Headed to Chauen; re-routed into politics

As part of my effort to meet Moroccan veterans of the Spanish Civil War, I set up an appointment a couple weeks ago with the representative of the Association Nationale des Anciens Combattants (ANAC) in the beautiful blue northern town of Chauen. Little did I know that my interaction with him would end up being a lesson on the Moroccan political environment.

Here’s what happened: on the agreed-upon morning, my friend and translator, Osama, and I caught a grand taxi from Tetouan to Chauen. We called the ANAC contact – let’s refer to him as Hamid – as we approached town, and he told us where to wait for him. He was a bit late; we loitered about in the sun outside of what looked to be an official building of some variety. After a few minutes, a security guard came over and asked what we were up to. Osama responded – and I wish I knew what he said because shortly thereafter two men in suits emerged from the building to chat with us. What’s going on? Who are you? Their tone was bland, not terribly suspicious or hostile. I handed over my attestation from MACECE, which explains that I’m a researcher working on l’histoire des Catholiques et les Musulmans au Maroc des Années 1930, as well as my residency card, and the men disappeared back inside the building with them.

Hamid showed up then, accompanied by another man, whom he introduced as the neighbor of a 108 year-old Moroccan veteran. He was going to take us to the veteran’s house for the interview. The veteran knew we were coming and was looking forward to talking.

While we stood around getting acquainted, Hamid flagged down a woman he knew who was walking out of the official-looking building complex. It turned out that she was the daughter of a Moroccan veteran in the Spanish Civil War, and she was thrilled to hear about my research, inviting Osama and I over to her house any time. Any time! Even just for a visit! Nothing to do with veterans! You are welcome!

It was in the midst of this effusiveness that the pair of suits returned. With the same benign demeanor, they gave me back the attestation and residency card and announced that in order to interview veterans I would need explicit permission from the Moroccan Department of the Interior.

Now, I’ve had a hang-up or two before because my attestation doesn’t refer to working with veterans, but I’ve always been able to wiggle past it. This pronouncement, however, clearly had an effect on my little group. There would be no wiggling, no visiting the 108 year-old veteran. We went out for tea instead.

The secret police are everywhere, Hamid shrugged. You know the shoe shiners and the crazy-men beggars on the street? Secret police. They definitely knew you were coming and intercepted you.

Osama too: Somos los profesores del Mossad – we (Morocco) are the teachers of Mossad, he said, referring to the renowned Israeli secret service. According to him, there are still a huge number of Moroccan Jewish immigrants serving in its ranks.

But it’s okay! No need to worry! All I have to do is go to the American embassy and get them to secure permission from the Department of the Interior. The American embassy can do anything, they assured me. I didn’t have the heart or the energy to explain that, beyond being a U.S. citizen, I really have nothing to do with the embassy, that I certainly don’t have the sway to get them to intervene on my behalf and that, furthermore, the embassy couldn’t do anything anyway.

Upon returning to Tetouan, I consulted with my program directors in Rabat to see what steps we could take to smooth the interview pathway. As I suspected, there’s nothing doing on the Department of the Interior front. I still haven’t received official clearance for my original project proposal, sans veterans, and that was requested well over a year ago. (Lack of clearance is totally normal, by the way: I remember a director saying during our orientation last summer in Washington DC that most of us probably wouldn’t get government clearance before we finished our grants.)

The directors did, however, draw me up a new attestation, clarifying that my research involves interviews with Moroccan veterans in the northern region of the country. I figured that would be sufficient, that all I really needed was an official-looking document to wave in someone’s face. Maybe I’d even get it stamped up by a notary. Moroccan bureaucracy is all about stamps: the more you have, the more legitimate you are.

But then, when I was in Rabat a couple days ago, I received a funny phone message. It was in English, something along the lines of: This is the immigration office; when you have time please call us back at the immigration office at the police station. Ummmm. Hm. What immigration office? Where? How do they have my phone number? How did they know to speak in English?

Fortunately, I was going by MACECE that afternoon and was able to consult with two of the directors there. We decided that the message was strange but that there was nothing to be done, given that the person left no indication of how to get back in touch with him. Then we discussed my research predicament. My take on it was that someone’s curiosity had been aroused after that security guard came out to check on Osama and I, not that the government somehow knew I was going to Chauen and intercepted me before I could conduct the interview. The directors agreed that that sounded plausible, but we thought it’d be a good idea to touch base with Hamid, the contact in Chauen.

Hanging up the phone on his conversation with Hamid, the Moroccan director shrugged and shook his head: “He used the word mukhabarat,” he said and effectively brought deliberations to a close.

The Arabic term mukhabarat refers to secret police agencies, and, as journalist Neil MacFarquhar puts it in his insightful book “The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You a Happy Birthday,” they “are a powerful and ubiquitous force in every Middle Eastern country.” Reformers that he talked to across the region described the role of the mukhabarat “with their octopus-like reach, as perhaps the most significant hindrance to bringing change” (181).

Before we start getting melodramatic or paranoid here, though, let’s remember that just because Hamid identified the men in suits as secret police, it doesn’t mean that they actually were. Indeed, what I find most interesting here is that simple fact that he did pinpoint them as such. What does it tell us about the Moroccan politicalscape that he immediately assumed a mukhabarat intervention?

