Day
twenty-six, just five more days, including today. I’m in the home stretch now! At this point hunger is not an issue
anymore. After the early afternoon it’s
a constant, low burning ache, but it ceases to distract me or really bother me
in any way other than to announce itself.
I don’t even gorge at lftor
anymore, though part of that may be that my stomach has shrunk over the course
of the month. Thirst is still a big
issue, but even that isn’t as bad as it was, it takes much longer than it
normally would to wake up, and I only have a few hours in the middle of the day
where my brain really works, but that’s a big step up from how it was earlier
in the month, when I didn’t even have those hours. I’ve occupied my time writing a short story
since I still find it really hard to focus on my real work (writing syllabi and
lesson plans is really hard when you have no guidelines your students are just
abstractions). Gives me something to do
to kill the time, if nothing else.
Through a series of miscommunications and poorly scheduled fast
breakings I still haven’t learned how to make harira, I’m starting to think it’s a secret my host mother doesn’t
want me to learn (the eternally tricky “man in the kitchen” issue).
Since I’ve
arrived in Morocco I’ve had quite a few discussions about the nature of
Authority in Morocco with both Moroccans and fellow PCVs. Interestingly, when I have the conversation
with Moroccans it has always been they who bring up the topic, meaning it’s on
their mind as much as it’s on mine. It
can be a thorny topic here; it is a crime to criticize the king, but in an absolute
monarchy he is the source of all authority.
I can never be sure if what people say about him is what they actually
believe or what they feel safe saying.
Even when they have nothing bad to say, if he comes up in discussion
people’s voices drop and I’m drawn into a conspiratorial-seeming huddle, only
to hear that they think he is a good man.
They have no such compunctions about the prime minister and his
government. Most Moroccans who follow
politics seem to feel he has not lived up to the promise of change and reform
that brought him in along with the new constitution last year. However, the vast majority of Moroccans (both
in my small town and in the bigger cities I’ve spent time in) don’t seem to
care too much about politics one way or the other, except to say that the
government doesn’t do much for them, and never has, one way or the other. There is a major disconnect with government,
with the exception of a somewhat powerless parliament all political offices are
appointed, even at the local level.
People don’t feel like they have a voice in government. In all the places I’ve been, and from other
PCVs in places I haven’t been, I hear that at a local level there is distrust
of government authority, which people see as disconnected, and, in some
communities, corrupt.
Before I
get any closer to the thin ice (I worry a little that I’ve already been tap
dancing on it, but to understand Morocco you have to know this element too),
I’m going to move on to another, safer place that these conversations always go
to, the school system. I have to preface
this by saying that I have met some fantastic Moroccan teachers, and that I
have also met several students who came through the system fairly well
educated, but these are exceptions that prove a rule. The Moroccan education system is terrible. The big problem is that students are not
asked to think, ever. They take in
information, they regurgitate that information on tests, and that is all. The teacher is an all-knowing authority
pontificating before the class, and is not to be questioned. I’ve heard stories, even from university
level students, that they are never challenged, or even allowed, to think for
themselves. One friend of mine, a
remarkably intelligent and driven man who would be a star pupil at any American
university, said that in his university experience the correct answer to any
question was the teacher’s opinion, and to get good grades he had to suppress
his disagreements. He claims that his
university (Meknes) was a particularly bad one, but he couldn’t transfer
because in Morocco the region you live in determines the university you go to,
the only exception being if you want to study something that the regional
university doesn’t offer. In his last
year at university he was able to take a class purportedly on thinking. Even that class didn’t ask him to think for
himself, it was a class on methods and theories of thinking, without a
practical component.
The lack of
a practical component is a big problem with the English courses here as well. Students are almost never asked to speak and
practice their language, so I find students with a perfect theoretical
knowledge of the past perfect progressive tense and no idea how to pronounce
“Hello, how are you?” correctly. Even in
some of the universities there isn’t much of a speaking portion, though this
seems to vary university by university as the English students I’ve met from
the universities in Fes and Rabat had much more speaking practice than those
I’ve met from the university in Meknes.
Even this lack of practice stems from the authority problem. Speaking in class, even to practice, is just
not done. I’ve found that even advanced students
are hesitant to speak in class.
Actually, let me revise that, this applies especially to advanced students, who’ve been heavily
conditioned. At first I thought it was
because they weren’t confident in their English, which is definitely part of
it, but even more so it’s because they’re not used to having their opinion
asked in class, especially since I give them no hints about what the “right”
opinion might be. In an attempt to break
down this authority wall I don’t let my students call me “ustad” or teacher, the normal (and entirely dehumanizing) way they
refer to their teachers. They are more
willing to speak their minds with Younis.
This works for older beginners and advanced students, in fact it’s the
only way to teach them something new, but with younger students I’ve found I
have to insist on being “teacher.”
Younger students here need the shadow of authority or they refuse to
behave in class.
