Tensions Between Morocco and Algeria & Record Numbers of New German Citizens | Media Arabic Booster 05/24

This month in the Media Arabic Booster, we’re looking at two very different stories of national identity and conflict risk.

First, we’ll break down a headline from al-Sharq al-Awsat about the record number of people, led by Syrians, who became naturalized German citizens, giving us a chance for a deep dive on the vocabulary of citizenship.

Then, we explore a fascinating opinion piece from al-Quds al-Arabi that analyzes the geopolitical tensions between Morocco and Algeria and asks how these nations could be dragged into a wider war.

This post will equip you with the precise Arabic vocabulary to discuss immigration, arms races, and regional conflicts.

A close look at a headline

Headlines in Arabic media are generally easy to understand – but there are also some tricky words.

al-Sharq al-Awsat: How to say “naturalized citizen”

On Wednesday, May 29, 2024, the Saudi newspaper al-Sharq al-Awsat (الشرق الأوسط) published the following article (bottom right) in its news section:

The article is about Germany where last year many people of foreign origin were granted citizenship. The headline contains some interesting phrases that we should look at and remember.

Note that I am using the headline of the online article, which is slightly enlarged because printed newspapers often have to stick to the number of characters possible by using a shortened style.

Let’s focus on the word المجنسين. The root is ج-ن-س.

• First of all, you may know a quite common noun of this root: جِنْسٌ (plural: أَجْنَاسٌ), meaning sex, gender (also in linguistics) or species; category or genre.
• For example, if you want to express non-binary/third gender, you can say الْجِنْسُ الثّالِثُ. For asexuality, people use a new word, which is اللَاجِنْسِيَّة. Same-sex or homosexual is مِثْلِيُّ الْجِنْسِ. For gender equality, you can say المُساوَاةُ بَيْنَ الْجِنْسَيْنِ. Many gender expressions such as gender equality use the dual form (مُثَنًّى) in Arabic, emphasizing two genders. This is because discussions on non-binary issues are rare in the Arab world. Be careful talking about these topics as it can be sensitive and against the law in some Arab countries.

• Interestingly, in dictionaries, we only find enhanced verb patterns of the root ج-ن-س. In other verbs, there is no I-verb, we do not have an entry for the most basic, core meaning of the root action. This usually happens when the root is not connected to any action. The II-verb (جَنَّسَ) means to make alike, to assimilate; but also: to sort, to categorize. In modern terms, it also denotes: to grant citizenship to.
• The passive participle (اِسْمُ الْمَفْعُولِ) of جَنَّسَ – يُجَنِّسُ is the noun مُجَنَّسٌ. Thus, الْمُجَنَّسِينَ is the sound masculine plural (جَمْعُ الْمُذَكَّرِ السّالمِ) in the genitive case (مَجْرُورٌ) as it follows a preposition (لِ/مِنْ).

Vocabulary list

All the words marked in yellow above are explained here.

Al Youm Al Sabea: أرض الفيروز

On Wednesday, 29 May 2024, I saw the phrase أرض الفيروز on the front page of the Egyptian daily newspaper Al Youm Al Sabea (اليوم السابع). What does that mean?

The word فَيْروز means turquoise, a precious stone (حَجَر ثَمين). Be careful with the spelling because فَيْروس means virus! فَيْروز is also a female name (“Fairouz”). The famous Lebanese singer Nouhad Wadie’ Haddad (نهاد وديع حداد) is known as “Fairouz”.

Literally, أرض الفيروز means The Land of Turquoise. It is an expression for the Sinai Peninsula (شِبْهُ جَزِيرَةِ سِينَاءَ) in Egypt. The current military regime uses this term quite frequently in announcements.

Sinai is called the land of turquoise because of its many turquoise mines. Sinai is known for having some of the best turquoise in the world, dating back to ancient history and Pharaonic times. Turquoise was mined from Serabit al-Khadim (سرابيط الخادم) and near the city of Abu Zenima (أبو زنيمة) in southwest Sinai. The tombs of the pharaohs had a lot of turquoise stones.

