Blue Gush

Preface

     Every September that breezes in brings the autumn zephyr to never forget along with it. Morning announcements in schools and radio station programmes across the U.S. remind everyone to mourn lost lives and to relive a terror experienced either directly or vicariously. A surname similar to mine is an extra reminder to keep mourning and to keep feeling guilty. Cousin Mohammad legally becomes “Mo” and uncle Adel is now uncle “Del”. Dad seems to always be “randomly selected” at the airport and mom makes sure to buy Christmas lights for the house. And an American flag.
   Inevitably, the children of immigrants will, at some point, demand to take back their culture with balled fists. For some, the switch flips and they are born again FOBs, befriending only those of their background and developing an accent like some unfamiliar rash. For others, it’s gradual, they smirk bringing their lunches to school and proudly heat them up, no longer begging for Lunchables.
   To embrace sprawling heritage thoroughly, digging up the tree’s roots instead of just picking off its leaves is required. A prescription of embracing the land and people who’ve inhabited it for thousands of years (and continue to) is ordered by the doctor.
   Alongside the pharmacy’s order, I offer an herbal remedy to take as a supplement, that is, those accounts and stories accompanied by those of my own family. Neither are FDA approved, but they are grandma approved, and afterall, health is wealth.

   Muhammad has died, peace be upon him, and some of his most devoted followers are eager to spread his teachings. Caliph Al Walid Ibn Abdul Malik destroys the Byzantine Empire, previously standing in his way, and in three stages, engulfs the indigenous inhabitants of North Africa in Islam. Malik tells them that their tattoos are no longer permissible and are in fact haram¹. He tells them that witchcraft, working with the Earth instead of the Quran, will send them to Jahannam². But first, he teaches them Arabic to tell them that these things along with the rest of their ways of life are unacceptable. This is what Muhammad, peace be upon him, would have wanted.

¹ Forbidden by Islamic law

² Hell

   Ibn Battuta, writer and adventurer, frequents Somalia in his spare time. He drops in on other parts of Eastern and Central Africa, and scratches his head when he finds he cannot understand its natives. Battuta and his other medieval Muslim friends are observant, but not discerning. Anyone who doesn’t speak Arabic is “Al-Barbar”, regardless of where they are placed on the continent. Barbar, Barbara, Berbera– it was all considered babbling, stuttering nonsense to those fluent in the language of Allah. These Arabs don’t see color.
   When the European man crashes onto North African shore, sometime later, he yawns. He is tired of “Moor”, “Numidian”, and most reductive of all, “African”. He longs for a new pet name to drive the wedge between him and the ones inhabiting the land he trespasses onto even deeper. He looks over at the Arab’s homework and is impressed, but decides it isn’t specific enough. Enter: Berber, of the Barbary Coast. Formerly North Western Africa, and now mainly Morocco and Algeria, it has a nice ring to it, he decides. This European recognizes that Africa is not a country.

   is the sound of Western Africa. Sifting through the Francophiles and Arabization comes the tune of the African homeland, unfiltered, unbiased–uncolonized. It is the sound of weddings, when a hand meets the tbel, the qraqeb come out, and everyone is on their feet shouting “iwa!¹” while clapping and chanting. Gnawi music is arguably Morocco's soul, untouched by outsiders and intruders alike.
   At its core, Gnawa is a spiritual practice. Mâalems, those who chant and lead the rituals, are respected across spaces and are known to devote their entire lives to the practice. The ability to chant for hours amongst the hazy incense is a skill hard to come by.
   Once sung in sub-saharan dialects by the descendants of black enslaved peoples in Morocco and Algeria, the Gnawi of Maghreb now sing in our mother tongue– forcing Arabs who wish to dance with us to pick up the pace in their respective dialects. A guembri lute and tasseled hat are a symbol of our roots, and every Maghribi knows to get up and chant when it’s strummed, a sort of muscle memory. My mother frantically grabbing francs from her purse when we hear a Gnawi in the souk (before ululating) is also something short of muscle memory.

¹ “Iwa” has various meanings depending on context, here, it’s used in a celebratory way roughly translating to “okay!” or “alright!”

