Morocco: Where the Mans and the Womans are Equal

I've always been a little skeptical of organised tours, where guides force some cliched aspects of the local "culture" upon you, often at inflated expense, while you slowly drown in post-colonial guilt. Morocco, as I expected, was no exception.

I've been on quite a few organised tours because they're easier and take the hassle and stress out of the equation. I would not, for example, fancy driving in the Atlas Mountains; I wouldn't know how to say "my car has fallen off a cliff" in Berber, for a start. So, after two days of being hassled into oblivion on the crowded and frankly not especially inviting streets of Marrakech, a city which seemed to have deliberately honed an atmosphere of chaotic, eclectic authenticity to inauthentic perfection then thrown in a Club Med and the ever-lingering prospect of catching e-coli for good measure with, I feel, unappealing results, we headed off into the Ourika Valley.

We were a strange and no doubt depressingly common convey – seven four by fours full of lobstered tourists in embarrassing sunhats, hurtling conspicuously along in a country where every second hand Mercedes in the world has gone to die, been painted beige and turned into a taxi.

Our first stop was a pottery, seemingly in the middle of a field surrounded by bored-looking goats. Inside the sole potter made a very small pot while we all stood and watch obediently. “In Morocco,” our guide said, somewhat out of context “All the mans and the womans are very equal. In Morocco,” he elaborated, as though he felt we needed a concrete example, “We do not have the polygamy.” He beamed proudly. The potter finished his pot and added it to a pile of identical pots probably made for identical group of tourists. “Now you shop,” said the guide, an order rather than an offer. The potter got some Tesco bags ready, and the sunhatted lobsters began to haggle enthusiastically while we loitered by the minibus. “The man is very sad,” mused the guide, making conversation. “He has nobody to leave his business to after he is dead, as he has no son, only daughter.”

Village in the Atlas Mountains

We headed on up into the mountains in a scene worryingly reminiscent of the final few moments of The Italian Job, skidding heart-stoppingly close to the edge of a sheer drop as the driver steers with one hand and texts into an old Nokia with the other. Our next stop was a small village high in the hills. “Here,” our guide said, as we clambered out of the cars on wobbly legs and check all our limbs were still intact, “We go to genuine Berber house, and you meet genuine Berber family.” We looked over to where a large group of tourists were traipsing out of the Genuine Berber House, being waved to be people I assumed were the Genuine Berber Family. They got into their Genuine Four By Fours. “That is a dog,” the guide said, unnecessarily, pointing to a dead labrador and clearly feeling that, as a guide, he should do as much guiding as possible. “Here is genuine Berber kitchen,” he announced, and we all peered into an unassuming kitchen where a Genuine Berber Woman posed for photos while holding a Genuine Kettle. “And now, we have tea!”

“There is tradition of hospitality for Berber people. If you come to visit Berber family they will invite you in and they will make you tea and food. This is central to Berber tradition.” We trudged into the back yard where, as if to prove his point, twenty seats were already set out, presumably on the offchance that some visitors turned up wanting tea. Miraculously, this Genuine Berber Family also had twenty matching glasses all ready for these unexpected guests. Then followed an elaborate ritual performed by Muhammad, a Genuine Berber Man, with copious quantities of fresh mint and water poured out of a series of highly decorate, ornate jugs. Our guide kept up a running commentary throughout: “Why you think Muhammad so happy? Why Muhammad always smiling?” Because he’s getting paid to show twenty gullible English people how to make tea? “Because he is not paying the taxes!”

Why you think Muhammad so happy? He is not paying any taxes!

After we’d drunk our thimblefuls of tea we left (some of us via the Genuine Berber Toilet) and headed back up the hill. As we pulled away another six four by fours arrived and as their passengers disembarked I thought how fortunate it was that they had happened upon this hospitable family, who fortuitously had twenty seats already set out and twenty glasses being quickly washed up on the offchance that yet another large group of people would pop round for a quick teabreak.

