The inspiration fro this thread came from a friend of mine who visited the U.S a few years ago and came back astonished by how little most americans know about our country. Now that I have moved to Florida, This trend was confirmed. I am aware Morocco is not an isolated case but let’s stick to it for the time being.
So, since the dopers are La creme de la creme when it comes to intelligence and culture, and since the majority of them are americans, I decided this might be an interesting question to ask.
So: What comes to your mind when you hear the word Morocco?
Everything goes: Government, society, rumors, economy, myths, anecdotes, etc.
If you are not american, please state so in your answer. If you don’t know anything about Morocco, feel free to say so as well.
And no cheating! You have to answer this without investigating!
I am English.
Morocco makes me think of: couscous; Islamic art, especially beautiful tiles; the Moorish civilisation of about 600 years ago; Moroccan immigrants to France, especially a guy who was a good mate of mine when I was a foreign student in France 10 years ago.
A little late but…If you could answer before reading what other posters have said, It would be better. Their comments might influence your answers…(intellectual contamination I shall call it )
When I think of Morocco, I think of a lot of my countrymen. A lot of Moroccan guest labourers came to the Netherlands in the late 60’s and early 70’s. Their sons and daughters are now my fellow Dutchmen, albeit with a North-African background. To a large extent, I feel they add to the diversity of our culture. Hospitality! If you’re invited to a Moroccan’s house, you will be treated like a KING. They are some of the most hospitable and friendly people I know.
Of course, not all is positive. There ARE problems with Moroccan youths in our inner cities. For the most part, these can be traced back to the discrepancy between the often very strict Islamic background of the guest labourers, and the extremely liberal country their kids grew up in. It’s a struggle for these guys: father tells them to adhere to the Koran, and all they see in the street is pure hedonism.
Together, we will overcome these differences in a few more years - perhaps a generation.
And Moroccan food! My God, that’s just gorgeous stuff! I hope to visit that country some day. A rich history, with a bigger influence on Europe than is often assumed.
When I look at the list of topics, I have to admit I don’t know that much. Government–I think it’s a monarchy of some sort, but I don’t know.
But the first question, what comes to my mind? That’s easy. The best vacation I ever took was a very long train ride from the east coast of China to the west coast of Europe and down through Spain, followed by a short boat ride to Morocco, then another train ride through Morocco. Stayed there a week or so.
It was a great trip, but I don’t know that many details about the country. Arabic is spoken, and French, and plenty of people speak English. I recall that people tended to speak rather passionately, and right up in my face, but that could have been just the handful of people I dealt with. I recall a young man offering to find me a hotel, leaning in toward my face and pounding his chest, saying “It is the best hotel in the city! I swear it! I swear to my God!”
Okay, I thought, all I want is a room, doesn’t have to be the best. The guy offered me some hash too. Both the room and the hash were good. Also bought a very cool ceramic drum in the Marrakesh market. Friendly, helpful people, excellent food, beautiful scenery. I loved Morocco, and hope to return someday.
Well, let me think. Morocco is in Northwest Africa, just south of Spain, on the other side of the Mediterranean. It was colonized by the French, and most elites still speak French, but Arabic is the main language spoken. Most Moroccans are Muslims, but minority religious communities exist. I might be wrong about this, but I think there is a significant Berber minority community there as well. (Definitely a North African nation, I could be wrong about them being in Morocco.) The capital is Marrakesh. There is a parliamentary government. It is a third-world (or developing) nation. Huge numbers of the Spanish Jews exiled from Spain in 1492 ended up in Morocco, and lived there peacefully for many years. I’ve met loads of Moroccan Jews - a friend of mine whose family was Moroccan had the last name Toledero; even after hundreds of years in Africa, they still carried the Spanish surname.
That reminds me, that friend told me that he grew up playing shesh besh constantly and led me to believe that all Moroccans are big fans of the game. I believe shesh besh is the same thing as backgammon.
BTW, I didn’t read the above entries because I didn’t want to cheat. So I apologize if anything I said is repetitious.
By amazing coincidence, I just returned Hideous Kinky to the library today. I think Black Hawk Down was also filmed there. Hmmm, what else…[ul][]I remember when I taught English in Spain, I could see the Atlas mountains on a clear day - and on a clear night, I could see the blinking red lights of the lighthouses across the Mediterranean. []There’s the struggle for cultural rights by the Berber minority. []The squabbling with Spain over Cueta and some worthless island, making Spain look a bit hypocritical in their position on Gibraltar. []Didn’t allied forces land in Morocco in WW2? []Tibet-style annexation of Western Sahara, with the Polisario refugee army camped out in the desert for a quarter century. []I think I read of plans to build a north-south road through Africa, starting in Morocco. Did you get a new king recently? I seem to recall something about the cult of personality around the king.[/ul]Culture and food, pretty much what others have said. Although not having been there, I don’t distinguish in my mind Morocco from Algeria or Tunisia.
You did GREAT Kyla. That was exactly what I had in mind when I started this thread. I’m pretty impressed by your knowledge too. And there is indeed a significant amount of berbers In Morocco. I wouldn’t call them a minority though. As far as I know, most moroccans have some berber blood. And they play backgammon in the north of Morocco. not so much in other regions. Also, the capital is now Rabat. Marrackesh was a capital several times in the past though.
PS: story of marrakesh’s name. A long long time ago, That region was notorious for it’s many brigands and it was considered very dangerous to dwell there. They called it: ‘moorrahkoochah’ which means: [who]passes by, [will] lie in the ground (ie: get killed)
What does come to my mind?
Hmmm… fried sardines, apple and orange juice, tajine, renting a seat and a teapot to prepare minted tea, haggling in the souks, unbearably hot weather, smoking the kif offered by an old host at the end of a meal, obnoxious false guides, obnoxious police officers arresting false false guides or searching for “anti-national propaganda”, islamic students telling the history of their town on a beach on an early evening, realizing that the place you’re lost in in the middle of the night is actually the part of Casablanca you’ve been strongly advised not to go to, a picture of Hassan II hanging above the bed, amazingly beautiful inlaid-works in a shop, an old woman begging in a narrow street, lying lazingly on a roof on a hot morning, being sitted beside chickens in the bus, wondering about the protocol to follow during dinner at a well-off family’s place, craftmen working around their furnaces, donkeys, trading stones for I-can’t-remember-what with a child, brown-orange earth walls, …
Of course, I cheated, I’m not american and I visited Morroco. But I wanted to say that I love this country…
Yeah, I have been there several times and in all truth, it is awe-inspiring. And I don’t mean it in a religious sense.
small anecdote: the funding for the mosquee came from various sources (donations from some saudis amongst others) but one of the methods was quite…errr…controversial to say the least. They took money out of government employees payrolls and gave those who wanted the option of demanding it back. my mother was among them. Needless to say, nobody did. the former king Hassan was well known for being a “steel hand in a velvet glove”.
please stop me before I turn this in an “ask the moroccan guy” thread :smack:
As pathetic as this may sound, it was only (relatively) recently that I realized that Morocco is not, in fact, right next to Turkey. I’m not sure where I got that idea, but it was in my head that that was where Morocco was located. I’m so ashamed.
Let’s see… Other than that, I know next to nothing about Morocco. It is, however, my sister’s favorite section of EPCOT. She’s recently become fixated on Morocco’s culture, architecture, etc, so I’m thinking she might actually be interested in a “Ask the Moroccan Guy” thread.
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