Sinai’s modern Arabic name is سِينَاءُ (Egyptian Arabic: سينا). This name comes from the Bible (Hebrew: סיני). In Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, this area is very important. It is the place where the prophet Moses (موسى) spoke with God on a mountain (جَبَل مُوسَىٰ). Such events are also found in the Qur’an. Sura 52 is called ُالطُّور which is translated as “The Mountain” or “Mount Sinai”. The Sura got its name from verse one (52:1) which starts with an oath: وَٱلطُّورِ. This means: By Mount Tour!

➤ The word طُور (with “u”) denotes a mountain (with trees). When adding the definite article, it becomes ُالطُّور referring to Mount Sinai (طُورُ سِيناءَ), the mountain where Moses is said to have spoken with God. Watch out: The word طَوْر (with “a”) means stage; period.

Translation of an article

Let’s look at parts of a longer newspaper article in Arabic. We will translate each sentence carefully. The highlighted words are in the vocabulary list below.

al-Quds al-Arabi: “How Morocco and Algeria will be forcibly led into war”

On May 28, 2024, the following opinion piece by Moroccan author Dr. Hussein Majdoubi (حسين مجدوبي) was published in the al-Quds al-Arabi (القدس العربي). Hussein Majdoubi has written extensively on various topics related to Morocco and its historical interactions with Spain.

Let’s now take a closer look at a few complete paragraphs.

كيف سينجر المغرب والجزائر عنوة إلى الحرب

How Morocco and Algeria will be forcibly led into war

عاد مجددا وبشكل مثير الحديث المفتعل عن احتمال وقوع حرب بين المغرب والجزائر، وتقف بعض مراكز التفكير الاستراتيجي وراءه، من خلال الترويج لهذه الفرضية، مثل حالة تقرير المركز الإسرائيلي «بيغين السادات للدراسات الاستراتيجية» الصادر نهاية أبريل/نيسان 2024 في هذا الشأن. وإذا كانت هذه الحرب واردة سنة2021، فكل المعطيات الحالية سنة 2024 تستبعد وقوعها، باستثناء ما إذا وقعت حرب روسية – غربية، وقتها سينجر البلدان إلى هذه الحرب من دون إرادتهما…

Once again, we see the resumption of the intentional talk about a possible outbreak of war between Morocco and Algeria, noting that this is being promoted by certain strategic thinking centers, such as the report published in this regard by the Israeli Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at the end of April 2024. But while this war was a possibility in 2021, all the facts exclude it in 2024, except in the event of a Russian-Western war that would drag both countries into this war against their will…

هذا الوضع المتفجر عالميا يشكل الفرصة الذهبية لتجار الحرب، وبعض مراكز التفكير الاستراتيجي للترويج لوقوع حروب أخرى، ويبدأ البحث عن مناطق النزاعات القابلة للانفجار

This globally explosive situation constitutes a golden opportunity for war merchants and some strategic think tanks to promote the outbreak of other wars, thus seeking other areas of conflict that might erupt.

وتركز بعض مراكز التفكير الاستراتيجي على منطقة شمال افريقيا، ويبدأ الترويج للحرب بين المغرب والجزائر. وعمليا، لا تنقص العناصر والأسباب التي تدعم هذه الفرضية، فالبلدان يعيشان صراعا جيوسياسيا منذ عقود لزعامة المغرب العربي، يغذيه نزاع الصحراء، وكذلك التحالفات التي تنسجها كل دولة، التحالفات مع الغرب في حالة المغرب، والتحالف مع الصين وروسيا في حالة الجزائر. وترغب بعض الأطراف في اندلاع حرب بين المغرب والجزائر، بل تعمل من أجل ذلك سرا، وعلى رأس هذه الأطراف الكيان الصهيوني وبعض دول جنوب أوروبا. وعلاقة بالكيان، ترغب إسرائيل في وجود دول عربية ضعيفة للغاية من المحيط إلى الخليج، رغم التطبيع القائم مع بعض الدول،

