Already in the midst of diplomatic tensions with France, Algeria now has another country in its sights: Morocco. The regime of Abdelmadjid Tebboune does not hesitate to multiply the salvos against its neighbor, with whom it disputes the sovereignty of Western Sahara.
According to the French-speaking media “360”, on June 12, during a plenary session in Parliament, the Algerian Minister of Communication, Mohamed Meziane, delivered a vibrant anti-Morocco plea, accusing the kingdom of having appropriated Algerian culture during the Black Decade.
According to the Algerian government, Morocco has “exploited, without moral scruples, the difficult situation that Algeria went through in the 1990s to pursue a project aimed at stealing everything that is Algerian, including symbols of resistance, men of science, culture, cuisine, architecture and song”.
A mainly Moroccan heritage
After the caftan, the zellige or the mint tea, the minister spoke of the theft of “certain old songs from Algerian popular culture” by the Cherifian kingdom. He explains that these “purely Algerian songs according to specialists in the authenticity of art history and poetry” come from Tlemcen. This city was, however, under Moroccan influence and domination for centuries, while Algeria did not yet exist, recalls 360.
Algeria does not hesitate to denounce a theft of its gastronomic culture, particularly couscous. “All ancient historians say that couscous appeared for the first time in history in Algeria”deplores Mohamed Meziane, citing “an in-depth study carried out by a French historian at the beginning of the last century”, without giving further details.
Couscous was officially listed as UNESCO’s intangible cultural heritage at the end of 2020, after a joint application from Morocco, Algeria, Mauritania and Tunisia. To wage this ideological war, Algeria would not hesitate to modify history through the contents of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.
