Editorial

From the Barcelona Process to the Union for the Mediterranean

The first Euro-Mediterranean Ministerial Conference was held in Barcelona 25 years ago, and its Final Declaration launched what has become the so-called Barcelona Process. The commemoration is a good time to evaluate the path taken, critically analyse the current situation, and predict the future as effectively as possible. A Euro-Mediterranean Partnership for the Modernisation of the Arab Mediterranean World The Barcelona Conference 1995 was an extraordinary opportunity to ambitiously bring Europe closer to the Arab Mediterranean countries and to clearly improve the traditional problems of inequality, misunderstanding and confrontation that the Mediterranean world had endured since time immemorial. The general…
Social Movements and revolutionary episodes in the Mediterranean

How have revolutionary episodes and grassroot movements reconfigured the socio-political landscape in the Mediterranean? And what are the common features and new transversal trends that have shaped the politics of contention in the region? In this article we focus on the complexities of Lebanon’s 2019 uprising, commonly framed as thawra or revolution, and reflect on its significance for the broader scene of contentious politics that has shaped the Mediterranean in the last decade. In the conclusion, we briefly explore how the trajectory of Lebanon’s uprising and its broader connotations hold key lessons for new civic alliances in the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership…
No. 51 — 2020
The Dilemma of Political Islamism

Since it emerged in the early 20th century, the nature of modern political Islamism has been the object of acrimonious discussions between its advocators and detractors. Given that its doctrine on the ideal Islamic state is often vague beyond the slogans and that some movements that form part of this ideological family have turned to violence, there have been very different interpretations of its essence and historical meaning. In fact, at the core of its project is the application of Sharia or Islamic law, which, as it is not codified, adopts a different meaning for each religious branch or Islamist…
No. 51 — 2020
Six reflections on the Pandemic

The Covid-19 pandemic is what the anthropologist Marcel Mauss called a “total social fact”, which affects all kinds of dimensions of our collective life, social, cultural, political, economic and, of course, health, while turning many personal lives upside down, individually or within the framework of the couple or family. It is a challenge for knowledge for reasons linked primarily to the specifics of the virus, as each day we discover how surprising it can be, but also because it still confronts us with its unpredictability, forcing us to think about history, the tragedy of human experience, and therefore to abandon…
No. 51 — 2020
A Vision for a Shared Mediterranean Project

“Not even fish would dare to swim in the [Mediterranean] sea without showing the insignia of the Catalan kings,” proclaimed Admiral Corral Llança, according to the Chronicle of Ramon Muntaner. A phrase that captures the eternal link between Catalonia and the Mediterranean. A unifying light that shines into the night of history and that today we want to rekindle with a view to the future. Indeed, the idea of the Mediterranean is a characteristic feature of Catalonia that has traditionally acted as an added value of its external projection. Evoked as a historical benchmark, the Mediterranean character of Catalonia has…
No. 51 — 2020
The EU and the Mediterranean: Towards a New Vision

In its shared foreign policy, the European Community (EC) and then the European Union (EU) have historically reacted with high-profile initiatives to changes that have happened in the Middle East and North Africa. After the two Arab-Israeli wars in 1967 and 1973, the European Community developed the Global Mediterranean Policy (basically a bilateral trade policy with and the (albeit short-lived) Euro-Arab Dialogue. After the Camp David Accords in 1978, the twelve foreign ministers came out with the Declaració de Venècia, which reminded its partners in Washington and Tel Aviv that the Palestine question had been ignored and set the parameters…
No. 51 — 2020
The Politics and Agency of Youth in the Southern Mediterranean

The Euro Mediterranean partnership has been an ongoing effort by the European Union to engage with the Southern Mediterranean (SEM) through different partnership initiatives in social, security, and cultural affairs. At the heart of this partnership lies the importance of regional cooperation, in addition to advancing political and economic reforms through liking it to financial and technical assistance. This partnership has been established to develop mutual growth moving beyond the traditional implementation of development assistance programs. Promoting democracy and Human rights has been an integral part of the European Union (EU) policy toward the Southern Mediterranean. Young people have been…
No. 51 — 2020
A U.S. Perspective on the Southern Mediterranean

