It’s almost twenty years since I first set foot in Morocco, nineteen years since I married a Moroccan and started living here part-time, thirteen years since I settled here and now live here full-time, with few visits to France.
Every time I explain this to a Moroccan, they say “But you’re Moroccan now“.
And every time I answer “no, noss-noss at the most“. (noss-noss is a half-and-half latte).
Because I know they’re telling me that very nicely, to make me feel at home, according to the Moroccan tradition of hospitality, but it’s not true:
- I don’t speak Arabic
- I’m not Muslim
- I grew up in France, watching different children’s programmes, eating different kinds of bonbons, in short, I don’t have the same references
and a whole host of other things that mean that, until now, I’ve never felt ‘from here’: a guest who feels very much at home, but who knows she’s from somewhere else, even if she won’t be going back.
This month, things have changed.
This month, I felt in full solidarity with the Moroccans and their indignation at the whining and attacks by certain French media on the theme of “ouin, ouin, ouin, Morocco has refused our help”.
This month I was shocked by the direct intervention of Emmanuel Maroc, who dared to address the Moroccans directly, in defiance of all diplomatic customs. And I was so surprised that friends and people I know well and hold in high esteem in France “didn’t see the problem”, even though it was obvious to me, as it is to all Moroccans (hint: the only time it is diplomatically acceptable for a head of state to address nationals of another country is when he is making a public speech during a state visit; otherwise he goes through diplomatic channels).
These are the same friends and people whom I hold in high esteem who, despite everything, are starting to give me a hard time about Islam and Muslims having to stay in their place and not imposing a model of society and that the veil is “still a symbol of oppression”, whereas, when I think of “Islam” in Morocco and Muslims, all I see are very normal people, lots of charitable people, scrupulously honest, that the oppression suffered by women is above all that of poverty and that I have too many examples of veiled, educated, strong-willed women who work and bring up their children just like a bare-haired Frenchwoman to see a priori in this veil, which I myself have worn on certain occasions, a symbol of religious oppression.
This month, it seemed to me that, for one part of a country, the most important thing was to “accept their help”. And that the second most important thing was for the king to speak right away, to take centre stage, without understanding that it doesn’t work like that here.
This month, I said to myself that I preferred a king whose reserve doesn’t prevent him from being effective, a king who knows that the most urgent thing is not to go bothering the world by showing up on the spot, with all that that implies in terms of security mobilisations and hindrance to the emergency services, that I preferred a king like that to a president who is a bit of a histrionics, a specialist in the little phrase that makes people angry…
I’ve been thinking about other things too, which I'll tell you about elsewhere; that maybe my vision of France was one-sided, biased by social networks, the media, etc., but that’s also what it means to no longer be in tune with a country.
This month, I’ve felt so in tune with Moroccans that I’ve decided that, if I had to choose, it would be Morocco. And that, ‘seen from Morocco‘, I was really finding it harder and harder to understand France.
This month, almost twenty years after I put on my beautiful Berber suit to get married, I’ve become Moroccan, or at least more Moroccan than Noss-noss!
A typo or syntax error? You can select the text and hit Ctrl+Enter to send us a message. Thank you! If this post interested you, maybe you can also leave a comment. We'd love to exchange with you !
1 Comment
very well said, great article