6/25 “The multi-million dirham question” - alternatively - Morocco and The Houston Astros

I showed Modolu the shortcuts to get to school this morning. On the way we bumped into an elderly gentlemen who lived in the states in the 1950’s and 60’s. He had an awesome American accent, which he fluidly switched into, as well as the 60’s lingo. He welcomed us ‘hepcats,’ and we told him how well we were finding Morocco. He left us with a five toothed smile.

Oral presentation today in class. We presented for all the other groups some of our vocab in situations of our choosing. The beg.-advanced class had a monologue, a salesmen trying to sell a horrible apartment (but meshy mushky), and a song (very impressive). The beg.-middle class did a casual meeting of two friends on the road, and the other beg.-beg. class did a café setting featuring the president of the United States. Everyone was nervous, which made me feel better about our never practicing before that morning. We did a souk scene – I mean – we did The Souk Scene. I also met my goal of telling jokes in Arabic, and then some.

The scene opens with me speaking highly of the beautiful, sunny, cloudless day, when I meet up with Kacey. He is another student in the same school as me, so I introduce myself and likewise. After mentioning both our families are “Just fine, thank you,” we decide to go to the souk to buy a chicken. All the venders are yelling at us, Whitney at the fruit-stand, Sam at the chicken-coup, and Lizzie selling various items (aka everything else we know how to say). We start heading towards the other teacher, but I turn Kacey around to avoid “the crazy teacher” (second set of laughs, after Kacey had used a feminine form to ask how I was, and I enacted likewise revenge in my response). We asked each vender what they had and how much. The fruit salesman showed off her range, but the price was slightly higher as these were her “habeebe’s” (darlings). I claimed the pear was too small (showing it to be maybe 4 cm), and offer her 1 DH before moving on. The chicken salesman has his act together. He immediately claims to befriend us, and definitely pulls off the hussle. He shows the chickens are friendly by sitting one on his head, and for us, his friends 100 DH. Kacey says he’s a poor student while I point to the chicken on the counter which is “not new, green, and has a huge fly above it.” He pushes the gross one to the side, changes his price to 50, and then begs us (and I mean begs us) as his family is poor and his little boy is sick and dying. I get a laugh for the look I give Kacey when I say we have no money and grab him to run to the next vender. Lizzie, now Jenjis Kahn (there is no ‘G’ in Moroccan Arabic pronunciation), shows off her variety, including shirts. Kacey asks how much her shirt is (which is what she pointed to), and she replies too expensive for him. The CD seems interesting so I ask for the price. 2008 DH (which we know because of the year). I ask for a chair and sit down in a completely shocked manner, which pulled in the gag laughs. When asked why she plays the CD, and it’s the ABC song. We sing Aliphone, Baone, … and get all groups to join as we break it down with the mizmar, mizmar, mizmar.

I find the most difficult thing since coming here has been wrapping my mind around the idea that the democratic movement here is mainly propagated by a religious front, the Islamist movement. With freedom of religion at the American constitution’s core, I still have trouble believing that alternative agendas will not arise in a system whose essence intertwines the two. However, it makes since that the front comes from a fundamentalist pull. Since colonialism there have been two main political movements: The first is the Arab nationalist movement, which has had both secular and religious fronts. Our Islamist speaker yesterday claimed Morocco has had relative independence from this Middle Eastern front since the 1970’s, though of course, some of its ideology can be found in current parties. The second movement is socialism, overtly secular in its implementation. The fall of Soviet Russia brought widespread disillusionment to this way of thought, though, again, it still plays a role in politics. The nebulous future USSR’s fall caused, paved the way for the newest movement that of fundamentalism, which is simultaneously leading this movement towards democracy. Speaking with Farah about it, she brought up that she thinks it will be good when they most likely win the next election, basically so they can show their true colors. Right now the movement is largely theoretical, not having enough power to enact any forms or legislation. Once in power, the Islamist party can show how outside of theory they will fall short in whichever areas and a better way can then arise (with my Western bias, maybe this is when the democracy movement will stay but shift to a secular front).

