This year, from October 27 to 30, the Atlantic Andalusia Festival once again intoxicated the city, Morocco and thousands of music lovers from all over the world.
Cyril Amar, editor-in-chief of MAG’HREB magazine on i24NEWS, met André Azoulay, Advisor to King Mohammed VI. The opportunity for the founder of this meeting to discuss the Moroccan exception when it comes to relations between Judaism and Islam. An exception that Essaouira has chosen to embody in the service of Jewish-Muslim dialogue: a serene, responsible and committed dialogue for Peace.
It is facing the sea, leaning against the ramparts of Essaouira, that André Azoulay chooses to talk about his city and its festival. Here, the Advisor to the King of Morocco rediscovers his younger years and all that the City of Trade Winds holds for those who want to immerse themselves in it: window to elsewhere, openness to the other… André Azoulay, Souiri “ radical and militant”, is its tireless spokesperson.
After a forced two-year break linked to the pandemic, the emblematic Festival of Andalusias Atlantiques returned this year for its 18th edition. President-Founder of the Essaouira Mogador association, André Azoulay speaks about it with passion and fervor: “It is an indescribable festival, which never ceases to surprise and which, in the eyes of some, brings together all the paradoxes: a festival which has not always been understood. We were often seen as somewhat naive dreamers, expressing a reality that many had turned their backs on.”
André Azoulay repeats it over and over again, this meeting is the only one in the world to bring together thousands of Muslims and Jews who have chosen to meet in Essaouira, for the simple “happiness of being together”.
More than a slogan, a priesthood for the followers of this committed festival, going against the tide of a culture of indifference, fracture or denial. And this year, more than 10,000 came to listen to the songs and music of the melhoun or Judeo-Arab matrouz.
“We exploded the numbers. I, who dream a lot for my country, my city and my Andalusia, had never dared to imagine that they would be there in the thousands coming from Israel, France, Canada, the United States, Latin America, from Africa and the Arab world… Neck to elbow to sing and dance together.
This slogan, “the happiness of being together”, I thought about it months ago, but if I could have anticipated such a rush, I would have been even more laudatory. I never lack superlatives to talk about this dialogue between Islam and Judaism, revisited in a smiley way, respectful of the sensitivities of all and which is so dear to me and so
A dialogue that mobilizes. On social networks, André Azoulay explains to us, videos of the festival’s concerts and forums generate millions of views year after year. “The Atlantic Andalusias express our deepest dreams and are also the reflection of our anxieties in the face of the fortresses that remain to be conquered. In Essaouira and during the Atlantic Andalusias, thought unfolds without taboo and echoes the universality of this freedom which is the only and true language of music and culture.”
And this is the great business of his life: the fight for peace. Already, in 1974, in Paris, André Azoulay and his friends founded “Identity and Dialogue”, the first group of Sephardic Jewish intellectuals mobilized for Peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Since the 1990s, he has been directly involved in all ongoing peace processes in the Middle East. A peace which then seemed possible between the two peoples.
“Today, on all continents combined, in the East and in the West, we are in a time and in a space which are unfortunately those of regression, those of all those old fears that we thought had disappeared, those of the emergence of all radicalisms and extremisms.” underlines André Azoulay for whom “Morocco does not play in this division because it has been able to make historical legitimacy and the richness of all its diversities the hard core of its
“This singular, pioneering and courageous choice, His Majesty King Mohammed VI is the incarnation at the highest level with irrefutable voluntarism and a visionary determinism which has never wavered”, adds André Azoulay, recalling that “when others have not been able to resist the tragic illusions of theories of the clash of cultures and civilizations, Morocco has been able to favor a social modernity nourished by otherness, now inscribed in the preamble of our Constitution voted in July 2011. This constitution gives all its depth to the national consensus, a reflection of the spiritual and temporal leadership of Morocco now recognized and respected by the greatest number.
Throughout this journey, there remains a central stone to bring to the building: that of a culture of Peace to be rebuilt between Israelis and Palestinians. André Azoulay remembers with nostalgia the 90s and the hopes born from the historic success of the Casablanca Conference in 1994 where, like many others, the King’s Advisor grew even though the work was finished.
And yet, concludes André Azoulay who does not want to give up, the equation is clear and its solution obvious: “Those, numerous, with whom I identify and who are concerned about security and a peaceful future for the children of Israel and Palestine know that there is no alternative scenario or plan B for the coexistence of two States, whose citizens would agree to use the same way, for each other, the words of security, of justice and dignity.”
