Since the middle of the nineteenth century, new-comers from North Africa brought with them to France their diverse cultural heritage. These local forms of cultural expression were used for the entertainment of foreign workers. During colonization, North African militants used many forms of arts and expression to resist and condemn the French rule in their countries.

The original forms of cultural expression focused on values of the motherland, Nationalism as well as working-class suffering, which is hard for the second generation to identify themselves with, as they were born and raised in France and were facing different realities and problems during the 1970s and 1980s. The clash between the first generation and second generation values and perception of the space gave birth to a new form of cultural expression during this period. “Caught between the “Myth of Repatriation” and the growing intolerance toward North Africans, some immigrants children turned to collective forms of cultural expression to address intergenerational tensions and to assert their right to inclusion in French society” (Derderian 2004).

The immigrants developed a new Genre of arts in theater, literature, Medias, music and cinema of course. Cinema, as a way of expression which can convey scenes of every day’s life with sound and picture, is one of the most important and efficient way to communicate about immigration issues. Since the 1970s on, a generation of French filmmakers, from different backgrounds from North African origins, appeared in the French cultural scene to tell the stories of their communities, to seek social integration or simply to achieve an esthetic work.

In this paper we will examine the rise and development of French filmmakers from North African origins, and try to understand the aim behind this fever to share emotions through sound and picture. We will also study their cinematographic production with regards to their being at the center of interculturality between the “departure country”s vision and the “host country”s vision of the universe. Yet, cinema is not only a form of artistic manifestation. It can be also understood in the social context as a mean of struggle for a certain community or a tool of social integration in the host country after achieving fame and wealth. Once totally integrated in the “host country”, the “departure country” shows interest on these movie makers who succeeded in becoming famous, and it even claim that they belong to it, which is very problematic for the psychological and artistic identity of there filmmakers.

At first Cinema was expensive and not very accessible for immigrants, so they turned toward its older form: Theater. Theater was an easy and less demanding form of cultural expression. It serves as a medium for the second generation of immigrants to challenge the stereotypes about their communities. Consequently, many theater companies raised in the name of migrant communities during the 1970s and the 1980s such as; “Kahina (1976-1982), Week-end à Nanterre (1977-1980) and Ibn Kaldoun (1978-1980)” (Derderian 2004). Most of these companies performed in Verlan slang, as a mixture of Arabo-Berber accent and regular French. The themes developed by the companies were mainly about immigration and the daily problems of foreign workers as well as the situation of migrant families. These themes were often presented in a humoristic way to reach the mind of the audience. The plays relayed more on improvisation than on a specific script (Derderian 2004, pp: 50-51).

According to Derderian “After the early 1980s, North African cultural expression moved from militant collective initiatives by amateur artists rooted in working-class suburban communities to professional forms of creative expression that targeted mainstream French audiences and relied more heavily on mainstream sources of diffusion and instrumental support.” (Derderian 2004, pp: 52). This phenomenon can be understood if we analyze the transformation that acquired at this historical moment, as communitarian forms of art weren’t enough to make a living for the artists, who wanted to turn into cinema and reach a wider audience, and the immigration theater has reached a certain maturity in its means and teams which enabled it to go to the next step.

France was a good place to study cinema and to do cinema compared to the destination countries, even if many stereotypes persisted about French filmmakers from non-European origins. France soon became thanks to its rich cultural atmosphere, the center of most of first Arab and North African filmmakers like Tewfik Saleh from Egypt and Mai Masri from Labanon… an important fact while dealing with these filmmakers, is to precise that most of them are immigrants before they become filmmakers. Maybe filmmaking was for them a dream from the time they were in their country of destination or maybe the desire to express a certain cultural esthetic came after the clash with the European society or maybe the second generation born there wanted to produce a cinema that resembles more to the color Beur.

Mehdi Charef went to france at first at the age of 12 to join his working father there. Charef spent his childhood around Nanterre and Gennevilliers Banlieux, where he shot many scenes of his filst and most known film Le Thé Au Harem d’Archimède on 1985. Ali Ghanem, went to France during the middle of the 1960s, and learned cinema by himself by reading specialized books and watching movies and other filmmakers on set. Ghanem shot his fist movie in 1970 Mektoub, which were considered as the first full length movie dealing with immigration by an immigrant filmmaker from North African origins (Rosen 1989, pp: 36). From the part of women, Assia Djebor represented the voice of women. Assia Djebor, who was a famous Algerian writer, thought it would be easier for her to communicate with the Algerian illiterate women through films. Thus, she made two highly original films, La Nouba Des Femmes Du Mont Chenoua in 1978 and La Zerda et Les Chants De L’oubli in 1982, before quitting cinema. In 1994, Malik Chibane released his film Hexagone, which was seen as a cinematographic success. The film Hexagone was a new stage in the development of Cinema made by French filmmakers from North African origins, since in terms of professional cinema Hexagone was a success in its plot, its audience rates and its money incomes. In spite of having “no formal training and no connections in the entertainment business” (Derderian 2004, pp: 64), Chibane was inspired by Week-end à Nanterre, and tells through his film the story of five days in the life of five North African Beur friends in the director’s neighborhood at Goussainville. Unlike Mehdi Charef or Rachid Bouchareb, Chiban’s film, which drew more than 60 000 viewers, was at first rejected by many production companies because of the ethnic composition of its actors. In addition, “Chibane received no financial support from the National Cinematography commission” (Derderian 2004, pp: 65), which is the main financial supporter of young artists in France, so the filmmaker was forced to relay on his own and work with a restrained small budget. According to Chibane, the ministries who supported the project like Bernard Tapie tend to see it as “a social initiative, not as a cultural one”. These facts show how much the French Republican model of secularism lucks in strategy while dealing with the promotion of minorities’ art production. If we compare the situation of French filmmaker from non-European origins to filmmakers from minority groups in Britain or the United States, we will notice that in these countries Art expression is very strong, because it is reinforced by minority positive laws and institutions, which help artists from minority groups to fund and share their work openly. Whereas, in France this kind of community based work is condemned because it is seen against the values of the republic, which favors cultural assimilation rather than communitarian originality. Under the rule of the socialist party, thing got worse for filmmakers and artists from North African backgrounds, after the paralyzation of the Cultural development Direction and the weakening of the Cultural Intervention fund (Marques 2002).

