Cros sing the Spanish-Moroccan Border with Migrants, New Islamists , and Riff-Raff

Practice:; of movement between M o rocco and Spai n h ave fo r cen tur ie:,; been a com mon econom ic, soc ia l and po litica l l ivel ihood strategy f(Jr thousands of i n d i v i d­ u a l s and fam i l i es inhabit ing the border area ofTetmin/Yebala, Morocco. However, only few studies have approached the border as obj ect for anthropological inqu i ry. Th i:; essay analyses the Span ish -Moroccan border from the perspective of th ree m a l e crossers, as well as fro m the perspecti ve of Spanish and Moroccan eth n o­ landscaping in Tetuan. I argue that the common Tetuani ambivalence towards Spain as well as towards the Spanish Protectorate era must be understood within the w ider context o f ihe impress of the Moroccan stale on Northern Moroccan identities.

Ninna Nyberg S rensen, Senior Researcher, PhD, Centre for Deuelopment Research, Gammel Konge uej 5, DK-1610 Copenhagen V, Denmark. E-mail: nns@cdr.dk In a 1998 article, Henk Driessen points to the celebration of 1992 including the celebration of the European integration process, the com memoration of the 1492 discovery of America, and the remembrance of the 1492 fall of the Muslim kingdom of Granada -to highlight the irony of the fact that 1992 became the year in which North African clandestine migration to Europe broke all records (Driessen 1998). Since 1992, however, much effort has been put into controlling Europe's southern sea-border and border towns on the southern shore. In 1993, the European Union decided to build an 8 kilo metres long defensive wall around Ceuta, the Spanish enclave in northern Morocco, consist ing of two parallel wire fences, 2.5 metres high, 5 metres apart, and with a line of sensors between the wires. Although this defence line is no more than a term in the same game that sets clandestine migrants against wealthy coun tries further North . . . that has to be reached and surmounted (Harding 2000), it has become ex ceedingly difficult and expensive for North Af ricans to cross the border to Europe. Those who manage to beat European border controls find themselves in steadily deteriorating working and living conditions in Europe. At the same time a growing number of persons who had hoped for better lives elsewhere find them selves stuck in Morocco.
In this essay I wish to analyse the Spanish Moroccan border as seen from Tetmin, a north ern Moroccan city. I will use the narratives of three male border crossers to reflect upon past and recent changes in this particular border land. Together with the large majority ofTetuan inhabitants, these young men share a critical view on Spain and Spaniards, simultaneously as their symbolic resistance towards the Moroc can state and the former King Hassan II is expressed by reference to Spanish ethno-and urban landscaping (terms I advance to refer to traditions and architecture), especially to the former Plaza Espana, which in 1988 was recon structed and re-named Plaza Hassan II by the King. I will argue that the common Tetuani ambivalence towards Spain as well as towards the Spanish Protectorate era ( 1 9 12-56) must be understood within the wider context of the impress of the Moroccan state on Northern Moroccan identities. My argument is based on the assumption that public discourse and whis pered narratives about the Plaza and the sur rounding social space are expressions of vari ous power struggles over spati a l ond socia l contro l .
I h ave chosen t o examine the everyday e l feeLs of' Lhe Spa n ish -Morocca n borde r i n terms of the ten s i on s between siate power a n d m ob i l e livelihood practi ces. I n doi ng so, I focu s on ihe agency o f m igratory s u bject s and at .ic m pis by the states i n q uestion io regu l ate thei r act i v i ties and identities. My l arger goal, however, is io redirect ihe siudy of contemporary migratory processes beyond ihe geo-political frontier sep arat ing E u rope from Africa or Spa i n from M o rocco. Inside Moroccan terri tory oiher bou nda rim; prevail.
