Extract of Research Conducted in Mexico on Nafta by Dr. Said El Mansour Cherkaoui and Published in the Connection at Golden Gate University, August – December 1993
The following interview took place way before the signing of the Treaty on North American Free Trade Agreement. I have met with Cuauhtémoc Cardenas in California, Mexico City and Paris and maintained with him a correspondence through letters sent to his home in Mexico City. This interview was conducted in Spanish and later on translated in French given the US driven academic and media outlets did not support the views that were questioning the validity of the NAFTA for the development of Mexico or the respect of the Mexican Workers Rights.
During my return – visit to France for my Doctoral Submission at the Sorbonne University – Institut des Hautes Etudes de l’Amérique Latine, I received one of the most welcoming reception and generous and treatment by my colleague Mona Huerta a researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique who proposed to me to have the following interview to be published by a research group from Paris – Lyon, a Network of Researchers who are specialized on Mexico and Latin America.
Latin America: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Peru
Said El Mansour Cherkaoui is a former member of the Moroccan National Pre-Olympic Team of Handball and the Moroccan National team of Basketball. Said El Mansour is also former player-member of ASPTT Section BasketBall – Handball of the Academy of Languedoc-Roussillon – Montpellier, France. In Morocco, he played Volleyball with El Jadida Olympic Club) and Football with Rachad Club d’El Jadida – Diffaa Hassani Jadidi as well as in France with the A.S. Bourg-La-Reine. In Fencing Category Fleuret Minime, he was the Vice Champion in Morocco with the Cercle d’Escrime de Mazagan – El Jadida – Morocco.
Photo Legend: Said El Mansour Cherkaoui Flying over the defense. He held the positions of Team Coach, Team Captain and Player at the Handball Team of the Academie de Montpellier, Academic Championship of France
African Moroccan Diaspora – English Version Française @ LinkedIn
Avec un Grand Plaisir et un Sentiment de Fiérté Sportive vu ma Propre Contribution Directe dans la formation et l’encadrement de Sportifs et d’Athlètes autour de moi au Maroc, en France et en Allemagne.
Said El Mansour Cherkaoui Sport Bio and International Team Member
J’ai débuté la pratique du sport depuis l’Âge de 8 ans comme membre du Club de Tennis de Mazagan – El Jadida. A l’âge de 12, je faisais parti de l’Equipe de Volley Ball du College Poly qui decroche la seconde place dans le Championnat des Jeux Scolaires au Maroc en Catégorie Minime.
La suite fut un parcours sans faute:
– Basketball (Sélection en Équipe Nationale Marocaine et Joueur Professionnel en France)
– Football (Finaliste du Tournoi Interville, Joueur Titulaire au Rachad et Reserve du Diffaa Hassani Jadidi ainsi que Titulaire de l’Equipe de A.S. Bourg-La-Reine en France)
– Handball (Demi-Finaliste Jeux Scolaires. Titulaire a l’EJUC et l’USEJ et Titulaire de l’Equipe National Marocaine A et Pré-Olympique / Participation aux Éliminatoires des Jeux Olympiques, Zone Afrique) et Titulaire de l’Equipe Allemande Premiere Division, Munster 08.
More details on Said El Mansour Cherkaoui – Said Cherkaoui‘s sports trajectory and his diverse and rich athletic path in multiple sports, in El Jadida (Morocco), Montpellier (France), Munster (Allemagne), Grenoble et Bourg-la-Reine (France), can be accessed in the 2 following links which include corresponding pictures:
En tant que sportif de carrière et d’esprit ainsi que d’existence, nous célébrons avec le Souverain du Royaume du Maroc, avec toutes les Marocaines et tous les Marocains dans ce monde en félicitant les responsables de la réalisation et l’aboutissement heureux pour nous toutes et tous d’accueillir le reste du monde dans notre Pays, Région et Continent Africain et cela au sein et dans notre Souveraineté Nationale Territoriale qui est ainsi reconnue internationalement a la fois en tant que Intégrité Territoriale et comme la Capacité Avancée de Préparation d’un Événement d’Envergure International Capable de Rapprocher les Peuples et les Cultures du Monde autour d’une Seule et Unique Festivité Sportive de Facture Mondiale et un Festival de Football d’une Dimension Nationale, Intercontinentale et Globale. #maroc #morocco #madeinmorocco #marocroissance #sports #worldcup2023 #saidelmansourcherkaoui
LE MAROC REÇOIT LE RESTE DU MONDE À BRAS OUVERT, AVEC GÉNÉROSITÉ ET HOSPITALITÉ COMME D’HABITUDE
MOROCCO RECEIVES THE REST OF THE WORLD WITH OPEN ARMS, GENEROSITY, AND HOSPITALITY AS USUAL
En tant que sportif de carrière et d’esprit ainsi que d’existence, nous célébrons avec le Souverain du Royaume du Maroc, avec toutes les Marocaines et tous les Marocains dans ce monde en félicitant les responsables de la réalisation et l’aboutissement heureux pour nous toutes et tous d’accueillir le reste du monde dans notre Pays, Région et Continent Africain et cela au sein et dans notre Souveraineté Nationale Territoriale qui est ainsi reconnue internationalement a la fois en tant que Intégrité Territoriale et comme la Capacité Avancée de Préparation d’un Événement d’Envergure International Capable de Rapprocher les Peuples et les Cultures du Monde autour d’une Seule et Unique Festivité Sportive de Facture Mondiale et un Festival de Football d’une Dimension Nationale, Intercontinentale et Globale.
As a sportsman of career and spirit as well as existence, we celebrate with the Sovereign of the Kingdom of Morocco, with all Moroccans in this world by congratulating those responsible for the achievement and the happy outcome for all of us to welcome the rest of the world to our Country, Region, and African Continent and this within and in our National Territorial Sovereignty which is thus internationally recognized both as Territorial Integrity and as the Advanced Capacity for Preparing an Event of International Scale Capable of Bringing Together the Peoples and Cultures of the World around a One and Only Global Sports Festivity and a Football Festival of a National, Intercontinental and Global Dimension.
