Fame has become an existential condition: If your image isn’t reflected back at you, then how do you know you’re alive?

Reminds me a bit of this:

We live today in a society where it is necessary to see yourself, or your likeness, in the media as confirmation of your existence. People scan the television dial, major magazines, movies, or the latest pop novel to find someone who resembles them, someone who is out there mimicking their actions and gestures in the big arena. … Lest we forget, this whole scenario is market driven, and if your image does not appear en grand across the whole media superstructure of America, it is because the marketing mechanism has not deemed your niche to be worthy of selective attention, and thus—O humiliating failure!—there is nothing out there for you to buy. Which is to say, You don’t exist, go die. … You have no identity, you are invisible. You don’t even need to be “disappeared” because you are already not there.

This was written back in 1994, so it took the New York Times just sixteen years to catch up. Though I will give them credit for distilling the idea to its purest form.

I thought it would look ugly, but I like it….

The first thing to know about me is I was born in the wrong place. I should have been born somewhere where people are free and full of love. Instead I was born in a world where people play power games and fight for scraps. That word “scraps” explains the problem, I think. Instead of sharing a mountain and enjoying the whole mountain, which belongs to no one, each person wants a piece. One person sees he can make a nice little business selling soft drinks to the hikers there, and another doesn’t like that because it spoils the view from his veranda. So the power games begin. The once calm and happy mountain is divided into warring territories. In the world into which I was born, this pattern repeats itself at every level, from children competing to be their mothers’ favorite, through the power games of generals who kill millions to win an extra star.

It’s been this way, we are told, ever since there were people. Even animals do it, a war of survival in which the predator is the next victim. Even plants do it, with vines strangling a great oak to reach the sun. So it isn’t people’s fault, apparently. The universe is hard-wired this way, it seems. There isn’t really a place here for someone like me, who would be happy to live on air, water and sunlight, feet scarcely touching the ground. Instead, the world being what it is, I’ve been forced to make compromises—but as I’ve already said, it’s not my fault. In a world like this one, such compromises are inescapable. The whole mountain doesn’t exist—there are only scraps.

Where lack of resources is the rule, ignorance will breed.

Where injustice rears its head, lack of resources feels like destiny.

How to break this ugly circle?

I think I’m “seeing Morocco” more now that I’ve stayed several weeks in one spot, with a friend’s family in one small corner of Fez, than I did in the early weeks when I was traveling all over the place, visiting large cities and isolated towns. “The more distance one covers, the less one sees” is a paradox—and so is what I’m saying now, that the crude particularities of a few people’s lives may say more about the general landscape of Morocco than all the documentaries, sociological studies, reportages and historical commentaries put together. Of course, I risk falling into what the pollsters call “sampling error” and drawing conclusions wildly out of sync with the whole; but despite the blinkered horizons of personal experience, I have the advantage of irreducibility: I know that what I’ve seen with my own eyes really does exist, while “the whole,” an illusion conjured up with words, may not.

So here are a few details I noticed today on my way to the café. In the steep spiral staircase that leads from my friend’s apartment to the street (the stairs, made of concrete, are of uneven height), a child was screaming. Last month this same child, or another, screamed for hours on end, piteously and implacably; but lately he’s been much calmer, so today was a reversion to the bad old days. At the bottom of the stairs I greeted a large-waisted matron, wrapped in a bundle of assorted fabrics, who was leaving her apartment with a tray of freshly kneaded dough on her way to the public oven. On the sidewalk outside I saw a tiny boy with a backpack one third his size, on his way home from school; a knot of customers outside a shop that sells basic staples (eggs, flour, oil, soap, bottled gas) and nothing more; and grains of wheat spread on a metal tray, left in a doorway to dry in the sun. Turning the corner I passed the same dusty yellow buildings I pass every morning (in Fez most buildings are a shade of ochre, just as in Marrakech they are a shade of rose) through a neighborhood that has nothing special about it, being neither a shantytown nor a district of villas—except that it’s home to an unusual number of car mechanics, most of them teenagers, working in primitive garages not one of which is equipped with a hydraulic lift, or any device more sophisticated than a welding torch. As I turned the last corner on my way to the café, threading my way up the alley past cars in various states of repair, an apprentice mechanic ran past me on an errand, taller than his age, gangly limbs flailing.

