; edifying to insubordination
kingdom " (p. 25)
The Reign of barbarism includes Abdellatif Laâbi first poems, written between 1965 and 1967, composed of six parts," Eye of talisman, "" Marasmus " "State Violence," "Glory to those who torture us," "Life urgent" and "race".
The section entitled "Eye of talisman" suggests that the poet sees the poem as something attracting beneficial influences. The image of the talisman is significant because it evokes the magic rituals - the words of the poet would be a way to exorcise evil and a means to resist. But the talisman also derives its power of images engraved on it. Thus, one eye is usually the strong image. Like the poet whose strength and range from as images. The first movement of the poet is that of revolt, insubordination to the official order:
Died
logos cited
(p. 23)
For the poet, he is speaking for the people who have no voice:
Now
I'm looking at my tribe
language .
Like many poets of resistance against any order (I think Césaire against the colonial order in particular, whose poetry is not without similarities with that of Abdellatif Laâbi) Laâbi think the poet is can and should be the voice of the oppressed, the illiterate. This poetry is primarily a poetry fellowship, willing to speak for others and for others:
"My face
multiplied in all the faces
shouting "
(p. 35)
Laâbi's poems are violent, consisting of fractures, lightning, extremely strong internal tensions between the rebellion, anger and celebration. Therefore the kingdom of barbarism denounces a given time, one of colonization, that of power against self-determination of Morocco while celebrating the world. Probably because poetry is a talisman, a piece of clarity in the dark times.
This affirmation of the role of the poet in the world is marked at the beginning of the collection:
"and I retrace my parchment
a new cosmogony
in total harmony elements
hear the clash of idioms
in my mouth "
(p. 25)
Poetry of the Reign of Barbary is violent, powerful, very complex. It is quite clear that this is an activist who speaks, a man engaged in combat. The work of the poet is thus regarded as a radical liberation, absolute "then I will come / you spit in mouth / burst your tumors / expel your aches atavistic" (p. 26).
The first part responds to the desire to put a powerful voice and total. But it is primarily the destruction that will occupy the poet, particularly in the second part "Marasmus , "Where he discusses the moral and political dryness of his country. These "doldrums" refer to the miserable state of a country lean like a sick, weakened, exhausted, on the verge of exhaustion. Laâbi mentions in the pages that follow the action of the poet. If writing is a pain, an effort, however it is a weapon: "the word ton / I am the first victim / but I extract / propels him / to you" (p. 33 ). This power is both poetic as the word regularly likened to a bomb, a sharp blade, and that of a tree ineradicable forces invisible "I have roots / underground route signs / a blast of unknown elements" (p. 32).
Writing Laâbi is marked by ruptures, the saccade and especially the lack of punctuation. So the poem progresses block rhythmic, phonic, reconciliations of ideas and images. Playback is only possible if we remain sensitive to the strength of the oral poem, beyond the question of meaning. Enumerations, syntactic breaks punctuate this epic poetry. J'emplois "epic "Advisedly since poetry Laâbi is carried by a powerful blast of anger, one breath at a time destructive of order and manufacturer of brotherhood.
"down then
is the street
and backfire
; to the verge of a burst
pagan
bellicose
; ; and stiff
uproots lichen
lichen off
slain suckers
tendons limestone "
(p. 39)
It was in this that I compare his work from that Césaire. As Césaire Laâbi hollow common language, tore the power to dispossess and to appropriate it. Cesaire fought against colonialism in deconstructing the language of the colonizer, ruining the Western symbols, with playing the usual connotations. It is also like this that makes Laâbi Abdellatif, snapping the tongue like bullets from a gun - a word-utterance, a word that forces the reader's voice, even her cry. Finally, just as Cesaire Laâbi evokes the reality of his country with an eye devoid of any complacency, combing his land and his people in the images of sickness, death, sexual violence. Before the real delight, he dissects reality with sustained attention, denounced for what it is. The floor is littered with this reality, even supports: "is a dialect / I speak / pustular an idiom of signs / poles node / arches / and bullets / demeaned all know me / for his / I spoke " (p. 46). The ugliness and disgust have a place elsewhere in size in the poems of Laâbi, and that the violence of some images of mutilated and enslaved land is part of the poet's revolt, destroying the bucolic images but also condemning the passivity of his own people. He criticized his country, his ignorance cowardice, his confinement in the sterile nationalism "fraternity of exclusion," and designated officials of this "state violence" (derived from the third party where "state "refers to both the state system, power up, and the political, economic and moral of the country) colonizers, their gaze generator blocks. Nothing like this, understandably, that the uncompromising evocation of his native land to reverse the gaze of another. Laâbi in this respect is far from the idea of patriotism for her favorite fraternity.