In other news, we saw this strange sight next to a layby just outside Essaouira: Goats in a Tree! The slightly left-field sequal to "Snakes on a PLane", I presume. I am told the goats climb up there of their own accord to eat the berries, and indeed a friend of mine who recently went to Cyprus confirmed that you can see the same spectacle there. I would believe this, except that the farmer was lingering in the layby and waved us in for a "photostop", for which he tried to charge us ten dirham each (that's about a pound.) Throughout this the goats looked on with bemused expressions that could only say "What the fuck are we doing up here?" I'll let you make up your own minds.

Goats in a Tree. The sequal to Snakes on a Plane

RIP the 96

Literally millions of pages have been written about the Hillsborough disaster over the years, and I, a child at the time and not connected to the club or any of the victims in any way, am not going to wade into the debate. There would be no point.

And yet, inevitably for the time of year, there've been a few swipes at Liverpool and, worse, at the victims' families, over the last few days, notably over Liverpool's insistence that they would not - ever - play a match on 15th April. The forums, Twitter and the like were full of arrogance and ignorance, the "Time to move on", brigade. One even accused Liverpool fans as being "the ultimate grief tourists" and told them to "get over it." Interestingly for me, as a Bradford fan, comparisons were made with the Bradford fire. We, critics pointed out, play on 11th May. Why shouldn't they play on 15th April?

Read the second account, from the ambulanceman, in this article. As well as being an appalling tragedy, there is such terrible injustice still surrounding Hillsborough, and unanswered questions even to this day. Bradford fans know that, even though there were mistakes (most notably the gates at the back of the stand were chained shut, making exit impossible) everything was done to maximise survival and help the injured when the dreadful fire happened. Familes of those who died at Hillsborough, though, faced lies, accusations, cover-ups, and, in many cases, the terrible knowledge that mismanagement before, during and after the disaster (the ambulances not being allowed onto the pitch) meant that loved ones who could have been saved had perished. To me, reading about Hillsborough from an objective point of view (I watched it on television at the time but have come back to the facts, accounts and speculations later in life) as a football fan, a Christian and, most of all, a human being, what strikes me and makes me physically weep is the apparent disregard given for human life that day, and the lack of respect paid to the victims both that afternoon and the days that followed. The stab of insensitivity shocks me now, so I dread to think how those directly involved feel about it.

Someone on one of the forums pointed out that they would not be taking note of Hillsborough, because it's 100 years since the sinking of the Titanic today, and the greater loss of life there (1517 compared to 96) is "surely more important". This is not true. Every life is as important as the next, however it is lost. The volume of lives lost in a single incident is a red herring. Nobody should have died on the Titanic. Nobody should have died at Hillsborough.

It is not up to you or I to tell people to "move on" - this is arrogance of the worst order. It is the role of every citizen to always strive for justice, to comfort and support those in need, and to be sensitive, gentle and understanding. I think we have indeed "moved on" from the fire, but I will not accept this fact as some kind of accolade, holding us up as some paragon fanbase. That is a simplistic reading of it, and offensive to both clubs. We will remember our dead on 11th, with memorials and in our prayers. I will continue to raise money for the Burns Unit at the BUPA 10K in May. But today, I will spare a thought for Liverpool - the club and the city - and say a prayer for the 96, and for the families and friends still fighting. May they all find peace one day.

RIP the 96 x

Titanically Morbid

Is it just me, or are many of the 1300 people who have paid hundreds of pounds to go on the Titanic "memorial cruise" a bit, well, mental? For a start, the logic of such a trip seems a little...illogical: "You know that big boat that hit an iceberg in the north Atlantic and sank? Well, what I think would be a REALLY good idea is to get another boat, with thousands of people on board, and take it at exactly the same time of year to the same bit of the north Atlantic." And, presumably, hope it doesn't sink.

