read and consume cultural products in French rather than classical Arabic (Bentahila, 1983; Boukous, 1995; Ennaji, 2005; Ruiter, 2006). So when Giddens (1990) says modernity can be defined by the question ‘How shall I live?’ as the realm of possibilities expands, linguistically Bourdieu and Thompson (1991) might say the question should be ‘How shall I speak?’ to best distinguish oneself as ‘modern’ or as a legitimate participant in public life. A question Telquel would definitively respond to with ‘Darija’ – a language linked to its modernist vision of a secular society comprising individuals engaged in both their cultural identity and citizen responsibilities.

Split publics

Morocco’s negotiation of modernity and Telquel’s participation in those debates are indicative of a political battle over the nature of public life and the role of its people as citizen-subjects. The relationship between battles over language and public life is evident in that a population’s ability to participate in public affairs is dependent on access through language as well as perception of one’s participation as legitimate. Public sphere theory might call this a question of inclusion, yet Morocco’s situation poses some challenges to Habermas’ (1989) definition of a public sphere as made up of private persons coming together to form a public and public opinion by dealing with matters of general interest independently and through rational discussion (p. 92). In Morocco, print languages are often not spoken languages: Darija is spoken, but mostly written in private life (i.e. via SMS, social media, etc.); standard Arabic is written, but rarely spoken; Tamazight is spoken and rarely written; while French is spoken by elites and only written by much of the population, creating a disconnect between the rise of print-capitalism and the formation of a public. The discrepancies between languages written versus spoken means Moroccans are continually engaged in a complex process of translation at the very least or potentially in completely different conversations at most. Even the role of the media as providing policy information on which rational discussion is then based becomes problematic when conversations are constructed on very different foundations depending on the media consulted, its linguistic positioning and the process of translation among a myriad of other factors.

Thus if a public forms based on the perception of shared interests, this results in what Rajagopal (2001) has called ‘split publics’ which consist of parallel discursive arenas ‘wherein political discourse occurs through a set of structured misunderstandings’ (p. 16). Educational environments, media worlds, religious loyalties, generational affinities and social class, among many other factors structure the complex misunderstandings fragmenting a ‘Moroccan public’. Although these differences often play out in tensions between francophone elites and an arabophone majority, they are not simply attributable to class nor are they necessarily mutually exclusive or binary. Instead, the unbalanced splits existing between classical Arabic, Darija, French, Tamazight, and other publics result in an inability to identify a basic set of interests around which a public can be constructed.

Media serve as both a forum and a constitutive discourse for these debates across regions of Morocco, in ex-patriot communities and within the assemblage of interests that is Morocco. As Thompson (1995) argues, ‘the use of communication media involves the creation of new forms of action and interaction in the social world, new kinds of social relationship and new ways of relating to others and to oneself’ (p. 4). Thus, media play a key role in constituting both publics and the linguistic realities being debated. As the structure of interactions and power relations change, what was once thought of as fixed geographic place can be increasingly thought of as a space rooted in what Descombes calls ‘rhetorical territory’, where ‘The sign of being at home is the ability to make oneself understood without too much difficulty, and to follow the reasoning of others, without any need for long explanations’ (Descombes, cited in Morley, 2000: 17). As the debates about Moroccan language politics travel and diverse interests are articulated, the narrative of Morocco becomes synonymous with this cultural diversity, yet how that translates into a meaningful Moroccan public and viable political projects remains to be seen. Morocco’s lack of comprehensive linguistic policies and reforms can in some ways be seen as strategic in that they contribute to maintaining a divided public incapable of mounting a viable and widespread opposition to the Makhzen, the traditional institutional apparatus of the Moroccan state associated with the monarchy.

