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Mohammed Kabbaj, bookseller of knowledge in Essaouira
Mohammed Kabbaj, bookseller in Essaouira.
© Victor Mauriat/RFI
Text by: Victor Mauriat
7 mins
Bookseller specializing in old books from the history of Morocco, Mohammed Kabbaj has been established in Essaouira for 14 years.
In this historic coastal town now converted to tourism, the 69-year-old has rediscovered his love of knowledge.
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“
I am not a bookseller, but a bookseller.
There is a difference.
Bookseller is the one who sells the new.
I am a bookseller
”.
The decor is set.
In the small town of Essaouira where the wind never dies down, Mohammed Kabbaj's “La Bibliographie” bookstore is located at the bend of the small alleys, away from the hustle and bustle of the countless shops on the main avenues of the medina.
The blue of the storefront is barely noticeable as it is so close to the high ocher walls of the ramparts.
The books and posters on display seem as old as the decor of the city.
Inside, the smell of old works mingles with that of the shop's old stones.
In the background, behind a desk on the right, a man with a beard and gray hair seems engrossed in sorting through his books.
It seems small compared to all these works yellowed by time.
A pipe screwed into his mouth, his hoarse voice resounds between the walls when he greets his customers.
There is a benevolent warmth from Mohammed Kabbaj, a touch of mischief too.
Behind his glasses, his eyes sparkle as soon as we talk about his profession.
“
I specialize in books on the history of Morocco, before and during the period of the French protectorate
,” he announces.
Birth of a vocation
His passion for books, Mohammed Kabbaj developed it very early.
Born in 1953 into a modest family in Casablanca, he was not immersed in an educated environment.
"
My father was an orphan and had no education, but I had an uncle who was self-taught, he had a lot of books at home and we went there every weekend
," he says.
As a child, he attended the violently repressed demonstrations of March 23, 1965. “
I was in a very hot area
”.
At the origin of the movement, high school students who defended their right to study threatened by an ongoing reform.
The mobilization is gaining momentum, high school students are joined by their parents, workers, the unemployed and slum dwellers.
The repression left at least a thousand dead, according to the foreign press, and King Hassan II declared: “
There is no danger as serious for the State as that of a so-called intellectual.
It would have been better if you were all illiterate
”.
These events give a first direction to the life of the young Mohammed.
“
We were under the bullets of General Oufkir who led the repression, I was very touched by what I experienced.
I who was concerned about social inequalities, it marked me a lot.
Especially on an emotional level.
I witnessed an assassination, for example, a demonstrator shot dead by a soldier.
It was a very painful time.
These events reinforced his interest in philosophy, political science and Marxism.
"
It was a real awakening,
he explains.
I didn't understand everything I read, but I felt things
.
Mohammed Kabbaj reads Descartes, Camus… “
Doubt and the absurd
”, he laughs.
He has only one idea in mind: to study these texts at university.
For that, he has to go to Rabat, but his family's means do not allow him to change town.
He then transferred to political science at the University of Casablanca.
"
A big disappointment
", in his words.
“
At the time, anything socio or philosophical was considered subversive.
All its subjects were therefore emptied of their political essence.
In addition, our generation did not care about the diploma, because there was no worry about work, we had other motivations, namely that of being cultivated
".
He therefore dropped the Moroccan university, and flew to Paris where he obtained a scholarship at the age of 24.
Gilles Deleuze, Nicos Poulantzas, François Chatelet... Between philosophy at the famous Paris 8 University in Vincennes, and sociology at the Sorbonne, Mohammed Kabbaj is a fulfilled man: “
The courses finally interested me
”.
After a few years, he began a thesis on Marshal Lyautey, administrator of the French protectorate over Morocco between 1913 and 1925. "
We had a course on political legitimacy
," he says.
I then asked the question of whether Lyautey had succeeded in establishing French legitimacy in Morocco, it was by working on this period that I developed my passion for these old books.
»
Back to Morocco
Returning to Morocco in 1986 with wife and child (his first son was born in 1985), he quickly turned away from the administrative jobs that his level of study allowed him to achieve.
“
I didn't want to sit on my convictions, I was marginal… I wanted to remain independent, I tried to work with my uncle in a signaling company, he wanted me to take over.
I never made
it, he said with a broad smile.
I tried for six months, however… so I looked for a job that could allow me to remain intellectually free.
»
Mohammed decides to combine business with pleasure.
"
I knew all the old booksellers and booksellers in Paris, when I went to a bookseller and saw them sitting behind their desks reading with their glasses, I said to myself why not me, why not in Morocco ?
".
He then set up a first bookstore, first at the Derb Ghalef flea market in Casablanca, organized antique fairs and began to make a name for himself in the Moroccan intellectual milieu.
“
The ministers came to talk to me in the salons and the researchers often consulted me for their study work,
remembers Mohammed,
it must be said that here the old books on Morocco
(in French)
were quite rare!
»
The young bookseller regularly goes back and forth to Paris, “
to hunt for old books
”.
There, he finds one of his friends from the Clignancourt flea market where he worked, in addition to his studies, in a mattress sales shop during his eight years in Paris.
“
We were starting to hear about Essaouira.
A city on the rise, we were told.
So we decided to open a restaurant there
.
His bookstore in Casablanca did not survive the economic recession of the early 1990s. In 1994, Mohammed and his partner embarked on the Essaouira adventure
: has not fed, so I will feed the bellies.
»
Essaouira, a city "with a cultural vocation"
At that time, Essaouira was "
a cemetery of houses
", said Mohammed.
Founded in 1760, the city experienced a prosperous period in the 18th century.
Known as the "
port of Timbuktu
", it was a hub of the sub-Saharan slave market.
But from the French protectorate, the city finds itself landlocked.
“
It was Lyautey who killed Essaouira.
The births of the port of Casablanca and that of Agadir killed the city.
The industrial district is a ruin elsewhere
, ”laments the bookseller.
Aside from the hippie wave of the 60s and 70s, Essaouira is having a "
big sleep,
" he says.
But there was still a very important music: the blues of Morocco, the Gnaoua.
Our restaurant was the first to put these musicians forward, in front of an audience
”.
This restaurant, Mohammed stayed there for more than ten years.
He witnessed the transformation of the city, one of the poorest in Morocco, by the return of tourists brought in particular by the Gnaoua festival.
“
There is a form of schizophrenia,
he regrets.
Villas and luxury hotels rub shoulders with the very poor people of the alleys.
In 2008, Mohammed Kabbaj left the restaurant business and returned to his first love, old books.
“
La Bibliographie
” was born in Essaouira, a city which according to him “
can only have a cultural vocation
”.
"
When it's 44 degrees in Marrakech, it's 20 degrees in Essaouira… People said it was going to be Saint-Tropez, but that's nonsense!
There is a mystical dimension, a very important Judeo-Arab history… This city is made to highlight its heritage, not for mass tourism
”.
At 69, Mohammed Kabbaj now welcomes people in search of history to his shop in a city that has it all.
There is a breath and a man who will have dedicated his life to the search for knowledge.
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