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Touring provides you 100 roads to journey,” 14th century Moroccan scholar and author Ibn Battuta wrote, “and provides your coronary heart wings!”
200 forty-five years in the past, on Dec. 20, 1777, not lengthy after America’s Declaration of Independence, Morocco turned the primary nation on this planet to acknowledge our independence, a diplomatic relationship that has endured to at the present time.
I really like that reality, simply as I really like the truth that not solely was Turkish Ottoman Sultan Abdulmecid the biggest particular person donor ($30,000) to a fund to construct the Washington Monument however that embedded throughout the obelisk is a sculpted marble reward from the Sultan inscribed: “In order to strengthen the friendship between the 2 international locations …”
I’ve led an unexpectedly-storied life and sometimes marvel, as Jordanian author Fadia Faqir wrote, “How did I discover myself right here? Me… [who once] needed to be Passepartout, a traveller with little baggage, hopping from one practice to a different, a Thomas Prepare dinner, an Ibn Battuta. The place is Xanadu?”
After I first left America in my 20s, I hoped to not be a vacationer however a traveler from New Hampshire, a photographer, a recorder of passions and politics. I believed, as American Paul Bowles wrote in his first e-book on Morocco, The Sheltering Sky, that “The distinction is partly one in every of time … Whereas the vacationer usually hurries again house on the finish of some weeks or months, the traveler, belonging no extra to at least one place than to the subsequent, strikes slowly, over intervals of years, from one a part of the earth to a different.”
I’m impressed, immediately, to proceed my travels by the truth that Morocco made it to the semifinal spherical of World Cup 2022 in Qatar turning into the primary African, first Arab, and solely the second Muslim-majority nation to get inside one victory of taking part in in what’s arguably the best sporting occasion of our day — a World Cup remaining — which occurs as soon as each 4 years.
I really like that Morocco’s victories over Belgium, Spain and Portugal, together with Tunisia’s victory over France had been post-colonial triumphs of as soon as colonized lands in opposition to their former occupiers and exploiters.
I really like that these groups from distant lands, talking non-European languages, and trustworthy to a faith typically demonized in America, have histories intertwined with America’s.
I really like the sight of athletes praying on the pitch, dancing with moms, waving the flag of Palestine alongside followers whistling, chanting, and dancing with pleasure, weeping with loss.
Followers and athletes who collectively problem us to think about worlds past our personal, past Shangri-La and Xanadu; problem us to embrace the humanity of sisters and brothers from lands unknown.
I bear in mind days, not so way back when, on the primary Thursday night time of each month the whole Arab World — from Casablanca to Baghdad — stood nonetheless and listened as Umm Kulthoum, “The Voice of Egypt,” gave her month-to-month live performance from Cairo’s Kasr El Nil theatre.
When, from each slowly passing taxi and personal automobile, from each open window in metropolis or camp, one would hear:
“Your eyes known as me to the times which have handed / They taught me to remorse the previous and its wounds / That which I skilled earlier than my eyes noticed you / What’s the wasted life to me?” – Enti Omri.
It was such a day Tuesday when Morocco performed its former colonizer France.
Morocco, on that day, throughout Africa, throughout the Arab and Muslim worlds, throughout lands as soon as occupied colonized, pillaged, and exploited by rapacious European powers, was the voice of Hope and Liberation, expertise not regreting the previous and its wounds however setting forth a brand new course.
Morocco misplaced however — within the fullness of this post-colonial second — the folks gained.
At the moment, we now have new educating moments, tales to inform fellow Individuals, like that of 14th century Mali (one other former French colony) and its ruler, Mansa Musa, who was the wealthiest particular person in all human historical past — even perhaps the inspiration for T’Challa, Black Panther tales, and Wakanda.
About President Thomas Jefferson who delayed a White Home dinner till sundown on Dec. 9, 1805 with the intention to accommodate a visiting envoy from Tunis, Sidi Soliman Mellimelli, who was fasting throughout Ramadan.
About Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco preventing for independence in opposition to occupying European powers.
About Ibn Battuta, who turned essentially the most travelled individual in historical past earlier than the age of steamships — extra travelled even than than Marco Polo or Columbus, who wrote:
“Touring leaves you speechless, then turns you right into a storyteller.”
At the moment it is a few story being written of a World Cup, hosted in a former British protectorate, Qatar, an impartial conservative Arabic-speaking Muslim nation, that liberated the imaginations of billions of individuals
Lastly, I really like that it is all taking place every week earlier than Christmas on the Fourth Sunday of Creation when the candle of HOPE is lighted, taking place on the day that Hanukkah begins at sundown, taking place every week earlier than Christmas in part of the world that gave start to the monotheistic traditions worshipped by so many believers all over the world.
A season for story-telling, season for hearts to bear wings.
Robert Azzi, a photographer and author who lives in Exeter, might be reached at theother.azzi@gmail.com.
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