Houcine Slaoui’s Song ‘Lmarikane’ or ‘The Handsome Blue-eyed Ones’: A Postcolonial Perspective

Abstract

The present paper is a retrospective journey/ ‘voyage back’ in Moroccan popular art, an invitation to cast a new perspective on its lyrical heritage, to uncover hitherto overlooked dimensions, and ultimately to rethink in novel and original ways Moroccan popular culture. Read through the prism of Postcolonial theory with its arsenal of conceptual tools, Houcine Slaoui’s Lmarikane or ‘The Handsome Blue eyed Ones’ is invested with unsuspected revolutionary potentials in so far as it erects itself as a genuine anthropological document unravelling the deeply ambivalent condition of subalternity. While being politically and historically grounded, the complexity of the song/ text lies in forcing the spotlight on the epistemic violence committed by Western imperial powers, namely the American presence in Morocco ensuing Operation Torch in 1942, and ultimately exploring how identity is constructed through a complex engagement with otherness.