Avuncular American

Your Choice: Electricity, Food, or Shelter

A very interesting meeting took place last week in Paris between Moroccan and French industry groups.  MEDEF, the French employers association, welcomed its Moroccan counterpart CGEM for a round table under the rubric of "Reforms and Growth: Where Does Morocco Stand?" Six Moroccan ministers attented.

But what was especially interesting for readers in Tangier was the headline in the Journal de Tanger: "Minister Announces Revision of Amendis Contract," with a subtitle of "exorbitant water and electricity rates and substandard investment in infrastructure."

Morocco's MAP wire service quoted the Minister of Economy: "one of the major problems is that local purchasing power in Tangier cannot match the rates applied by Amendis."  Amendis is the Tangier utility of Veolia, the French water multinational.

Readers in Tangier know what the Minister means.  Take Momo, a young professional with a wife and young child.  Faced with electricity bills for his 60 square meter apartment which suddenly jumped almost 500 percent, he complained to the monopoly utility.  The company offered no explanation, and eventually his rates dropped back, but the interlude had cost him - in one year - the equivalent of 4 years at the old rates.

Even prior to the protests of February 20, any time there was a demonstration, people would say that the marchers would vilify Amendis, always citing the unaffordable utility rates.  Unaffordable means paying in excess of one third of a monthly salary on electricity.  Meaning just lighting, since most Tanjawis use bottled gas for cooking.

The Moroccan ministers' trip to Paris, more than just another business seminar, was a move in the direction of social peace and removing one of the main causes of street unrest in recent months.

Gerald Loftus

Blame It On the Chergui

WeatherOnline gives a great description of Tangier's crazy wind called the chergui.  Crazy, in that it blows in over the waters of the Strait of Gibraltar, laden with desert sand.  Figure that one out.

Crazy, in that sometimes, like yesterday, it blew low towards the west, while up above the wind from the Atlantic Ocean blew towards the east.  The "birds" that I saw flying in the city lights last night were in fact plastic bags, which didn't know which way to go.

The chergui is also blamed for odd human behavior.  For some, it can be enervating.  Someone told me that when he's getting out of bed, he knows when the chergui is blowing.  And he just wants to stay in bed (some people don't even need the chergui for this).

Others have been observed displaying unusual facial tics, twitching in the chergui.  Still others, quite the opposite of enervation, get overexcited and agitated.  I'm sure certain crimes of passion, and maybe some quite unpremeditated violence, happen during the chergui.  It occurs to me that some defendants in other windblown places - maybe the mistral in Marseille or the scirocco on Stromboli - may use the weather alibi.  Here, it might be "the chergui made me do it."

In the biannual, bilingual arts and writing review Mediterraneans Méditerranéenes, Moroccan writer Maati Kabbal imagined "the Year of the Chergui," where foliage and brains were fried.  A police commissioner intones "The people accuse you of spreading the Chergui in the city... as sorcerers, you are destined for hell..."  Wow.  Guilt by Chergui.

I don't know if Moroccan artist Mohamed Drissi, who has an art gallery named after him in Tangier, was depicting a chergui victim in this poster of one of his works pictured here.  But it surely is a phenomenon.

But when the chergui drops, and the barometer steadies, we can perhaps forgive and forget the erratic behavior committed under its influence.

Your Honor: I rest my defense with the chergui weather report.

Gerald Loftus

Legation Lions & Les Oies du Consulat

Wildlife in the medina of Tangier

Actually, the French Consulate General isn't in the medina any longer (the old French Legation was in a historic building - Dar al Niyaba - that once housed the Sultan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs during the International Zone era).  Now it's at the center of the modern city, la Place de France.

Consul General Jean-Yves Berthault, Arabist and career diplomat with a string of tough posts to his name (he has served as Ambassador to Afghanistan), has found his second calling: author of the latest Khbar Bladna title, Les Oies du Consulat.

