Essaouira is set to host the 12th Human Rights Forum on June 20 and 21, running alongside the Gnaoua and World Music Festival. This year’s theme, “Human Mobility and Cultural Dynamics,” will bring together scholars, thinkers, and artists from around the world for two days of rich, cross-disciplinary dialogue.
Organized in partnership with the Council of the Moroccan Community Abroad, the Forum has, over the years, become a crucial space for blending intellectual insight, artistic expression, and social activism. At a time when nationalism and identity-based isolation are on the rise globally, the event seeks to foster alternative narratives grounded in the lived experiences of migration and their cultural reverberations.
Belgian sociologist Andrea Rea will open the proceedings with a talk on the shifting nature of mobility in the modern world. Historian Pascal Blanchard will explore how migration is portrayed in social consciousness, while political scientists Fatima Zibouh and Dana Diminescu will analyze the often fraught relationship between state policies and public imagination. Anthropologist Francesco Vacchiano will offer a perspective on how migrants navigate asylum systems and forge personal identities within them.
Art will play a central role in the Forum. Acclaimed filmmakers Faouzi Bensaïdi and Elia Suleiman will share how exile and displacement inform their cinematic vision. The conversations will expand through contributions from writer Véronique Tadjo, artist Barthélémy Toguo, historians Nicolas Bancel and Yvan Gastaut, and documentarian Kamal Redouani—all of whom will offer fresh insights into the cultural dimensions of migration.
Contemporary literature will also have its moment, with authors like Elgas, Rim Najmi, Taha Adnan, and Abdelkader Benali weaving personal and poetic narratives that map out the emotional and political landscapes of diasporas. Their voices aim to blend memory and activism into a nuanced reflection on belonging and identity.
Bringing the discussion back to ground level, practitioners and activists will offer real-world context. Kassie Freeman, an expert in education policy for Afro-descendant communities, will join others in examining how cultural memory is passed down, how dominant narratives are formed, and how symbolic resistance takes shape.
For Neila Tazi, the festival’s producer, the Forum represents the intellectual heartbeat of the entire event—a continuation of what the music expresses through movement and rhythm. Driss El Yazami, president of the CCME, sees the gathering as a platform for voices too often silenced, illuminating the stories of lives in transit in a world increasingly inclined to close its borders.
In Essaouira, for two days, migration won’t be a statistic or a distant issue—it will be personal, told in words, music, and images. The Forum will erase lines on a map to make room for new solidarities, built through shared stories and collective imagination.
