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Join on Telegram As she recounts her experiences of living outside of Morocco since the age of 3, Salma Dine, who is now 20, tells Morocco World News her entire life has been littered with a self-perception crisis, a lingering uncertainty about belonging, a sense of who she is at bottom, and what really counts as home.
She says that leaving her home country to live in Qatar has caused a sustained level of uneasiness as she struggles to be fully Moroccan outside of Morocco, and fully integrate with Moroccans in Morocco.
Her accent, dialect, and social surroundings have all affected her perception of her Moroccan roots, as well as her Moroccan personality and her ability to fully identify as Moroccan. She reports, “I slowly felt like I was forgetting my roots, sometimes I’d forget words in my dialect.”
Some experts agree that identity “is something that shifts and changes throughout life as people confront new challenges and tackle different experiences.” Developmental psychologist Erik Erikson believes that an identity crisis is “a time of intensive analysis and exploration of different ways of looking at oneself.”
For Moroccans living in the Gulf, it can be difficult to both assimilate and express one’s own cultural identity, as this is so foreign to people that are native to the Gulf, such as Qatari or Emirati people. In this context, many Moroccans will find it challenging to speak, live, and act Moroccan when surrounded by a greater majority of people who do not understand them in terms of language, tradition, background, etc. On the other hand, could this barrier happen to bring Moroccans living outside of Morocco closer together?
Like Salma, 18-year-old Rawan Rajib tells of her recollections growing up in the Middle East, away from her country of origin. “As a second-generation immigrant, it completely alienated me from my culture and country.” Rajib also gives an account of her own perception of the country she comes from, and how living away from it affected her attitude towards it.
“When I was younger, I never spoke a word of Moroccan to anyone because I thought it was strange; I refused to eat my traditional foods and listen to or watch Moroccan media. It was all unfamiliar to me, almost unnatural,” she says. And while on holiday trips back home, Rajib added, she felt “ as if [she was] on vacation in a foreign country and not home.”
Interestingly, a clear parallel can be drawn between Moroccans’ experiences and that of nationals of Gulf countries – despite both sharing predominantly Arab, Muslim roots. Morocco harbours a different culture and society to that of a country such as Qatar, whose residents are a blend of nationalities and cultures such as Palestinian, Egyptian, Sudanese, etc.
Morocco also differs from Qatar in its restricted range of languages – as Morocco houses mostly Moroccans, it is typical that the most prominently used language is Moroccan Darija, fused with French and/or Spanish, depending on the region. Due to the variety of nationalities residing in Qatar, its Arabic-speaking nation synthesizes as different dialects are heard from different speakers all across the country.
What makes the Moroccan experience unique, then, could be the overwhelming degree of sameness that dictates the very idea of Moroccanness despite the country’s cultural and linguistic diversities. This, to be sure, might not be the preserve of Morocco. But in very few countries in the MENA and beyond does one come across such a striking interwining of cultural and national identities.