Other filmmakers like Farouk Beloufa, Taieb Louhici, Nacer Khemir, Ibrahim Tsaki and Merzak Allouche came from Tunisia and Algeria, because they luck of professional schools and cinematographic practices in their motherlands. Others simply came to France as students and became permanent residents, in a France seen as a paradise for cultural practice from the outside a hell for new-comers from the inside.

Cultural duality is a main feature of the cinematographic art of filmmakers from North African origins. Mehdi Charef and Mahmoud Zemmouri for instance, had to work to gain money to subsist and shot films to fulfill their artistic needs, they were inspired from their first home and second home, and lived all the push and pull situation at a sensitive time in French characterized by ethnic racism and social stereotypes. The battle to find a place in the second home and the bitter nostalgia about the first home, gave a special spontaneous esthetic to their work and something of a cultural duality (Odin 2002, pp32).

Many artists from North African origins tempted to focus on their artistic identity instead of their ethnic one, claiming that they should be seen as French artists like any other ones. However, some artists indirectly benefited from being an “Immigrant” or a “Beur”. These artists came to the scene to fill the roles of negatively represented North Africans, so they became famous out of that. The case of the actor Smain can illustrate this fact, as he had access to cinema by doing small role of the “negative Arab”. This can be applied to filmmakers as well; many became famous because government authorities wanted to give them the chance to produce their works out of political maneuvers or to fulfill the curiousity of French people from European origins about what happens in the “exotic” Banlieux. Smain and other actors and filmmakers never wanted to stand up as spokesmen of their community, even if they were in fact directly inspired from the situation of French people from North African origins in their artistic works. Apart from special cases like Jamal Debouz, who maintain good relationships with the country of origins of his parents, most artists prefer forgetting their ethnic specificity and melting in the French Republic colors, but stereotypes about their community always chasse them.

Filmmaking by French directors from North African origins is closely associated with what they call “immigration literature”. Both “immigration cinema” and “immigration literature” share the same themes and the same an “Apatrid” art strained between two countries, cultures and visions of the universe, as explained by Lassi. These forms of cultural expression, deal with “the socio-cultural context of production situated in a foreign land and victim of it’s non-integration in the art of the host country, same as their producers can’t be integrated easily” (Lassi 200’, pp 42-45). Christophe Ruggia did a cinematographic version of the novel Le Gone Du Chabâa 11 years after its publication. The novel by Azouz Beggag, describes the issues of cohabitation between the North African Arab minority culture and the dominant “French culture”, at the same time it explores the different strategies to overcome these cultural barriers between the two communities. Le Gone Du Chabâa and other literary productions by French novelists from North African origins are a major source of inspiration for filmmakers from the same background, which shows that different forms of expression can join and complement each other when dealing with the same theme. The cultural expressions by French artists from North African origins are today a real entity in the French arts, expressing the living and esthetic of a double culture carried by the North African communities in the French Republic.

Another important side of the filmmaking process when the French movie makers from North African origins turned professional is the issue of funding. Nowadays, most big productions made by these kinds of directors are funded by French film companies or government funds for cinema. Funding deals sometimes impose modifications on the original scenarios, or impose a psychological auto-censorship by the directors who make concessions about the reality of things to be produced. Further more, becoming professional means also addressing a much larger public, as “the western viewer becomes a major factor in the film equation” (Rosen 1989, pp: 36). The French viewer has many stereotyped expectations about the production of filmmakers from different backgrounds, which pushes as to question seriously the themes and the images presented by these directors. Do these filmmakers fulfill “the stereotyped expectations of the western audience” to sell their works? Is the reality so ugly to tell, that it is necessary to hide it by humor and stigmas?

“Not necessary!” the answer comes from the recent film Indigènes by Rachid Bouchareb. Indigènes was projected on May 2006 during the official competition of the Cannes festival. The film tells the story of more than 600 000 North African soldiers, who came to fight for France during the Second Great War in 1943 in the Italian front, and who died to liberate southern France from Toulon to Alsace. Indigènes stars four artists from North African origins: Jamel Debbouze, Samy Naceri, Rodchdy Zem, Sami Bouajila. The filmmaker Rachid Bouchareb was born in Paris in 1959 in an immigrant working large family. Bouchareb joined a cinema school after finishing his technical studies, and shot many films since then: Baton Rouge (1985), Cheb (1991), Little Senegal (2001)… The young man even founded a production company with some friends (Le Monde 2006). The ambitious director had the idea of making Indigènes many years before, but it was only made possible after several years of documentary research about the subject, 14.6 million euros of budget and the personal investment of the actor Jamel Debbouze, who convinced Morocco to help the production with military logistics. The importance of Indigènes is not only in its financial budget or the prizes it collected, it is in its symbolic importance as it tells the large audience a reality about their constructed past they weren’t ready to hear before. The main goal of Bouchareb’s was to tell the hidden story of the North African soldiers who died for France and who nobody remembers anymore in order to highlight a part of the French memory, which gives a positive shock to the negative stereotypes about North Africans. Yet, the film transcended its initial goals. After the tears of Bernadette Chirac and the emotions shared between the formal president of France Jacques Chirac and Jamel Debbouze, the government took measures the following day during the council of ministers to install an amendment about the fair payment of the 80 000 soldiers who fought for France during the great wars. The example of Indigenes and the work of its director Rachid Bouchareb, can illustrate the power of art and cultural forms of expressions sometimes on political decisions. However, according to the French news paper Le Canard Enchaîné, “the reaction of Jacques Chirac in the Cinema was nothing but presidential cinema” (Le Canard Enchainé 2006), as it explains that the measure taken by the Chirac government to help formal soldiers wasn’t out of the influence of the emotional film, but out of the sanctions imposed on France by the European Court of Justice since 2001. Indigènes makes us question the real influence of the artists and especially filmmakers in political decisions concerning their communities. As, we proved the power of art is only symbolic, but the real decisions are purely political.

