Moi Aussi, Je Suis Musulman: Rai, Islam, and Masculinity in Maghrebi Transnational Identity

This article focuses on North African Rai music as a fertile and explosive site of gendered and transnational Maghrebi identity, exploring two separate yet related paths. The first is the "Rai versus Islam" binary, which the article demonstrates to be a falsely constructed combat zone that serves to further the political interests of the FIS (Islamic Salvation Front), the FLN (National Liberation Front), and the financial interests of the Western music industry. The second focus is on the role of gender in Rai, and the increasing masculinization of the genre. The article's goal is to reveal the complex intersections of Rai, Islam, and masculinity in the construction of transnational Maghrebi identity. Introduction In a postmodern world where globalization, migration and cyberspace have blurred national and territorial boundaries, identity continues to play a vital role in a network of shifting and overlapping categories that work to construct and deconstruct each other. In this article I focus on Rai as a fertile and explosive site of Maghrebi identity. (1) Rai, originally a Western Algerian/Eastern Moroccan musical genre, traces its roots back to the early twentieth century. In its contemporary form (from the 1970s onward), it has followed Maghrebi immigrants to Europe, and the recent release of the duet Desert Rose (1999) featuring British Sting and Algerian Cheb Mami, has increased its visibility as a global phenomenon. Typically, Rai is associated with youth and immigrant subcultures, and often described as risque or vulgar. (2) Yet as this article will demonstrate, Rai is a much more complex phenomenon that speaks to the multiplicity of a gendered and transnational Maghrebi identity. In order to explore this complexity, my article follows two separate yet related paths. The first focus will be on the seemingly, but not necessarily, adversarial relationship of Rai and Islam, whose conflict has been promoted for different reasons by its Islamist (3) opponents and its Western proponents. I will demonstrate how the "Rai versus Islam" binary is a falsely constructed combat zone that serves to further the political interests of the FIS (Islamic Salvation Front), the FLN (National Liberation Front), (4) and the financial interests of the Western music industry. The second focus will be on the role of gender in Rai, and the increasing masculinization of the genre. My goal is to reveal the complex intersections of Rai, Islam and masculinity in the construction of a transnational Maghrebi identity. While considerable attention is being given to the economic impact of globalization, similar scholarly inquiry into the cultural and political ramifications of globalization is only beginning. In light of recent and ongoing political crises involving young Middle Eastern men and Islam, it is foolish and perilous to ignore cultural and political elements, or to accept simplistic explanations that compartmentalize and too often demonize "the Other." My hope is that this paper will help both to demystify and to complicate the role of Islam in one kind of Maghrebi identity, that of the transnational Maghrebi cheb, or what the Rai singer Cheb Mami would call the North Parisian, or the young man of the suburbs or la banlieue. (5) Setting the Stage: The Rai-Islamist Battlefield Mahmoud Zemmouri's 1997 film 100% Arabica (6) takes place in the suburbs of Paris. While ostensibly a showcase for the singing talents of Khaled and Cheb Mami, this comedy also raises issues and questions that lie at the heart of this article. Is there really an irreconcilable division between Rai and Islam? If not, why have Islamists chosen to position themselves in direct opposition to Rai singers? What does Rai represent to them, and to the larger Maghrebi community? And what role does Rai play in constructing a kind of transnational Maghrebi masculinity? In 100% Arabica, two young male Islamists hide their religious garb under Western clothing in order to attend a neighborhood Rai concert. …