The Evolution and Manifestations of Weakness

Literary Supplement of newspaper "Al Maghrib" - August 5, 1938

Morocco can draw pride from its past, by being the only country in the Arabic world to have withstood the upheavals of history and to have simultaneously preserved Arabic for over twelve centuries as a spoken language, a language of culture and as an official language.

The dominance by the Ottoman Empire of the Arab nations from Baghdad to our sister state Algeria, led to the spread of the Turkish language and its use penetrated into the administrative bureaucracy as well as into other official dealings. Everywhere in these suzerain-ties one witnessed the ebb of the use of Arabic while Turkish imposed itself as the language of communication for the governing aristocratic class and little by little gained usage by the governed.

Had Arabic not been the language of the Koran, it would have been easy for the Turks to marginalize its usage and limit its accessibility to only the educated segment in the entire Arab world which they dominated for over 300 years; a sufficiently long periods to subjugate them to the Turkish language.

As for Morocco, which escaped from Turkish rule, it totally preserved for its diverse national segments the popularity of the Arabic language as well as its role as the official language of government with regards to its internal affairs with the governed and to its external relations.

When Syria and Egypt entered into an era of renewal, their language was then a mix of classical Arabic, local dialects and Turkish imposed by the occupying power. The educated class in these nations mobilized to fight against the state to which their Arabic language had degraded and eroded. Their goal was to free it from the banalities of dialectal discourse and from the strangeness of words and expressions borrowed from Turkish. It took them more than a century of review of the linguistic foundations with the aim to bring about the necessary modifications not only to the spoken language but also to the official style of writing for cabinet ministries so as to adapt them to the spirit and letter of (standard) Arabic.

All the newpapers and publications of the last century provide a repository of the different stages of this (renewal) process. Each stage informs us about some of the characteristics of the accomplished work. It is thus that we know that at certain stage the text was dominated by translations that often used vocabulary borrowed from a foreign language. We also know that another period was noteworthy, from a creativity perspective, by its imitation of the traditional rhythmic and rhymed prosaic style while another gave birth to a new and artificially fluid style.

Then the big (world) war came, shattering everything in its path and provoking profound lifestyle changes. Arabic writing adopted new styles and wider horizons of thought. It began to adopt a precise vocabulary which gave it a much wider mastery of language and largely contributed to its reaching a more mature level of expression of ideas. The publishing movement accelerated, literary articles emerged, the novel was created, theater saw the light of day and we really witnessed new attempts in the art of detailed description, advisories and satirical essays.

Such was the state of evolution of Arabic writing in Egpyt, Syria and Iraq. However, in Morocco, it did not go through this evolutionary process due to its unique circumstances and due to reasons well understood. Moroccan writing did not suffer from taints to its administrative language, its Arabic never reached such a low point. It remained the principle language of education and the official language of the Moroccan government. Writers had a refined style and mastered the art of writing as was the case in the time of Abdelhamid, recalling in this respect the style of Ibn Khakan. Unfortunately, their mostly less than brilliant cultural upbringing prevented them from producing quality work. Despite this, Arabic remained healthy under the Moroccan pen.

After the rupture of our relations with the rest of the Arab world over the last two centuries, contact was re-established by means of the literary output reaching us from the Middle East. Before the first world war, a group of Moroccan intellectuals became interested in the evolution of Arabic literature. Their numbers grew considerably in the wake of the war's end. The Moroccans were charmed by the new style of Arabic writings and began to adjust their own literary works following these examples.

A few years ago, we thought that the evolution of writing style in Morocco still needed to progress through several stages before reaching the level flourishing in the Arab countries with whom we were united by a common language. Rare attempts emerged here and there to provide evidence that our literary style, despite its modest output, sought to adapt to this evolution and was timidly but surely progressing to new levels.

