On Friday, April 18, 2025, the conference space at the shared booth of the Ministry of Youth, Culture, and Communication and the CCME hosted two Moroccan authors and researchers living in the United States who have relaunched the publication of the magazine “Souffles”. They had a debate with Abdellatif Laâbi, the founder of “Souffles”in 1966, writer, poet, and translator. Hicham Aïdi, is a political scientist, music critic, filmmaker, and lecturer in international relations at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and Zakia Salime, has a PhD in sociology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and associate professor of women’s and gender studies and sociology at Rutgers University. Both answered questions from journalist Hanane Harrath.
“Souffles” is an avant-garde cultural and literary journal founded in 1966 in Rabat by a group of Moroccan poets and artists, including Abdellatif Laâbi, Mostafa Nissaboury, Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine, Bernard Jakobiak, Mohammed Melehi, Hamid El Houadri, and Mohammed Fatha. Its 22 French-language issues and 8 Arabic issues left a lasting mark on North African intellectual history and contributed to the renewal of thought in Maghreb.
Through the creation of the journal, “we wanted to decolonize minds,” explained its founder Abdellatif Laâbi, because “in the euphoria of independence, politicians could not have envisioned what Moroccan culture would become.” The challenge was to “write and think free from the colonizer’s gaze while remaining open to the universal.” For him, the fact that the journal has been revived by Moroccans abroad proves that the spirit of its creation remains relevant both locally and globally. “The world has changed, and so have the concerns”. But, the idea it expresses remains the same: to become sovereign in one’s thoughts, to break free from the Western model, and to define oneself in relation to one’s own culture.”
This struggle to liberate minds often led to “connecting with those defending the same cause. We reached out to Algerian, Tunisian, and African writers, like in the 1969 issue we published on African countries undergoing liberation movements,” or through the translation of Black Panther poetry from African-American communities. “These reflections lead us to consider that the dimension of South-South dialogue remains vital despite a half-century gap,” Laâbi said.
According to Hicham Aïdi, this vision continues to inspire “new generations of researchers and writers like ourselves, who, through the relaunch of “Souffless”, aim to position the Maghreb within South-South debates.” For Mr. Aïdi, whose research often involves Latin American populations and the “decolonization of decoloniality” movements that have shaped them for over two decades, “Souffles” provided answers as one of the first tri-continental journals from North Africa, part of a Third World imaginary.”
“From its first issue in 1966, it addressed the decolonization of knowledge production, which remains an urgent need in 2025, particularly in North Africa and the Middle East, regions most permeated by colonial influences.” Four issues of the new version of “Souffles” have already been published, with the first highlighting Morocco’s pluralistic identity. Upcoming issues will address the Palestinian question in Moroccan culture and consciousness, African feminism, and China’s presence in the Maghreb to foster closer ties between the two continents.
Many more issues are planned to “deconstruct the culturalist discourse on Morocco,” a matter close to the heart of ethnographer Zakia Salime. “We wanted to shift the paradigm in response to certain discourses about Morocco, such as an American researcher comparing an Indian tribe to Morocco’s Amazigh population,” she explained. Through the relaunch of “Souffles”, “we aim to bring our own voice to the question of how to move beyond culturalism and certain positionings by producing new theoretical spaces.”
To achieve this, “we have worked on two fronts: introducing new Moroccan researchers working on these issues and ensuring that classic Moroccan writers continue to be cited in our research, all in a spirit of excellence.”
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