Michael Toler 1961… Fifty years ago, a modernist architectural edifice in "New Tangier" replaces the Gift of the Sultan. [T]he Tangier Legation was an exception. Before 1821, and for a long while after, the United States owned no property abroad… [In the 1950s and 60s] Projects such as Tangier… designed by young "stars" such as Hugh Stubbins, … Read more The Modernist Tangier American Consulate General
You have to be dedicated, or perhaps suffering jet lag, to get up to watch Michael Singh's excellent documentary at 08:00 on a Sunday morning. The time was a function of the setting: this was the annual conference of MESA, the Middle East Studies Association, and Valentino's Ghost was making a debut showing. It's all … Read more Valentino’s Ghost: Hollywood & TV Imagine Arabs
Party poster show, Election Day minus 4 UPDATE 11/26/2011: Checking international media sources, it appears that the moderate Islamist PJD is claiming victory in yesterday's parliamentary elections in Morocco. And it looks like voter turnout, though slightly higher than in 2007, is still below half the electorate – the result no doubt of a vigorous … Read more Following Morocco’s Elections From Afar
The organizers, with sold-out table Many websites that provide step-by-step guides to "starting your new tradition" are semi-commercial. With yesterday's first edition of what might well become an annual event, our intent was strictly charitable, but then charity does start at home. Saturday's Tangier American Legation Open House and Christmas Market was a roaring success, … Read more Legation Open House & Christmas Market
No qualitative or political inference to my post title – it's just a phrase, usually denoting the kind of people who show up at international conflabs like Davos and Aspen. That said, MEDays brought an impressive array of people from all walks and regions to Tangier, for the 4th consecutive year. It was a Davos … Read more MEDays 2011: Tangier Welcomes the Great & Good
Today Morocco celebrates Independence Day. "The View From Fez," a fine English-language blog, has some photos from King Mohammed V's return from exile, the date of which determined Morocco's Independence Day. I know what they say about reading the telephone book, but there is great value in leafing through the 1956 Tangier Anuario Telefonico, reprinted … Read more Moroccan Independence: November 18, 1956
There have been Shahs in Morocco. Of Iran, and of Afghanistan. We speak of the latter. Tahir Shah (official site) In Arabian Nights: A Caravan of Moroccan Dreams (Bantam, 2008) Tangier holds a special place in my heart. It was there that my grandfather lived, then died, knocked down outside his villa on the steep … Read more A Shah’s Triumphant Return To Tangier
Brief but moving ceremony on the steps of the French Consulate General in Tangier, with newly-arrived Consul General Pierre Thénard presiding. A reading of President Nicolas Sarkozy's Armistice Day message. A vin d'honneur. Very much like in every town and village in France, the monument aux morts has lots and lots of names of the … Read more 11-11-11 In Tangier: Morts Pour la France
… they saw Africa. Notes from a trip across the Strait. Well, of course they saw Africa: every primary school geography student knows that the Strait of Gibraltar (or, as they say north of the water, el Estrecho de Gibraltar) separates the continents of Europe and Africa. But Spain's Africanistas were not academic "Africanists" – … Read more What the Africanistas Saw Across El Estrecho de Gibraltar
Geography lesson (image from Kidsmaps.com) The Maghrib (or Maghreb) is the accepted term for North Africa. The Maghrib was the birthplace of the Arab Spring (Tunisia). Its latest blossoming of freedom was in Libya. The Maghrib is where AIMS Maghribi Grantees come from. Or came from. Click on the above link, and this is what … Read more Maghribi Scholars Need Not Apply
