Saturday, March 31, 2012

Green Architecture in Fez



A symposium on green architecture will be held from April 25-28 in Fez and around the village of Sefrou.

International and national experts will present their concepts and work, demonstrating their experience in sustainable development projects.

Crucial questions will be posed around themes that affect us all, such as how do we to respond to the need for sensible growth while fighting against the global imbalance; the densification of urban pollution; the risk of food crisis? How can culture and new styles of architecture assist in creating real development projects which guarantee the well being of the population? Can satellite cities be green? What are the conditions to be found in the region? How can natural materials be used in construction and rehabilitation? Is it possible today to build in Morocco from natural materials?

The main language of communication will be French.

You can find the full program on http://www.facebook.com/SymposiumAEM


Seating is limited, so register soon. Send an email to laylaskali@gmail.com


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Moroccan Justice Minister Makes his First Gaffe

"People from all over the world come to Marrakech and spend a lot of time sinning" - Mustafa Ramid

Ramid in Marrakech

Justice Minister Mustafa Ramid has only just come in to office in the new PJD led government but it has not taken him long to cause general embarrassment. As a a tourism official in Fez (who declined to be named) said, "At a time when Morocco is struggling to rebuild its tourism industry, Ramid's careless comments are the last thing that is needed."

The Moroccan minister has caused a lot of red faces in Marrakech. Even more worrying for Moroccan tourism, his unfortunate and bizarre remark has gone global with coverage in mainstream and social media including international television.

The remark - “People from all over the world come and spend a lot of time sinning and being away from God,”  - was delivered in public by Justice Minister Mustafa Ramid during a visit to a Koranic school in Marrakech. He did not elaborate on his comments. However, AFP are reporting that the school visited by Ramid is run by Mohamed Maghraoui, the infamous Islamic cleric who caused controversy in September 2008 when he issued a fatwa authorising the marriage of nine-year-old girls. The legal age for girls to get married in Morocco has been 18 since 2004 but by law family court judges can allow earlier marriages in certain cases. This is believed to be common in rural areas.

It is expected he will be taken aside and given a little friendly advice from more experienced politicians. His obvious problem was well summed up by the Moroccan Internet news site, Goud.ma -  “Islamist ministers are having trouble casting off their religious clothes and dealing with their ministerial jobs” .

The minister's silly remarks have also upset Moroccan's living overseas, as Dr Hussein Ben Kirat, writing for the Morocco Board news service, put it... "The PJD is, at one stage, claiming to be above moral issues, and at another, through the Minister of Justice, is in fact, doing the opposite. The PJD is already flouting with democracy which is only a wishful thinking. As long as the country is run by such irresponsible people, putting the tourist economy, one of the major activities of Morocco, at risk, the country is in danger to returning to the Dark Ages and starvation if inward foreign investment and technology dry out. The PJD cannot change from theocracy to democracy, as the Moroccan saying goes, "you cannot straighten the tail of a hound even if you kept it moulded in a reed."

Last year, just over 9.3 million tourists visited Morocco, presumably many of them are guilty of a little sin in the red city. It also seems clear that the minister has not a lot of real life experience. Maybe a holiday in Rio, Sydney or Amsterdam would help him comprehend the world the rest of us live in.  Inshallah.

Story: Ibn Warraq
Photo: Reuters

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International Heritage Day Photography Competition in Fez


The View from Fez is proud to be a sponsor and media partner

 CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE

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Friday, March 30, 2012

Subul as-Salam Centre for Arabic Language in Fez

The Subul as-Salam Centre for Arabic Language is a gem of a language school and cultural centre located in the Rcif neighborhood of the Fes Medina. It is run and operated by two amazing ladies, Meriem El-Haitami, 26, and Fatima Zohra Ibn El Cadi, 28, who first conceived of starting and running a such an institute during their last year of university. The school has been in operation since 2007 and is currently looking forward to expanding its range of classes, cultural programs and offerings this summer. Sam Gordon reports for The View from Fez

Calligraphy class

Spend five minutes with Fatima Zohra and Meriem and you’ll be hard-pressed not be inspired by their hard work, ambition, and enthusiasm – it’s contagious. Those qualities led the dynamic duo to open up a specialized language school that goes beyond the typical language institute offerings. While classes are the crux of the institute’s offerings, they are the conduit as Fatima Zohra puts it to “promote cross-cultural dialogue through education.” This mindset sparked creating Subul as-Salam. In the transition from their final year of university Fatima Zohra and Meriem dreamed of starting a school, one that would put an emphasis on intercultural activities and avoid the common pitfalls being “an average Arabic instruction school.” What they have established in the Rcif neighborhood of the Fes Medina is a space where intercultural activities and paramount language instruction seamlessly blend to create a unique learning experience.

Secretary Assia (L) and Co-Founder & Instructor Fatima Zohra (R)

One of the cornerstones that Meriem and Fatima Zohra set out in creating their school stems from their infectious curiosity and enjoyment of meeting foreigners and newcomers in the cultural crossroads of Morocco. Meriem notes that “people would come to Morocco and sometimes have a bad experience or an overwhelming experience and not have anyone to talk to,” – it was important to create a sanctuary where “people could come and learn about all aspects of Morocco.” The result was a place where they could “serve as a resource for anyone who wanted to talk about his or her experiences,” with Meriem, Fatima Zohra, and the teaching staff serving as cultural guides.

The result several years after the school has opened is an institute where the normal classroom divide of teacher and student does not exist, and instead there is a communal exchange, where the teachers are close friends and support for their students here in Morocco. It is evident in the many joint research projects where the teachers have aided and collaborated on projects looking at different Sufi brotherhoods, documentary films, and various development work and microfinance initiatives. Since Subul opened their doors, they have worked and helped over five generations of Fulbright scholars, FLAS fellows, and individual students from universities such as the University of Chicago, Princeton, Stanford, and Oxford.

Looking forward to the future Meriem and Fatima Zohra hope to continue to cultivate their dedicated staff of teachers and cultural instructors, and to expand the range and depth of programs offered in line with their goal of intercultural exchange. Most important is maintaining the constant exchange and steady instruction as well as giving back to the local community. Since the beginning of the school portion of each student’s tuition has gone towards local charities and organizations throughout Fes.

A school excursion

Cultural Events: The school has brought in a wide range of different instructors, university professors, to give lectures on different aspects of Moroccan culture and religion. The school also hosts many excursions and trips within Morocco, in addition a staggering variety of extracurricular activities like music, lute lessons, bellydancing, calligraphy, cooking, henna workshops and even instruction of traditional artisanal trades like wood painting, woodcarving, plaster carving, and jewelry making. The institute also organizes concerts and music performances. Subul also provides many volunteering opportunities for students where they can work with orphanages, women’s organizations and different organizations in Fes.

Class Offerings: This summer Subul will offer both MSA (Modern Standard Arabic) and CMA (Colloquial Moroccan Arabic) classes. They will also be offering a Maghrebi Intensive Program, a new ten day all-inclusive enriching program, designed for travelers in mind. The program will explore Moroccan culture through language classes and lectures as well as provide overnight/day trips and excursions to areas such as the Sahara, or the Rif Mountains, and Atlas villages, and provide a mix of extracurricular activities such as cooking, calligraphy, and music lessons – all in a convenient inclusive package. The Maghrebi Intensive Program will be starting July 9, 2012. There is an option of arranging a traditional Moroccan homestay to supplement the cultural and learning experience.

