Stories of Abdelsalem

The Rifi

The people of the Rif are sometimes referred to as “the second Germans” by the sophisticated city- dwelling Fassis. The Rif has a sordid, yet, proud tradition of resistance. In the struggle for Spanish control guerilla armies combined and protected the usually feuding tribes of the Rif. The small, underdeveloped tribes of the Rif were able to defeat entire Spanish armies, as late as the 1920’s as a result of their intimate knowledge of their terrain, and its inaccessibility to foreign troops. They set up their own state, which ruled relatively autonomously, although it was soon defeated as the French and Spanish combined forces. Eventually, as the Moroccans repelled the French and a new government was set up, using the old monarchy, the Rifi found themselves rebelling again. This time against the Arabs who took over and did not provide any governmental representation to the Rif peoples, this rebellion was only put down with the force of over half of the Moroccan army and a diplomatic visit by the crowned prince. Today the rif is still a place of popular dissent as it took much later for them to receive modern technological and infrastructural developments. The Rif people speak their own dialect of the Berber language Tamazight, called Rifia in Arabic. The history of the Rif, and the character of it’s culture leaves them with the stereotype of hotheaded hicks. The modern Rif are known for three things, their hashish, their kif and their guns, not things that any Rifi would be proud of.
In an attempt to explain the word fake, Abdelselam’s story-filled mind jumped right to the Rif.

“A couple of years ago, out in the Rif, a group of men decided to make a deal with some Germans. These Germans had come to the Rif looking to buy some Hashish to bring back to Germany and sell. They went to one of the most important drug peddlers in the area and asked for a ton of hashish.”
“A ton?” I retorted, he had said the word in English, apparently it is the same, still, a ton.
“Ieewa, a ton. A lot of kilos,” he replied chuckling, either at the absurdity of the story or my skeptical face. “So, the Rifi said “okay” and they set a date when the Germans would return and they would make the deal, god willing. The Germans came back and a successful deal was made and they took their hash back to Germany. But the devious Rifi, they had tricked the Germans, instead of giving them the Hashish they wanted, the Germans found a ton of henna, a much less desired or expensive commodity. So the Rifi, in their joy after tricking the Germans went to the bank to use the money they received from the Germans, they were promptly arrested, for the Germans had given them counterfeit, fake, German currency. They complained, “but it was from the Germans, it is them who is responsible” to no avail. The Germans soon returned to complain about the bad stock they had been given, only to be quickly arrested by the Moroccan authorities. Each group went to jail, and are still spending their days side by side in the same jail.” He guffawed his way through the last three sentences, his laughs with their audible undertone -those ignorant Germans and Rifi, how stupid could you be?.

“One Franc in Business is Better than 1000 Francs in Wages”

My book for colloquial Moroccan Arabic goes through a series of everyday encounters that I am expected to have in morocco and uses dialogues to teach me the important vocabulary for each one. This particular chapter was about bargaining, my adverse feelings toward the subject prefer the word haggling, it’s more deviant that way. So, we spent about 3 classes talking about haggling and the Moroccan economy, and Abdelselam spit out this Moroccan proverb; “One Franc in Buisness is Better than 1000 Francs in Wages,” he does this often, and I usually don’t understand them, but this time he wouldn’t just explain it and decided that I had to go ask a Moroccan about it and I had to write a composition about its meaning. Talk to a real Moroccan? Who does that?
I put it off and realized the morning before class that I still hadn’t talked to a Moroccan. I quickly scribbled my interpretation of the proverb. Implying that it is important to keep money in business and not just keep it for one person, that way the economy can grow and become more robust, I was throwing out my best colloquial vocabulary at this point, making it sound logical and understood. After reading it in class he looked at me and said no, you are wrong. I had realized this before as my interpretation read like a western capitalists wet dream rather than an ancient Moroccan proverb. So, instead of getting to the topic of me not doing my homework correctly, I asked him for the history of the proverb, he didn’t mind jumping into storytime.
“The proverb is from the Jews, they have a special kind of intelligence,” he started. I thought, “I know where this is going.”
“The Jewish Arabs from a long time ago were traveling salesmen, they went by foot, either walking or by animal across the desert often, back and forth across the Arab world, trading and accumulating wealth, or not. They linked the arab world together, and thus, their proverb is pertinent to our discussion. They would journey across Africa, taking about two years from Morocco to the Saudi peninsula exchanging goods and stories along the way. Through their dangerous experiences they helped shape the economic relationships that are still in play today, creating and assisting the development of one unified Arab culture.“ He continued.
“Yeah, okay, but why is that important according to the proverb?” I questioned.
“Oh yeah, the proverb, the Jews discovered a certain type of intelligence. They have their own economy, and there is no director of their economy. As a result they have freedom and great responsibility. But it helped them develop this basic intelligence.”’
“I don’t understand.” My ever-ready expression of incomprehension slipped off my tongue.
“Do you prefer slavery or freedom?” He retorted, unforgiving of my blindness.
“Freedom, of course.” I slowly replied, not knowing if that was the right answer.
“Yes, well that’s what I am talking about.” Where did that come from? “A salaried job, work in a factory, work for a wage, is the work of animals. They are slaves of their employers. This is under the responsibility and the ability of man, he is not the slave of a watch, the slave of time, he has the basic intelligence to do more than that. The proverb is about having the freedom to participate in the economy for oneself it is about the freedom to work for oneself.”
“ Ahhh, fehimt,” I replied in understanding, “Freedom is a beautiful thing.”

