Last week in the first session of my history class (The Islamic World and the West), we had a surprise guest speaker. Tom DeGeorges, a historian and former student of our professor who heads the Centre d'Etudes Maghrebines* in Tunis, had only a day or two before caught an evacuation flight from Tunis to Rabat. Professor Schaar invited him to come tell us about his experiences in the past week or so and explain the situation in Tunisia. DeGeorges turned out to be an excellent speaker, and his explanation was pretty illuminating.
First he explained the relationship between Tunisia's wealthy coastal cities and the relatively impoverished rural interior. As some of you may know already, the current uprising originated in small rural villages in the interior of the country, which have been largely neglected by the government in terms of both infrastructure (rail lines, etc.) and media coverage, which is state-controlled and based solely in Tunis. DeGeorges argued that the global financial crisis is also a major contributor to the unrest, as it has affected Tunisians both directly and through a decrease in income from Europe (tourism, investment, remittances, etc.). He also argued that the movement was made possible largely by new social networking technologies like facebook and smart phones; protesters used these technologies much as their Iranian counterparts did last summer to organize and inform each other in defiance of government attempts to silence and contain resistance.
When regional police proved ineffective at quelling riots in the rural villages (DeGeorges noted that it would be hard to convince New York City police officers to fire on other New Yorkers - and I can't help but think it would be even more true in a tiny rural village where everyone knows each other), the now-deposed president, Ben Ali, asked the army to intervene. The rumor, DeGeorges said, is that the army generals then refused to do this, possibly led by a general named Rachid Ammar. Meanwhile, media from the cities started covering the rural uprising in graphic detail. This had a dramatic affect on city-dwellers, many of whom still have strong ties to their villages of origin. Eventually, Ben Ali attempted to appease protesters by announcing that he did not intend to run for president again in 2014; according to DeGeorges, this was a huge mistake because upon this announcement he lost all authority and found himself on a slippery slope towards his eventual evacuation.
A few notes on random things about daily life in Morocco. First, cats. There are cats EVERYWHERE. Actually, some of my classmates have a tumblr of cats they see around Rabat.
I would feel sorry for them, except they all look pretty healthy, so they're not so much strays by American standards as collective municipal pets who are regularly fed by Rabat's residents. One of the cats at Chellah actually climbed into my room mate's lap when we visited, but mostly they don't want you to come too close. Dogs are much rarer, but there are a few that we see regularly on our walk to school. One morning we saw one of the dogs cross the street and had to admit he was a little better at it than we were.
Another issue I want to address a little bit is street harassment. Actually, my room mate Sarah, the journalism major, just wrote an excellent blog post on the subject. Street harassment takes lots of forms. The funniest, in my opinion, is a sort of drive (or run, or bike) - by shouting of the one English phrase that some dude happens to know, such as "I am fine!" or "Nice people!" There's a lot of "Bonjour!" too, plus plenty of Arabic we don't understand. One thing I didn't notice until our program manager mentioned it was the constant kissing noises that follow us down the street like theme music. The scariest is when some guy walking past leans in close and sort of whispers in your ear. Luckily those ones are usually too creepy to know much French or English, so I'm not as affected as I might be if I knew what they were saying. The other day I was pointing at some fancy Moroccan dresses (called kaftans, often worn at weddings) in a shop window and some dude walking by shouted "Le mariage!" It's mostly tolerable, but sometimes it feels like walking a gauntlet just getting from point A to point B.
*A center for American researchers working in Tunisia.
First he explained the relationship between Tunisia's wealthy coastal cities and the relatively impoverished rural interior. As some of you may know already, the current uprising originated in small rural villages in the interior of the country, which have been largely neglected by the government in terms of both infrastructure (rail lines, etc.) and media coverage, which is state-controlled and based solely in Tunis. DeGeorges argued that the global financial crisis is also a major contributor to the unrest, as it has affected Tunisians both directly and through a decrease in income from Europe (tourism, investment, remittances, etc.). He also argued that the movement was made possible largely by new social networking technologies like facebook and smart phones; protesters used these technologies much as their Iranian counterparts did last summer to organize and inform each other in defiance of government attempts to silence and contain resistance.
When regional police proved ineffective at quelling riots in the rural villages (DeGeorges noted that it would be hard to convince New York City police officers to fire on other New Yorkers - and I can't help but think it would be even more true in a tiny rural village where everyone knows each other), the now-deposed president, Ben Ali, asked the army to intervene. The rumor, DeGeorges said, is that the army generals then refused to do this, possibly led by a general named Rachid Ammar. Meanwhile, media from the cities started covering the rural uprising in graphic detail. This had a dramatic affect on city-dwellers, many of whom still have strong ties to their villages of origin. Eventually, Ben Ali attempted to appease protesters by announcing that he did not intend to run for president again in 2014; according to DeGeorges, this was a huge mistake because upon this announcement he lost all authority and found himself on a slippery slope towards his eventual evacuation.
A few notes on random things about daily life in Morocco. First, cats. There are cats EVERYWHERE. Actually, some of my classmates have a tumblr of cats they see around Rabat.
I would feel sorry for them, except they all look pretty healthy, so they're not so much strays by American standards as collective municipal pets who are regularly fed by Rabat's residents. One of the cats at Chellah actually climbed into my room mate's lap when we visited, but mostly they don't want you to come too close. Dogs are much rarer, but there are a few that we see regularly on our walk to school. One morning we saw one of the dogs cross the street and had to admit he was a little better at it than we were.
Another issue I want to address a little bit is street harassment. Actually, my room mate Sarah, the journalism major, just wrote an excellent blog post on the subject. Street harassment takes lots of forms. The funniest, in my opinion, is a sort of drive (or run, or bike) - by shouting of the one English phrase that some dude happens to know, such as "I am fine!" or "Nice people!" There's a lot of "Bonjour!" too, plus plenty of Arabic we don't understand. One thing I didn't notice until our program manager mentioned it was the constant kissing noises that follow us down the street like theme music. The scariest is when some guy walking past leans in close and sort of whispers in your ear. Luckily those ones are usually too creepy to know much French or English, so I'm not as affected as I might be if I knew what they were saying. The other day I was pointing at some fancy Moroccan dresses (called kaftans, often worn at weddings) in a shop window and some dude walking by shouted "Le mariage!" It's mostly tolerable, but sometimes it feels like walking a gauntlet just getting from point A to point B.
*A center for American researchers working in Tunisia.
I loved the cats, of course! We have a very nice photo of a calico who climbed into my lap in Essaouria - the question is, where IS that photo? And your notes about harassment reminded me of the shock of riding in a crowded bus in Rome in 1974, when wearing trousers (probably jeans, even worse) as a young woman was shocking.
ReplyDeleteWe're all watching the action across north Africa and glad (I am, at least) that it is such a wide continent. Have fun in Tangiers.