Met at the 15th Festival of Fez of Sufi culture, its president, Faouzi Skali, also an anthropologist, reveals the particularities of this edition which continues until October 29. The opportunity for the president who describes Sufism as a civilizational matrix to highlight the contribution of this great event to this spiritual city. All while expressing the interest of this culture for society, including young people.
ALM: What would be the novelty of this 15th edition of the Fez Festival of Sufi Culture?
Faouzi Skali: The novelty that is quite exceptional is the fact that there is a kind of enthusiasm, an increasingly wide openness to this concept of Sufi culture. We begin to understand all that this term entails in terms of heritage, wealth, capacity, creative resource, not simply a kind of archeology of the past, but rather a revitalizing energy in relation to making relive all these wonderful spaces of Fez, its medersas, its meeting places, its botanical garden through culture, through the breath, as well as the spirit of culture. I believe that from that moment on there is something magical that happens, a kind of alchemy. Sufis speak more often of the alchemy of happiness. At the same time it is the happiness of an alchemy that makes something work between the soul of this city and this living culture. So it’s true that it’s a festival that pulls us forward and upwards, probably also because the resources are so great that, on the contrary, we don’t try to master with our own resources while trying not to not be exceeded, but each time it is greater than what was expected in terms of programming as well. There is great diversity and great richness. Then also the common thread no doubt of this year “Science and conscience” which is intellectual but which is also at the heart of our societal reflections today on a global scale. In other words, what is science without a conscience?! Rabelais had already answered this question: It is a ruin of the soul. What is a spirituality without science?! It is perhaps something that also seems of great power, action and influence. And I believe that the confluence between these two seas if I may say so, between these two dimensions, can be an interesting common thread to lead both the reflections of the round tables and the variations of artistic moments. Obviously, like every year, we have this great meeting with the great spiritual brotherhoods of Morocco and the whole world.
Speaking of brotherhoods, how does your festival contribute to their promotion?
The idea is to take this culture of Sufism out of its usual frameworks. In some settings, it is known and recognized, but it remains very specific. But what is interesting is to bring this culture into the agora, into the public debate, into the discovery of all this wealth, both intellectual and even artistic, with everyone. Because that’s what existed before. We obviously had these places of great experience and transmission of Sufism for those who are initiated, for those who are in research, personal quest on this, but there was a broth of Sufi culture by its values, its wisdom, its art of living and lots of things. But today, these usual means of transmission are cut off for many of them. So we have to rediscover another language and other means. Hence the idea of Sufi culture and not just Sufism. You can’t have a festival of Sufism and simply find people who are directly interested in this question. But Sufism goes beyond the Sufis themselves because it is, in my opinion as an anthropologist, a civilizational matrix.
And the young people in all this?
This is what we do, for example, in the star center in Fez, where we receive not only young people but also often those from a disadvantaged background who have not already, from a traditional point of view, always had the privilege of being in already classic transmission channels. And so there is a tremendous job that has been done, for example, by the organizers of this center, in particular Mahi Binebine and Nabil Ayouch. So the already heritage reunification of this place was all at once this connection with the Sufi culture. It’s really a process of acculturation. This word means culture and not privatization because it is not deculturation. So it’s real work. There is irrigation. The fact that it happens here since there are workshops and so on. We must always go further. And the festival is only a moment of re-stimulation of a work that is daily. Pedagogical work, there are master classes, an arborescence that is done all year round, but the festival is a moment when this energy is recreated again, with great impetus and for us to become aware. This is also a process of raising awareness so that we suddenly become aware of the richness of this culture and all that it can bring us.
“What is interesting is to bring the culture of Sufism into the agora”