Category Archives: Personal

Nostalgia, Excuses, and Starting Over

I began eatbees blog at the end of 2006, after returning to the U.S. from three years in Morocco. At the time, since I had friends in both places, I felt that I might be able to serve as a bridge between the two cultures, “Western” and “Arab-Islamic,” that were too often (and still are) portrayed as incompatible or even at war. I wanted my friends in the U.S. to know that Arab and Muslim youth aspire to democracy, personal dignity, freedom of thought and self-expression just as we do. Equally important, I wanted my friends back in Morocco to keep the faith that despite outward appearances (these were the worst of the Bush years) we in the West hadn’t abandoned these ideals.

I wanted my blog to show that conversation was possible, something I knew from the many rich discussions I’d had about politics, religion, and culture during my time in Morocco. It was an experiment, and during its heyday, 2007–2009, it proved to be a great success. Thanks to the many new friends I made as a blogger, often young Moroccans (or Tunisians, Egyptians, Syrians, Iranians…) who were blogging themselves, we tackled subjects like whether Islam can act as a progressive and democratic force, whether traditional identity is compatible with modern ideas of individual rights, and how (even then, four years before the Arab Spring) internet activism can enable young people to engage in critical thinking and challenge the “red lines” of the authoritarian state. I deeply appreciate the exchanges we had then, in which a community formed that supported and enriched each others’ efforts. Quite often, a theme raised on one blog would be taken up and expanded on other blogs in a web of interconnected commentary and debate. Many of the people I met then, online, ended up becoming friends in the real world when I returned to Morocco in 2009. But for all its richness, that era died out — and since those days, I’ve struggled to feel the same motivation for blogging I felt then.

One thing that happened is that many of my friends from that era simply stopped blogging, and they’ve stopped coming here to comment on new pieces I write. Their blogs are either updated so rarely as to have gone into a coma, or they’ve disappeared altogether. Of course, I’m as responsible for this failure as anyone, as a glance at my archives will show — my blogging has slowed dramatically in the past three or four years. Another problem, which isn’t really a problem at all, is that events have caught up with us, and leaped beyond us. Instead of merely speculating about the possibility of change in the Arab world, now we are living it, with upheavals in many countries that are far more dramatic than anything we could have imagined in 2007. Journalists also cover the Arab world very differently today. It’s no longer just about the way the Middle East impacts the security of Western states (though it’s still too much about that) — the media have finally figured out that history can be made in the Arab world, by and for Arabs, just like in Latin America, Asia, or anywhere else. So what we were trying to do as bloggers is maybe less necessary now. People no longer need to be persuaded of what we were saying, because those who went into the streets took it out of our hands. Certainly it’s out of my hands as a Western observer — and in the hands of Egyptians, Tunisians, Libyans, Syrians, and all the rest.

Another point I want to make is that as a blogger, at a certain point one has to make a decision. Either one is going to “turn pro,” become an “authority,” or keep doing what one is doing as a purely personal venture. Nearly all of the bloggers I follow regularly now are the ones who’ve gone pro. Either they are working journalists who keep blogs as part of their work, or they are academics who follow social, political, and economic trends regularly and in depth. A few are activists who’ve made a name for themselves, and made the leap to being full-time policy voices. I might, at some point, have had my own chance to “turn pro” — but if there’s anything I’ve been consistent about throughout my life, it’s that I’m not an expert on anything — especially not a place as rich and complex as Morocco, where I wasn’t born and raised, and don’t have any kind of special insider knowledge. As a teenager I used to hate “experts” who set themselves up to talk about the very things they know least about. In the field of Arab or Islamic culture, such people are called Orientalists — and I’m damned if I’m going to Orientalize my time in Morocco, because Morocco is not my sphere of expertise, it’s my everyday life, and these are my friends. So, paradoxically, since returning to Fez in 2009, I’ve found it harder to talk about Morocco than when I was away, because it’s too real, too intimate, and too mundane. If I see kids with smart phones in the local café, does that mean there’s an “emerging Moroccan middle class”? If I see a street protest, does that mean “Moroccans are losing their fear”? I’ll leave that to the objectifiers, the specialists, the “experts” real and imagined. This blog will have to remain personal, if it is to continue to exist at all.

