Black Hole Morocco

The Djemaa el-Fna square bustles and throbs. Its lights glimmer in the smoke of cooking fires that rises and twines its way through the thronging crowds of hustlers, beggars, locals and tourists. But at it’s heart, on the eastern edge and in full view of the stalls and restaurants there is a hole. Bandaged in sagging earthen cloth over a makeshift wooden construction frame, the Argana Cafe is a stark emblem of violence, like a wound on this colourful square. Less than a year ago an explosion ripped through its guts, wounding 20 people, and killing 15. What colour they were, their social standing or occupations was swept aside by a blast that scattered bodies, and drained the square of its touristic life blood for months afterwards.

They’ve come back of course; they always will explains my friend Hakim. But it’s a frightening reminder of the darkness here or anywhere that there is a cultural clash between worlds and attitudes. Do locals turn their heads away and try not to think of those Jihad minds within their world? Hakim just grins and says that there will always be tourists in Morocco. He mimes a mangled dead body and I try not to cringe, or to laugh. We walk on but as we do I cannot help but see explosions in every western style restaurant.

Walking down the paved uneven street, with ice-cream running down my fingers, and tobacco smoke curling up the other arm and then a sudden rush of noise and warmth as windows shatter and people scream. So sudden that it would knock the breath from your lungs and the words from your mouth. Enough to shake the film of the world and send weird reverberations into the movie. Bubbles of hate on the celluloid. Holy or not, any war or soldier who targets the innocent is choosing a sad reality. But do they see white tourists as soldiers? Meme hosts of an infectious west?

Sudden explosive death strikes such a powerful sound in my imagination, like car accidents or rope failure. A single moment of comprehension and then the endless black of that final “oh…”. A mouth, open and shocked, much like the Argana Cafe in Djemaa el-Fna.