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THE SOUNDS OF NATIONALISM: MUSIC, MOROCCANISM, AND THE MAKING OF SAMY ELMAGHRIBI

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 February 2020

Christopher Silver
Christopher Silver*
Affiliation:
Christopher Silver is Segal Family Assistant Professor in Jewish History and Culture, Department of Jewish Studies, at McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada; email: chris.silver@mcgill.ca
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Abstract

Samy Elmaghribi was a mid-twentieth century Moroccan superstar. From his debut in 1948 through his professional zenith in 1956, the Jewish musician was a ubiquitous presence on radio and in concert. His popularity owed to his pioneering of modern Moroccan music and to his performance of Moroccan nationalism through song and on stage. Elmaghribi's brand of anti-colonial nationalism, however, was not that of any particular political party. Instead, he espoused what might be termed, “Moroccanism,” a territorial nationalism that placed Sultan Mohamed ben Youssef at its center. Like Elmaghribi, it enjoyed widespread support. This study demonstrates that a focus on musical culture gives voice to mainstream forms of Moroccan nationalism that have received little scholarly attention to date. It also points to the active participation of Jews in postwar MENA societies. Finally, this article reconsiders the dynamics of decolonization through study of Elmaghribi's career, which spanned colony and independent nation.

Keywords

Elmaghribi, SamyMoroccan JewsMohamed V, Sultan of Morocconationalismnationalist music
Type
Article
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 52 , Issue 1 , February 2020 , pp. 23 - 47
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2020

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References

1 Approximately 90,000 Moroccan Jews, out of a total Moroccan Jewish population of some 250,000, settled in France, Israel, and North America between 1948 and 1960. See Kenbib, Mohammed, Juifs et musulmans au Maroc, 1859–1948 (Rabat: Faculté des lettres et des sciences humaines–Rabat, 1994), 595Google Scholar; Baïda, Jamaâ, “The Emigration of Moroccan Jews, 1948–1956,” in Jewish Culture and Society in North Africa, ed. Gottreich, Emily Benichou and Schroeter, Daniel J. (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2010), 321Google Scholar; Bin-Nun, Yigal, “The Contribution of World Jewish Organizations to the Establishment of Rights for Jews in Morocco (1956–1961),” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 9, no. 2 (2010): 253CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Correspondence, 17 August 1956, Samy Elmaghribi Archive (hereafter SEA). Elmaghribi settled in Montreal in 1967, where he continued to maintain a vast personal archive that had traveled with him from Morocco to France and finally to Canada. In Montreal, he served as the cantor of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue until 1996. Since his death in 2008, his youngest daughter Yolande Amzallag has meticulously cared for his archival materials. This and all subsequent correspondence cited are maintained in Montreal.

3 Correspondence, 28 August 1956, SEA.

4 Musicologists, however, have paid closer attention. See Mohammed El Haddaoui, “Symbiose judeo-arabe au Maroc: la contribution des juifs marocains à la culture de leur pays; Samy El-Maghribi (Salomon Amzallag), sa production poétique et musicale,” (PhD diss., Université de Paris VIII–Vincennes à Saint-Denis, 1987).

5 Miller, Susan Gilson, “Filling a Historical Parenthesis: An Introduction to ‘Morocco from World War II to Independence,’” Journal of North African Studies, 19, no. 4 (2014): 461–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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7 See Stenner, David, Globalizing Morocco: Transnational Activism and the Postcolonial State (Redwood City, CA.: Stanford University Press, 2019)Google Scholar.

