Once a blight on Morocco’s Atlantic coast, Asilah has blossomed into something beautiful thanks to the ideas of two friends and the commitment of an entire community. Sarah Gilbert tells us its story. The man lifted the pointed hood of his djellabah against the breeze, reached for his brush and began to paint a dramatic swirl of colour onto the whitewashed medina wall. People stopped to watch him work, even offering to hold his ladder. Far from a Moroccan Banksy, he was just one of the many artists that flock to the white-cubed town of Asilah for its annual festival, the International Cultural Moussem.
With a history dating back over 3600 years, Asilah straddles the cliffs of Morocco’s north Atlantic coast, sitting at the crossroads of Europe and Africa. Blessed with a natural harbour, it became a prosperous trading town and was invaded by the Phoenicians, Byzantines, Romans, Arabs and Normans, among others. The Portuguese arrived in 1471 and built the town’s impressive ramparts. It was then under Spanish rule before finally being returned to Morocco in 1956.Today, the fortified town is invaded every August by an equally diverse crowd, among them Japanese artists, Sufi chanters and Mexican dancers, along with thousands of spectators, for over a month of public art demonstrations, exhibitions and concerts, at one of North Africa’s largest cultural festivals.
Asilah’s medina is petite and impossibly picturesque. Oud players strummed in the square, and women offered to paint henna curlicues along my hands and feet. I strolled along the spotlessly clean warren of alleyways, where the brilliant-white buildings are punctuated with cerulean-blue paintwork that matched the vibrancy of the sky, past heavy wooden doors that led into shaded courtyards. After sunset, the winding streets and al fresco cafés teemed with families, while huddles of teenagers perched in the gaps in the ramparts. It was almost impossible to believe that, like neighbouring Tangier, Asilah had spent decades in a seemingly inexorable decline.
Its renaissance began in 1978, when two local friends, Mohammed Benaïssa and Mohammed Melehi, planned the first moussem (an Arabic derivation meaning season) under the banner ‘Culture and Art for Development’, inviting eleven artists from around the world to, quite literally, paint the town. Local residents pitched in to scrub and whitewash the whole place in preparation. Morocco’s Ministry of Culture restored a section of the crumbling ramparts. The Raissouni Palace, a former pirate’s home, was transformed into an opulent palace of culture replete with zelij (traditional ceramic tiles), crystal chandeliers and fragrant, intricately carved cedar woodwork. The Al-Mouhit Association was founded to organise events around the festival, and every year more and more artists came, leaving behind brightly coloured murals on the whitewashed walls.
When I met Benaïssa, former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Asilah’s mayor since 1983, he described the town in the 1970s: “There was nothing: no telephone, electricity was very poor, and there was drinking water for just one hour a day. Living conditions were terrible – sewage ran in the streets, garbage was everywhere.” The success of the festival engendered a sense of civic pride: teams of children competed to clean the beaches; adults did the same to maintain their neighbourhoods. Bit by bit, infrastructure was improved: power lines dating from 1926 were replaced; streets were paved: and people’s houses were renovated with traditional construction techniques, including the use of salvaged doors and windows. Historical buildings were also restored, including the Al-Kamra Tower, which is now an exhibition space. As a result of all the hard work, the town won the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 1989.
The festival also created a forum for debate between the Arab world, Europe and Africa. “We started this project with a view to, on the one hand, providing the population with a new resource – in this case culture, creativity. And secondly, we felt that, in the south, there wasn’t really a place where people could meet for a so-called ‘dialogue of cultures’,” Benaïssa told me. Now a throng of economists, politicians and academics gather at the contemporary Hassan II Centre for International Meetings to attend conferences on social issues, as well as artistic and literary themes.
More than thirty years on, Benaïssa’s belief that art and culture can be used as a catalyst for change is unwavering: “Look at what it has done. With art you cannot end poverty, but you can bring about the end of misery.” When the Moussem ends and the flood of visitors leave, Asilah returns to its tranquil self. But the art remains. Murals – renewed every year – adorn the buildings, wrapping around pipes and enveloping shutters. Many of the children assigned to help the artists at the first Moussem are now professional artists themselves, and a new and enterprising generation is cashing in on the art boom, selling their naïve paintings from street corners. Galleries and workshops abound, and many wouldn’t look out of place in London or New York.
The medina may lack Marrakech’s tangle of souks and panoply of shops, but it’s also endearingly free from the hassle and hustle of other Moroccan cities: traditional barbers sat next to chichi boutiques; window displays overflowed with ornate silver jewellery studded with semi-precious gems; handiras’ (wedding blankets) silver sequins glinting in the sun; shaggy Beni Ouarain, with bold geometric markings; vivid kilims hung under awnings; and babouches (pointed, rounded, sparkling and furry slippers) jostled for space in narrow emporiums.
Outside the medina, the call of the muezzin mingled with the strains of Arabic hip-hop. I wandered through the covered market, engulfed in the aroma of freshly-baked bread, the tang of mint and the sweet smell of dates, passing villagers from the Rif Mountains – their distinctive straw hats decorated with gaudy pom-poms – trading gigantic yellow melons from makeshift stalls, mounds of pungent saffron and plump figs bursting with ripeness. Before the Moussem, Asilah had long sustained itself as a fishing community and, after a sweet mint tea at the ramshackle Fisherman’s Café, I headed to the established seafront restaurant, Casa Pepe. Waiters in white shirts and black ties squeezed between the heaving tables and a djellabah-clad fisherman blocked the doorway. He pulled two lobsters from his steel bucket – lunch had arrived for a gregarious Spanish family.
After feasting on crispy whitebait and freshly caught sardines, I took a taxi to Paradise Beach a few miles out of town. When the paved road ended we bumped over gravel, shrubs and dunes, overtaking more traditional taxis – donkey-drawn wooden carts – with passengers hanging precariously off the side. Finally, we turned down the winding path to the beach, and before me the sweeping bay glittered through the heat haze, mile after mile of honey-coloured sand pounded by Atlantic rollers.
Beyond the row of ramshackle cafes, impromptu football matches were underway. Grumbling camels plodded up and down the surf with their tourist cargo, while boys on scrawny mules galloped bareback between the beach towels. Children played under parasols and women sunbathed in everything from bikinis to burkas.
Asilah’s rehabilitation continues under Benaïssa’s watchful eye. When I remark that the festival has fulfilled its objectives, he demurs: “Let us say it is fulfilling its objectives, because there is no end to improvement.”
The old harbour is being rebuilt to serve as a commercial port and marina, and apartments are springing up along the once-neglected coast, east towards Tangier. But Benaïssa has allowed only limited tourism development within the medina’s ancient walls, determined that it won’t lose its spirit or become another Marrakech.
It certainly has all the ingredients to become the new Essaouira, but it’s a modest place and, for now at least, it’s content to be the new Asilah.