Hence, some strategic thinking tanks are focusing on the North African region and (started) promoting the idea of a war between Morocco and Algeria. In practice, many (there is no shortage of) elements and reasons support this hypothesis, seeing as how the two countries have been engaged in a decades-long geopolitical conflict for the leadership of the Arab Maghreb, fueled by the Sahara conflict and the alliances weaved by each country, i.e. the alliances with the West in the case of Morocco, and the alliance with China and Russia in the case of Algeria. Some sides (parties) want to see such a war breaking out between Morocco and Algeria, even working secretly on that, namely the Zionist entity and some southern European countries. In the entity’s case, Israel wants to have extremely weak Arab countries from the ocean to the Gulf, despite the normalization of its relations with some of them.

وتنظر دول جنوب أوروبا مثل فرنسا وإسبانيا وإيطاليا، نظرة قلق كبير لسباق التسلح، الذي يخوضه المغرب والجزائر، إذ جعل الفجوة العسكرية بين غرب ضفتي مضيق جبل طارق تتقلص بشكل كبير، وهذا يحدث لأول مرة خلال الثلاثة قرون الأخيرة. ويترتب عن هذه الظاهرة، تراجع قوة الردع العسكري التي تمتعت بها هذه الدول الأوروبية في مواجهة شمال افريقيا.

In the case of the southern European countries such as France, Spain and Italy, they are extremely concerned by the arms race taking place between Morocco and Algeria, which significantly reduced the military gap between the two western banks of the Strait of Gibraltar for the first time in the last three centuries. This phenomenon caused the retreat of the military deterrent power enjoyed by these European states against North Africa…

لكن هناك فرضية أخرى قد تسبب في حرب بين البلدين، وهذه المرة، من دون رغبتيهما، يتعلق الأمر بفرضية تطورات الحرب الأوكرانية – الروسية نحو حرب روسية بدعم صيني ضد الحلف الأطلسي. وتجمع الجزائر اتفاقيات عسكرية ودفاعية مع روسيا، ويجمع المغرب مع الغرب اتفاقيات عسكرية متطورة. … وهنا سيكون اندلاع الحرب بينهما واردا للغاية، لأن الحرب ستقع كذلك غرب المتوسط.

But there is now another issue that could provoke a war between the two countries, despite their will. It is related to the evolution of the Ukrainian-Russian war into a Russian war backed by China against NATO. Algeria has military and defensive agreements with Russia, while Morocco has advanced military agreements with the West… In this case, it is highly likely to see the outbreak of war between the two countries because the war will also reach the western Mediterranean.

لقد أصبحت العلاقات بين المغرب والجزائر ضحية مراكز التفكير الاستراتيجي، بعضها يقدم قراءات منطقية وهي قليلة، وبعضها يقدم قراءات الترويج للحرب والتشجيع عليها وهي في الغالب إسرائيلية وغربية… ويبقى المؤسف هو استقبال شريحة من المفكرين والباحثين الأكاديميين والصحافيين في البلدين، لمثل هذه التقارير والترويج لها، من دون حس نقدي. هذا نتاج طبيعي لغياب حرية البحث الأكاديمي ولضعف الدراسات الجيوسياسية في البلدين، والتهجم على الأصوات الإعلامية المتزنة، حتى أصبح كل صوت عاقل يدعو إلى استبعاد الحرب والتركيز على المشترك بين البلدين، وكأنه يروج لخطاب الخيانة.

Relations between Morocco and Algeria have become a victim of strategic thinking tanks, very few of which are putting forward logical readings, while the rest are promoting and encouraging war which are mostly Israeli and Western ones (…) What remains unfortunate at this level is that a segment of thinkers, academic researchers and journalists in both countries are promoting such reports without any sense of criticism, which is the natural result of the absence of free academic research and the weak geopolitical studies in both countries, as well as the attacks on the balanced media voices. This caused every reasonable voice calling for the exclusion of war and on focusing on common grounds between the two countries to be treated as though promoting a treasonous discourse.

Vocabulary list

All the words in the above article marked in yellow can be found in this table with explanations.

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