Map of school location

More information about the school can be found at their website: http://www.sacal-fez.com/
You can contact Meriem and Fatima Zohra by email at: info@sacalFez.com Phone: +212 (0)6 63 54 91 72. The Subul as-Salam Language Centre is located at 19 Gzem Benameur Rcif, Fes, Morocco


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Thursday, March 29, 2012

Maroc Challenge - A Cheap and Cheerful Rally

Driving across the sand dunes or wandering remote mountain passages of Morocco as part of a rally usually means having deep pockets or a friendly, sports-minded bank manager, but the Maroc Challenge bills itself as the ‘Low-cost Rally’, giving almost anyone the chance to take part in a fund-raising adventure to support women and children in remote areas.


This Sunday forty-four vehicles will set off from Javea, on Spain’s Costa Blanca, and Lisbon in Portugal. They will rendezvous at Almeria on the southern coast of Spain to begin a 2,000 kilometre adventure through the wilds of Morocco. Billed as being a ‘unique raid which aims to provide a low cost alternative for those who wish to experience an extraordinary event that incorporates both sporting and humanitarian spirit,’ unlike the souped-up and shiny cars you normally see undertaking this sort of ride, the first and foremost rule of Maroc Challenge is that every vehicle must be registered before 1st December, 1995. The organisers suggest that you really wouldn’t want to pay more than about 300€ for a car, assuming, of course, that you haven’t got an old scrapper lying around somewhere that only needs some air in the tyres and a change of engine oil.

Brian Hampshire and Rob Hull will be sharing a Nissan Patrol loaned to them by a friend. Hull is an English builder living in the Costa Blanca, and has only been to Morocco on holiday a couple of times; Hampshire is a painter and decorator and has never been to Morocco at all. Neither knows a thing about car mechanics, and as Hampshire says, “If we break down Rob can build a garage and I can paint it, but we have absolutely no idea how to put the car right.”

The whole event is slightly tongue-in-cheek, with no rushing for first place or being at the head of the race, but it does have a serious intent – to deliver clothing, school supplies and toys to remote schools and villages.

Hampshire and Hull, (who’s joint names sound like a comedy act) said that every cent raised through events and donations would go to buying materials, and have had such support from local people and businesses that they had to take a full car load to the depot in Javea before they fill up their car a second time with toys that will be distributed along their way. Children’s shoes supplied by a local manufacturer; chalk and chalk boards, note books, pens, rulers, pencils, pencil sharpeners, colouring books and felt pens, skipping ropes, etch-a-sketch pads and musical recorders bought at an enormous discount from a local shop – they even have a sack-full of deflated footballs to blow up and hand out along the way.

This year’s rout takes the cars from Nador, through Missour, Erg-Chebbi, Ouarzazate and Agadir to end in Essaouira.

More information HERE


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Massive Marches Expected in Morocco

Moroccan political bodies have called for citizens to take part in the largest march in the Morocco's history - "The March to Jerusalem".  The march will take place this coming Sunday with activities on Friday as well. The recent mass marches in Rabat have been seen as the prelude to the Jerusalem march events. Plans for the event include a joint forum with students from Jordan and a declaration of a fast day in efforts to show solidarity with Jerusalem.

On Friday, a number of marches will be held simultaneously, leaving from Casablanca, Fes and Meknes. Two days later pro-Palestinian organizations will launch a mass rally in Casablanca expected to attract hundreds of thousands of people.

The Moroccan Islamist group Al Adl Wa Al Ihssan (Justice and Charity) called in a statement all the Moroccan people to make Friday March 30 “a day of solidarity and protest in support of Palestine and Jerusalem” by organizing protest marches in all the Moroccan cities.


Last Sunday's pro-Palestinian march in Rabat


The Islamic group had organized a massive march for Jerusalem in Rabat last Sunday (25/3) but no political bodies which support the Palestinian issue participated in the march.

Next Sunday's march (1/4) was called for by several political bodies and parties, left-wing and right-wing, in addition to Justice and Development Party, and its ideological wing the Unification and Reform Movement, in order to organize “the largest march in Morocco history to support Jerusalem and the Palestinian cause,” according to Lakom Kam newspaper on Wednesday (28/3). The organisers have picked Casablanca as a starting point due to its huge participation. The march comes as a response to “justice and charity” march which surprised the observers in terms of participants’ numbers and the movement’s ability to organise.

The newspaper stated that the observers are waiting for the government’s reaction and media in dealing with the next march. The government has allowed the Justice and Charity group to organize a huge march for the first time, though it is not licensed to operate yet as a political party, but the official media had totally ignored the march that surprised the observers, the newspaper added.



The march will be in solidarity with other marches around the Arab world. In Lebanon, participants will convene for a prayer session on the Beaufort, which overlooks the border with Israel. Public figures are expected to deliver a speech at the site, with organizers looking forward to welcoming tens of thousands of participants.

According to Lebanese reports, security forces held a Turkish vessel carrying activists from Iran, Turkey and other Asian states for long hours. Hezbollah representatives reportedly mediated in efforts to resolve the crisis.

Jordan has set the gathering point at the site where it is believed that Jesus was baptized, a location overlooking Jerusalem. According to plans, this rally will also include speeches and masses of protestors.

Jordanian coordinator of the march, Ribhi Halloum, said: "We feel the immense interest in the event expressed through donations from private individuals and the Islamic Movement."

The Al-Dustour newspaper reported that Jordanian Prime Minister Awn Shawkat Al-Khasawneh expressed his readiness to provide the Jordanian government's sponsorship to the march which he said would be non-violent.


While there is no public safety threat, tourists in Morocco are advised to avoid the areas where the marches are taking place.

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The Great Moroccan Spice Mix - Ras El Hanout


No Moroccan kitchen is complete without Ras el hanout (Arabic: راس الحانوت). What makes this spice mix so interesting is that almost every Moroccan woman will give you a different recipe. And when you buy it from a hanout (small shop) it is the same thing, with each shop having their own secret combination containing over a dozen spices. The name translates as "head of the shop" and refers to a mixture of the best spices a seller has to offer. There are three types of blends for Ras el Hanout: Lamrouzia, L'msagna and Monuza.

The Magic Mix


There is no definitive set combination of spices that makes up Ras el hanout. Typically they would include cardamom, clove, cinnamon, ground chili peppers, coriander, cumin, nutmeg, peppercorn, and turmeric. Although some recipes include over one hundred ingredients, some rarely found in Western food, such as ash berries, chufa, Grains of Paradise, orris root, Monk's pepper, cubebs, or dried rosebud. Usually all ingredients are toasted and then ground up together. It would be fair to say that a recipe is often improvised from available ingredients.

So if you would like to make your own, here is a basic recipe that indicates the correct proportions for a traditional mix.