Immigrants from North African origins started since their arrival to France to perform multiple forms of cultural expression to express their fears and expectations as well as their nostalgia towards their first home. Second generation artists and artists who newly came to France during the 1970s and 1970s, and who experienced the racist reality of the French society of that time, developed a working-class minority collective form of arts starting with theater and evolving towards cinema.

French filmmakers from North African origins have different stories but all tell the same story. They are Beur, working immigrants, cinema students, artist migrants but all relates in the same spontaneous bi-cultural way the daily life of their communities through simple stories. The goals behind the cinematographic productions are very different and problematic. Some used their situation to reach celebrity by playing the typical role or the stereotyped immigrant to benefit from support, others, produce art to show what happens in their communities as a sort of auto-biographical work, whereas many use cinema as a card of integration of the self and of the community in the French society. We noticed also that many artists prefer being seen as French rather than stigmatized as Arabs. From the government side, we notice a luck of minorities oriented political institutions in the French republic, which favors a more assimilations cultural strategy. Even when the government seems to react to new forms of memory art –like what happened with indigene- it is nothing but political maneuvers under the pressure of the international powers, which proves that art has only the power to provide symbols and challenge stereotypes but can’t effectively change politics.

A last point to think about is the image destination countries have about filmmakers in France from North African origins. Names like: Kassari Yassmine from Belgium, Nourdine Lakhmari from Norway, Daoud Oulad Syad from france and others became famous in Morocco for their works. Morocco even practices a sort of new pull factor towards these “Beurs who made it”, as the country sees them as Moroccans above all. There is even a festival dedicated to “immigration cinema” which takes places every year in Agadir: Agadir Ciné Festival. Here it is legitimate to ask: is the work of French filmmakers from North African origins is really an “Apatrid” art, having no real or deep cultural belonging to none of the first or second home? Or is it in the contrary a “Bi-patrid” art, enriching both identities with a synthetic form of expression?

REFERENCE LIST

- Bessière, Irène. 2002. Le Cinema de l’Immigration : Un Cinema Entre Deux Mondes ?. Maison des Sciences de l’Homme. Paris.
- Buffet, Helene. 1998. Actions Culturelles et Intégration en France des Populations Immigrées de Leurs Enfants. ENBIS. Université Claude Bernard Lyon I.
- D.F. « Indigènes » Aux Entournures. Le Canard Enchaîné. 27 September 2006.
- Dallet, Sylvie. 2001. Le Cinéma, Une Bombe à Fragmentation Coloniale. Marne-La-Vallé University.
- Derderian, Richard L. 2004. North Africans In Contemporary France: Becoming Visible. Palgrave Macmillan.
- Dudley, Andrew. 1999. Landscapes of Loss: The National Past in Postwar French Cinema. Film Quarterly. Vol. 54, No. 1. Autumn 2000. PP: 45-49.
- Henderson, Heike. 1998. Writing New Identities: Gender, Nation and Immigration in Contemporary Europe. The Quarterly. Vol 71, No 4. Autumn. PP: 420-421.
- Mandelbaum, Jacques. Portrait: Rachid Bouchareb, Au Nom De Tous Les Siens Morts Pour La Patrie. Le Monde. 29 June 2006.
- Mardayé, Tony & El Harim, Karim. 2002. Les Noirs El Les Arabes Au Sein De L’espace Public Ou La Revendication Egalitaire. University of Lille publications.
- Marques, Cardoso. 2002. Images de Portugais en France: Immigration et cinema. L’Harmattan. Paris.
- Roberts, Martin. 1998. “Beraka”: World Cinema and the global Culture Industry. Cinema Jornal. Vol 37, No 3. spring. PP: 62-82.
- Rosen, Mriam. 1989. The Uprooted Cinema : Arab filmmakers Abroad. Middle East Report. No 159. Jully, August. PP: 34-37.
- Slavin, David H. 1988. French Colonial Film Before and After Itto: from Berber Myth to Race War. French Histortical studies. Vol 21, No 1. Winter. PP: 125-155.
- Tapsoba, clément. 1999. Couleur Café et Pièces d’Identité : Cinéma et Immigration. Ecrans d’Afrique. N 24. Deuxième semestre.
Tcheuyao, alexie & Lassi, Etienne-Marie. 2004. Réecriture Filmique et discours Sur l’Immigration : Le gone du Châaba d’azouz Begag. Tangence. N75. Eté. 41-62.