8 On the centrality of Sultan Mohamed ben Youssef in the postwar years, see Miller, Susan Gilson, A History of Modern Morocco (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Miller describes an atmosphere of “monarchy fever” that pervaded Morocco from the late 1940s onward (148). Daniel Zisenwine has argued that at various points French officials feared what he refers to as “sultanian nationalism” more than the Istiqlal. See Zisenwine, Daniel, The Emergence of Nationalist Politics in Morocco: The Rise of the Independence Party and the Struggle against Colonialism after World War II (London: Tauris Academic Studies, 2010), 122Google Scholar. Both Miller's “monarchy fever” and Zisenwine's “sultanian nationalism” are constitutive of what is referred to in this essay as Moroccanism. Despite these interventions, the notion that reverence for the sultan at mid-century was merely the continuation of centuries-old tradition––as John P. Halstead claimed in his foundational monograph––has persisted in some of the scholarship, especially in the case of Moroccan Jews. For the general case, see Halstead, John P., Rebirth of a Nation: The Origins and Rise of Moroccan Nationalism, 1912–1944 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Middle Eastern Monographs, 1967)Google Scholar. Given that Sultan Mohamed ben Youssef was both a nationalist symbol and a nationalist with a strategy, the Moroccanism of Samy Elmaghribi begs revision of a static approach to the monarchist element in Moroccan nationalism.

9 Fahmy, Ziad, Ordinary Egyptians: Creating the Modern Nation through Popular Culture (Redwood City, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011)Google Scholar.

10 Reynolds, Nancy Y., A City Consumed: Urban Commerce, the Cairo Fire, and the Politics of Decolonization in Egypt (Redwood City, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013)Google Scholar.

11 Ibid, 64.

12 See Bashkin, Orit, New Babylonians: A History of Jews in Modern Iraq (Redwood City, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012)Google Scholar; Sternfeld, Lior, Between Iran and Zion: Jewish Histories of Twentieth-Century Iran (Redwood City, CA: Stanford University Press, 2018)Google Scholar; Heckman, Alma Rachel, “Jewish Radicals of Morocco: Case Study for a New Historiography,” Jewish Social Studies 23, no. 3 (2018): 67–100CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Foll-Luciani, Pierre-Jean Le, Les juifs algériens dans la lutte anticoloniale: trajectoires dissidentes; 1934–1965 (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Consider Mohammed Kenbib's magisterial Juifs et musulmans, which tellingly concludes with the year 1948.

14 Orit Bashkin and Sarah Abrevaya Stein have both identified a historiographical shift of late in the scholarship on Middle Eastern and North African Jews that increasingly lays emphasis on Jewish politics and culture in the modern Middle East and North Africa. That approach has been propelled by scholars working “in-between” Middle Eastern studies and Jewish studies, to paraphrase Stein, who have begun to think past binaries associated with one body of scholarship or another. See Bashkin, Orit, “The Middle Eastern Shift and Provincializing Zionism,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 46, no. 3 (2014), 577–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Sarah Abrevaya Stein, “The Field of In-Between,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 46, no. 3, 581–83.

15 Elmaghribi and his nationalist music, which spanned the years before and after independence, stand in contrast to later claims made by some nationalists that engagement with popular culture was put on hold during French colonial rule. Ait Mous, for instance, draws on Mohamed El Fassi, Morocco's first minister of education, distinguished member of Istiqlal and a scholar of the urban colloquial music genre of malhun, in stating that popular culture had to be “postponed until after independence, as showing interest in it during the Protectorate would have been synonymous with colonial policy.” Ait Mous, “Moroccan Nationalist Movement,” 749.

16 Zohra El Fassia (née Hamou) was born in Sefrou, Morocco, in 1905 and died in Ashkelon, Israel, in 1994. El Fassia reached the height of her popularity in Morocco at the same time as Samy Elmaghribi. She left Morocco for Israel in 1962.

17 Mohamed Fouiteh, Ahmed Jabrane, and Abdelwahab Agoumi were among a number of artists who married Egyptian music to Moroccan music and established a national form that has been referred to as “modern Moroccan music” (in Arabic, ʿasri; in French, la musique marocaine moderne). See Salah Cherki, La musique marocaine (n.p., 1982).

18 The Tunisians Hedi Jouini and Mohamed Jamoussi toured Morocco postwar, as did the Algerian Abderrahman Aziz and many others.

19 Farid El Atrache was born in Syria in 1917. He was a nephew of Sultan al-Atrash, the Druze leader who led the 1925 Great Syrian Revolt against the French. As a result of the French occupation, El Atrache and his family departed for Egypt, where he would spend the duration of his career. He died in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1974 and is buried in Cairo, Egypt. A musician, composer, and film star, El Atrache was one of the most highly regarded Middle Eastern artists of the 20th century.