The analysi s ih at follows is divided into four paris. Pari l p rov ides a b road h i sto rical over view of the region. This overview makes appar ent that the Spanish-Moroccan border has var ied in terms of permeabi li ty over ti me. In Part 2 , I describe the foundation ofthe city ofTetuan, its inhabitants, historical as well as contempo rary movement in and oui ofthe city, and finally the recent changes in ihe u rba n space. Tn Pari 3, I present the narrati ves provided by the three male border crossers in extracted form . Their migratory experiences are distinct, both be cause of their different socio-economic back grounds and their different forms of encounters with the border. The final part ofthe essay offers a theoretical discussion of the relationship be tween the seemingly nostalgic imagery of the urban landscape ofthe past, the current ambiv alence towards Spain and the persistent cri tique ofthe Moroccan regime, prior to the death of King Hassan II and the subsequent demo cratic openings in 1999. This discussion gives rise to my suggestion that we need to be more precise as to which kinds of borders we are talking and writing about, as well as to what kind of global processes we refer to. It is often assumed that territorial state and cultural bor ders are coterminous. But as my analysis of the northern Moroccan borderlands will show, it is possible for borders to be erased in terms of culture without being erased in terms of state effects.
The M editerranean : Bridge or Frontier?
The Mediterranean region is ma rked by a con ti n uous rnove meni of people from boih sides of ihe sea bord e r. T T i sior ica l ly, ihe area now known as Morocco was popu l ated by vari ous groups of pasiora l isis, who were l ater io be know n as Berbers. The i r l oca l ti1rms o f' m obi l i ty were bound up wiih ihe search Jor pasture. Together w i ih ihe resi o!' ihe M aghreb region, iheir var ious terri tori es were ai differen t times invaded by li1re ign i n truders (e.g. Phoe n i cians, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, I be ri ans, and so iorih), of w h ich ihe Arabs pe rh aps made ihe strongest impact with ihe establishment of the Western J s l a m i c E m pire (consoli dated in 7 1 0). l shall not dwell long on these historical movements or early global processes, but point to some of the l i n ks of importance for present-day iden tity politics in northern Morocco and for the identi fications that ihe inhabitants of Teiuan often employ.
After 710 From the beginning of the 20th century, these movements were once again reversed.
During the First World War, thousands of Mo roccans fought for the French or worked as replacement labo u r i n th e French i ndustry and agri c u l t u re. D u ri n g th e Spa n i s h C i v i l War ( 1 936-39), Franco recru i ted 60,000 Moroccans (pri marily from the n orthern Ri fi region) to fight i n Spain fi)r the n ati onal ist cause (Collin son 1. 996). At the same time thousands of oppo sition a l Spa n i ard s fleeing Franco's oppression found a safe refuge i n M orocco.
From As hopefully stands to reason after this short cut summary of more than 1 200 years of back and forth population movements, the Mediter ranean ha�; at various points of tim e s h i lled from serv i ng as a bridge, defined by incl u s i o n ; a boundary, defined as a symbolic divi d e bciw een groups; and a frontier, defined as a political a n d legal divide adj acent nation states. According to Henk Driessen ( 1996, 1998, the Medi terra n e an Sea never acted as a barrier between Europe an d North Mrica. It was rather a ri ver that united more than it divided by making a si ngl e world out of North and South. It was not u n ti l the beginning of the 1 6th century, and the final expulsion of Moors from the Iberi an Penin �; u l a , that the Strait o f Gibraltar became a political frontier; and only by Spain's incorporation into the European Union in 1986 that the southern border of Spain was transformed into a frontier of major concern for Western Europe. This fron tier is not only a political and economic d iv ide, but also an ideological and moral frontier, in creasingly perceived by Europeans as a barri er between democracy and secularism on the one hand, and totalitarian and religious fanaticism on the other (Driessen 1998: 100).
For many Moroccans, the Strait of Gibraltar has lately converted into a Wall, which they can only pass legally with a visa in their pocket. If Europe was once seen as a continent of opportu nities, it is now increasingly seen as a force that will employ all means to keep Moroccans from entering. Still, Moroccan perceptions ofEurope, although ambiguous, tend to be more nuanced than European perceptions of the North Afri can migration threat, neatly summarized be low : "In the North you find democracy, prosper ity and freedom from tradition. Also individual ism, violence and fear. In the South authoritar ianism, the hard struggle for the Dirham and a separation of the sexes. But also solidarity, the sweet life and patience" (Valenzuela & Masego sa, 1996:27).
