Migration and Mentorship: the Case of Abdelaziz Mouride

exc-6119654bc64e0324746603b1

15 AUGUST 2021 • By Aomar Boum
“Journey to the Abyss” (of illegal migration), a collaborative comic strip between master cartoonist Abdelaziz Mouride and his student, Ismaïl Ezzeroual
“Journey to the Abyss” (of illegal migration), a collaborative comic strip between master cartoonist Abdelaziz Mouride and his student, Ismaïl Ezzeroual

Aomar Boum

A Congolese comic strip warned against illegal immigration.
A Congolese comic strip warned against illegal immigration.

Migration remains one of the most challenging issues that face Middle Eastern and North African countries. Morocco continues to encounter unique hosting challenges as tens of thousands of sub-Saharan African immigrants and Middle Eastern refugees settle in its cities for short- or long-term periods as they wait for opportunities to transit to Europe. Morocco is bound by its bilateral security agreement with the European Union to police both its youth and foreign nationals who attempt to emigrate to Europe. Illegal migration as a phenomenon has spurred vibrant responses from writers, filmmakers and artists in Morocco and beyond.

Illegal immigration (locally know as H’rig) has not escaped an emerging movement of comics in Africa. In 2007 a group of Congolese artists sounded the alarm about the negative consequences of illegal migration through a publication Là-bas… Na Poto… Published by the Belgium house Les Croix-Rouge and the Government of the Democratic Republic of Congo, 125,000 copies of this collaborative work were distributed to the general public for free. The idea behind the comic book was to educate the general Congolese public about the experience of migration and the toll it takes on both individuals and nations. Na Poto (meaning Europe in Lingala) is not an El Dorado as many Africans believe, but rather a space of personal, social and economic struggle. Without denying the existence of few cases of successful African immigrants in their host countries, these Congolese artists caution youth about the danger of leaving the comfort of home unless the reason they wish to relocate is to complete their education.

During a comic festival in Algiers, Jean-François Chanson, a French illustrator who settled in Moroco and opted to collaborate with indigenous North African artists and express the primary concern of the region, learned about this educational initiative to use graphics to educate African youth about the mirage of migration and decided to reproduce a version of this project in Morocco. Chanson, who is known by his pen name Mostapha Oghnia, teaches physics at Lycée Descartes in Rabat. He is a French artist who has published several children’s books by Éditions Yomad, namely Le Poisson d’or du Chellah, Hicham et le djinn du noyer and Les legends de Casablanca. He published his first comic books Maroc Fatal (2007) and Nouvelles Maures (2008) with Miloudi Nouiga (Éditions Nouiga). In 2010 he published another comic book Tajine de Lapin in French, Moroccan Darija dialect and Tamazight. With Saïd Bouftass, a professor of fine arts at the Institut National des Beaux-Arts in Tetouan, Oghnia co-founded Alberti, the first company that specializes in the publication of comics in Morocco or North Africa.

Influenced by the Congolese project Là-bas… Na Poto… Oghnia invited a number of artists in Morocco to contribute to a series of comics on migration. Published by Nouiga in 2010 in a collection with contributions titled La traversée dans l’enfer du H’rig, this collective comic book included three contributions by Abdelaziz Mouride, along with his students Malika Dahil, Ismaïl Ezzeroual and Issam Bissatri; and they are respectively entitled “Mirages,” “Virée vers les Abysses” (Journey to the Abyss) and “Au Village.”

While the work included some of the leading names of graphics in Morocco and Africa such Afif Khaled, Larbi Babahadi, Miloudi Nouiga, Ahmed Nouaiti and Mohammed Arejdal, the artistic work co-signed by Mouride caught my attention particularly for its mentoring and pedagogical aspects. The first thing one observes about these pieces is the fact that in all of them Mouride is the second author. Although a very famous artist, Mouride’s name is second to his students’ to show that a new generation mentored by him is here to lead a new culture of comics in Morocco. The second aspect is pedagogical and it pertains to the fact that the works depict migration as an illusion and a fantasy that is supposed to change people’s lives like a magic wand, but in reality does not.

