Travels

by Paul Bowles

  To lovers of the Sahara, its most fascinating inhabitants are the Touareg. There are obvious reasons for the interest they excite: they have chosen to live in one of the most distant and desolate regions of the world – the very center of the Sahara. There are very few of them left, and their purely medieval customs are fast disappearing. A race whose knights still engage in jousts with lance and shield can scarcely fail to attract attention. There is also the astonishing fact that out of all the people of North and West Africa they are the only ones who have devised their own alphabet, composed of twenty-four simple and thirteen compound letters, an alphabet which at the time of the French conquest was understood and used by all members of all the tribes, since all were literate. This in itself is enough to place them in a category by themselves. They are Berbers and their language is of Hamitic origin; it is generally believed that at the time of the Roman colonization of what is now Kabylia, rather than risk conquest, they began the long migration southward which finally ended in the territory whose center is the Hoggar Mountains. From this impregnable fortress they directed their systematic predatory expeditions, pillaging every caravan that came within reach, so that long centuries before the French ever heard of the Hoggar, the Touareg were known as the “pirates of the desert”, and were hated and feared by everyone who had ever come within reach of their fast racing camels. In view of this, it is not surprising that when the French took it upon themselves to vanquish them, they found no difficulty in enlisting the aid of the tribes who for so long had suffered at the hands of the Touareg.

  After the closed world of orthodox Islam, as exemplified in the larger cities of North Africa where a woman is a piece of property bought and hidden away in a windowless house, it is surprising to see what prestige and freedom she enjoys among the Touareg. Against all Moslem tradition she has been able to impose the unalterable obligation of monogamy: no man may have more than one wife, nor, indeed, may he take concubines or commit adultery. The children belong to and are educated by their mothers, and inherit their titles or rank from them rather than from their fathers. When a girl is of marriageable age she chooses her own husband without interference from her parents, and if she possesses any personal fortune, she is not required to contribute any part of it to the upkeep of the family. As a result of this the greater part of the property is owned by the women of the tribe. An amusing detail of this turnabout in Moslem custom is that it is the men who veil their faces heavily and fard their eyes with kohl; their explanation is that the excessive dryness of the air demands that the moisture of the breath be conserved and reabsorbed insofar as is possible, and that the kohl protects the eyelids from the dust and the sun’s glare. However, the custom has come to be more than one dictated by pure practicality, since even when a man is indoors the veil is not removed, and when he eats, he turns away bashfully and pushes his food up under the veil, fearful of revealing the “nakedness” of his face.

  When one has left behind the Hoggar’s strange granite domes and boulder-shaped peaks (the highest of which rise up to ten thousand feet), the road continues for a long way across the rocky plateau which ends only at the frontier of the Niger Territory. It is still the center of the Sahara, but there begin to be subtle differences. There is a lower, less exalted sky, a brighter light, if possible, which at the same time somehow reduces visibility, instead of increasing it, and in the oases there is the occasional appearance of a baobab among the eternal date palms and tamarisks.

  Here the air is softer, there is grass and thorny scrub vegetation which goes on for countless miles. Little by little the clothing customs change: the long, loose sleeveless garment of white cotton worn by the men is a boubou. Here are women walking in the open with uncovered bosoms. Once again the world seems an inhabited, inhabitable place where beasts can graze and land be cultivated. The villages are open, and the houses, built of vegetable fiber and tree trunks instead of mud, have space between them, rather then being huddled one against the other as if in fear of the hostile emptiness outside, as they were farther north. But the streets are still of sand.

  The Territory of the Niger, which extends northward to a few miles beyond the Tropic of Cancer, has no particular reason to be called that. Most of it is simply the Sahara. The River Niger waters a tiny region in its south-west corner, but the greater part is no more than particularly desolate desert, complete with a huge erg which covers its central section. In the south, along the Niger itself and near the border of Nigeria, there are lions, giraffes, ostriches, boar, and other fauna typical of the savanna, while in the very south-eastern corner, which touches Lake Chad, the elephant and the hippopotamus live.

  This enormous segment of Africa, with an area of five hundred thousand square miles and a population of only two million, is one of the least peopled districts in the world. Of the three principal ethnic groups, not one is, strictly speaking, Negro, although the sun naturally has long since seen to it that skins are highly pigmented. The Touareg are of course whites from the north, the Peuls (whose name seems to have as many variations as there have been anthropologists to study them) wandered down from the upper Nile and across the entire Sudan in some remote time, and the Hausa, while possessing certain Negroid characteristics, are nevertheless predominantly Hamitic, and speak a purely Hamitic tongue, which facts place them outside the category of cultures which can be considered purely Negro.

  All these people practice the religion of Islam, although doubtless the ulema of Cairo or Fez would be scandalized at witnessing the irregularities in their observance, and still more horrified if they could probe their collective subconscious and discover the heavy residue of animism which several centuries of conversion to monotheism have not been able to eradicate. Nevertheless, they all count nominally as Moslems, and it is certain that the more educated among the city dwellers are as conversant with the faith of Mohammed as men anywhere else.

