Morocco: white-haired hoy of Arab world

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32637, 19 June 1971, Page 13

Morocco: white-haired hoy of Arab world

(By

MALCOLM J. MASON)

We New Zealanders, with only one language to learn, are luckier than we realise: especially compared with the Moroccans.

Linguistically speaking, these people, living in a country half as big again as New Zealand, do not have it easy. The official language is classical Arabic, but the spoken tongue is a dialect which is not reducible to writing. The Arab press is printed in a special set of characters, which in itself is an artificial language of recent creation.

On top of this, the tongue which really counts is French.. The Moroccan bazaar owner, haggling with Arab customers, uses dialect, but for all other dealings, “le francais” is supreme. Twolanguage street signs show French on top, and if business houses display Arabic at all, they relegate it to a very minor place. But the native tongue is at last on the way up, at least for the young. For the first two years at school their lessons are in Arabic, for the next three, about equally in both Arabic and French. However, when they go to secondary school, they find it is all French.

It is understandable, really. Until 1956 Morocco was France’s “show” colony, and from what I have seen in Africa the French seem to know how to grant independence and retain the people’s affection, some cultural domination and, more important, monetary power.

Spanish enclaves For a while Spain was very much in the Moroccan picture, with a sphere of influence in the North opposite Gibraltar. This all disappeared with independence and her one-time presence is manifest these days by little more than the occasional bull-ring.

The most tangible remnants are two enclaves —one at Ceuta, opposite our own Gibraltar, and the other at Melilla, 120 miles to the West. It has always seemed incongrous to me that when Spain complains to the world so bitterly about the injustices of British occupation of Gibraltar no-one seems to remind her of these two

“Gibraltarian” possessions retained by her in Morocco. In Casablanca, I checked into the Anfa’ Hotel, largely because it had a swimming pool. I didn’t know that in previous years it had even more important guests: it was the site of the famous 1943 conference between Churchill and Roosevelt. I doubt that either of them had hallowed with their presence the modest room which I was able to afford.

Perhaps it was because of this summit conference that everyone knows of Casablanca, but few of Rabat. Yet it is Rabat that is today’s capital, although its population of 250,000 is small compared to Casablanca’s million plus. Apart from being the seat of Government, however, it has another edge on its larger sister: it has two full universities. Modern city This matter of deciding on Morocco’s capital puzzles me.. In other countries it is where the ruler (or president) has his permanent home, which usually seems to be where most of the embassies are .In Morocco there are “traditional” capitals at Meknes and Marrakech, the “old” capital is Fez, and the “summer” capital, according to the Court, is Tangiers. Hassan 11, an unusually intelligent ruler, usually lives at Rabat. Reputedly progressive, and inclined to the West, he has modernised his own designation: since 1957 he has been simply “The King” instead of His Sherifian Majesty the Sultan. Casablanca is a modem city: not surprising when one learns it was nearly all built during the last 50 years. In 1912, when Lyautey, Marshal of France, became governor,

it had 25,000 people; today it has nearly 50 times as many. A rarity in the Arab world, it sports two medinas (native quarters): one of the expected type that just “growed” is a tangle of alleys, bazaars and passages; and the other, planned by Westerners and constructed under their supervision, has wide and well-maintained streets in which it is impossible to get lost. Hardy Berbers The Berbers of Morocco, whose ancestors were there when the Arabs swept West in the seventh century are a hardy breed. Kiwis know them under another name, the Goums, a lawless soldiery who finally broke through the Germans’ Gustav Line in Italy in May 1944. The Poles, the Indians and the Kiwis themselves had also tried to breach this barrier and it was only when the Goums were offered, reputedly, £2O for every German ear they produced after the battle, that the line was fractured. Looking at them today, it seems hard to credit that the report on the battle read, in part “. . . at 0600 hours the Goums were liberated against the enemy,” i.e. unleashed.

On the whole the Arab world does not like Westerners, equating them all as supporters of the hated Jews. Happily, this attitude is not too prevalent in Morocco. Even in the most crowded bazaar, when you have rebuffed with the most mendacious hawker, you don’t sense any feeling of hostility or antipathy. Small boys

laugh at camera - happy Americans, but it is with humour rather than animosity.

Clothing problems

Modern clothing offers many. a problem to the Arabs. The jellaba, that flowing nightshirt-like garment, seems on the way out. In the cities men increasingly wear trousers and shirts; only the older ones and the diehards stick to the old robes. Few wear headgear, and that usually a patterned skull-cap or sometimes a tarboosh. Despite the heat I saw noone, not even small boys, in shorts.

Family women are still veiled, but their shyness of years ago seems to have gone. Young women wore Western dresses of fairly modem style, with many a mini to be seen. They looked smart and shapely; they smiled readily, and unselfconsciously. As in most Arab countries, administration is not a strong point Royal Air Moroc is an international airline, but it’s a wonder to me that its planes ever get off the ground. Ticketcounters, currency exchanges, customs-halls are places of extreme confusion and an over-supply of paper. Everyone interrupts everyone else, queuing is non-existent, an

argument is a communal occasion in which everyone has a positive duty to par-

ticipate. Morocco, like New Zealand, has overseas currency difficulties. It has adopted one expedient that the tourist doesn’t like: he may exchange travellers’ cheques for dirhams (worth about 19 cents each), but can change back on departure only 25 per cent of what he cashed. Dirhams being useless outside Morocco, the State stands to make a useful profit. Mint tea I had often read of minttea and decided to sample some. It comes in an ordinary tea-pot, is sweetened, and appears to be made from fresh green mint of the kitchen garden variety. It tasted delicious and I felt quite the seasoned traveller as 1 sipped it while sitting at an outdoor cafe people-watch-ing for a relaxed half-hour. Because of its pleasant beaches and year-round sun, Morocco is a popular holiday spot for Northern Europeans. I would return for a different reason—the people. I thought them delightful—fondly, hospitable, kindly, dignified —quite as one Australian diplomat put it, “The best of the bunch in the Arab World.”