Ingredients:


2 teaspoons ground ginger
2 teaspoons ground cardamon
2 teaspoons ground mace
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon ground coriander seeds
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon turmeric
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground anise seeds
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

Make sure that all your spices are well ground. Then mix well and then transfer to an airtight glass jar, and store in a dry, dark place.

When adding the spice to a tagine, the normal amount would be about 1/2 a teaspoon. It is essential for dishes such as Tagine with Prunes and Dried Figs, or Lamb with Prunes.

Ras el hanout is used in almost every kind of food, sometimes rubbed on meat and stirred into rice. It is often believed to be an aphrodisiac, though we are yet to be convinced!.

See all our Moroccan Recipes here: The View from Fez Cookbook
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Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Moroccan Spiced Coffee - A Pure Delight

Moroccan spiced coffee is an absolute treat, but sadly one that many visitors to Morocco miss out on because it is unusual to find it in a street cafe. However, as our resident gourmet and coffee correspondent, Christina Ammon, explains, a little insider knowledge can lead you to a heavenly treat.

The coffee master at work

It would be easy to pass over Youssef Bouhlal’s tiny shop in the Fez Medina. Its modest offerings of dried lentils, white beans, garbanzos, oil, and milk are unremarkable among the competing sights of souk. But like the plain facades that cloak the ornate interiors of the Medina’s mosques and medrassas, the splendor of Bouhlal’s shop is hidden. I wouldn’t have known about it without an expat friend who introduced me to Bouhlal’s shop on one of our Medina strolls.

“This is the best place to buy coffee in the Medina,” he said, placing his order for a half-kilo.

Boudlal, 37, upended a bag of Arabica coffee beans into a grinder and then sprinkled on an array of simple, but unexpected, spices: a pinch of sesame seeds, a whole nutmeg, a few peppercorn…

When the grinder switched off, Bouhlal held out a scoop of the coffee for us to smell. Inhaling the rich aromatic spices invoked cozy memories winter mornings, Indian chai, and holiday treats.

Although Fez is full of sidewalk cafes serving espresso drinks, spiced coffee is rarely on the menu. Moroccans mostly prepare it in the home. You can buy bags at several places in the Medina, but Bouhlal’s blend stands out both for its well-balanced flavor and its low price: just six Euros will buy you a kilo. And while blending your order, Boudlal also can converse about English literature. He’s studied the works of James Joyce, Joseph Conrad, and Herman Melville.

His coffee is as well-traveled as his mind. Guests to Bouhlal’s shop invariably buy a stash to take home. “My coffee has traveled all over the world,” Bouhlal said, twirling a bag of sesame seeds closed.

I wondered: Perhaps there is an international market for Bouhlal’s unique blend? “This could be the headquarters,” I declared, eyeing his small stall with big visions. “But we would need a larger grinder.”

Insha’Allah,” he laughed.

Bouhlal’s small shop is located in the R’Cif souk in the Fez Medina. If you can’t make it all the way to Fez, you can experiment with your own blend at home. Bouhlal does not measure by instruments, but by intuition. Here is what I saw him add:

Seasame seeds
Black Pepper
Whole nutmeg
Cinnamon
Anise Seed
Ginger

Combine these spices with quality coffee beans and grind. Brew in a stovetop espresso maker or percolator of your choice. Cream and sugar transform this spicy delight into a dessert. Prepare to be addicted.

A tip from The View from Fez (thanks to Rose Button): You can drink fantastic spiced coffee at Hajj Khalid's cafe about 10 minutes down Talaa Kbira.

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Australians Meet in Fez


The Consul General from the Australian Embassy in Paris, Anthea Griffin, undertook a consular visit to Morocco in March. During the visit resident Australians were invited for an “Australian Evening” in Fez. Anthea was accompanied by the Austrade contractor in Morocco, Oussama Alaoui, Regional Consul, Tricia Martino, and Paris-based Consular Officer, Peter Cullen.

The evening provided an opportunity for the Australian community to meet each other, to share information about living in Morocco and to raise any issues with the Australian government representatives.

There was good attendance at the evening from Australian residents working in a range of sectors including tourism, mining and education. Some travelled from as far as Agadir, Marrakech and Essouira. The evening included a traditional Aussie Bar-be-que with a Moroccan touch. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and to enjoy meeting a diverse group of fellow Australians.

As one Fez resident reported to The View from Fez "It was a great night that was deemed a success by all. It was a chance to network, meet other Aussies, discuss common issues we all faced and seek solutions. Some of us with children were also able to organise our Austrlian passports for them, others were able to discuss visa issues for spouses etc. I feel most of us came away feeling like their was a sense of support that would continue (let's hope) and were happy to have at least contacts in the Embassy in Paris for future reference."

Peter Cullen, Anthea Griffin, Oussama Alaoui, Tricia Martino

Mr Alaoui provided an overview of Austrade services and Australian business interests in Morocco. He mentioned the growing number of Australian agricultural and mining projects under consideration. He revealed official Moroccan statistics more than 30,000 Australians had visited Morocco last year.

The Australian consular team encouraged Australians to register their details on the Australian government web site:

www.smartraveller.gov.au

The register allows the Australian Embassy to maintain contact with Australian citizens through group e-mail communication. The Embassy in Paris uses the register mailing list to pass on information such as Australian elections and changes to travel advisories. It is also used to notify Australian residents of visits by Paris Embassy consular staff to Morocco. The register is an invaluable tool in assisting to locate Australians in a crisis situation or emergency.

The Australian Embassy Paris has non-resident accreditation for Morocco which can make it challenging to provide consular and passport services for Australians on the ground. Under the consular sharing agreement with Canada, the Canadian Embassy in Rabat provides some consular services to Australians in Morocco.

Further information on consular services can be found on the Smartraveller website.


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Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Belly Dancing not as Delightful as hoped


According to Dental hygienist and belly dancer Llinas, (pictured above) from Stamford in the USA, “The term belly dancing was coined by an event promoter trying to attract attention to a World’s Fair exhibit in 1893,” she said. “The French have a dance called the Ouled Nail that utilizes abdominal control called le danse du ventre, which translates to belly dancing. This is how the promoter came up with the term.”

Others tell a different story. According to another "expert", the correct name for belly dancing is actually "Oriental Dance". The Arabic name for it is raqs sharqi, which means "dance of the East/Orient", and the Turkish name is Oryantal. 

When belly dancing hit the news, our intrepid colleague, Derek Workman, applied for the assignment because, as he explains, when it comes to belly dancing, he has form.



As someone who won a belly dancing competition at a country fair in Pennsylvania almost twenty years ago against stiff opposition from two skinny individuals with not a shimmy or a shake to their soul, I’ve always been a bit inclined to the shimmery young gels with gyratory hips. When my bike ride in the High Atlas Mountains last year to raise funds for Education For All ended, we all went to the wondrous Comptoir in Marrakech to celebrate, and gawp at the floor show of sinuous belly dancers (although I have to admit that I was particularly taken with the ladies who balanced trays of lighted candles on their heads and danced between the young maids).

It had never occurred to me that this sensuous art might be the cause of political uproar, but the third annual International Belly Dance Festival in Marrakech, which takes place from 10-14 May, has stirred controversy in Morocco after it was announced that Israel will partake in the event. Nobody seems to object that the dance form is not actually a Moroccan one, but imported from places like Lebanon and Egypt.