   An Amazigh girl wakes up one morning, and finds her bed stained with blood. The other women grab her hand and run to gather in a tent, giggling excitedly at their loved one’s passage into womanhood. Lines and dots are poked below her lip extending down her chin, then soaked with alfalfa to tinge them green, the color of barakah¹.
   Amazigh women are artists by nature, and their canvases of choice are skin and rugs.  The patterns etched permanently into either speak to the similarities of her gifted abilities. She is recognized as a creative and creator, her artistic reproductive power intertwined with her physical reproductive power. She is the conserver of tradition as well as Amazigh identity.
   My great grandmother’s hand tattoos had faded by the time I was a little girl. When I’d ask about the light green marks that lingered, the point of tattooing being dated was repeated until I myself saw the practice as distant as Islam wanted indigenous tattooing practices to seem.
   On my father’s side, Nubian women, like my grandmother, often had their entire bottom lip tattooed. Not for spinsters or girls! my aunt joked when I asked her about them. The needling was reserved for women about to marry, and like their distant Amazigh sisters across the desert, Nubian women also tattooed together as a social get-together. Healing, however, required complete privacy in order to avoid the Evil Eye from disrupting the process. When the 1970s show up, the practice along with the ink has long faded. My father still kisses his teeth when it’s mentioned, because tattoos don’t allow for proper wudu², which is needed for proper prayer. And a place in jannah³.

¹ blessing

² ablution

³ heaven

   France has been interested in Morocco since 1830, and thought she was pretty, pretty for a non-European at least. La France didn’t act on his urges back then, but he did make note of how easy Le Maroc would be to obtain, an entrance wide open for him and friends. A Treaty signed in Fès lets him slip in, and he decides to get comfortable.
   Moroccan feistiness is attractive until it gets in the way. Sure enough and on Mediterranean time, a “Berber” uprising ensues a decade later as a result of Moroccans fed up with occupation by guests who overstayed their welcome. The uninvited guests who were greeted with a glass of atay¹, bore no gifts other than racism and poor hygiene. The nickname they brought is one of the last straws. When the revolt is smothered, liberation still manages to burn through each Maghribi’s mind at night when he laid his head to rest. No Moroccan considered himself a “barbarian” until the Frenchman called him one. These non-Frenchies quickly learned that a language spoken through the nose was considered superior to one spoken through the throat, and that the process to be freed from their name-calling bully would have to be diplomatic. Diplomacy requires decades to master, apparently.

¹ Moroccan mint tea, drank like water and required for gatherings of any size occasion, or visitor

   Despite pleas and ancestral tears, Nassar continues with his plan for the construction of the Aswan High Dam. He tells Nubians in order to secure a new home in Nasr-Al-Nubia, the New Nubia, they must be present at time of registration. My father, seven years old, begins the two-day trip with his parents from Cairo, back to his grandmother’s home in Aswan. Her home, a mansion, he calls it, overlooks the Nile, and is built with bare hands using the stone, mud, and grass that comprises the land.
   The ships would come at 4 am, sharp, to take his family and many others 100 miles north, onto infertile, barren land. It was dark when the ship landed, and with dim flashlights, they were shown and told this is your new home, where barely anything homelike was visible.
   When the sun shone the next day, everyone was horrified. These new “homes,”made of brick, with no insulation, were packed tightly, void of the space they’d known before. In the coming months, many became mentally unstable, others died. The subject, along with the wound created, remains sore for decades to come, my father being no exception. Leaving your home when there’s no natural disaster, no emergency forcing you to leave…it’s a different kind of pain. For a moment, he’s silent. Then, he forces a familiar smile onto his face before changing the subject.

   Years of European free interference in Morocco’s business, the Royal Institute of Amazigh Culture constitutionally recognizes and adopts Tamazight as an official language of Morocco, beating out French. No longer an orphan, Tamazight, the written form of the ancient oral language, renders eager students across the country ready to learn the tongue of their grandmothers and grandfathers. The moat language protecting Maroc from Arabism has suddenly become shiny and new again.
   Universities from Fès to Rabat swarm with students enrolling in courses teaching Tamazight, the written form of the ancient oral language. Many start with a twinkle in their eye, but leave with a crinkle in their brow. The few that remain, remain fully committed to preserving the language, an act of modern resistance to the scrambled linguistic mess that constitutes Morocco. The others choose to respect it, but could not be bothered to adhere to it. I grew up speaking Darija, Spanish, Arabic, French, and I’m trying to learn English, so I don’t have the patience to learn Tamazight too, says one anxious student from Tétouan, a city in northern Morocco just 55 km from Spain’s sandy shores.
   Professors commute 45 kilometers a day to teach the forgotten language to those equally as enthralled by the ancient tongue, but regardless, all citizens– students, professors, beggars, whores, delinquents, mothers, witches, officials, and everyone else in between– have no choice but to laugh bitterly when ridiculed by Arabs for not speaking “correct” Arabic.

