Awhile back, I wrote a brief article about the disappearing Moroccan cinema, echoing previous posts by Laila Lalami and Magharebia.com

Today, a nice Reuters article about both the history of Moroccan cinema houses and the future of the Moroccan film industry appeared.  The article, entitled “Morocco bears its soul on celluloid,” highlights recent Moroccan pictures as well as the recent closures of many single-screen theatres.

One film brought into focus by the article is the upcoming Casa Negra, directed by Nour-Eddine Lakhmari, who commented, “I think it’s about time we Moroccans are able to tell our stories, not just the stories Europeans want to see from us.  We now have an opportunity to tell the world what we really think.”

The film, which takes place in Casablanca, is about two poor young friends.  Lakhmari’s actors are children he found on the streets (an estimated 5,000 children survive on the streets of Casablanca).

As for the fear that a PJD win could mean more censure of films, Lakhmari said, “I will do whatever I want and use my camera as a political weapon to tell the world that you are what you are and no one can tell you how to live.”

Photograph by Jillian York, April 2007

Djemaa al Fna, Marrakech, Morocco

From our trip to Marrakech earlier this month…

The new Palmeraie Village hotel/apartments.

La lampe magique

The new fountains in Gueliz (next to McDonald’s)

A lovely restaurant we discovered in the medina - Bougainvillea Cafe

(33, Rue El Mouassine, near Derb Chorfa, 024-44-11-11)

Mmm…tanjia…

What would a photo post from me be without at least one kitten shot?

(more…)

A man and his monkey, Asilah, June 2006

(all photos in this blog by me, unless stated otherwise)

A survey conducted between December 2006 and January 2007 of four Muslim countries (one of which was Morocco) found that in all four countries, large majorities of the people believe that undermining Islam is a major goal of US foreign policy.  Additionally, most want US military forces out of the Middle East region and many surveyed would approve of attacks on those forces.

The survey was conducted by WorldPublicOpinion.org, and the START consortium at the University of Maryland.  1,000 of the participants were Moroccan, from both rural and urban areas.

On average, 79% of all surveyed say they perceive the “weakening and division of the Islamic world” to be a US goal.  Approximately the same number of people perceive that the US is trying to maintain “control over the oil resources of the Middle East.”  64% on average believe that the US is trying to “spread Christianity in the region.”

Surprisingly, a majority of Moroccans support targeting US forces, even more so than Pakistanis or Indonesians surveyed.  Even more alarmingly, only 57% of the Moroccans surveyed believe that violence cannot be justified “at all” (against civilians).  An additional 19% said, however, that it can only be “weakly justified.”

To read more, visit WorldPublicOpinion.org

Yesterday, Cat in Rabat recalled in a fascinating post a question she had posed to her 20-and-30-something Moroccan students: “If you were the king of Morocco, what law would you change?”

She was surprised when her class answered “A more equitable system of [traffic] fines.”
(Go read the post - you’ll end up adding her blog to your favorites)

I was surprised too.  And determined that I would ask my Advanced class of teens and twentysomethings the same question.  Given that I had a big class to work with, I ended up splitting them up into same groups and gave them fifteen minutes to make a decision about their new law.

The first group, made up of two young men (both of whom study in the university here), started with trepidation, “If we could change any law in Morocco…we would give more power to the public…a constitutional monarchy…more power like Spain or the UK…”  Was I hearing what I thought I was hearing?  These two young men were telling me what very few Moroccans dare to say (particularly in our school, which for a long time had a policy of “no religion or politics” in class) - that they wanted the king to have less power, that they felt Morocco was ready for a democracy.

The class took a vote of agreement: 2 students were for, 10 against.  Better luck next time.

The second group to speak their minds was made up of five young women - university students mostly, and one employee of a textile manufacturer - who told the class immediately that the most important law to them would be to raise the age of consent for marriage.  What?!  The age of consent in Morocco, unlike in many Arab countries and most U.S. states, is 18.  A reasonable age of consent, and also the age at which one may separate from one’s parents, join the military, and drive.  The girls explained to the class that 21 was the perfect age of consent (although two girls in the group felt that 24 was more apropos) and that it would allow girls to finish their studies before taking on the responsibility of a husband and family.  Interesting.

The class took a vote: 6 for, 6 against.

The last group up, made up of the youngest students in the class (3 boys, 2 girls, all high school aged) took the floor to tell us that their idea of the perfect new law was to separate religion from government.  They explained that they would prefer a system in which religion did not influence laws.

Now, Morocco is not influenced by Shari’a, per se.  The new king, Mohammed VI, in particular has modernized family laws, setting a new precedent for women’s rights.  In addition, the constitution does provide for freedom of religion - there is no penalty for apostasy, for example.  On the other hand, Muslims can technically be arrested if caught eating in public during Ramadan, the sale of alcohol to Muslims is illegal (although that law is, obviously, not enforced) and women cannot legally marry a non-Muslim (although men can marry a Christian or Jew, and even then the woman must only provide a written statement, not an official legal document from her church or synagague - trust me, I didn’t have one).

Such were the examples given by students.  One recalled a time when he was walking in town with his sister and stopped by the police, then asked for his marriage certificate.  He had to call his parents to explain that the kids were, in fact, brother and sister.  Another recalled a distant cousin who had left Morocco so that she could marry a Christian man.

