A Whole New World: Getting Past the Aladdin Image

I press myself flatter against the wall as another donkey laden with cartons of soda marches through the narrow streets, knocking aside whatever is in its path. It barely brushes against me before moving on up the hill. I look around at the crowded medina and think to myself how this might be easier if we were broken up into smaller groups on our tour of Fez today. There are about twenty in our group, but another bundle of tourists has just made its way past us. Many Moroccans are milling by, looking somewhat irritated by our presence.

I look around at the nearby shops—one of them is overflowing with the pointed leather slippers often worn by local men. Another one is a small convenience store, and I consider buying a water bottle before we move on with the tour. I will probably have time, as the professor who is showing us around the medina is still in a heated discussion with a local tour guide. Apparently, he is not supposed to be leading us to this part of the medina. Their shouts echo over the hum of conversation and the calls of shopkeepers for us to buy their wares. I look behind me at yet another shop, this one a small bakery café. The pastries in the display case look appetizing until I look closer and see the dozens upon dozens of flies crawling all over them.

Finally the tour guide tires of berating our professor and moves on, and we begin to move in another direction. There are more shops, selling scarves and spices. I run my hand along the smooth surface of the mosaicked walls, admiring the fact that so much of Morocco’s beauty is in the details like an intricate tiled wall in a poorly lit alley.

It crosses my mind that this is the material of postcards and movies. The opening scene of Aladdin comes to mind, when he is running from the guards after stealing a loaf of bread. I wonder if, played out in real life, his escapade would have happened in a medina like this one…

The Aladdin setting is one of the most common destination images for Morocco:

The haunting sound of a muezzin calling the Muslim faithful to prayer rings out from a minaret over the busy bazaar below. The market is full of stalls selling carpets and lanterns, spices and produce. There may be a snake charmer or two between the shops as well, for good measure. People walk about on foot, with one or two navigating camels through the crowded streets. All the women are wearing veils or headscarves; only the eyes are visible on most. The air is rich with the smell of saffron and cumin. All the doorways are shaped like keyholes. The best adjective to describe the setting is “exotic.” This image is what comes to mind when many people imagine Morocco, but how did this image come about?

Media has developed this destination image for hundreds of years, first in travel narratives sent home, and then in pictures postcards, and movies. Destination images became codified in the 1920s with the French occupation of Morocco. It was during this time that a number of artists and writers moved to Morocco, drawn to the land for a variety of reasons. One of these was Jacques Majorelle, a French poster artist who lived in Marrakech from the 1920’s to the early 1960’s. He travelled all over Morocco painting depictions of Kasbahs, souks, and Moroccan women.

Source:http://www.artcurial.com/fr/actualite/cp/2010/_media/1835_
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Majorelle’s paintings are still printed on postcards, which are sold in souvenir shops on every corner in Moroccan tourist destinations, especially Marrakech. It is fascinating to see that the Morocco that the images Jacques Majorelle observed and depicted decades ago are the same ones that are being circulated all over the world on postcards today. The exoticism and romance that was marketed to the French under the protectorate, which used Morocco as a vacation destination, has been sustained and are still marketed today, particularly to the Western world.

These sustained destination images are the most successful when marketing to tourists, so Moroccans have kept and exaggerated them. Many souvenir shops offer genie lamps among other merchandise. Marrakech was engineered under the French protectorate as an exotic destination, used as a haven for French elite during the winter months. Visiting there today, you can still see the remains of this development—Marrakech still seems to flaunt its romantic exoticism, quite nearly to the point of exaggeration. While there, we walked through a square in the medina full of snake charmers and dancing monkeys. The monkeys were just waiting to jump on the shoulders of passing visitors for a photo opportunity (and a small fee). I couldn’t even count the number of riads (traditional Moroccan homes turned bed & breakfast) named “Aladdin.”

How does this destination image play out in reality today? Theobald said that a destination often has two regions within a location, one that is offered to the tourist’s eye and another that is kept separate. “Local culture and customs may be exploited to satisfy the visitor… Here the issue of staged authenticity is an important one where the host destination is able to convince tourists that festivals and activities in the “front region” of the destination (e.g., public areas such as hotel lobbies or restaurants are authentic and thus they protect the real “back region,” i.e., residents’ homes and areas where life continues).” The back regions of Moroccan cities have been able to develop and progress, still keeping a “front region” in the medina which remains marketable for travellers and also practical for locals.

It is interesting to see how Moroccan cities have developed over time. There is usually an old section of the city, the medina, which is walled in and separate from the rest of the city. It is here that you find the narrow streets lined with little shops, the keyhole-shaped doorways, and buildings nearly stacked upon each other. There are no cars allowed here, so everyone travels either on foot, on donkey, or the occasional motorbike. The whole atmosphere of a medina is timeless—it is in these parts of the city that, especially for someone in Morocco for the first time, you feel as though you’ve stepped into the “Whole New World” that Aladdin and Jasmine would fly over on their magic carpet. Outside of the medina, however, the rest of the city has developed with time, full of cars and shopping malls and McDonald’s. Tourists don’t often come to this part of the city, unless it is the location of their hotel. Life in these parts of the city feels much less exotic, and at times it is even easy to forget you are in a foreign country.

This often is one of the biggest surprises for travelers to an “exotic” country. They arrive expecting to be in an environment that is entirely foreign, and are astounded by the fact that daily life for locals, although there are sure to be some drastic differences, are also in a lot of ways similar to life in their home country. Increasing globalization has spread technology (as well as some of the cultural aspects of the most advanced nations, such as clothing and music) and to some degree has lessened the differences between cultures. “Modernism” has replaced many of the deep-rooted customs of traditional culture, especially in urban areas. It is impressive to see the preservation of the medinas in so many Moroccan cities, where certain aspects of life have not changed for decades.

Travelling in Morocco, do not expect every town to look like a movie set. Just like American towns have advanced and grown over the years, Moroccan ones have done the same. You may find yourself having moments of being in “a whole new world,” but even these may be against a contrasting backdrop. Morocco is full of contradictions: two young women walking together on the beach, one wearing hijab and another in a bikini, or McArabias (pita filled with kefta, a traditional Moroccan ground meat) instead of Big Macs at McDonald’s. Appreciating the contrasts of what so perfectly fits and perfectly contradicts the destination image of Morocco is key to appreciating its beauty.