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The Plastic Eye: The Politics of Jewish Representation in Moroccan Museums

2010; Routledge; Volume: 75; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/00141841003678742

1469-588X

Aomar Boum,

Religious Tourism and Spaces

Abstract This article explores the ways in which Jews are represented in two private Moroccan museums today. As forms of contestation that give visibility to Jews, these museums go beyond current anthropological understandings of museums as 'state-projects' of representation. I argue that this representational complexity and the Moroccan state's attitude toward the museums are best understood through the native Moroccan ethnometapragmatic concept 'the plastic eye/'ayn mika', which combines not only the faculty of vision (the eye/'ayn) but also the intentional act of ignoring what is exhibited (the plastic/mika), thus allowing Jewish history in Morocco to be simultaneously foregrounded and backgrounded as it is politically expedient. Keywords: MuseumstaterepresentationJewsMorocco Acknowledgements An earlier version of this article was presented at the International Conference on Jews and Muslims in the World of Islam (University of Maryland, College Park, 2007). First, I would like to express my thanks and appreciation to Ibrahim Nouhi for allowing me to interview him during a period of 3 years. In writing this article, I have benefited enormously from the valuable critique and comments of Ana Alonso, Matti Bunzl, Yaseen Noorani, Bruce Maddy-Weitzman, Anne Betteridge, Michael Bonine, Norma Mendoza-Denton, Emily Gottreich, Perry Gilmore, Bambi Schieffelin, and Thomas Park. Special thanks go to Nils Bubandt, Mark Graham, and the three anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback. I am solely responsible for the ideas made in the final version. The ethnographic and archival research for this work was partly funded by the Brandeis University-Tauber Institute Graduate Research Award, The CEMAT/TALM Fellowship for Maghrebi Studies, The UCLA-Maurice Amado Foundation, and the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture. Notes 'Ayn mika is a commonly used idiomatic phrase. The verb is dir 'ayn mika l-… (meaning 'to give the plastic treatment to'). The behavior of 'ayn mika can also be referred to as 'tmyak'. Tmyak is the Moroccan Arabic word, which comes from the verb mayak, meaning 'give the plastic treatment to'. Etymologically speaking, mika might have come from mica, which stands for all that glitters. In colloquial Moroccan Arabic, mika means plastic, or anything that is made out of it. All translations are mine unless specified otherwise. Bulletin Officiel, 1(2):5–7, 1912. These museums are located mainly in urban centers. They include the Museum of Moroccan Arts, Museum of Antiquities, American Legion Museum, and Forbes Museum (Tangiers); Ethnographic Museum (Chefchaouen); Archaeological Museum and Ethnographic Museum (Tetouan); Archaeological Museum (Larache); Dar Jamai Museum (Meknes); Oudaias Museum, Archaeological Museum, Natural Science Museum, and Postal Museum (Rabat); Dar Batha Museum and Borj-Nord Museum (Fez); Dar Si Said Museum, Majorelle Museum; Bert Flint Museum (Marrakesh); Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah Musuem (Essaouira); National Ceramics Museum (Safi). A virtual tour of the Moroccan Museum of Akka is available at http://www.oasis-akka.com/diapoMusee.php (accessed 28 November 2008). See Fadwa Miadi, Zhor Rehihil: musulmane et militante propalestinienne, elle est depuis quatre and conservatrice du Musée juif de Casablanca. Jeune Afrique, 26 Septembre 2004. Available at www.jeuneafrique.com/jeune_afrique/article_jeune_afrique.asp?art_cle=LIN26104z (accessed 28 November 2008). See the official magazine of Royal Air Maroc, Ram Magazine, 142 (March–April): 74–78, 2007.