Leaving Tangier

Tahar ben Jelloun must have had to use a can-opener rather than a pen when he wrote “Leaving Tangier”, and the can he so expertly prises open for his readers to peer into is the seedy world of illegal immigration from his native Morocco, its causes and results, its victims, and the true nature of their profound suffering.

Although he homes in on the plight of his own countrymen and women, Jelloun brings into very stark relief the universal nature of the issue and exposes a basic instinct harboured in many hearts, the desire to leave a homeland for a better life elsewhere. In following the lives of these sensitively drawn characters as they move from the city of Tangier to Spain, land of supposed promise and freedom, we also catch a glimpse of the other side of the coin, disillusionment and the eventual desire to return home.

Jelloun’s Morocco is peopled with characters who are young, bright, and educated but without prospects. Because of the way society and politics are organised in Morocco, life holds nothing out to these frustrated people in spite of their best endeavours, unless of course they are willing to compromise themselves, and these characters will stop at nothing in order to get to Spain. As illegal would-be immigrants they are naively unaware that they will be no better off in Europe than in Africa, and pessimism and disillusionment weigh heavily on their souls as they discover reality.

Image via Wikipedia

Azel, a qualified lawyer in his twenties and with no prospect of a real job, consents to becoming the lover of an older Spanish man as his passport to freedom and fulfilment; gay sex seems to be a common price demanded, a price that many men will pay to escape to Europe. The alternative paths of drug smuggling and other nefarious activities also involve a lot of bending over in front of men with power or influence as does securing a passage on clandestine boat trips across the narrow stretch of water that separates the two continents.

Jelloun expertly draws sympathy from the reader for these men who, in desperation, grit their teeth and allow themselves to become embroiled in the murkiness and slime of male prostitution, but what choice do they have? Some of the narrative depicting these scenes, while very necessary to the story, can be difficult to read and after such episodes I discovered myself protectively clenching my butt-cheeks in protective sympathy.

Women don’t fare any better.

Image via Wikipedia

However what nation has never suffered in this way at some point in its history? As an Irishman I have these issues of longing to leave home behind for a better life elsewhere well ingrained in my psyche. Jelloun could well be writing about East Germans in the 1970s peering longingly beyond the Berlin Wall, willing to risk a bullet in the back as they contemplated climbing over. He could have been writing about people from the slums of Naples eyeing up their prospects of a better life in Argentina, or about Cubans gazing out across the water towards Florida. Who would I bend over for to get out of North Korea or Burma or Zimbabwe?

http://www.authspot.com/Journals/Pity-the-Poor-Immigrant.131534