When we direct our attention to the former centre of Spain's colonial administration in Morocco, Tetuan, the perceptions become even more complex. Paraphrasing Anne Michaels we could say that the search for facts, for places, names, influential events, important conversa tions [ . . . and] political circumstances account to nothing if you can't find the assumption your subj ects live by (Michaels 1997 :222). Border landers tend to live by complex and ambiguous assumpti ons. Recent cha nges in ::: uropcan con cepti on s o f the southern bord e r, la ultima frontera (the ultimate frontier) to the African continent, have not made a�:�:,;umpiiom; l ess ambiguou s.

Tetuan: City on the Border of Things
The city of Teiuan" is located in the north western pari of Morocco -some 42 kilometres south of the Spanish enclave of' Cc u ia, 54 kilo metres south-cast oi' Tangi  Sidi AI Mandari. When he died in 1 5 1 1 , first his son and later the son's wife, Sit al Horra, contin ued to govern Tetmin independently from the Sultan of Fez. The second half of the 16th century was characterized by a series of civil fights over power. From the mid-16th century to l 688, the al-Naqsi�:� fam ily -descend ants ofihe Ben i l der tribe -won power over th e city and managed to keep the city free and independent from oui�:�ide dominati on li>r more than 40 year�:�. From 1. 688 and u n ti l the war between Mo rocco and Spain was declared i n 1 860 , various fami l ies (the Ri tis, the Ash-ashs ) held powe r ovcr ihe ci ty. The entire peri od, howeve r, was dom in ated by a strong Andalusian influence. An influence characterized by ambiguous relations to Eu rope, by at the �:�arne time hostility and persist ent n ostalgi a inward the pl aces left behind (Miege et al. l Teiuan received m ore than 40,000 Moors in the prim ary phases of expulsion from the Iberi an Peninsul a. Their numbers increased consid erably during the successive centuries. By the end of the 19th century, however, some of their descendants had moved on to other and more important urban centres in Morocco. Still, both their numbers and their cultural influence re mained profound. The Muslims exiled from the Granada, th e indigenous Berbers, the Hebrews, and the Christian Spaniards have all contribut ed to a local form of speech, a special Tetuani dialect. Today, Spanish is perhaps the strongest influence. A bag is called a borsa (bolsa in Spanish), a kitchen is a kuchiniia (cocina in Spanish), a cracker is a bexquittu (bizcocho in Spanish), and so on. But when I was invited to participate in an upper-middle class wedding in August 1.997, I was given an Arab-style party dress by one of my male informant's sister to wear during the night fiesta. By good fortune I decided to wear my own European dres s. Luck ily, because the rest ofthe party guests were all dressed up in AI Andaluz party-wear.
In 1912, prior to the Spanish protectorate era, circa 20-25,000 Muslims, 7-8,000 Jews, and 1 ,000 Europeans lived in Tetuan. In the rest of the 20th century, Tetuan experienced a considerable demographic growth. In 1940, the city had approximately 70,000 inhabitants, in 1950 80,000, and in 1960 101 ,000. In 1971 the number of inhabitants had grown to 139,000, in 198 1 to 213 ,000, and in 1991 to more than 300,000. 12,228 Riff-migrants of rural origin (from the provinces ofAihucemas, Chauen, and Nador) moved to Tetuan between 1975 and1982. In the same time-span, Tetuan received 1 1 ,648 m i grants of urban origin, of whom 25 per cent origin ated in th e urban centres ofAlhuce mas and Nudor (calculated from Ruiz Manzan ero 1997 and the 'l'etu{mi local government statistics 1 997). From th e early 1980s, poor and landless peasants from all over the country moved i n to the city, a mass i nflux that several of the old families of Tetuan conceive of as a ruralization of the city. At the same time, the majority of the state servants in the city are Arabic speaking southerners from the Atlantic plains, in stalled by King Hassan Il after years of public unrest culminating with the riots in 1984.
