Thoughts about Morocco

Take a bucket, and pour paint from several paint pots of primary colours into it. Stir several times. Then try to talk sensibly about the colour you are left with, and the contribution of each original pot.

Morocco is a bit like that. There is Islam, which is obviously extremely important to the great majority of people. There is a monarchy. Most people appear to respect the King, but certainly some do not. We were told by one of the latter that 25% of the budget goes on the Kings various palaces. 

My drone was confiscated by customs (and later retrieved) and we were told that the reason that drones were illegal in Morocco was because the King does not want people to know what happens behind his palace walls. 

Morocco is a third-world country. The GDP per capita is US$3,300.  For comparison the Australian figure is seventeen times higher, at about US$56,000, the US figure is US$53,000, and the UK figure is US$42,500. For Bali, where we went last year, the figure is US$2,400.

Like Bali, Morocco has also been exposed to mass tourism, especially from European countries nearby.

It is often described as one of the most liberal countries in the Middle East. (Middle East is a proxy word that probably means Arab, or Islamic, rather than a geographical position.) I was interested in the idea that Morocco is exceptional. Most of the Arab world has populations that are majority Arab, in the sense of race and language. Morocco is apparently 2/3rds Berber, and 1/3rd Arab. There are important cultural and linguistic differences between Arabs and Berbers. One of our guides, who was a Berber, asked us the usual question: 'Where are you from?' We gave the usual answer; 'Australia', to which the usual reply is 'Ah, Kangaroo!'. He was different. He said 'Ah, Aborigines!'

'Berbers are the aborigines of Morocco'. 

As always, distinctions are often seen differently by different people. Some people, especially Berbers, told us there were very important and persisting distinctions between Berbers and Arabs. Others, especially Arabs, said that the two groups had been mixed together for hundreds of years and everyone was a sort of Arab/Berber blend. NY Times article here.

How the West made Arabs and Berbers into races. 

The Maghreb (the old word for the area that includes contemporary Morocco) was occupied by Berbers until the Arab invasions between 647 and 709. A good Wikipedia article goes into the history and demography of the area here.

To read more about the Middle East, Islam and related matters, an essential writer is Bernard Lewis. Download his book 'The Multiple Identities of the Middle East' here.

As far as impressions go, we thought that Moroccans seemed mostly a rather sad and suppressed culture. The position of women was apparently quite unenviable, worse in Marrakech, and better in the north, particularly Chefchaouen. We heard hardly any music or singing. We saw relatively few people having a joke with each other. It was quite hard to find a Moroccan with whom one could have a chat that didn't degenerate into some sort of commercial interaction, 'Gimme money to take my photo.' Or 'Gimme money for giving you directions'.

The food was pretty bland and repetitive, in spite of ingredients and fresh produce being easily available.

Compared to 1969/70 (when I was last there) there were several differences. I got the impression that the population had increased markedly. Records suggest it doubled from 17 million in 1975 to 35 million now. There appeared to be a lot of unemployed or underemployed men wandering the streets, or doing trivial work.

Some of the different impressions might have stemmed from changes in myself. People behave differently towards an impoverished student of 20, compared to an old white man who might represent a financial opportunity.

In 1970, Marrakech seemed to me very exotic and vibrant. Now it seemed somewhat degraded, and the country needed development that had passed it by, or been misapplied. 

Some of the best conversations we had were with the guides we hired at different stages. Once we had established a relationship, and some mutual trust, it was possible to go 'off piste' a bit and ask opinions about political or religious matters. The latter was a bit more sensitive. I asked one guide, in the context of us admiring some magnificent old Islamic architecture, how his people made sense of the Moors being so advanced in science, medicine, architecture, etc, until some time after the Reconquista (when the Christians drove the Moors out of Spain in 1492), and the relative rise of the West and the decline of Islam ever since. (The question was intended to raise the topic of the European Enlightenment, the equivalent of which appears to have eluded Islamic countries). 

He was an intelligent man, a teacher of languages at secondary school. His reply surprised me. 'We lost our belief in pure Islam'.

The conversation dried up then. We were travelling in the area where two young Scandinavian women back-packers had just been beheaded by Islamic radicals. 

There were some other things we noticed. Pretty much wherever we went, we saw large unfinished and unoccupied houses. They were like ugly concrete Moroccan McMansions. A huge proportion of them had bristles of rusty reo sticking out of the corners of their roofs, as if there was a plan one day to add another story. 

See the reo bristles

What could this mean? Huge investments in grandiose unfinished real estate. Minimal investment in the most rudimentary agricultural machinery. Old women sitting on the ground clipping grass to feed to donkeys, where a small tractor would have been much more productive.

My suspicion is that a lot of the workforce travels to Europe and sends back remittances, and they visit a few weeks a year and dream of having a big house. No doubt singing (silently) 'If I were a rich man, diddle diddle..' 

Another incongruity was the difference between old architecture, much of which was sublime, and the mass of modern buildings that looked crude and jerry-built.

One complicating factor was the culture's approach to internal and external space. The outsides of buildings that we stayed in were often very nondescript, yet inside they were very beautiful.

Dar Seffarine riad in Fez

Leaving Morocco and going to Spain, a one hour ferry ride, produced a dramatic difference in many things, perhaps most obviously in the appearance and behaviour of women. In Morocco, they were mostly covered up, and vigorously opposed having their photo taken. In Spain they welcomed photos and posed for us in their finery.

Morocco

Spain