Illustrated with B & W photos of the turkeys, peacocks - and, of course, the geese of the title - who populate the Consulate's pond, the little book is a joy to those who appreciate Jean-Yves and his open approach to diplomacy.  There's even Hijab, his roly poly cat.

We like animal stories, especially when the animals are those in our immediate neighborhood.  But wait: the Legation is in the medina, right?  Animals in the labyrinth of the old walled city?

Yes, and we're not just talking the ubiquitous cats who love to climb over our flat roofs and do death-defying leaps across our courtyards.  And the cats, who can be a nuisance in mating season (all year 'round), at least keep those other urban denizens, the rats, at bay.  There's Mimi, our neighbor's cat, who has adopted us and manages to sniff out when we settle into the rooftop Minzah room for a sundowner.  There are no property lines on the roofs over the medina.  Especially for cats.

We do have a few dogs in the 'hood, heard barking sometimes when the call to prayer is particularly intense.  Birds, especially seagulls with the port just down the hill, abound.

And we've seen a Barbary ape perching on a neighbor's balcony.

Last week I witnessed the infrequent visit to our street of a tajine and kanoun salesman, his wares piled atop a donkey (click to enlarge photo).

But the Legation's Lions probably set the bar unattainably high for wildlife seen in the medina of Tangier.

Too long to go into in this space, two consecutive American Consuls in Tangier had to deal with the Gift of Lions.  His Majesty the Sultan of Morocco presents lions to His Excellency the President of the United States.  A gift you can't refuse, but you can't afford either (hint: lions eat a lot, and American Consuls circa 1830 don't earn much).

Read about the way the Consuls dealt with the lions on the Legation website.

Gerald Loftus

Moroccan-American Relations: Photo Interpretation, Please

For years, it has been hanging in the courtyard of the American Legation in Tangier.  The red, white, and blue are now faded, dirty.  Poor Old Glory.

The courtyard is, after all, subject to the desert dust of the chergui as the Moroccans call the East wind off the Sahara.  When it's the Atlantic wind, the nearby hammam and its coal dust are the culprits.  There's no way to keep the Stars and Stripes clean, so we're bringing the carpet flag inside.  For a thorough cleaning, and to find a new home.

My question is this: who are the people in the photo, standing around the flag in its pristine state?  Are they Peace Corps Volunteers, who are about to celebrate 50 years of activity in Morocco, and who in the 1970s were trained here at the Legation?

Are they diplomats who spent a year or more at the Legation in the early 1960s, when it was a branch of the Foreign Service Institute, here to learn North African Arabic?  If so, the photo probably features a few Foreign Service Officers who went on to become US Ambassadors in the Arab world.

And who are the Moroccan women who spent days/weeks/months weaving this very large American flag?  I assume that the woman in white represents the weavers.  Where were they from, and what has become of them?

Readers, I need your help.  The new home of the American flag will be the Women's Literacy room of TALIM.  The women of 2011, who are learning how to read and write in Arabic, and then go on to learn foreign languages and life skills like cooking and sewing, will be interested in knowing more about who wove this flag, and to whom it was presented.

Maybe we can do a 50th anniversary reenactment.  Click on the comment box below, or send me an email: directorDOTtalimATgmailDOTcom.  Thank you.

Gerald Loftus

Topic In Search of Historian: The US Civil War in Tangier, Morocco

At left: American Consul in Tangier, James De Long, circa 1861 (Click on photo to enlarge to full-size pop up).

Thanks to Tangier native and Parisian pediatrician (and author) Philip Abensur, we have this photo of the Civil War era Consul James De Long.

De Long, who served from September 1861 through March 1862, might have been a major player in one of the Civil War's many sideshows, one which President Abraham Lincoln feared could widen to a second front: the seizure of Confederate ships trading with foreign powers.

From the Legation website:

Early in the Civil War, Confederate ships called at Tangier. After the Union government called this indiscretion to the attention of the Moroccan authorities, life at the Legation was occasionally disturbed by hostile crowds protesting the U.S. Navy's interference with Moroccan trade. On several occasions it became necessary for U.S. Marines to come ashore to move prisoners which had been taken from Confederate ships, through town to U.S. warships.