In the late 1 990s, Tetuan had grown to a city with over 300,000 registered inhabitants. The city centre, Place Hassan II, links the old Medi na to the new city added by the Spaniards, where even now you can buy a bocadillo , where expatriate Spaniards flock to the Cathedral on Place Moulay el-Mehdi on Sundays, and where local people speak Spanish more than any other foreign language -a fact referring as much to the city's colonial heritage as to the local popu lations dissociation from southern Moroccan authorities who do not have Spanish but French as their second language. Local food and goods are sold in markets in the Medina and the great Bazaar just outside the old city walls. European and other foreign products -including every thing from soap to towels, plastic sandals to kitchen utensils, synthetic sexy underwear and radio cassettes -are smuggled in from Ceuta and sold on almost every street corner and side walk without much notice from the authorities.
And discarded goods collected from the garbage cans in Ceuta are sold or bartered among the poorest of the poor in the narrow and dark passages in the very heart of the old Medina.
It is also to the heart of the Medina, long the place for transactions of the greatest diversity, that would be migrants, who lack the means to buy forged papers and a flight ticket across the Strait of Gibraltar, will turn. and M o h a m m a d .r. I knew M o h a mmad fro m a n earl ier vi s i t i n Spai n , M a r u f a n d H udd u were new acq u a i nta nces. I n fo r m a l gath e ring w i th Maruf and IladdC1 u su ally took place i n ca fes or d u ri n g l aic after noon city and Med ina walk:; (not curtailed by caf6-walls w i th ears). As con fi d en ce grew, ou r conversations began io move into ihc house of M aruf's pare n t:;, a ti n y two-room i n ner-city apartment, housing not only Maruf's old father, mother and h i mseH; but also h i s yo u nge r broth er -a taxi d river -and h i s newly div orced sister and her one-year old son . I was never inv i ted into the home of Haddu, who tempora rily l i ved centre:; aro u n d the good and the bud i n d i fferent pinceR. J i i:-; to :-;omc extent based on ste reoty pes, but to the extent that the na rrator ha:; been to the place::� ta l ked about, it i::; a l :;o ba::; cd on expe ri en ce. When experience fro m ab roa d is used to criticize local form:; of practi ce, bo rder conversations often take the form of cou n ter narratives. When ou r conve rsati ons Loo k pl ace, Mamf was 36 years old. He i s of Berber and m igrant origi n . Both h i s parents moved to Teiu o n before he was bo rn. He grew up i n Tctuon, was trai ned as an electric ian in M a l aga, Spai n , but retu rned to Morocco sh ortly after his appren ti cesh ip was served . Through family networks he got h i m self to France, where he worked ill egally a:; an electrician for six months, before he decided to go back and make himself a life in Morocco.
Back in Tetuan he found a j ob at a facto ry, but was laid of!" because of problems between his fam ily an d the family of th e factory owner.
According to Marut; the factory owner -a new comer from Casablanca -wanted all th e factory positions for his own family and friends. Local workers ofBerber descent were gradually fired, always on the grounds that they were trouble makers. Maruf admitted that he at times did kick up a row, for example when he refused to take part in friendly turns and bribery arrange ments. Mter a few months of unemployment he once again went to Spain. He entered on a tourist visa and worked any odd job for two years before he heard about better luck in northern Europe. Why not?, he thought, and entered Denmark illegally in 1990, married a Danish woman and was subsequently granted a residence and work permit. The marriage turned out to be more troublesome than antic ipated. The Danish wife appeared to be a drug addict and when the domestic disputes passed beyond reasonable limits, Maruf moved to a friend's apartment. His wife still asked him for drug money, but when he one day refused to give her any, she reported him to the foreign police (on the grounds that they no longer lived to gether and that Maruf's residence permit was no longer grounded on marriage). Unfortunate ly the wife was killed in a car accident before the case was solved. Five days after her death, the foreign police presented him with an order of deportation . They tol d h i m , thai i f h e left vol u n tarily, he cou l d a pply Ji>r a n ew vi:;a in Morocco without any trou ble. Th is was of co urse a l ie. By the ti m e 1 m et Maru t; he was desperate ly t ryi ng to get a new v i sa f()r any E uropean cou ntry a fter having h is Da nish visa ap p licati on tu rn ed down.
