Marrakech

Nowadays, since 2021, and the many articles that have re-established the facts of resistance of the now artist in the Pantheon, we know that Joséphine, through her marriage to a rich French industrialist in 1937, had become a French citizen. When France was defeated and the Germans arrived in Paris, the artist's patriotism was publicly expressed when she refused to sing and dance for the German invaders.  She was divorced and decided to leave metropolitan France, which had collaborated with Vichy, and move to the Kingdom of Morocco. It was in Morocco, and in Marrakech in particular, that she became truly attached to Muslim culture. Her words are unmistakable, her descriptions faithful and sincere. She even kept many of her friends in the Cherifian kingdom through this strong, intimate contact. 
In her memoirs, we can understand the oriental lifestyle she adopted in Marrakech. Here is her description of her home:

"First of all, I lived in the Mamounia hotel. It's famous in the Bab Djedid district. Then I wanted my own house to live like the Arabs. I found one in the Medina, near the Koutoubia, which raises its three golden balls above the city terraces. It was at the end of a narrow, lost cul-de-sac. You knock three times on the low door with the hammer. And my servant comes to open it for you. He has a white gandourah, like his long beard. He greets you by putting his big, thin, yellow hand over his heart. At the end of the dark vestibule, whose blue mosaic covering keeps the light cool, you see another small, low door. Behind it is the Garden of Allah. Around the fountain where the birds come to drink, there are orange trees that always have oranges. And columns of fine marble like young girls and thick shadows. Now you can come in wherever you like. All the doors open onto the patio like a block of light reaching up to the sky. All you have to do is lift a curtain at random from the arcades."

She also writes: "I discovered a new world, a world of beauty and spirituality. I was fascinated by Muslim culture, by its art, music and dance. She continues: "Marrakech is a magical city, a city with a long memory. It has seen centuries of civilisations pass through it, and it has kept their imprint". As for the Moroccans, she says they "are a welcoming and generous people. They made me feel at home. 
Personally, I felt carried away by her memories, particularly her unequivocal descriptions of Marrakech in the 1940s:

"It's so crowded in the Place Djemaa El F'na. The ragged misery and the flea market. Butcher's stalls, black with flies... Bread sellers squatting side by side. A meeting place for the curious, photographers, snake charmers and storytellers. They swarm in the dust. Singing in the sun. Haggling. Shouting. Screaming. It smells of fried food, cinnamon and mint, spices, the cooking of sorcerers and healers, herbs, drugs, drying bird heads and rotting monkey legs.

When you read her memories of the desert she walked through during the war, you realise how intensely she experienced the land of Africa. Joséphine Baker had not only a heart, but also a genuine spirituality. She believed in God and the beauty of the Universe. She was tolerant and very ecumenical. She even prayed in her dressing room before shows. In the desert, during the war, this woman of action often had to pray under the stars.

"And we drank from the little streams of the oases.
And in the evening the stars were as big as tears."

Alger

And Algeria, you ask? 

Algiers first contact, on 1 December 1931 for a tour organised by Pepito. Joséphine Baker stayed at the Hôtel Saint-Georges, a Moorish palace. The very next day, she triumphed at the Majestic in the Bab el-Oued district, where, accompanied by her orchestra of black musicians, she gave a concert, singing "J'ai deux amours" among other songs. Algiers seduced her and in 1936 she even sang a new hit, "Nuit d'Alger".

In January 41, she returned, mainly as an "honourable correspondent" for French counter-espionage. This time she stayed at the Hotel Aletti. She worked under Jacques Aptey, head of military counter-espionage in Paris, who had recruited her in 1939, before joining the Resistance in London in 1940. She could never forget Algiers, because it was there in October 1943, when the star was giving a gala at the Opéra, that she met her idol, General de Gaulle, the man she had decided to follow after his appeal on 18 June. It was during the interval that she received a small gold Cross of Lorraine from General de Gaulle, leader of Free France, in the VIP box. She was overwhelmed. Later, in the midst of the Algerian war, which she would not comment on, she took action by adopting two orphans: a boy of Kabyle origin and a girl of pieds-noirs parents. Brahim and Marianne. They became part of the Arc en Ciel Tribe and its twelve children. 
 
It was at the Château des Milandes that she tried to realise her grand vision of a society free of racism and prejudice, of a welcoming constellation with her twelve children, all adopted, with the idea of making emulators too. It seems that she was not understood in her time. That's the fate of pioneers. She was thrown out of Les Milandes. Grace Kelly was the one who reached out to her and took in the Tribe. Her friend, the Princess of Monaco, was American. In 2021, justice was done to her by the France she had loved so much.

 Joséphine Baker was a visionary who understood the importance of understanding and cooperation between cultures. She was a fervent advocate of peace and fraternity, and believed that the Muslim world could play an important role in building a better world.

"The day will surely come when colour will mean nothing more than skin tone, when religion will be seen only as a means of speaking to one's soul; when the places of birth have the weight of a throw of the dice and all men are born free, when understanding begets love and brotherhood."

 It will be many years before his dream comes true, as the 21st century seems to have taken a different path.