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Taxi Troubles and Their Troubling Trends
Yesterday, the craziest thing happened to me: my taxi had no idea where to take me and my housemate when we told him the Darija for “American Language Center,” in addition to a number of notable landmarks (like the Rabat train station). We went on an unwanted tour of the city center, travelling past many commercial roads and landmarks, including the Hassan Tower. You might think that a taxi driver would notice, considering the frequency of travel in this area, if there was an important center for thousands of students, even if he couldn’t remember the exact name of the center. At the same time, however, one can perhaps be forgiven for not realizing that we were travelling in the exact opposite direction we need to–after all, it took me two minutes of staring at Google Maps to correct our directions and finally arrive at the proper location.
I bring up this point not for the sake of complaining about the “horrible, stupid taxi drivers” here: on the contrary, they’ve always been helpful, stopping to help us when we’re panicking at being late to class; they’re also honorable, like our particularly unfortunate driver yesterday who graciously accepted only half the metered fare (made higher on account of his own mistake). It instead belied a truth about Rabat that separates it from the much more populous Fez: there is no “there” there. Not even the taxi drivers, in a sense paid to know their city and understand its directions, get lost without any trace. Contrast the experience in a Rabat taxi with that from Fez. The drive from the medina to ALIF in Fez was simple, but so were the drives to all other places we visited, whether Bathah, R’Cif, or even the house of a local friend that was vaguely in the vicinity of the Fez train station. Places seemed real and valuable to the drivers, which mirrored a general sense I got in Fez that has been missing in Rabat. In Fez, everyone made it their business to understand the dynamics of other neighborhoods; girls from the Ville Nouvelle seemed to brave the conservative old city infrequently enough, but nonetheless sympathized for the problems of that conceptually distant neighborhood, and it was their pride in its landmarks and the good people there that ensured they returned. Fassis recognized their cities’ problems–no one reads, Ville Nouvelle residents’ arrogance, medina denizens’ sometimes disrespectful, sometimes “suffocatingly old-fashioned” ways–but most people understood the situation, they talked about it, they recognized it, and at least dreamed of ways they could deal with it. In the meantime, they tangibly lived with it. It was their job to know. It was their pleasure to know.
Wherever I go in Rabat, I get the nagging feeling that I’m stuck in a limbo between a faceless New York City and a hundred small, generic, “developing country”-neighborhoods. Instead of pick-up basketball in the park, there are games of wall-ball and football taking place next to the all-too-common poor families, begging in the midst of one of many upscale concrete jungle-gyms. Stores advertise bikinis even as their customers shun women from wearing them during the holy month of Ramadan. What’s more, these contradictions go on for miles. The city has little sense of self, and its residents don’t seem to mind. The majority of the pleasant people I’ve met in this city are too caught up in the minutia of their daily lives to live in their city. I know of few people outside the medina who know much about their old city, and in general there seems an attitude of obliviousness. The cab rides were only the beginning of these ruminations about how two cities, so geographically nearby and similar, on face value, in terms of class structure, could be so different. It isn’t size, because if that were the case, one might expect the larger Fez to be the city of facelessness. Alternatively, one might think that the capital of Morocco would be more interesting, seeing as it has more money and enterprising people, but that doesn’t appear to be the case either. Instead, I fear it has everything to do with the political dynamic of the two cities, an inversion of the latter supposition–the weight of a non-participatory government may have crushed its host city’s residents’ spontaneity and desire for civic participation. I’m sure this is the theory of a whole paper somewhere, but all I know is the experienced version of the problem–and it would be tragic for all the cultural, communal potential in a modernizing, trailblazing city like Rabat to be lost.
When Charity Organizations Attack
By Josh Curtis
The DAW Program arrived in Rabat today, and after my family broke Iftar, we went out for a walk around the neighborhood. As we walked through the busy streets, filled with people, stores, and cars, and after walking through parks, the host father did the unthinkable: he walked over to a beggar by the side of the park and gave him alms. It wasn’t much, but it was also such an instinctual act of justice and compassion that I immediately felt some shame for not doing the same, though I had little change in my pocket to begin with. I was angry; I hadn’t even personally acknowledged the man’s presence and need beyond internal sympathy. Why did it feel so uncomfortable for me to walk over and give just a few dirhams, less than a dollar? Chump change could make the poor man’s day.
I have had similar crises all throughout the program so far, including in Fez. In the Fez medina, I never personally saw anyone in the Ville Nouvelle give alms, while the beggars of my neighborhood in the medina always seemed well-supplied. I convinced myself of the need to donate a few dirhams to those I saw most frequently by the end of our time in Fez, feeling satisfied that I hadn’t “wasted” any resources on “fake beggars.” This very sensation, however, is concerning to me. I have always seen myself as a good citizen who follows up on ideals of helping the needy with action, sometimes in soup kitchens and sometimes donating money to charities. The fact that my primary concern in waiting to give a few dollars worth of charity usually turned out to be “not wasting it” is a cruel inversion of our citizenship studies so far.