Triangle Intercontinental de Paix Sociale, Progrès Economique et Partage Populaire
3 Continents Europe, Afrique et Amérique Latine Ensemble Célèbrent 100 ans d’Existence de la Coupe du Monde
Dans un arrangement inhabituel, trois pays d’Amérique du Sud – l’Argentine, le Paraguay et l’Uruguay – accueilleront chacun un seul match d’ouverture à domicile, puis rejoindront le reste du peloton pour le reste du tournoi, qui se déroulera en Espagne et au Portugal et le Maroc.
“En 2030, la Coupe du Monde de la FIFA réunira trois continents et six pays, invitant le monde entier à se joindre à la célébration du beau jeu, du centenaire et de la Coupe du Monde de la FIFA elle-même”, a déclaré la FIFA dans un communiqué à l’issue de la réunion.
GENEVA (AP) — The 2030 men’s soccer World Cup is set to feature games in six countries on three continents in a unique format that will allow the tournament to celebrate its 100th anniversary in Uruguay.
FIFA reached an agreement Wednesday between soccer’s continental leaders to accept a bid spearheaded by co-hosts Spain, Portugal, and Morocco as the only candidate for the hosting rights. The agreement also includes staging games in South American countries Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay, which had earlier promoted a rival co-hosting bid.
Those three countries will each host one match to start the tournament, which allows FIFA to stage the opening game in the Uruguayan capital of Montevideo, where the Centenario Stadium hosted the inaugural 1930 World Cup final.
GINEBRA (AP) — La Copa Mundial de fútbol masculino de 2030 incluirá partidos en seis países de tres continentes en un formato único que permitirá que el torneo celebre su centenario en Uruguay.
La FIFA llegó a un acuerdo el miércoles entre los líderes continentales del fútbol para aceptar una candidatura encabezada por los coanfitriones España, Portugal y Marruecos como único candidato a los derechos de sede. El acuerdo también incluye la organización de juegos en los países sudamericanos Argentina, Paraguay y Uruguay, que anteriormente habían promovido una oferta rival para ser coanfitriones.
Cada uno de esos tres países albergará un partido para iniciar el torneo, lo que permitirá a la FIFA organizar el partido inaugural en la capital uruguaya de Montevideo, donde el Estadio Centenario fue sede de la final inaugural de la Copa del Mundo de 1930.
جنيف (أ ف ب) – من المقرر أن تشمل بطولة كأس العالم لكرة القدم للرجال 2030 مباريات في ستة بلدان في ثلاث قارات في شكل فريد من شأنه أن يسمح للبطولة بالاحتفال بالذكرى المئوية لتأسيسها في أوروغواي.
توصل الاتحاد الدولي لكرة القدم (الفيفا) إلى اتفاق يوم الأربعاء بين زعماء قارات كرة القدم لقبول العرض الذي تقدمت به إسبانيا والبرتغال والمغرب باعتبارها المرشح الوحيد لحقوق الاستضافة. ويتضمن الاتفاق أيضًا تنظيم مباريات في دول أمريكا الجنوبية، الأرجنتين وباراجواي وأوروغواي، التي روجت في وقت سابق لعرض منافس لاستضافة البطولة.
وستستضيف كل من هذه الدول الثلاث مباراة واحدة لبدء البطولة، مما يسمح للاتحاد الدولي لكرة القدم بإقامة المباراة الافتتاحية في عاصمة أوروغواي مونتيفيديو، حيث استضاف ملعب سينتيناريو المباراة النهائية لكأس العالم عام 1930.
GINEBRA (AP) — La Copa Mundial de fútbol masculino de 2030 incluirá partidos en seis países de tres continentes en un formato único que permitirá que el torneo celebre su centenario en Uruguay.
La FIFA llegó a un acuerdo el miércoles entre los líderes continentales del fútbol para aceptar una candidatura encabezada por los coanfitriones España, Portugal y Marruecos como único candidato a los derechos de sede. El acuerdo también incluye la organización de juegos en los países sudamericanos Argentina, Paraguay y Uruguay, que anteriormente habían promovido una oferta rival para ser coanfitriones.
Cada uno de esos tres países albergará un partido para iniciar el torneo, lo que permitirá a la FIFA organizar el partido inaugural en la capital uruguaya de Montevideo, donde el Estadio Centenario fue sede de la final inaugural de la Copa del Mundo de 1930.
MOROCCO – PORTUGAL – SPAIN – and – ARGENTINA – PARAGUAY – URUGUAY AND THE REST OF THE WORLD AROUND THE ONE AND THE ONLY ONE, THE WORLD CUP 2030
#WorldCup2030:
His Majesty King Mohammed VI is pleased to announce that the unique joint bid of Morocco, Spain, and Portugal has been unanimously selected by the FIFA Executive Committee to host the 2030 FIFA World Cup, with Three games in South America.
Ladies and Gentlemen Put Your Hands Together and Applaud and Congratulate the Winners for the Organization of the Next World Cup of Football – Soccer: Morocco – Portugal – Spain
Fortaleza Mazagao – Mazagan – El Jadida, the First Portuguese City Built on the African Continent, is your Lifetime Chance to Put Everything Together and Be a Playing Field and Partner in this World-Class Event. Get Ready Doukkala, the Entire World is coming to you. Welcome and Thousand Times Welcome
المغرب – البرتغال – إسبانيا – و – بقية العالم حول العالم الواحد والوحيد، كأس العالم 2030
#كأس العالم
2030 يسر صاحب الجلالة الملك محمد السادس أن يعلن أن العرض المشترك الفريد للمغرب وإسبانيا والبرتغال قد تم اختياره بالإجماع من قبل اللجنة التنفيذية للفيفا لاستضافة كأس العالم لكرة القدم 2030, مع ثلاث مباريات في أمريكا الجنوبية.