Haddu was 35 years old, of Berber origi n and in the s u m me r o l' 1 997 he had been u n e m ployed for nearly a year. H e is ihe fortun ate hol der of a Spanish passport, a val uabl e document he has obtained through fa m i ly con tacts working in the Spa n i :;h consu l ate. His grown-up life has been spent circu lating between m ainland Spain, Ceuta and Teiuan . Du ring his time in Spain, he has ty p i cally been e m p loyed in ihe agricultural sector, lately as well in ihe service sector. His latest job in Spain was in a restaurant in the winter resort of Sierra Nevada, a real good j ob he had to quit because he couldn't take ihe cold weather. To Haddu , work and employment i s associated with being outside o f Morocco. He could, if he wanted to, find employment in Tetuan, yes, but the wages are too low compared with the earnings you can have on the other side of the Strait of Gibraltar. In addition to differ ences in wage levels, finding a job in Tetuan has nothing to do with qualifications but every thing to do with connections. If you do not have access to such connections, forget it . . . you might as well go to Europe right away. To cope with these conditions Haddu has developed a strat egy based on 2-3 months of work in Spain, 2-3 months of rest in Morocco, and, while in Moroc co, occasional trips to Ceuta to buy products for distribution among the street vendors in Tetuan. An activity which in legal terms is to be termed smuggling but which in Haddu's and most other Tetuani small-scale businesspersons' percep tion is doing business. During my time in Tetuan, Haddu was time and again moving around Tangier, Ceuta and Tetuan. His explanation for these short trips (2-3 days) was always that he was going to find out if he could get himself a working contract in Spain. As time went by, he got more and more nervous and less communi cative as to what his business trips were all about. I got the picture, however, when he one day told me -in his awkward and typical Tetuani way -that too many Moroccans are drowning on their way to Spain these days. The boa t bw.; i ness i s low.7 Ai ihe age of 28, Moha m mad was s l igh tly you nger th an ihe other iwo. After the rece n t death o f his father, Mohammad, being the eld est brother, has taken over as the male head o f his mother's household . In rea li ty, he is on ly given ibis rol e in the di spute about the succes sion io p roperty w i th h i:; father's family. I n s id e the nucl ear family, his mother is taking the decisions. Her side of the family is among the better o ff families in ihe region . They r u n a wholesal e business with oflices i n Ceuta as well as in Tetu an . His father's side ofthe family has several smaller businesses in Tetuan, but the lather himself was an intellectual who never made any big money. Both parents studied in Spain, a family tradition Mohammad has taken over. Neither he nor his family consider his stay abroad migration. He will return as soon as he has obtain ed his PhD-degree. Local bribery and the system of having to know the right people are among several reasons for getting his PhD abroad. According to Mohammad, you will nev er get a scholarship at the local university unless you bribe the university authorities. One of Mohammad's younger brothers failed his university exams in 1996. He passed during my stay in 1997, most probably because the family presented his professor with a brand new moped. Mohammad's family has both Berber and Arab ancestors. They are serious religious practition ers of Islam, and Mohammad has joined an Islamic student organisation in Spain. While in Spain, Mohammad prays the prescribed five times a day and makes sure to go to the mosque every Friday. In Tetuan, his religious practice is more relaxed. Mter all, he is on vacation. Dur ing the summer of 1997, Mohammad was trav elling back and forth between Tetuan and Bar celona. In Barcelona he made the final prepara tions for his thesis while at the same time buying equipment for a sandwich bar he and his family were planning to establish next to the beach house. Each time he came back to Moroc co, the family went to Ceuta to pick up not only him but also loads of kitchen hardware for the sandwich bar. Such things are indisputably cheaper in Spain but, as the family reluctantly admitted, they are also of a better quality than similar Moroccan products . . . and young Maroc can costumers attach higher symbolic valu e to European style restaurants.