A founding member of the Marxist-Leninist Group 23 March Movement at the end of the 1960s, Mouride was arrested in 1974 and condemned to more than twenty years in jail. In prison he clandestinely drew his daily thoughts in solitary confinement and succeeded to hide them from his guards. In 2001 he was able to publish his jail work under the title On affame bien les rats (Éditions Tarik & Éditions Paris Méditerranée). Unlike many political prisoners who opted for the medium of prison narratives, Mouride chose the BD (bandes dessinées, or comic strips). After his release he joined the École des Beaux-Arts in Casablanca as a professor. In 2004, he launched with his students the first BD journal titled Bled’Art; it had a short life and saw the release of only a few issues.

The first piece titled “Mirages” is co-authored by Malika Dahil. It shows four underaged girls in a room making a carpet under the watch of an old woman. The artist’s focus zooms in on the face of one of the female workers, and then her eyes, which leads to a set of images of the girl in Paris in a romantic relationship before the male lover disappears and the girl falls into a melancholic state. The dream is interrupted by the old lady pulling the girl’s hair and asking her to resume and focus on her work. This powerful comic sheds light on different social issues, including underaged girls in the labor market and the imaginary view North Africans have of Paris and Europe in general. The fact that the girls are making carpets probably for European tourists adds another layer of meaning to the comics, in that they show the economic unevenness between Europe and Africa. Dahil’s choice of a female character highlights her consciousness about the absence of comics that represent women in or and migration.

The second piece, “Virée vers les Abysses” is co-signed by Ismaïl Ezzeroual and Mouride. It highlights a different style of drawing and focuses on a group of migrants in a boat in the middle of the Mediterranean sea, arguing about the cry of a baby, water, etc, before their boat capsizes and they drown. This comic strip deploys a motif that has been already covered in literature by Laila Lalami’s Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits (2005) and which attempts to imagine what happens on a boat filled with immigrants who all seek to survive to make it to the other side. The scene ends with a television news report on the event and a quick shift to a sports update, thus reducing a rich story to a headline in the news.

au village de issam billatri and a mouride.jpg The third piece is titled “Au Village” by Issam Bissatri and Mouride. It is not just potential immigrants who live the mirage of immigration as a source of social promotion. Their family members also participate in sustaining the illusion of migration as if it were a magic wand. Bissati’s and Mouride’s piece describes the illogical expectation of families from their illegal migrants. The comics describes a mother waiting for her son to change her life, to pay her debt and achieve a new social status in the village, only to find out that he never made it to Italy. The success of this collective work should not, however, hide the challenge of making comics in Morocco and the Middle East in general, even with mentorship and institutional support. While Mouride managed to build a network of artists with Oghnia, Nouiga and others, the process of building a comics culture in Morocco is slowed down by the burdensome financial cost of making and publishing them. Support to artists usually comes from their own private networks, which do not have endless resources. On an institutional level, the gains made by BD publications in Arabic, French, Tamazight and Darija have yet to capture the attention of the Moroccan ministries of education and culture. It is high time these two ministries tapped into the rich landscapes of artistic skills that exist in Morocco and draw upon them to capture different social, political and economic themes like migration with the purpose to expand the medium of educational resources to the large audience of young Moroccan and North African populations in their diverse languages.

Oghnia and Mouride were able to adjust to these challenges by creating a relationship within Nouiga and other private publishers and donors who believe in the power of comics to educate. They helped train and support a generation of artists who are filling the artistic void today. Yet without sustainable institutional organizations, the work of Mouride will continue to be a drop of water in a desert of official neglect of the comic industry in Middle East and North Africa.

