Welcome to the very first edition of Radio Ifriqia, a new podcast powered by afikra. In the first episode, we delve into the history and relaunch of the influential Moroccan magazine, Souffles (Anfās in Arabic, meaning "breath" or "spirit"), with founding editors Hisham Aidi (Columbia) and Zakia Salime (Rutgers). Souffles was originally launched in 1966 by a group of Moroccan writers and artists who came of age writing in Paris and were steeped in Pan-Africanism, decolonial movements, and anti-liberation movements of the era. They are credited with coining the phrase "cultural decolonization", challenging the dominance of colonial paradigms in newly independent Morocco and examining what it meant to decolonize knowledge and culture. It was the first truly transatlantic, transcontinental magazine, connecting North Africa to the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America. The original magazine lasted from 1966 to 1972 but the editors have resurrected it, relaunching the magazine in 2022 on the 50th anniversary of its closure as "Souffles Monde". The relaunch is driven by a commitment to bring academic research to a lay audience and reignite the tradition of decolonizing knowledge and challenging structures of power—the very spirit of Souffles. This discussion explores the magazine's initial intellectual pillars, the importance of historical reference points from the region, the continued relevance of debates on language and identity, and the new team's commitment to creating a dialogue among scholars across generations and geographic boundaries in the spirit of Pan-Maghrebism and South-South conversations.
Show more...