The above descriptions of the local circum stances in which these three border crossers found themselves are by no mean s complete. I do hope, however, that they may give some context to the following analysis of narratives and discourse. Cafe talk in Tetuan is often border talk. Sitting in a cafe with Maruf, Haddu or Moham mad, conversation would often start with the cafe wall decoration,just bel ow King Hassan II, right in the middle of the old yellowed picture of Plaza Espana. Oh, wasn't it a beautiful Plaza, they would sigh, and addressing me they would continue: "Look at the small gardens with high palm trees giving shade to the burning sun, notice the pavilion in the middle . . . many a concert was given there." Mohammad, who be side his admiration for the Plaza also has an academic interest in the Spanish Protectorate era would go into detail: "Notice the elaborate mosaics covering the entire Plaza, all the small coloured stones forming the complicated pat tern s ofancient ca rpets . . . a work of real a rt. 'l'he Prai se would often be foll owed by severe criticism of the new Place Hassan II, construct ed aiter a French architect's designs in 1988. Vocal tones would change from soft nostalgia to something in between the harsh and painful; !rom audible voices to ba rely perceptible w h is pers. One day, while crossing the Place with Maruf, he said: "The King had all the trees cut down, and yes, I know, to be able to control that nothing hides from his gaze." Another day Mo hammad took me to the end of the Place. "Look at the Palace, one can neither enter nor cross its premises. And this is so although the King never comes to stay in Tetwin. He did once, in the late 1980s, but somebody threatened him and he never came back after that. He probably never will . He is not welcome here."Yet another day Mohammad told me, that large parts of The colonial Plaza Espana.
Tetu an's Univer�; i ty wen:! moved out of the city after the 1984-85 riots -a move i ntended to prevent the stu dents from demon strati ng i n th e city. On various occasions they would all point to the enormous amount of money used to construct the Pal ace and the new Place, often comparing the sum to how many workplaces could have been established i nstead . Haddu and Maruf both saw a close relation between the region's links to wider spaces in Morocco as well as to Spain. "Th e Ki ng doesn't care about the North of Morocco . . . al l the revenue is transferred to the South . . . there is no develop ment here, no future . . . no wonder everybody attempts to get to Europe." From Plaza-talk conversation would ines capably slip into travel stories. Manuf would tell about his hardshi ps in Europe, encounters with the police, racism, and so forth, but also about the sweet life he lived with European women (in Spain and in Denmark), women who did not demand gold jewellery, clothes and ex pensive gifts from their male partners, but simply based relationships on love and bodily desire. Outside the wedding palaces of th e old Medina, both M anuf and Haddu would com ment on th e enormous amount of money Moroc cans spend on weddings. "Lots of gold, all these women want is gol d. Mter the wedding (and all of the money invested in the celebration of the wedding) many marriages turn into divorce. -Women demand and demand. They do not un derstand that a man needs to be left alone once in a while, to have some peace and quiet. Upon divorce, all your money is lost." One of the reasons why Haddu and Manuf are still unmarried is -according to themselves -that they cannot afford a wedding. But on top of that they would also prefer a mutual love relation with a Europeanish woman. A decent one, not a prostitute, Haddu would often make clear to me. "Oh yes, I had my experiences with prostitutes in Barcelona. They too want your money." In the same breath Haddu and Maruf would sometimes comment on the youngTetua ni women who cross the border to Ceuta or mainly Spain: "Most certainly prostitutes, at least the great majority."8 The new Place Hassan II.
