Badis and Ines are from Tunisia so it was really interesting to travel with them in Morocco. Talking to Ines gave us insight into how Islamic countries in Northern Africa are evolving in terms of women’s issues – work, family, clothing and so forth. In Tunisia, she said, wearing a face covering has been largely banned. Only some older women still do it. And wearing a headscarf is seen as a personal choice, not a religious, political or social requirement, in the form of Islam practiced there. That seemed to be true in Morocco as well… women with bare heads didn’t seem any more or less confident, friendly or free than women with covered heads.After a few days it started to seem a little bit silly to even be thinking about it, and that was when the whole subject became even more interesting to me. After all, people cover their heads for all kinds of reasons… sun, rain, fashion, to cover a bald spot. I see nothing wrong with adding “modesty” to that list as long as it really is a personal choice. When I lived in the Mission District in San Francisco I often covered myself up out of modesty because I didn’t like the attention I otherwise got. In hot, sunny places like Vietnam it’s very common for people to wear all kinds of hats, hoods and scarves, as well as face coverings, both to protect from sun and smog and, for women, out of modesty, but we don’t even think about saying that Vietnamese women are oppressed because they cover their bodies. I did once ask a Vietnamese women why they didn’t just use a really good sunscreen so that they didn’t have to wear elbow length gloves and toe socks when it’s 90 degrees outside. “Vietnamese people can’t afford to buy sunscreen,” she replied. Oh.
A Northern African visitor to San Francisco or Paris might just as well ask the opposite question… why some Western women wear so much make-up, why some spend hundreds of dollars to have their hair colored every six weeks, why some have such long fingernails, why some wear such high heels… Are these just personal choices some women make or have they incorporated habits that could be seen as oppressive because they hide what women really look like (make-up and hair) or limit their functionality (nails and heels) in order to please or placate the men in their lives? It’s all a matter of perspective. In any case, we did not get the sense that the covered women we encountered in Morocco were oppressed, nor that the bare-headed women we encountered were scorned. Like I said, within a few days it seemed like a silly thing to be paying attention to. That was in Morocco… I may have very different observations to make when I get to the Arabian Peninsula later in my trip.
So we learned a lot about modern Islam from our new friends. Morocco is an Islamic country, which means its law is tied to the Koran – sharia law. But like with any foundational document, there are many interpretations of what that means. The Europeans I’ve spoken with over the past few days are just as critical of the US for including two Christian prayers in Obama’s inauguration ceremony as they are of Muslim girls wearing headscarves in school. “It would never happen in France,” they said. “Religion and government are supposed to be separate.”
“They are supposed to be for us, too,” I said, but it’s not an easy question to answer when evidence to the contrary is staring back at you on international TV. At least, I said, Obama acknolwedged in his speech that the country is made up of people of different faiths as well as non-believers. That’s something.
I was curious what Muslims in Morocco thought about Obama. I knew that Muslims in general weren’t happy about his reaction to the current Israel-Gaza situation. But he wasn’t even the president yet and he would have a full plate of delicate situations to deal with from his very first day. Surely people on both sides of the conflict would understand that it would take him a little time to work out a new and hopefully constructive position. Right. I walked right into that one… the only time in our trip to Morocco that I felt, briefly, uncomfortable for my safety. It was late afternoon in Ouarzazate, people coming home from work or school, doing their shopping, and Caroline and I saw a large group forming in the main square. They had megaphones and banners and music, and we were curious. We walked up to the fringe of the crowd to have a look. Not another western tourist in sight, banners all in Arabic… but we gathered that it was a demonstration in support of Palestinians in Gaza. We found a group of girls, more or less high school age, and asked them what it was all about. Two spoke English, and none spoke French. The Peace Corps used to have an office in Ouarzazate and several young people we met had learned English that way; in general, those people said that they liked Americans because of the ones they met through the Peace Corps.
But they weren’t happy with Bush, and they weren’t happy with Obama either. The girls we met at the demonstration never asked me where I was from. Caroline had originally spoken to them in French, so they may have thought I was French as well. “Israel is murdering the people of Gaza,” they said, “and no one stops them. That’s why we are here.”
Caroline got bored of watching pretty quickly and went off to look in some shops at the other end of the square. I stayed with the girls to see what would happen. They were really nice to me, huddled me into their little group, smiled and giggled at me like a group of shy, kind teenagers might do anywhere when they find themselves more or less in charge of a foreigner.
The demonstration got bigger as time wore on. Soon I wasn’t on the fringes anymore but starting to be in the middle. At one point a guy with a megaphone said something and people got really angry, and I started to feel like it might not be the smartest place for me to be. In general I do realize that it's not a good idea to get involved in political demonstrations in places where you don't speak the language and aren't familiar with local customs and attitudes. Before I could leave, though, one of the girls said, “They say it is America’s fault because the Americans could tell Israel to stop and they don’t.”