Aomar Boum

Aomar Boum Aomar Boum is a member of the Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco, and a cultural anthropologist at UCLA, where he is Maurice Amado Chair in Sephardic Studies and Professor in the Department of Anthropology. He is the author of... Read more

Aomar Boum is a member of the Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco, and a cultural anthropologist at UCLA, where he is Maurice Amado Chair in Sephardic Studies and Professor in the Department of Anthropology. He is the author of Memories of Absence: How Muslims Remember Jews in Morocco, and the coauthor of The Holocaust and North Africa as well as A Concise History of the Middle East (2018) and co-author with Mohamed Daadaoui of the Historical Dictionary of the Arab Uprisings (2020). His most recent work is Undesirables, a Holocaust Journey to North Africa, a graphic novel of European refugees in Vichy camps in North Africa during the Second World War, with art by the late Nadjib Berber. Aomar was born and raised in the oasis of Mhamid, Foum Zguid in the Province of Tata, Morocco. He is a contributing editor at The Markaz Review.

Read less

Join Our Community

TMR exists thanks to its readers and supporters. By sharing our stories and celebrating cultural pluralism, we aim to counter racism, xenophobia, and exclusion with knowledge, empathy, and artistic expression.

Learn more

RELATED

Uncategorized

The Markaz Review Welcomes New Fellow, Lara Vergnaud

29 AUGUST 2025 • By TMR
The Markaz Review Welcomes New Fellow, Lara Vergnaud
Books

“Inside the Margins”: Centering Tirailleurs in Bandes Dessinées

6 JUNE 2025 • By Aomar Boum
“Inside the Margins”: Centering Tirailleurs in Bandes Dessinées
Book Reviews

Interview: Joe Sacco on Gaza

6 JUNE 2025 • By Elias Feroz
Interview: Joe Sacco on Gaza
Editorial

Why Love, War & Resistance?

7 MARCH 2025 • By Malu Halasa, Jordan Elgrably
Why <em>Love, War & Resistance</em>?
Art & Photography

Mous Lamrabat

7 MARCH 2025 • By Naima Morelli
Mous Lamrabat
Book Reviews

Illustrating Intimacy: Zeina Abirached Remasters The Prophet

7 MARCH 2025 • By Katie Logan
Illustrating Intimacy: Zeina Abirached Remasters The Prophet
Art & Photography

Mounir Fatmi—Where Art Meets Technology

28 DECEMBER 2024 • By Sophie Kazan Makhlouf
Mounir Fatmi—Where Art Meets Technology
Amazigh

Morocco’s Bīylmawn Festival and the Threat of Cultural Attrition

12 JULY 2024 • By Brahim El Guabli
Morocco’s Bīylmawn Festival and the Threat of Cultural Attrition
Art

Deena Mohamed

5 JULY 2024 • By Katie Logan
Deena Mohamed
Editorial

Why FORGETTING?

3 MAY 2024 • By Malu Halasa, Jordan Elgrably
Why FORGETTING?
Film

Asmae El Moudir’s The Mother of All Lies

3 MAY 2024 • By Brittany Landorf
Asmae El Moudir’s <em>The Mother of All Lies</em>
Amazigh

Nass El Ghiwane’s Moroccan Folk, Radical Politics, Forged in Paris

1 APRIL 2024 • By Benjamin Jones
Nass El Ghiwane’s Moroccan Folk, Radical Politics, Forged in Paris
Essays

Undoing Colonial Geographies from Paris with Ariella Aïsha Azoulay

1 APRIL 2024 • By Sasha Moujaes, Jordan Elgrably
Undoing Colonial Geographies from Paris with Ariella Aïsha Azoulay
Amazigh