The election of Joe Biden as U.S. president in November 2020 offers an opportunity for the United States to reset its foreign policy around the world, and the Mediterranean region is at a vital intersection of many important global security challenges and opportunities. Biden comes into office at a time of tremendous turmoil and division inside of the United States, which is flirting with further deterioration in its democratic political system. In the 2020 elections, Americans chose to remove President Donald Trump from office, but many split their overall ballots and voted for Republicans in Congress and state elections. The…
No. 51 — 2020
Behind the Governance of Migration in the Euro-Mediterranean Area

Beyond recurrent calls for “partnerships” and “cooperation” on migration management, countries of destination, of origin and of transit share a common denominator: introducing mechanisms aimed at strengthening their own centrality in the control of the mobility of their nationals and foreigners. With hindsight, this shared objective has been crucial to creating the conditions necessary for cooperation on the control of migration and borders in the Euro-Mediterranean area. It has acquired a strong meaningfulness, especially following the 2002 5+5 Dialogue, the 2003 dialogue on transit migration in the Mediterranean, the 2006 Euro-African Partnership on Migration and Development (or the Rabat Process),…
No. 51 — 2020
Linguistic Inequality is a Social Inequality

According to Pierre Bourdieu , social problems are political problems; we can therefore categorically argue that the same thing happens with linguistic issues. Language is, undoubtedly, a means of communication between individuals but it is far from being reducible to this single aspect. Socially and symbolically owned, it is endowed with a specific capital on the market of symbolic assets. Dominant groups tend to valorise their language and want to impose it on dominated groups. This has happened in the history of humanity and, particularly, in the case of the Mediterranean since antiquity. Without retracing the history of languages and…
No. 50 — 2020
What comes beyond the criticism?

In recent years, and particularly following the judicialisation of the Catalan push for independence, we have witnessed an erratic and even arbitrary use of hate crimes. Some of the statements made by the Spanish National Police and the Civil Guard, such as the alleged refusal, by a mechanic in the Maresme region, to repair police vehicles used in the October 1st police violence, are verging on the ridiculous. The discourse of incitement to hatred, or hate speech, a relatively unknown concept to the bulk of society and even the judiciary before that day, suddenly dominated the front pages and took…
No. 50 — 2020
What they don’t want you to see: On the visibility and repression of popular protest

Before we begin, let us pause for a moment before the glow of dozens of burning churches in Barcelona in 1909. From the systematic destruction of sacred images by the convent burners (cremaconvents) during the so-called Tragic Week (la Setmana Tràgica), something was born. Among the smoking ruins of those temples, demolished by popular fury, a new visual sacredness was beginning to form through photography. The old religious images were replaced by “new and modern” ones, the result of the work of photographers who, with their heavy plate cameras, from the street to the laboratory, laid the foundations of photojournalism…
No. 50 — 2020
From the multi-dimensional to the personal: approaching intersectional discrimination against Roma women

The North American author Kimberlé Crenshaw was the first person to introduce the concept of intersectionality through her legal studies and the paper she wrote in 1989 on black feminism. Prior to this, many Chicana and Afro-descendent women who were active in anti-racist, anti-colonialist and feminist movements had expressed their unease due to the two-fold oppression which they were suffering, for their ethnic origin and status as women, both with respect to the majority – or privileged – population, as well as at the heart of the movements themselves. We would like to take this opportunity to recognise the efforts…
No. 50 — 2020
A Republican Defence of the Freedom of Expression

«The press law, therefore, is far from being a repressive measure against freedom of the press, a mere means of preventing the repetition of a crime through fear of punishment. On the contrary, the absence of press legislation must be regarded as an exclusion of freedom of the press from the sphere of legal freedom, for legally recognised freedom exists in the state as law. (…) Laws are rather the positive, clear, universal norms in which freedom has acquired an impersonal, theoretical existence independent of the arbitrariness of the individual.A statute-book is a people’s bible of freedom» Karl Marx If…
No. 50 — 2020
Pandemic, Health and Democracy: The Political Dilemmas

What will be the political consequences of the pandemic caused by COVID-19? What are the most significant political dilemmas associated with the health crisis? To what extent will the pandemic be responsible for long-term changes in the political preferences of citizens? This article sets out to answer these questions. Not definitively, because these are long-term questions that will be answered over time, but it is important to begin to outline a theoretical and empirical framework for analysing these issues. This text is just a first attempt. The pandemic and democracy The financial crash of 2008, the last great economic crisis,…
No. 50 — 2020
Measuring Democracy that Does Not Exist

