Echos from North Africa

I have always found it somewhat of a culture shock to find myself on the African continent in less than a 3 hour flight from Europe. As far as the Middle East and North Africa goes: Cairo is 5 hours, Dubai 6 hours, Beirut 4 hours, and yet Rabat is almost around the corner from Paris. By the time you get do indulge - or not - in some moderately eatable airplane cookery and browse through Financial Times or whatever else you fancy, the plane is already lowering itself on leafy green palm trees and you know Europe is far, far behind.

But how far is really Morocco from Europe? After all, it is a former French colony, which has declared independence just over 50 years ago, and the upper social class as well as all of the government still operate entirely in French, which is not the same in Algeria, for all the obvious reasons, or even in Tunisia for less obvious ones. The legal system and the modus operandi of the Moroccan institutions is very much à la française. The locals, when blamed for inefficiency or anything else for that matter, just shrug their shoulders as if to say: "hey, we just borrowed your traditions, it's not our fault!"

While in many ways, countries of the "South Mediterranean"- basically European speak for Maghreb - are linguistically, culturally and commercially closer to Europe than even Turkey, which has for a while been fighting for EU accession, in the most fundamental ways they are worlds apart from Europe, perhaps even more than a continent away. And no Sarkozy talk of his Mediterranean Union project can bridge this in the next few decades.

True, unlike its neighbouring Libya and Tunisia, the subjects of His Majesty have not rebelled, in the region where rebelling against social and economic injustice, corruption, lack of political rights and just about everything else has become as fashionable as fake Louis Vitton bags. It seems that unlike in the neighbourhood countries, where the leaders were caught with their pants down, the Moroccan King - or more precisely his advisors - have been saavy enough to harness all sorts of media. A few days ago, the most read daily boasted the photo of the King busily greeting the head of the domestic anti-corruption watchdog. To his credit, he seems to have got it faster than his neighbours, not least Bashar Al Assad and King Abdullah, both of the same "reformer" generation.

The King, being a descendant from the Prophet, might need even less "communication" to his fellow subjects, of which less than half are literate anyways. His legitimacy is not disputed, and passing by his palaces in Rabat Marrakech or any other city (there is a palace per city policy), there are no crowds demanding any drastic reforms, let alone his departure. The latter is actually against the law, since any criticism of the King is considered as a criminal matter, as a few journalists who have dared to cross the line, swiftly discovered.

Sometimes, one can wonder whether the King fully realises what is actually going on his country, considering that his palaces are surrounded by modern-looking security services and hectares of those leafy palm trees which separate his nose from the pollution of cars and and his eyes from the daily life in the medina. In Marrakech, his palace is surrounded by imposing looking streetlights which standout by the very fact that they do not at all fit with the surrounding misery. Even when the King chooses to take out his Porsche outside the safety of his Palaces, the highways are cleared of cars and guarded by policemen stationed every five meters, and melting onto the pavement in excruciating heat.

Aside from this Disneyland reality of Morocco, the rest is pretty much a sad sight despite all the reforms and laws to improve the daily life of low and middle income class Moroccans. With the exception of a few building blocks on the outskirts of Rabat, destined to create a middle class in a country which fundamentally lacks it, Moroccan cities are interspersed with bidonvilles. Aside from the diplomatic capital (Rabat) and the business capital (Casablanca), other cities are pretty much a sorry sight, which the ignorant Western tourists mistake for some sort of an "authenticity", and from which they hide in the privacy of their luxury villas, riyads and hotels, completely divorced from the local context.

Marrakech, for example, is known as a premium tourist destination, and yet, apart from a couple badly kept and mediocre museums and decrepit medina, there is nothing that catches the eyes except for more of the same: pollution, poverty, unkept children playing in the dust, amid a couple of tired donkeys and fruit vendors. Perhaps the biggest irony is that the most widely known tourist destination in Marrakech is the Villa of Yves Saint Laurent, which is singularly the only impeccably kept place in the city. Needless to say, there is nothing Moroccan about it, except perhaps its gardener and cleaning lady.

What the tourists flocking to Marrakech - an "authentic" North African city stuck somewhere in the medieval times - really see is a lack of an even pretense at progress and development. This is mistaken for originality. Perhaps it is for the best that the tourists continue flocking to Marrakech since the city basically lives off their ignorance and willingness to perpetually pose like a walking wallet. For non-Arabic speakers, the taxi counters are immediately turned off, additional items pop up out of nowhere on restaurant bills, and prices generally quadruple.

In a nutshell, the city is on life support, and it's organ donor is called "the tourist", of which there are basically two types: those which arrive directly to their five star hotel and think than tanning topless around the pool is what everybody in Marrakech does (never mind that a quarter of local women wear a Saudi-style burqa) or those who actually venture into the guts of the city and experience Marrakech grassroots style, which is still very far to the real daily existence of an average Marrakechi.

If tourists and all the services associated with it fled, the economy of entire cities such as Marrakech would crumble like a house of cards. Perhaps somebody should explain this to taxis who are clearly in competition trying to name the most outrageous price. Aside from services, nothing is produced in this city or many other Moroccan cities, whose "artisanat", i.e. crafts are exceedingly manufactured in China and painted in Morocco.

In Europe, we often hear that cooperation between South and North Mediterranean countries is a win-win, due to high unemployment in the the Maghreb and the need for qualified low cost labour in the Europe. And yet, with all the European support and decent laws on books and a relatively competent administration, the Moroccan economy operates like one giant souk, where items are haggled for, bargained, stolen, and sometimes simply wasted. There are a few "islands of efficiency", usually run by expats, which operate according to entirely different principles and deadlines. For the lack of a better analogy, this is a new brand of post-colonialism, and at least to me, not the worst kind.

All in all, Marrakesh might be only 3 hours away from Paris, but it is lightyears away from it. I wonder if it has "gone back" from colonial times, and why despite all the European cash, the linguistic capabilities, the relatively competent civil service, it has not made the huge leaps it has all the potential to make. The answer, I am afraid, lies more the "souk culture" than in an any government procedures or lack of foreign assistance or China's productivity or the King's rule. Bargaining is a certainly a skill, but it cannot be the only one.