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In this interview conducted with him by Hespress, academic researcher Jamal Abernous, professor of higher education at the Faculty of Arts and Human Sciences in Oujda, sheds light on the path of Amazigh drama and its transformations in recent years, focusing on the professional and aesthetic accumulation it has achieved, and the productive and institutional constraints it faces in return.
Abernus believes that this path is characterized by a clear upward trend, but its pace remains inconsistent due to the constraints of the production system within the public media. It also discusses the renewed debate about the relationship of Amazigh drama to its rural reference, considering that the matter is not related to a state of division or schizophrenia, but rather a transitional phase in which there is no harm in rural memory interfering with the conditions of urban production.
The same researcher stressed that developing Amazigh drama does not only require improving technical tools, but rather requires establishing a conscious cultural vision capable of transcending aesthetic reproduction and ready-made dramatic models, and making art a space for questioning social transformations and redefining identity within a contemporary horizon.
Dialogue text
On the occasion of the Ramadan season, which represents a peak moment in dramatic production and a real testing point for the maturity of experiments, how do you evaluate the level of Amazigh drama in general? Do you see it achieving qualitative development or is it still moving along familiar paths that limit its ability to innovate?
If we consider the general path of Amazigh dramatic production in recent years, we can notice an upward trend taking place season after season. Professional experience has begun to crystallize in a more solid way, and aesthetic awareness has begun to gradually strengthen within a number of phases of the dramatic act. The truth is that this development should not be measured by a circumstantial indicator or an isolated work, but rather it must be read within a broader creative horizon that testifies to the Amazigh drama having overcome the stage of faltering beginnings, and beginning to establish its presence within the Ramadan map as a stand-alone component and not just a passing addition.
However, a careful examination of the structure of production shows that the pace of progress is not homogeneous at all levels and elements, a discrepancy that arises partly, in my view, from the nature of the external production system that frames the operation of public media drama as a whole. When the creative process is restricted by organizational, financial, and procedural constraints that determine the time limit, implementation budget, and paths, the margin of artistic maneuver becomes governed by considerations that often go beyond the individual enthusiasm of all those involved in the production process, whether they are creatives or even officials in the wheels of the public media system. Just as development turns, at the same time, into a complex equation in which aesthetic ambitions intersect with the boundaries of the institutional structure. Accordingly, I can say that the general trend of Amazigh drama remains positive in terms of its orientation, but the structural pattern of production remains a decisive factor in determining the pace, extent, and possible prospects of this development.
Almost every year, there is a renewed discussion about Amazigh drama and its relationship to its references. Can it be said that this drama is experiencing a state of emotional schizophrenia between a village that clings to it symbolically and a city that imposes itself technically, productively, and socially?
I prefer to read what is happening as a transitional phase in the course of Amazigh drama, not as schizophrenia. Schizophrenia assumes a sharp division between two opposing selves, while Amazigh drama reflects the overlap and juxtaposition between two references, one of which is rooted in rural memory with its symbols, rituals, and ways of living, and the other emerges within the conditions of urban production with its rapid rhythm, technical tools, and new values. It is clear that this overlap creates tension, but it is a fertile tension if it is directed intelligently, because in the end the Moroccan city is not the opposite of the village, but rather its historical extension in a different context. Therefore, what is required, in my opinion, is not to declare a break with one of the two spaces, but to manage the crossing between them with an aesthetic awareness that allows the symbols to be transferred from their initial environment to a new context that reinterprets them and tests their ability to withstand or transform.
However, it is said that the insistence on the village has become closer to nostalgic rumination that hinders Amazigh drama from touching on contemporary issues. So why do you defend the continuation of this village presence?
This is not related to a defensive tendency, as you said, as much as it is related to an eagerness to see the gradations of the travails of the transition, and I invite you to look at the issue in its historical context. Perhaps you will discover that what appears at first glance to be rumination may in fact be a persistent attempt to make up for wasted media time. The Amazigh language has suffered from marginalization in the audiovisual field for a long time, while the Moroccan dialect was able, from the beginnings of national television, to establish a dramatic asset that exploited the Moroccan village as a central narrative reservoir, whether through productions embraced by institutions such as Moroccan radio and television, or through early cinematic experiments that made the rural space a symbolic background for profound social questions. On the other hand, Amazigh drama did not have the same time space to build its visual and emotional archive. Therefore, the return today to the village is not done out of nostalgia, but rather with the aim of exploiting a memory that is threatened with disappearance due to major sociological transformations. Lifestyles are changing and traditional structures are disintegrating at an accelerating pace. According to what I mentioned, we work under the pressure of two times at the same time: the time of the present, which calls us to catch up with its rhythm, and the time of the past, which we fear will slip away from our hands before we turn it into aesthetic material that can be reread.
The investment you are calling for could turn into a kind of value ghetto, especially if the village is presented in an ideal, closed image. How can this slide be avoided?