السيدات والسادة، ضعوا أيديكم معاً وصفقوا وأهنئوا الفائزين بتنظيم كأس العالم المقبل لكرة القدم – كرة القدم: المغرب – البرتغال – إسبانيا
فورتاليزا مازاغاو – مازاغان – الجديدة، أول مدينة برتغالية مبنية على القارة الأفريقية، هي فرصتك مدى الحياة لتجميع كل شيء معًا وتكون ساحة لعب وشريكًا في هذا الحدث العالمي. استعد دكالة، العالم بأكمله قادم إليك. مرحبا بكم وألف مرة مرحبا بكم
MARROCOS – PORTUGAL – ESPANHA – e – O RESTO DO MUNDO EM TORNO DO ÚNICO, A COPA DO MUNDO 2030
#CopaMundial2030:
Sua Majestade o Rei Mohammed VI tem o prazer de anunciar que a candidatura conjunta única de Marrocos, Espanha e Portugal foi selecionada por unanimidade pelo Comité Executivo da FIFA para sediar o Campeonato do Mundo FIFA de 2030, com três jogos na América do Sul.
Senhoras e senhores, juntem as mãos, aplaudam e parabenizem os vencedores pela organização da próxima Copa do Mundo de Futebol – Futebol: Marrocos – Portugal – Espanha
Fortaleza Mazagão – Mazagan – El Jadida, a primeira cidade portuguesa construída no continente africano, é a sua oportunidade vitalícia de juntar tudo e ser um campo de jogo e parceiro neste evento de classe mundial. Prepare-se Doukkala, o mundo inteiro está vindo até você. Bem-vindo e mil vezes bem-vindo
#CopaMundial2030:
Su Majestad el Rey Mohammed VI se complace en anunciar que la candidatura conjunta única de Marruecos, España y Portugal ha sido seleccionada por unanimidad por el Comité Ejecutivo de la FIFA para albergar la Copa Mundial de la FIFA 2030, con tres partidos en Sudamérica.
Señoras y señores, junten las manos y aplaudan y feliciten a los ganadores por la organización del próximo Mundial de Fútbol – Fútbol: Marruecos – Portugal – España
Fortaleza Mazagao – Mazagan – El Jadida, la primera ciudad portuguesa construida en el continente africano, es la oportunidad de su vida de unir todo y ser un campo de juego y socio en este evento de clase mundial. Prepárate Doukkala, el mundo entero viene hacia ti. Bienvenidos y Mil Veces Bienvenidos
#CoupeduMonde2030:
Sa Majesté le Roi Mohammed VI a le plaisir d’annoncer que la candidature conjointe unique du Maroc, de l’Espagne et du Portugal a été sélectionnée à l’unanimité par le Comité Exécutif de la FIFA pour accueillir la Coupe du Monde de la FIFA 2030, avec trois matchs en Amérique du Sud.
Mesdames et Messieurs, joignez les mains, applaudissez et félicitez les vainqueurs pour l’organisation de la prochaine Coupe du Monde de Football – Football : Maroc – Portugal – Espagne
Fortaleza Mazagao – Mazagan – El Jadida, la première ville portugaise construite sur le continent africain, est votre chance à vie de tout mettre en place et d’être un terrain de jeu et un partenaire dans cet événement de classe mondiale. Préparez-vous Doukkala, le monde entier vient à vous. Bienvenue et mille fois bienvenue
I completed this first photo with others such as the one where the former CEO of the African Development Bank (Dr. Babacar Ndiang) was holding my hand and I was surrounded by African-American executives, one during one of my presentations and others showing a partial view of the audience.
Below among other pictures, there is a photo taken in the company with the Regretted Dr. Babacar Ndiaye, former CEO of the African Development Bank Group who holds firmly my right and left hand in both pictures.
I do not know if some Judaic (I say some good) that left the top Morocco soon realize the importance of the Moroccan Sahara in personality generations who lived through the period of recovery of Provinces South.
Moroccan parents of any confession of the present generation currently identifying themselves in Morocco today fought and witnessed in the struggle to unify the North with the Center of Morocco while the East was still behind the scenes of the debates and overthrow of the Third Republic, the collaboration of the Vichy Government and the instability of the Fourth Republic who passed the hands of DeGaulle and the South in the hands of the Royalists and subsequently Primo Rivera and Franco.
Morocco Territorial Integrity: Historical Ties and Collective Trade Memories
Within the circles of research on “Moroccoanity” of the Southern Provinces, a notable absence lies in the historical narrative of the commercial and cultural links that juxtaposed the spiritual and institutional connection of the Saharan populations to the Morocco.
For reasons shaded by the designation of responsibilities in this historical phase, Morocco concentrates its efforts in the construction of only legal and dynastic basis to prove the authenticity of its recovery of the Moroccan northern Saharan provinces. Even, on the side of the opponents to such a Moroccan Sahara, it is very sad also to note the same historical amnesia, even if their country had also been one of the destinations of Moroccan Trans-Saharan Trade. The most glaring case is that of Algerian researchers who generally ignore the South-South trade in previous centuries, even before the arrival of the French invaders on the African Earth.
There are two chapters of the History of Morocco that are still unveiled and dig deep which also show how first the Moroccan Judaics had in History strengthened the connection of Northern Morocco with its Southern Provinces, through their appropriation and financing of trans-Saharan trade to the borders of Nigeria and beyond and to the borders of Holland on the European side.
Overview of Pan African Trade and the Moroccan Sahara
Morocco’s trade with sub-Saharan countries and kingdoms is a millennial affair and was the work of the Amazigh who found common ground with their family and cultural prolongations beyond the borders of what is now Mali, Chad, Senegal and even on the borders of the Ashanti and Hausa Kingdoms and Fulani, Peuls, Bambara and among the tribes of Burkina Faso and Aruba in Nigeria. These links were woven on linguistic bases which in certain distant regions were sometimes similar or having similar origins.
“Around the fifth century, thanks to the availability of the camel, Berber-speaking people began crossing the Sahara Desert. From the eighth century onward, annual trade caravans followed routes later described by Arabic authors with minute attention to detail.