20 See David Stenner, “Networking for Independence: The Moroccan Nationalist Movement's Global Campaign against Colonialism, 1930–1958” (PhD diss., University of California–Davis, 2015), 66.

21 “Concert de musique orientale,” 31 August 1946, Centre des Archives Diplomatiques de Nantes (hereafter CADN) MA/200/193.

22 In 1937, the French Residency sent ʿAllal al-Fasi into exile. In 1947, he was permitted to visit Paris and return to Morocco. He then established himself in Cairo, Egypt, from where he resumed activities on behalf of the Istiqlal.

23 On Moroccan Jewish positionality, see Wyrtzen, Making Morocco, 180–218.

24 Ibid., 137. There are parallels in Wyrtzen to James McDougall's treatment of Algerian nationalism. See McDougall, James, History and the Culture of Nationalism in Algeria (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006)Google Scholar.

25 Reynolds, City Consumed, 4.

26 Ibid.

27 On the Istiqlal and Moroccan Jews, see Kenbib, Juifs et musulmans, 661–87.

28 Untitled, 8 February 1951, CADN/MA/200/193.

29 Untitled, 1 February 1951, CADN/MA/200/193.

30 Ibid. Farid El Atrache was Druze, not Jewish. His origins, unfamiliar to many Moroccans, may have confused. Confusion may have also stemmed from an association of popular entertainment with Jewishness. In Sherifa Zuhur's book on El Atrache's sister Asmahan, who was herself a major star of the interwar period and the subject of numerous rumors, the author argues that Egyptians of the era believed that musicians and film actors were for the most part Jewish and Christian. See Zuhur, Sherifa, Asmahan's Secrets: Woman, War, and Song, Middle East Monograph Series, no. 13 (Austin, TX: Center for Middle Eastern Studies, University of Texas, 2000), 16Google Scholar.

31 “Note de Renseignements,” 8 February 1951, CADN/MA/200/193.

32 In 1931, Pathé merged with other large record labels to form Pathé Electric and Musical Industries (EMI), or Pathé-Marconi EMI.

33 L. A. Vadrot to Monsieur le Chef de Bataillon Perrony, Contrôleur du Secteur Ancienne Médina, 30 April 1948, SEA.

34 The spelling would soon change to “Elmaghribi.”

35 Many musicians took stage names that referred to cities. For example, Zohra “El Fassia” reflected her origins in Fez (Fas).

36 Elmoghrabi's earliest releases on Pathé included “Nahdat Elfellah” (Nahdat al-Fallah; The Peasant's Awakening) and “Nachid El Malik” (Nashid al-Malik; The King's Anthem).

37 See Cherki, La musique marocaine.

38 The 6/8 rhythm, known as berouali (birwali), is typical of Maghribian musical practices. It signals the popular and is often tied to dancing, clapping, and ululation. On sports, physical culture, and nationalism in another MENA setting, see Jacob, Wilson Chako, Working Out Egypt: Effendi Masculinity and Subject Formation in Colonial Modernity, 1870–1940 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39 Denise returned to Morocco temporarily in 1953 to live with Elmaghribi. For the traditional view of the departure of Moroccans Jews, see Laskier, Michael, North African Jewry in the Twentieth Century: The Jews of Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria (New York: New York University Press, 1994)Google Scholar. For a fresh perspective, see Aviad Moreno, “Beyond the Nation-State: A Network Analysis of Jewish Emigration from Northern Morocco to Israel,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 52(1). https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020743819000916

40 Correspondence, 23 December 1949, SEA.

41 “A Monsieur Samy El Moghrabi,” 11 September 1949, SEA.

42 Note from Radio Maroc, 19 October 1949, SEA.

43 Note from L.A. Vadrot, 20 October 1949, SEA.

44 “Emissions Arabes,” 29 November 1949, SEA.