That said, I apologize for not writing here more often in recent times. I realize I still have friends who come here occasionally to learn what I’m up to, or to discover my thoughts on this or that — and they’re bound to be disappointed if, as is the case now, I haven’t authored a new post in several weeks. For this, I have several excuses. In our era of instant communication, where the world’s news stories are updated online from minute to minute, there are times when I get so caught up in chasing all the latest developments, and examining the new leads, that I have no time left over to write about what I’m reading. Besides, there are others who do that for a living, so if my readers really wanted that information, they could get it for themselves in the same way I do. I’m thinking about events like the new Egyptian constitution that was approved last year in an atmosphere of extreme political tension, or the controversy around the selection of Chuck Hagel as U.S. Secretary of Defense, or the recent elections in Israel and Italy, or the selection of a new Pope, or the Boston Marathon bombing and subsequent hunt for the suspects. When, in the past, I’ve tried to comment on events like these as they happen, I’m often embarassed by what I write just a few days later, because by then the rush of events has made my initial reaction look foolish and incomplete. Perhaps in the future I’ll just throw up a few links to whatever stories I’m reading at the moment, as I’ve seen other bloggers do, without even a word of commentary, and let you, my readers, follow them if you like. It pains me to do this, because I like to explain what I’m thinking, but in this busy world, who has time to stop and explain?

Besides the difficulty of keeping up with events, there are other reasons why I don’t update my blog more often. One is that, obviously, I have a personal life that takes priority. If someone close to me is experiencing pain and difficulty, that takes a toll on me that makes it hard to focus on blogging until the situation is resolved. In a similar vein, if there is happiness around me, my instinct is to jump in and live the moment, rather than set that aside for an abstract pleasure like blogging. Beyond that, I’ve found that I can’t always vent my feelings, be they good or bad, in a public place like this, because they involve other people who may cherish their privacy. So I edit out a good deal when I write here, and I don’t like to do that, because I’m a fairly transparent person by nature. The result is that I stick to abstract subjects like politics that don’t touch me directly, which gives an incomplete picture of what really matters to me. What I care about most are people — people as unique individuals — and this blog began as an effort to reach out to people in new ways. Yet paradoxically, blogging takes me away from the people I care about, or they take me away from the blog. I still haven’t found the right balance between self-exposure, which makes writing real, and the abstraction needed to make what I say matter in a lasting, universal way. Occasionally I feel like I’ve hit the right balance — as in In or Out? which explores my conflicting impulses toward engagement or isolation, or Women: Parasites or Saviors? which asks where misogyny comes from — and these are among my most popular posts. I’d love to do more of this kind of writing, but all I can say is, I’ll try. The flash of inspiration doesn’t always come when I need it, nor do I always have the time.

So where do we go next? For a while, I was thinking of wiping the slate clean. I would take all my old articles offline, and start over with a new look and new themes. The focus would no longer be on current events, but rather on culture and history. Perhaps I would talk about the books that I’m reading, like Paul Bowles’ The Spider’s House, or Khalil and Dimna, a fable from ancient India, or Utopia by Ahmed Tawfik, a nihilist’s view of near-future Egypt. I would talk about the films that I’ve seen lately that interest me, whether old (Heaven’s Gate, Letters from Iwo Jima, The Battle of Algiers) or new (Enter the Void, Road to Nowhere, We Need to Talk About Kevin, Headless Woman). I would talk about the relation between psychology and propaganda, as related in the documentary Century of the Self. I would mention the music I’m listening to, from Carlos Gardel to Fela Kuti to Joy Division, and the trips that I’ve taken, to the Dades Gorge in southern Morocco, or to the Mani Peninsula in Greece. I might throw in a few photos, along with descriptions of where they were taken and what they mean to me. I might even offer some poetry and short fiction. I would describe the researches I’ve done on the reign of Edward II of England, or the White Lotus movement in Yuan dynasty China. (Just recently, a friend asked me if Voltaire had provided “elite justifications” for slavery, and I researched that too, finding to my shock that it’s more true than you might think.) I would write posts that start from nowhere and go nowhere, and expose thoughts that to an outsider must seem arbitrary, chaotic, and fleeting. Above all, eatbees blog would avoid the news of the day, and instead offer a glimpse of my broader enthusiasms, however whimsical and opaque. The blog would take on a new identity, and become something entirely different from what it’s been until now.

On reflection, I decided that I can do all that without wiping the previous blog from existence. It’s one thing to make a fresh start, but I owe it to those who commented here in the old days to keep a record of what we did then. Many of those articles still attract readers, either because they are linked from other sites, or because people find them in web searches. Besides, even if I start anew, there’s no guarantee, despite my best intentions, that I’ll update the blog any more often than I have in the recent past. I’ll still be just as busy as I am now, and as easily distracted — and writing will be just as much work. Better to have a solid foundation, then, of past articles, than start over from zero. If I did wipe the blog clean, the site might remain empty for a long time! If I leave the past work in place, however, and keep plugging away, then over time the tone of the blog will change naturally on its own, and people will see that change for themselves. No reason to get too dramatic about it.