In seizures elsewhere, Lincoln thought better of pressing the Union cause.  From The History Place Civil War timeline:

November 8, 1861 - The beginning of an international diplomatic crisis for President Lincoln as two Confederate officials sailing toward England are seized by the U.S. Navy. England, the leading world power, demands their release, threatening war. Lincoln eventually gives in and orders their release in December. "One war at a time," Lincoln remarks.

Okay, we've established that Consul De Long was here from the fall of 1861 through the spring of 1862.  That U.S. Marines landed in Tangier to escort Confederate prisoners to Navy warships.  And that president Lincoln feared that such incidents would lead to a wider war.

Sounds interesting, no?  Worthy of an entry in "Tweeting the Civil War" perhaps? Or maybe the Washington Post's detailed parallel history in honor of the Civil War's 150th Anniversary?

Either of the above would be fine.  But more than a fleeting blog post like this, or an even briefer 140 character Twitter blurb, the history of American diplomatic Civil Warfare appears to be a subject worthy of a proper historical inquiry.

What better place than the research center of TALIM here in Tangier?  In congenial 18th century surroundings, a properly-funded scholar could delve into the American Consulate and American Legation archives of the period.  Explore American actions and Moroccan reactions.

Doesn't anyone else see the timeliness of this topic?  And not just in this 150th Anniversary season.  American engagement with the entire Middle East and North Africa region is not only a matter of the 21st or even 20th centuries.  American interaction in places like Tangier, Algiers, and Tripoli dates back to our earliest days as an independent country.

We'll be here.  So Civil War scholars, start planning your trip to Tangier!   

Gerald Loftus

International Women's Day - All the Days After

They were handing out red roses to (some) women at Tangier's Ibn Battuta Airport on International Women's Day.  Nice gesture.

Just like some organizations - websites, news media, governments, private industry - mark the day, until they get to the next de rigueur event, like Earth Day.  Points on the calendar.  Check.

What happens the day(s) after International Women's Day?  Back to the grind.  Wait 364 days for your next red rose.

Here at TALIM, where every working day may not be Women's Day, but where the women of the medina do come to learn to read and write in Arabic and learn other language and life skills, International Women's Day was not uppermost on people's minds.  Do our women follow the lives of Yahoo Maktoub's Top Arab Women Role Models?

At recent gatherings with the women, where guest lecturers on things from public health to family law speak to a riveted audience, one of the most heartfelt opinions voiced by the women was the lack of security in the medina.

Think of it: these women, mostly working mothers or mothers of at-risk children (at risk of falling into the hands of the drug dealers, prostitutes, and the violence inherent in these activities) have to navigate the mean streets without any hope of police protection.

Street lighting has helped, though we'll always remember our first foray at night on a momentarily dark medina street, when the way was lit by an elderly veiled woman and her flashlight.

The women's concerns are our concerns.  At every occasion possible, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, we underline our security concerns to police and local authorities.  In the latest exchange with a police official, explaining why his patrols never pass by the Legation's Beni Idder quarter of the medina, he reminded me that we live in a dangerous neighborhood.

The police stay away because it's dangerous?

So, on the 364 days that are definitely not International Women's Day, we stand with our courageous neighbors and try to boost security in our own ways.  Street lights, flashlights, bells, whistles, and anything else that will help foster better street security.

Meanwhile, the Legation offers them a safe haven to learn useful skills.

Gerald Loftus

New Blog Dedicated to Morocco's Music Recorded by Paul Bowles

We are very excited about our latest project: establishing a new blog, "The Music of Morocco by Paul Bowles."  It is still under construction, but readers can already listen to the first podcast.

Readers of TALIMblog's previous posts on the Paul Bowles Centenary will know that TALIM commissioned the digital remastering of Bowles' recordings of Moroccan music, housed at the Library of Congress.  We only await the green light from our Moroccan partners to repatriate this new 72 CD collection at an appropriate ceremony.

