academic article (Research Paper Sample)

The Postcolonial Malaise in Narration: The Construction of Narrative Writing in Mohamed Zafzaf’s Arṣifah waWa-Jujodrān [Sidewalks and Walls] Abstract: Arṣifah waWa J-jodrān udrān [(Sidewalks and Walls] ) is associated with some of the aspects inherent in the post-colonial social and cultural transformations that the countryMorocco had witnessed due to the illusive narrative of independence. Lack of political stability, repression, stagnation, and social disparities created helpless and alienated individuals torn between the utopian impulse for a better way of being and the forceful neocolonial crippling situation of aborted desires and hopes. When it first came out, the narrative raised questions on the nihilistic and existentialist position of the protagonist in a Moroccan society at the crossroads of colonial twits desires and post-colonial drifts. Arṣifah waWa -jJoudrān remaps the contours of an unremitting condition marked out by the predicaments of existence in a society of contrasts par excellence. It demonstrates how the systematic social sufferings of the characters reach absurd extremes, and it casts nihilism and the mendacity of life in the post-colonial setting as restrictive, unreasonable and tragic. This paper essay attempts to reflect on how nation and narration, gender and sexuality in Arṣifah Wa Judrān Arṣifa wa-jodrān coalesce together to bring a distrustful glance through narrative themes that resonate with imposed nihilism and absurdity within a cruel society of shattered dreams and unfulfilled promises. It seeks to understand how characters strive to confront the existential crises dictated by loss, weariness, disappointment and the dystopian condition of the postcolony. Keywords: Moroccan Literature, postcolonialism, Mohamed Zafzaf, absurdity, extentialism, nation and narration and nation Introduction Moroccan readers seem to agree unanimously that Zafzaf’s career as fiction writer started with Arṣifah waWa -jodrān Judrān (1974), though chronologically Al-Mar’ah wa al-Wardah (1972) [the Woman and the Rose] appeared before the publication of the manuscript of Arṣifa wa-jodrān, and had already received critical reading from a wider community of Moroccan critics and intellectuals. Arṣifah waWa -jodrān Judrān went through a two-year-standing revision by the author himself before its publication. In Arṣifah Wa Judrān Arṣifa wa-jodrān [(Sidewalks and Walls)], Mohamed Zafzaf focuses on Boumahdi and narrates the story of a Moroccan trapped within the dissonances informing the rhythm of life in post-colonial-Morocco. The protagonist lives in a schizophrenic-like world, enduring an unsettled friendship with Salem. He struggles to overcome a sense of alienation and finds retreat through sexual desires and lascivious dreams in his disturbed love relationship with both his girlfriend Laila (alias Sally) and his schoolteacher Laila, a fact that deepens his estrangement further. One of the most fundamental questions in Arṣifah Wa Judrān Arṣifa wa-jodrān when it first came out revolved around the untenable affiliation of the author and his narrative to the mainstream writings of existentialist philosophy as pioneered by Martin Heidegger and Jean Paul Sartre. The existentialist literary movement was claimed to be irreconcilable with and, hence, strange to the Moroccan context in the sense that the historical circumstances that produced this philosophical trend did not line up with the Moroccan society, aesthetics and thought. Nevertheless, it is quite sure apparent that the 1960s and the 1970s-Morocco witnessed the widespread of philosophy studies in Moroccan universities, and Zafzaf himself was a philosophy student who was largely influenced by the French theory and by stalwart writers and intellectuals from the French intellectual and academic groves. Within the same vein, needless to mention thatAt the same time, it is impossible to isolate Zafzaf’s works from the history and development of the Moroccan fiction writing. And it is almost impossible to talk about him without situating his writings within the compelling condition of postcolonial Morocco, within the aesthetic turns of Arab literary movements and within the pull and push turbulences of western modern French thought, namely the French. Hence,. Hence, as Di-Capua posits, decolonization contexts have created ample terrains for intellectuals across the MENA region to process the ideas of Martin Heidegger and Jean-Paul Sartre into an entirely new intellectual tradition that was European in origin and Middle Eastern by design. What began as an esoteric experiment on a philosopher's desk grew into a decentralized yet influential movement with meaningful global connections. By the early 1960s, Arab culture was dominated by the language, assumptions, and politics of existentialism. Yet, this story has thus far remained an invisible chapter in the intellectual history of decolonization (Di-Capua, 1061). Existentialism as an “invisible chapter” in the Moroccan and in the North-African Arab aesthetics at large was dictated by the circumspective forces of the colonial experience and by the shifting moments of the post-colonial condition. In the European context, Existentialist philosophy and literature developed as a result to the aftermaths of World War II, and came to “address the basic question of life, death, selfhood and the realities of the modern world, and presents modern man as standing alone in the struggle to confront his fate” (Elimelekh 2014, 3). Though it shares affinities with its European counterpart, Existentialism Moroccan-style is not a duplicated copy, but rather a series of textual and aesthetic variations that aspired to construct a new postcolonial subjectivity that is individually self-reliant, politically engaged, and socially liberated. Although Zafzaf’s characters clearly do not get involved in the discussion of philosophical existentialism through dialogues and monologues, their suffering springs in a straight line from that world view. Earlier decades of Post-independence Morocco was were marked by stagnation due to social turmoil, political instability and restrained freedom. Moroccan intellectuals’ position of the time was somehow clumsy as they were not directly involved in politics. Soon, they had to be excluded from the political sphere due to the unexpected reaction of the system. This illusive situation created vehement feelings of disillusionment because of the interrupted narrative of independence. The social and cultural changes that the country had experienced from 1912 until independence in 1956, as well as during the post-colonial social and political vicissitudes of the early decades that followed, is a rich background to consider in appreciating Moroccan literary production and its evolution. In fact, as Granara states, the encounter with European imperial encroachment gave rise to a struggle for independence, and the “arising urban, literate, middle class focused its attention on forging a modern, national culture, and the rhetoric of realism, replacing neoclassicism and romanticism, had taken firm root in literary tastes and standards” (Granara 2003, 41). The various literary genres and forms that developed during this period were deeply rooted in the writers’ reactionary discourses towards the country’s political and ideological situation after independence. Resentment and disillusion about the postcolonial socio-political conditions were also of vital importance, not only in Morocco but also in the neighboring Maghrebi countries. In the post-independence era, literary activities were geared towards discussing and revealing immediate political and national issues. In this context, Marxist and leftist thoughts prospered and became a viable and inspiring medium through which social injustices and political corruption were exposed. Literature, according to this perspective, needs ultimately to be oriented towards envisioning social and political conflicts and unearthing the negative factors that grind down the post- colonial era in order to respond to the demands of the middle and lower classes. The writings of Laabi, Zafzaf, Choukri, and many others disoriented the course of Moroccan Literature while revolting on against the previous writing modalities. They brought “innovative narrative styles and structures that reflect complex identities. These are the generation of writers who emerged in the late 1960s as a powerful cultural and political force whose aspirations had been thrashed by the postcolonial regime and its increasing tyranny” (Laachir 2016, 32). So, it becomes clear that the 1960s onwards was a turning point in the history of the Moroccan fiction writing, and witnessed the birth of the modern Moroccan fiction. Moroccan narrative writing experienced significant revitalization and growth that has led to the coming on of well- written and socially committed narratives that reflected on individual and collective concerns. Mustapha Yaala states that he wrote because, “living within a traditional society that was crippled and invalid, in a milieu that was weighed down with fetters and taboos, and confronting the difficulties and tensions of a backward reality, [he] felt the necessity of expression on behalf both of a self that was a victim of a crisis and of a censured society that was in search of a psychological equilibrium” (Yaala 1998, 151). The 1960s and the 1970s writers initiated a tradition of dealing with social issues in complex ways. They struggled to represent real social concerns that intrigued Moroccan society and politics. For Sryfi, who has extensively worked on Zafzaf’s short stories, states that “The premium on narrative realism provided a creative medium whereby authors were able to portray various ideological conflicts, sense of commitment, and local colour, features that made these authors an ...