I do want to express here, however, my intention to do something different, and strike off in a new direction. And in this, I hope you will help me. First of all, we have to return to the days when comments were frequent, and the commenters (you) talked to each other. So if you’re out there, even if you’re not the sort of person who normally comments on blogs, please take the time to leave a comment on this post. Maybe you just want to say hi! Maybe you want to give me a push to post here more often — and in that case, the best way to do that is to tell me what you want to hear. Do you want pictures of mountain goats? My poetry translated into Arabic? A list of my favorite rap songs? Stories of paranoia and drug addiction in Reagan’s America? Shocking images of babies thrown from towers into the jaws of crocodiles? An examination of Brahman and Atman and how this relates to Gnostic Christianity? A discussion of dark matter? Links to articles about Fernando Pessoa? Whatever it is, just tell me, and that will be our starting point. Don’t worry, I’m not desperate — I’ll only follow your suggestions if they make sense to me. I already have a life, and I don’t need whatever attention this blog brings. But I do enjoy a good conversation, and I’m curious about you, so I’m leaving the door open to see who walks in. Leave a note!

The Orientalist and the Local

An orientalist (O) in pith helmet, jodspurs, and riding crop, carrying a manual in his hand, tours an eastern city. He meets a local man (L) in traditional dress.

O.  Ah, yes, a local! Where are you from, dear man?

L.  I am from Nablus.

O.  Hmm. (flips through his manual, which contains colored illustrations of traditional dress) Why, no, that’s impossible! You are dressed like a man of Sinai. The natives of Nablus dress thusly. (shows the local his colored plates)

L.  Even so, I am from Nablus.

O.  Then, sir, you are incorrectly attired. Your headdress is wrong, don’t you see? And your belt, it should be black. Either that, or you are a liar.

L.  (a bit heatedly) I should know where I am from!

O.  (turning away) These people are as innocent as children. No logic or reason in their actions. They can’t tell black from white, wouldn’t recognize their own mothers — they are impossible!

Germs and the Self

From today’s New York Times:

    Each person shelters about 100 trillion microbes. (For comparison, the human body is made up of only around 10 trillion cells.)

So we are about ten times more “germs” than we are “us.” Or to put it another way, we are a seething mass of germs held together by a thin tissue of human genetic material.

Jesus was 90% microbes. So were Einstein, Gandhi, and Marilyn Monroe. And no doubt, most of Gandhi’s 100 trillion microbes would have been just as happy living in the intestines, glands and pores of my neighbor Betty Sue.

It seems pretty incredible that we’ve been able to create the works of Shakespeare, or discover distant galaxies in this condition.

Note to Sixteen Year Olds

Have you heard that slogan from the 1960s, “Never trust anyone over thirty”? Well, it’s still true.

Why? Because people over thirty have a stake in the system, and they are more interested in preserving it, than in sharing it with you. Either that, or they have no clue what’s going on, but they need to pretend that they do, in order to preserve their self-respect and get through the day.

Either way, their hands are dirty. They are opposed to idealism because it has failed them, or more exactly, because they have failed it. They have made compromises they want to believe were necessary. “That’s just the way the world is,” they will say. “We do what we can to survive.”

I’m over thirty, so I know what I’m talking about. Of course, you shouldn’t trust me. Trust only yourselves. Until you are thirty, then turn to self-doubt.

Small Disappointments

There was nothing special about the times I grew up in. There were wars far away, and gangs fought each other at home. Crazy people walked the streets, women screamed at their children, and men went hungry sometimes. So I’m not mourning a lost utopia, or a fall from grace. But at least we had hope. We imagined that we could make things better, by doing good for each other. But things just kept getting worse.

How many times I’ve wished that the power of dreams could have saved us! If, while we were sleeping, each of us could have shaped her true world, the world of her imaginings, and if we could have joined these worlds in a federation of dreams, perhaps the waking world would have come to resemble this softened and shadowy landscape. Perhaps the hard edges of life, its brutal realism, its crushing logic of cause and effect, would have loosened, leaving space for miracles. Perhaps we would have surprised ourselves, and found something to wonder at, even while awake. Instead we walk like zombies through a landscape that shapes us, and which we are powerless to shape. Small disappointments crush us, and we’ve lost the will to resist. We’ve lost our connection to each other and ourselves.

