Philadelphia: a city of brotherly love

Agadir – When I visited Pennsylvania State in 1977, I did not get a chance to see Philadelphia. Instead of that I enjoyed a culturally gratifying three day stay in Pittsburgh. I remember my American host family was very nice and hospitable and their little daughter was so excited to have me with them, she volunteered to make a chocolate cake with the elaborate shape of a brown bear. We were sitting in the kitchen eating our chocolate bear and the little girl indulged into “quizzing” me over certain “important information” for instance she asked me “What is the biggest pen in the world?” and of course, I failed to answer so she gave me the right answer: “It’s Pennsylvania!” Oh what great discovery! But yes, William Penn was the founder in1682 of what the little girl was talking about; Pennsylvania.

I have written something about Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in a previously published article but what still remains engraved in my memory about the city, in a nutshell, are: beside riding the Duquesne, a visit to the Carnegie Mellon Institution, a visit to the University of Pittsburgh and its famous Cathedral of Learning and a visit to a Westinghouse institution the little girl’s father, an engineer working for Westinghouse, offered to let me have a glimpse of what working for such giant corporation was like.

I had a chance to go through Pennsylvania again in 2004, as a Fulbright exchange teacher with my American hosts from Indiana State, on our way back to Indiana from Washington DC. This time round, we did not have time to visit big cities but instead we were gratified by highly significant historical moments on the battle fields of Gettysburg where some of the most decisive battles of the Civil War had been fought. The battle fields nowadays are used as a memorial and open-air museum of American history. Our visit ended up at the spot where Abraham Lincoln delivered his famous historical Gettysburg address which signaled the dawn of a new American era. That was my second chance visiting or, more accurately, going through the State of Pennsylvania.

The third time I visited Pennsylvania came about a year or so later from the second one. I was taking part in a program called “Partnership for learning” at the University of Delaware in Newark, Delaware and the visit’s aim was to give us, Moroccan participants, a glimpse of American history and culture. This time round, we were offered a golden opportunity to visit Amish community in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and yet another opportunity of the same kind to visit Philadelphia or Philly as its residents like to call it. The word “Philadelphia” is a compound one in ancient Greek meaning “Brotherly love”. Back in American history, the city somehow embodied some sort of brotherly love that allowed Americans to stand together on their own feet and break away from the heavy taxation and domination of the British Empire.

Touring historic Philadelphia took us back in history to the early making of the American nation. It was a chance to see historical sites such as the bell of liberty site, the seat to both the first and second continental congress. Our tour guide linked all places we went through to significant past events in American history. We, Moroccan teacher-trainers and supervisors did not fail to reiterate the fact that The Kingdom of Morocco had been the first state to acknowledge the independence of the United States in 1776. The historical ties between our two countries and nations date back to 1776 and like with any other healthy relation had ups and downs. Philadelphia played the role of American capital back then before it got moved to Washington, DC. The same as Essaouira was capital of Morocco during the reign of Mohamed III before it later got moved to Rabat. The Philadephia-Essaouira phase in Moroccan-American history has certainly paved the way to more fruitful cooperation and mutual understanding between the two countries and nations.

Beside the historical side of old Philly, there are other attractions and monuments one can enjoy visiting. One such attraction is Edgar Allen Poe’s house which I talked about in a separate article. Along with the literary and artistic heritage of the US, one can get a real “feel” of multi-cultural US by visiting South Street in Philadephia. To me as Moroccan visiting this colorful busy street could somehow be culturally speaking, comparable to an American tourist’s experience visiting Jemaa Lefna in Marrakech for the first time.

I may wind up this article talking about something that struck me as quite unusual and thought provoking at the same time. This “slice of Philadelphia life” is about giant steel statue displayed across from Philadelphia city hall in downtown Philly; the “clothes’ pin”. I heard someone comparing the clothes’ pin statue to Constantin Brancusi’s “The Kiss” something I googled later to discover in what way they could be comparable.

As a lover of anthropology, my personal interpretation of the Clothes’ pin is that it symbolizes the long journey humans went through from cavemen to civilized people leading a new way of life of which clothes and cleanliness were most remarkable traits.

According to my humble interpretation, the Clothes’ pin statue symbolizes the crucial turning point in the life of humans from savage to civilized as much as Philadelphia symbolizes the crucial turning point in the status of inhabitants of this part of the world from obedient British subjects to fully proud American citizens.