The café itself is the humblest in the neighborhood, with ten tables outside, another two or three in the dingy interior. Its clients are old and young men with nothing to do, petty officials reading newspapers, mechanics and vendors on their work break, and a couple of neighborhood eccentrics. At first this café depressed me because it seemed like a relic, a place stuck in time; but now I like it for the same reasons. Besides, summer is over and the paralyzing stupor of the sun has changed into something milder: a gentle nostalgia, perhaps, of the sort old men share when reflecting on the surrender of their youthful hopes. Such nostalgia may not have the dynamic ring of “democratic transition” or “sustainable development,” the slogans that are used to build the new Morocco; but it has the virtue of being authentic, and despite its sadness and regret, it is not without charm.

Yahia pointed out that there is a “hard core” in Morocco that feels like its identity is under threat from the changes brought about by modern life. Like all modernizing societies, Morocco is atomizing. Individualism is on the rise, and this threatens the traditional social cohesion based on group identity: family, tribe, and the Islamic community. A minority are prepared to react violently, trying to preserve what is threatened even with force. Yet it’s clear to me that the vast majority, even of tradition-minded people, are on the side of greater openness. They want its benefits and understand its necessity. What needs to follow is a frank discussion among Moroccans about the right balance between traditional identity and a “new Morocco” of individual rights and responsibilities. This conversation, however primitively begun, is already taking place.

One sign of this is the debate between editors Rachid Nini and Ahmed Reza Benchemsi. Nini is the editor of Al Masae, an independent journal which, in the short time it has existed, has leapt ahead of the pack to become Morocco’s most widely read newspaper by far. His opponents call him a populist demagogue, and even most of his supporters would call him a conservative force, a defender of Morocco’s traditional Arab, Islamic identity. Yet he is also known for exposing corruption and abuse of power, and as an advocate for transparent, rational government. From all evidence I would call him a democrat, not an apologist for the way things are. His role is to give Morocco’s “silent majority” a voice in the public forum, and that’s already a plus. Benchemsi is the editor of Nichane and Tel Quel, sister magazines that delight in stirring up controversy, usually by attacking some aspect of Moroccan social conservatism. He is a defender of individual liberty and secularism against the traditional social contract, which is based on Islamic values. He has defended gay rights, prostitution and the legalization of hashish, and has criticized the compulsory nature of the Ramadan fast. At times he seems to take his positions to extremes, as if seeking attention though the most controversial stance. Like Nini, he criticizes the monopolistic nature of the Moroccan state, its arbitrariness and lack of transparency. However, his critics say that he speaks mainly to a small, Westernized elite, since the liberties he defends mean little to Morocco’s impoverished majority, still mired in economic necessity.

Both Nini and Benchemsi have pushed the limits of expression in their respective journals, and both have found themselves in trouble with the law as a result. Both are expanding the bounds of public discourse compared to what went before, and both are reformers and modernizers in their own way. Yet far from being allies, a bitter rivalry has broken out between them, with each attacking the other in his columns with invective and insults. Nini loves to point out that Benchemsi gets a large part of his financial support from foreign investors, and accuses Benchemsi’s project of being fundamentally anti-Moroccan. Benchemsi retorts that Nini plays on the ignorance of his readers, stoking their fears of change into a sort of lynch mob mentality. Indeed, the readers of Nini and Benchemsi seem divided into two camps, and it is rare to find someone who admires and defends them both. However, the point for me is that despite the crudity of the debate—which shows the limits of public discourse in Morocco, and how far it has yet to evolve—the fact that it is happening is a positive sign. Morocco is far from being a fully open society in the sense of the advanced industrial democracies, but it is far from a closed one either. The diversity of views and the passions they arouse are testimony to that.

I was witness to something similar when Yahia and I rode a public bus in Tangier. The bus was half full when we got on, and the driver, an orthodox Muslim with a beard, was playing an Islamic sermon over the radio. Even without knowing the sense of the words, the tone of the imam’s voice struck me as angry, aggressive. The sermon was at full volume, making conversation impossible, so all the passengers were sitting silently. Perhaps some approved, others not; but those who didn’t weren’t saying so. Yahia sat down and opened a novel he had with him, but soon decided to get up and speak to the driver. “This is going to be a long ride, and I can’t deal with this for the next twenty minutes.” He went to the front of the bus and asked the driver to turn off the radio so he could read. The driver disapproved, but said with a smile, “I’ll do it, if you tell me what your book is about when we get to the end of the route.” So we finished the trip in silence, and once the driver had parked the bus and we were the only ones left, he beckoned Yahia to take a seat beside him. “Now tell me about your book.” Yahia had just started reading the novel, so he summarized the action so far. The driver wasn’t impressed and admonished him, “By asking me to turn off the sermon, you may have prevented my passengers from being saved from Satan. What importance can your book have, compared with the Qur’an? You can read all the books you want, but it doesn’t matter if you’re ignorant of the book that matters most, which is the word of God.”

