{"id":631,"date":"2013-10-09T12:53:25","date_gmt":"2013-10-09T12:53:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/maghrebi-voices.swarthmore.edu\/?p=631"},"modified":"2024-04-19T19:24:15","modified_gmt":"2024-04-19T19:24:15","slug":"aarf-the-law-underneath-the-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maghrebi-voices.swarthmore.edu\/?p=631","title":{"rendered":"Aazerf: the law underneath the law"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the start of our tour of Telouet schools, we stop for a breakfast break. \u00a0We three visitors (and later, the teacher Lahcen) traipse across the road to have some tea with a man I take to be the director of the school; Ahmed describes him as the chief of the village.
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\nTea turns out to be more elaborate than I had anticipated. The house is traditional pis\u00e9 architecture (\u201cTake a photo of the roof,\u201d Ahmed and Hassan urge me: the traditional beams are palm trunks).
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\nOur host, El Basheer, vanishes briefly; a woman greets us shyly then vanishes as well. When El Basheer returns, he brings with him traditional hand-washing equipment: Ahmed picks up the soap and washes his hands over the basin while El Basheer pours the warm water. We all take turns. Once you\u2019ve washed and dried your hands, you pour for the person next to you in line; soap waits on the edge of the container catching the water.
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\nThen comes the sweet tea, along with four loaves of fresh, hot bread, with honey and butter and olive oil and olives. The bread is particularly good\u2014warm, thick, light, and crusty\u2014but it\u2019s all delicious, and we give it our full attention. I worry briefly that if each school visit is going to include this kind of food, I may not be able to keep up.<\/p>\n

The Tamazight-and-Darija conversation washes over me, with periodic breaks for translation into French, mostly by Ahmed. We canvass my appearance as an American, and the three men discuss previous American NGOs active in the area, along with the much greater French activity at present. The obligatory family inquiries turn up an interesting detail: El Basheer\u2019s nephew is going to university for Islamic studies, something of a scandal because El Basheer himself is an old lefty, a member of the Istiqlal (the nationalist party). El Basheer smiles at me: \u201cI just can\u2019t understand it!\u201d That younger generation\u2026\u201d By process of association, conversation shifts to the city of Kelaa-M\u2019Gouna, where Hassan is now inspector of schools. Kelaa-M\u2019Gouna is known for its political polarization: it sends half of its graduates to university in Islamic studies, the other half to university for Amazigh or Berber studies. How do these opposites co-exist in one city?<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a>Then the conversation turns to a recent announcement from the local minister of education: all female teachers will be assigned to schools in Ouarzazate itself; all male teachers will be sent out to the small villages. It\u2019s a potentially gallant gesture, saving young women from harsh living conditions: no electricity or running water in some places. But no one thinks the announcement is a good idea. What happened to equality? \u201cIl est fou!\u201d El Basheer sums up for my benefit. The minister of education is crazy! \u201cIt would have been simple to achieve the same effect without making such a stupid announcement. Now he\u2019s got everyone\u2019s back up.\u201d<\/p>\n

As we walk back out to the car, I thank El Basheer for his hospitality and mention in passing Ahmed\u2019s remark that El Basheer is the chief of the village. I mean only to extend the compliment. But El Basheer takes issue\u2014serious issue\u2014with this statement: \u201cI am not the chief! I am an elected official\u2014un \u00e9lu\u00e9. A chief is something from the past. I am elected, elected! I am no different from any other member of the village.\u201d<\/p>\n

OK, I get it: I\u2019ve made a post-colonial blunder. I seem politically na\u00efve. \u201cYou want me to know you\u2019re not like the Glaoui.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo! I\u2019m an elected official. Elected. A chief is for life.\u201d<\/p>\n

I try to shift the focus a little by asking about the size and composition of the village. There are five families in the village\u2014founding families, some of whom live further out now\u2014and each of these five families sends a representative to a kind of village council. Total population: roughly 475 people. (Those are big families, I think to myself: multiple generations.)
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\nThere are disputes about land and sometimes about other resources, but most of these are easily resolved. As we drill down into the details, El Basheer tries to clarify for me: this is l\u2019aazerf, the ancient, oral tradition of governance. It underlies the rule of law, and it rests a little uneasily under the government and the structure of modern law. The government accepts it, because it serves the interests of the government in resolving local conflicts and issues, but l\u2019aazerf is neither the modern government nor the law.<\/p>\n

Hassan and Ahmed are waiting for me by the car; we all say our goodbyes and then the three of us drive off.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe didn\u2019t like it when I called him the chief,\u201d I say, partly to explain the length of the conversation I\u2019d been having.<\/p>\n

Ahmed smiles. \u201cNonetheless, El Basheer is the chief.\u201d I look back at him in surprise. \u201cAbsolutely. Every person in that village would move the entire village a mile up or downriver at a gesture from his little finger.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wanted me to know he was an elected official, not a chief.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ahmed\u2019s smile deepens. \u201cOh, yes, he\u2019s elected. He didn\u2019t want to run for office, so each of the families in the village sent a representative to ask\u2014or really to insist\u2014that he accept the role. The elected chief.\u201d<\/p>\n

We turn a sharp corner to find a large truck barreling at us and conversation halts as Hassan slams on the breaks. The car stalls. We take a communal breath.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was protecting the car,\u201d Hassan explains with a grin, starting up again.<\/p>\n

\u201cThank you!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was scared,\u201d teases Ahmed from the backseat.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was scared too!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut not me,\u201d says Ahmed, \u201cbecause I\u2019m further back.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the start of our tour of Telouet schools, we stop for a breakfast break. \u00a0We three visitors (and later, the teacher Lahcen) traipse across the road to have some tea with a man I take to be the director of the school; Ahmed describes him as the chief of the village. Tea turns out … Continue reading Aazerf: the law underneath the law<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4JDdJ-ab","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maghrebi-voices.swarthmore.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maghrebi-voices.swarthmore.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maghrebi-voices.swarthmore.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maghrebi-voices.swarthmore.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maghrebi-voices.swarthmore.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=631"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/maghrebi-voices.swarthmore.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2834,"href":"https:\/\/maghrebi-voices.swarthmore.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631\/revisions\/2834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maghrebi-voices.swarthmore.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maghrebi-voices.swarthmore.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maghrebi-voices.swarthmore.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}