“The festive and the ritual in Moroccan civilization” is the theme of the first round-table organized on Saturday 3 June 2023 at the Rabat Book Fair. The speakers were Mustapha SEALITI, professor of social psychology at Cadi Ayyad University in Marrakech, and Mustapha CHAGDALI, psycho sociologist and teacher-researcher at the “Institut supérieur international du tourisme de Tanger” (ISITT).
Mr. Chegdali Mustapha: maintaining our collective memory in a changing society
Affirming that the ritual and the festive are almost impossible to dissociate, the researcher explained that “a ritual is a celebration, which is not necessarily joyful, a special celebration that highlights ancestral traditions. This includes traditional food, clothing, body language and many other facets of Moroccan culture”.
Rituals are therefore above all ” a reflection of the community’s culture, a mirror of the evolution of our values and ancestral traditions that stretch back thousands of years to Phoenician times “.
As an example, he points out how eating rituals in a household are a mere daily event, yet they represent a memory with which people collectively identify. ” As a professor of food sociology, when I ask my students to describe their relationship with their mothers, they come to realize that the habits and rituals surrounding meals and food within a family are a psychological link to our history and memory “.
Although the evolution of our society in the direction of a fast-paced lifestyle, more centered on the individual and less on the community, has a direct impact on our collective rituals, the “challenge we are facing today is to maintain our collective memory”.
Mustapha SEALITI: identity is a system of identification with values
In his speech, Mustapha SEALITI thanked and congratulated the CCME for publishing the Encyclopaedia of Moroccan Culture, which “offers Moroccans around the world a precious opportunity. The opportunity to get to know oneself”. He recalled a statement by Mr Abdellah Boussouf, Secretary General of the CCME, who said that “true love is based on conviction and knowledge”.
“The aim of this encyclopedia is to fill a gap, as we Moroccans know our culture only superficially”, despite the fact that “representations are the basis of the social and psychosocial construction of an identity, which is no more than a system for identifying ourselves with values, a history, a way of being ourselves in the face of cultural otherness”.
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