Objections have been raised over the inclusion of two Israeli names in the list of participants of Mediterranean Delight Festival, belly dancer and belly dancing trainer Simona Guzman and the stylist and owner of an Israeli belly dancing school, Asi Haskal. The dancers form part of a group of experts who will train belly dancers as well as organise workshops and performances as part of the festival’s activities.

Some people objected to the festival altogether on the grounds that it violates the values of a conservative society like Morocco and encourages the ‘propagation of vice’. The pictures of belly dancers on the website, they say, offers insight into the ‘indecency’ the event is bound to promote.

Moroccans taking part in the festival have also had to put up with some harsh criticism. Hakima, a teacher of Moroccan belly dance and member of the festival’s jury, has had a campaign of accusations launched against her.

“Can people who say that belly dancing is not an art explain why belly dance festivals are organized in Europe and the United States and why people stand in long queues to take pictures with belly dancers that are given awards in those festivals?” Hakima wrote on her website. The dancer, who currently lives in Spain, added that she is planning to open a belly dancing school in Europe to teach belly dance in its authentic form. “No matter how Westerners try, they will never master belly dancing like we Easterners do.”

I may never be able make the tassled scarf around the waist tinkle like a professional, but at least I’ve got the photo to show that my belly can move with the best of them.

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Monday, March 26, 2012

Palestine Land Day March in Morocco


Tens of thousands of Moroccans staged a pro-Palestinian march in Rabat yesterday (Sunday 25th) in a show of force organised by an Islamist group seen as the main opposition to Morocco's monarchy. According to a Reuters reporter in the Moroccan capital, at least 40,000 people joined the march called by Al-Adl Wal Ihsan (Justice and Spirituality). A senior police officer put the number at 11,000 while organisers said 100,000 had turned out.


It was Al-Adl's first march since December when it pulled out of pro-democracy protests, inspired by Arab uprisings elsewhere and aimed at forcing the Arab world's longest-serving dynasty to become a constitutional monarchy.

Morocco has not had a revolution of the kind seen in Egypt, Libya or Tunisia. King Mohammed VI is still firmly in charge after he offered to trim his powers and allowed moderate Islamists to lead the government after their Justice and Development Party (PJD) won an election in November.

Ali Anouzla, a political analyst and editor of Lakome.com news portal, said Al-Adl sought to send a message to Moroccan authorities that they remained a force to reckoned with, even after withdrawing from the pro-democracy protest movement.


Al-Adl is seen as Morocco's biggest and best-organised Islamist group. It is active mostly in universities and in helping the poor, but is banned from politics due to what is seen as its hostile rhetoric towards the monarchy.

"Palestine Land Day"

Hassan Bennajeh, an Al-Adl wal Ihsan spokesman, said Sunday's march was to mark Land Day, when Palestinians recall 1976 protests over Israeli occupation of Arab-owned land.
"We have always been active on issues that touch the heart of Moroccans. While we protest here in support of Palestine, members of our group continue to be persecuted and jailed by authorities for their activism on local issues," he said.

Morocco has been a broker between Israel and Arab countries and established diplomatic ties with Israel in 1994. In 2000, Rabat froze ties with Israel after violence intensified in the Israeli-occupied territories.

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Sunday, March 25, 2012

Cycle Tour of Morocco Sets Off

The 25th edition of the Tour of Morocco organised by the Royal Moroccan Federation of cycling started today.



The race will run until to April 1 and will include ten stages before the finish line in Casablanca. The race will feature 132 athletes from 22 teams from France, United Kingdom, Greece, Netherlands, Turkey, Germany, Latvia, Slovakia, Belgium, United Arab Emirates, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, Eritrea, South Africa, Rwanda, United States, Argentina, Japan and Morocco with four teams. It will run over 1554 km through 6 regions. Note that this Tour will help organize humanitarian actions giving 200 bicycles to school children.


Tour of Morocco stages

(25 March): El Jadida - Safi (156 km)

(26 March): Safi - Essaouira (130 km)

(27 March): Essaouira - Agadir (170 km)

(28 March): Ouled Berhil - Marrakech (170 km)

(29 March): Marrakech - Ouarzazate (190 km)

(30 March): Ouarzazate - Tinghir (168 km)

(31 March): Imilchil - Béni Mellal (150 km)

(1 April): Béni Mellal - Azilal (120 km)

(2 April): Azilal - Khouribga (150 km)

(3 April): Khouribga - Casablanca (140 km)

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Tahir Shah and the Importance of Thinking Zig-zag


Critically acclaimed Anglo-Afghan writer, journalist and documentary maker, Tahir Shah, recently met up to talk shop with Fulbright Researcher and Folklore and Djinn enthusiast Sam Gordon at his home in the Fes Medina. Casablanca-based Shah chatted about his hunt for djinns and sorcerers, the importance of thinking zig-zag, and why the Battle of Talas should be people's #1 Time-Machine destination.



Samuel Gordon: Okay! ...so tell me about your morning. Tell me about it, I heard you had rocks thrown at you as you tried to film and that you were hot on the trail of different djinns…

Tahir Shah: We did a huge zig-zag through the medina, about 250 miles of twists and turns… The crazy thing about the medina is you cover so much ground, but at the end of it, it’s just a blur, you just can’t remember what you saw. I could tell you hundreds of random things that I’ve seen, hundreds of superglue packets down there, guys selling eggs, chickens being slaughtered, camel’s heads. It’s just life, and Fez blows me away just because of the levels of life. It’s strung out inch by inch, mile by mile. You can find a single doorstep in Fes that has more life than entire cities elsewhere in the West. Fez is just seething, heaving, incomparable.

So were on the hunt for magicians and people who knew about djinn, and we found it was quite hard to access that whole level of society. I know it is hard to access because this is the Orient, it’s quite different from the Occident. It’s the same thing when you want to buy something from a store here. The last you thing you ever do here is ask for the price right away. You do not point to something and say ‘how much is that’. It’s got to be your last question. You’ve got to work your way around the shop and slowly get to the price. Rush, and you lose out.

Fez is my great love. I can't lay that on thick enough. I admire it, treasure it, swoon over, and adore it. 

Looking for djinn and djinn information is the same thing. You have to go zig-zag. If you really want to find something of merit. And you have to go in a roundabout way – that’s what we did. We started asking random people and, more than that, we just waited for something to happen. I found that’s the thing to do in Morocco – just stand on a street corner, don’t go in search of something, but let it come and find you, so that’s what we did.

SG: Ahh… that’s a pretty zen-like approach I suppose, very frog-on-the-lily pad. I will come back to that approach but I was wondering if you could share your general thoughts on the city of Fes, and its inhabitants, both Moroccan and expat?

TS: Fez is my great love. I can't lay that on thick enough. I admire it, treasure it, swoon over, and adore it. One of my favourite things is to drive down from Casablanca and, as I cross the Saiss Plateau, I feel a sense of anticipation in my stomach. It's the most bewitching, worldly, mesmerising city I have ever been to. The Fassis are part of a tradition that stretches back centuries. I sometimes wish they would value what they have -- the old medina – and less fixate less about what they could have -- a second rate villa nouvelle. As for the expatriates, I am jealous of course because I am not living in Fez, too.

