King Hassan II, Morocco's reigning monarch, once said his kingdom was a desert palm, "rooted in Africa, watered by Islam and rustled by the winds of Europe." He is right—indeed, Moroccan culture is stamped by its indigenous Berber people, organized and flourished under Islam, and, to this day, is pestered by the Spanish and French—but Hassan left something out. His desert palm has a disease—globalization—and its killing Morocco’s roots, drying Morocco’s water supply, and will take a toll far higher than any gusts from Europe. This is a story of entering Morocco as a 19 year-old in search of Hassan’s metaphor, and leaving sick, sad, and disillusioned by the withering palm I found there. See below.