Ever since I was little, I’ve been shouted at. My parents, my teachers, my boss. Sometimes the shouting is couched in sounds of politeness, or even in words of love, but it amounts to the same thing. Someone wants something, someone expects something, someone is telling me what to do. Movies, music, and nightclubs offer a temporary way out, but even in these worlds of excitement, the message is the same. Ambition, desire and ego are the word of the day, and the rule of our lives. Then of course there is God, who some people talk about. God is the ultimate ego, and God wants things too.

I remember the man who thought he could write a novel while dying, a never-before-attempted novel about the journey to the other side. He took a bunch of pills and sat down to write, but instead of charting the uncharted, he wrote a handful of rambling phrases before drifting off to sleep. When he realized his mistake and fought to bring himself back, he threw himself out of his chair and died on the floor.

I’ve Been Nominated

Thanks to the generosity of one of my readers, I’ve been nominated for the 2010 Best of Morocco Blog Awards in two categories, best news blog and best overall blog.

Check out the Morocco Blogs website, and vote for me or any of your favorites. At the very least, you’ll discover some great blogs, including several who’ve become my friends over the years.

Morocco Blogs periodically reviews English-language blogs about Morocco, with a sample post from each one. They reviewed my blog here.

When I started in 2006, there were just a handful of bloggers writing about Morocco in English. Now there are culture blogs, travel blogs, personal blogs, blogs about news and politics — both by Moroccans and other by lovers of Morocco.

Voting is open for a whole month, until Feburary 21, and nominations are still open for now as well. Good luck to all the nominees!

Nothing Has Changed


Fez, July 3, 2009. Click image to see a larger version.

If I had to pick a single image to sum up what I’ve seen so far in Morocco, I guess it would have to be this one.

A young man rests on his bicycle, overcome by fatigue or even despair in the middle of his route. People pass by, indifferent, no doubt consumed by their own problems. The nowhere quality of the place just underlines the theme.

Fortunately no nation, culture, or people can be summed up in a single image. However, since I’ve returned to Morocco after being away for three years, I keep hearing the same message from most of my friends. Nothing has changed, and since things were dysfunctional to begin with, that means Morocco is slowly sliding into an abyss of futility and defeat.

A friend in Essaouira who was active in reformist causes, labor activism and investigative journalism has given up writing after suffering personal difficulties and the intense opposition of local authorities.

A friend in Fez who is in his third year of law school lost an entire year of studies after conflicts between students and the administration led to the cancellation of midterm exams.

Other friends have been more fortunate on a personal level, but they still see a society with no middle class, no effective system of public education, no electorate ready to defend its rights, no politicians willing to risk their privileges in the fight for reform, and a state committed to a bread and circuses strategy of keeping the youth entertained with festivals rather than investing in the long-term economic development of the people.

To be honest, I was reluctant to return to Morocco because I thought I might be saddened in this way. Coming from a nation where everything works despite having just suffered a major economic crisis, it’s difficult to undertand a society that remains stuck despite the enormous inventiveness, curiosity, motivation, and native intelligence of the Moroccan people.

When I was here in 2003–2006, there was a feeling that despite all the obstacles of an underdeveloped nation, change was in the air and the future would be brighter. It was easy then for me to explain what I loved about Morocco, a nation reaching for democracy and opportunity while holding to the best of its traditions. Today I have a harder time answering that question.

I’ll have more to say on this later, but for now I pose the question to you, dear readers. Is Morocco stuck, and why?

Travel Update

I’ve been in Morocco for twelve days now, after spending a few days each with friends in Princeton, New Jersey and then Paris. With all this traveling and a series of encounters with people I’d never met before, such as Ayoub and Hisham and Yahia and Adel, I’ve fallen behind on my blogging “responsibilities.” I have a backlog of photos and stories I’d like to share with you, but the sheer fact of the adventures I’ve been having, and the inconvenience of life on the road, have made it difficult to follow through. Still, I expect to begin updating this space “live from Morocco” within the next few days. For now, rest assured that I’m enjoying myself, and I’m in good hands among old and new friends.

No More of This

No more lounging around the house in a leisurely way for me! Today I hit the road, first to visit friends in New York, then on to Paris, and finally Morocco before the end of the month. Watch this space as eatbees blog “goes live” from Morocco and around the world!

Also, best wishes to the Iranian people on today’s presidential election. The current president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is running again, but there is talk that major change is coming. For one thing, women and young people are participating in unpredecented numbers. Go here for an slideshow of the colorful rallies that have taken place in recent weeks, and here for live updates from the ground in Tehran.