The Almoravid dynasty (al-Murabitun, ca. 1062–1150), a newly emerged Islamic power in North Africa, ethnically more Berber than Arab, conquered Morocco and founded Marrakesh as its capital in 1062. Led by Yusuf ibn Tashfin, the Almoravids entered al-Andalus (Islamic Spain) after the fall of Toledo in 1085 in response to the Ta’ifa leaders’ pleas for help in repelling the Christian armies of northern Spain. They assumed control of al-Andalus in 1090, while maintaining their primary seat of government in Marrakesh. In this way, the Almoravids came to rule parts of the Sahara, Morocco, Algeria, and Spain and controlled important ports as well as trans-Saharan trade.
The spread of Islam throughout the African continent was neither simultaneous nor uniform, but followed a gradual and adaptive path. However, the only written documents at our disposal for the period under consideration derive from Arab sources (see, for instance, accounts by geographers al-Bakri and Ibn Battuta).
Gold, sought from the western and central Sudan, was the main commodity of the trans-Saharan trade. Arab merchants operating in southern Moroccan towns such as Rissani-Sijilmasa bought gold from the Berbers, and financed more caravans.
These commercial transactions encouraged further conversion of the Berbers to Islam. Increased demand for gold in the North Islamic states, which sought the raw metal for minting, prompted scholarly attention to Mali and Ghana, the latter referred to as the “Land of Gold.” For instance, geographer al-Bakri described the eleventh-century court at Kumbi Saleh, where he saw gold-embroidered caps, golden saddles, shields and swords mounted with gold, and dogs’ collars adorned with gold and silver. The Soninke managed to keep the source of their gold (the Bambuk mines, most notably) secret from Muslim traders. Yet gold production and trade were important activities that undoubtedly mobilized hundreds of thousands of African people. Leaders of the ancient kingdom of Ghana accumulated wealth by keeping the core of pure metal, leaving the unworked native gold to be marketed by their people. ” Source: Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, October 2000.
The advent of Islam through the use of Arabic and Koranic writings reinforced this trend. Indeed, from the middle of the 10th century and during the erasure of the Berber-Arab hybrid dynasty of the Idrissids, the great tribes or Berber peoples such as the Sanhadja, Houaras, Zénètes, Masmoudas, Kutama, Awarba, Berghouata, Zouaouas , each of which had its own territorial and decisional subdivisions, began to imitate the Arabs’ way of founding dynasties on the basis of the Caliphate. For this, the Amazigh began to conquer new territories and established new urban centers as crossroads for transactions and trade at local, regional and trans-Saharan.
“The states of Rissani – Sijilmassa in the south and Nekor in the north are continuing and gaining momentum during this period. The Almoravide Almoahad Dynasties ruled the entire Morocco that include Mauritania, and North Africa while the Saadiens extended their control of the entire northern countries bordering the Sahara
An illustration of Mansa Musa (r. 1312–37) holding a gold coin featured prominently. The ruler displayed his wealth to the world outside his kingdom when he made a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324, accompanied by a caravan of slaves and soldiers wearing silk and camels and horses carrying gold. If he was alive today, his net worth would equal an estimated $400 billion.
During the medieval period, major trade routes crossing the Sahara Desert linked cities and towns that functioned as trade centers.
Southward the routes connected with the Niger River, a major byway to Africa’s forest region. Northward they connected to the vast trade networks of the Mediterranean Sea, traveling inland across Europe, while eastward they met the Levantine routes and ultimately the Silk Roads of Central and East Asia:
The Judaics who lived in parallel with this evolution and saw their origin and their practice of Amazigh languages were also the drivers of such changes which allowed them to settle in these cities and become vectors of all the craft activity. and commercial necessitated by this urban explosion and these new regional conquests.
Subsequently, “since the twelfth century, a large number of Jews living in Morocco had helped finance and develop the trans-Saharan trade.They emigrated from southern Morocco, especially from Wadi Draa to settle in the Sahel In the fifteenth century, Jews made up about half of the population of Sijilmassa in southern Morocco, the crossroads of trans-Saharan trade to Ghana and the rest of western Sudan. ”
Having become well known and renowned as serious merchants, loyal and discreet financiers, master goldsmiths and artist-jewelers unparalleled for creations in gold and silver, the Moors Judaists have invested in long-distance trade all along the main routes from Sijilmasa to Walata and Taghaza.
In addition to the very organization of the adjacent caravans, the Moors Judaists operated directly from sections of the same market of Sijilmassa, while exporting products to Europe, Egypt, and other nations. There were also Judaic goldsmiths who also resided in Walata and Audaghost. The oral traditions of Mauritania credit the Judaics for the introduction of goldsmithery in the Sahel and in the savannah.
Gold from the Sahel has been regularly exported to the north in braid shapes and twisted coils that have been shaped using techniques taught by goldsmiths or Judaic blacksmiths. “- Commented by Said E. Cherkaoui, source: See the entire presentation at the end of this text. https: // goo.gl/eMaoQX
Once this part of Moroccan History is written by Moroccans and published in official journals, it will be appropriate to highlight the role of transmission belt played by the Moroccan Judaics in the transfer of values between the Provinces of Morocco. South and European Countries. It will be the same for those who have left Morocco. They will have a new opportunity to review and see in a new light our history of Morocco through the achievements of their and our Judaic ancestors and not through the maps made by search engines / virtual search engines such as Google who made according to the political affinities of the consumers and according to the places of their diffusion. In short, they remain suspicious and gagged.
The second part being more regional concerns the consecutive struggles of the Saharawi tribes who formed ruling dynasties in Morocco and beyond our current maritime and terrestrial borders. We will also have the opportunity to visualize how the descendants of these same tribes had also rallied others to defend their lands against the hooks of Europeans until the previous century.
We also need to know how these same tribes also provided the backbone of the National Liberation Army that emerged in the North and South of Morocco and was repressed and decimated by covert alliances of all parties concerned. .
It is to bring to light all these chapters that we could see distinctly how the Sahara and its provinces, including Mauretania are indeed a sphere of territorial appropriation purely Moroccan in their essence as in their History. Morocco in all its history has seen its borders reduced by European competitors and invaders for their own interests.