Moroccan modernity according to Telquel

Looking at Telquel as a specific articulation of what it means to be modern in Morocco shows that an assemblage of interests are being articulated through the question of language. Morocco’s monarchy is clearly the most powerful of these interests and has managed to reject the grand narrative of modernity that originated in the Enlightenment of 18th century Europe, which ‘conceived itself as emerging into the sunlight of true human self-understanding out of the dark cave of superstition and tradition. It rejected the old authority and the absolute claims to power and truth of kingship and Catholicism’ (Scannell, 2007: 245–246). Instead, it maintains that the monarchy itself is modern as indicated by the regime’s more liberal attitude toward self-expression and civil society. In many ways, however, the monarchy is incredibly conservative, still operating on a system of royal privilege associated with the Makhzen and controlling much of the Moroccan economy.

The liberalization of the Moroccan economy and civil society under Mohammed VI has made way for new relations between the state and its citizens, opening up the possibility for critical reasoning in the press and participation by the public. As a result, Morocco has long been classified as a state ‘in transition’, a source of frustration for those unsatisfied with the slow pace of democratic reforms. Telquel’s engagement with the language debate is an attempt to simultaneously shape the future of Morocco’s internal publics and its external influence, making it important to consider when and how Telquel uses Darija in its stories. To do this, I analyze Telquel over a 1-year period of time, from a time of relative stability in June 2010 through the constitutional referendum of July 2011.

The textual analysis included 54 issues of the magazine, and focused on five sections of each issue: the cover story (en couverture), the editorial (l’édito), a question-and-answer column (l’interrogatoire), Moroccan news (actualités maroc or l’actu maroc), and a society section (le mag). I selected the sections after an initial survey of the issues to determine where the use and discussion of Darija were most likely to occur, and analyzed both the uses of Darija and its discussion in the text. For the purposes of this article only two of the sections and themes will be discussed due to space constraints.

Structure: uses of Darija

Ahmed Réda Benchemsi founded Telquel in 2001 with the motto Maroc tel qu’il est, or ‘Morocco as it is’, which means the use of Darija and the validation of the everyday life of mass society. Telquel is now the most-read francophone magazine in Morocco with a circulation of 32,332 in 2011, although the actual readership is impossible to estimate because the high cost of printed materials in Morocco means most publications are widely shared and have a high rate of ‘pass-on’ readership. The Casablanca-based publication appears on newsstands and by subscription every Friday for the price of 20 dirhams (comparatively most newspapers cost 2–5 dirhams, or 0.25–0.60 USD), yet makes its content available for free online a week after publication in print and is available in print in France. As a relatively expensive French-language magazine focusing on political and cultural issues, it is obviously oriented toward and accessible mostly to elites, although the decision to make content available for free online indicates aspirations to a broader audience.

Each of Telquel’s five analyzed sections engages with questions of language in different ways. The first section examined was En Couverture, or the cover story, a section that tends to feature investigative reporting about controversial topics such as sex, religion, and politics. Usually accompanied by provocative photo illustrations, these articles seem to be the major source of Telquel’s controversy as the magazine takes on traditional stereotypes about sex and religion head-on, asking questions about society’s silence on such topics as rape (Akalay and Hamdani, 2010) and secularism (Grosrichard, 2010). An article about ‘the audacity of the new Moroccan cinema’ discusses how this ‘new’ cinema reproduces the everyday reality of Morocco in the Moroccan language, saying ‘we see there a couple love and repulse each other in the words and gestures of everyday life’ (Boukhari, 2010). Described as ‘do-it-yourself’, these films include such hits such as Casanegra, Marock, and Harash that reject ‘sanitized dialogues, distilled into pure classical Arabic and long served up like soup by Moroccan television and cinema’, and embrace the idea of ‘film as a mirror of society’ (Boukhari, 2010). For Telquel, the projection of an experience and expression average Moroccans can identify with signals that ‘Cinema is in transition. Like society or democracy’ (Boukhari, 2010).