Moroccan writers were active from the earliest days of the emergence of the national press. They translated foreign texts into a polished Arabic. Their writing style, devoid of embellishment, showed a solid mastery of the Arabic language, characterized by a certain fluidity and ease in the selection of the most appropriate words and the most eloquent of expressions. It is thus that the Arabic cultural renaissance exerted a considerable influence on our lives in a general manner and on our writing style in particular. This influence was demonstrated on several occasions in a certain number of articles published by the Moroccan press.

If we have cause to rejoice a bit for this progress in Moroccan writing, strength will be given to us to note several patterns of weakness in it. The recovery will require a significant effort because, between an evolving process and a mature stage, there are numerous stages that must be quickly crossed in order for Moroccan writing to take its place amongst the current writings from other Arabic countries. What are these weak points and what are the remedies which we need to bear upon them so as to eradicate them to reach a veritable stage of maturation? That will be the topic of discussion in my next edition.

Literary Supplement of newspaper "Al Maghrib" - September 1, 1938

Between an evolving process and a state of literary maturity, there exist various intermediate stages which require us to profit from the experience of other nations to allow us to traverse them with the least delay and to use the quickest routes. The elements of the cultural renaissance which ripened in the Arab countries over generations can not have an impact on ours overnight. We can not bury our ancient methods which are incompatible with the modern world without leaving an empty field for those partisans of the old methods who seek to fill it with discourse that is often byzantine and by its nature delays a real adjustment and a true renewal.

Therefore it is our duty to direct our writing style in such manner so we can save it from the abyss of the ancient methods and to put it on the path of modern writing based on sincere expression of sentiment and a harmonious coherency of ideas, avoiding tiring verbiage, abusive selection of rare words and the (constant) search for synonyms as if it was a duty imposed on us.

It appears that our writing style did rid itself in short order of artificially fashioned rhythmic and rhyming phrases, pompous constructs of empty meaning, of emphatic and exaggerated expression which belonged to the past and which (do not appeal to) are rejected by today's literary tastes. Most of our writers today no longer resort to styles of the preceding generations and toss discredit on all who attempt to copy the past. However, as I have mentioned in my previous article, Moroccan writing, innovative as it may be, has not withdrawn from several aspects of weakness whose origins are based on three principle factors: the influence of its past, its weak mastery of the present and the uncertainty of its future direction.

I do not claim that Moroccan writers have mastered all modern styles of writing and done so successfully. Such a presumption would be contrary to reality. But I can propose that the literary article has begun to take root here and that we will soon witness another revolution in the realm of editions wherein I predict a flourishing future. I will say the same will happen with other literary genres such as the novel, theater, etc...

The literary article, or literary review, is of recent origination; it was created by the press and was unknown by our writers of past eras, at least to the degree of precision which we know today. In effect, there is a big difference between the publishing of a book and the publication of an article in a newspaper or in a magazine. Among the influences that past writing styles continue to bear on our ways of conceiving the composition of a literary article, it is worth mentioning that certain of our writers still think that an author's good command of a topic is measured by the length of text dedicated to it.

According to modern rules, the author of an article must render the topic in a concise and measured manner with a naturally uncluttered style to emphasize the spirit of discernment which allows the most sound judgment. Unjustified verbosity driven by concerns to deepen the subject matter risk wearing out the reader; and this lassitude could forever put off the reader with the writer's pedantic style.

It is true that scientific and literary studies sometimes call for longer treatment dictated by the analysis of the treated subject matter. But modern science has established criteria by which the subject must be decomposed into several paragraphs to be part of several separate articles or in subtitled sections each tackling one aspect of the treated subject, all culminating in a seamless whole.

If it pleases certain literary experts to engage in an agreeable dialogue with intentions to develop and expound in detail their narrative, this is the prerogative of only a few gifted writers endowed with an exceptional talent and known for their sarcastic wit, the attractiveness of their descriptions and the verve of their analysis. However if any other writer allows himself such verbosity, they will run counter to the tastes of the reader and will be in an awkward position relative to the new methods of critical writing.

