Relative Heat

I thought it was hot as fuck in Marrakech, but I kept seeing people wearing coats, or sweaters and blazers, with hats even in the middle of the day when I felt like if I didn’t get enough water I would pass out. People in Senegal are ridiculous about the heat too, thinking that anything in the 70s is cold, and the 60s is freezing, but Morocco just took heat tolerance to the next level. It’s like the men were subconsciously trying to understand what it was like to wear a black burka in 95 degree weather, by wearing several layers. It was just weird to be walking around in a t-shirt and jeans and wishing I could be in flip flop and shorts, and then seeing people in wool coats and hats.

Tourism, Power and Authenticity

In Marakech they sell you this image of Moroccans as generic desert nomads/Arabs even though like all stereotypes it’s largely inaccurate. For example, I bought a hookah even though Moroccans don’t really do sheesha, it’s more of an Eastern Arab and South Asian thing. Djaama El Fna was full of tourist attractions, like the snake-charmers, who speak English and chase after you, just like they did 800 years ago. I bet they also accept visa and MasterCard. In addition, there is the lady who yells out to all of the female tourists for henna tattoos. It’s the kind of commercialization of tradition (completely removed from its cultural context) that just reeks of inauthenticity. But then what is authenticity? Is it just something that’s corny? Some authentic traditions, i.e. not Hallmark made up or pumped up like holiday movies did to the mistletoe for example, are genuinely corny like some Europeans really do yodel. And many “tourist spectacles” have both “authentic” and “inauthentic” components (and now I have to use scare marks) like Brazilian and West Indian carnival celebrations. Moreover, cultures are dynamic and change, and people have been borrowing from each other since some cavewoman discovered fire and others began to replicate her trick, so it’s hard to say what is authentic or not. The issue primarily seems to be about power and how much the host society can define it’s own image and how low it’s forced to stoop for tourist dollars. So that for example, Spain is super-touristy and there they sell a stereotypical image of flamenco, bullfighting and tapas, but the difference is, that Spain can decide how cheesy it wants to be. There you get overcharged too, and in many ways it’s worse cause you are getting robbed in euros. Still, it’s done formally, they announce that you will be paying 30€ for a cheesy flamenco show and therefore everyone get overcharged the same. But Morocco is more desperate, more dependent on tourism (that’s the other issue too, economic diversity, New York City for example probably receives more visitors than all of Morocco every year and definitely pimps them for even more dough and would be seriously in trouble if those folks stop coming and buying Broadway tickets, but there the economy is more diverse, so you don’t notice it as much.) Therefore Morocco gets defined, and they are going to sell you whatever you want. They will be whatever you want them to be. They will cater to your every fantasy and fetish. The poorer the more exploitative and “inauthentic” it becomes. These same dynamics can play themselves out within the same country too obviously, whenever (which is always in our fucked up world) there are serious inequalities. One of the authors of one of the books I read on the subject gives the example of Baltimore, where wealthier white folks redeveloped the waterfront and created their own fantasy of a happy, whitebread Baltimore. Or think of the Native Americans in the Southwest, and the long history of misrepresentation, mythologizing and racism there. Although they are better off in relative terms than Natives in other countries, and have greater power to portray themselves to the world. People should visit each other. They always have, and again in an equal world we wouldn’t have these issues. Tourism can be done right, but that’s hard with so much inequality.

Sorry More Politics

It also annoys me that so many Moroccans refer to Moroccan Arabic or darija as argot or slang when it’s the language of the people. Fuhsa, or modern standard Arabic, is spoken only by the educated and (from what I understand, I ain’t no Arabist or nothing, or even speak Arabic except for like three words) is not really spoken anywhere with some Persian Gulf dialects just being close to it. Some Arabic speakers couldn’t understand each other, but for political reasons you can’t say the truth which is that most “Arabic” speakers don’t speak the same language. Which brings me to the other side of the language issue in Morocco: Berber. Or rather the different Berber dialects which are spoken by many Moroccans. A bit of Moroccan history: many groups have invaded Morocco throughout the centuries, the last being the French and Spanish, but before them were the Arabs and before them the Romans and before them the Phoenicians and before them the Berbers. The folks who were there before the Berbers are no longer relevant to the mix, so the Berbers get default native peoples status. The Berbers are notorious for their “fiercely independent” spirit and the Arabs, Romans and others never could quite control certain parts of the country where the Berbers were able to do their thing. Still, they were disadvantaged in a society dominated by Arabic speaking Berbers. The difference now is mainly cultural and linguistic, although some people say that Berbers are lighter than the Arabs. These are also the same people who will tell you that Berbers are from Europe and that while Europe is the head, Morocco is the roots. This self-hating, negrophobic attempt to distance themselves from Black Africa and claim an elusive whiteness (being Dominican I understand and disapprove of the impulse) is laughable. The fact is, Moroccans—including the Berbers—are a diverse bunch and I was constantly surprised by the number of Moroccans that wouldn’t be perceived as “Arab” in the US i.e. wouldn’t get racially profiled by Department of Homeland Security. Some would get away as white, but many more would be profiled for being black. Gnawa, in fact, is the subculture created by black slaves. Unfortunately, coming into Moroccan society mostly as slaves black folks have kept their low status and now traditional prejudice has mixed with modern racism to make life quite hard for dark-skinned Moroccans. Natasha lamented the racist taunts and jokes, people chasing her asking if she was from Senegal. Again I saw many people as dark as Natasha in Morocco. It’s a damn shame. I wonder why God chose black folks to suffer so. That being said, I think it’s cool that the Berbers are trying to pressure the Moroccan and Algerian governments to teach Berber in the schools as one of the main aims of a rising Berber Pride movement after centuries of repression.

