Homosexualité, Islam et désacralisation du pouvoir royal dans Le jour du Roi d'Abdellah Taïa

Abstract

In his novel Le jour du Roi Abdellah Taïa explores the theme of alterity in its relation to two political and symbolic forces: expressing one’s self in the language of the Other and narrating homo-erotic and homosexual relationships in Morocco under the dictatorship of Hassan II. It is the translation of these two aspects that leads to the creation of a new narrative about homosexual Franco-Moroccan identity. This narrative, in turn, reveals the instability of a model of identification subjected to a normalizing sexual apparatus controlling bodies and minds in a place where homosexuality is still punishable by law. This renders the identification process for the two main characters of the novel particularly problematic as they can no longer sustain it without going back to the sources of foundational myths and more particularly to the original murder in Islam. This article argues that the killing of one character by the other goes back to the original murder of Abel by Cain, a model which becomes emancipated from the Western Oedipal complex, translating a new conception of a love relation between two male characters. By so doing, it calls for a reevaluation of the normativity imposed by the king who is using his power based on a patriarchal interpretation of religious legitimacy in view of political gain.