The King’s City and the many Moroccos

Shortly after returning home from Morocco last week, I chatted with a fellow professor who had visited me in North Africa. During our conversation he gushed about the city of Rabat and expressed shock that so many tourists ignore the Moroccan capital in favor of the touristy Marrakesh, historic Fez, or Bohemian Chefchaouen. After spending five weeks living in Rabat’s historic medina, I agreed with much of what he said. The city’s streets are clean and often lined with neatly pruned trees. Throughout the city one can find museums, malls, parks, and gardens not to mention beaches, fortresses, and Roman ruins. In some respects Rabat has a little something for everyone. Murals graced buildings throughout Rabat reflecting an artistic flare found in parts of the city. After a couple days in Rabat, I began telling friends and family that Rabat was the cleanest Arab city I had ever visited with the possible exception of Dubai (in many respects, Rabat felt much more authentically Arab than Dubai).

A conversation with another professor revealed a very different and equally valid take on Rabat. According to him the city was mutasana’ah in other words “fake or artificial.” This professor of Arabic overseeing a study abroad program for about 40 American students rightfully griped about having to live above a Krispy Kreme and across the street from a McDonalds and Starbucks. In his view, the fancy malls and shops in Rabat cater to the Western tastes of the upper classes and the large foreign community living in Rabat rather than your average Moroccan. He’s not wrong and in discussing Rabat with others it was clear that the Moroccan King Mohammed VI wanted the city to be a reflection of himself and his power. In the city’s Agdal neighborhood, a massive football stadium is under construction across the street from a modern mall. Another development project across from the Badr Mosque redirects traffic in the same neighborhood. To the south of Agdal, the Ibn Sina Hospital dominates the skyline, when it is completed it will be the largest hospital in Africa. When discussing Rabat, many Moroccans were quick to express the significance of Rabat as reflection of both the King and Morocco to the outside world. In this context the King’s City represents just one of the many Moroccos that comprise the country and shape the simmering tensions underneath the surface.

Roughly three weeks ago, hundreds of Moroccans in the southern city of Agadir protested against corruption and insufficient spending on health, education, and other social services. In the following days the protests would spread throughout Morocco, especially in its southern and eastern provinces, which are much less developed. The online group GenZ 212 began organizing the protests in response to the alleged deaths of eight pregnant women at the same hospital over a period of a month while the Moroccan government spent lavishly on new football stadiums in preparation for the 2030 World Cup, which Morocco is co-hosting with Spain and Portugal. The government crackdown on the protests, which resulted in more than 500 arrests and at least three deaths, has failed to quell them. These protests are products of the generational, class, and geographic divisions of the country. As they reflect various points of identification there are many avenues toward support for the protests.

The generational divide is the largest of Morocco’s divisions and most the most pronounced in these protests. In my brief time in Morocco this divide was quite apparent. Many younger Moroccans I spoke with expressed frustration with the Moroccan education system. Specifically, they spoke with a certain degree of disdain toward having to learn the French language. In their opinion, there were several drawbacks to having to learn French. The biggest being that French provides very few future work and educational opportunities compared to English and even Spanish. Among the complaints were that French was a more difficult language to learn and that French was associated with racism and colonialism. For many older Moroccans the French legacy and learning the language was more nuanced. They acknowledge the negative aspects of France’s colonial legacy but also have seen more benefits from having learned French. Moroccans comprise the second largest immigrant community in France, which many older Moroccans having lived for a period in France or having a close relative currently living in France.

Bab al-Had, Rabat Medina

Morocco is currently experiencing what demographers call a “youth bulge” with roughly half the population under the age of thirty. Like their Arab Spring counterparts, Moroccans in their late teens and twenties experience much less stability than those in their forties and fifties. In Morocco, Gen Z experiences higher rates of unemployment than other generations are currently. According to the World Bank youth unemployment in Morocco has hovered around 22 percent for much of the last decade compared with 13 percent for general population. Moroccans who had obtained a college education fared even worse than those without. Some in the younger generation are also expressing solidarity with Palestinians and calling for a re-evaluation of the country’s relations with Israel.

Talking to Moroccans it is easy to a sense of the generational divide in Moroccan but driving across Morocco the contrast between urban and rural areas especially in the eastern interior and the south is stark. Morocco major cities, like Casablanca, Tangier, Rabat, Marrakesh, etc. are all connected by a network of modern four lane highways. These highways are all well-maintained toll roads devoid of potholes and monitored by radar cameras. If you venture into the desert, Atlas, or Rif Mountains you’ll surely find narrow two-lane country roads with speed traps around just about every turn in the road. Travel just takes longer in these regions. The infrastructure often appears neglected from the outside. It is a far cry from the creature comforts of Rabat. It also tells a story about the population that lives in the towns.

The gulf between urban and rural Morocco can approach staggering levels. Both poverty and literacy rates lag behind those in Morocco’s cities. According to one survey, more than half of those living in rural communities consider themselves poor. Many children in rural communities do not attend school due the long distances they must walk because there are no public transit options. This is particularly true of girls, who are at increased risk of sexual assault if they travel alone in rural areas. It is not uncommon to see Moroccans hitch-hiking or walking along lonely roads kilometers from anywhere. After driving to the desert town of Merzouga, it is easy to understand the frustration of the average Moroccan villager given the chasm that still exists between them and the inhabitants of Rabat or other cities.

It is natural that many Moroccans would look at a city like Rabat, with its malls, gardens, and football stadiums, and conclude that this city and others like are vanity projects for the king and cronies. After all the king has palaces in Tetouan, Fez, and Meknes among other cities but he doesn’t have palaces in the mountain villages and desert oases. Cities like Rabat provide Moroccans a glimpse of what some may term “modern life” while also representing the inequities that create many Moroccos.

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