Morocco was a country that had shone through its own achievements before the natural resources of the subsoil were surveyed and could thus be exploited in a methodical, modern and scientific way. Once, such a possibility had become feasible, Morocco had become the country to conquer, slaughter and divide between the appetites of the big groups of colonial exploitation.
COLONIAL SCANS AND SOCIO-COMMERCIAL MUTATIONS IN MOROCCO
From the middle of the nineteenth century, European expansion encompassed more regions than the marginalized by the lack of modernizing will of colonialist policies. The countries thus submitted were cataloged in useful regions and useless regions. Coastal enclaves were thus encrusted in conquered space and separated from the rest of the country which at the same time dissociated the tribes from their fief and territory while dispersing them towards and in the places considered as virgins or having diminutive resources. At the same time, this spread becomes a source of tension and conflict between the various scattered tribes, thus making the presence and allegiance to the colonial authorities imperative for survival and protection against one’s own fellow citizens.
This resulted in an “Oasis” of mining and agricultural sites confined in a space and territories open to all speculation and abuse of rights by colonists recruited from European campaigns who considered Africans through their own ignorance as subhumans. These islands cavés of the European presence were first connected by track and later by rail linking the ports of export. Many times, the presence of colonial mining companies was more limited to a rudimentary exploitation without the addition of new technologies in order to increase the gain with less cost because of the pressure of the metropolitan stock exchanges and the fluctuating crises that crossed Europe in the race of the division of the world and consequent global conflicts.
As a result, the colonial policy of exploiting the useful regions concentrated first on the extraction and exploitation of human and natural resources without concern for the infrastructural or operational environment. The most egregious case of such a practice remains the Congo under Belgian domination where the human carrier was forcibly forced on the local population not to invest in rail transport. A policy of the Belgian State and Belgian colonial companies that decimated the local population of the interior regions.All this to break the backbone of local resistance while drawing and extracting a high rate of profit for metropolitan investors.
In fact, real developments and investments were not made in local conditions or in adjacent human capital. It is at the level of the facilitation of the European penetration and the expansion of the market shares and its monopolization that the investments privilege.For this, the adoption of the Helix, the improvement of the telegraph and the use of steel for the construction of the boats had made possible the breakthrough of the Navy of the European countries to crack all the walls and resistances of the ports in distant territories.
The integration of new markets in the wake of the European trade was thus facilitated by the progress made by medicine, the introduction of steam and refrigerated boats, the faster transport of troops and war materials and also the speed and the frequency of maritime commercial shuttles. These technological innovations were put at the service of the colonial expansion and thus had gradually eroded and reduced, if not ended, the annihilation of the use of local tribes in inter-African and sub-Saharan trade for ‘Europe. As a result, Morocco became the hub for the peripheral trade of sub-Saharan Africa in transit for the European metropolises.
The Toujares of the Sultan, largely formed by Moroccan Judaica, this time became the interpreters of the Moroccan conditions of acceptance and exchange. Indeed, the quality of imported tea and sugar had become identified in the large commercial houses maintained and appropriated by Moroccan Judaica. The Moroccan Judaic Community found in this turn a new culmination for its services of intermediaries and conciliation of all the commercial transactions having as point of departure and arrival the Moroccan coastal cities and this under the protection and the benevolence of central power Moroccan.
“The trade provided the Makhzen with significant resources, and the European powers appreciated Morocco not only for its own wealth, but also in terms of transit. Visiting Mogador [Essaouira] at the dawn of the twentieth century, Eugene Aubin wrote on 2 November 1902:
“At present the place of Mogador only exports goatskins from Marrakesh and Sous, almonds from Sous and Haha, oils and wax, and finally gum from Sous (gum arabic and sandaraque used in Europe in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries, gum ammonia, shipped to Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, and used for hair removal, according to Muslim usage); the caravans of Sous and Marrakech end up daily at the port … Powerful Jewish houses are established in Mogador. As they import candles, cotton and tea, they do most of their business with England, and some even have counters in Manchester. ”
Moroccan Judaics, especially urban elites or those who had moved to coastal cities, were no longer required to transfer sub-Saharan market values as in the past and were thus reduced to becoming consular agents, and beneficiaries of the system of “protected – Hmaya.”
Through this mutation, they became the first elements of integration in the wake of the “Modernizing and Ethnocentric Latin and European Culture” which through the multiplication of the Alliances Israelites in cities and their educational derivatives have made the offspring of These new urban strata Judaïques intermediates localized and encouraged to reside in the coastal cities which in their origins were itinerant or fixed merchants in the interior of the Moroccan countries.Subsequently, their business skills and in-depth knowledge of indigenous and professional traditions and customs were thus used wisely in the urban distribution circuits of products imported and exported from the major maritime and imperial cities of Morocco.
ECONOMIC CLEARANCES AND EVOLUTION OF THE MOROCCAN SOCIAL ENTITY
A first and the last shift of the splitting of Moroccan society thus took place through these imposed cleavages from outside. This phenomenon of modernist dissociation was not peculiar to the Moroccan Judaic Community. Other elements of Moroccan society, urban and rural, were thus transformed and channeled in the same perspective and for the same external needs. By this, they were transformed in the chain of exploitation of the Moroccan resources in view of their transformation for the needs of the foreign metropolises not only European but even on the East coast of the United States and in certain Latin-American and Asian countries .
It is in fact through the direct relations existing at the family and friendly level in the Moroccan Judaic community and its extensions in England which provided the connecting bridges and the translation facilities for the communication and the negotiation of the drafts and commercial contracts with the countries of these regions of Iberian influence and English domination.
The second problem is that Morocco was backed by an Algeria that was fragmented and bruised in its souls to make it a part of the French State as a province and not only a colony protected against invasions from other European countries. Algeria was therefore considered as an extension of French territory and by this, Morocco was reduced in its territory and jurisdiction to make French Algeria a stepping stone of French domination on the other side of the river. Mediterranean and also as a bridge to sub-Saharan African countries.
