Notes
- Since there are many dialects spoken in these two countries and since there is not one form of Moroccan and Algerian darija (spoken Arabic) either, I will focus on one variety used by Moroccans and Algerians alike, which, though it contains minor differences, does not impede mutual understanding.
- Driss Chraïbi, Le Passé Simple (Paris: Gallimard, 1986).
- In this article, I use “modernity” to refer to that which is called “moderne” in vernacular Arabic in the Maghreb, in other words to what is considered to be new, other, western, or French. I would like, however, to indicate from the start that I do not contend that what is western is modern and vice-versa. I use “modern” and “modernity” as Frenchified expressions contained in spoken Arabic, and used as such. The short sections on modernity in literature and cinema offer examples of how popular perceptions are represented in cultural forms of expression (novels and feature films).
- Quoted in Andrea F. Khalil, The Arab Avant-Garde: Experiments in North African Art and Literature (Portsmouth: Heinemann, 2003), 4.
- Ibid.
- My emphasis. Fatima Mernissi, The Forgotten Queens of Islam, trans. Mary Jo Lakeland (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993), 123.
- Khalil, The Arab Avant Garde, 3. Here is another example that shows the obvious inference: the French educational system, which developed during French rule in Morocco, was used as a model after independence. A new track (”technical”) was added to the existing two (the “original” and the “modern” tracks) and made available to students. By “modern” the authorities referred to the French system, which they continued by maintaining French as the language of instruction in this context.
- Leila Abouzeid, Year of the Elephant, trans. Barbara Parmenter (Austin: The University of Texas at Austin, 1999).
- Milton J. Cowan, ed., Hans Wehr Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic (Urbana: Spoken Language Services, 1993), 721.
- Cowan, ed., Hans Wehr, 428.
- Beldiya is the feminine form of beldi. On the subject of language attitudes in Morocco, see Abdelali Bentahila's Language Attitudes Among Arabic-French Bilinguals in Morocco (Clevedon, Avon, England: Multilingual Matters, 1983), which discusses the status of French in Morocco in relation to modernity and class. As for the claim of Arabic being a signifier of traditionalism, see Abdallah Laroui's Les Origines Sociales et Culturelles du Nationalisme Marocain (1830–1952) (Paris: F. Maspero, 1977).
- “Algeria's Women Quietly Advance in Careers and Society” The New York Times on the Web. 25 May 2007 [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/25/world/africa/25cnd-algeria.html?ex=1337745600&en=de718f38a3217189&ei=5089&partner=rssyahoo&emc=rss].
- The quote is available online [http://clicnet.swarthmore.edu/souffles/s5/4.html].
- Abdallah Bensmaïn, “Driss Chraïbi, le précurseur,” Revue CELFAN (CELFAN Review), (February 1986): 9–15.
- Indeed, in Maghrebi darija, “moderne” is often easily interchanged with “French.”
- Karim Nasseri, Chroniques d'un Enfant du Hammam (Paris: Denoël, 1998).
- Mohamed Choukri, Le Pain Nu (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1997). The novel, which was written in Arabic with the title, Al-Khobz Al-Hafi, was translated by Paul Bowles under the title For Bread Alone (London: Peter Owen, 1973).
- Karim Nasseri, Noces et Funérailles (Paris: Denoël, 2001).
- The use of the name Idriss to refer to rebellious heroes in North African literature is also found in Awlad Haratina, a work by the Nobel Prize-winning author Naguib Mahfouz, first published in 1959 as a serial in the Egyptian daily paper Al-Ahram and then translated in 1981 as Children of Gebelaawi (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 1981). In this story, there are symbolic characters such as Arafa (”the one who knows” reminiscent of Idriss “the one who learns”), Adham (Adam) and Idriss, whose name is resonant with Ibliss (Satan). Idriss rebels against Gebelaawi (the father, the allegory of the Lord, “le Seigneur“), while he is in search of a better life outside of Gebelaawi's big house. Here too the subsequent patricide epitomizes a sense of ending; a break with the traditional ways of life and culture.
- Thierry Leclère, “Entretien avec le réalisateur” Télérama, 2830, 7 April 2004 [http://www.abc-lefrance.com/fiches/vivalaldjerie.pdf].