The Kibboutzs means in Hebrew union or group. Kibboutzs are collective villages situated in Israel which were created by the Zionist movement during the beginning of the twentieth century as the first germ of Jewish Nationalism in the land of Palestine. These rural communities were mainly influenced by the ideals of Tolstoy about Associative Socialism and pure egalitarian rural society. Yet, the Kibboutzs have evolved today to a more complex communitarian structures, including not only agrarian activities but also industry and services since the creation of the state of Israel during the middle of the last century.

Originally, the idea of Kibboutzs required a deep political militant spirit, which was born in the mind of the early Zionist thinkers and settlers. Many ideologues and pioneers of the Zionist movement as well as important military officers lived in the Kibboutzs until the 1980s. However, the spirit of the community life went through a serious economic, demographic and moral crisis since the 1970s, which reached its highest level with the crisis of 1990. Nevertheless, the Kibboutzs remain an important aspect of the building of the state of Israel and the implementation of the Zionist ideals throughout the 20th century. In addition, the 300 Kibboutzs that exist today in Israel are seen as an example of prestigious life style, as they learned how to adapt to the new challenges of modern life.

In this article, we will try to explain what the Kibboutzs is and how they function politically and economically. We will also try to explain the socialist ideological inspirations of these communities as well as the mutation of the Kibboutzs since 1970 to adapt to modern life. Furthermore, we will focus on the contradictory discourse of the left wing in Israel, which calls for the construction of an Israeli-Arab state and at the same time take off the land from Palestinians to build its ideal socialist communities. We will also explore some of the problems the Kibboutznikim (residents of the Kibboutzs) are facing today.

According to Encyclopedia Judaica the Kibboutzs are “communities deliberately formed by its members, for agricultural work. There are no private properties in the Kibboutzs, as the income of work is divided between equally between the members of the community and their families” (Encyclopedia Judaica 2006). The Kibboutzs are based on the values of equality and common good, which favors the unification of the community around common values and the offering of welfare services to everyone without distinction of sex or social class. Yet, the Kibboutzs is also a Nationalist Jewish Organization, which helped in the colonization and the building of the state of Israel by Zionist pioneers. “These communities are in reality how the early thinkers imagined the whole country of Israel but on a bigger scale, by focusing on the ideals of collective entrepreneurship and individual engagement, as to guarantee the economic wellbeing of the members of the group” (Ekkert-Jafé 1986).

The urban architecture of the Kibboutzs is following the same original design. At the center, there is the core infrastructures like the administrations, the auditorium, the schools and the hospital, surrounded by the residential area then the several acres of greenery (Ekkert-Jafé 1986). Nowadays, the Kibboutzs has expended beyond the borders of the gardens to include the newly build services and industrial areas.

Politically speaking, Kibboutzs are very egalitarian, since there are no elected representatives and it is at the level of the General assembly that decisions are taken. Thus, we notice that some Kibboutzs started integrating more and more functional structures from the democratic model of governance.

Some Arab Kibboutzs tried to develop in Israel but have failed, because the Kibboutzs are above all Jewish Nationalist entities, which were created in a specific purpose. Yet, it would be very positive if Palestinians or other Arab states can benefit from the experience of the Kibboutzs as long as they adapt it to their own way of living and to their ideological aims (Donath, 1969).

There is no money circulation in the Kibboutzs and no salary system. The structure is build to support in an egalitarian way or the members in terms of food, clothing, daily goods and all possible needs. In the distribution of goods no distinction on socio-economic basis are allowed, and no sex differentiations are tolerated neither apart in Jewish Religious Kibboutzs. However, a small amount of money is given to the community members in a regular basis in order to be spent outside the Kibboutzs on goods that don’t exist inside.

The dispatching of the work is circular and includes all active members in the community families. Work division is rational and exploitation materials belong to the community, as preached in socialist ideals.

The Kibboutzs are autonomous districts ruled from within as an independent municipality. They are treated by the state as autonomous politically and economically regarding its free decision making and free market trade, but still owe taxes to the state of Israel and carry its National flag. Nevertheless, the Kibboutzs by the force of history and ideological affinities got united as three main federations. The need to create federations came from the pressures imposed by the outside world on the Kibboutzs to adapt themselves and to cope with the governmental strategies on education and other issues. Since then, four major Kibboutz federations raised; “the Unified Kibboutzik Movement is the major Kibboutz federation with more than half the settlements affiliated to it. This federation is called commonly Takam in Hebrew, and is supporting the Israeli Labor Party “The Mapai”. The second federation is called Kibboutz Artzi, with more than 30% of affiliation. Artzi consolidated its position after its fusion with the Takam 7 years ago, as it shares with it the same socialist values. However, the Artzi remains more radical and Zionaist. Kibboutz Dati is the third biggest federation. This federation is a religious Kibboutz influences by socialist ideas. The last the religious orthodox Kibboutzs created by the Ahoudat Israel party” (Raphael 1980, pp 32).

We must objectively see the Kibboutz experience, not as an ideal model of the implementation of associative socialism in Israel, but more of a functional solution to the problematic of settlement and management of the flows of migrants coming during different Aliyas. In fact, at the beginning of the Kibboutz experience, many models were tested unfortunately none was useful, which led to the egalitarian form of division of work as an imposed solution to manage the problems of early settlements. Thus, the experience was a small laboratory of experimentations that served in the shaping of the state of Israel later on.