In this perspective, Morocco paid by its internal divisions and its tribal uprisings under the pressure of foreign manipulation, saw its stony and usurped territories in favor of the colonialist and colonizing expansion of France and its ally Spain.
This is roughly a step back in our trans-Saharan route through our Judaic trajectory.
Any comment is welcome here below and if it involves more constructive dimensions can also be directly sent to saidcherkaoui24@gmail.com
“The legacy of medieval trans-Saharan exchange has largely been omitted from Western historical narratives and art histories, and certainly from the way that Africa is presented in art museums,” curator Kathleen Bickford Berzock said in a statement. “’Caravans of Gold’ has been conceived to shine a light on Africa’s pivotal role in world history through the tangible materials that remain.”
“Caravans of Gold” will run at the Block Museum through July 21, 2019 before traveling to the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto and the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C.
EVANSTON, ILL.
–The Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University invites audiences to travel to a time when West African gold fueled expansive trade and drove the movement of people, culture and beliefs.
On view now, “Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time: Art, Culture and Exchange across Medieval Saharan Africa” is a first-of-its-kind exhibition that celebrates West Africa’s historic and underrecognized global significance and showcases the objects and ideas that were exchanged at the crossroads of West Africa, the Middle East, North Africa and Europe from the 8th to 16th centuries.
The opening celebration includes an open house event with hands-on artmaking, West African music and a program featuring Gus Casely-Hayford, director of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, “Caravans of Gold” curator Kathleen Bickford Berzock and Nigerian-born author and Northwestern English professor Chris Abani. Reservations and more information are available online.
“Caravans of Gold” continues through July 21, 2019 at The Block Museum, 40 Arts Circle Drive on the Evanston campus.
Supported in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Buffett Center for Global Studies, among many funding organizations, the groundbreaking exhibition will travel to Toronto’s Aga Khan Museum in Fall 2019 and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art in Spring 2020.
American literary scholar and cultural critic Henry Louis Gates Jr., host of the PBS series “Africa’s Great Civilizations,” said The Block Museum exhibition is significant and timely.
“This is a project that cannot be pigeon-holed as an ‘African exhibition,’” Gates said. “It reaches across boundaries and challenges conventional ideas about Africa, Islam and Medieval.
“The exhibition upends conventional historical narratives of the period by placing the Sahara and West Africa at the center,” he said. “It foregrounds how recent scholarship is compiling these points of reference to build a fuller and more nuanced picture of the period than we’ve ever had before. In doing so it disrupts the usual colonial narrative that begins with the onset of the Black Atlantic slave trade.”
“Caravans of Gold” draws on recent archaeological discoveries, including rare fragments from major medieval African trading centers like Sijilmasa in Morocco, and Gao and Tadmekka in Mali. These “fragments in time” are shown alongside works of art that invite audiences to imagine them as they once were. They are the starting point for a new understanding of the medieval past and for seeing the present in a new light.
Treasures of the Medieval Period
“Caravans of Gold” presents more than 250 artworks and fragments spanning types, styles and religious practices, representing more than five centuries and a vast geographic expanse. The works, both European and African, convey a story of the global networks and multi-directional trade at play in the medieval world.
To tell this little-known history, The Block Museum has secured rare and important loans from partner institutions in Mali, Morocco and Nigeria. Many of these objects have never traveled outside of their home countries. Some are among the greatest treasures of the medieval period in West Africa, including several rare manuscripts from libraries in Timbuktu.
The loans from Nigeria include iconic artworks — such as a near life-size copper seated figure from Tada and a rope-entwined vessel from Igbo Ukwu — that stand alongside the greatest works of art from any region or culture.
“Archaeologists’ site reports are full of enticing descriptions of material fragments uncovered in towns around the Sahara that were once thriving centers of trade; fragments of lusterware, glass vessels, glass beads, cast copperwork, iron work, terracotta and, occasionally, even goldwork have all been found at these sites,” said exhibition curator Kathleen Bickford Berzock, The Block Museum of Art’s associate director of curatorial affairs. “By placing these fragments alongside more familiar medieval works of art, ‘Caravans of Gold’ conjures an all but forgotten time and place.
“With the exhibition, we are inviting audiences to throw out their perceptions of medieval knights and castles and journey with us to a medieval world with Africa at its center,” Berzock said.
Origins. As Adu Boahen has explained, the trans-Saharan caravan trade began to take place on a regular basis during the fourth century, as an expanded version of the pre-existing intra- and interregional trade among peoples of the forest, savanna, Sahel, and Sahara. While Ghana was an integral part of the earlytrans-Saharan trade, neither it nor any other Western Sudan state was built by, or specifically
[Image not available for copyright reasons]
for, the trans-Saharan trade. Fundamentally important to the success of the Empire of Ghana between the eighth and twelfth centuries, this trading system reached its peak during the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries, during the heydays of the Mali and Songhai Empires.
Routes. There were seven primary north-south routes, six principal forest routes, and two west-east routes. During the 500-1590 period, routes rose and declined in importance depending on the empire in power and the amount of security it could maintain for traders and trade routes.
North-South Routes. To obtain gold from the Bambuk goldfields—particularly during the ascendency of Ghana and the competing state of Takrur—traders from Fez and Marrakesh in Morocco traveled what is sometimes called the Audaghost Trail through Sijilmasa and Wadan to Azukki or Audaghost and from there to Kumbi Saleh in Ghana, or to Takrur. For gold from the Bure fields, especially when the Empire of Mali was at its height, merchants traveled from Fez through Sijilmasa, Taghaza (or Tuat) and Tichitt-Walata, to Timbuktu and Djenné. Another route to gold from the Bure fields led from Algiers through Wargla, In Salah, and Arawan to Timbuktu. For gold from the Lobi-Pourra fields traders left Qayrawan in Tunisia and traveled through Wargla, In Salah, Tadmekka, and Timbuktu to Gao, a route particularly active during the Songhai Empire. From Tripoli, caravans traveled through Ghadames, Ghat, and Takedda or Agades to the Hausa cities of Katsina or Kano. Another route began in Tripoli and passed through Fezzan, Bilma, and Kanem to the Bornu city of Bauchi. Finally, from Cyrenaicain or Aujila in eastern Libya a route led through Wadai to Bornu. Not counting Cairo, Egypt, there were five major starting or ending points for the trade in the north (from which some gold and other products were regularly transported into the Mediterranean and Europe): Marrakesh, Fez, Algiers, Qayrawan, and Tripoli. There were also five major rendezvous stations where merchants gathered money, camels, drivers, guides, water, provisions, and trade goods for the journey south: Sijilmasa, In Salah, Wargla, Ghadames, and Aujila.
