Over time it becomes so obvious that many of us just don't care. But let's think about it a bit. Is it just a normal process that each people has to distinguish itself from other peoples by its own language, its own culture, etc.? Does a people knowingly and deliberately change its language and culture to look different from other peoples? Or is it part of human nature -kind of natural, historical development that takes place spontaneously over time?
How does this change/transformation occur, historically speaking? History has it that some people came to Europe from Central Asia. Others moved southwards to people present-day India, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan… That’s migration. Or call it "the drift to a better world". I don’t have to tell you that this migration phenomenon has always been caused by famine, war, military expansion… We Arabs and, before us, Berbers, came to this part of North Africa, for quite the same reasons, from the Arabian Peninsula. The United States of America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Latin and Central America are all obvious examples of how migration makes peoples what they are. Americans and Australians, for example, don’t speak with the same accent and they have different constitutions, etc., although they originally came from the same places. Many peoples have the same origins and yet you will hear talk of American culture, Australian culture, Brazilian culture… Is there anything wrong with that? Shouldn’t an American boast his culture is much more important than Moroccan culture, for example? How can a Moroccan convince an American that, no, it’s Moroccan culture that is more important? Even before agreeing on what culture means, it goes without saying that many more Moroccan youths would love to live in the U.S.A. than Americans would love to live in Morocco? Statistics speak for themselves. There are tens of thousands of Moroccans who became naturalized American citizens and thousands more of Moroccan immigrants in the US. The total number of legal immigrants in Morocco is about 100,000 and the number of illegal immigrants is around 40,000 -in a population of 34,000 000. More than 4,000 000 Moroccans live abroad. How can one explain this? Why do Moroccans go to America? Do they go for bread and honey or for American culture?
Many Moroccans who have been to America, or live there, talk about American democracy, American sense of organization, American sense of initiative and enterprise, American sense of risk-taking… In my home city of Mohammedia there’s a big MacDonald’s and several pizza huts. I have had among my tutors Americans who spoke Moroccan Arabic fluently. If many Moroccans in the USA went there for money, what do Americans (whatever their number) come to Morocco for? Yes, some of them come for work (in American schools, in more than 150 American companies operating in my country, etc.), but do they all come for money? I don’t know.
In Senegal, West Africa, for example, there are more than 4,000 Moroccans, some of them are based there since 1870. I'm not going to talk about their problems here. I just ask : why did they go there and not to America or Europe? Also thousands of Lebanese and other Arab migrants went to the Americas, but thousands of them, too, live in various parts of Sub-Saharan Africa.
In the wake of the 1990-1991 Pursian Gulf crisis, I was one of those who were surprised at the number of American and European migrants in Iraq, for example. For decades, in the sight of many of us, Arab Gulf states were synonymous with wealth and job opportunities more than anything else. Now I hear respectable Moroccan and Arab intellectuals speak with great respect of the “visionary policies” of, say, Qatari and UAE leaders, among others. Where do such visions come from? Can money alone explain everything? Doesn't culture have something to do with it?
Questions on culture lead us to questions on us, as human beings. What makes me write in English and French and what makes some English and French people learn Arabic? Why shouldn’t I write in Arabic? If I write in a foreign language would I necessarily be influenced by the culture of the language I am writing in.
Is culture important to me as a person? Well, I need my way of thinking when I have a problem. I need the feeling of belonging somewhere, to something, even when I don’t have a problem. If I don’t feel that I belong where I am, that’s a big problem. That’s when I will need my way of thinking to help me overcome this problem. In other words, my identity is more of a psychological than social necessity. These identity aspects are all parts of my culture, or rather my collective culture that I share with millions of people in my country. But there’s a more specific part of my culture (my individual culture) which I share with far less people in my country and with far more elsewhere.
Personally, I eat with my hands and would never be comfortable with a knife and fork. (Besides, it is said to be healthier !) If I want to be modern (although I don't know what that means actually), should I necessarily eat in a certain way or dress up according to fashion or speak this way or that ? Well, I believe, for my part, that even if I consider my way to be the best, others are free to have their own way within a general legal framework accepted by all for the sake of a peaceful society. I should therefore be able to eat what I want like I want when I am alone or with people like myself. I wear what I want like I want without provoking or hurting anybody. I speak as best I can without aping anybody or pretending what I am not. This is my culture. My way of life is a "conspicuous" representation of my culture. If I liked a piece of American music, that would be part of my culture. If I liked a French radio station or magazine, that would be part of my culture. I am a Moroccan and I like a lot of Moroccan things. But I also like a lot of things that are not Moroccan. I like Americans’ sense of duty. I like Germans’ love for reading. I like nineteenth-century French literature, etc. And I am absolutely comfortable with what I like.
If I can afford what I like, that’s great. If not, no problem. I don’t need to have a car or even a laptop to be a modern person. I can very well work in internet cafes and travel by taxi or take a bus. No problem. If other people think I’m not a modern person, whatever that means, or that I’ve failed socially or professionally, that’s not a massive problem for me. What's important for me is that I work hard in order to achieve what I want. What's important to me is that I be a man of today. I need to know and understand what’s going on in the world. I need to understand History to see what was possible in past times that is no longer today and what can yet change in the future for better or for worse. I need to understand other people’s ways of thinking. I need to learn about other peoples’ traditions and ways of life. If I know how other people think and behave I will improve my own way of thinking.
Now, should I go to a specific foreign country only to see what its people are like? Why not? Yet, I can do it without leaving my home city. What’s more important to me is to know how that people became what they are, how they think, how they solve their problems, what their dreams and aspirations are... I can know that at school, by reading, through the media. When I know much about that, I push the boundaries of my culture a little bit further. French authors become my authors, my teachers, and so do American authors, Egyptian journalists, Arab poets… My culture would thus become as large as my knowledge. This is what I meant by “specific culture” or “individual culture”. I would not then make a difference between culture and civilization. But still I will make a difference between my culture as an Arab-Berber culture and Western culture, for example. They are not the same. And that’s very normal. I won't start comparing which is best. My culture is good as long as it suits me well, as long as I feel comfortable with it. I would not expect anybody to dress the way I do, or to eat the way I do (even if he were a Muslim like me)… I would only expect him to understand me -not even to accept me as I am. We are all human beings: we have more or less the same problems and different ways of dealing with those problems. When I write I am exposing my way of thinking, my way of solving my problems -based on my own (individual) culture, which is neither worse nor better than anybody's culture.
What would happen if I was invited to a special dinner where I had to respect a certain etiquette? Frankly, I would be very embarrassed and perhaps ridiculed. But once out, I would forget all about it and be myself again. Besides, I have already experienced that and I would not hesitate to do it again.