SG: So I am curious as to why you are interested in doing a documentary on djinns.

TS: I'm very interested in cultural crossroads, here in Morocco and elsewhere. Djinns are a facet of Islam, and Morocco, which are almost certainly shaped in part by Africa. Morocco has, of course, its roots in Africa, and I am fascinated by the way Africa, Berber culture and Arab society have given shape to this magical land. Djinns are so often misunderstood in the occident, a point that surprises me because, as is so often the case, the Holy Qur'an is very precise on the description.

SG: In terms of cultural crossroads and looking at different roots and sources of information, your recent book, In Arabian Nights, was one where you sort of went about and collected oral histories and anecdotes. How did you find that project, what was the initial catalyst for doing it, how was the overall approach and process for you?

TS: My book In Arabian Nights was perhaps my most fulfilling book so far because I grew up in a family where people were telling stories, my father was this… y’know, this great story teller, really a bridge between the East and the West, and my aunt too, who’s very old now, a fabulous story teller in her own right. So I grew up with these people telling me stories and now that I got two little kids I feel this responsibility that I have got to tell stories as wonderful as I was told. My father used to go on and on that these stories contained wisdom, that they were multiple levels. He used to say that if you learned to decipher them, they would educate you, that they were a teaching system in their own right.

Although I went to school in England, I grew up with this idea, that stories are a matrix through which knowledge, information, and culture were passed. In our case it was a matrix that would show us Afghanistan since we couldn’t go to where my family is from. These stories were the culture of Afghanistan in a different form.

Then I suddenly woke up and found I had two children of my own, and I thought, ‘God, I have to tell them stories – I have to explain these stories to them’. I started telling them stories and I started explaining them. This meant such-and-such, and the donkey signifies truth and Nazuddin, or Joha as they call him here, signifies man and humanity and the kids would say ,‘Oh Baba, it’s so boring when you tell us how the stories work. We love these stories but we really don’t want to know how they works.’ It’s a bit like a car, you don’t want to know how the engine works you want to get from A to B. It reminded me that my father said to me once that you do not need to understand how the story works. If you allow the story inside you, he said, it will sow its seeds and do its magic. It is not about understanding all the levels all the time.

Humanity is obsessed with fiction and telling things in a story-like way. We don’t know why we do it but we do it. I was on a bus in London a month or so ago and I heard two women talking on the upper deck, and one of the woman Joan asked, ‘What did you do today?’ to this other woman, Gladys. Instead of just giving her bullet points about what happened that day, she gave an explanation of her day in a story, with a clear beginning, middle, and end.

I noticed that women are usually much better at telling stories. It surprises that Morocco was so famous for its male storytellers because all the great storytellers that I’ve met here have been women. Moroccan culture is completely based around women in kitchens and in living spaces instructing children through stories. I can see that with our maid, Zeinab, and her instructing our children with stories during mealtimes. She will start telling them a story as they’re eating and, if they stop eating their vegetables, then she’ll stop telling the story.

Women are these great raconteurs in Morocco, and they have this extraordinary value in society in educating young people with unbelievable wisdom. The beauty of it is that you’re learning without realizing that you are – that you’re receiving something so valuable. As children, we all sat behind desks in classrooms and were being told, ‘Okay, now we are going to learn’. And it was the most painful, painful thing. I hated that part of my childhood. Oh, how I hated it. The best way to learn is through a game or a story, through teaching in a zig-zag way.

And that to me is the power of Oriental learning, the power of the Orient, and these teaching methods are something that the Occident, the West, is really grasping now. It drives me crazy that Europe even now often regards stories as something for children, which they aren’t. Read A Thousand and One Nights, Alf laylah wa-laylah. It’s an incredibly complicated corpus of work with very specific aims and teaching mechanisms running all the way through it. And it’s only one of many corpuses. You can look at Antar wa Abla, which I grew up with, or Saif, and these were hugely powerful. But what happened with the Victorians was that they watered these stories down. They made huge illustrated editions for children, they took out the sleazy stuff, and they toned down the violence. In a way, they took something incredibly sophisticated and powerful and they limited it in tremendous ways, and I think the Western World is all the poorer for that. What I always think is that stories are out there, but its possible for anyone or any society to relearn how to use stories as a teaching mechanism. It’s something that my father dedicated himself to doing, to teach people that they can learn again.

You’ve been here for a year, you know the stories of Joha, the great wise fool. Joha is a character used from Morocco and the southern Mediterranean, through the Near East, through Central Asia to Northern India, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and he’s something so importantly culturally. These stories belong to all societies and that’s the amazing thing about them. No one society can claim them. My father wrote a book in the seventies called World Tales. It showed how the same stories – like Cinderella – are found across the world in cultures thousands of miles apart. How could that be? I don’t know. It just is.

SG: Lots of information there! Something I really enjoyed you touching on was the story of Joan on Gladys because it brings up the importance of narrative and perspective and even storytelling frames. You have two characters you are adjacent to, recounting a days event, in a narrative format, in a confined public space like a London double-decker bus, and you are the observer. Frames, nested narratives, and such are important in works like your book In Arabian Nights. In other works like The Caliphs House, that to me was more a mix of different elements and styles. Is it difficult switching between different writing styles, is there a particular style that you enjoy writing the most?

TS: What I tried to do with Caliph’s House was to represent certain facets of Moroccan life and Morocco and life in a very palatable form, one that could be received by people in the United States and the Occidental world. With every page I was writing and every anecdote I was writing, I asked myself ‘What is the effect going to be on an audience post 9/11 with this?’ How am I going to show people the extraordinary magic of this country? I could have talked about politics, or could have gone on about endless boring history, but I knew I had to engage people and that I had just one chance. So I did it with stories, in the form of anecdotes. The Caliph’s House and In Arabian Nights are kind of Trojan Horse books. They were written to get inside people in secret, and to download masses of information about Morocco, before anyone would realize what I was doing.

One by one these anecdotes didn’t say too much, but together as an entire book it built up the layers. Something that drives me really crazy is that the Western mind always wants to see the big picture in one large panorama. They don’t want fragments. But if you watch how humanity has always worked, the default setting of humanity, it’s always been piece by piece. I’ve watched children, my children, learn things, and I’ve loved watching them receiving knowledge in fragments. You cannot teach a child from the beginning A-Z. A kid doesn’t want to learn that way, and humanity never ever learnt that way. In the West, they take you at five years old, dump you in a school and teach you that way from A-Z. It’s baloney as they say in the States. Pure baloney. Teach like that and you get people bored out of their minds.

The way to learn is to bombard someone with zig-zag fragments. How do we learn languages as children? We learn by pieces and by building up the layers. I’ve watched my kids learn how to say a word like ‘lemon’ and they get it wrong, and they correct themselves over time. I’m bugged by the Western world because I think they’ve lost extraordinary capabilities that they need to relearn. And I really think they can relearn, and that they can learn from Morocco. Between Morocco and China there is this huge dominant culture, an Oriental mindset.