One
anecdote, more than any other, really emphasizes Moroccans strange and strained
relationship with Authority. The other
night my friends and I had a debate about Internet censorship, specifically
whether the government should have the right (and, therefrom, the moral
responsibility) to block access to pornographic websites. The first interesting point was one friend’s
take on why pornography should be
banned. He believes that when young Moroccan
men see pornography their lack of knowledge of how women actually behave, their
lack of practice interacting with women in a social setting, and their respect for the Internet authority
that fills this knowledge gap makes them think that this is an appropriate
way to act around women. This gives them
unrealistic expectations of how women will act and, he believes, is one of the
many root causes of sexual harassment here, especially of foreigners since most
of the women they see in pornography are foreign women. He actually thinks this applies to most
television, Moroccans’ respect for authority and lack of developed critical
reasoning skills leads them to believe much more than they should of what they
see in T.V. and movies (he was very excited the other day when I was able to
explain to him what was historically accurate and what wasn’t in Braveheart, though a little bummed about
how much wasn’t). He thinks that this is
reason enough for the Moroccan government, which he thinks is inefficient at
the best of times and corrupt and incompetent at the worst, to step in and
censor pornography. Avoiding the free
speech issue (moot anyways since we were discussing kids under 18’s access to
pornography), I argued that no government, especially the Moroccan one, really
has the power to control the Internet.
People who want to can and will find a way around censorship, even if it
takes them awhile. The better solution
is through parental guidance and instruction (for the Internet access) and
slowly opening up the culture so that young men can learn how to interact with women
on their own, rather than have their instruction come from Internet
pornography. What swung him was my point
that it was better to educate the children and leave them to make the right decision
than to try and force them towards good behavior, which would almost guarantee
they rebel and make the wrong choice.
The
Moroccan relationship with Authority is extremely complicated. On the one hand there is a fervent mistrust
of Governmental authority, but on the other they are taught from day one in
school to submit to authority without questions. This school system also teaches them that the
only way things get done is through authority and undermines their ability to
think for themselves. This contrast
between mistrust and reliance leads to stagnation, frustration, and anger. I have the feeling that last year’s protest
movement, which eventually lead to the new constitution, was born at a point
when the people felt more frustrated and angry than stalled. I wouldn’t be surprised if they reach this
point again; people are frustrated that the new constitution doesn’t live up to
its promises and are even more cynical about the authorities that provided it.
This topic
continues, briefly, in the postscript, but as usual I’d like to end the main
body of the post with my newest Joha joke, courtesy of my tutor. It’s conveniently authority related:
One day, Joha and his two brothers
were called to their father’s house. He
told them that he had decided on the way to determine who would inherit his
property. They would race to a nearby
oasis, but the winner would be the cleverest, not the fastest. Whoever got their camel to the oasis last, but still within an hour, would be
the heir. Joha and his older brother
knew that the youngest brother would not be able to win, and so the race was
between them. Seized by an idea, Joha
jumped on his oldest brother’s camel and rode as fast as he could to the oasis. His brother, cursing, mounted Joha’s camel and
rode after him. Joha got to the oasis
and smiled as his brother caught up, just as the hour ran out.
“I believe that my camel got here
last,” said Joha.
P.S. As you might imagine, some of these talks also went
into the area of religious authority. I
won’t touch that in a blog post, but there was a very interesting book reviewed
last Sunday in the New York Times, Heaven on Earth, by Sadakat Kadri, that
looks like it’ll be very interesting and informative on the history of
religious law (and thereby religious authority) in Islam. If anyone is thinking of sending me a care
package, take this as your hint, though do give me a head’s up if you’re
planning on sending the book, I see no need to have a copy and then have to
give three more to the Peace Corps library!
P.P.S. A story I couldn’t really fit in anywhere: the other
night I was eating lftor at a
student’s house (actually, two students, a brother and a sister). Like any holiday, Ramadan is noteworthy for
the corny commercials that go with it.
In particular Meditel, one of the three major phone brands, has had a
series of commercials that involve famous Moroccan pop stars singing while
people dance in the streets. It would be
less annoying if the songs weren’t so catchy.
Just as we finished lftor, one
of these commercials came on and I sang along a little, at this point I feel
compelled to I’ve seen the commercial so often.
They laughed and I said that the commercial was a little
ridiculous. They agreed, but then the
sister said that it was also hshuma
(shameful). I asked why. She said that it was because there were
full-grown women dancing in the street in the commercial. My first thought was shock, she seemed like
one of my more liberal students, in fact she is my only female student who does
not wear a headscarf in the house when her family invites me to tea. O.K., fine, that was my second thought, my
first was “woah, it’s like footloose!” or rather, “Loose, footloose, kick off
your Sunday shoes” (proving you can take the student out of the high school
musical but you can’t take the high school musical out of the student, I didn’t
even like that one). It’s interesting where
people draw their lines.
P.P.P.S. Weird Language Note: the expression Moroccans use
to mean “in fact” in Darija is b l-fial
(the “a” is actually a throaty growl not used in English, but I have no sign
for it here). This literally translates
to “by the verb.” I don’t know why this
intrigues me so much, but I’ve been trying to work b l-fial into my everyday conversation, just so I can try to figure
it out. In future posts watch out for me
occasionally using “by the verb” instead of “in fact,” just to keep you on your
toes.