Mu ruf' wou l d also te l l stories about th e M o rocca n police, of how they beat up decent l ocal 'I'etua n i s on no solid grounds. Haddu , who on severa l occasion::; has been ch a rged with ill egal (but widespread) street wending of' kif (hash ish) lost four of his teeth in a beating in which it turned out that he d i d not possess any kif in his pocket. "You know the ordinary pol ice ofli c en; by thei r unifbrm . . . but who knows if the secret police is involved with the contraband mafia (basically con trolling the trade in tobacco and alcohol ) to trap peop le. Wh at you do know is th at the great majority of the police officers arc not local. They are brought up by the central authorities to control us, the northern rebels.
Local policemen are different. I know of several cases in which a 'l'etuani police oflicer has cov ered up fbr a hometown boy. As long as you get incarcerated in 'l'etuan . . . they may treat you all right. If you are transferred to Rabat or Casa, forget it. You won't be able to walk out of there, not after the torture they put you through." Mohammad's narratives, although of a dif ferent kind, would also be very ambiguous. They would occasionally concem the beach rub bish, which he would claim to be dumped in the sea in Spain and Ceuta (no matter how many Arabic consumer labels on the driftage I would be able to point to). On baddish days he would tell the story about how his youngest brother was killed in Spain by incompetent doctors who deliberately did not give him the proper treat ment for a harmless diarrhoea. How his father after that experience had chosen to get medical treatment in Morocco, no matter his means to cover the expenses in a European hospital . About Europeans who trust any Moroccan to be a fundamentalist terrorist when many -though not many enough -are just pious practitioners of Islam. But also narratives about the King's failed policy in northem Morocco. About the regime's transfer of development funds from the Yebala region to dubious projects in the south, not least in Sahara. During the 1997 local government elections he would tell me why he wouldn't make a fool of himself by voting. "Al Adl Wal Ihsan (the semi clandestine Islamist movement) is banded by the King. 'l'he movement's leader, Abdesalam Yasin, has been in house arrest in Sale since 1989. Other polit 96 ical parties of the opposi tion w i l l pro bably get more vote::; than the Ki ng'::; ::; u pporte rs. B u t your vote doesn't matter, the King will w i n a nyw ay.
That'::; the only thing you can be su re of' in Morocco." The sociali sts actually won the local el ec tions in Tetuan . The Isl ami sts, who were n ot allowed to put up can d i d ates, marched the streets as soon as the election result was pu blic ly known. They were spread with truncheons by the more than 1 ,000 extra police of1icers ::;ta tioned in Tetuan du ri ng the elections.
The Moor's Last Sigh or a Silent Cry of Resistance?
"Translation is a kin d of tran substanti ation; one poem becom es an other. You can ch oose your philosophy of translation just as you choose how to live; the free adaptation that sacrifices meaning to exactitude. 'l'he poet moves from life to language, the translator moves from lan guage to life; both, like the immigrant, try to identify the invisible, what's between the lines, the mysterious implications" (Michaels 1997: 109).
According to James Clifford, thinking histori cally is a process oflocating oneself in space and time. Such analytical processes oflocation should be seen as initiaries rather than bounded sites -as series of encounters and translations in which the use of comparative concepts or trans lation terms work as approximations. Given the historical contingency of translations, there is no single location from which a full comparative account can be produced (Clifford 1997 : 1 1 ) . Seen i n this perspective, cafe conversations around the old Plaza Espana in 'l'etuan can be seen as a privileged site for border-talk among inhabitants of 'l'etuan. In such conversations people translate feelings of old empires lost, ambiguous feelings of belonging to more than one nation state, as well as feelings of not belonging to the nation state in which they hold at least nominal citizenship.
