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Feminine spaces and places in the dark recesses of Morocco's past: the prison testimonials in poetry and prose of Saïda Menebhi and Fatna El Bouih

2010; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 15; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13629380902745884

1743-9345

Valérie K. Orlando,

African history and culture studies

Abstract Since the late 1990s and the end of the era known as 'les années de plomb' (the Lead Years), Moroccan women have spoken out in French and Arabic on a variety of issues including past socio-political and human rights abuses in Morocco. From the prison accounts authored by several former women detainees during the Lead Years to the documented revelations about Morocco's street children and 'petites bonnes' (girl maids often held as prisoners in the homes of the wealthy and made to work with little or no compensation), women point fingers with their pens at abuse and neglect in the past as well as in today's New Morocco. Prison literature, although overwhelmingly written by men, includes several notable testimonies by women incarcerated during the most repressive period of the Lead Years (1973–1988). These include: Femmes–Prisons: Parcours croisés (Women–prisons: traveled journeys, 2001), which is a collection of letters mothers wrote to their sons and husbands in prison, and Saïda Menebhi: poèmes, lettres, ecrits de prison (Saïda Menebhi: Poems, Letters and Writing from Prison, 2000), a compilation of prison writings by the Marxist-Leninist Saïda Menebhi, who died in prison following a hunger strike. Additionally, Hadit al-'atama by Fatna El Bouih was translated into French as Une femme nommée Rachid (A woman named Rachid, 2002) and affirms the resistance of women even as they were tortured in prisons across Morocco. Although the government of King Mohamed VI since his coronation in 1999 has sought to improve material means and living conditions for all Moroccans, there is much that needs to be done in terms of repairing historical memory. The female voices of Moroccan poets and authors, some still living, others long gone, explore, reveal, probe and make inquiries that seek to reconcile and rectify the wounds of Morocco's dark past. Their prose and poetry establish humanity and dignity to the formerly abused that must bear witness about the past for those who are building the present. Keywords: prison literatureLead YearsFrancophone literatureMoroccan writinghuman rights Notes Interview, January 17, 2007. It is estimated that there are approximately 2.5 million Moroccans living abroad. Exiled MREs (Marocains résidants à l'étranger) are responsible for contributing significantly to the GDP of the country every year. They have increasingly influenced internal politics and democratic processes in the country. Derrida's italics. Most prison literature has been published in French, but there are some notable exceptions in Arabic including Mohammed Raïss's De Skhirat à Tazmamart: Retour du bout de l'enfer (the title was first published in Arabic: Tadhkirat dhahab iyab ila al-jahim, Casablanca Publications of the Journal Alittihad Ichtiraki, 2001). The translated version, De Skhirat à Tazmamart, was published in 2002 in Casablanca by Afrique Orient. Titles of testimonial prison literature in Arabic include the novels: Ufoulu al-layl: Yawmiyat Lm'arif wa Ghbila (The extinction of night: journal of Lm'arif and Ghbila) by Tahar, which recounts the suffering of prisoners in two detention centers in Casablanca. Hadit al-'atama by Fatna El Bouih (A woman named Rachid) affirms the resistance of women who were tortured in prisons (see Zekri 2006 Zekri, K. 2006. Fictions du réel. Modernité romanesque et écriture du réel au Maroc: 1990–2006, Paris: L'Harmattan. [Google Scholar], p. 205). The prisoners incarcerated at Tazmamart where primarily soldiers implicated in the two failed coups d'état that took place in Kenitra in 1971 and in 1972 in the air when generals Oufkir and Dilimi, powerful in the King's military apparatus, tried to force the Royal Boeing 747 down in order to assassinate King Hassan II. Both coups failed and Hassan II assassinated the generals. The soldiers implicated in the coups were put on trial and given sentences between three and ten years in prison. But, as Ahmed Marzouki (2000) Marzouki, A. 2000. Tazmamart: cellule 10 Casablanca/Paris: Editions Paris-Méditerranée and Tarik Editions [Google Scholar] recounts in his testimonial, Tazmamart: Cellule 10 in August 1973, he and the others were taken (secretly, without any warning), to the newly constructed penal colony of Tazmamart in the Moroccan desert. Here they were put in cells measuring three metres by two metres. Each prisoner was kept in total darkness (the cells had no windows) with no possibility of ever going outside. All prisoners remained in these conditions for the next 18 years. The existence of the prison was officially denied by the monarchy even upon international inquiries made by France, the USA and Amnesty International. Of the 58 men imprisoned at Tazmamart, 28 were released in 1991; the rest had previously died in captivity from general neglect, madness, and lack of decent food and medical care. According to Mohammed Raïss (2002) Raïss, M. 2002. De Skhirat à Tazmamart: retour du bout de l'enfer, Casablanca: L'Afrique orient. [Google Scholar], 27 of these men are in Morocco, the three Bourequat brothers are abroad (Ali resides in the USA and Midhat and Bayazid live in France), and Lieutenant M'barek Touil lives in the USA (Raïss 2002 Raïss, M. 2002. De Skhirat à Tazmamart: retour du bout de l'enfer, Casablanca: L'Afrique orient. [Google Scholar], p. 389). Founded in the 1970s, Alittihad Ichtiraki is the daily Moroccan Arabophone newspaper of the Socialist Union of Popular Forces party. Its Francophone twin is Libération, also printed daily. The 'Makhzen' is the 'system' in Morocco, run by the rich and powerful directly associated with the monarchy. It has been in place since the time of the sultans, before French colonial rule. In particular, see her works: Les femmes arabes (2002a), La Liaison (2002b), which was first published in 1989 under the pseudonym Lyne Tywa (Paris: L'Harmattan), and Le Maghreb des femmes: Les défis du XXIème siècle (2001). Slyomovics' italics. The Arabic transliterations are Slyomovics'. From 1972 to 1980, Laâbi was imprisoned at Kénitra prison for his outspoken work. As stated by El Bouih in an interview with Susan Slyomovics (2005) Slyomovics, S. 2005. The performance of human rights in Morocco, Philadelphia: Pennsylvania University Press. [Google Scholar] in The performance of human rights in Morocco. Some of the other women prisoners she names in her text – those who died and those who are still living – include Fatima Oukacha, Rabia Fetouh, Mara Zouini, Widad Bouab, Latifa Ajbabdi, Nguia Bouda and the martyr, Saïda Menebhi. According to Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's principle, le devenir animal (the becoming-animal) is a state of bestiality through which we all have the potential to pass. See: Deleuze and Guattari (1981) Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. 1981. Mille plateaus, Paris: Editions Minuit. [Google Scholar].