Reconciling Ouarzazate with Solar Energy in Our Desert Town

15 JANUARY 2024 • By Brahim El Guabli
Reconciling Ouarzazate with Solar Energy in Our Desert Town
Amazigh

Experimental Saharanism: Exploiting Desert Environments

5 NOVEMBER 2023 • By Brahim El Guabli
Experimental Saharanism: Exploiting Desert Environments
Amazigh

Donkeys and Mules—Motors of the High Atlas Mountains

25 SEPTEMBER 2023 • By Aomar Boum
Donkeys and Mules—Motors of the High Atlas Mountains
Essays

When the Earth Shook: Notes From a Marrakesh Survivor

11 SEPTEMBER 2023 • By Robin Millar
When the Earth Shook: Notes From a Marrakesh Survivor
Amazigh

World Picks: Festival Arabesques in Montpellier

4 SEPTEMBER 2023 • By TMR
World Picks: Festival Arabesques in Montpellier
Amazigh

Translation and Indigeneity—Amazigh Culture from Treason to Revitalization

14 AUGUST 2023 • By Brahim El Guabli
Translation and Indigeneity—Amazigh Culture from Treason to Revitalization
Book Reviews

Arab American Teens Come of Age in Nayra and the Djinn

31 JULY 2023 • By Katie Logan
Arab American Teens Come of Age in <em>Nayra and the Djinn</em>
Books

Cruising the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair

29 MAY 2023 • By Rana Asfour
Cruising the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair
Columns

Yogurt, Surveillance and Book Covers

1 MAY 2023 • By Malu Halasa
Yogurt, Surveillance and Book Covers
Book Reviews

Hard Work: Kurdish Kolbars or Porters Risk Everything

1 MAY 2023 • By Clive Bell
Hard Work: Kurdish <em>Kolbars</em> or Porters Risk Everything
Art & Photography

TMR Conversations: Mana Neyestani, Graphic Novelist

1 MAY 2023 • By Malu Halasa
TMR Conversations: Mana Neyestani, Graphic Novelist
Book Reviews

Squire, the Provocative Graphic Novel That Channels Edward Said

24 APRIL 2023 • By Katie Logan
<em>Squire</em>, the Provocative Graphic Novel That Channels Edward Said
Columns

The Afro-Amazigh World Cup Debate Revisited

9 JANUARY 2023 • By Brahim El Guabli
The Afro-Amazigh World Cup Debate Revisited
Columns

Moroccans Triumph at World Cup While Press Freedom Suffers

15 DECEMBER 2022 • By Samia Errazzouki
Moroccans Triumph at World Cup While Press Freedom Suffers
Columns

Everyone has a Stake in Morocco’s Football Team

15 DECEMBER 2022 • By Brahim El Guabli, Aomar Boum
Everyone has a Stake in Morocco’s Football Team
Film

Love Has Everything to Do with Maryam Touzani’s The Blue Caftan

5 DECEMBER 2022 • By Melissa Chemam
Love Has Everything to Do with Maryam Touzani’s <em>The Blue Caftan</em>
Art

An Interview with with Graphic Memoirist Malaka Gharib

15 NOVEMBER 2022 • By Rushda Rafeek
An Interview with with Graphic Memoirist Malaka Gharib
Featured excerpt

“Malika,” an excerpt from Abdellah Taïa’s Vivre à ta lumìere

15 OCTOBER 2022 • By Abdellah Taïa
“Malika,” an excerpt from Abdellah Taïa’s <em>Vivre à ta lumìere</em>
Art & Photography

Two Ways to See Morocco from Across the Mediterranean

26 SEPTEMBER 2022 • By Nora Ounnas Leroy
Two Ways to See Morocco from Across the Mediterranean
Essays

My Amazighitude: On the Indigenous Identity of North Africa

6 JUNE 2022 • By Brahim El Guabli
Columns

LA Sketches: Sneakers and the Man From Taroudant

15 FEBRUARY 2022 • By TMR
LA Sketches: Sneakers and the Man From Taroudant
Book Reviews

Arabic and Latin, Cosmopolitan Languages of the Premodern Mediterranean and its Hinterlands

24 JANUARY 2022 • By Justin Stearns
Arabic and Latin, Cosmopolitan Languages of the Premodern Mediterranean and its Hinterlands
Essays