In the United States, and especially in New York, a wicked pattern has developed in which citizens are encouraged to ignore the deprived and destitute because “somebody else will take care of them.” That “somebody else” is usually a charity, or perhaps the government. This organization, the theory goes, can make better use of charitable resources than I can, making sure they aren’t spent on drugs or something similarly counterproductive. America is saturated with such organizations and programs. Morocco is bereft of them, but the citizens are more aware of the poor here, and do more despite earning less. America’s wealth of charities is in some ways a curse: rather than build a connection to the poor who live around us, we resolve that someone else can do it better before happily ignoring these other efforts as well. In the US, we frequently think our activism, votes, and charities make our citizenry stronger, and yet it seems we are encouraged to ignore the very needs we claim to fight for. Thus, the beggars seem to beg the question: who is really a good citizen? In my experience, we participants of the much-celebrated American democracy are the most aloof of all. Except maybe for those young Fassi Moroccans trying to emulate us, but that seems no flattery to me.
Master and Disciple: Fancy Rhetoric, Simple Autocracy
Abdellah Hammoudi’s Master and Disciple is a sweeping analysis of Moroccan cultural structures that provides support for a paradigm of Moroccan authoritarians as the singular, supreme master in a political system filled with ostensible disciples. He asserts that in such a system, individuals subjugate their own wills, desires, and rationality to those of the Moroccan king in order to gain increasing proximity to him so that one day, they might be close enough to play a role in shaping his decisions. The king arbitrates between their interests, and his decisions are final; at the same time, he is expected to shower benefits on the disciples as a guarantee and recognition of their loyalty. Hammoudi’s theoretical description of such a paradigm is uncontroversial; however, his assertions that Morocco’s political system is defined by the model and, more importantly, that the model explains Morocco’s condition, are more debatable.
Hammoudi does a phenomenal job conveying the history of the Moroccan king and his political context, starting with a precolonial era that seems very feudalistic. The “state” is defined by the king and his network of loyal servants, kept in line by two-fold mutual obligations: temporal, with pecuniary and power-related benefits bestowed upon tribal chiefs, advisors, and wealthy urban elites that have been loyal, as well as increasing control and prestige associated with those who have dutifully and unflinchingly followed the sultan’s whims. The king is legitimized periodically by Islamic scholars’ declarations that he, as a descendant of the Prophet, is the elect of God and thus his arbitration is executed with supreme knowledge of God’s ways. Without him, the sultanate fails to exist. Meanwhile, servants, on their path to power, must endure often unfair punishments and bear harsh taxation, property confiscation, and the periodic stripping of their prestige because the sultan wills it. This experience mirrors the experience of disciples on the path to mastery in the Sufi orders so prevalent in Moroccan Islam.
The French colonizers upset the order by establishing a system of harsh oppression, not legitimized by any sort of religious supremacy, Sufi or otherwise. Their governance structure focused on extraction of resources using local collaborators, but the ultimate enforcement mechanism was a powerful state bureaucracy, not a set of feudal-type obligations. As groups like the nationalist party Istiqlal of individuals rose up to support the sultan, still considered the commander of the faithful, in his struggle against the protectorate, the sultan regained immense prestige but of a more centralized variety.
In the post-independence Morocco, the king has successfully disrupted parties and religious brotherhoods alike, ostensibly by pressuring groups like Istiqlal in the 1950s to split apart into multiple parties based on their different economic agendas. If they were able to pursue power independently, they might have united against the king, but the opportunity was precluded by the movement’s deferral to their “commander” and “master.”
While the paradigm of master-and-disciple is interesting, it also seems an underwhelming explanation for Moroccan authoritarianism. The dynamic contains broad explanatory power for the authoritarian situation in Morocco, masterfully comparing the path of the courtier to power described above to the struggles of the Sufi disciple. In Sufism, the master frequently demands his disciple forsake his old life, exemplified the Darqawi brotherhood’s extreme case in which al-Hijb Ali gave up the lucrative life of a traditional scholar to roam the country in tattered clothing, begging for food, for years, even in the midst of his parents’ home. The power dynamic not only matches the feudalistic system of pre-colonial days, but also for the modern Moroccan nation-state. The same scheme of relationships inhabits a new government structure: parliamentary factions fight each other for the king’s favor rather than against the king himself so that they might implement their policy agendas; in fact the king infrequently intends to allow any party to gain enough power to truly exercise it, a similar balancing act to that of pre-colonial sultans despite a different political landscape. Compared to other Arab and Islamic countries that have successfully evaded mainstream democratic urges, such as Saudi Arabia, Morocco’s evasion seems both more systemically-rooted and stable; it does not rely on shows of force and buying off the people to the same extent because of the master-and-disciple dynamic.