The frequent cover stories about sex and religion often incorporate strong political statements such as this through an indirect approach. The overtly political stories printed on the cover seem to be much less hard-hitting and tend to take the shape of exposés on the Islamists, profiles of powerful men, or fanfare about the king. Stories about domestic politics seem intentionally vague in allocating responsibility for social problems, and usually critique the system and dysfunctional low-level institutions rather than individuals or higher up governing bodies. One article titled ‘System Hogra’ uses Darija to link language to national psychology and social issues, analyzing how embedded the concept of hogra is in Moroccans’ psychological and social structures. French linguist Dominique Caubet defines hogra as ‘contempt, injustice and humiliation matched with cynicism’ (Mrabet and Layachi, 2010). In short, hogra is psychological victimization that characterizes everyday life in Morocco, basically the feeling of being a second-class citizen of the world. A prominent Lebanese writer on Arab identity, Amin Maalouf told Telquel, ‘in general the Arab world hates itself … because Arabs have the feeling of not being respected, of being strangers in the contemporary world’ (Mrabet and Layachi, 2010). This sort of mental anguish at exclusion from the dominant discourse of modernity is a divisive force in a diverse Moroccan society where everyday life becomes an exercise in social positioning. One of the only opportunities to speak out about what rapper Mobydick calls the ‘lifestyle’ of hogra comes through art: ‘When you are alone in front of a microphone, you can finally respond without being interrupted to certain acts that the system allows’ (Mrabet and Layachi, 2010).

The next section, and the one in which Telquel’s aim of equating language with social change comes across most clearly, is L’Édito, or the editorial. Almost entirely critical in tone and focused on democratic norms, the recipe for Telquel’s editorials is the latest political happenings combined with reflections on responses from other news outlets, a strong dose of satire and a sliver of hope. Benchemsi seems to become increasingly cynical in his role as editor, and in the last issue of 2010, the magazine’s founder hands over the reigns to fellow staffer Karim Boukhari and leaves for the States – just weeks before Tunisians oust Ben Ali to begin the Arab Spring. A sense of stagnation in Morocco’s democratic transition becomes a clearly celebratory tone in Boukhari’s third editorial ‘They did it!’ as he says ‘[The Tunisians] relit a flame, a fire long thought to be extinguished. They knew how to talk to each of us and they stirred something deep within us … That something is called hope’ (Boukhari, 2011a). He goes on to discuss an open letter circulating on the Internet calling for the dissolution of the king’s political power and cautions readers to think carefully about the direction of change before embracing all-out revolution.

The air of congratulatory disbelief continues as a full-out social movement forms in Morocco around ‘les 20 févriestes’ (the 20th of February-ists or M20, after Morocco’s largest day of protests), and Boukhari titles a March 2011 editorial in Darija ‘Mamfakinch’, after an emergent militant arm of the youth movement meaning ‘no turning back’. In it he says it is essential that people understand one thing: ‘since the February 20, this is another Morocco, very young and apolitical, that has found its voice’ (Boukhari, 2011b). That voice is sawt chaâb or ‘the voice of the people’, and the title of a later editorial that Boukhari (2011c) takes from one of the movement’s own slogans. For Boukhari, M20 is acting as a relay for common people, taking their demands to governing elites in a society where the mechanisms of democracy are dysfunctional:

The usual intermediaries – political parties, NGOs or the press – aren’t really on point … these intermediaries have too many disadvantages (the parties are no longer credible, the NGOs have only their will to offer, the press hasn’t yet solved its language problems) to have a large and lasting impact. (Boukhari, 2011c)

Boukhari pleads with his public to let M20 play its role as ‘the voice of the little people’ while echoing a dominant discourse that simultaneously places the streets at the center/source of what it means to be Moroccan and at the margins of modern society. As Boukhari (2011b) writes, ‘the street is the real, the concrete, is a sort of collective consciousness that expresses itself suddenly as one man’s slogan’. These slogans are inspiration, almost vindication, to Telquel’s journalists, and they accompany an increasing politicization of the use of Darija in the magazine over the course of the protest movement.

Content: language as theme

From the beginning, Telquel makes it clear that the question of language is not only part of its modernist project, but necessary to achieve its vision of a successful democratic transition for Morocco. In its first year, Telquel (2002) made Darija a cover story with the article ‘Darija: Langue Nationale’ (Benchemsi 2002). In asking how Telquel engages in and positions itself as a leader in the debate about language policy in Morocco, four key themes emerged as central to the argument Telquel makes about language: what it means to be modern in Morocco, democratic norms and Moroccan specificity, discussion of a blad schizo (schizophrenic country) in regard to Morocco’s paradoxical policies, and national reputation and Morocco’s place in global society. For the purposes of this article, only two of these themes – democratic norms and national reputation – will be discussed here.

