SIDI MOHAMED BEN ABDALLAH UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISHSCHOOL OF ARTS AND HUMANITIES UFR: CULTURAL STUDIES FEZ
THE REPRESENTATION OF FEZ CITY IN MOROCCAN AND FOREIGN WEBSITES.
Talk Delivered by : Ouyidir Abdelmounaim
Introduction:
The Internet is a vast and expanding computer network that has the potential to provide significant resources for research with unprecedented rapidity and economy. It promises the same as it threatens to transform the character of academic work because it shapes knowledge and information within certain patterns. This could be the case for all the mediated news and information, but the Internet has its own features that are widely exposed on the worldly scale. This medium is fundamentally Western made. There is a strategy meant to contribute to the dominance and the general control of information the same as the shaping of knowledge. “This strategy has resulted in U.S. dominance over the international system. U.S. Internet servers constitute 65% of the world total, over 12 times the incidence of second-place Germany and over 25 times that of Japan. Uneven distribution is even more marked in the developing world. Latin American and African sites constitute less than I% of the world total”[1]There has been little use or consideration of this new technology within cultural studies beyond the computer-literate group partially isolated from colleagues within a separate sphere of communication. This paper tries to shed light on the new and unique medium to the attention of the intellectual community, to evaluate the existing range of networked resources for cultural study, and to assess opportunities and challenges for a better performance. It, also, takes into account the representation of Fez City in the Moroccan and foreign websites. This paper will also analyse the accuracy and the diversity of the information provided throughout the net. What could be its hegemonic power? And to what extent does the knowledge it propagates shape the imagination of the audience.[2]Websites and Representation:The growth of the Internet began with the sciences and has only recently involved other disciplines. Cultural studies practitioners, for instance, have made more modest use of it. Experimentation has been tentative so far but has involved all of the major forms of Internet communication and presentation. Virtual environments are rewriting traditional Western ideas about the Orient. Founded on assumptions about representation, mimicry and the common definitions this paper attempts to translate the importance of the virtual space like the Internet. As a space of diversity and fragmentation rather than a normative, unitary idea formation, the Internet is a largely post-modern construct that entails and fosters the tradition of Western hegemony on the Orient.Among the most important aims of a website is to reflect the image of the subject it projects and expose obviously the common characteristics of the human life. Representation in the website makes use of pictures and figures to emphasize related topics such as social stereotypes, fetish images and accumulated knowledge. When we try to go deeper into analyzing the notion of representation we decipher that it stems either from positive images or negative stereotypes.Positive imagery depicts the positive concrete portrayal of the human life in the city. It represents men’s life while experiencing poverty, challenging their daily tasks, attempting to achieve their dreams and revolting against life hurdles. The same as it shows the great historical achievements done throughout succeeded dynasties. The present time as well, depicts a city that has grown very largely to be in the third place after Casablanca and Rabat.Despite the fact that the websites constitute evidences about Fez city, their permanent existence and immediacy create an important impact of the public image of the city and its tourist sphere. In the same time, they have neglected to a wide range the cultural load and the social and economic value of this urban space. This vibrant representation across the foreign websites is reflective of the fact that the city is reduced to a space of leisure and touristic entertainment. There are many perspectives that highlight the instrumental use of websites. Accordingly, websites are presented as a means to publicize the city, and as a channel for urban projection for tourism regeneration. Closely bound up with this view is the idea that the websites attract tourists and capitalist investment and operate as a method for the enhancement and the promotion of visibility of the city and produce various kinds of virtual spaces so that they actively invite the attention of visitors and tourists. Analytical Part A search on the net for websites and information on Fez reveals in concrete terms that Fez is fetishized into a site of hotels, travel agencies, historical monuments and a world cultural patrimony. This may not be done on purpose by the webmasters on their home page interface, but this fact reflects the Western view of an oriental city. The notion of consumerism overwhelms the websites. Different links and entries are generally devoted to addresses of hotels, “riads”, rented houses and markets. I came across no single western website that tackles and presents Fez without considering it as a place of fun, tourism and exotic pleasure. Wikipedia website (free online encyclopaedia), for example, represents Fez in the Arabic version differently from the English version. The content in Arabic is well illustrated containing most of the information about the cultural, social, ethnic, political, historical and intellectual perspectives of the city. However; in the English version the same as in the French one, the posted information is not well illustrated nor intellectually diversified. This raises the question: is it only a matter of language and data translation, or is it a pragmatic strategy to offer just the needed information for the Western audiences in comparison with the Orient one?If we go deeper in this analysis and compare the way that the Fez city and Casablanca are presented in Wikipedia with the way that London is presented, we notice a huge difference. London city is devoted about 21 Pages with a content well illustrated and diversified containing 31 links or entries. However Fez is devoted only 5 Pages with 9 entries. And Casablanca is given 8 pages with 27 entries.
Illustration:
Fez:
London:
Both contents of London and Fez cities represented by WikipediaThis illustration is a single example among many others. Most of the websites that I came across while searching on the net are American, German, Spanish and French; they share the same strategy in presenting Fez as the city where one can find historical monuments, enjoy listening to sacred music, lodge in luxurious hotels and even have the possibility to buy an old Riad with a majestic and panoramic view. Fez in these websites is only a museum, a globalized site that has to be tamed and put into a commodified frame. There is an obvious marginalization and even ignorance of the local Fez People, the local culture and the original implication of the Moroccan subject. Fez is represented as specific urban space with typical cultural symbols associated to it, a place where the sacred and the historical occupies the whole image in order to broadcast a particular picture of Fez and Morocco as place of peace and cohabitation.[3]When I moved to consult the websites in Arabic language I noticed that they are generally Moroccan: governmental websites, like the website of the Wilaya of Fez and the provinces and another one of the ministry of culture. Except its historical heritage, geographic placement and few notions about it social and cultural background, these websites likewise give just few information about Fez.The expectation of the reader is frustrated if s/he is curious to know as much as possible of the city apart from its historical and geographic entities. The load of information presented in the websites shapes the conception of the audiences, be they Moroccans or not. The hegemonic power of the exhibited knowledge on the net has double effect facets on the subject itself (meaning the image of Fez) when it restricts its horizons of visibility into special patterns and on the receiver when his angle of knowledge is narrowed and violently oriented into a single direction.
Conclusion:
The Internet is gaining space and readership over other mass media. Thought it is still a new means of communication but is a very effective and an easy tool for news and information. It is becoming an expanding and less-consuming network that provides important resources for research. However, it has the power to shape knowledge and information within certain patterns when it propagates stereotyped and subjective images. When we take the example of Fez city and try to compare the way this city is presented within Western websites and a few other Moroccan websites, we come to the conclusion that the provided information is scattered, inadequate and has one single oriented and oriental vision. Fez city is restricted into one narrow framework that depicts its glorious cultural features as one single fetishized space of leisure and entertainment. The websites ignore a large amount of the knowledge that should be posted about the city.
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References:
- Brian Schwimmer, Anthropology on the Internet: A Review and Evaluation of Networked Resources Current Anthropology, Vol. 37, No. 3. (Jun., 1996), pp. 561-568.- Linda Carroli 1997, Virtual Encounters Community or Collaboration on the Internet?- Taieb Belghazi, Festivalisation of urban space in Morocco.
[1] Brian Schwimmer, Anthropology on the Internet: A Review and Evaluation of Networked ResourcesCurrent Anthropology, Vol. 37, No. 3. (Jun., 1996), pp. 561-568.
[2] Linda Carroli 1997, Virtual Encounters Community or Collaboration on the Internet?
[3] Taieb Belghazi, Festivalisation of urban space in Morocco.