SG: There was some criticism came out after The Caliph's House was published in that some Moroccans thought you were taking the subject of djinns maybe too lightly. There were also some criticisms of being a bit Orientalist from western audiences. Were you shocked by any reactions of that?

TS: I wrote The Caliph's House for the Western world as a reaction to 9/11. That may make it sound very serious, which may be misleading. I saw that after 9/11 the West was confused about Arab society and needed to be shown a précis of it all in a way that they would soak up and digest. I have written about all sorts of things that people may be confused by, in morocco and elsewhere. If there's any theme to my work, showing what is right before people -- but is a different way -- is a common think, a link I enjoy. The West must come to understand the East, and vice versa, if we are to live in harmony -- something that's not happening right now. The grave danger is that the gap between occident and Orient is widening. Give it a few more years and it could become a chasm if the right kind of thinking and learning does not take place.

SG: Something that’s really common in your writing and interviews is negotiating and trying to create this East-West bridge…

TS: Look, I grew up in a family that’s a mix of East and West, and there’s a lot of people like me that have one foot in the East and one in the West and I see this huge humongous responsibility after 9/11 to do something. Someone sent me something the other day from the deep South in the United States, and I have had good times in the south, and someone sent me a thing on Youtube that was ‘We’ve got to kill the Arabs, let’s kill as many Arabs as we can.’ It’s just, I’ve got no problem with that, because it is is a misunderstanding. There is a huge misunderstanding between the East and West, and I have Moroccan friends or Arab friends that will give me a bunch of baloney about America as well, and I try to correct them as well. So I see that I’m kind of in this no man’s land between the two cultures, and it’s not just me, there’s a lot of people like me as I say, people who see that’s there an opportunity to correct misunderstanding, and what an incredible amount of misunderstanding there is. You will see when you return to the States that you’ll find yourself defending Morocco and the Arab world, because I defend Morocco endlessly and I’m not even from Morocco. I’m just totally in awe of the place.

SG: Does it feel like an uphill battle at times?

TS: Completely… and (sigh). I see people, and it really really bothers me when I hear people say well Moroccans are just stupid Arabs and they are all al-Qaeda and whatever. I have been on National Public Radio in the States, answering questions and defending Morocco. Morocco is this wonderful hybrid, a crossroads of culture, which the rest of the Arab world could learn from, and the West could, too. It’s a mixture of Africa, Arab, Berber, and European. It has such important systems still intact that have been shattered long ago in Europe and North America. At the heart of it all is the family. What is the divorce rate in the States and what is the divorce rate here? You put old people in ‘retirement homes’, they do it in Britain as well. Retirees, what are they retired from? Society. In Morocco, you would never do that. I am outspoken about systems like that, and I champion the systems they have here, like the respect that young people have for their parents, and that sort of thing.

Beyond that, I love the teaching mechanisms that they have in Morocco, the way that stories are part of society, and are seen as valuable as traditional schooling. I think the West could really learn from this society, and it’s important as well that the Arab world understands what the West is, because they’re getting confused, they’re getting very mixed messages. It is something for us all to remember, all of us have this responsibility, any of us that like Morocco or are from the West, it’s our responsibility to be part of this bridge.

SG: I want to switch gears now and talk a little bit about your writing process, even if it’s a little technical. You mentioned that stories, or even just the learning process overall will have a natural zig-zag pattern. Would you say that your writing process mirrors that or is it more linear and focused. Do you have a set time of day that you put aside for writing or is it more an accumulation.

TS: Different people write books in different ways. When I write books, I usually make a detailed plan. I don’t necessarily look at that plan, sometimes I don’t even touch it. It’s usually on my desk with a few other things. It’s a like a scaffold, a framework, if I need it, it is there. When I am writing I’m usually writing quite fast. I write a book of 100,000 words in 25 days. I’ll do 4000 words a day and I’ll try to polish those words as I go along. I won’t get out of the chair except to maybe grab a coffee or something until I finish my words for that day. It usually takes me about six hours to do 4000 words. In the evening, I might look through it and definitely the next day I will look through it and make amendments through it before I start that day.

It is very hard to get an agent for a start. I couldn’t get an agent, so I made my own agency. You’ve got to think zig-zag. I put on a funny voice and called myself William Watkins of Worldwide Media. 

I grew up in a family where people wrote books and it is not seen as a big thing, or a particularly amazing thing to do. I think there is a lot of baloney about writing books – writing books is an extremely easy thing to do. I don’t understand all the mystique. You just need a comfortable chair, because you are going to be sitting in it a whole lot. Sit in the damn chair and keep going, and you’ll get to the end. The faster you write, the faster you’ll have the manuscript done. I never read work that people send to me if it isn’t finished, I would never dream of sending anything to anyone that wasn’t finished and polished and polished and polished. Sending a work in progress is plain rude.

Something happened a few months ago. I know a woman and she said her ex-boyfriend had written a book and asked if I would read it. At first, I was a bit irritated because I asked her, ‘Have you read it?’ and she said, ‘No, I haven’t because I’m too busy.’ And I thought, ‘Screw you, do you really expect me to read it?’ But she caught me in a good mood, and I said, ‘send it over’. I looked at this thing and it was complete crap. But there was a spark of genius very deep in the underbelly of the book. It was deep and I found it on about page 354. So I wrote an email to my friend, and I told her I don’t know your ex-boyfriend, I don’t know what he’s trying to get, if he wants attention like I think he does, or if wants to be a writer and actually make a name for himself.

So I said to my friend, ‘I’m going to attach two letters and it’s for you to decide. If he wants attention give him letter A, and if he wants to really break through give him letter B. Letter A said “you are amazing, you are a natural writer, this is just the best work I’ve ever seen, incredible, incredible, incredible!” Letter B said, “This is absolute crap and if you’ve completely wasted a lot of my time, but on Page 354 I was really moved, I felt there’s something in this thing. If you rewrite the thing, and spend weeks and weeks and months doing it, you will become a published author because there’s something really really cool here.”’ I don’t know which letter she gave him, I never asked her.

People send me stuff all the time. I look at anything anyone sends me because I remember what it was like trying to break through. I get irritated though if someone would send me something that they haven’t made into a diamond before, if they haven’t polished it. Maybe they don’t know how to polish something, but it’s an area you have to work hard on. With book writing it’s very hard to break through, because the system is stacked and there are glass ceilings and filters. It is very hard to get an agent for a start. I couldn’t get an agent, so I made my own agency. You’ve got to think zig-zag. I put on a funny voice and called myself William Watkins of Worldwide Media. I sent a manuscript to a hundred leading publishers in Britain and none of them called back.

Then finally one of them called back from Weidenfeld and Nicolson, this big big famous publisher in London. The editor agreed to publish the book, but I had to put on this whole fake thing that I was this agent William Watkins. It worked, and I succeeded with this Oriental method of breaking in, and that’s the way to do it. Most people drop out, most people drop out of everything, and that’s what is so cool if you decide to be in something for the long haul, because you will always get in. Keep going and everything’s possible.

SG: You just mentioned to me publishing fiascos and the process of breaking-in, I was wondering what your current take is on publishing is because it seems like it’s becoming a very chaotic and fast-changing world for both writers and publishers. You have e-readers like the Kindle and Nook becoming more and more popular and the e-book phenomena really taking root.

