Morocco, Expatriates and Otherness.

The View from Fez is in debt to Jillian York for pointing us in the direction of a post by Charlotte, an anthropologist, who was raised in the Netherlands, but has spent nine years in the United States. Her post, the commentary by Jillian and readers' comments, raised issues that every expat struggles with, at least in the first couple of years in Morocco. We would be interested in other people's responses. Here is an excerpt of Charlotte's thought provoking article.

The thing is, that if you’ve grown up ethnically white in an American or Dutch middle class neighborhood, Otherness is probably not a feeling you are accustomed to. I’m not talking about that sense of ‘being different’ that we all experience from time to time, or that feeling of just not being able to ‘connect’ to any other individual in our environment. What I am referring to is not an internal feeling, but rather an externally imposed sense of difference. A perception of Otherness in the eyes of our social environment that is based on unchangeable (and often inborn) aspects of our appearance, and that we ourselves are unable to control or change. That sense of Otherness that anyone who has grown up as part of an ethnic minority will be overly familiar with.

Being seen as Other is an almost paradoxical form of being labeled on the basis of your appearance; it means that you are being categorized as falling-outside-of-all-culturally-established-categories. And as happens with any application of a stereotype, being ‘otherized’ forces you to confront difficult questions about who you are. About how you relate to the label you have been given, how your self-perception matches the way you are perceived by others – and about how you as a designated ‘outsider’ relate to the categories that are part of the socio-cultural establishment.

I have been an immigrant for much of my life, but until I came to Morocco, I never looked (or sounded) different from the majority in my environment. It wasn’t unless I myself chose to verbalize my non-American cultural background, that those around me would ever see or treat me as ‘different’. In Rabat on the other hand, it is not I, but rather my environment that chooses to underscore my difference. My status as an outsider is continuously and inescapably made explicit, regardless (it seems) of what I do or say. This Otherness is new to me, and I must admit that it is one of the aspects of expat life in Morocco that I have found most difficult to grow accustomed to. It makes me feel a little powerless, and I miss the anonymity of blending in with my environment.

Expatriates - the "other"

Jillian York comments

I haven’t yet lived in a foreign country other than Morocco, but having discussed the experience of living abroad with numerous friends who’ve done the same, I’ve come to the conclusion that, while everyone has difficulty assimilating to a new culture, Morocco (not unlike say, Japan) is a particularly difficult country to fit into. It’s not specifically Islam, of which most of its residents are practitioners, nor is it skin color; There’s something about the social intricacies of Morocco, as well as the insular history of the country, that often excludes foreigners (as well as foreign-born Moroccans) from it.

Take this into account: Although Morocco is a long-traversed land, passed over by Phoenicians and Romans, Jews, Carthaginians, Vandals, and Byzantines, then the Arabs, and finally the Spanish, Portuguese and French, it has also managed to remain an insular one. Marvine Howe, in Morocco: The Islamist Awakening and Other Challenges, refers to Morocco as “proud and unruly” and in terms of resistance, it was. Despite centuries of colonization, there is still a strong Amazigh identity. Despite attempts to crush it during periods of pan-Arabism, it remains, as does a uniquely “Moroccan” sense of identity, despite how different the coast is from the interior, the Atlas from the Med.

But I digress…Part of the frustration of living in Morocco as a foreigner is the sense that, no matter what you do, you’re lumped in with all of the white people who came before you (much like being a Muslim in America, eh?). Charlotte says:

I know that I do not look like a tourist. Most likely we are all sensitive to the little markers that tell you where a person is from, and what he or she is doing in their current location. You can tell by the way they walk, and the way they look around at their surroundings. It’s their dress, their choice of bag, and the style of nonverbal communication. All of these things can clue you in about a person’s nationality, or the length of their stay here in Morocco. But as much as it seems clear to people on the street that I am not a holiday traveler, I will nevertheless always be instantly recognized as an outsider, a visitor. Again, it’s in little things that this perception hides.

Jillian continues....

Morocco has many wealthy, mostly European expatriates, many of whom don’t make much of an effort to learn Arabic, understand Islam, or otherwise assimilate. The rest of the foreigners* fit relatively neatly into a few other categories, none of which are all that wealthy. Many of them live on Moroccan salaries, albeit upper-middle-class ones, but most are not homeowners. Most make some attempt to speak darija. Most of their friendships are with Moroccans, even if they’re limited to upper-middle-class English-speaking Moroccans. In other words, for all intents and purposes, they are in a position to assimilate.

After I wrote this, I got a really thoughtful email from a Moroccan Twitter friend, who disagreed with my assertions. After thinking about it, I realized that I was looking at this from a totally American lens. When I referred to foreigners, I was really thinking of Americans - mostly my age, and mostly with an educational background in the region - who come to Morocco to be a part of Morocco. I know a lot of them. I have no real basis for speaking for other nationalities, though I do know a few people from Europe who fit this paradigm.

To read more of this discussion please visit Jillian C York and Charlotte's blog Bisahha

Jillian York is the author of the very popular book "Morocco - Culture Smart!
a quick guide to customs and etiquette"