And so we took a vote: 8 were in favor, 4 against.  Triumph!

Teachers - I dare you to ask your classes this same question.  Thank you Cat in Rabat for the idea!

I think it’s notable that despite the recent bombings, there have been several mostly positive articles in far-flung newspapers from around the globe.

Canada.com’s “North African High” (by Archie McLean) published today, is a travelogue of a trip up Jebel Toubkal, Morocco’s highest peak. The article also gives practical information for those planning similar trips.

And Jason Burke’s article for the Guardian Observer (”Morocco’s turning tide”) paints a nice picture of modern Morocco, with excellent quotes (although imagining a Moroccan saying “he was a nice bloke!” is a bit rocky).

The Washington Times article, “Morocco’s savory tagines” is a mouthwatering ode to the ubiquitous Moroccan dish.

Another, “Tourism Meets Terrorism in Morocco,” by Geoff D. Porter for the Lebanon Daily Star, extols the necessity of tourism in saving Morocco’s economy, but also brings to light the issues of the shantytowns and slums in major cities, said to give rise to Islamic extremism.

And on that note, Everything Morocco, though a blog and not a news site, has had a few excellent posts recently regarding poverty in Morocco and is worth a good read.

I’m a hammam-lover and avid hammam-goer as well. You can find me, every two weeks or so, hailing a taxi in the street, loaded up to my armpits with hammam gear, on my way to my favorite place: Hammam Sekkaya. Sekkaya (which should be spelled “souqaya” if you ask me) means “tap” or “robinet” for you Francophones - “tap” as in the place the water comes out of in your sink.

What I love about Sekkaya is its sheer size. The hammam I formerly attended, which shall remain nameless, had small, dark rooms (I actually liked the ambience) and the taps were spaced very closely. You’ll see why this is a bad thing in just a moment.

You see, in the hammam, women sit nearly naked (about half leave their undies on), sweating and scrubbing dead skin off of their bodies. It might sound gross, but it’s one of the most wonderful feelings in the world. What actually is gross, though, is what happens when you’ve got a small hammam space with taps spaced closely - You get someone else’s dead skin on you.

Now, maybe that’s my American squeamishness coming through, but the idea that someone else’s dead skin is flowing over my almost clean body - gah!

Anyhow - I entered Sekkaya tonight only to find that I’d be suffering the same dead skin madness. I couldn’t turn around (Hamza had dropped me off to pick me up an hour later), so I entered anyway. A young mother was nice enough to scoot her daughter’s belongings over, and I prepared my usual ritual: sweat it out, slather on savon beldi, sweat some more, scrub my feet, pretend to stare at the wall, sweat, then ask the lady to scrub me. After my scrubbing, I returned to my spot (which some large Francophone woman had almost stolen from me - thank goodness for the young mother’s defense!) only to find that the worst possible thing to ever happen in a hammam had happened.

The water had turned COLD.

I quickly turned to the girl on either side of me to ask if they were experiencing the same thing.

“Sukhoon?” I asked, hopefully.

“Berd,” both girls replied.

I looked around - everyone was sitting in silence, unsure of what to do next. The taps had all been turned off, women were visibly shivering (despite the fact that the room was still sweltering hot - but I’m sure I’ve mentioned how terrified of cold air, cold water, cold Coca-Cola, etc everyone here is).

Ten minutes later, the hot water returned and I quickly finished up my business (by that time, it almost was cold!) and made my way out, vowing never to go to the hammam on a Sunday night again.

Outblush, a weblog dedicated to shopping, posts today about some beautiful Moroccan lanterns by a company called WestElm…priced from $39-69.

Incidentally, those same lanterns in the picture would cost between 100-500 MAD. That’s more like $10-50 (depending on city, quality, and how good of a bargainer you are). One very similar to the one on the right is currently 79 MAD at Marjane, the giant supermarket of Morocco.

WestElm also sells these pillows for $34 each…

…Which I could have made in the medina for less than 100dh each, I presume.

In an article entitled, “Netherlands: Moroccan babies get only names approved by Morocco,” Islam in Europe blog reports that when a baby is born in the Netherlands to parents of Moroccan descent (or more precisely, of Moroccan name), the parents are given a list of names approved by the Moroccan government.

In Morocco, there is a list of names (mostly Arab, some Berber) that parents are legally allowed to name their children.  In addition, parents pay an extra fee for giving their child certain “special” names like Adam.  But how does that apply to Dutch Moroccans?

Well, as Bo18 reported awhile back, once a Moroccan always a Moroccan. In other words, while a Moroccan can gain dual citizenship with another country, he can never give up his Moroccan nationality.  In addition, any child born to a Moroccan father in any country is officially Moroccan.  If that child wants, at some point in the future, to go back to Morocco (even to visit), he or she must have a Morocco-approved name or will encounter problems upon entry.

If the child doesn’t go back to Morocco though, it’s a moot point.  As the list is given without request, and contains only Arabic names, a city council member in Haarlem perceives it to be discriminatory.

I commented to the original post, saying that I too find it discriminatory on a personal level, however, knowing Morocco’s bizarre citizenship laws and requirements, I think that what the Netherlands is doing is a necessary public service.

I think Morocco needs to give up their Arab purist attitudes though.  If I have kids at some point in the future, you’d better believe that they will NOT have Arab names (necessarily, anyway).