Prensa del Tánger Internacional: el mito del Estrecho
Streets of love sounds and I smile, I know there's something about this place that I haven't found anywhere
The tea is too sugared, even though the air smells and tastes of salt. Tangier incites to put yourself in airplane mode, it seems that the most obvious connection is the one you have with yourself, but you don't know it completely until you step completely on this land. Here, time stands still, as a wise man said, "In Europe there are clocks, in Tangier we have time". And what a time, Streets of love, the Rolling Stones, I wonder if I am the only one who can feel the intensity of the emotions in every corner of this city, in the cardinal points of these seas, but I remember they already said it, looking for inspiration in the light, the landscapes and the people. I wonder ironically how can anyone resist revealing its greatest secret, the most childish of its corners, the most sensible of its cries. The sea returns a wave from which I transcribe a "no". Indeed, no one can resist Tangier.
While reading the magazine I brought with me, I imagine the legacy that made this city international one day, under the rule of 10 countries, home to exiles, refugees and the censored. Those who became " the untouchables of Tangiers", and who above all raised the cry for freedom, with a pen, a brush and with true love. The city through which the red phone passed, the city of sex and drugs, the city of Bowls. To understand and unravel in the Tangier that once was elegant and distinguished, that of the cheap life. The Tangier of exuberant light, whose inhabitants now lack the time, encounter and courage to understand that, as Mohamed Chukri said: "Anyone can spend a few weeks here and write a book".
Those who took it as a starting point remained here as they saw a future. Virginia Woolf, Capote, Ginsberg, Kerouac, Gore Vidal, Paul Bowless or Tennessee Williams were some of those enchanted by what ends up being a splendid and singular demonstration of a longing continuity, for the world of the imaginary, in a remote place capable of gathering so much diversity and, above all, capable of converting, empathizing and uniting, when the world of today has invested more in separating, differentiating, classifying.They have also called it the home of the starving, some who had more art than hunger, who felt more ink and paint running through their veins than blood, unaware that one day they would be the greatest legacy of the place where they set their feet.
It has also been called the home of the starving, some who had more art than hunger, who felt more ink and paint running through their veins than blood, unaware one day they would be the greatest legacy of the place where they set foot. How sad would history be without these starving people. Tangier and them were the same thing, and they made it the way it is now . Every day the tide brings dreams and undresses bodies, which lie dead or alive on the shore at this end of the world, depending on the fate of the waves, the wind and despair. Others arrive with the hope of living or leave with the intention to forget. Some cannot bear the change, others still hope for it, others do not know what it was, or what it meant. Yet what happens to everyone is that Tangier smokes the life of those who live there, tracing their tears and laughter on a paper of an endless material. It spells out absurd dreams and offers leaky parachutes. It is the refuge of the trap and the myth of the Strait. And there is nobody immune to it.
The press in each city is the living reflection of the social reality, history, traditions, culture and issues of the place. The press track cannot be altered, because it is the memory of the city itself. Tangier had innumerable European correspondents who tried to reflect the daily life of the intercultural shore that was the Tangier International. The variety of newspapers in various languages reflects the mixture of customs, religions and freedoms that existed in the city. From 1923 to 1956, Tangier was administered by several Western powers and was even given a cosmopolitan status. It is true that the atmosphere in those years was favourable to cultural expansion; it was home to freedom of expression, of the press and protection from all the censorships from which future Tangiers citizens fled.
The Instituto Cervantes of Tangier, with the Juan Goytisolo Library, offers a review of the Spanish and international press in Tangier:
1. Al-moghreb Al-aksa (1883-1923)
It is the first Spanish newspaper founded in Tangier on January 28, 1883 that published on Sundays. Its creators were Gregorio Trinidad Abrines and José Nogales and later joined them Fermín Salvoechea from Cádiz. José Nogales was the director. The magazine was financed by the Spanish Delegation in Tangier and the support of an English industrialist. The content of the magazine was local and international news. In 1892 it began to be published in English with the title of Times of Morocco also published by Trinidad Abrines.
2. El Eco Mauritano (1885-1930)
It is a political, literary newspaper of general interests and advertisements founded by the Tangiers Isaac Toledano and Isaac Laredo and the Gibraltarian Agustín Lugaro. It was a very popular newspaper and was published on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
3. La Dépêche Marocaine: Journal quotidien d’informations internationales (1905-1958)
Today it is the oldest newspaper in Morocco. Its founder was Robert-Raynaud and it was subsidized by the French. No doubt the most important French publication in the area. It appeared a few months before the Algeciras Conference.
4. Tangier Gazette (1923-1962)
In 1923 Lord Bute and Ernest Waller, two important businessmen and journalists, bought the Abrines printing press and The Times of Morocco and created the weekly Tangier Gazette, which Marriott Castle ran for years. Its header consisted of the title and three subtitles Morocco and Times of Morocco and Moghreb el Aksa as it was intended to be the oldest publication in Morocco. From 1945 until its closure in 1962 it was run by American journalists Lamar Hoover and William Augustus Bird.
5. Mauritania (1928-1962)
It is also part of the Tangier press in the international era. It is an illustrated monthly magazine published by the Franciscans of Tangier, whose Director for a long time was Father Patrocinio García-Barriuso. It became a spokesman magazine for the underprivileged south of the Strait. It published 409 numbers in which it developed an enormous cultural action in all the fields of social, religious, scientific, literary, pedagogical, historical and geographical knowledge, etc.
6. España (1938-1971)
Founded in 1938, it concluded operating in 1971. Its founder and first director was Gregorio Corrochano who was followed by Eduardo Haro Tecglen and Manuel Cruz as directors. It was a newspaper without previous censorship in times of dictatorship. It emerged as a project of the Franco regime to serve the Spanish community living in North Africa and ended up being the most open newspaper of the time. The Tangier section stands out for its daily circulation. Without a doubt, it was the most important of all the publications in Tangier.
7. Cosmópolis (1946)
A weekly newspaper in Tangiers at the time. It was a general interest magazine directed by José de Benito and Anthony Sastre, with the collaboration of Luis Grajales. It was a weekly magazine.
8. Anteo (1947-1948)
A magazine of the Tangier International Zone between 1947 and 1948. Its founder was the lawyer Ceballos Cabrera and it was dedicated to current economic, financial and legal issues. It had a very short duration and was replaced by the magazine Astrea dedicated to legislation and jurisprudence, which remained until 1951.
"Despite the incorporationist theses of Spain to make the area of Tangier part of its Protectorate, it was the British internationalist criterion that prevailed and, except for a period of Spanish occupation during the Second World War, it was maintained as an international enclave until the independence of Morocco, which guaranteed that it was a refuge and protection of freedoms and rights that were lacking in Spain itself, which at that time was living under the Franco dictatorship. It was the refuge of countless Republicans after the failure of the red bank," explains Juan Carlos Soriano on Radio Nacional de España. The Spanish occupation of Tangier took place between 1940 and 1945.