  Beyond Zinder, the capital of the Niger Territory, the road turns eastward, following the northern frontier of Nigeria all the way to Lake Chad. Along the route there are herds of the magnificent long-horned cattle which have come to be the raison d’être of the Peul nation, and which, very likely, were their owners not Moslems, would have come to be objects of worship to them as they have with the Watusi. In the villages the shopkeepers are Hausa, voluble and clever. There are also the shy Bororo, whom Jean d’Esme characterizes as “effeminate” for no better reason than that their features are delicate and that they, like the Touareg, use eye make-up. The Bororo women manufacture fine pottery decorated in the Moslem style of the Sudan, with neat geometric designs.

  Hausa is the most widely spoken language in West Africa, and it performs more or less the same function there as Swahili does in Central Africa, serving as a lingua franca among tribes which do not understand one another’s dialects. But where the sphere of Hausa influence ends, around Lake Chad, Shuwa Arabic begins, and continues as the principal language from there eastward across to the Red Sea; in many instances this dialect sheltered from change by great distances, adheres more closely to the classical Arabic of the Koran than the languages of present day Egypt and Syria.

  Those people who chance to see Lake Chad today are witnessing a geological death agony. Each year the incandescent Sahara sun drinks a little more water from its surface than the great rivers which drain into it can provide, so that the level is being constantly lowered – not very much, it is true – not quite an inch a year. But when one considers that the average depth of the lake is already less than five feet, one realizes that in a very short time indeed Lake Chad will be spoken of only in the past tense. Its disappearance will be only one more phenomenon in the history of progressive dehydration which is the Sahara’s. For the time being, it is still forty times as extensive as Lake Geneva, thanks to the Komadugu which flows into it from the Nigerian side, a certain amount of water which comes down intermittently from the north via the Bahr el Ghazal, and, most important, the combined flow of the Logone and the Chari river
s which drain a vast basin of jungle land to the south. The Peuls, whom some consider to be the most beautiful people in Africa (although others claim the honor goes to the Watusi or the Masai), have been identified with such diverse groups as the Malays, the Gypsies, and the Jews. However, there would seem to be no valid reason for tracing their origins quite so far afield; it is generally conceded that they are a nomadic Nilotic tribe which has wandered considerably over the face of Africa during the past two millennia, having come to rest finally in the western Sudan. When one considers that like the Watusi and the Masai, the Peuls as well are cattle-herders, one can only conclude either that the extraordinary nobility of these three peoples is due to the occupation they all have in common, or to some as yet unproven racial link.

  View from Tangier

  The Nation, 30 June 1956

  WALK DOWN into the Zoco Chico any night. In the little square lined with cafés you can see that in fact, if not officially, the integration of Tangier with the rest of Morocco has already taken place. Instead of the customary assortment of European tourists and residents, elderly Moslems in djellabas and native Jews from the nearby streets of the Medina, you are likely to see sitting at the tables no one but young Moslems in European dress – mostly blue jeans. From time to time a noisy cortege passes from a side street through the open space and disappears into the darkness of another alley: two or three policemen leading a protesting Moslem in torn clothing. He has been caught drinking wine or beer and is on his way to the commissariat. Tomorrow he will be given a sentence of six months in jail and a fine of 500 pesetas. If it is a woman, she will receive the same sentence plus an additional penalty: her hair and eyebrows will be shaved. It is a good law because it was made in Rabat by Moslems; there is no need to consider it further.

  AND THE EUROPEANS who used to be here every night, where are they? Safe in their houses, or sitting in the fluorescent glare of the French and Italian cafés of the Boulevard Pasteur. They know better than to wander down into the part of town where they are not wanted; besides, everyone is whispering that members of the Army of Liberation have arrived in Tangier, and that is certain to mean trouble. But the weeks succeed each other, and nothing happens. Is it possible that Tangier is going to stay like this sober and joyless, the brothels boarded up, the camareros of the cafés piling their chairs and pulling down their blinds at twelve-thirty or one, and after that the streets so quiet that one can hear the crickets singing and the roosters crowing from the rooftops? And great banners strung from building to building across the streets, proclaiming in Arabic characters that two Moslems of the opposite sex caught walking or talking together (unless they can prove they are married) will be prosecuted? There is, of course, no way of telling, but it is certainly a possibility that this may be a permanent state of affairs.

  The Wall Street Journal recently ran a front-page article under the heading; “Tangier Turmoil; Tiny, Shadowy Land of Fiscal Freedoms Has the Shakes.” For the moment, at least, it is quite true. Discussions of integration are ubiquitous, inexhaustible. Your Spanish barber says: “We are living in bad times. Es una pena.” The French waitress tells you: “It’s going to be very difficult, vous savez. How shall we live?” The English lady sitting near you in the Café de Paris is heard to remark: “Isn’t it too sad? But I do think we shall be able to stick to it, don’t you?” The American bar owner stares nervously around his establishment and confides: “I don’t want to be in on it. I’m getting a line on a little place in Tobago. I think that’s for me.” It means official integration; non-Moslem Tangerines are more inclined to wonder when it will come than they are to consider exactly of what it will consist. They are convinced that it won’t be good for them; beyond that there is no way of being sure about anything.