Disaffection. Anti-politics. Populism. Extremism. Demagogy. Grotesque. Factual power. Lawfare. Politicisation. Judicialisation. Partisanship. Despotism. Cynicism. Totalitarianism. Sectarianism. Fanaticism. Incompetence. Ineptitude. Repression. Espionage. Injustice. Elitism. Post-democracy. Oligarchy. Plutocracy. Fake news. Lie. Censorship. Disaffection. At first read, one would assume these words have been used to describe entirely or, at least, fundamentally undemocratic regimes. And yet, these are terms used on a daily basis by citizens, the press, and politicians themselves to describe what international indices and analysts regard as full and healthy democracies. Let us not forget that, in Spain, the current political scenario has been perceived as lacking for years ,…
No. 51 — 2020
Creation and Dissent

We think that it is through looking at problems that the transformative role of culture and creation can be better understood and that, therefore, we needed to boost the voice of non-institutionalized actors and discover some independent projects. The price of this freedom when it comes to building a project is the overwhelming fragility of these projects: economic concerns, bureaucratic pressure coming from institutions and, in some cases, the physical integrity of the involved people being put at risk. We do not aim to provide an exhaustive list of creators. Rather, we aim to shed light into the artistic dissidences…
No. 51 — 2020
Mobility

The Mediterranean as a journey, and the journey as a creative wander and a frontier experience, at the same time. These featured texts gather some of the many conceptions of mobility to which the Mediterranean is testimony and impulse. The connection between parallel shores evoked by Santiago Alba Rico, the experience of the frontier through Najat El Hachmi’s eyes, the essay on the burdens to cultural mobility of Lara Bourdin, the creative wander of Pau Catà’s rihla and the meditations inspired by memories of a Mediterranean circumvallation by Uri Costak.
Return to the Mediterranean

In 1904, the brilliant writer Benito Pérez Galdós (1843-1920) published the only novel of his invaluable National Episodes that takes place outside Spain. It is called Aita Tettauen, the sixth of the fourth series, in which the author uses the characters, Juan Santiuste and Mohamed El Nasiry, to avidly criticise the colonial episode pompously called “War of Africa”: the military confrontation with the Sultan of Morocco which would lead to the occupation of Tetouan in 1859. If the position of our writer against the war is going to become more and more clear to the public, especially from the Tragic…
Cities of Jasmine

Everything has a story. ‘Story’ is, indeed, a broad concept. A term capable of bearing all the contradictions, evident or implicit, that its meanings convey. A story has the power to fabricate everything, it has neither a beginning, like any other account, nor a precise end. Each story is part of another one that, in itself, becomes an interminable series of events; therefore, a story becomes a living being: our mirror image. Similarly, every word has its story – although we rarely consider or identify it because words live, die and have the power to be reborn in the body…
Haya Zaatry, musician, Palestine

Xabaca‘s resident artist in 2017. Sponsored by Fundación Al Fanar, NovAct and Jiwar Creació i Societat, five arab mediterranean artists met for six weeks at Jiwar artist’s residence, in Barcelona, to develop their own artistic projects and establish creative and personal relations. The producer Otoxo recorded this personal and professional journey in the documentary Borders and Promises, name of the song Haya Zaatry shares with us. Hdoud ou Woud (Borders & Promises) بعيد, مهما تكون قريب بعيد, مهما تكون قريب نفس البحر والشط نفس الهوا والريح مش نفس القفص بالضبط نفس الطير الجريح حدود ووعود والامل موجود بس بعيد بعيد,…
Revolution on my mouth walls

The English version of this poem will be available soon. In the meantime, you can read the original version in Arabic and the Catalan translation. Catalan translation by Mohamad Bitari En un somni vaig veure un dit desconegut agitant-me les dents Vaig sentir el so de la caiguda Dent a dent Els àrabs van dir: Si les veus caure a terra, és mort Si les arrels cauen, t’impedeixen actuar i parlar I, si totes cauen, la teva gent perirà i tu aniràs després d’ells. Em vaig despertar i em vaig trobar la boca agra Vaig cridar i l’infinit va absorbir…
Salmon Swimming Against the (Political) Current

