For a Culture Beyond Borders ---- Rot Bo Krik publishers have a knack
for offering us reference works in beautifully illustrated covers
featuring drawings by Morris, a socialist and promoter of Art Deco.
Paraska Tolan-Szkilnik, a French-American historian, works on issues of
race, sex, and gender in the postcolonial Maghreb. She teaches the
history of North Africa and the Pan-African movement at Cornell
University in the United States. After numerous articles on these
themes, she has published her first book: Black Maghreb: Rabat, Algiers,
and Tunis in the Pan-African Struggles. ---- For her, for more than a
decade after Algeria's independence, "two different forms of
Pan-Africanism clashed in the Maghreb. The first was a state-sponsored
project staged for everyone through public events." The other was a
project wary of the state, led by a fluctuating group of activist
artists who created a Pan-African culture, opposed both to the
interminable consequences of European colonialism and to the
authoritarianism of post-colonial states. Rather than remaining focused
on grand ceremonies and the control of the apparatus, which is now being
revealed without disguise, we must rediscover dissident Pan-Africanism
in alternative spaces of political engagement for artists.
This is the path the author traces for us. Everyone knows Algiers'
involvement in the struggle and sub-Saharan causes, but it should be
noted that Rabat, in a much more discreet way, served as a rear base for
anti-colonial opponents in the Portuguese colonies. The political
struggle is obvious, but more interestingly, the author evokes the
intellectuals who participated in building this spirit through culture,
poetry, and cinema.
"A multitude of activists"
It is important to emphasize that the Sahara is not a border, as has too
often been believed, and that North Africa is a gateway to Europe.
Pan-Africanism is composed of people and ideas in constant evolution,
multilingual and multiracial. "As soon as the ideas of Pan-Africanism no
longer concerned exclusively Black populations, a multitude of
activists-Black, Arab, White, and Amazigh-living in the Maghreb in the
1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, seized upon the Pan-African project and
radically transformed it."
Paraska Tolan-Szkilnik's idea is to expand the horizons of Black
internationalism by introducing a new center of Black thought: the
cities of the Black Maghreb. Her reflections began in Rabat in the
1950s, then Algiers in the 1960s, and finally Tunis in the 1970s.
In Rabat, anti-colonial activists from the Portuguese colonies met with
Moroccan intellectuals, including Abdellatif Laâbi, founder of the
journal Souffles, which, in seven years, became a crucial forum for debate.
Algiers welcomed revolutionaries from across Africa, the Americas, and
Asia. Amílcar Cabral nicknamed it "The Mecca of Revolutionaries." The
presence of Frantz Fanon undoubtedly contributed to this (see "DES IDEES
ET DES LUTTES" on the Le Monde libertaire website, June 21, 2025: Frantz
Fanon, A Life in Revolutions). Yet, a clear dichotomy existed between
the authoritarianism of the Algerian regime and the aspirations for
freedom of the anti-colonial activists. We can spare a thought for Jean
Sénac, poet, supporter of Algerian independence, somewhat of an
anarchist, and for a time close to Albert Camus, assassinated in Algiers
in 1973, rejected by the regime. The power of arms does not favor the
power of words, of poetry. The images chosen by Paraska Tolan-Szkilnik
evoke memories and struggles; some demonstrate that the fight for Black
women is not over. She concludes her book by evoking the imperative need
to gather the memories and archives of these encounters, those of an
intelligence in constant development and of the aspiration for freedom.
* Paraska Tolan-Szkilnik
Black Maghreb,
Rabat, Algiers and Tunis in the Pan-African Struggles.
Rot Bo Krik Publishing, 2025
https://monde-libertaire.net/?articlen=8683
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
for offering us reference works in beautifully illustrated covers
featuring drawings by Morris, a socialist and promoter of Art Deco.
Paraska Tolan-Szkilnik, a French-American historian, works on issues of
race, sex, and gender in the postcolonial Maghreb. She teaches the
history of North Africa and the Pan-African movement at Cornell
University in the United States. After numerous articles on these
themes, she has published her first book: Black Maghreb: Rabat, Algiers,
and Tunis in the Pan-African Struggles. ---- For her, for more than a
decade after Algeria's independence, "two different forms of
Pan-Africanism clashed in the Maghreb. The first was a state-sponsored
project staged for everyone through public events." The other was a
project wary of the state, led by a fluctuating group of activist
artists who created a Pan-African culture, opposed both to the
interminable consequences of European colonialism and to the
authoritarianism of post-colonial states. Rather than remaining focused
on grand ceremonies and the control of the apparatus, which is now being
revealed without disguise, we must rediscover dissident Pan-Africanism
in alternative spaces of political engagement for artists.
This is the path the author traces for us. Everyone knows Algiers'
involvement in the struggle and sub-Saharan causes, but it should be
noted that Rabat, in a much more discreet way, served as a rear base for
anti-colonial opponents in the Portuguese colonies. The political
struggle is obvious, but more interestingly, the author evokes the
intellectuals who participated in building this spirit through culture,
poetry, and cinema.
"A multitude of activists"
It is important to emphasize that the Sahara is not a border, as has too
often been believed, and that North Africa is a gateway to Europe.
Pan-Africanism is composed of people and ideas in constant evolution,
multilingual and multiracial. "As soon as the ideas of Pan-Africanism no
longer concerned exclusively Black populations, a multitude of
activists-Black, Arab, White, and Amazigh-living in the Maghreb in the
1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, seized upon the Pan-African project and
radically transformed it."
Paraska Tolan-Szkilnik's idea is to expand the horizons of Black
internationalism by introducing a new center of Black thought: the
cities of the Black Maghreb. Her reflections began in Rabat in the
1950s, then Algiers in the 1960s, and finally Tunis in the 1970s.
In Rabat, anti-colonial activists from the Portuguese colonies met with
Moroccan intellectuals, including Abdellatif Laâbi, founder of the
journal Souffles, which, in seven years, became a crucial forum for debate.
Algiers welcomed revolutionaries from across Africa, the Americas, and
Asia. Amílcar Cabral nicknamed it "The Mecca of Revolutionaries." The
presence of Frantz Fanon undoubtedly contributed to this (see "DES IDEES
ET DES LUTTES" on the Le Monde libertaire website, June 21, 2025: Frantz
Fanon, A Life in Revolutions). Yet, a clear dichotomy existed between
the authoritarianism of the Algerian regime and the aspirations for
freedom of the anti-colonial activists. We can spare a thought for Jean
Sénac, poet, supporter of Algerian independence, somewhat of an
anarchist, and for a time close to Albert Camus, assassinated in Algiers
in 1973, rejected by the regime. The power of arms does not favor the
power of words, of poetry. The images chosen by Paraska Tolan-Szkilnik
evoke memories and struggles; some demonstrate that the fight for Black
women is not over. She concludes her book by evoking the imperative need
to gather the memories and archives of these encounters, those of an
intelligence in constant development and of the aspiration for freedom.
* Paraska Tolan-Szkilnik
Black Maghreb,
Rabat, Algiers and Tunis in the Pan-African Struggles.
Rot Bo Krik Publishing, 2025
https://monde-libertaire.net/?articlen=8683
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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