TS: Publishing is changing and it is changing right now, last year, this year, next year, it’s beginning of a whole new time of publishing. For authors, I think it is very exciting. For publishers it is a complete nightmare.

Publishers are like pimps. They’re like the scum on the surface of the water. They have very little purpose, especially now. Until now, you kind of needed a publisher because they would make sure a book was marketed. Now you do not need that because with Kindle or with print on demand, anyone can get their book on Amazon or whatever. It is possible to find a readership through blogs, forums, Facebook, Twitter and the social networks. I think it’s a wonderful time and we are getting back to a time that used to exist in the 1700s and 1800s. Authors would publish themselves. Richard Burton for instance published A Thousand and One Nights himself under the name the Kama Shastra Society and he printed it himself. Although it says ‘Benares, India’ it was actually printed in Stoke Newington, England because of the libel – he was so scared he would be shut down for pornography.

But he printed it himself and sold it by subscription, and I think we’re going to get back to a time where authors do that. I am doing it for myself, for this new novel I have coming out called Timbuctoo about the European obsession for Timbuctoo. I am printing it myself and cutting out all the middlemen, the agents, the publishers, the directors, the secretaries, the warehouse people, and the number crunchers and it makes me deliriously happy, you have no idea. I sleep so happily at night, because I had been extremely bugged by all those people the vampires sucking the life-blood out of authors.

The important thing here is that if you are originating good material you’ll rise to the surface and you’ll do well. Publishers and agents, they’re nothing, they’re pimps, and may they rot in hell, I have nothing good to say about them. Nothing at all.

SG: So you mentioned Timbuctoo a new book you are working on about European obsession with the shrine and town in Mali.

TS: Early 19thcentury/late 18th century all the European powers were obsessed with one thing – getting a Christian, or a white man, but they always said a Christian, to Timbuctoo and back. Their plan was to sack Timbuctoo, which was a city that French, the English, and the Germans believed to be fashioned from the purest gold. They believed it because Leo Africanus had said it was a city made from gold a couple of centuries before. The only people not looking for Timbuctoo were the Americans, the United States of America, because they were such a young country.

My novel is begins in the winter of 1815 and goes through until late spring of 1816. It starts with a man called Robert Adams being found half-naked and starving on the streets of London. That was October, 1815. Robert Adams, it turned out, had been to Timbuctoo, a point that shocked Regency society, posh British society at the time. Worse still was that he claimed it to be a wretched, godforsaken place. He had been taken there as a slave, having first been shipwrecked on the coast of West Africa, at Cabo Blanco. His Toureg captors presented him to the King of Timbuktu as a gift. At the time there were many thousands of European slaves in the Sahara.

We always talk about black Africans who were enslaved in the Americas, but we forget that there were thousands and thousands of Europeans who met their early death in the Sahara. From time to time, some of them would be saved, the word was called being redeemed, redemption. Robert Adams, American who I based the novel on, arrived in London having been redeemed. An illiterate sailor, he narrated to the tale of his journey to the African Committee, and became rich and famous while shocking British society at the same time. I love Adams’ tale because he set off to make his fame and fortune by trading but he actually made it by selling his story, and I find wonderful irony in that.

SG: You’ve also been doing a lot of film projects, or I should say a lot of writing for film. I recently saw your film Journey to Mecca. Do you see yourself going more in that direction necessarily?

TS: No, it is just so difficult to get a film made. The beauty of writing a book is you write the stupid book and then its printed exactly as you wrote it. I write a book quite carefully and I like it to be printed just as I wrote it. I do not like things to be ripped to shreds, and of course, when you’re writing a screenplay it’s updated continuously as everyone pitches in with some ideas. I think they were nineteen versions of Journey to Mecca eventually, and I wrote about eleven of them. It is a great communal effort but it drives you crazy if you’re trying to create something. It’s like you reach after a while, I believe, a lowest common denominator, and then script is just the starting point for a movie, because when you’re on location and shooting everyone just abandons the script anyway. I don’t know, with writing, I like to do all kinds of stuff, I do some journalism, some screenwriting, I write some books, and that’s what I like doing best of all

I like having all kinds of different projects, and I think as a writer now, with publishing changing, I think it’s really important to have a lot of different irons in the fire as we say, a lot of different projects going on. I know far too many writers who have hit a dead end. I got three friends who write about Spain, between them they’ve done so many books about Spain that they can’t really break out because people know they write about Spain, and expect their work to be on that subject. I told one of my friends years ago stop writing about Spain, write about Morocco, it’s another part of the Spanish puzzle in a way since it’s so close to Andalusia, and they have influenced each other so much.
So I think it’s really important to diversify while keeping a central arrowhead if you like, whether it’s writing about a common theme or part of the world.

SG:  You’ve done a lot of work on a variety of different topics, you’ve spent 17 weeks in the Peruvian jungles, you’ve done novels on finding lost cities, you’ve wrote a sort of travelogue/memoir/lens-into-Moroccan-society book through your novel The Caliph’s House, you’ve done collections of collected oral histories and anecdotes. First question would be, would you say there is one thing in particular you truly enjoy, or maybe one project in the near future after Timbuctoo that you’re looking forward to doing?

TS: I am working on another novel called The House of Wisdom, the first part of it which is actually based in Fes. And it is trying to explain the Islamic world to the Western world but almost as Trojan horse, because like I said, with storytelling, the best way to reveal something, is when you disguise it as something else. Let me explain this: in the 1980s my father wanted to write a book about Afghanistan to explain to the West what was happening in Afghanistan. I remember him sitting down and, instead of writing a big academic work, like Afghanistan from A-Z, he decided to write a novel. And it was the only novel he ever wrote called Kara Kush and it became a huge bestseller.

That novel was kind of a university degree course on Afghanistan, and Afghanistan from the inside out, but done in the shape of a novel. Lots of people who would never read a book on Afghanistan read a lot of stuff, 600 pages of information on Afghanistan. It’s the same thing, when we wanted to make a film on Mecca to show the West, we made a film about Ibn Battuta, which was a device, a Trojan horse, a way to get people in Boise, Idaho to watch a film about Mecca, something that they would never watch a film on usually.

So I’m writing a novel called The House of Wisdom, based on this thing called the Bayt al-Hikma, which was during the Abbasid age in Baghdad. I’m working on a series of books which are really inspired by A Thousand and One Nights, because I really see The Nights as the greatest repository of stories, characters, and ideas that have hardly been tapped in the West.

SG: You focus so much on traditional oral stories that have been passed down from generation to generation, and right now you’re hoping to do something on the Golden Age of Baghdad, if you could witness any historical event or go back and bear witness to anything in history, what would it be?

TS: Oh that’s easy for me, there was one moment in history that was so monumental, that I often think about. It was the year AD 751, and it was the Battle of Talas, when the Arabs were so cocky and so strong that they decided to attack the Chinese. And they took Chinese prisoners, you know the story, the Arabs had perfected watered steel blades, incredibly strong because of alchemy and all kinds of things, and they attacked the Chinese and they won, and took Chinese prisoners. It was not so important that they won the battle, they didn’t really move into China in a big way like they had hoped, but as a byproduct they got their hands on paper.