Despite these harsh words, the conversation was friendly, and it went on for several minutes before concluding with smiles and a handshake. But when I asked Yahia to describe it to me in detail, he said it wasn’t worth it. For him it was the same old story: a question of trying to be an individual, with individual interests and tastes, in a society where ideological attachment to Islam is all too common. For him, the bearded driver was simply a representative of a general type that keeps trying to impose its one-sided views on him. But later, with distance, he came to see the exchange in a more positive light. In my view, Yahia’s decision to ask the driver to turn off the sermon was courageous. Others in the bus may have felt the same way, but he was the only one who spoke up. And the driver met him halfway, granting his request but turning it into a friendly challenge, an exchange of ideas. So each got something he wanted, and the most important thing is that the conversation took place at all, in a friendly way. That is the democratic spirit, an exchange of widely diverse views on equal ground. It shows that even if Morocco hasn’t yet found the right balance between traditional values and individual liberty, between its communal past and a more open future, nevertheless it has, within itself, the means to get there.

Not long ago, I wrote an article called “Why Is Morocco Stuck?” in which I blamed Morocco’s lack of progress on two things: “the political and economic system, and the mentality of the people.” This provoked the following exchange with one of my readers, which I think is worth reproducing here.

reader: You’re naive to say it’s the people’s responsibility. Take those magazines that always get slammed illegally but soundly by the authorities. That’s terror against a corporation, and the authorities don’t fear public opinion. So what do you think can happen to individuals put in the same situation? Simply worse.

I won’t say we’re stuck, we’re just slow. Some people just have to bear with it because change is progressive. I think you’re being naive, but also impatient. I believe that if Morocco becomes a lot better in the future, with democracy and clean streets, you probably won’t like it.

eatbees: You mention the dangers involved when individuals speak out, but my point is that people need to take this risk in large numbers, because the authorities can’t use their techniques against millions at the same time. Yet this requires a change in mentality.

For the moment, the majority accepts things the way they are. They’re ruled by “fear and ignorance” as a friend of mine says, and the authorities get their way. But African Americans in the 1950s and 1960s, or those living under communism or third world dictatorships (Chile, Philippines, South Africa…) changed things by no longer accepting the way things were, and the regime was unable to put down this new mentality.

So the situation in Morocco is first of all the responsibility of the authorities, but it’s also the responsibility of the people, because the people accept it—and in many cases, actively collaborate! As a guy I know recently put it, “The mafia is us. We’re all part of the corrupt system in one way or another. It won’t change until we change ourselves.”

I don’t know why you say, “If Morocco becomes a lot better in the future, with democracy and clean streets, you probably won’t like it.” If a traditional beach is destroyed to put in fancy apartments and cafés for the rich (and launder their money from trafficking) then it’s true I won’t like it. But if Moroccans are able to choose their own leaders and plan their own destiny, and this results in cleaner streets, better schools and a more modern lifestyle, why wouldn’t I like it?

reader: Maybe you don’t say it, but it’s what I think. I can imagine cities after getting modernized, turning to be exactly the same as Casa or Rabat, which you and I dislike.

eatbees: There’s good and bad forms of modernization. Casa has its good points and bad points. What I like there is the freedom there, and the autonomous culture among young people. What I don’t like is the chaos, pollution and lack of planning.

Too often in Morocco, modernization is what I call “bastard modernization,” which is either bricolage to serve the needs of the moment, with no thought to sustainability; or projects designed to enrich the interests of well-positioned individuals without serving the needs of the people from the bottom up.

Maybe any developing nation has to start this way. I guess the U.S. began with bricolage too, and evolved its ideas of citizenship and humanistic development later. But there have been so many theorists studying how to integrate economic development with concerns for the environment, sustainability, local tastes, and a healthy quality of life. What I’d love to see in Morocco is development driven by the choices of citizens, aided by experts, and designed for high quality over the long term. I don’t think that would turn out like Casa today!