“But that’s George Bush’s America,” I told her. “In five days we’ll have Obama and maybe he’ll take a different approach.”
This was clearly not the right response in this particular situation. “Obama!” she exclaimed, and our friendly little huddled-together group of girls broke apart as if a small bomb had exploded right in the middle of it. “He doesn’t do anything either.”
“But he isn’t the president yet,” I said. “Don’t you think he’ll be a better peacemaker than Bush?” She thought about it for a moment.
“What about you?” the other English-speaker asked me. “Are you for the Palestinians or are you for Israel?” The first girl translated the question for their friends. They all looked at me as I considered how to respond.
“I don’t like people killing each other,” I finally said, which is true. Relationships between peoples are just like relationships between individuals in that respect – an outsider looking in might see that there’s no peaceful solution other than difficult and tedious compromise. Once tempers flare and people start hurting each other, nothing good can come from that.
But it wasn’t the time or place to get into a philosophical discussion. They seemed happy enough with my answer and we were back to friendly huddling so I changed the subject. “What are they saying now?”
“They are asking people to come to a demonstration tomorrow,” the first girl said. It turned out that this wasn’t really a demonstration, just an announcement of a demonstration. The big event was the following day when simultaneous demonstrations were held in many countries throughout the world. I was glad to have been there and talked to these girls, but it was almost sunset and time to find Caroline. Before we left the square, I had to wait while she made a phone call home. I continued to watch from near the phone booth and was sad to see someone in the crowd form a separate circle and start burning an Israeli flag in the middle of it. Some people cheered that; others distanced themselves from it. “It’s time to go,” I said to Caroline. Which impulse, I wondered – cheering violence or distancing oneself from it – would prevail?
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I was disappointed to learn that non-Muslims aren’t allowed to go inside the mosques, so it’s not like Europe where you spend a lot of time admiring beautiful cathedrals, but we were able to go inside a madrasa dating back to the 14th century (Madersa Ben Youssef) and that was quite interesting. Given the role of madrasas in global politics today I thought it would be really interesting to see what one was like. In and of itself, a madrasa is just a religious school, serving a role similar to Christian monasteries and Buddhist wats. Today, too many have been warped into training centers for extremists, but that was not the original idea. I wanted to see a representative of the original idea. The marble courtyard and ornate tiles were beautiful, and the structure really did have a certain peaceful balance to it in the same way that a monastery does. We played in the students’ quarters – tiny stone cells barely big enough for a small bed and maybe a desk… also like a monastery. Ironically, of all places, here in a medieval religious school we smelled marijuana smoke wafting up from somewhere downstairs.
The big square in Marrakesh is called Jemaa el Fna. This enormous plaza is fairly quiet during the day and lights up like a carnival at night with street games, henna artists, snake charmers, story tellers, people with monkeys on their shoulders, orange juice stands, dates, figs, nuts and apricots, spices, hats, all kinds of things to buy and throngs of people out enjoying themselves. It was a wonderful atmosphere and I could have spent a lot more time there… but it was time to go home.
Home meaning France… for me, it was time to start moving on to the next leg of my journey. At one point that last day, Caroline jinxed us by commenting on how smoothly our trip had gone. Not one significant bad thing had happened. Of course, we still had the flight back to Paris. We were supposed to leave at 6pm, but the airplane apparently had some kind of fire on the flight just before ours and had to return to wherever it took off from. The people at the check-in desk didn’t want to alarm us. At first, they checked our bags and gave us boarding passes as if everything was OK and we might just be delayed a little bit. “But don’t get your exit stamp yet,” they added.
So we had a coffee at the Touareg Café and waited. And waited. Paris Orly Airport, our destination, closes at midnight. We tried to figure out what was the latest time we could take off from Marrakesh and still make it before then. Then we waited some more. Eventually, someone from Royal Air Maroc found us at the café and took us to a tour bus, which took us to a hotel where we got some sleep. They brought us back for a 2am departure, which turned into more like a 3am departure because some of the passengers didn’t think to ask for a wake up call, and we were back in Paris in time for the morning traffic. Most people took the delay in good spirits, though, and we both felt that the staff at the airport couldn’t have been nicer about it. A random baggage handler even brought Caroline a cup of coffee from the staff room coffee machine when she found everything closed after midnight… when she tried to give him money for it, he refused.
All in all, we had a wonderful trip. Morocco was interesting, Caroline and I traveled well together, and we met some really good people in Badis and Ines. Next stop for me is the dental chair (I seem to crack teeth every time I leave the country) and then I move on to Prague.
One of the many things I like about Caroline... her smile after finding out that our plane had been delayed until at least 2am. Note the large blue shopping bag, which represents many hours of "negotiating" in the souk.
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