West-East Routes. There were two routes from Timbuktu or Gao to Egypt. One went through Takedda, Agades, Bilma, and Tibesti to Cairo. The other ran through Takedda, Ghat, Fezzan, and Aujila to Cairo. Also called the Gao or Mecca Road, this second route was the preferred route and was also used by West African Muslims on pilgrimages to Mecca.
Southern Routes. From the end points of the camelcaravan routes, trade goods were carried farther south to the forest regions by donkeys, human porters, or canoes. One route from Kumbi Saleh went through Diara, down the Senegal and Faleme Rivers to the Bambuk goldfields. Another led from Kumbi Saleh to Kangaba, down the Niger to the Bure goldfields. From Djenn´e one could travel through Bobo, Dyulasso, Kong, and Begho to Kumasi (in the modern nation of Ghana). From Kano a road led through Zaria and Old Oyo to Benin. Another road went from Katsina through Kano and Bauci to Wukari.
Economic and Social Consequences. The establishment of regular trade routes stimulated the development of various monetary systems in the Western Sudan, which used cowrie shells (from the Maldive Islands), strips of cotton cloth, minted gold dinars from North Africa, standard weights of gold dust, kola nuts, glass beads, and salt as currency. Trade also created a need among the indigenous kafu to control the centers of strategic productivity. For example, the Empire of Ghana extended its territory as far north as Audaghost in an attempt to secure direct access to salt production, while it simultaneously maintained direct linkages to the Bambuk goldfields across the Senegal River. Mali went even further north, capturing Taghaza for its salt mines and incorporating Bure, in the Niani region, for direct access to its gold. Songhai seized Takedda in the desert, mainly for its salt and copper, so the Songhai rulership could maintain direct control of salt and gold production at opposite ends of its territories.
Trade and State Building. Trans-Saharan trade also provided strong motivation for the formation of large Sudanic states and empires to protect traders and trade routes, which in turn brought in the necessary wealth to conduct wars of population and territorial expansion, to acquire horses and superior iron weaponry, to send thousands of soldiers into battle, and to outfit and maintain garrisons of soldiers in conquered provinces. The need for places where business could be transacted promoted increased urbanization in the Sudanic and Sahelian areas, from villages to walled cities and commercial centers with populations in excess of one hundred thousand residents. The rise of trade strongly promoted the specialization of clans and the establishment of clan “monopolies” in particular crafts, crucially important in iron smelting and smithing. Finally, the trans-Saharan trade brought the Sudanic states and their access to gold to the attention of the world outside the insular West African region.
Trade Commodities. Salt, gold, and slaves were the essential commodities throughout the 500-1590 period. Cloth also became an important trade good. A viable cloth-production industry began around the eleventh century in Djenné, Takrur, Timbuktu, and Gao and lasted well into the eighteenth century. By the thirteenth century, Timbuktu was reported to have more than twenty-six tailor shops with approximately one hundred apprentices in training at each one. The first cloth was made for local and intraregional consumption only, but production gradually became large enough and skilled enough to create textiles for regular export. The Western Sudan also imported European and Moroccan cloth and clothing, especially from the eleventh century onward. These textiles were generally for the elite—including resident foreign merchants, rulers, and highly placed administrative staff—rather than the local population. Modern archaeological excavations in the region have uncovered remains of silk clothing, presumably from commercial contacts with China or the Mongol Empire through the Maghrib. By the fifteenth century, the Portuguese were bringing in large quantities of cloth to pay for the slaves and gold. Copper from southern Morocco and the Byzantine Empire was also imported to the Sahel and the Western Sudan, as were silver, tin, lead, perfumes, bracelets, books, stone and coral beads, glass jewelry, and drinking implements. In addition to gold, slaves, and cloth, the Western Sudan exported animal hides, civet musk, spices, ambergris, kola nuts, and shea butter (used for cooking oil, lamp lighting, and soap manufacture). Kola nuts became one of the primary sources of income for Mali and Songhai. Dyula-Wangara traders carried them from their forest source to the savanna and Sahel in pouches of wet leaves to keep them fresh. They did not become an important product of international trade until the nineteenth century, but they were widely traded in the Western Sudan from the twelfth century onward. Known by several different names—“the nut,” “bitter fruit,” “carob of the Sudan,” and goro—kola nuts became important enough to be given as special presents by one ruler to another and to his honored guests. Kola nuts were frequently used in rituals, ceremonies, and celebrations. They were chewed to relieve thirst in desert caravans, and they were such a popular stimulant that their use by West Africans sometimes approximated addiction.
Pattern of Trade. By the eleventh century a typical caravan included one thousand camels. It might, for example, set out from Sijilmasa loaded with salt from Taghaza, foodstuffs, cloth, perfumes, and other goods from the Maghrib. Its next stop was Wadan, an oasis in the present-day nation of Mauritania, where some of the goods were sold and new items purchased; then the caravan went to Walata or Tichitt on the southern edge of the Sahara, and finally it went on to Timbuktu. From there the salt and other products would likely be taken by canoe to Niani or Djenné, where the salt was broken into smaller pieces and carried into the forest areas via the slave porters and donkeys of the Dyula-Wangara. These itinerant merchants traded the salt and other items from the north for forest gold, kola nuts, animal hides, and other products and then returned to Djenné, Niani, and Timbuktu. The number of camels on a return journey to Sijilmasa was typically less than half the number that arrived in Timbuktu because gold and other forest products were less bulky and much lighter in weight than the blocks of salt.
