Towards a ‘new’ Moroccan capital? Democratisation, diversity politics and the remaking of national space in Rabat

ABSTRACT

This article addresses the ways in which the Moroccan state’s recent acknowledgement and promotion of cultural diversity has assumed form in the national capital of Rabat. It considers two cases – the official recognition of Amazigh culture and the development of new cultural infrastructure – in order to interrogate how urban restructuring in Rabat has become an expedient for transmitting a new sense of national identity to domestic and international audiences. In doing so, the article critically develops the idea of ‘diversity management regime’ to think about how diversity is operationalised in Rabat, the dimensions that get included and excluded within its remit, and the sorts of challenges it faces in the political arena. The contradictions that underscore Rabat’s transformation into a showcase for a multicultural nation are to be understood in the limits of the democratisation of Moroccan society over the last two decades.

KEYWORDS:

• Diversity management regime
• urban restructuring
• national identity
• Morocco
• Rabat
• Amazigh

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. ‘Neo-Tifinagh’ is the technically accurate term because the script in use today is a late-twentieth-century derivative of the ancient Tuareg alphabet of the same name. Throughout this article, I use the word ‘Tifinagh’ as this is the word publicly used in Morocco.

2. The districts surveyed were the pre-colonial city (Medina), the French colonial centre (Hassan), the middle- and upper-class residential and administrative districts of Agdal and Soussi and the low-income residential districts of Yacoub El Mansour and Takaddoum.

3. Although construction of the theatre was completed in early 2021, its opening was postponed to an unspecified date after the end of pandemic.

4. Rabat’s African Capital of Culture events and all its festivals in 2020 were cancelled due the global Covid pandemic.

5. French is the lingua franca in debates about cultural diversity in Morocco as well as the only language used for the websites of MMVI (http://www.museemohammed6.ma/), FNM (http://www.fnm.ma), and the Rabat Biennale (https://www.biennale.ma/). According to the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie, 35% of Moroccans are either fully or partially francophone (OIF (Oganisation Internationale de la Francophonie) 2018).

6. It is worth noting here the public interest surrounding the Moroccan publication (in French) of Chouki El Hamel’s history of black slavery in Morocco (El Hamel 2014). During a nationwide tour in June 2019, the US-based scholar gave two separate presentations in Rabat, the first at the National Library and the second in the city’s main bookshop.

7. One exception is the annual Rabat-Africa festival organised since 2007 by the migrant support organisation Fondation Orient-Occident, although this is a comparatively low-key event and is mainly held at the organisation’s headquarters in the peripheral district of Yacoub El Mansour.