An early depiction of the Battle of Talas

It was the basis of the Golden Age of Islam, the Abbasids, because they had perfected steel nibs as a byproduct of swordmaking, and making a different ink that the Chinese had made, and the Arabs took this Chinese paper and they refined it and made it with mulberry bark, the Chinese had been using more rougher fibres. So the Arabs took this breakthrough and they honed it like they did with everything else in Baghdad at the time.

That to me is one of the most exciting pivotal moments in human history, when this secret knowledge of paper-making was acquired by the Abbasids. And, because the Abbasids had the Qur’an, and literacy, and because everyone was reading the Qur’an, and because there was this need for mass paper and, because they had the pilgrimage routes that spread from West Africa all the way to China, they had a way of spreading written learning. And so cities like Fes where we’re sitting, and Cordoba, Seville, Samarkand, Bokara, and Herat, they all became milestones on what was its own way on a kind of primitive Internet. And it was all made possible because some Chinese prisoners were taken at the Battle of Talas on a cold morning in AD 751.

The View from Fez would like to thank Sam Gordon for providing the interview and Tahir Shah for graciously giving his time. Sam can be contacted by email : gordon (dot) samuel (@) gmail (dot) com

Tahir Shah's sites are very much worth a visit:
www.Tahirshah.com
www.morocco-magic.com/

The View from Fez will bring you more news on Tahir's next novel as soon as possible.



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Friday, March 23, 2012

Morocco hits Valencia

Djellabas, merguez and couscous - regular guest blogger Derek Workman can buy them easily enough only a few minutes walk from his home in Valencia, Spain - but it's not quite the same as being in Fez.

I was on my way home from a bike ride around Valencia a couple of weeks ago when I whizzed around a corner near my flat and there in front of me stood a lady of a certain age fully regaled in gelaba and fez. We have a large Moroccan community in my barrio, so it’s no surprise to me to see ladies walking the streets in the hijab – but a fez, that’s something different!




It was Juana, a pensioner well known for her cheery smile and high-speed walking pace when she’s out shopping. I hadn’t realised that it was the day of the Carnaval parade, and she was one of the organisers, all of whom, including the medic, were wearing fezes (is that the plural?) so they could be recognised in the incredibly flamboyant outfits the paraders would be wearing. (The Bolivians were way ahead of any other nationality in their stupendous outfits.)

The next day I was sitting in a café having a quiet chat with some friends, when a tall, tired-looking young man in his early twenties walked in. Picking on me as the obvious looking foreigner, he asked if I knew of a hostal nearby, which I did, and we went out into the street so I could point out directions.

In the small square outside the café were a group of six weary young men and one weary young lady, leaning against four old Renault 4Ls, covered in sand and stickers. We’ve got a beach in Valencia, but I don’t remember a sandstorm in the twelve years I’ve lived here. They’d brought it with them from the Sahara Desert, where they’d been competing in the 4L Trophy, a rally that had taken them on a seven thousand kilometre drive from their home in Soest, near Dortmund in Germany, through France, Spain, the heat of the Sahara and the bitter cold of the High Atlas Mountains in winter, to Marrakech, where they’d had two days rest and recuperation before beginning the long drive home.

I walked them to a local hostal, which is, strangely enough, run by an ebullient lady from Tetouan.

I live in in Ruzafa, the old Moorish barrio of Valencia, a mix of so many cultures that it probably merits its own United Nations office. Because we have a large Moroccan community it’s as easy for me to buy merguez, preserved lemons, and couscous as it would be in Fez. There is a wonderful teteria, that serves only teas and a splendid selection of Moroccan pastries, and was built stone-by-stone and cushion-by-cushion by Mostapha, to resemble a typical Moroccan home.

We’ve just finished  fallas, the biggest fiesta in Valencia, and one of the biggest in Spain. Jam-packed crowds, screeching fireworks and raucous music until day-break. Ruzafa is one of the busiest parts of the city, with tens of thousands of people walking the streets at night, looking at the incredible street lighting decorations and the enormous statues that will go up in flames on the last night.

I took a stroll to the part of the barrio that has my favourite Moroccan shops. With the curling smoke from the barbeques, the light sparkling off glowing brass urns in the haima set up as tea houses, and glistening piles of freshly made Moorish pastries, I could have been anywhere in Morocco on a festive evening – where, frankly, I’d rather be.


A Free Course in Fez - Advanced English for Moroccan Teachers

If you are a Moroccan teacher of English in a junior high or high school, here is a  free course to help you with your language skills, while providing engaging lessons on American Culture.

Run at the American Language Center in Fez on Wednesday nights, the new Advanced American Cultural Studies Course will delve into literature, film, art, music and architecture and give teachers a chance to practice and extend their English skills.

Teacher Jamal Morelli says that he intends to use pop culture as a way into "the American cultural landscape. I want to use this class as a way to offer an attractive surface to explore deep issues in American psychology."

Morelli is well qualified, being a teacher of English at the ALC, documentary film making at Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University, and a former professional musician. "I am going to start with with best-selling literature to look at the impact of America and the way we experience art."

In the area of cinema, the course will include viewing and discussing films such as Twelve Angry Men. "We will discuss citizen participation, how societal prejudice affects the rule of law and the basics of what juries do," he says.

Director of the American Language Center, David Amster, says that the course is based on one he taught in Egypt about 15 times. "The reality for Moroccan English teachers is that while studying at University, their English is at a high level. Then when teaching students, they don't have the ability to converse with native speakers, so their skills decline. The idea is to offer a special class to help English teachers practice at a high level with a native speaker on a regular basis."

As well as covering popular and some classic aspects of American Culture in the fields of  music, cinema, literature, art and architecture, the two hour course will be different each time, so students can repeat it.

Amster says that the American Language Center is holding this course "as part of an effort to support the public school system. When we give out scholarships, they benefit just a few students. It has more of a flow on effect if you improve the English of teachers."

Who: Teachers of English at Junior High School and High School
When: Spring Term, March 28th to May 30th, Wednesday from 6:40 - 8:50 PM
Where: American Language Center, Fez
Cost: FREE (with a 600 DH deposit to be refunded upon completion of the course)
Contact: Tel - 0535.62.48.50 or Email- jamalmorelli@me.com


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Thursday, March 22, 2012

'Les eaux cachées' (Hidden Waters) - Trailer announced in Fez


Filmmaker Joe Lukawski has announced the launch of the first in-progress trailer for his documentary film 'Les eaux cachées' (Hidden Waters), and asks our readers help in getting the word out. The film (52 min.) will tell the story of Fez's waters from the points of view of its 1200 year history, its built heritage, and its enduring traditions to re-valorize water in a time where water is commonly accepted as the worlds next great problematic.

By e-mailing it to your friends and colleagues who may be interested, posting it on facebook, tweeting it, or blogging about it, you can help make the project known, help shape the rest of the production, and help it enter public discourse on water and urban culture.

Below are links to the trailer, one with French and one with English subtitles. Also, if you have a moment, please read a bit more about the project by visiting the film blog.

Trailer (EN)

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