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Days after Algerian Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia accused Rabat of believing that Couscous is an exclusively Moroccan dish, government spokesperson Mustapha El Khalfi replied, dotting the I’s and crossing the t’s.
Speaking during a press briefing, held Thursday in Rabat, El Khalfi rejected the accusations of the Algerian Prime Minister, stating that «everyone knows the truth of the dish and no one can deny it».
This Couscous war erupted last week in Algeria, when Ouyahia was inaugurating a national production fair, held between December the 20th and the 26th Algiers.
In a video published by Algerian newspaper TSA, Ouyahia appeared taking a spoon of a locally made dish of Couscous. The Prime Minister told the audience at the fair that there is a «neighboring country which thinks that Couscous is exclusively its product».
Referring to Morocco, Ouyahia added : «We do not say that Couscous is exclusively Algerian but we are a hundred percent sure that is a Maghrebian dish». «But we are familiar with the Algerian Couscous», he pointed out.
Including Couscous in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list
Ahmed Ouyahia’s declaration was followed by an official statement, made public by one of his ministers. On Tuesday, December the 25th, Algeria’s Minister of Culture Azzedine Mihoubi announced that Algeria is submitting, in March 2019, on behalf of Maghreb countries an application to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to include Couscous in the Intangible Cultural Heritage List.
The decision was made public by the minister during the opening ceremony of a Museums Fair held in Ain Defla.
«It is useless to say that Couscous is a shared heritage for all Maghreb countries (…) We must protect everything that refers to our heritage», the Algerian minister told reporters during the same event.
The Couscous application, however, is a project that has been discussed since the beginning of 2018 by Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco. In January 2018, the director of Algeria’s Anthropological, Prehistoric and Ethnographic Research center (CRAPE) Sliman Hachi announced that his country wants to submit a joint application to the UN organization.
The idea if submitting an application to UNESCO sparked tension in 2016 between Algeria and Morocco. In August 2016, the neighboring country made an application to UNESCO's Intangible Heritage list to include Rai music as a uniquely «Algerian Folk music».
The decision has indeed sparked tension at the moment, especially after the Algerian Minister of Culture stated that Algeria’s application came after some countries, referring to Morocco, were trying to do the same.
Indeed, Morocco which organizes every year the International Festival of Rai music in Oujda, a city bordering the neighboring country, announced that it was going to apply to UNESCO for the same purpose the year before but never did.
