current project jebari
As part of the “Maghrib in Transition” project, Idriss Jebari is pursuing a research project entitled “Collective memory and the return path from disengagement in the Moroccan and Tunisian intelligentsias”. This project seeks to understand how the events of the Arab uprisings and revolution acted as a catalyst for the members of the intelligentsia to rethink the terms of their engagement after decades of marginalisation and disillusionment. After 2011, this generation took advantage of the thaw in the public sphere to commemorate the experience and contribution of the Perspectives movement in Tunisia, or Souffles in Morocco to the country’s radical culture. Several marking eulogies and public events were held to celebrate the passing of essential figures such as Fatema Mernissi or Lilia Ben Salem. Finally, this period also saw the publication of a great number of memoirs, opening the wounds of a difficult past. These events, seen as a social and political practice, brought together older members of the intelligentsia and certain members of younger groups in attendance. They hold the potential of re-establishing the genealogy of radical engagement and reconciling Moroccans and Tunisians with their painful recent pasts.