In the meantime, thanks to Tangier American teacher, musician, director Oliver White ("Oliver Orion"), we are proceeding with what could be a very laborious process of podcasting selections of the music.  Please bear with us as we navigate the various steps in the process (iTunes, Feedburner, TypePad, etc.) that lead to an MP3 podcast.

Unless someone, that is, gets him or herself a grant to come to Tangier and do this with us!

Our first sample is the "Café Music of Tetuan."  Enjoy, and stay tuned for further additions.

Gerald Loftus

MREs From Libya Return to Morocco

MRE - to some Americans familiar with the military, that stands for "Meals Ready to Eat," the food for soldiers in the field.  But we're talking here about the French acronym for Marocains Résidants à l'Etranger, Moroccans living abroad.  The travails of MREs in Libya were profiled here in SOS Marocains en détresse, from Info Maroc.

Upwards of 4,000 MREs, including a small number of non-Moroccans, made it back to the port of Tangier-Med today from Libya.  The evening TV news showed an impressive array of buses ready to transport them back to their hometowns in Morocco, with the Moroccan Red Crescent, the Fondation Mohammed V  (which runs Operation Marhaba all year 'round for MREs returning on vacation), and the Ministry of MRE all deployed to make it as smooth a transition as possible.
I happened to be driving back from my first shopping trip to Ceuta while the second car ferry was offloading its passengers, in what the news said is the biggest ever Moroccan repatriation accomplished.  They speak of some 100,000 Moroccans in Libya, of whom 7,000 have already returned home.  Home to a much milder form of social protest than what they witnessed in Libya.

In a follow up to the events of February 20, the nightly news also showed small groups of peaceful protesters in Rabat and Casablanca, along with a roundtable organized by a national newspaper, with several of the young protest organizers and members of civil society.  Coming back through Tangier, I noted that police had blocked vehicular access to one neighborhood, as well as cordoning off the approaches to the Place des Nations, where previous protests have gathered.  News reports later spoke of "unauthorized sit-ins, dispersed non-violently."  But there was no news of looting.

My main concern this afternoon was making it alive down the mountain road between Ceuta and Tangier.  I should have paid more attention to the menacing black clouds, and at first I thought it was "just" going to be a rather intense lightning storm of hailstones, fog, and horizontal rain.
But I wasn't prepared for the slalom of median-crossing, left-side driving, fording raging torrents that was my Sunday afternoon drive.  The picture above, taken through my windshield during a stop on the wrong side of the road, was the most I could manage.  Even more spectacular temporary waterfalls, gouging out chunks of road, were seen as I drove white-knuckled down towards Tanger-Med and safety.

Thanks to considerate drivers who stuck together, warning of washouts ahead, and civic-minded bystanders who lifted hefty boulders to allow better water flow, we all managed to navigate downhill, downstream, as they used to say in the Scouts.  It usually leads to civilization.

In this case, civilization was a dry highway on flat land.  I celebrated by buying an ice cream cone at a roadside stop.  The MREs weren't the only people happy to see Tanger-Med today.

Gerald Loftus

Rebranding TALIM Starts With Its Logo

Some people, when confronted with terms like "branding" and "logo" think crass commercialism.  Well, there is an aspect of that in what I am trying to accomplish: I would like the Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies to better "sell" its "products."  Here they are:

- Only US National Historic Landmark outside the United States
- Oldest American diplomatic building, and the first ever in an Arab, Muslim, or African country
- Research center in Morocco of the American Institute for Maghrib Studies (AIMS), with an 8,000 volume library
- Teaches Arabic literacy and life skills to women in Tangier's medina
- Organizes State Department-funded CLS Arabic for American students, administered by CAORC
- Hosts American and Maghribi scholars under AIMS grants
- Museum collection of Moroccan, American, and European artists, plus historic maps and engravings

The latter function gave its name to this place for years, the "Tangier American Legation Museum,"  TALM, with its corresponding private foundation in the United States, TALMS ("S" for Society).  The people of Tangier tend to call it the American Consulate (which it ceased to be exactly 50 years ago) or the "Old Legation."