OK, perhaps I'm being a little flippant. I understand that, if you had ancestors who had travelled on that fateful sailing 100 years ago, it might be deeply moving to follow that same route, and to see some of what they saw, a sort of much-magnified version of what I feel each time I go to Valley Parade, look across to where the old wooden stand used to be, and shudder at the thought of family members watching that dreadful fire engulf both it and its spectators. But that is where my empathy ends. To be "recreating" the journey, even 100 years on, and, worse, marketing it to tourists as "the voyage of a lifetime" and flogging tickets for £5K (I kid you not) seems at best mawkish and at worst cynically opportunistic, not to say disrespectful. Where many on board see it as an act of commemoration, others seem to think it's a marvellous lark: a chance to dress up in chronologically incorrect costume and gawk at a remote bit of sea where hundreds perished. When interviewed by the BBC, one excited chap enthused that the trip had been a birthday present and was "a dream come true". Let's look at that statement: a dream come true, to relive a journey where years ago hundreds of people froze to death or drowned, terrified and desperately awaiting a rescue that never came while the too-few lifeboats abandoned them, in the middle of nowhere. Good.

It gets worse. In further news reports, over-excited passengers show off their Titanic-branded t-shirts (there's an "all I got is this lousy..." joke to be made here, but I simply cannot bring myself to make it.) Still more passengers turn up in costume - as ill-fated victims of the disaster, perhaps, in authentic period dress? Er, no. As Rose and Jack from 1997 blockbuster "Titanic". Some people feel this is, um, a little tasteless.

In making it primarily a tourist "experience", the "memorial cruise" is open to anyone from deluded film fan to morbid disaster enthusiast to reflective descendant, provided they have £5K to hand.

We have an enduring, macabre fascination when it comes to the Titanic. Psychiatrists can probably explain the many reasons for this. It is, ultimately, a tragic story, though, sadly, a true one, not a fictional one. I visited the excellent exhibition at the O2 last year and was struck by many things, not least that a disproportionate number of the dead were Irish - poor, ordinary people travelling third class in search of a better life which they never found. It is so desperately cruel, and we are, morbidly, drawn to such things, wanting to know what happened, how, why, and to whom, and, often, who was to blame.

But somehow, whether the intentions are good, bad, or (most likely) a mixture of the two, the notion of a cruise, commemorative or not, just jars with me. 15th April is the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, and the death of over 1500 of its passengers; it is a frightening reminder that we are not invincible, of the catalogue of mistakes, the mixture of poor planning and arrogance, that resulted in such a huge death toll - the ship design that meant it tipped, the shameful lack of lifeboats, because people thought they would never be needed. It is right that its legacies and memories endure to this day, and that its anniversary should be marked, its heroes honoured and its victims remembered, and it is not my place to say how this should be done most appropriately. And yet I can't help feeling this dress-up, carnival jollity is inappropriate.

15th April is the anniversary of another tragedy - Hillsborough. Again, what was meant to be joyous occasion resulting in devestating loss of life; again preventable, with hindsight; again, design and bad planning were both significant factors, and again, yes, there was probably "blame" to be dished out in abundance. 96 people died that day (far fewer, I realise, than Titanic, and I am not attempting to compare the two.) This year will be the 23rd anniversary. There would, of course, be an outcry were there any attempt to "relive" in any way the experiences from that day, thousands paying a premium price to turn up in the 88/89 strip or dressing up as Chris Eccleston's charater in the TV adaptation - memorial services inside the fated ground is as far as it goes, and though there are many (to some extent me included) who have researched that disaster to the point of obsession just as there are with Titanic, I would hope that in 100 years time it will be marked in appropriately reflective and sombre fashion.

The Titanic memorial cruise should now be somewhere in the mid Atlantic, but has been delayed, apparently, by bad weather. There's an irony in there somewhere. Its "lucky" passengers may well be seeking some sort of refund on those extortionate tickets they snapped up before the sold out two years ago, whereas those who didn't manage to go can still get "memorabilia" or "limited edition commemorative book" online from the tour operators. In the meantime, I genuinely wish well all those taking part in the memorial service on Saturday, and hope that relatives and morbid history geeks alike will find it a moving experience. I hope that the 1514 victims - rich and poor alike, male and female - will be remembered and the heroes deservedly commemorated, along with the 96 who died at Hillsborough. And I hope people will remember that a certain Jack and Rose were, in fact, fictional.