A number of Moroccan writers rarely tackle up front the subject they propose to treat because they think it would be useful to introduce it through preludes. This will only lead to some loss (with respect to the expression) of the central point of their article. Often these preludes are either not germaine to the subject or are well known banalities to the reader. The new style of writing is characterized by a direct entry into the heart of the subject. This is because today's reader has a global view of the various branches of knowledge allowing him to grasp the writer's central theme without resorting to a long introduction to the subject matter, i.e. having to start with the fall of Adam before finally reaching the subject in question.

Hence, when a Moroccan writer wishes, for example, to describe an event bringing to light the virtues of a European's self confidence, he first of all begins to describe human nature, then reminds us of all that has been written on the eulogy of virtue, then flatters those so endowed and then, after an additional one thing leading to another, finally approaches the subject advertised by the title. Thus he is able to produce a very lengthy article which is neither a study of virtue, nor a description of an occurrence nor of a lesson to be learned. This pattern was true for all kinds of topics e.g. one who wishes to recount a historic event began with the history of a country where the event took place.

With respect to literary writing, Moroccan authors have every incentive to proceed with an analysis as refined as possible on the behavior or the theme they wish to emphasize. And with regards to a scientific exposé, they must ensure it establishes very precisely the nature of the question to be elucidated. This is because we live in an age where general knowledge is widespread, tying the most deepest of feeling to the changing reflections by the mind, and in addition it tends to favor words with a certain musicality, a trait to which no one can deny merit, with the caveat that they are coupled in a clear and concise manner.

Only thus we (will) have distanced ourselves with regards to the traditional style of writing which directed our attention towards rhymed prose and analogies, while in the meantime we are confronted with overcoming a (pressing) challenge, a problem to be solved or the clarification of an idea.

Literary Supplement No. 16 of newspaper "Al Maghrib" - September 1, 1938.

Literary Supplement No. 16 of newspaper "Al Maghrib" - September 1, 1938

If Moroccan writing style experienced an evolution worthy of note, our way of thinking however has remained dominated by the hues of a distant past and the elements of our education have been established on foundations as feeble as they are fragile. Our contemporary intellectual output and the relationships that we sustain with modern western life are not by nature favorable for the advent of a radical change in our thinking nor for conceptions of our existence. On the contrary, we remain rooted throughout our intellectual and social endeavors with outdated views inherited from a chaotic past marked by absolute inaction which coursed through our lives for two or three centuries.

Moroccan writing lacks the exertion of reflection, the seriousness with which studies should be conducted and the tight relationship fit to be established between past legacy and the intellectual output of current times. Conceiving a written piece through an editorial mill which harks to a well known writer can not, in the realm of writing, be considered as a sincere expression of intimate feeling or legitimate concern to share with the reader as a deep reflection. All Moroccan writers do is follow the path drawn by thier contemporary Arab counterparts. Where is our vast cultural experience in light of that of these other writers? Where is our internal research and where is theirs? Where does the subject matter of our knowledge reside how does it relate to the state of theirs?

We find no (satisfactory) response to the questions thus raised. The majority of those who take to the pen in Morocco begin to write before making the effort to reflect on what they will write. Thus it is that Moroccan writing, with a few rare exceptions, is made up of a succession of works imitating the writing style of a number of talented (foreign) writers without providing the slightest indication to allow one to gauge the strength and robustness of writer's cultural upbringing. Our men who take pride in their literary knowledge, with the exception of a small minority, practice their writing profession by way of what they read. But reading by itself, even if it helps widen the field of thought, does not suffice to consolidate in the mind of the reader the considerable totality of knowledge it puts at his disposition. Only methodical studies of a university education can allow access to a given mastery of this knowledge.

Unsettled Issues for Future Direction

There are three ways to access the university education to which we aspire so as to seat our ways of thinking on a solid basis.