The Russian socialist thinker and writer gave the inspiration of the Kibboutzs building in Israel to the early Eastern European Jewish communities. Consequently, the Hapoel Hatzayer party built the first rural anarchist communities in 1908. Degania the first Kibboutz even constructed was built by European socialist settlers in 1909 next to fertile agricultural lands of the Tabaria. Other Kibboutzs followed in 1912 and 1913 following the same rural model, as to implement the Zionist plans. The early Kibboutzs were utilitarian for the poor immigrants, since the lands were used for intensive agriculture to provide the populations with food, but soon the exploitations and the populations of the Kibboutzs grew and so did the level of life and welfare. To understand the values of the Kibboutz, we must go deeper in the Zionist ideology behind it. The Zionists aimed through the Kibboutzs to build not only a new community but also a “New Man” (Raphael 1980, pp: 56) for the promised land of their ancestors, as they claim. It is not a socialist ideal but also a religious one related to the promise of a salvation for the Jews of the world.

Under the British rule, and while Europe was sinking in war, the Mapai movement formed a new form of Kibboutzs. The Mapai was aware that agrarian Kibboutzs can’t survive for a long time in the wave of industrialization, so it decided to integrate some light forms of industrial infrastructure in the Kibboutzs. Since that time many Kibboutzs had the follow the example of the Mapai Kibboutzs, and fully integrated the secondary and tertiary sectors by the 1970s. At that precise time, The Kibboutzs were facing a problematic economic and demographic crisis under the rule of the government of the Right wing Likoud party. By the 1980s, the communities had to unify in form of federations to face the government pressures and to review its economic strategy towards a less agrarian economy opened to modern market competition. Nowadays, Kibboutzs resurrected more strongly after the heavy crisis of 1990, since the Kibboutz population is one of the richest in the whole country of Israel.

Unfortunately, the Kibboutz structures are facing a moral crisis after the structural changes it experienced during the last 30 years. The values developed by the Kibboutz communities are challenged by the wind of modernity. The pressure of modern like imposed many changes in the rhythm of life of these people. Daily collective meals aren’t observed regularly anymore, and many residents start seeking for outside work opportunities, whereas foreign workers Jews or even Arabs are introduced to do the work. As regards the education of children, it became a personal affair instead of a collective one, as children are in nowadays Kibboutzs spending their like in the family’s house instead of the community dorms. Thus, these changes must be seen as an evolution and an adaptation to modern life not as a menace to a stagnant way of being as Zionist orthodox Kibboutz dwellers tend to see it. Other changes affected the community, as the introduction of “personal budgets” in opposite to the early Kibboutzs where money circulation was banned. Consequently, the Kibboutz system in Israel is going through a real crisis of values. Many Kibboutz residents start to move to large cities and the community values are regressing (Donath, 1969).

Modern American thinker Noam Chomsky, in his very important book on the Kibboutz, tries to reveal the reality behind the utopic socialist mask of the Kibboutzs, since he spent a 7 weeks field study in one of the Kibboutzs next to the coastal city of Haifa. Among the contradiction that Chomsky noticed, there is the deep feeling of racism among the Kibboutz members towards Arabs, whereas the socialist ideals are normally Universalists (Chomsky 2002). The Kibboutzs are even built on lands taken by force from Palestinians and Israeli Arabs, which is a serious contradiction with the discourse of the building of an Israeli-Arab state hold by the left wing parties. Chomsky also noticed a deep tense relationship with the Israeli state, and dissolution of the complementarity that existed between the early Zionist ideologues and the Kibboutz dwellers, since the Likoud party came to power (Chomsky 2002). Chomsky added in his work “Understanding Power”, that the group in the Kibboutzs is oppressing the free will of the individual, for instance military service and community work is taken very seriously, which may give birth to violence. What is revealing about the work of Chomsky, which took place in the 1960s, is that the Anarchic socialist equalitarian model that Israel tend to present to the world about the Kibboutzs was challenges, showing that these communities are an important and unique model in the world but yet not a perfect one.

In spite of the economic and moral problems and far from the illusions of the rural associative socialist utopia, one should admit that the Kibboutz remain the main Nationalist Movement in Israel and that it is somehow thanks to the effort of its groups that Israel exist in part today, since it gave Israel a complete communitarian experience to learn from. Nowadays the Kibboutz population in Israel enjoys a big prestige and lives a wealthy life, in spite of the massive movement of many Kibboutz dwellers to big Israeli cities to fulfill a more modern existence. According to encyclopedia Judaica, there is more than 269 Kibboutz in Israel today, with a population of more than 120 500 inhabitants from the Golan to the Red Sea living in small semi-agrarian groups.

Kibboutzs started as a manifestation of social Zionism and the will to make a “New Man” for the Promised Land on Palestine, following the ideals of Tolstoi and associative socialism. Gradually, the Kibboutzs became a machine of Zionist elites and a structure to assimilate new immigrants from different parts of the world and to teach them the language and the values of the state of Israel. However, the challenge of modernity forced the Kibboutzs to adapt to the modern world by becoming more flexible and including light industry, services, and money. Yet, it is legitimate to ask whether the Kibboutzs are doomed to perish as they already accomplished the aim they were designed for before 1948, or would they persist in new forms to face the future challenges Israel would be facing with its neighbors. It is also important to remind how much it is important to study the structures of the Kibboutzs as unique models in the world and to throw lessons for the construction of adapted democracies in the MENA region.

