Street Art, Festivity, and the Politics of Possession in the Moroccan Urban Space
Farouk El Maarouf
Street Art, Festivity, and the Politics of Possession in the Moroccan Urban Space
MECAM Papers English | 2022
Recently, festivals have come to acquire unprecedented importance in Morocco. Today, one can enjoy an entire year full of the country’s different festivities, among them Mawazine, the Gnaoua Festival, the Almond Blossom Festival, the Fez Festival of World Sacred Music, and the Imilchil Marriage Festival.
Structurally, Moroccan festivals have undergone a crucial change during the last 20 years. They are no longer discrete and isolated cultural events. They have shifted from being typically local and rural celebrations (moussems) to events global in nature. Ideologically, they are rationally produced and professionally managed. Socially, they are arbitrated through a volatile, unsteady, and yet innovative context of sociopolitical conflict.
While analysing the Jidar Street Art Festival more specifically, the article discusses the politics of possession regarding the city walls in Morocco’s capital, as taking place through small-scale, personal endeavours or with large-scale visibility under state patronage.
As such, the Jidar Street Art Festival has a great impact on the cultural and local
understanding of the urban city. The murals become the urban image, functioning
along the lines of city gentrification, and a representation of the world which
systematically ignores the truth on the ground lying beyond the colourful walls
higher up.
Context
Looking at contemporary festivals in Morocco points to the lurking hierarchies,
hegemonies, and modes of suppression which can help to unravel the urban conflicts and resulting resistance based on the execution of cultural practices shaped by powerful actors like the state.
Ghana and Tunisia have often been framed as beacons of democracy in their respective regions. However, as Ghana’s democracy matured over decades, Tunisia’s experiment ultimately collapsed. This paper examines diverse factors shaping their paths, offering lessons on the risks of democratic backsliding.