However, the paradigm of a master and disciple ultimately seems more like a rhetorical flourish that could in reality describe any highly personalized authoritarian regime (hence why these are named “sultanistic” regimes by political scientists). When this is accounted for, the whole book’s thesis seems more an extended historical dissection to support a broad theory of how “sultanistic” regimes succeed than it does explain Morocco’s specific scenario. While this may seem a success, seeing that Hammoudi’s objective was to find a pattern that could be extrapolated, it is a failure because in its rhetorical breadth the book fails to prove its truth in the specific case of Morocco. Hammoudi fails to show that Sufism’s paradigm is pervasive, nor how its power dynamics nearly certainly cause authoritarianism. Indeed, much of the book focuses on nationalistic and religious groups, often anti-Sufi, upholding the king’s status despite incongruities with his status as ruling according to revealed law or holy principles. The king himself repressed the Sufi orders for causing rebellion. Meanwhile, there is no comparative work to the other obvious historical case of divine right feudalism: Europe, which managed to avoid confinement to authoritarianism and progressed into bureaucratic nation-state democracy.
Fundamentally, the book provides interesting support for how the Moroccan system of authoritarianism is structured, but not as much for why it is stable or why any of the components involved are crucial factors to Arab autocracy in general. The explanation may, however, come from future analysis of the experience that most significantly separates the Moroccan transition to from divinely-guided feudalism to nation-statehood from the European transition: for Morocco, nation-statehood was an external idea with no cultural foundation and thus the nation-state bureaucracy could be molded by the Moroccan political culture’s master (the king) after the completion of the protectorate. Unfortunately, this specific aspect of the articulation between protectorate and sultanate is not explained in Master and Disciple, which leaves much to be desired in the book.
Smashing Watermelons, Smashing Politics
When I was still in the states, the two most common responses I got after telling people about my upcoming trip to Morocco were 1) that I would love the food or 2) that I would need to be careful not to talk about anything political lest someone find out that I am American or Jewish or both and somehow try to kill me. I excitedly received the first response, while rolling my eyes at the second. I was still surprised to find out just how vastly unbalanced the aforementioned view of the Morocco is. The food here is perhaps the most delicious I have ever encountered. Every night, my host family serves the most delicious koftas, tagines, couscouses, and even harissa-flavored pastas (no, I didn’t know that was a thing either, but look out America!). Fresh fruit accompanies just about every meal, including some fruit I still don’t know the Darija name for, let alone its English name. Even the watermelon here tastes better, especially when served at the end of a phenomenal meal by my host family.
It isn’t only the food, however, that makes mealtime so fascinating. This week, every meal has been accompanied by some of the most intriguing political conversations I’ve ever had. Sure, the language barriers have kept the conversation from getting very conceptual or abstract, but this actually seems to be a positive thing. It is much more tangible. On the first night, my family asked me and John, who shares a home with me, about ourselves, including our religions. Although I was at first apprehensive to admit I was Jewish, fearing that I might have to explain every small component of the complicated, depressing affair that is Israeli politics every time I returned home, I instead found incredible cultural exchange. The families eyes lit up, excited to explain their happy attitude towards Jews, informed by the rich history of Jews in Morocco. I found that discussing the politics of the Israeli Palestinian conflict was a feature, not a fright, in my stay in Morocco. The son in the family, Mohammed, explained his support for one state, while I explained my own for two. After some discussion on the matter, Mohammed’s mother casually commented that she thought the Palestinians absolutely crazy. Intrigued by this position that is even more extreme than some of the more right-wing Jews in the US, I inquired further about here opinions on the Palestinian Israeli conflict. Being that she could speak only Darija, she simplified her answer to a hand gesture in which she explained she actually preferred Israel to Morocco, if only she could live there: Israel straight, Morocco windy. Very tangible indeed.
When our program visited Sidi Mohammed ben Abdullah University, we found some obvious questions about Donald Trump. The questions, however, focused not on why all Americans were stupid, or racist, or fascist, but instead on how we thought someone as hateful as Trump could gain a foothold in America, such a powerful and respected country that is known for at least being domestically democratic. Perhaps we should have expected a Trump question, but we were nonetheless unprepared to answer. Whether because of the nature of Trump or because of the unexpectedly nuanced nature of the students’ questions, I can’t say, but evidently our confusion showed.
