hassan and me

Scientists say that Africa and Europe used to be one continent. Probably they are right. Every day, ships start from Southern Spain, carrying one day visitors to Moroccan Tanger. Yesterday, one of them took me, too.

The landing of thousands of European tourists from Spain is creating in Tanger multi-level post-urban experience. The place I have been to was obviously a simulation—of a lot of things. The visitors are shown a program with the basic content "Tanger is not as bad as you might think". I was part of a group that was guided by the man mentioned in the headline, Hassan. He was a funny guy, which the group liked a lot. He repeatedly said things like "Tanger is nice", "we are nice people" and the like. The group obviously was pleased with that, too. I think they did because it also implicitly emphasized that it might also be otherwise. This potentiality of a thrreat was their wee bit of excitement, the chill of a potential danger. Of course, "danger" was nowhere to be seen. The whole one-day Africa experience for visitors from Europe seems domesticated to the point that at any moment, someone might just pull the plug and all the wodden-camel-sellers might just disappear.