Nomad of knowledge
Books can be dangerous. That's how much Jamila Hassoune already knows when she was six years old. One night the girl watches as her uncle hastily pushes the writings of a certain Lenin under the bed. When the police fi nd the books, she arrests him. It is the year 1970. And Abdeljebbar Hassoune is one of many Moroccan dissidents who disappear in prison. He will be released only after five years.
About 40 years later. The Librairie Hassoune is located in the student quarter of Marrakech. The skewed iron entrance door is open a crack. Behind them tightly packed wooden shelves with neatly sorted books - in Arabic, French and English. In the middle of the small shop, a woman is squatting in jeans and jellaba, the traditional robe reserved for men. The short black hair is disheveled, the eyes are concentrated. Jamila Hassoune rummages in a box, distributing the contents of a recently arrived book on the floor.
"At the time, I could not understand why my uncle had to go to jail for a bit of paperwork," she says, casually passing over the blurb of a poetry book. Today, the bookstore of the 45-year-old is the control center of a city-known intellectual network. In addition to books by fellow authors, Jamila Hassoune sells the dissident literature of yore. The censorship authority has not encountered Marx, Engels and Lenin since the 1990s. Although titles such as the French king-critical revelation book "Le Dernier Roi" can hardly be obtained, since the death of the same king, Hassan II, but the largest part of the literature is allowed. This is how Jamila Hassoune was able to found her "Caravane du Livre" a few years ago. A literary project that promotes the reading culture in the countryside.
In Morocco, books can end political immaturity
When Jamila Hassoune takes over her father's bookstore in 1995, she has no training. Her work experience: a few odd jobs, in a cannery and in a travel agency. In terms of literature, she is self-taught. And nothing drives them more than the desire to make the world of books accessible to as many Moroccans as possible. She begins her life as a bookseller with an unconventional research. She drives into the mountains: In the mountains of the High Atlas she wants to find out what people outside of the big city read. Distraught, she returns from the journey. "Who knows, that there really would not be any books in the country?" She laughs. The city dweller could hardly have imagined a life without reading.
In the mountains, Hassoune learns what it means to grow up without literature: missing bookstores and libraries, an illiteracy rate of more than 50 percent, many drop-outs. One consequence: political immaturity. Jamila Hassoune does not want to accept these conditions. Since childhood, she knows how important literature is. As a young girl, she is intellectually supported by her parents, but educated according to strict Arabian standards. Swimming pool, cinema and parties are taboo. The world gets to know Jamila especially by reading.
Even in rural areas, books could be a way out of isolation, she thinks. And set off again in the fall of 1995. She packs her little green car up to the roof full of books and drives back to the mountains. The volumes she distributes in Ait Ourir, at the foot of the High Atlas, are literally torn out of her hands. At readings, people jostle around them. Hassoune is overwhelmed by the interest and decides to expand the literary journeys. Meanwhile, the "Caravane du Livre" - a name that the mobile bookseller has borrowed from traditional camel trains - has grown into a major project. Professors, writers and publishers regularly travel to the countryside in their spare time. How does she gain these people for her project? "I just talk to them for so long, until they come out of resignation," says Hassoune and smiles.
Once or twice a year, a whole coach now rolls into the rural regions: on board a handful of intellectuals from the network of Jamila Hassoune, but also former political prisoners and women's rights activists. In remote desert towns and hidden little mountain villages, they meet farmer women, road workers and schoolchildren. In elementary schools, community centers or on cushions under palm trees, they teach them the alphabet and writing. And couscous food is also about the books from the Librairie Hassoune.
On school days and in the semester break it is quiet in the bookstore. Jamila Hassoune then rearranges the stock. Special copies come in the display."In some cases, these are also books that were created by working in our writing workshops," says Jamila Hassoune and puts a thick yellow tape in the window. "Sometimes there are real talents among the participants." The authors and portrayed women of the anthology "Femmes - Prison", Women 's Prison have impressed Jamila Hassoune. The book is about mothers, sisters and wives of political prisoners who freed themselves from traditional gender roles in the 1970s: women demonstrating against the state on the street and engaging with local rulers. "It's an important book on how the so-called leaden time has changed the country," says Jamila Hassoune today. A time she repeatedly discusses with Christine Daure.
Freedom for the mind, freedom for the books in Morocco
The French writer has been supporting the "Caravane" for years and has also written a book on women in the countryside. Once a week, the bookseller visits the 83-year-old friend. One speaks about homemade jam, about the family and of course about politics. Daure is married to communist resistance fighter Abraham Serfaty and knows the peril in which Moroccan intellectuals lived. Her husband sat for 17 years in one of the notorious dungeons of King Hassan II. For a few years, under the moderate King Mohammed VI, however, a society is developing, precisely through the involvement of women like Jamila Hassoune for better living in the city and cares in the country.
Not an easy job. Still, Jamila Hassoune smiles. She has no husband, no children. All her attention belongs to her book projects. The next trip is to go to southern Figuig, the hometown of Hassoune's parents. The place was in the 15th century an important center of cultural exchange in Morocco. Today, especially young people leave the place to move to larger cities or to Europe. Even Jamila Hassoune will not be able to persuade her to stay. But she has drummed up a few comrades who at least want to bring the cultural heritage of their homeland closer to the young people. Hassoune's uncle will also be there. He will tell from the time when it was no longer possible to openly discuss literature at home. And he will urge the youth to work for the further liberalization of their country. Until no book is banned in Morocco anymore.