TALIM, meaning education in Arabic, is of course much more than a museum.  Our mission is education in all its forms.  Cultural diplomacy, citizen diplomacy - we do that too, on the ground in a particularly important way: we are among and surrounded by Moroccans: our neighbors, our employees, our public.

That public now needs to identify logo with Legation with TALIM.  With the help of Abdel Latif, master plaster artisan at Tangier's official handicrafts center, we now have a fitting reproduction of our emblem for display.  Frank D'Astolfo of Rutgers University, whose TALIM logo design won the 2004 Logo Award, has combined Moroccan and American flags, the Legation's medina street and mosque, Tangier's sea blue and the Rif mountain green in a symbol of everything that links TALIM and the United States to Morocco and Tangier.

Migrating from TALM and TALMS to TALIM did not please everyone, but I think the move was a wise one.  Now we want to embrace it, and show the world our logo and what it means.

The Legation has a museum, but we are not just a museum.

TALIM - meaning education.

Gerald Loftus

The Great White Fleet Returns to Tangier

Don't worry: Teddy Roosevelt and his gunboat diplomacy have not made a reappearance on the Strait of Gibraltar.  Whatever happens down the coast in Libya, the USS Olympia of the Great White Fleet (image: ModelShipMaster.com) is safely moored in its Philadelphia museum home.

Here in Tangier, we don't expect any battleship-assisted hostage rescue attempts à la "Perdicaris Alive or Raisuli Dead!" - Teddy's campaign war cry, rather confusingly (and mostly historically inaccurately) depicted in Hollywood's The Wind and the Lion.

Okay, enough of the history trivia.  We're talking about the Great White Cruise Ship Fleet.  My visual at right is not quite in that category, but it does give you a nice idea of what, under sunny skies, the tourist sees from their cabin on the cruise ships that ply the Mediterranean, sometimes en route to the Canaries in the Atlantic.  Tangier has been a favorite port of call, though the heydays of steamer travel went away with the demise of the International Zone.

We were therefore a little concerned about a report in this week's La Dépêche on several cruise ship cancellations after the looting rampage of February 20.  According to the Tangier weekly (which has a very useful maritime news section, La Gazette), Morocco has suffered jittery tourist fallout from the post-February 20 headlines in the international media, which weren't always interested in the mostly peaceful nature of the protests, as much as headline-grabbing coverage of the post-protest looting.

But this morning, on schedule - they're German, after all - was the gleaming white Aida, ready to disgorge its complement of some 2,000 tourists.  So we readied our Aida kit: an artist's easel, deployed in the pedestrian street that runs through and under our historic Legation, with a tasteful poster intimating that they might want to come in and look around our museum.

Fat chance.  Tourist jitters or not, the infamous unofficial Tangier faux guides were bent on taking our day trippers to cousin Ahmed's carpet emporium, or Mustafa's cheap eats, where the guides can take their hefty (sometimes 50%) commissions.

50% of zero is... zero.  We don't (yet) charge anything for individual visitors, so we are of zero interest to the guides, who get nuthin' out of cultural tourism.

So, until the value of culture, historic preservation, and the simple peace and quiet of a fountain in a leafy courtyard in the medina is monetized (or just appreciated), Tangier will continue to get critical comments from tourists turned off by the harrassing faux guides who force march them through town, passing us by, but getting in maximum souk time before they miss the boat.

As long as Tangier doesn't "miss the boat," big-picture-wise.  The Big White Cruise Ships need to keep coming back.  And grab back for Morocco some of those close to two million cruise trippers who call every year at Spanish ports.

To be discussed, at our forthcoming April Seminar on future directions for the revitalization of the Tangier port and the continued growth of its cousin, Tanger-Med.

Gerald Loftus