To Marrakesh by train - Part 2: Orientalism and the desert of imagination
While I was having the typical internal discussions of a tourist who doesn't want to do too touristy stuff, I also did not want to miss out on the chance of experiencing "the desert", when being so close by.
So, while doing some google research, I read that there are two main areas of sand dunes in Morocco [Note 1]: Erg Chebbi and Erg Chegaga. "Erg" means an area of sand dunes in the desert.
(There is a side-story on the ethymology of "erg" which I will address in another post. )
Both Ergs are close to the border with Algeria, although there are no border crossings in these areas. Erg Chebbi is next to Merzouga, a village in the east of Morocco. Erg Chegaga is south, about 30-40km off road from Mhamid, the last town on the N9, a national road leaving from Marrakesh, 450km northwest.
We would have to travel far to reach sand dunes. I was confused.
Aren't sand dunes supposed to be easy to find in the desert?
Isn't it what a desert looks like, after all?
It turns out that to my ignorance and surprise, sand dunes are only about 10-20% of the Sahara desert.
What is the rest of the desert, if not sand dunes? A significant part is rocky plains (hamada).
But why is this misconception of "desert = sand dunes" so widespread? Even the English wikipedia page for "desert" shows sand dunes as the main picture.
Maybe a rocky plain is less aesthetically appealing than majestic sand dunes? And therefore it became the mainstream representation of the landscape? Would this aesthetic argument explain why to most people the word "desert" evokes the image of "sand dunes"? I do not know, (and I am still curious). It would require some research on the "history of visual representations of desert landscape as sand dunes".
Discovering my ignorance about this basic concept, and the fact that this biased representation of desert seems so widespread, evoked echo's of other misconceptions which are widely disseminated as well. Such as representations of "arabs", "muslims" or "the Arab world".
To my shame, I admit that, before this trip, the dominant image on my mind of a countryside in an "arabic country", was a fabricated one, from movies made in USA where "heroic" US soldiers are in an unnamed arid landscape (a desert?) fighting local darker-looking men for some unclear reasons.
(The fine wisdom and subtle intercultural awareness disseminated by Hollywood blockbusters. (I'm being ironic, obviously)).
These thoughts about misrepresentations reminded me of a book that I wanted to read for a long time: Orientalism, from Edward Said. It was published in 1978, but the first time I heard about it was in 2011, from a friend who had just started studying anthropology.
Edward Said was a Palestinian American. He was Professor of compared literature at Columbia University in the US, and grew up in Palestine and Egypt. In his book Orientalism, the region of the "orient" refers mainly to North Africa and the Middle East. The term "orientalism" refers to three different things:
- Orientalism is an academic term for the study of the Orient. In the book Said writes that the term was more used in Europe, particularly in France and Britain, but that the term was being less and less used because of its connotation with the imperious attitude of European colonialism of the 19th and 20th century.
- Orientalism is a way of thinking that assumes an essential distinction between "the Orient" and "the Occident". Said writes that many writers, academics, imperial administrators "have accepted the basic distinction between East and West as the starting point for elaborate theories, epics, novels,... and political accounts concerning the Orient, its people, customs, "mind", destiny...".
- Orientalism is a Western style (of discourse) for dealing with the Orient, "making statements about it, authorizing views of it, describing it, teaching it, settling it [...] in short, dominating, restructuring and having authority over the Orient". Said argues that while Orientalism claims to be a veridic discourse about the Orient, it says more about the power of European-Atlantic actors over the Orient than about the Orient itself.
The vision of Arabs as irrational savages, as opposed to the enlightened, rational "civilized" Europeans, was (and still is) disseminated in scholarship, literature, cultural and news media. It was instrumental to colonialism. Often imperial administrators would frame the occupation and domination of territories as being for the own good of the colonized people's. Colonizers saw themselves as doing a favour, saving these "backward" countries by bringing them "civilization". But in practice colonization meant the plundering of resources and the exploitation of people for the economic benefit of the colonizing powers.
This excellent 2 minute animation video from Aljazeera summarizes Orientalism the best:
"Said explained how colonialism works. Not just through armies, but through literature. Not just through conquest, but through anthropology. Not just through oppression but justified through narrative."
The video continues: the stereotypes that Said spotted in 19th century literature are still alive today in western media and modern culture. And not only when representing Arabs or Muslims, but more generally, all who are perceived as "others" by the "west". The narrator calls to us: pay attention to the stories that you are being told. See orientalism as a lens, and try to detect the stereotypes and the biases in the news, movies, and narratives.
(Even last week, the BBC reporting on the shooting in Sweden, chose the picture of an Arab-looking student without referring on the title that it was portraying how students are dealing with the aftermath. The suspect attacker is a white man.
A similar theme is what authorities and media choose to call an attacker of a mass murder. Some are called terrorists, others are called lone-wolfs, with markedly different coverage in terms of efforts of understanding their actions.)
I think Orientalism can be seen as a manifestation of white supremacy. During the anti-racist protests in the US after the death of George Floyd at the hands of the police, a friend recommended to me the books "White fragility" and "Me and White Supremacy". These books and others enlarged my view, from seeing white supremacy as something espoused only by the far-right racists of KKK to seeing it as a system (like the patriarchy) on which we are all being brought up.
And then the key question is not to assert whether a comment or a person is racist or not, but rather to unveil all the ways through which racist ideas, practices and policies are widespread and perpetuated in our societies.
For example, the myth that represents western, white people and culture as superior to the rest of human beings. This myth of superiority and supposed civilization has served, (and serves) as justification for centuries of massacres, slavery, occupation, expropriation, exploitation, the annihilation of people, their languages, cultures, and livelihoods all around the world. Of which Gaza is the latest cruellest case in point. Or the double standards of European coverage and reactions regarding Ukraine vs Gaza.
But back to Morocco. It was fascinating to be there and to visit the medinas in Tangier, Marrakesh, Taroudant, and the landscape, villages and towns south of the Atlas mountains. But I could not help wondering if I was romanticizing what I was seeing, and how thick was the lens through which I was looking at the people and the landscape.
As Orientalism emphasizes, representations of the Arabs, and Muslims by the West are very common, misleading and widespread. What have I read, watched or seen regarding Arab and/or Muslim culture which has not been made by Western lenses? Very little (but I want to change that).
I felt that my impressions of Morocco had these double layers. At one level, some things were distantly familiar, maybe from movie scenes or travel shows, for example in the narrow alleys of souks (the local markets situated in the old towns). But at the other level, most things were very fresh and new to me. The representations in my subconscious had very little in common, or had no references at all for the experience of being there. These fresh impressions triggered a huge curiosity, which I am still nurturing.
May the "discovery" that deserts are often different from sand dunes, serve as a metaphor and a reminder of all that we do not see and do not know, hidden in plain sight behind "common knowledge".
Let's try to actively challenge the stereotypes ingrained in us and around us, and see them as deserts of our imagination.
-----
By the way, in the end, we did visit one sand dune, in Tinfoe. It was the closest one to where we stayed. We climbed it, and when we looked down, a local guide was waiting for us with two dromedaries. It was too hard to refuse.
See how different the dune looks like from close by and from the road :)
-----
Note 1: Or at least the Morocco typically visited which is the northern half. The bottom half is known as Western Sahara and is a contested territory. While the majority of Western Sahara is controlled by Morocco, 30% of the area to the east, bordering Algeria and Mauritania is claimed by the Sahwari Arab Democratic Republic. Western Sahara was occupied by Spain until 1975.
Comments
Post a Comment