45 Koutoubia, 4 December 1949, SEA.

46 The number 2,466 represents the return to Morocco of some fifteen percent of all émigrés. Laskier, North African Jewry, 126.

47 Simon “Salim” Halali was born in Bône (Annaba), Algeria, in 1920 and died in Cannes, France, in 2005. By the late 1930s, the Algerian Jewish teenager had signed with Pathé. His interwar and postwar Arabic-language popular recordings made Halali among the most prolific and iconic North African recording artists of his generation. Marooned in Paris in summer 1940, just as Germany occupied northern France, Halali survived the Second World War while hiding in the Grand Mosque in the fifth arrondissement of the capital. On the role played by the Grand Mosque during World War II, see Katz, Ethan, “Did the Paris Mosque Save Jews? A Mystery and Its Memory,” Jewish Quarterly Review 102, no. 2 (Spring 2012): 256–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a fictionalized account of Halali's rescue, see the film Les Hommes Libres, directed by Ismaël Ferroukhi (Pyramide Productions, 2011).

48 “Ordre,” 1 July 1942, CADN/MA/200/193.

49 See Silver, Christopher, “Nationalist Records: Jews, Muslims, and Music in Interwar North Africa,” in Dynamic Jewish-Muslim Interactions in Performance Culture across the Maghreb and France, 1920–2020, ed. Everett, Sami and Vince, Rebekah (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, forthcoming 2020)Google Scholar.

50 “Disques interdits,” 18 September 1948, CADN/MA/200/193.

51 As Miller has argued, Moroccan nationalists “became increasingly convinced that the days of the Protectorate were numbered” at the time and began building institutions for when that day would arrive (History of Modern Morocco, 149).

52 This phrase adorned Elmaghribi's early concert posters.

53 Correspondence, 17 February 1950, SEA.

54 “SENSATIONNEL REVOLUTION dans la Musique Orientale!” 9 September 1950, SEA.

55 Correspondence, 24 August 1951, SEA.

56 Correspondence, 14 August 1951, SEA.

57 Correspondence, 22 February 1952, SEA.

58 Correspondence, 22 August 1952, SEA.

59 On Throne Day, see Wyrtzen, Making Morocco, 161, and Miller, History of Modern Morocco, 131.

60 Correspondence, 24 November 1952, SEA.

61 According to Elmaghribi, Radio Maroc received a new transmitter in winter 1952. See Correspondence, 15 January 1952, SEA.

62 “Attestation,” 28 February 1952, SEA.

63 Stenner, “Networking for Independence,” 216. Wyrtzen has written that the Residency believed that Coca-Cola supported the Moroccan nationalist cause (Making Morocco, 260–61). Coca-Cola also sponsored Elmaghribi's concerts.

64 Correspondence, 28 July 1952, SEA.

65 As in the early 20th century, North African musicians continued to circulate across the Maghrib and sometimes the Mashriq. It is worth considering that no history of Moroccan, Algerian, or Tunisian music is complete without speaking about this movement of music and musicians across borders. For more, see Glasser, Jonathan, The Lost Paradise: Andalusi Music in Urban North Africa (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

66 Blond Blond was the stage name of Algerian Jewish musician Albert Rouimi (1919–1999).

67 Correspondence, 23 June 1952, SEA.

68 “Une salle comble pour ecouter Samy Elmaghribi,” Maroc-Presse, 30 April 1953.

69 Correspondence, 20 May 1953, SEA.

70 Zisenwine, Emergence of Nationalist Politics, 211.

71 Sater, James N., Morocco: Challenges to Tradition and Modernity (New York: Routledge, 2016), 28CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

72 “Tournée de la troupe SAMY ELMAGHRIBI,” 12 April 1953, CADN/MA/200/193.

73 “Troupes théâtres,” CADN/MA/200/193.

74 Correspondence, 22 August 1953, SEA.

75 S. O., “Les emissions arabes de la television marocaine: Samy El Maghribi a son enthousiasmé son public,” Maroc-Presse, 15 March 1954.

76 Correspondence, 13 April 1954, SEA.

77 The song is usually associated with Halali, who later recorded it for the Polydor label under the title “Sidi H'bibi.”