  The cost of living, on its way up now, is estimated to be due for a hundred per cent increase, but that is not their principal preoccupation. Will integration mean, for the first time in Tangier, property taxes, an income tax, a levy on bank holdings, the creation of a new currency – sole legal tender – whose value will be set at an arbitrary rate of exchange? Will it be all these things, plus eventual confiscation of non-Moslem businesses? Will Europeans be forced to leave, or, worse, will they be able to get out in time if violence becomes the order of the day? The ordinary mortal is not in a position to answer, and the few political leaders who are, or who should be, prefer to give the most evasive sort of replies. An interview with Abdelhalak Torres, leader of the defunct Reformist Party (now merged with the Istiqlal) appearing in España on May 30, quoted him as saying, in reply to a query as to the future of Tangier: “It is not easy to answer a question which demands first of all knowing what the definitive opinion of those qualified to speak is going to be

  THE OUTSIDER must form his opinion regarding things to come both by reading interviews such as this, given purely for the benefit of European residents, in which there are always multiple assurances that shortly all will be well, and by reading condensations of the addresses given by the same political chiefs to the Moslem population, in which a rather different note is constantly reiterated. These speeches are earnest pleas for cooperation in the government’s attempt to restore order.

  Why is it that, among the Europeans, even those most sympathetic to the new regime are dubious about the immediate future? It would be absurd to expect things to run smoothly; a certain initial instability is normal in such cases, one might argue. I can trace my own doubts to the fact that I believe the whole present situation in North Africa is due to a vast series of misunderstandings. The Moslem and Western points of view are basically irreconcilable. “Independence within Interdependence,” France’s famous formula for Tunisia and Morocco, is so much meaningless doggerel to the man in the street, to whom independence means the power to organize an army strong enough to rid his country once and for all of the Christian invader. Everywhere Islam is emotionally committed to the principles of Bandung; nothing but the passage of time can alter that. Habib Bourghiba and Sultan Mohammed ben Youssef, on the other hand, although their ultimate aims are those of the people of their respective countries, are at the moment involved in an attempt to achieve those aims through a considerable amount of collaboration with the West. It is an untenable state of affairs, and modifications are inevitable; when and what these will be depends primarily on the outcome of the Algerian war. For it is in Kabylia, the Aurès, the Nementcha, the Medjerda, not on the Quai d’Orsay, that the fate of North Africa is being decided.

  THE QUESTION OF ALGERIA continues to be the stumbling block in the road of negotiations between France and Morocco. It could scarcely be otherwise. There is not a Moroccan who is not passionately desirous of seeing the Algerian Army of Liberation victorious in its unequal war against French colonialism. Now that Morocco is independent, what France had feared might happen has become reality: the Moroccan Army of Liberation, in spite of its ritual submission to the Sultan in March, has set up recruiting stations in the cities and supply centers for the Algerian army in the waste lands of eastern Morocco along the Algerian border, activities which France is legally powerless to prevent.

  For a long time the Moroccan government has hedged whenever the Army of Liberation was mentioned. First it no longer existed, having supposedly been disbanded when certain tribal chieftains journeyed to Rabat to present their arms to the Sultan. Then it did exist, but was merely maintaining order in disturbed areas. During these weeks there were constant encounters between it and French security forces in the Central Rif, the Middle Atlas and the extreme, north-western corner of Morocco. Villages and plantations were raided, French officers and Moslem dignitaries were abducted, French military convoys ambushed and an effective campaign of sabotage was carried out.

  When in mid-May the new Moroccan army was formed in Rabat, the question of the Liberation Army’s precise status once more became paramount. It was then announced by spokesmen of the Liberation Army that their organization was being integrated with the official army of the Sult
an. The Minister of Defense, Si Ahmed Reda Guedira, upon being questioned as to the accuracy of this report, replied: “I have no idea.”

  A political demonstration against the French, calling for the reinstatement of the sultan, Mohammed V (depicted on the posters), Tangier 1956 (PB)

  THE PRIZE QUESTION is, of course: where is the seat of power? Who takes orders from whom? Ambiguous statements such as Guedira’s are certainly instrumental in lessening one’s inclination to take official declarations at their face value. There is obviously a need for an army and a police force able to cope with the widespread lawlessness which could conceivably return Morocco to its ancient condition of anarchy. But just as surely as the country at large would profit by the reestablishment of order, certain active minorities are interested in augmenting the chaos. Not only the common bandits on the highways, but also the organized colonial diehards, as well as the extreme political Left, are – to put it gently – disinclined to assist the government in its difficult task. And the new government needs all the help it can get. Being wholly dependent upon the French for guidance in administrative operations, it cannot afford to antagonize them too openly by giving voice to the political opinions of the Moslem majority, opinions whose tenor is distinctly Francophobe. In the mind of the illiterate private citizen the settling of accounts has scarcely begun.