On another level, Plaza-conversations be come the condensed site from which other sites for socio-moral concerns ofthe good and the bad life can be constructed. 'l'he divide between Berbe r a n d Ara b eth n ic group::; i n M o rocco, a nd the Berber'::; fee l i n g of' excl u::;ion !'rom national politi cs cou l d be one example; ave rs i on aga i n st local bri bery practice:; a:; well as i n grain ed patterns of' fri endly iu rn::; and mercha nt-l i ke social re l ations cou l d be another; a n d con cep tions o f' !cm i n i n i iy, m ascu l i n i ty a n d gender re lations o n boih s i des o!'ihe border co u l d be yei other examples.
Borde r crossing subj ects from Tetuanwhether travelling in ihoughi (through imagin ing and critical ly debatin g thei r own and oiher worlds), or in space (from one location io anoth er) -expose their capacity of im agi n i n g l i ves tran sn ationally but maybe less a capacity of forging and sustai ning si mulian eous multi stranded social relations that link together their societies of origin and settlement than predict ed by Ba sch and Gl ick Schi ller ( 1 995 :48). In ibis process they engage in dialectics of belonging, opposition and resistance to the hegemonic log ic of their own nation-state as well as to the nation states in which ihey occasionally live their lives. Their practices may not be self consciously resistant toward their state of citi zenship (although they often are), nor even loosely political in character understood as lead ing to collective organization against oppres sion) (Smith and Guarnizo 1998). They are, however, counter narratives to a state from which they are excluded on ethnic, regional, economic, political, religious, or gender grounds.
It is in this sense that the public discourses and whispered narratives about Plaza Espana and the surrounding social space can be understood. Understood as expressions of resistance to the regime's spatial and political control. The very act of hanging up the picture of Plaza Espana below the obligatory picture of the King in public places is a direct challenge to state con trol. The state may decree the display of the King in public places, yes, but it cannot control what is put up right next to him, nor can it control the meaning attached to the additional wall decor. At the same time the discourses and narratives are expressions of a divided nation, speech acts through which a boundary to state power is defined. While the public discourses and private narratives can be read as simulta neous ambivalent feelings toward both Spain and M orocco south ofYebal a -as experie nces of' rea l f'ro nii er::; ihat noi only div ide adjacent n ation states b u t a l so n ations within state::;they do at the same time function to establish a bridge over the river th at once united North and South in Al Andaluz.
Mobility and fixity in place are aspects or border societies which have a bearing on the people who live there, for example by helping to define the strengths and weaknesses of commu n i ties, nations and states at th eir junc tu re on the borders. As such, the anthro pology of borders is simultaneously one nation's histo ry and of one or more states frontiers (

Epilogu e
On J a n ua ry 3 1 , 2000, my phone rings . The ca l l is from M orocco, from Tetm in . It is my fri en d , th e i:iCribc, who h a s spent good parts o f his grow n -u p l ite in i mprisonment charged of anti state poli tical activ ities. His addiction to sports and h ealth f(>od cannot conceal the result of pri son treatment. His eyes arc forever ou t of focus, hi s row of teeth only the faintest memory ofhis childhood smile, his fit body disfigured by marks of iortu re. Through the lisping I cannot fai l to noti ce the joy in his voice. "So what's up, Abdellah?", I ask, "What can I do for you." "Not hi ng", he answers, "absolutely nothing.  Murray 1992 : 158). 5. In accordance with 'Maruf', 'Haddu', and 'Moham mad', I have changed their real names for pseudo nyms and :-; l igh tly b l u rred the i r iclenlily.
6. Schade Po u i Hen'H study is concerned w i t h t he de parture cullure among young men i n l he O ujda region who h ave n ot yet m a n aged l o "bea t. the border". He therefore talks about absence ra t her than p resence, future-oriented activiti eH ra ther than accomp lished ones. 7. Ferry ing people across th e Stra it to Spa i n for money has been a lucrative traflicki ng b u !5 i ne!5H in northern Morocco. Acco rdi ng to Hard i ng, t. h i H busi ness has in the later years been substitu ted with drug trailicking, an incomparable better bu!5iness. 15 passe nge rs on a fi sh ing !5 m ack, p ay i ng a ro u nd