The revolt of the poet goes through a sharp irony as outlined in the title of Part Four "Glory to those who torture us"
"make the wheel my small country of Cato and Brutus
we will make artistic picture
you have your portrait in a living museum
well supported
with scientific legend
not cry my little country legends
mouth do not see your hunger
[...]
Gentiles tourists are coming " (p. 42)
Laâbi repeatedly denounced the negative effects of colonization. Noting he has before him his "body and frame of nothingness" (p. 83), he adds "you knew Fanon." This reference to Frantz Fanon is critical because it proves that evokes Laâbi - otherwise than by a psychiatrist and a literary device-the consequences of colonialism on human beings. For Laâbi, the result is a self-dispossession, suffering major named as "Indelible trap" and "scuffle outside memory" (p. 83). It may seem paradoxical to speak of and indelible mark "beyond memory", in reality, the thing is resolved if one thinks of a scar. Off memory, so this is the body itself which bears the indelible traces of the past. Laâbi speaks twice of "atavism" in his body "osmosis millennium." The legacy of the colon but also by years of submission and reconciliation is the subject of poetic battle.
A movement of destruction and deconstruction succeeds in the last two parts construction. The poetic word causes the birth of something else: the power of resistance. The poet is defined elsewhere as a "Bard-crocodile" (p. 75) Hope is not a given in this very first book, call the loudest is that of the insubordination. The appeal of this warlike poetry subside over the collections of the poet, but these first poems as a young man asserts the need disorder, a necessary war to regain the "urgent life" (title of Part Five): "if I arm myself to the teeth / this is to kill the frame of dogmas" (p. 63). This fight both political and poetic leads to the emergence of a new state of rebellion and a unit of men in "race". "Race" is the title of the last part and it noted that it is singular. The poetic word can only find this universality. Unit of men who have no voice with the poet, men oppressed by a social and political
"instinctively say we're allergic to manuals For
are deifying Intelligence
say that we do not follow those who succeed Those who know
Those who order and magic talking robots Eject cited
The equations supermen. " (p. 71)
At the end of the collection, the poet's birth causes something else. The word actually becomes a weapon of struggle erupts:
"to create the image of a just and violent
namely
genesis
the cry
biology sidereal
body mine
will live
spread
defend
unalterable
in his first gesture " (p. 91) This writing
shine, almost hallucinatory, will be more sober and more intense by the on. Mahmoud Darwish explained that for him poetry was a response to the war precisely because it transcends it. And he expressed his desire to describe the almond blossoms, to evoke the beauty of the world in a lucid language, a language of peace, a language that does not sparkle the violence and weapons. In this, he believed that poetry is powerful: because it goes against the language of the enemy. This view differs greatly from that of Laâbi whose work on language is more like a tear. But the man of struggle as the man of peace come together because they both poetry a means of action essential. For acting, it's also talk and write is to forge a language that would suggest otherwise than under the system set up. The reign of barbarism seeks to give words to those who have no voice, no doubt because the poet knows, writes Clement Rosset in Choice of words that "power action depends to a large extent the vocabulary we have. "
References:
All quotes are taken from the poetry (Volume I) Abdellatif Laâbi, Editions de la Différence, preface by Jean-Luc Wautier, 2006.
Clément Rosset, the Choice of Words , Editions de Minuit, 1995. 
