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since I can noFieldwork in Morocco – Chapter two

Packaged Goods

The author is traveling to Sefrou, a town in Morocco. The country is a kingship with
Many businesses offering modern services. It has a jewish quarter or community. Close by is a never area called ville nouelle. The administration is under the French Protectorate of 1912, leading to Moroccan independence in 1956, with progressive models of colonial administration. New little cities called villes Nouvelles were built beside the older settlement.

So the attraction is European cities, intermixed with quaint picturesque toddling communities of ancient times, or so it seems. That is how it seems but the author tells a different story. The culotural tone of Sefrou is set by the French population with a mix of fantasy, money and adaptation to European fashionable attitudes.

Rabinow desired to learn Arabic so he employed a teacher named Ibrahim, who was really one of the new bourgeois store oerators. They sell bourgeois good and do not engage in the conspicuous consumption of the Europeans. They save money and reinvest it in business and property. Ibrahim had b een an official government interpretor. He knew French well and used the language as a means to make money. He acted as linguistic mediator between the Moroccan and the French and his Arabic community
Without getting his identity confused by the colornial presence. Ibrahim was not a culturally cynical person, but rather a man of his own culture. He had sons and taught them French and Arabic, he goes to his mosque and the parent/teacher association. He archieved a blind of tradition and modernity in his life. He had tried to work with Richard but this fizzled and they are merely cordial at this time. It was because of Richard he was introduced to Ibrahim. They drank mint tea and spoke about working together. He said he had not taught Moroccan before but would be happy to try because he was glad an American wanted to learn his language, and understand his society.

Rabinow was happy about their agreed arrangement and noted Ibrahim stood by the quote, “in business your words and reputation are your most valuable asset.”

Rabinow visited his house and saw he lived with his wife and his mother in a simple elegant fashion whereby the size of a mans pillows determines his wealth. The house was like Ibrahim, functional, restrained and moderately prosperous.

Rabinow learned how not to learn a language – not to learn a language – not by rote memorization nor by a reduplicate of how one learns his French. Not by volcabulary lists! Not by phrases and lists about obtuse objects one had no where to use. So he learned to greet, and little else.

Ibrahim had been translating from his old French grammar book into Arabic. Rabinow was getting regurigitated linguistics. Which made him have anxiety attacks. Rabinow blamed himself thinkging it was his fault, so he got angry, and realized the structure of the situation had to be changed.

Ibrahim had turned his position into a profession and had becomRabinow out of his culture while he played at bringing him closer. He did not want Rabinow to get close. Arabic people protect with fierceness 3 things: their language, their religion, and their women. These are highly prized and charged symbols of integrity and identity.

Yet armies of prostitutes are not protected domains, yet they could not intermarry. Veiled Islam remained out of French control. And as well the not sharing the Arabic language. That was basically a defence to keep the French out! The first wave of Moroccan immigrants learned but the 2nd did not learn Arabic. But the Moroccans had leaned French and this points out that language can be used as a tool of war.

They came to heads realizing there goals were at odds. Rabinow desired more than surfaces and facets, he wanted into the society. He altered his situation. Two of his friends arrived and they all wanted to go to Marrakech. Ibrahim invited himself along. He had lied and did not bring any money. He was testing to see what he could get. Rabinow refused, realizing Ibrahim had been trying to maximize his resources. Rabinow was angry because he had typidfied and been ethnocentric in his assumptions of Ibrahim. He though of him as a friend because of a phony personal relationship, Ibrahim thought of Rabinow as a resource. Rabinow was looking for his anthropological goal of Otherness.

He had to switch up his social and cultural categories. He had wrong approaches to his conversations thinkg they were something other than what they were. That other people share a similar life – world. This allows everyone to feel they are all on the same page. People can’t stand scrutiny, they require compatible understanding and consistant definition and common sense. Rabinow found out his assumptions about Ibrahim were wrong and their cultures and ideas about life- ways miles apart.