The Dyula-Wangara Trading Network. Only a small group of people in each state participated in longdistance trade in the Western Sudan. The bulk of the population was fishermen, herdsmen, agriculturalists, and hunter-soldiers. One group that was essential to the trade process was the itinerant Mande-speaking traders known as the Dyula or the Wangara, who from at least the eighth century operated trade routes along the upper Niger River from Timbuktu and across the Senegal. During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, they traveled into the
[This text has been suppressed due to author restrictions]
Akan forests, as gold trade shifted from the upper Gambia and Casamance area of Bambuk to Bure. After the arrival of Europeans along the coast of West Africa, their routes took them southward from Niani to Worodugu along the Côte d’ivoire and the Gambia Valley to the western Atlantic coast, to the Portuguese fortress at Elmina and other European trading posts; they also traveled eastward into Hausaland. In fact, they attempted to dominate the role of commercial middleman throughout the region, linking Guinea, the northeast, and the northwest along the Djenné-Be’o-Bonduku route, establishing routes across the Gambia and Casamance Rivers, and connecting Bondu, Kedougou, Futa Djallon, Niokholo, and Dantilia. Leo Africanus, who visited the Songhai Empire in 1513-1515, described these itinerant merchants selling their wares throughout West Africa, and German explorer Heinrich Earth found them living and trading among the Hausa at Katsina in the nineteenth century. The Portuguese reported that Dyula-Wangara trading activities between the coast and the Sahel were so important that Europeans who hoped to have successful commercial ventures in the region should accommodate their plans to the habits of those indigenous traders or risk unnecessary disruptions in the flow of trade goods.
Insular Clan. The Dyula-Wangara have been described as a rather insular, endogamous clan of occupational merchants who characteristically married within their own group and traveled as whole families along established commercial routes. Their small to large donkey caravans carried books, slaves, cotton cloth, iron bars, kola nuts, gold, salt, perfumes, beads, cowries, and copper, among other items. They apparently enjoyed a special status in a broad area of West Africa and were allowed to travel even through war zones without fear of harm from either side of the combatants. The Dyula-Wangara were recognizable by several other names in West Africa, including Marka among the Bambara, Yarse among the Mossi-Dagomba between Djenné and the Ashanti region, and Malinke-Mori in Guinea and the Ivory Coast region. By the seventeenth century, they were also called Kong, Bobo-Dyulasso, Buna, Bonduku, Black Volta Gonja, Diakhanke, and “Mary Bucks” (marabouts) after towns and settlements they founded with those names.
African Jews. From the twelfth century onward, significant numbers of Jews residing in Morocco helped to finance and expand the trans-Saharan trade. They migrated from southern Morocco, especially Wadi Dara, into the Sahel. By the fifteenth century, Jews made up roughly half the population of Sijilmasa in southeastern Morocco, the central city for the trans-Saharan trade going to Ghana and the rest of the Western Sudan. Becoming well known as merchants, financiers, goldsmiths, and silversmiths, they invested in long-distance trade along the principal routes from Sijilmasa to Walata through Taghaza. In addition to organizing caravans, they operated sections of the continuous traders’ market in Sijilmasa, and they exported goods to Europe, Egypt, and other areas. Jewish goldsmiths and silversmiths also resided in Walata and Audaghost, and the oral traditions of Mauritania credit them with introducing goldsmithing in the Sahel and savanna. Gold from the Sahel was regularly exported north in twisted threads and coils that were fashioned by Jewish goldsmiths or smiths they had taught.
Sources
Adu Boahen, with J. F. Ade. Ajayi and Michae Tidy, Topics in West African History, second edition (Harlow, U.K.: Longman, 1986).
Robert O. Collins, Western African History (Princeton: Wiener, 1990).
J. Devisse, “Trade and Trade Routes in West Africa,” in Africa from the Seventh to the Eleventh Century,edited by M. El Fasi and I. Hrbek, volume 3 of General History of Africa (London: Heinemann / Berkeley: University of California Press / Paris: UNESCO, 1988), pp. 367-435.
Raymond Mauny, Tableau géographique de l ‘Ouest africain au Moyen Age, d’après les sources écrites, la tradition et I’archéologie (Dakar: IFAN, 1961).
Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale, COPYRIGHT 2007 Gale.
Document URL: Gale Document Number: GALE|CX3035500073
Some bibliographical sources:
Abitbol, Michel: Témoins et Acteurs -Les Cor cos et l’histoire du Maroc contemporain, Ben-Zvi Institute, Jerusalem, 1978 –
Abitbol, Michel: Clivages économiques, politiques et sociaux / Michel Abitbol In Le passé d’une discorde : juifs et arabes depuis le VIIe siècle / Michel Abitbol Paris : Perrin, 1999 . – p. 202-211 ; 24 cm 629.
Abitbol, Michel: Témoins et acteurs : les Corcos et l’histoire du Maroc contemporain / Michel Abitbol . – Jérusalem : Centre de recherche sur les Juifs d’Afrique du Nord, 1977 . – 42 p. : couv. ill. ; 24 cm
Abitbol, Michel: Tujjar al-Sultan – Les commerçants du Roi, Paris, Maisonneuve et Larose, 1998
Abitbol, Michel: Communautés juives des marges sahariennes du Maghreb, Jérusalem, Institut Ben-Zvi , 1982,
Abitbol, Michel: Juifs maghrébins et commerce transaharien au Moyen-Age, dans: Communautés juives des marges sahariennes du Maghreb. Jérusalem: Centre de recherche sur les Juifs d’Afrique du Nord, cop. 1982, 229-251.
The Trans-Saharan Caravan Trade, World Eras, 2004, from World History in Context: voir ce lien:https://goo.gl/eMaoQX
Said El Mansour Cherkaoui • 1st • 
African Moroccan Diaspora – English Version Française @ LinkedIn
Said Cherkaoui 24 