I think that the essence of the issue does not lie in space as much as it lies in the angle of view from it. The village can be presented as a lost paradise and a pure space devoid of all forms of tension. It can also be presented as a complex social structure that carries within it bonds of coexistence, solidarity, and positive values mixed with forms of oppression, isolation, and other negative values. When we choose the second reading, we have opened the door to a modern drama, even if its setting remains rural, because modernity is not measured, in its essence, by the height of dwellings and the brilliance of lights, but rather by the boldness of questions. The smooth transition that I call for means making the village a living dramatic laboratory in which we address our current questions and through which we deconstruct our social transformations, and even accompanying it with us to the city through characters and stories that address the act of crossing with all the confusion, negotiation, and rearrangement of values it brings. In this sense, the village becomes an arena for analyzing transformation, not a refuge to escape from, and memory transforms from a defensive shield into a subject for examination and accountability.
It is noted that the public media mostly relies on a conservative audience that prefers a reassuring formula. How can a creative person move within this framework without losing his critical ambition?
It is true that public media moves within the logic of stability and addresses a wide segment that tends towards value familiarity, but this does not mean that the horizon is blocked. This is because the audience, even when it appears conservative, remains capable of development if transformations are presented to it within intelligent artistic proposals that do not directly confront it and do not underestimate its awareness at the same time. The Moroccan experience in other linguistic contexts has shown that public taste can gradually expand to more complex issues as long as it feels that the questions asked emanate from within itself and are not imposed on it from the outside. Therefore, the challenge does not lie in exceeding the ceiling all at once, but rather in expanding it slowly by introducing monetary elements within a familiar structure, so that the recipient feels that he is moving from the safety zone to a broader horizon without being uprooted all at once.
Can we say, based on what you mentioned, that Amazigh drama faces an existential impasse?
I see what is happening as a natural labor that will lead to historical maturity more than I see in it an existential impasse. It is true that the existing tension between working on the past and catching up with the rhythm of the present naturally generates temporary confusion, but at the same time it opens up unprecedented possibilities. Today, Amazigh drama is called upon to work on a heritage that has not been sufficiently exploited, and to reformulate it at the same time within contemporary conditions, which places it in a unique position that can transform anxiety into creative material. If we remember that identity is not a wall that surrounds us, but rather a bridge over which we cross towards new forms of expression, we will realize that extending our stay in the village for additional moments is not a setback, just as crossing into the city is neither a betrayal nor an achievement. The two options together constitute two links in one path that seeks to establish the presence of the Amazigh language within the dramatic scene as a language capable of carrying memory and questioning the present at the same time.
In conclusion, how can Amazigh drama be transformed into a cultural and creative act that goes beyond the logic of aesthetic reproduction and imported dramatic models to become capable of producing an artistic discourse that reflects the specificity of the historical and social experience and participates in redefining the Amazigh identity within a contemporary horizon?
I am firmly convinced that the development of Amazigh drama does not only require improving technical tools or raising the level of the industry in terms of executive efficiency; These elements, despite their importance, remain neutral if they are not supported by a conscious cultural vision. I do not mean by this conscious vision what might lead us to close in on an essentialist discourse that rejects modernization, but rather I mean by it a foundational awareness that sees every narrative structure as a symbolic representation of the world, and that this representation contributes to producing the social meaning of identity.
When those involved, whether they are central officials, producers, directors, screenwriters, technicians, or actors, lack a cultural background capable of absorbing this symbolic dimension, the works turn into formal architecture that borrows ready-made templates from regional or global drama. The result is often works that lack depth; As it is preoccupied with recycling vulgar commercial or dramatic themes and clichés that remain trapped in consuming social conflicts, it becomes far from representing the social and anthropological transformations that society is experiencing.
However, if cultural awareness is integrated into the core of the production process, in a way that everyone realizes that artistic choices are not neutral, and that they carry connotations related to the image of the self and the other, then drama turns into a field of symbolic thinking in reality. Then, evoking the legacy is not viewed as a nostalgic repetition, but rather as a critical rereading of this legacy in light of the present. Moving to urban space or addressing social transformations also becomes a dramatic topic capable of revealing the structural tensions of society without losing its connection to its cultural roots.
In this sense, the real challenge is not only to build a dramatic industry that possesses high technical competence, but to create an artistic experience that is aware of its cultural message. Art, at its highest level, especially in the context of public media with a message function, is not just a commodity or an entertainment product, but an aesthetic discourse that participates in shaping awareness and reformulates major questions about humans and society. If this balance is achieved, Amazigh drama can overcome the danger of copying and contribute to enriching the Moroccan cultural scene, as an authentic expression of a unique historical and social experience.
But the principle of fairness urges me to say that the arena is not devoid of distinguished actors who possess this cultural awareness, distributed throughout the entire chain of Amazigh dramatic production, from decision-making positions and central responsibilities to the implementation teams within the filming studios. They realize that dramatic practice is not just a technical craft, but also a cultural and symbolic responsibility. Therefore, they resist the temptations of globalized drama and its stereotypical frameworks, and seek to employ artistic tools in a manner consistent with the specificity of the Amazigh experience and its social transformations. There is no doubt that the bet on people like these is very high if we want to develop a high-level Berber dramatic experience capable of combining professional competence and symbolic depth, between openness to the world and loyalty to the specificity of the cultural context.
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Abernous: Amazigh drama needs more space to build a visual and emotional archive
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اخبار منوعه – Abernous: Amazigh drama needs more space to build a visual and emotional archive
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