   Surrounding the Great Pyramids, fans chant loudly enough to wake the slumbering pharaohs. They wait eagerly for what they consider real royalty. A new king reigns over Egypt, his name is Mohamed Mounir. He is the voice of Nubians and the soul of Egypt. He dons linens and jeans, to which many turn up their noses initially, being used to the suited singers of the Classical Egyptian Era. Mounir’s eyes do most of his smiling, and his curly black hair can be seen bobbing to the African beats kilometers away.
   Mounir sings for peace. He sings for people near and far. He is the sound of Ramadan, specifically, Bakkar, a cartoon about a Nubian boy living in Aswan, airing each Iftar¹ on Channel One. Egyptian pride is hereditary, though Mounir’s pride can be seen as supreme from his ability to cross and blend Arab borders and dialects alike.

¹ the fast-breaking meal after sunset during Ramadan

   and Nubians are eager to answer. The Egyptian government snips the string tying the two tins together and decides to sell the skeletal remains of Nubians’ homeland in favor of a new agricultural megaproject. A four day sit-in is called for and seating arrangements are made for 150 Nubians on the stretch between Aswan and Abu Simbel. The government sighs in response, and promises 40 square miles near Lake Nassar to the Nubian people. When the promise is broken, no one is surprised.
   Murmurs gliding over a wide spectrum begin to rise into shouts. Cairo-raised, Nubian-blooded musician, Karam Mourad, believes that there’s no problem. He thinks that Nubians

want to take everything, but it’s not Nubian land, it’s Egyptian land and Nubians are part of Egypt. Writer and veteran activist, Haggag Oddoul, fears that what little remains of Nubians’ culture and language is being eradicated, that the scarce leftovers of heritage point at successive Egyptian governments’ emphasis on a single Arab identity and city-dwelling Nubians who have become increasingly out of touch with their roots. Oddoul says that Nubians should have the right to return, or face losing their identity.
   Everyone born on Egyptian soil is Egyptian, and all of Egypt is Nubians’ “homeland”. Everyone knows that Egypt is “Om El Donya”, the mother of the world, and a mother should never choose a favorite concerning her children. Or an identity.

   Brother Rachid, Moroccan Youtuber and self-described “thinker”, is fed up. Morocco is now the first African country and the first Arab country to reach semi-finals. Celebrations erupt in streets around the world and into the night for days to come. Rabat refuses to sleep, and New York has WhatsApp pinned on their phone’s home screen. The night is tinged green and red, and everyone is proud to be African. And Arab. Or African. Or Arab.
   Rachid needs people to wake up and, more importantly, for opportunists to keep their grubby hands off of Maroc. Considering this Moroccan success a victory for Arabism and Islam is an attack on the various components of the Moroccan society, he says, in a live stream broadcasted to his 350,000 subscribers. Many share Rachid’s sentiment, and make it a point to wear and post the Amazigh flag when the triumph is mentioned on Arabic channels over on the east side.
   I dig up the Moroccan flag I hung in my car as a teenager out of a box buried deep in a closet and smoke a Marlboro red, adjusting the small red flag onto my rearview mirror. I feel closer to my uncles now more than ever. Later, one of said uncles states the obvious, glorious, hypothetical in an excited WhatsApp voice message filled with loud honking and cheering in the background: first Spain, then Portugal? When we get France, ça y est, we’ll have fried all of our colonizers. So, we have no choice but to celebrate as loudly and obnoxiously and as Moroccanly as possible. Any lingering nervousness is shoved aside for the moment, trusting that Allah will lead the Lions to their rightful spot on the throne.
   The day comes, and some are doing spells while others are praying rak’a¹ after rak’a. Some prepare the well, at least we’ve made it this far, we broke records speech while others are already tap dancing on the French flag. Regardless, we all bite our nails. Regardless, Randal Muani scores and betrays Africans everywhere. Regardless, I still keep the flag up in my car. I decide to take it down a few weeks later when Egypt beats Morocco in Afcon. Good daughters don’t show favoritism.

¹ a unit of prayer in Islam