78 “Emissions arabes de Radio-Maroc,” 14 January 1954, CADN/MA/200/193.

79 “Disques Arabes,” 15 February 1955, CADN/MA/200/193.

80 “Les volleyeuses du CAF et les footballeurs de ASPTT ont fêté leurs succès en compagnie des artistes Ahmed Wahbi, Samy El Maghribi, et Mohamed Tahar Fergani,” Alger Republicain, 23 December 1954.

81 H. Abdel Kader, “Un triomphal succès a été réservé à Samy el Maghribi, grande vedette de la chanson,” La Depeche Quotidienne, 28 December 1954. That Algerian Jews, French citizens since the Crémieux Decree of 1870 and largely Francophone as a result, continued to seek out (and perform) Arab music well through the Algerian Revolution (1954–1962) raises important questions about Jewish identity and indigeneity in line with Bahloul's, JoelleThe Architecture of Memory: A Jewish-Muslim Household in Colonial Algeria, 1937–1962 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996)Google Scholar and Sarah Stein's, AbrevayaSaharan Jews and the Fate of French Algeria (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

82 “Magnifique succès de Sami el Moghribi et de Abdelwahab Agoumi,” Oran Republicain, 29 December 1954.

83 El Bouchra, “Au Théâtre Municipal: Samy el Moghrebi et Omar el Tantawy (que les Oranais ne connaissaient pas) et Abd el Wahab Agoumi (que les Oranais connaissaient bien) ont été éblouissants,” Echo Soir, 27 December 1954.

84 Nashid can refer to a song, hymn, or anthem. It is also a genre of devotional Islamic song that is mostly performed a cappella. The anthemic quality of Elmaghribi's nationalist music resonates with what Ziad Fahmy describes as “the rhythmic martial music beat,” of the post–World War I nationalist songs of Egypt's Sayyid Darwish. See Fahmy, Ordinary Egyptians, 166.

85 See Kably, Mohamed, Histoire du Maroc: réactualisation et synthèse (Rabat: ed. de l'Institut royal pour la recherche sur l'histoire du Maroc, 2012), 632Google Scholar.

86 Samy Elmaghribi, “Fi Aid Archek Ya Sultan,” Samyphone, no. 7, 1955.

87 Correspondence, 14 November 1955, SEA.

88 “Samy Elmaghribi reçu par SA MAJESTE SIDI MOHAMMED V á St-Germain-en-Laye le 6 novembre 1955,” 6 November 1955, SEA.

89 Correspondence, 12 December 1955, SEA.

90 Correspondence, 23 January 1956, SEA.

91 Ibid.

92 Untitled newspaper clipping, January 1956, SEA.

93 By embracing Samy Elmaghribi post-independence, along with other Jewish artists, the sultan asserted his musical preferences while positioning himself as the leader of all Moroccans, regardless of ethno-religious or social divisions. This move also may have served to undercut the Istiqlal.

94 Correspondence, 11 May 1956, SEA.

95 Correspondence, 15 May 1956, SEA.

96 The song “Allah al Ouatan ou Malik” (Allah, al-Watan, wa-l-Malik; God, Country, King) appeared on the other side of the disc. That triptych was enshrined as the national motto in Morocco's first constitution in 1962.

97 See Albert Suissa, Ughniyya Sayyid Muhammad al-Khamis, Editions N. Sabbah, no. 45, c. 1956; and Zohra El Fassia, “El Malik Ben Youcef,” Pathé, PV 535, 1957.

98 Yigal Nizri (University of Toronto) and Yassine Touati first shared with me their translation of “Allah, Ouatani oua Soultani.” Based on lyrics found in the SEA, the translation has been amended slightly. All errors are mine alone.

99 Correspondence, 15 May 1956, SEA.

100 Correspondence, 1 March 1959, SEA.

101 Correspondence, 2 March 1959, SEA.

102 Correspondence, 27 April 1960, SEA.

103 M. P., “Entre Paris et New York: Samy El Maghribi donnera deux récitals au Maroc,” Le Petit Marocain, 5 May 1967.