I’ve seen old friends, made new friends and acquaintances, and met a wide range of people, progressive and conservative, rich and poor, young and old. These include a journalist, activist and social critic who works in educational administration; two computer wizards who have proven it is possible in Morocco to support themselves through freelance web design and programming; a young sociology student with an interest in Morocco’s history and rural traditions; an urban family of very modest means whose hope is that their daughters will find economic stability in marriage, and their sons through jobs with the state; a collection of young teachers from different parts of Morocco who share a house in the town where they teach; a family of kif growers that includes a professional singer of rai, a style of popular music; a deaf-mute who helps support his family by ferrying visitors across the lake in his rowboat; a divorced mother of two who works in the civil service and has a profound interest in Gnawa, Sufism and Islamic spirituality; a designer of hotel and club interiors who was fed up with his employers and decided to strike out on his own; a young woman recently returned to Morocco from Québec because she sees a chance to apply her marketing experience here; a collection of activists from the youth wing of the USFP, Morocco’s largest socialist party; a young blogger and Gnawa musician who aspires to a career in journalism; an independent-minded young woman whose ambition is to help her friend launch his web hosting business; a Dutch businessman converted to Islam who is in Morocco to oversee a project that will provide water to the desert by pulling it out of the air through condensation; a middle school art teacher with ambitions to transform the public spaces of his city into open air art exhibitions in which anyone can participate; a young poet and journalist who makes his living by laying out pages for local newspapers; and a teenage mechanic who is struggling to steer his life in a positive direction despite the poverty and hardship in which he was raised.

I think such a wide range of contacts in six weeks reveals Morocco’s essentially open character. It’s easy to make friends here, and follow a thread from one experience to another until one arrives in unexpected situations. Usually but not always, these are pleasant; and often it’s the worst-off Moroccans who are most willing to show a stranger their best face. In any case, I didn’t come to Morocco with an agenda to meet with members of groups X, Y or Z. It happened spontaneously, so it is in no way a “study” in the sociological sense; it is simply the sum of those encounters which I, one wandering human, have stumbled upon out of curiosity, or while following my personal tastes and interests.

In Morocco I feel like I’m constantly voyaging from one microcosm to another, and most of them are unaware of the rest. Morocco’s very diversity ensures that any “study,” or attempt to sum up life here in a few words, will fall flat. For example, Morocco has people with high levels of professional skill who regularly travel abroad, and take the latest conveniences for granted in the same way that we do in the West. At the same time, Morocco has people who live in desperate poverty while struggling for every scrap; and such a life carries the same risks it does everywhere in the world, such as drugs, prostitution and violence. But to take this to another level, even the struggle between the two worlds of wealth and poverty, power and powerlessness fails to describe Morocco, because most people fall between the two extremes; and in any event, people’s lives turn on other axes besides the axis of wealth and poverty, such as the axes of tradition and modernity, family loyalty, or personal ambitions and tastes. In the end, the only thing that can be said for sure about Morocco is that it is a nation of contrasts. For every claim one can make about it, it’s possible to find a contradictory case.

All this is really a long lead-in to a retraction of sorts. When I returned to Morocco six weeks ago after an absence of three years, the first thing that struck me was that nothing has changed; and for a while I was fixated on the political, economic and social reasons for this blockage in development. In fact, I was saddened enough by the lack of progress to wonder if perhaps Morocco was no longer for me. Why would I, an American with independent means who could live anywhere in the world, invest emotionally in a country that feels stuck in the habits of the past? When Spain freed itself from dictatorship after the death of General Franco, the new era of democracy that followed brought with it a flowering of commerce and culture that has transformed the social landscape over 35 years. Similar changes are occuring in Eastern Europe, Brazil, Mexico and Turkey; but Morocco feels like it will wait another twenty years for such changes to even begin. Nevertheless, while I’d certainly like to see Morocco reach the level of prosperity, self-confidence and individual expression so visible in Spain today, I have to retract my previous judgment that nothing has changed. Morocco is indeed changing; and to be honest, even my poorest friends have seen some improvement in their lives over the past few years. One got a job as a teacher that allows him to live independently and support his family; another moved with his family to a larger apartment in a better neighborhood, where they no longer have to fear the local thugs. Those who already had a comfortable home may have added a computer or a washing machine while I was away. There are more cars on the streets, better products in the stores. Change may not occur at the pace we want or expect, but there is an inevitability to growth or development, and Morocco won’t be left out.

A recent poll by the Moroccan magazine Nichane, conducted jointly with the French newspaper Le Monde, asked Moroccans to rate the performance of King Mohammed VI after ten years on the throne. 91% of respondents said they were either highly or moderately satisfied, while only 9% gave him negative marks. My first reaction was that this figure is surely too high, since world leaders like Obama or Sarkozy never achieve such numbers. Clearly some respondents were less than honest, fearing that a negative view of the king would get them in trouble. But 91% is an impressive figure, and I was sure it would be trumpeted by the palace. Instead, the opposite happened, and the issue of Nichane in which the poll appeared was pulled from the stands under state order. Apparently the role of the king is so far beyond debate, that it is unacceptable for Moroccans to judge him even positively! Despite this paradox, I have to admit that I share the poll’s conclusion. On balance, the lives of Moroccans are improving in tangible ways, however slowly.