The Cage of People

This story started out with another proverb, well it might have been on that Abdelselam made up, but it was an interesting discussion regardless. We were talking about traveling, another section of my workbook and he spouted out, “Travelling is the key to the cage of people.” What? I thought. Firstly, I didn’t know the word cage, but still after it’s explanation, the cage of people?
“When we are born, we are like computers, that have not yet been programmed, we are just empty and waiting to be filled up. For example, when you were born, did you have a choice of your parents?” He starts out.
“Umm, no. We don’t have a choice of our parents.” I cautiously replied.
He wrote parents on the board and drew a circle under it.
“We have no choice over our parents, and they can tell us whatever they want about the world. When we are at the age of entrance to school (there is a special word for that in Arabic), do we have a choice about our education?”
“No, we don’t have a choice of our education.”
“When your nose splits do you have a choice of your religion?”
“Nose splits?”
“When you reach the age of puberty your nose splits into two parts, Do you have a choice in your religion at that age?”
“No not generally”
“No, you do not have a choice in religion, repeat.” He wanted me to use the word for choice, so I would remember it.
“No I do not have a choice in my religion.”
“When you reach the age of adulthood, 21 or 13 years, depending on your culture, do you have a choice in your society?” Again I responded with a no. “All of these things make up the cage of people.” This whole time he had been making a diagram on the board, placing each influence at the cardinal arrows of a compass, and I was scribbling incessantly trying to copy it all down, like it were an urban geography lecture. “ And in addition to this we have between your parents and society, your culture developing, between society and education we have customs and traditions, between education and religion we have habits and between religion and parents we have relationships. All of these combined create ones cage. Each country has their own cage and we say that traveling is the key to the cage of people.”
“Okay I understand now,” I confirmed as he started in on a new diagram on the board, it was with two people inside a circle, one right-side up and one upside down, it looked like a yin-yang of stick figures. I copied it into my notebook, as if it were the most important thing I had ever seen. “ When we are in a foreign country, traveling, we are turned upside down. Am I the foreigner or are you?” He left the discussion abruptly with his rhetorical question and I nodded and smiled, letting him know that I understood, and appreciated his storytelling style. I often nod and smile and he often reciprocates when he appreciates my responses to his questions, or my ideas, repeating his favorite phrase, “Andik al Huq” “You have thruth”

Abdelselam and I have an interesting relationship, where we attempt to glean as much information from one another as possible. I have never before felt the kind of mutual respect that we experience in the classroom with a teacher figure. His attempt to make me use the Arabic language by discussion interesting topics has shifted to a clear interest in my perceptions, my interpretation and my experience of the world, and I reciprocate wholly, often sitting in silence attempting to find the best wording to question him on his experience and viewpoint of Morocco. I sometimes portray him as an unlearned arab, but that is not my attempt, he is a rather foolish old man who loves to learn and examine the world around him, always coming up with the truth in a way that I hadn’t previously thought of something. Today, in response to the traveling discussion he asked me to write a description of foreigners in other countries, their advantages and disadvantages, and my opinions. I went at it from an economic and cultural standpoint, saying that because of our money and our technology we have a lot of power as tourists to influence and change the culture of the place we are visiting, and including that this is mostly a bad thing when the culture starts to move toward one unified culture of the world, forgetting our diversity in order to gain economic prosperity and that as a result of this, we cannot fully analyze our own culture because we lack perspective. He replied, “andik al-huq” and asked me to ask him five questions about the topic. I asked on his opinion about travelers, do they change the society? Is it life better with the foreign funds? He said two things that really stuck with me. First, was that he questioned better or worse, saying that it was a pointless way to think about things, we judge better or worse on our current state of happiness, and that it is impossible to compare cultures or two different time periods on a scale of joy, I responded jokingly that there are questionnaires and studies that research these things, he said they are trash, and a way to live in the past. The second was more serious, he talked about violence, and how the biggest problem with modern culture is violence within the people. He sees little respect in Moroccans, most of them not willing to give a seat on the bus to the elderly, and most of them ready and willing to get in a fight at moments notice. I agree. I have seen more fist fights in Morocco than I have seen in my entire life, probably one a week, where young men, with nothing better to do get in scrapes about nothing, He said women and children and mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters are all violent, it is now the way of life. I asked him if we could change that? He said no.