Going To America

My friend Aziz called me the other night and asked me to come out to a cafe with him and his friends. He added that he had something to tell me.

I showed up half an hour later and after the standard greetings and jokes, we chatted a while in Arabic. When the conversation fragmented, Aziz turned to me and, speaking quietly in English (which the others didn't understand), told me he had won the American visa lottery.

It was obvious he was excited. Only a small percentage get the chance to become legal residents of the United States but many yearn for it. I had helped another Moroccan apply back in November, but I didn't know that Aziz or his friends had applied. I probably should have known better. For a good number of Moroccans, it is a yearly tradition.

Fortunate though he was, I could also tell he was uncertain. As he explained further, I learned he had his doubts. His mother has been sick recently. He is the only son. And his father doesn't want him to leave.

"They told me, 'If you are going to raise as much money as you need to go to the U.S., you might as well just start a business here, close to home.'"


After leaving the cafe, we walked around some and he asked me more about my opinion.

I told him that he could always come back if he needed to. One of my co-workers certainly did. I also warned him about some of the common pitfalls: getting involved in pyramid schemes, working a time-consuming job and never having time to get more education, etc.

He still isn't sure. First he needs to pay for an extremely expensive medical exam. Then he has to prove he can pay for the airline ticket and for his first few months in the U.S. Then he has to decide where he wants to go. Likely he will know someone who knows someone already there and use the Moroccan immigrant community for a head-start when he arrives. The whole process will take close to a year. A lot can happen in that time.

It's a bit strange to think about immigration from this end. My ancestors crossed the Atlantic Ocean by boat in a trip that took weeks and allowed no return. Within a generation or two (helped largely by World Wars against their former home), they had shed the old language and culture. And now we are all firmly American.

Aziz can fly across the Atlantic in a few hours. He can return every year if he has the money. And he has issues here before he even arrives in the United States. I generally think of immigration as an issue of finding a job, learning the language, and fitting in culturally; but that is only one side of the story.

I'm very excited for Aziz. Of all the Moroccans I know, he is the one who deserves a Green Card the most. I wish him the very best.

Scenes From Morocco: Near Bab Jdid

Like many parts of Moroccan society, the area near Bab J'did in Meknes bears marks of both the old and the new.

Geopolitics According to Moroccan Students

In general, Arabs love to talk about the United States and its role in the world. So when we started the unit on "would have", "could have", "should have", I thought it would be a good opportunity to talk about the relationship between the United States and the Arab world. How could the relationship have been better? What should have happened?

Surprisingly, most of my younger students couldn't care less. The issue isn't as pressing as it is in other parts of the Arab world; they live comfortably now. Solidarity is a bit passe. When they expressed their dislike for the topic, I asked for alternative topics. The most popular one was "relationships between parents and children".

Below I have posted the essay of one of my older students.

A long time ago, the relationship between the U.S. and Arab world was good until the problem of Palestine appeared. Every day Palestinians suffered and [were] murdered, while the whole world was watching those crimes without moving a finger.

Another thing, since the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001, the policy of U.S. has changed, They consider every muslim as terrorist and they succed to convince the American citizens by using a dangerous weapon is the media of course.

By consequence, the U.S. military attacked Iraq and pretended to spead peace and achieve democracy to Iraquians but their major target is to control the sources of petroleum.

After that, the U.S. Army attacked Afganistan and tried to get Ossama Ben laden dead or alive, the friend of yesterday becomes the enemy of today, during the cold war between U.S. and URSS, the U.S. gave him weapons to fight against Russians but the things has totally changed now, he becomes the terrorist number one in the world.

In my opinion, the U.S. should be more [fair] about the Palestinian issue. It should also be aware about the danger of nuclear weapons in the middle east.

As a conclusion, I guess the relationship between Arabian governments and U.S. still strong but the citizens are disappointed about the U.S. policy.

This essay pretty accurately represents the average Arab's understanding of these issues. This student simplifies the Israel-Palestine conflict, the Iraq war, and how the media works a bit, and he has a mistaken chronology of Iraq and Afghanistan, but otherwise he has a fairly decent understanding of world geopolitics. In fact, I would go so far as to say that he understands some of these issues much better than the average American.

As an Arab and a Muslim, of course, he is well-informed about the post 9/11 profiling of Muslims and the situation in Palestine. The average Arab has seen hours upon hours of footage from Palestine, but Americans rarely get a glimpse of Palestinian suffering. Unlike many Arabs, I am not a fan of conspiracy theories to explain this phenomenon, but the fact is: it exists.

Notice also the student's distinction between Arab governments and Arab citizens. The governments are allies of the U.S. The people (or the majority that cares enough to pay attention), strongly dislike (hate, detest?) American policy in the region.

And that's why this essay is important.

It demonstrates the average Arab's understanding of geopolitics. And when enough people believe something, exaggerated or true, it has profound effects in the real world.

Scenes From Morocco: Meknes Medina

Familiarly Foreign

The other day, I walked into a cafe that is on the same street where I live but which I visit but rarely. I asked for a couple of my favorite pastries and waited to be served. Instead I received a loud (and yet still friendly) outburst about how well I spoke Arabic.

Leaving aside for a moment the fact that it you don't need to know very much Arabic to order pastries, such compliments get a little old after a while. If I'm going to have a conversation, I'd prefer for it to be about something other than the fact that I'm a conversation in Arabic.

Like most conversations of this type, it followed a predictable path:

"You speak Arabic so well."

"Thank you. God's blessings upon you."

"Are you Muslim? Do you pray?"

"No, I'm not Muslim, but I do pray."

"Well, you are a Muslim then."

"No, I don't pray as the Muslims pray."

For many Moroccans the only reason why you would ever bother to learn Arabic is because you are a Muslim. And it's true there are many converts to Islam who come to Morocco to improve their Arabic and deepen their knowledge of Islam, but I am here for other reasons.

Eventually the man got me my pastries (or rather he had another woman do it).

I always handle this sort of questioning in a friendly manner, but after a while it gets a bit old. After frequenting the same places for the past few months, I get lulled into thinking that I actually fit in. And the truth is that I don't really.

I suppose that's why I go to the same places here in Meknes: familiarity.

Moroccan Cinema

Last night in class I had a difficult time coaxing a sustained conversation out of my students.

This happens from time to time. There are just a few subjects, like Islam, biased media, and parent-children relationships, where they're more than willing to share their thoughts. Oftentimes, there isn't much doing.

But this time the subject was movies, and the result surprised me a bit.

It wasn't so much that students didn't have favorite actors or hated movies. But any attempt to make the ideas of one student interact with the ideas of another student didn't get very far.

One of my students couldn't remember the last time she had seen a movie. The only part of the discussion she participated in was when we briefly mentioned "Titanic".

A lot of students just couldn't remember anything that they had watched recently. Most students had seen movies but couldn't remember names. This phenomenon, of course, is complicated by the fact that the French versions they often watch have been absurdly retitled.

Eventually our conversation drifted into the territory of "Why are Moroccan movies so bad?"

On that subject, my students found surprising agreement (the one woman who doesn't watch movies regularly, notwithstanding).

My students' diagnosis: Moroccan acting is pretty awful. Improve the acting and create real endings, and Moroccan cinema will be on its way to being taken seriously.

Scenes From Morocco: Volubilis

Volubilis, located half an hour's drive outside of Meknes, was the Roman capital of the Mauretania Tingitana province until the 3rd century A.D. It bears traces of both a Jewish and a Christian presence, predating the long Muslim domination of the area.