While all of this has certainly been a blast, and being able to tell my parents all the ways they worried too much has its perks, it also highlights a concerning dynamic in America’s relation to the world that most people I ran into expressed a severe concern for my safety and ability to have truly advanced debates in Morocco simply because it is Arab and speaks Arabic. Many scholars think that the Arab Spring failed because the Arabs aren’t intellectually prepared for democracy, but this trip has smashed that interpretation of politics for me. At least in some parts of the Arab world, the people are ready for debate about democracy. The question is, are we?
The View from Josh of “A House in Fez”–Josh Curtis
A House in Fez, by Suzanna Clarke, illuminated for me a perspective of Fassi culture (and through it, Moroccan) that really cannot be obtained by reading any Wikipedia article. Away from the common tourist destinations of Marrakech, Tangier, and even the Ville Nouvelle, Clarke’s narrative of life in the Madina offers a microcosmic vision of Morocco: just like the nation as a whole, the Madina is struggling with how to modernize for the sake of, rather than to replace, the cultural and historic past. Her rich, first-person tale of the renovations of the Riad Zany convey how, even amidst intense efforts to modernize and liberalize, wide cultural and gaps separate Moroccans from the West in terms of business and personal relationships.
The book uses extensive detail to create an image of the Madina as a city both in transition and frozen in time. Modern appliances and innovations lie beside ancient architecture designed and built long before drywall, electricity, and internet wiring. It is a testament to human ingenuity that Clarke’s builders were able to connect modern stoves and toilets to ancient sewer lines, without destroying the beautiful zellij mosaics that decorate the houses of the Madina as they have for hundreds of years. One of the most significant moments to demonstrate the fascinating way that the anachronistic, seemingly competing modes of life in the Madina coexist was Abdul’s digging out the ancient sewer. The sewer is nothing like the Western type, full of complicated piping, insulation, junctions, and fastenings that require years of training to repair. It was simply a ditch, kept open by tiled walls. This simple sewer line was more than adequate for Riad Zany’s modern toilet to flush. On another occasion, Clarke walks through the souks to pick out produce and meat, both charmed and somewhat alarmed by how fresh everything is—in the case of chickens, still wriggling when you purchase it. She uses both experiences to highlight what Clarke portrays as an important part of Morocco: how close the locals are to every facet of life. There is nothing fancy or magical really about the sewer system—a little bit of training is required to understand what needs fixing for sure, but nothing is truly incomprehensible to the lay person. There is nothing mystical about how animals are raised, slaughtered, and butchered. As a result, on the one hand, things might not work as reliably or be as easy, but on the other, one becomes better grounded and can set his or her priorities straight.
Similarly, the community is much more down to earth than most Western ones. Clarke states numerous times that everyone knows everyone else’s business, an obvious but important observation considering the nature of Madina architecture. The place was not designed from the top down, with a utopian vision for how to control people’s behaviors, but rather developed organically through interactions, both friendly and less so, between neighbors. Moreover, residents of the Madina seem to consider their neighbors’ usiness their own, as there is little sense of division between private and public space. This makes the community an interesting and charming contrast to the West, where interactions between servicers and clientele, while often friendly, is strictly business. In contrast, it appears that individuals’ employment and social lives are closely intertwined. Khadija, Clarke’s one-time neighbor, frequently blurred this line. In Clarke’s eyes, she was a close friend for whom she would buy gifts in Australia, yet the relationship was always tense and perhaps ultimately broken by Khadija’s desire to leverage their friendship for employment. Whether it was to clean Riad Zany or for Suzanna to hire Khadija’s husband Abdul as a laborer in the renovation project, requests that seemed to Khadija to be mutual favors—useful work for Suzanna and money to help Khadija’s family—seemed to Clarke to breach a border that would make things awkward when something went wrong, such as Abdul’s possible theft of towels from Clark’s riad. This distinction was an intriguing one, helping to highlight how countries with similar government bureaucracies, political systems, and commercial laws can reach different levels of modernity and retain different societal features.
Taken together, Clarke’s writing illustrates the most relevant concepts about life in the Madina. The ancient city is not simply a tourist attraction or a sight to see; it is more than just interesting architecture. It is a breathing city whose aura offers a case study in how different facets of society can be changed and what the effect is. Clarke’s immense contextual analysis and (sometimes overbearingly) elaborate details clearly convey these concepts to the reader. However, the books is not without flaws in its accounting. She never really answers the nagging problem that she may fail to capture a full picture of how Madina society operates differently from the West precisely because her and the locals’ norms are different. It is unclear to what extent her being foreign affects workers’ behavior around her, or her attitude towards locals. While Clarke makes note of these problems frequently, she never provides even a provisional explanation of how this affected her experience. Unfortunately, this fact may point to an unsavory truth that ultimately, colonial philosophies can never truly be removed from interactions with foreign cultures perceived as in greater desperation or a lower status.
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