REFERENCE LIST

- Eyclopedia Judaica, online, 2006
- Chomsky, Noam. 2002. Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky. Peter R. Mitchell. New Press.
- Raphael, Joseph. 1980. The Communal Future: the Kibboutzs and the Utopian Dilemma. Sciences Socials des Religions. Vol 49, No 32. pp: 239-240.
- Ekert-Jaffé, Olivia. 1986. Effets et limites des aides financières aux familles: une expérience et un modèle. Population (French Edition). 41e Année, No. 2 (Mar., 1986). pp. 327- 357.
- Dieckhoff, Alain. 1989. Les trajectoires territoriales du Sionisme. Vingtième Siècle. Revue d'histoire. No. 21 (Jan., 1989), pp. 29-43.
- Barkai, Haim. 1979. Productivity and Factor Allocation in Kibbutz Farming and Manufacturing .Revue économique .Vol. 30, No. 1, Economie administree (Jan., 1979), pp. 144-161.
- Leibovici, Franck. 2003. Esquisse d'une histoire des Français en Israël. Vingtième Siècle. Revue d'histoire. No. 78 (Apr., 2003), pp. 3-17.
- Donath, Doris. 1964. La population juive d'Israël. Population (French Edition). 19e Année, No. 5 (Oct., 1964), pp. 941-956.
- Donath, Doris. 1968. Développement et sous-développement en Israël: aspects socio-culturels. Revue Française de Sociologie. Vol. 9, No. 4 (Oct., 1968), pp. 522-536.
- Danath, Doris.1969. L'intégration économique des immigrants nord-africains en Israël et des Juifs nord-africains en France (Essai d'étude comparative). Revue Française de Sociologie .Vol. 10, No. 4 (Oct., 1969), pp. 491-514.

A state is a political body which has well defined boundaries of its sovereign territories. A state must also have effective administration to rule its citizens, legal and defense structures to apply its laws as well as a taxation system to cover its expenses. In opposition to tribes and chiefdoms, states are the only sociopolitical systems which are not based on kinship but on citizenship. Archaic and modern states have different models, which have specific structures.

Some Sufi orders for religious and historical reasons succeeded in founding autonomous states inside other sovereign states. In Senegal for instance, many clerical city-states and Jihadi villages emerged as independent beings following some particular historical events. These city-states in Senegambia enjoy total autonomy from the central state, and run their territories as independent structures in all fields. In Kurdistan, the Sufi Derwish in Boiveh has a total control over their religious ceremonial lives and autonomous running of their administration and services. Yet, the Boiveh Derwish brotherhood can’t be considered fully as a state because it is still undergoing many pressures by the Iranian state and has no historical impregnation in time.

This paper will examine the characteristics of two main Senegambian autonomous regions: Touba and Pakao. The fist is a Sufi city-state of the Mouride brotherhood; the second is a region were autonomous Jihadi villages that run themselves in a local kind of organization. It would try to see if Touba and Pakao can be called States. Then, it would try to analyze the features of the Boiveh Derwish community with regards to modern state characteristics. This paper would focus mostly on the ceremonial, the economic and the administrative aspects of autonomy in the three studied cases.

The Example Of Touba

In 1206 Senegal was already a state under Sundieta Keita. It has a 44 points constitution an army and administrative structures. The first mention of a state in Senegal was in the early 9th century (Chronology, Sahel / West Africa). Therefore, the Senegambian has an important heritage from archaic states.

Touba is a very interesting case study in modern Senegal, as it is one of the rare deeply organized autonomous city-states in the world. “Touba is a Muslim holy city, and it is brand new. The city was founded in 1887 by Ahmadou Bamba Mbacké, the Sufi who established the Mouride brotherhood. Its construction was initiated in 1926, and its great mosque was inaugurated only in 1963” (Ross 2005, pp: 243). What is interesting about Touba, is not its being Senegal’s second largest city or its spiritual importance for million of followers of the Mouride brotherhood, but it is its status as an autonomous rural community, functioning as an independent state under the rule of the Khalifa General.

The phenomenon of the appearance of “autonomous Muslim towns” in West Africa and Senegambian history is mainly due to the introduction of Islam in the region. Educated clerical lineages appeared by the 17th century, and occupied important functions in royal courts and magical services. Thus, in exchange of their services, the clerical lineages obtained land where they established schools for Islamic education. Sufi brotherhoods rose only during the 19th century. Enjoying a special status under occupation, they started building their own private towns with the expansion of Islam in Senegal (Ross 2005).

Ceremonial life is very important in Touba as a holy city for the Mouride brotherhood. We may call Touba a Theocratic city state, because of the religious nature of the leadership system. The Khalifa General is a direct descendent of Ahmadou Bamba and is supposed to rule from a divine inspiration due to his position as the sheikh of the Sufi brotherhood. Ceremonial life is totally independent from the Senegalese Government, as the Mouride developed in Touba their own religious structures and infrastructures as it is the case in their other cities like: Darou Karim, Porokhane, and Touba Bagdad… The brotherhood designed a whole religious urban design to consolidate its power among its followers. The great central mosque, mausoleums, houses of the sheikh, religious schools and other buildings are there to remind of the holiness and religious autonomy of the town.

Touba is legally an independent city like the city of Madina-Gounass. “In Touba’s case the special status is base on conditions during the colonial period, when the French authorities came to an accommodation with the Mouride brotherhood… Since 1976 it has the status of communauté rurale autonome, or “autonomous rural community”” (Ross 2005, pp: 258). According to Dr. Ross’s research, for the Mourides it is obvious that Touba must be autonomous because of its spiritual value, but legally it is thanks to a 1928 lease proving that the city is constructed on a private property. As a result of this special status, Touba has its own administration, provides its own services and has nothing to do with state taxes or the intervention of government authorities, even if the president of Senegal is a Mouride follower. Touba also has its special laws imposed on all residents and visitors. The city’s law is a moral code inspired from the Islamic Chari’a and the teachings of the spiritual leaders, like: banishing songs, cigarettes and other practices, which are seen non-Islamic. Thus, punishment can be imposed on whom violates this moral code by the judiciary body of the city.