Lecture today was specifically on Democratization in Morocco. Interestingly, the Alawite has been the only dynasty to survive before, during, and after a colonial takeover. We started by looking at how the king has maintained his power, and while some of it stems from religious legitimacy (hereditary line to Mohamed), most comes from wise political edging, including the current movement towards reforms and democracy. The multi-million dirham question was how the monarchy will continue to fare as the people play more of a role in the political sphere. We focused on how democratization could be brought about given the current system, and I personally feel the two most important ideas brought up were the separation of the Judiciary branch (with greater checks-and-balances) as well as a better educational system. We participated in this session with Moroccan students, both university and high school, and surprisingly, one of the Moroccan highschoolers offered some of the best insight. On a side note, the kid had a Houston Astros jersey on, showing he truly had wisdom. His first point was how the monarchy is part of the Moroccan identity, and he felt it would never leave its politics. Most climatically, he defined literacy as “the capacity to respond,” to which the professor responded if the child was in his class he would sit and let the kid teach the class.

We then split up into groups with the Moroccan schoolers, and after 45 minutes returned to share our topics, which included differences between the US and Morocco in education, marriage and constitution, as well as analysis of the Islamists, and the king and religion in Morocco. Curiously enough, in our group Rachid asked whether Jews have a heavy influence on politics in America. I think he was hinting at the pro-Israel stance (as per Farah’s “not exactly black” comment) but we explained about how our government works with various political groups the foremost of which not being “Jews” though some on them might be Jewish. Concerning education, the biggest problem in Morocco rests with the teachers, who don’t teach well and leave at will (say if their grandmother is sick, or they have to go search for Crystal Skulls and Holy Grails). We touched upon corruption, and Rachid from our group brought up how he was in the hospital with a dying friend, begging for the doctors to see him. The doctor asked him if he had identification (yes) and 100 DH to bribe him. Rachid didn’t, so they waited at the entrance for hours. Finally the dying friend’s family arrived, and “talked” to the doctor, returning with a lighter wallet and service. Lastly, our group talked on religion and the king. Our presentation segwayed into a discussion of censorship. While Rachid proclaimed the evils of a government that abolished a newspaper for publishing an analysis on Islamic jokes that already existed in society (to which some Moroccan students agreed with the government in the censorship) even Rachid seemed to agree that the Denmark cartoon was stupid and worthless. This set off the American students, not that the cartoon wasn’t stupid and offensive (I personally just observed as I haven’t seen the cartoon), but the double standard which seemed to exist between forbidding such religious ‘commentary.’ In closing, the professor asked each nationality of students to list positives and negatives to their countries. Curiously enough, while Americans listed Freedom foremost of their pride, Moroccans quickly claimed their king, peace, and being Muslim. In general, American students were quick to point out embarrassments (with the unstated point of showing that these are things we want to change), and despite the fact that we just listed off problems in corruption, education, etc. in Morocco, only brain drain and lack of knowledge of Islam reasoning was stated by the Moroccan students (concerning the last, as prev. stated, many Moroccans will claim they follow certain ideas because they are Muslim ideas, sometimes incorrectly). Farah later explained that this was mainly because the Moroccan culture is to only speak of positives when you first meet someone, and maybe bring up criticisms later. She spoke favorably that they might hear how easily we critiqued our own society, and maybe apply such analysis more quickly to their own.

After school we went to Doolers’, where I taught the kids Kamsa! (High Five!) Then Modolu and I met up with Kacey to watch the Turkey Germany game. We sat on the floor of the internet café and shared the atmosphere with the locals (all men). A full four people in the entire place were Germany fans, everyone was for Turkey (including me) and this showed more as time went on. Interestingly, as soon as halftime came, the amount of people in the street almost instantaneously doubled. Also, though fans noticed my cheers and started to look at us foreigners more favorably, it wasn’t until lightning interfered with the transmission that we were welcomed with arms wide-open. We became the radio for the game, when the signal was lost and Modolu pulled up the minute reports on ESPN. We gave out the scores, which unfortunately ended in bringing smiles to only four. Despite the outcome, in all the experience was great, and we all left the café at 9:30 as friendly acquaintances. I met my father along the way home, who was also watching the game at another café. I told him we were upset that Turkey played a better game but still lost, and he agreed. “But don’t worry,” he said, “Spain will beat Russia and Germany anyway.” This might just seem like guy talk to most, but knowing the sports sentiments of the locals can come in very handy…