“There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in”Leonard Cohen Turkey has been under the firm rule of the Justice and Development Party (AKP, in Turkish) for nearly two decades. A rhetoric of democratization catapulted AKP and its leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to power in 2002, after elections by a Turkish public traumatized by long-standing crises in economy and democracy. The AKP rule was typified by power grabs and a crescendo of autocratic governance, however. In 2018, a presidential system designed to concentrate political power hollowed out the democratic institutions. Although the elections are still in existence,…
Of Fortresses and Flows

On January 10, 2018, Hamza, Bourich Omar and Ahmed, three hip-hop dancers, embarked on a plane in Casablanca for what was supposed to be a decisive trip for their careers: an international hip-hop battle was being held in the city of Eindhoven, in the Netherlands, and they were scheduled to perform. Their trip had been prepared for months; their visas secured for almost two weeks. Hamza and Omar had already been to Europe, to participate in other battles. For Ahmed, this trip was to be a first. Within the short few hours of flight that separate the two cities, all…
Every frontier

Translated from Catalan by Peter Bush I was heading towards Casablanca airport in February 2016, driven by the chauffeur of the institution that had invited me to participate in the city’s book fair, when suddenly loads of people appeared on the sides of the motorway waving papers and trying to catch our attention. It was a strange, unexpected incident, the significance of which I didn’t immediately grasp. Lots of people ask for things on the streets of Morocco but they are usually in urban centres, not on the edge of a busy highway. And I also couldn’t work out what…
The Sheep and the Whale

The Sheep and the Whale was produced in 2001 at the Quat-sous theater in Montreal under the direction of Wajdi Mouawad and was published by Editions Théâtrales in Paris, and the Spanish translation in the magazine Primer Acto Cuadernos de Investigación Teatral. It has been translated into several languages and was subject of four more productions in Toronto, Montpellier, Brussels and Trier, and of numerous public staged readings. In the middle of the Strait of Gibraltar, a Russian freighter collided with a boat of African stowaways. The sailors retrieve the bodies but neither Spain nor Morocco wants to receive them.…
A.Y., Artist, Istanbul

There was an advertisement on TV years ago, maybe an American or Euopean ad, that had directly been translated into Turkish. I don’t even remember the product – perfume, shampoo? It promoted some bohemian life-style, where there was this young man. The voice over said: when was the last time you packed up a random bag and went to the airport, without knowing where to fly? Just go to the airport and go to a random country and let life blah blah blah. There has been a silent resentment among the viewers, I remember. Everyone was thinking – but how…
No. 51 — 2020
Winds of change riding the arab comic

Although during the 19th century publications that already included graphic narratives from the comic strip that were developing in the West, such as the Egyptian Rawdat al-Madaris , it was not until the middle of the 20th century that there was a greater spread of the 9th art in the Arab world, focused on the Maghreb and Mashreq areas . The comic developed in these times is fundamentally for children, with great success led by publications such as Sindbad or Samir, but still far from an approximation to adult comics that would arrive in the 80s with works like Carnaval…
How Can We Generate Feminist Work-Life Balance Policies and Encourage Co-responsibility?

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought the conflict between our personal, family and work lives into sharp focus, especially for women. Existing gender inequalities have worsened, working has become more difficult, and the urgent need for care in all areas has been exposed. (Corbera et al., 2020; Alon et al., 2020; Wenham et al., 2020, Farré and González, 2020; Eurofound, 2020a). There is, therefore, a pressing need for a feminist reflection and review of the possibilities, requirements and policies that must be implemented to regenerate responsibilities and facilitate reconciliation and enrichment between the various spheres of life for all. In this…
From Reconciliation to the Public Dimension of Daily Life

This paper reviews existing policies for reconciling our working, personal and family life with the dual aim of highlighting their limitations and justifying the need to consider the public dimension of daily life. Reconciliation: the origins of the concept The etymological origins of the concept of reconciliation come from the Latin word conciliatio. The use of the term is closely linked to legislative language and semantically refers to mediation, without imposition, between two opposing spheres (Junter et al., 1999). These etymological and semantic roots were maintained until the end of the 1990s when reconciliation entered the vocabulary of public policies…