Economically, Touba was initially an agrarian town like other Jihad states in the region “where students paid their “tuition fees” by toiling their masters’ fields during agricultural seasons” (Ross 2005, pp: 250). Nowadays, agriculture is still important for Touba’s economy, but it has more of a tertiary sector based economy, as it provides mainly schooling and religious services. Touba don’t get any loans of financial support from the state. It gets its resources from the important contributions of the followers of the Mouride brotherhood in Senegal and other countries of the region. Consequently we can say that Touba is economically independent.

As we’ve proved, Touba can truly be considered as state. Touba benefits from the historical heritage of the Senegambian other city-states, and has developed under the French regime a special status. Therefore, Touba enjoys nowadays total independence in terms of religious practices, administrative and legal institutions as well as economic welfare.

The Example of Pakao

Ha Pulaarim is the social cast of fighters in the Senegambian region. The Pulars, who fought for Islam in the name of Jihad, moved to Futa Jalon after the defeat of Casamense, conquered the Mandinka and became the dominant social class in the Pakao villages since the 17th century. Therefore, many religiously based “Marabout states” raised on the region of Pakao since that period.

The Mandinka region of Pakao includes fertile lands and 160 miles of the Casamence River where many autonomous villages lays. In terms of administration, we can’t say that the Pakao villages are autonomous. “Administratively, Pakao lies in the department of Sédhiou, named for its capital. The department is divided into five districts. The one administrated from Djendé, near Sédhiou, subsumes Pakao. Karantaba, lying in Suna on the south bank, is the Tanaff district. The head of a district supervises the census and tax, provides identity cards, and some instances resolves disputes” (Shaffer & Cooper 1980, pp: 27). Hence, politically and administratively the Pakao can’t be called an autonomous region, since it pays taxes to the central state and even benefits from the state’s services like schooling and healing. Yet, “the idea that villages are independent of each other is very much a part of social ethic of Pakao” (Shaffer & Cooper 1980, pp: 44). The villages run themselves as autonomous unities since Islam destroyed the kinship system during the 19th century.

Ceremonial practices are impregnated deeply in the Mandinka people, as the villages were found first of all upon Islamic values. The Marabouts are the Islamic clerics, who claim to have supernatural powers of healing and predicting the future as oracles. Each Pakao village has its Marabouts, who maintain the link with orthodox Islam by going to pilgrimage. Islam, is present is a local form in all aspects of life like marriage, prayer or death (Shaffer & Cooper 1980, pp: 39-41).The Imams enjoy a very important role in the Pakao system as a leader of the prayers and a holy man, whereas a secular chief is designated to rule administrative and daily life issues of the village’s populations.

“Pakao is primarily a sedentary agricultural society dependent on a good rainy season for successful harvest” (Shaffer & Cooper 1980, pp: 28). Farming and agriculture are the main activities of the Pakao economy. Pakao villages were organized in cooperative associations to keep their autonomy and improve the incomes of their people, but in was a weak experience. Pakao villages aren’t totally independent from government programs and subventions.

Pakao villages are autonomous as small communities, but can’t be called States because they depend in many fields on the central state like: education, administration, taxation…

The Example Of The Boiveh Derwishs

Kurdish people never had a real state. The Kurdish people were most of their history living between the borders of other dominant countries, even if they repetitively claimed their right to a sovereign Nation State. Yet, The historical complex about not having a state was translated in the construction of autonomous Sufi communities like the Kaderi Derwish community which lives in Boiveh in Iran today.

Many Kurdish Sufi Derwishs moved from Iraq, during the late 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, to Iran. The Iranian government gave the communities lands in Boiveh where they could grow corps and practice freely their religious activities under the shelter of their sheikh.

Administratively, the situation of Boiveh is very problematic. The pilgrims from Iraq come every year to the town to visit their Sheikh, and the allegiance to the spiritual leader and kinship relationships goes beyond the borders of Iran and Iraq. However, Boiveh population has to follow the Iranian government in terms of the implementation of the Iranian educational system and compulsory military service as well as other administrative formalities (Moser 1987).

The administrative and other aspects of life seem very mild for the Boiveh Darwishs, who believe that “faith goes in daily work not only in ceremony” (Moser 1987). In fast, ceremonial life is at the forefront of the life of this community. Daily Dhikr ceremonies take place every day and auto-flagellation actions are administrated by adults and children in presence of the Sheikh Koha Mohammed, using snakes, electricity, swords, fire... The Sheik and his offspring are seen as holy people, who are in contact with the prophet and god, so they follow the path of initiation since their early years to get closer to god through the Sheikh. The sheik has also the authority to build mosques to consolidate the position of his tarika, as people come and work voluntarily and without payment following the words of their spiritual leader. A strict religious education and initiation is also one of the aspects of the autonomy of Boiveh. Yet, people in the town aren’t all obliged to assist to ceremonies and don’t get punished for that, since according to the Sufis religion is a personal practice (Moser 1987).

Economically, Boiveh is an agrarian town. People are farmers and merchants and work at the same time in the lands of the Sheikh and his sons without getting paid, as a sign of love for the Sheik. One of the men in the documentary even said: “We work for the Sheikh, because the Sheikh works for god” (Moser 1987). In the documentary we didn’t have enough proves about the economic autonomy of Boiveh (Moser 1987).

The Sufi Darwish brotherhood of Boiveh can’t be called a state, because it doesn’t have the powerful administration of economic system a state should have. In addition, Boiveh depends on the Iranian government in many ways like in military service and education despite its strong religious autonomy.

