Morocco hosts first English book festival as country embraces English over French

Over three days, Morocco celebrated for the first time the English book festival as the country swiftly shifts away from French and towards a more English-focused education system.

At the heart of the Kingdom's red city Marrakech, several renowned local and international English authors came together from 25 November to 28 November, to celebrate a long-ignored book as French publications continue to dominate Moroccan libraries and bookshops.

Yassin Adnan, a Moroccan author and the director of the festival, headlined the event with his famous book, "Hot Maroc," an ironic story about social media, politics, literature and a city longly pictured only through westerners' eyes.

"While organising this festival, we were wondering if people would show up. Thank god you did," said Adnan joking at Dar Cherifa, a hidden Saadian gem situated in the middle of the city's souk. 

With the sponsorship of the British embassy, the festival was scheduled for last year, but due to the pandemic, the literary event was pushed a year later to take place amid a crisis of Franco-Moroccan friendship.

Adnan argues that the festival is far from being a state’s vendetta for its tense ties with France.

"I guess English readers and writers were always part of Moroccan society. They just needed a gathering point to come together and celebrate their favourite literature," Adnan said to The New Arab at the sidelines of the festival.

Meanwhile, young self-published Moroccan author Zakaria Ait Ouariss admits that politics and classism have more and less driven the new generation of the working class to prefer the English language as their self-expression tool.

In the post-colonisation era, Under Hassan II's rule, newly-independent Morocco decolonised its education system by translating all education resources into Arabic.  

However, French schools such as Mission, Balzac, and Descartes remained a living memory of the coloniser's language that soon became a sign of 'class, fortune, and intellectualism.'

Most of those who could not afford the fees of French or private schools found themselves banished from 'the coloniser's language Stockholm syndrome cult.'

"I guess as a young man coming from a modest village I chose English as an act of a rebellion against the French language that was widely seen as the language of the rich," Ait Ouariss told TNA.

Last month, the ministry of education said that the English language will most likely become the first foreign language of the North African Kingdom within two years.

The news was widely celebrated by many anti-French Moroccans who look at the language as a useless communication tool that enforces Paris' influence over the country.

However, the language conversation is deeper and more complicated than it seems in Morocco: an African, Arab and Amazigh country.

With those Pan-Arab activists still pushing for a purely "Arab system," there are the Amazigh activists who continue to call for the recognition of Tamazight - the language of the indigenous people of Morocco.

Despite recognising Tamazight as an official language of the country in 2011, Tamazight remains absent from curriculums, book festivals and paperwork in Morocco's administrations.