Ils Sont Forts

In Senegalese French at least, to say someone is good at something you say il est fort, or “he is strong,” as in “he is strong in swimming.” Well the French were good at colonizing. As I keep seeing, they were really good at spreading their culture (although I wish they had spread some money instead so cats in Senegal could afford all of the tasty, fancy French cheeses) and their language. French takes you much further in Morocco than English in Egypt. Two Arabic countries (although the language situation in Morocco is more complicated) which strongly emphasized Arabic after “independence” but the French ils sont forts. It’s even worse in Senegal where people are always surprised to learn that French is the only official language. The only language allowed in government is French. Almost everything written is in French. Unlike Anglophone African countries, Francophone Africans have not developed their native languages into literary languages. So that some Yoruba in Nigeria write in Yoruba, while much fewer do so in neighboring Benin. It was really hard to find anything written in Wolof. Moreover, this is the same country where magazines will translate from Wolof to French when interviewees use Wolof proverbs and idioms as if Wolof were not the language of the majority and French the clearly foreign language.

Moroccan wives

Lightheartedly, I would tease Natasha that with all of the cooking she could be mistaken for my Moroccan wife, especially when we reached the point where she had to hang my undies on the clothesline. Ok, this had less to do with me being a terrible feminist than with Morocco having a “peculiar” form of patriarchy. Natasha’s neighbor is a young (21 y.o.) newlywed that isn’t allowed to leave her home. Her husband has forbidden her from leaving the home until she bears him a child, preferably a son. She relies on others, usually children to buy her food and other necessary items. The clothes hang on the roof through her apartment, so I couldn’t go. As a smaller town, Azilal is a relatively more conservative place (though for from the worst in Morocco) than say Rabat, but even in the big cities you would see women in burkas. One of the things I will never forget was seeing a woman in Marrakech covered head to toe in a black burka, with mesh across her eyes. She was wearing gloves so that no part of her skin was visible, even though it was over 90 degrees at the time. What’s more, she couldn’t even see and had to be led through the chaotic streets by another woman not as conservatively dressed. I had Granted not all women wear veils, least of all the burka, and many women who do wear the veils still manage to express themselves through their clothes and try to get cute with it. As I have already said before, the veil means many different things in different places and times and therefore my horror could just reflect Western prejudice. There are women who argue that the veil can be empowering. What is undeniably terrible about gender relations in Morocco is the extreme gender segregation and consequent relegation (many would say condemnation) of women to the home or “private sphere.” There are no women in the public sphere, few in government, business, education, health. And sometimes you don’t even have to see things from that macro-level, I had days when I was traveling when I would go 12 or 14 hours without seeing a single female. But then the truth is that as much as Arab Muslim societies get vilified for their treatment of women (did you know that women can’t drive in Saudi Arabia?!) it is wack to be a woman everywhere. The point is that as a woman you basically pick your poison. But it’s hard to decide which country is worse because every country oppresses women, just differently and it’s hard to decide which basket of evils is worse. In Morocco it’s the burka and extreme segregation and confinement, while in the US it’s eating disorders, porn, BET and date rape, and in Senegal it’s polygamy, and FGM, while in India it’s dowry murder and female infanticide and abortion, and so on. To be blunt, what’s the point of being unveiled when they have cut your clitoris; at least the veil doesn’t stop you from enjoying yourself when you know one of these men never could. And for America what’s the point of having all of this money and “freedom” when women are willing to starve themselves and can’t get their head out of the toilet bowl to enjoy the freedoms bequeathed by modernity. Misogyny has many faces, hard to say which is ugliest. Still I can’t shake off the feeling that I would rather be a woman in the US than in Morocco.

Marrakech

We took a grand taxi to Marrakech, through a less scenic but safer route down from Azilal. Marrakech was a reintroduction to heat, fashion boys, tourists, pollution and too many people on motorcycles. Progressively, there were also many women riding around on motorcycles, although I didn’t see many being as annoying as the men and driving around the narrow, crowded streets. I had seen and been irritated by motorists in the medina in Rabat, but it was much worse in Marrakech. We stayed in a hotel in the narrow alleys behind Djaama El Fna. The area was touristy as fuck—dominated by foreigners—but I still liked it. I enjoyed the orange juice stands, and the food stalls. Still it was annoying to be constantly pestered by all the vendors, after the calm of Azilal and Rabat. In Marrakech, discerning eyes could tell I was a tourist even if their guesses of where I was from were often way off. Although I had heard vendors try to hook you by yelling out a greeting in whatever language they think you speak (hello my friend! Mon ami, c’est pas cher, etc.) but had never encountered so many people that just yelled out the names of countries. Did they seriously think that if they could guess correctly we would reward them by buying their overpriced leather bags? Walking around Natasha we got some outlandish countries, Cameroon, Jamaica (Natasha’s twists elicited lots of Jamaica), Martinique, Belgium, France, and some more sensible ones like Brazil and the US. If one of them had said Dominican Republic I would have let them name the price.

Market Thursday

Azilal is also small enough to have a weekly market which the whole town goes to. We too headed out, Natasha cause she lives there and has to get food and other necessities and me, cause well I was curious enough to wake up early. There were rows of fresh fruit laid down on the floor and collected in buckets blackened with what I can only describe as “food soot.” But you could buy pretty much anything at the market, from blankets, electrical sockets to clothes and raw wheat. The ingredients bought at the market made for damn good meals.