A Street in Marrakesh Revisited

8 NOVEMBER 2021 • By Deborah Kapchan
A Street in Marrakesh Revisited
Film Reviews

Victims of Discrimination Never Forget in The Forgotten Ones

1 NOVEMBER 2021 • By Jordan Elgrably
Victims of Discrimination Never Forget in <em>The Forgotten Ones</em>
Essays

My Amazigh Indigeneity (the Bifurcated Roots of a Native Moroccan)

15 SEPTEMBER 2021 • By Brahim El Guabli
My Amazigh Indigeneity (the Bifurcated Roots of a Native Moroccan)
Fiction

“Tattoos,” an excerpt from Karima Ahdad’s Amazigh-Moroccan novel “Cactus Girls”

15 SEPTEMBER 2021 • By Karima Ahdad
“Tattoos,” an excerpt from Karima Ahdad’s Amazigh-Moroccan novel “Cactus Girls”
Editorial

Why COMIX? An Emerging Medium of Writing the Middle East and North Africa

15 AUGUST 2021 • By Aomar Boum
Why COMIX? An Emerging Medium of Writing the Middle East and North Africa
Latest Reviews

Migration and Mentorship: the Case of Abdelaziz Mouride

15 AUGUST 2021 • By Aomar Boum
Migration and Mentorship: the Case of Abdelaziz Mouride
Latest Reviews

Rebellion Resurrected: The Will of Youth Against History

15 AUGUST 2021 • By George Jad Khoury
Rebellion Resurrected: The Will of Youth Against History
Latest Reviews

Beginnings, the Life & Times of “Slim” aka Menouar Merabtene

15 AUGUST 2021 • By Menouar Merabtene
Beginnings, the Life & Times of “Slim” aka Menouar Merabtene
Essays

Obdurate Moroccan Memories: Abdelkrim’s Afterlife in a Graphic Novel

15 AUGUST 2021 • By Brahim El Guabli
Obdurate Moroccan Memories: Abdelkrim’s Afterlife in a Graphic Novel
Latest Reviews

Women Comic Artists, from Afghanistan to Morocco

15 AUGUST 2021 • By Sherine Hamdy
Women Comic Artists, from Afghanistan to Morocco
Latest Reviews

French Colonialism in Algeria and Ferrandez’s “Carnets d’Orient”

15 AUGUST 2021 • By Amber Sackett
French Colonialism in Algeria and Ferrandez’s “Carnets d’Orient”
Latest Reviews

The Excellent Journey of Algerian Cartoonist Nadjib Berber

15 AUGUST 2021 • By Nadjib Berber
The Excellent Journey of Algerian Cartoonist Nadjib Berber
Weekly

“Hot Maroc” Satirizes Marrakesh, Moroccan Society

11 JULY 2021 • By El Habib Louai
“Hot Maroc” Satirizes Marrakesh, Moroccan Society
Essays

The Wall We Can’t Tell You About

14 MAY 2021 • By Jean Lamore
The Wall We Can’t Tell You About
Weekly

Hassan Hajjaj Rocks NYC with “My Rock Stars” and “Vogue: the Arab Issue”

9 MAY 2021 • By Melissa Chemam
Book Reviews

Three North African Novels Dance Between Colonial & Postcolonial Worlds

25 APRIL 2021 • By Rana Asfour
Three North African Novels Dance Between Colonial & Postcolonial Worlds
Book Reviews

Being Jewish and Muslim Together: Remembering Our Legacy

28 MARCH 2021 • By Joyce Zonana
Being Jewish and Muslim Together: Remembering Our Legacy
TMR 7 • Truth?

The Crash, Covid-19 and Other Iranian Stories

14 MARCH 2021 • By Malu Halasa
The Crash, Covid-19 and Other Iranian Stories
World Picks

Bab L’Bluz Fuses Gnawa, Blues & Rock

22 SEPTEMBER 2020 • By TMR
Bab L’Bluz Fuses Gnawa, Blues & Rock

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

twelve + 3 =

Scroll to Top