Sbaiyin MadrassasIn the past The View From Fez reported on the rehabilitation of the Sahrij and Sbaiyin Madrassas complex in the historic Medina of Fez. Now comes sad news that has been kept under wraps for some time. Bonnie Kaplan is the Conservation Consultant Coordinator of the Sahrij & Sbaiyin Madrassa Complex Restoration Project and here is her report. Please note: you can click on the pictures to see a larger view.One of the two 14th-century madrassas that I have been working in Fez to save for the last eight years, the Sbaiyin Madrassa, was pillaged this August. News of this incident was so underpublicized that even I only learned of the theft this week!
Please take a look at the attached images and pass this on to raise awareness about this tragic loss of Moroccan heritage. If you have questions or comments, please feel free to contact me at bxk132@yahoo.com
Thank you for your attention.
Tags: Moroccan Morocco Fes, Maghreb news
7 comments:
How come it was 4 months before the "Conservation Consultant Coordinator of the Sahrij & Sbaiyin Madrassa Complex Restoration Project" discovered this?
Well said, Willie.
are all neighbors deaf and blind? why spend any money on medina projects if they're liable to be pillaged in this brazen fashion? ridiculous....
The medrassa is mostly adjoined by other public buildings so does not have many residential neighbours.
However those that are there may actually fear the thieves. There is high level of physical violence between Moroccans especially using knives, it is easy to have high morals when you are not in the thick of things.
That said it is hard to have sympathy with Morocco with their overall poor care of the historical monuments, especially in Fes. It is not as if they don't get some funding for the work.
I would really like to know where you can get one of these conservation manager jobs where you only have to turn up every 4 months? Anyone know?
I am the project manager for the Sahrij & Sbaiyin Madrassa project, and I really take offense to the comments concerning why I only learned of the theft four months after the fact.
The Sbaiyin Madrassa is owned by the Ministry of Habous and Islamic Affairs and “run” by the Ministry of Culture and Communication. When I arrived in Morocco in 2000, the Sbaiyin was walled off to keep out vagrants and falling to ruin. From 2001-2005, I applied for grants to save the site using my own money for all the travel, postage, printing, etc. that go along with this process. Several of my applications were successful: the site received $150,000 in grant money from the World Monuments Fund and the Getty Foundation and was selected for the 2004 List of 100 Most Endangered Sites (World Monuments Watch).
For legal reasons, the grants could not be issued directly to me, so I had to find an NGO that would not charge a management fee; overheads were not covered by the grants. After many failed attempts, I found a Moroccan NGO that was the local branch of a respected, international organization that agreed to manage the project for free.
The study phase of the project was supposed to take only 10 months, but because of delays caused primarily by this NGO, conservation plan development took 27 months. I was not paid for the extra time, but even so, I wrote the Conservation Plan and delivered it to Paris, again, at my own expense.
In spring 2008, the local NGO was supposed to call a meeting to validate the Conservation Plan and then present the project to the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Habous. Once the ministries had signed off on a project, I could start applying for funds to restore the site. However, members of the NGO never even read the document. They simply filed it in their archives and forgot about it. Tired of waiting, this fall, I contacted the World Monuments Fund myself because I knew we would never advance if we waited for them to do their job. It was decided that I should go ahead and write up the estimate for the emergency stabilization work for the site to prevent further degradation. This is when I went to the site and discovered the theft.
Nothing binds me to this site other than my own personal interest. I am not the owner. I have no legal stakes. When I found out about the theft, I circulated a notice to raise awareness about what I consider to be a great loss. This week, I went to Rabat to try to push the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Habous to validate our Conservation Plan so I could look for funding. Believe it or not, the owner, the Ministry of Habous, only learned about the theft when I arrived on its doorstep three days ago.
All this said, I feel that what you really should be asking is:
Why was this Madrassa left unguarded?
Why was it not a national priority to protect its contents?
Why have the objects not been sought out and returned?
Why has this crime not been publicly denounced?
Not: Why wasn’t the coordinator on site for four months?
How utterly depressing.
Bureaucracy seems to be at the root of this problem, and considering the funding that has been thrown at the Medina it's just inexplicable.
I understand the intimidation that can be used against the local residents, but the fact remains that any police force is always up against this problem.
Where are the police in the Medina? Why are they only ever seen on the roads collecting motoring fines?
Morocco has an excellent King. God help those responsible for this mess when it comes to his attention.
An utter tragedy. But the real problem is with private "collectors" who fund these illegal operations. How could anyone proudly display a pillaged artifact out of it's original context is beyond me. Do the Moroccan authorities even have a department responsible for tracking down and uncovering the trade of artifacts with no documented provenance?? I would think their interest in their stolen (and thus erased) history fluctuates with the amount of the bribe offered to turn a blind eye. Even Lixus has suffered recent vandalism with the ripping out of the Medusa mosaic, and I've strolled around the ancient site of Chellah in Rabat watching Moroccan kids take bricks from the old roman walls to make chairs for themselves for picnics! - and this place has security! Pathetic, really.
I would suggest all those interested should read a book called "Stealing History" by Roger Atwood. Let's not see the ancient heart of Fes become an unguarded looters treasure chest, like the burial mounds of Sipan.
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