Inciting citizen-subjects

The panel of various interests convened by Telquel around the constitutional referendum is just one example of how its rhetorical strategies intersect with larger public debates and happenings on the ground. Often the magazine’s approach is to incite debate through provocative cover illustrations and controversial statements, but it also provides space for controversies already being discussed to play out in its pages, albeit with an eye toward its stated interests in ‘a plural, democratic and secular Morocco where individual liberties can be expressed’ (Telquel, 2014). Telquel’s emphasis on secularism in particular separates it from wider debates over how to incorporate Islam as a tenet of Moroccan modernity because secularism would demand that Islam cease to play a central role in public life.

Telquel’s intervention attempts to change the way Moroccans think about their maternal language, and to provide a space for that language and its speakers as a participatory public. The magazine challenges various sectors of society: first and foremost the government and officials to take seriously the interests and opinions of their populace and not abuse their privilege, to Western-oriented elites to see Moroccan public life as a place where political, economic, and social change are possible, to the Arabic-oriented intellectuals and religious elites that secularism does not mean denying Morocco’s Islamic heritage or cultural specificity, and to working class Darija speakers that they have valuable contributions to make to Morocco’s political and cultural life, and that they also need to do the work of interrogating some democratically problematic assumptions and traditions. In terms of the media landscape, Telquel is working on people oriented toward and engaged in diverse, often foreign, media to re-focus on the issues and possibilities at play in their own society – to show them that critical yet inclusive discursive spaces are being created. In its intervention, Telquel is addressing various aspects of Moroccan society and attempting to make these implicit interests explicit and part of a public conversation about positioning Morocco and Moroccans for the future.

I want to be clear that this is not a cultural phenomenon originating in Telquel, but that Telquel is operating at the same time that other spheres are doing a lot to advance Darija, including film, sports broadcasting (particularly radio), advertising, and Moroccan musicians. What makes Telquel unique is the extent to which it advocates for these actors from diverse, mostly popular milieus, bringing their stories together into a cohesive editorial and policy position in an elite news magazine. This demonstrates the strength of its position in favor of adopting Darija as national language, and via decisions about what its journalists write about, whom they interview, and what questions they ask, Telquel establishes a relatively cohesive narrative about the linguistic situation in Morocco that takes on traditional power structures left unquestioned by Morocco’s traditionally centralized and largely partisan press. One can definitely critique Telquel’s narrow vision of modernity, its elitism, and the way it presumes to speak to or for people, but it is also making space for Darija speakers where they have historically been absent.

Telquel’s position on language is just one fundamental example of an attempt to unify Morocco’s fractured publics – toward the end of consolidating diverse voices into one conversation that will demand accountability from those in power and push Morocco along the path of democratic reform. The particular process of translation between these publics deserves further attention, but this analysis attempts to explain how Telquel works on people to transform through talk by transgressing taboos and pushing social boundaries with its content. Its modus operandi involves provoking people into conversation and expanding the social imaginary of the multiple spheres in which it operates. If the news magazine’s overall aim seems to be promoting access, participation, and transparency at the center, it also addresses this message to spheres of Moroccan society oriented toward – or actually located in – Europe, the Middle East, and elsewhere.

Looking at language through the lens of Telquel illuminates how the cultural can create a space for critical commentary even when the power structures in place seem untouchable. In this space, there seems to be an attempt to bridge the gap between popular classes and elites by invoking the specificity of what it means to be Moroccan, particularly by accessing identity through language, attempting to re-orientate affiliations elsewhere and frequently raising questions of loyalty to one’s origins. In this way, Telquel tries to coordinate interests that may not be the same, yet concurrently exist in the fractured yet overlapping cultural spheres and publics comprising the assemblage that is ‘Morocco’.