(Forthcoming:) "Limes. Une lecture d'Une enquête au pays de Driss Chraïbi dans le cadre des études de la frontière”
After the Syrian refugee crisis, the aim of preventing the Saharan and Sub-Saharan refugees from crossing to Europe becomes the topic of the day in the media; at the same time, the existence of largely uncharted and uncontrolled territories so close to the European shores haunts the imagination of the public. In fact, the Saharan limes have been, since the beginnings of the European history, not only the natural frontier of the Euro-Mediterranean oecumene, but also of the “civilized” world of states, governments, official policies and law enforcement. Growing actuality of the topic justifies a glance back to Driss Chraïbi's novel Une enquête au pays, first published in 1981. Its hero, inspector Ali, hostile to the author of the book in which he is the main protagonist (he comments unfavourably on Driss Chraïbi the dangerous intellectual, or rather, as he calls him, the insectuel), penetrates the wasteland interior of the country not to investigate any crime in particular, but rather to establish the presence of the police in the otherwise uncontrolled territory – bled es-siba (“region of anarchy” in contrast to the civilized, tax-paying and law-abiding bled el-makhzen according to a categorization first established in the 14th c., valid throughout the colonial era, and apparently till the present day). The detective is a forerunner of modernity and civilisation (an important key word of the Chraïbian writing), penetrating a world that refuses to let itself be governed, submitted to taxation, and policed. Significantly, Ali's endeavour is backed up by Europe, closely collaborating with the Maghrebian state. On the other hand, the nomads oppose those joint efforts by their only resource – mobility, the readiness of abandoning their abodes and disappearing in the desert. Control and detection prove to be inherent to the sedentary world; even crime narration – a tool of criminalization of the human existence – is forced to capitulate in confrontation with the wasteland.
Keynote at the Colloque Inspirations – La littérature et la carte géographique, University of Bialystok – University of Vilnius, 26-27.11.2020.
After the Syrian refugee crisis, the aim of preventing the Saharan and Sub-Saharan refugees from crossing to Europe becomes the topic of the day in the media; at the same time, the existence of largely uncharted and uncontrolled territories so close to the European shores haunts the imagination of the public. In fact, the Saharan limes have been, since the beginnings of the European history, not only the natural frontier of the Euro-Mediterranean oecumene, but also of the “civilized” world of states, governments, official policies and law enforcement. Growing actuality of the topic justifies a glance back to Driss Chraïbi's novel Une enquête au pays, first published in 1981. Its hero, inspector Ali, hostile to the author of the book in which he is the main protagonist (he comments unfavourably on Driss Chraïbi the dangerous intellectual, or rather, as he calls him, the insectuel), penetrates the wasteland interior of the country not to investigate any crime in particular, but rather to establish the presence of the police in the otherwise uncontrolled territory – bled es-siba (“region of anarchy” in contrast to the civilized, tax-paying and law-abiding bled el-makhzen according to a categorization first established in the 14th c., valid throughout the colonial era, and apparently till the present day). The detective is a forerunner of modernity and civilisation (an important key word of the Chraïbian writing), penetrating a world that refuses to let itself be governed, submitted to taxation, and policed. Significantly, Ali's endeavour is backed up by Europe, closely collaborating with the Maghrebian state. On the other hand, the nomads oppose those joint efforts by their only resource – mobility, the readiness of abandoning their abodes and disappearing in the desert. Control and detection prove to be inherent to the sedentary world; even crime narration – a tool of criminalization of the human existence – is forced to capitulate in confrontation with the wasteland.
Keynote at the Colloque Inspirations – La littérature et la carte géographique, University of Bialystok – University of Vilnius, 26-27.11.2020.