In this article we’ve seen three different autonomous regions that try to run their issues independently from the central state. In the case of Touba, it is very interesting to notice how notorious a Sufi brotherhood can be to benefit from all legal, religious and economic autonomy from the Senegalese state. Pakao which inherited the autonomous aspect of the Jihadi states can’t be considered as a full state because of the economic problems and the strong administrative presence of the state in its structures. As regards the Boiveh Sufi brotherhood, we noticed the prevalence of religious ceremonies over all other aspects of life. Consequently, Boiveh can be seen as a highly religiously autonomous town in the Shia state of Iran. Yet, the sate of refugees doesn’t allow the Boiveh people to claim more administrative autonomy.

As Dr. Ross noted in his article, we can say that maybe these forms of autonomous city-states provide natural examples for the success of a Globalized world where the Nation sate has less authority over its regions, which have specific needs and historical heritage.

REFERENCE LIST

- Ross, Eric. (2005). From ‘marabout republics' to ‘autonomous rural communities': autonomous Muslim towns in Senegambia. in African Urban Spaces in Historical Perspective, edited by Steven J. Salm & Toyin Falola. Rochester: University of Rochester Press.
- Morsen, Brian. (1987). Dervishes of Kurdistan. Disapearing World. Discovery Chanel. With anthropologist André Singer.
- Shaffer, Matt & Cooper, Christine. (1980). Mandinko. The Ethnography of a West African Holy Land. Waveland Press. Illinois.

Al Akhawayn University’s Hassani Club organized on April 28 its yearly edition of the Hassani Day. This event aims to promote the Hassani culture among the university’s culture by programming a day with many cultural activities. The program includes a big exposition of the Hassani rich handy craft by people from the southern regions of the country. The day also was the occasion for the guests to present tea and special corn and milk drink to the visitors. In addition, during night time a singing and dancing show was given in the restaurant for AUI students by professional Hassani performers, as to share the beauty and fun of the entertaining Hassani musical heritage.

Throughout the Hassani day, I noticed while assisting to the program that the Hassani culture has its own specificity. The Hassani handy craft is mainly composed of local material taken from the nature like silver, leather, wood and cloth. All the decoration was very simple with a clear influence of the Black African forms of art especially in the jewelry. The handy craft shows a big cultural mixture with Mauritania and Mali and other West African regions, since the symbols and material is quite the same. Among the symbols that were represented in the craft we can easily distinguish the Islamic influence, as the croissant with the star is present on the cloths and the decorations. Magical symbols are very important too, because in some of the jewelry and handy craft I noticed the traces of magical squares which act as talismans. The Hassani Music is very simple and Rhythmic and relies on local Hassani poetry and slow movements. Further more, the Hassani food is very different from the rest of Morocco. Hassani alimentation is mainly based on rice and animal milk as well as corn, whereas the Moroccan food in mainly based on bread and cattle meat. The dressing is also obviously very different. Hassani people were the Melhfa for the women and the Daraiya for the men like Mauritanian and other desert people, and we notice very rare people wearing modern European style cloths as most of them wear it under their traditional cloths.

Even if Hassani people share some tribal values with the rest of Moroccan people, they still constitute an anthropological exception. In Hassani culture the women play the most important role in the family. Women are preferred big and tall as a sign of local beauty and social wealth. The cast system is very rigid, and the Arab Bedouins lay on the top of the social cast. Hassani people even tend to see other Moroccans as inferior to them, as they are more tribally organized and still respect the traditions. Islam has a very important place in education and Coranic schools for youngsters are very common in the south. Hassani people have their own pace of life. They don’t like to rush themselves and do things very slowly for enjoying every moment of life, so being quick or active is seen as inconvenient. The southern regions of Morocco are also known for the strong oral tradition and the importance of classical and local poetry, which is present in most of the men or family reunions.

Hassani culture is very important and rich for the Moroccan melting pot. Yet, other Moroccan people know very few things about this culture because of years and years of psychological distance. The Sahara conflict and the special treatment of the Southern regions as well as rumors played a negative role in creating stereotypes and antipathies between the Hassani people and the other Moroccans. In stead of doing a politic of cultural openness and assimilation the responsibles of the Sahara issues tended to impose cultural separation. Consequently, we see no aspect of Hassani art or culture inside the big cities like musical tapes or cloths and no Hassani cultural books were published.

I think that to promote the Hassani culture among other Moroccans many actions should be done from both sides and at the small and decision making level. First of all, Hassani culture should be present in the Moroccan education from primary school. At least pictures of Hassani people and texts about Hassani story and poetry should be included in manuals, as to permit the self identification of Hassani children with these manuals and the familiarization of other children with these people that they see as blue zombies nowadays. At a bigger level, I think Hassani culture department should be includes in Moroccan public universities and anthropological studies should be done and published by the state. Local tourism can play an important role in knowing more the culture of the region. Tourism agencies should stop their orientalist discourse about the exotic south and try to show a more realistic image about the region. On the smaller level, Hassani students in big cities like Agadir and Rabat should try to mix more with others and even organize cultural days instead of living in isolation. The civil society is very active in the south, so it would be easy to organize expositions and music festivals about the Hassani culture. Media also has a very important role, as it should stop showing sand and palms and start giving more importance to the human potential and the local culture as to broadcast it to the rest of Morocco.

The Hassani Culture is very rich and can be an added value to the Moroccan melting pot with its originality and Saharian African influences, if many measures would be taken. Both Hassani people and other Moroccans should cross their cultural distance and build bridges that transcend political issues through: education, tourism, festivals, Medias… We live in a kind of distorted image about each other and the rest of Moroccans tend to see the south with an internal orientalist perception. This perception can’t easily change especially while dealing with a rigid Hassani tribal mind. Yet, cultural communication is the only way to unite different people in the same constructed country.