To begin with, it says something about political history. Hamid’s an older man, and for much of his life, he’s lived under a tightly run monarchy in which the secret police had immense power. As Cath’s research on Morocco’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission attests, the “years of lead” under previous king Hassan II were a frightening time, marked by constant surveillance of the populace, too-frequent political disappearances, arbitrary imprisonment, and torture. For thirty-some years, from the 1960s through the 1980s, a police state was the order of the day. Hassan II began introducing reforms in the early 1990s, however, and these especially picked up with his death and the inauguration of his son, current king Mohamed VI, in 1999.

We can also see in Hamid’s comments the effects of this political opening: he did make them in a very public space, after all. It seems safe to say, then, that the current state of affairs is pretty free. As one of my directors observed in response to the situation, “This is not the Morocco that we know.” Talking to my young Arabic teacher about the series of events, her surprise was evident; she clearly doesn’t think of her government as one that would interfere with the work of a young American researcher.

And yet, something is going on. The “immigration office” called me back the next day, and the man on the phone wanted to know if I could come by the police station in Fez. I am the girl researching l’histoire des Catholiques et les Musulmans, right? Yessssss. This person definitely has a copy of my residency card, which lists me as a resident of Fez, as well as my attestation. I told him it would be best if he called my administration in Rabat and haven’t heard any further news since then.

What to make of this active interest in my work? The interpretation of another director may shed light on the question, while highlighting the political limitations that still exist within Morocco. She suggested that the hang-up could be with the phrasing on my attestation, namely, that I’m studying the relationship between Christians and Muslims. That my focus is historical doesn’t matter; the police read the word “Catholics” and a red flag immediately goes up.

See, there’s three topics you’re not allowed to touch in Morocco: God, King, and Country. King means Mohamed VI and the whole makzhen, or what MacFarquhar calls “the interlocking powers of the monarchy, the security services, and the ruling elite” (208). He also points out that Morocco goes further than most other states in the region by constitutionally declaring the king, whose lineage traces back to the nephew and son-in-law of the prophet Mohamed, as sacred and the “prince of the faithful” (205).

For just one example of how this policy of inviolability plays out, we can turn to August 2009 and the banning of the weekly editions of “TelQuel” and “Nichane,” sister magazines published in French and Arabic, respectively. These particular editions contained a problematic poll, so deemed because it took stock of the king’s popularity amongst Moroccan citizens. Although M6 (as the “cool,” jet skiing ruler is sometimes called by affectionate subjects) emerged with a 91% approval rating that any American president would envy, the idea that the Moroccan populace could pass judgment on the monarchy was unacceptable.

Morocco often carries the distinction of having the freest press in the North Africa/Middle East region, but it’s all relative. Just two weeks ago the public found out that, “following a long-running advertiser boycott led by the royally-owned ONA Holding Group, Nichane is shutting its doors once and for all, unable to remain afloat without advertising” (Jillian C. York, “Morocco: Another Magazine Bites the Dust”).

As for the topic of Country, a blunder by the Morocco McDonalds franchise in December 2008 nicely underscores the sensitivity surrounding it. The Moroccan subsidiary of the fast food chain had distributed a Happy Meal toy that included an “incorrect” map of the country, that is, it represented the Western Sahara as separate from Morocco.

According to the United Nations, this sparsely populated, desert region to the south of Morocco is a “non-self-governing territory.” According to Morocco, it’s Morocco. In practical terms, people are fighting over it: the Moroccan government (generally with the support of Moroccan citizens) vs. POLISARIO, an independence movement backed by the Algerian government (hence the strained relations and closed border between neighboring Morocco and Algeria). Perhaps because the struggle dates back to the days of colonialism and Morocco’s “reclamation” of the territory from Spanish occupation, the issue has come to stand for sovereignty and legitimacy. Kind of a big deal. Let’s just say that McDonalds apologized profusely and withdrew the offending Happy Meal map.

The third point of our Triumvirate of Untouchables is God. Meaning: Islam. Not only is it constitutionally the state religion, its primacy is further enshrined in various laws. For example, a foreign man interested in marrying a Muslim Moroccan woman must first convert to Islam (foreign women don’t need to convert because the religion is passed down to children through the father).

And, although freedom of religion is guaranteed by the constitution, there are strict laws against proselytizing. Just this past March, the government expelled twenty-some foreigners accused of working as missionaries. Islam is not to be criticized or superseded by another religion, nor are Muslims to be tempted away from it. In other words: probably not the best idea for me to run around waving an attestation that has the phrase Catholiques et musulmans smack dab in the middle of it.

We still don’t know that this description was the problem; it could just be a bureaucratic hang-up. I actually haven’t heard anything from either the police department or MACECE in the last couple days. But hey, no news is good news, right? I mean, Rod would be incredibly jealous if I got deported and he missed out on the excitement, but I think I’d like to stick to my scheduled departure date, thank you very much. It’s probably nothing anyway – mainly just frustrating that, for all the progress the country has made, a sympathetic researcher can still get caught up in the sensitive crosshairs of the political system, and a shame that what's being lost in the process is a piece of Morocco's own history.