The Face, the Nation: Vichy from Afar

The Face, the N ation: Vichy from A far Steven Ungar C ALL TH IS AN ED ITO R IA L. A return visit to M orocco this M ay after an absence of twenty-six years rem inded me how m uch por­ traits o f King Hassan II were integral to the spaces and rhythm s of everyday life. Because M orocco rem ains an Islamic kingdom , the author­ ity invested in the king is singular and pervasive. Hassan II is very m uch a providential figure, both ruler and spiritual leader o f the M oroccan peo­ ple. Photos of the king are literally everywhere. Not just in post offices, airports, and governm ent buildings in the urban areas o f Rabat, Fez, and Casablanca, but also on the walls o f shops and cafés in rem ote m oun­ tains and desert villages. Som ething in the royal portraits struck me as oppressive. W as I resisting an evolved cult o f the strong leader? I tried to dismiss my uneasiness by telling myself that my reaction was probably no different from that o f visitors to the United States who encountered official portraits o f the A m erican President displayed in governm ent buildings. If I were H assan II’s faithful subject, my response would be less self-conscious and, presum ably, less resistant. Returning to the United States via Paris, I learned with some relief that my response to the photos was not isolated. W hat I had considered a personal reaction (overreaction?) was determ ined to a large extent by cultural specificity: “ Like others who have journeyed to M orocco, when walking down local streets I found myself gazing at the face of the cen­ tral m onarch. In m ountain ham lets, city m arkets, and desert camps, the king is powerfully present. Present in words, pictures, and deeds, he is occasionally present in person also.” 1 Only after the fact do I see the extent to which my uneasiness about the power of the royal portrait in M orocco drew on an iconography related to France’s ongoing obsession with the m em ory o f Vichy. In April 1992, furor over the dismissal of charges against alleged war crim inal Paul Touvier led to a barrage of press and television coverage. The effect was uncanny. Images of M aréchal Philippe Pétain were suddenly on newsstands and television screens everywhere while headlines such as “ M aréchal, nous revoilà” extended the illusion o f a tim e warp as m inor nightm are. As a profusion o f signs o f the past circulated anew, it was m o d e ré tr o with a vengeance. The revived (renewed? recycled?) images o f Pétain sent out m inor V o l . X X X III, N o . 1 111 L ’ E s p r i t C r é a t e u r shock waves. The memories they conveyed were clearly m ore oppressive and m ore complex than the portraits o f Hassan I I I saw a m onth later in M orocco. This was the case for at least two reasons. A first was that belatedness enhanced an interplay o f difference and repetition, blurring distinctions between past and present as well as those between the real and the fictive. The undeniable separation o f two m om ents in real time did not com pensate for the jo lt their sim ulated conjuncture produced, as illusory and as im plausible as that conjuncture might be. Each image of the M aréchal was overdeterm ined, doubled in the signs o f the recent past it imposed ever so briefly on the present. The effect was especially unset­ tling because these signs rem ain contested am ong a m ajority o f those who were born after the liberation as well as am ong the surviving wit­ nesses who had lived it. W hat to do about—w hat to do with or to—Vichy? Fifty years after the fact, this question rem ains complex and unresolved. M ore to the...