THEThe protective shell of a large house, a luxuriant garden where butterflies can chase… As children Kenza and Fatiha are inseparable. The first of hers lost her parents in an accident and she lives in her grandparents’ villa. Her friend comforts her, chases away her nightmares by sleeping next to her.
A tender and sincere friendship, which however cannot last: Kenza is the granddaughter of one of the most powerful men in Casablanca, she will go to study in Paris, while Fatiha is the daughter of the governess. For her, public school, an arranged marriage and the aspiration to study medicine snatched with a lie that certifies the classism of Moroccan society.
With adolescence the distance becomes more acute: in the mansion of grandfather Abbas Chérif Falani, great dinners are prepared with friends and music to break the fast of Ramadan, while Fatiha draws up the list of things prohibited during the fast: toothpaste, deodorant, foundation…
Differences and class struggle, a cross-section of Moroccan youthelite kids who travel with a driver and street children who sell chewing gum to tourists in the opera before Zineb Mekouarborn in Casablanca, studied in Paris and today active there in the world of civil rights.
“This novel is the best you can read about the class struggle in Morocco today,” wrote Tahar Ben Jelloun of Green passport, confirming the author’s talent. Who also recounted the disorientation of an identity crisis: if Fatiha fails to get out of his condition but strengthens himself in the difficulties, Kenza is rejected by France.
Zineb Mekouar was born in Casablanca in 1991 and lives in Paris where she studied Political Science and Economics and deals with human rights. “The green passport” was among the finalists of the Goncourt Prize for the first work (Instagram photo).
Precisely in the country that she has loved since she was a child, whose language and customs she learned, cradled by her grandmother with the songs of Aznavour and Piaf she discovers that she is different, that she is an Arab woman. In the story of two friends who bond, separate, find each other, the colonial past and the very classist society of Morocco flow.
Where is this class difference rooted?
In my country, traditions and modernity confront each other and often collide, many laws are still inadequate for the evolution of civil society. Politicians are aware of this, but not everyone.
He showed the more backward side of it, why now?
That’s what women experience. I tell about situations that are even a little crude because I wanted to show the violence against the female body and also the hypocrisy that surrounds it.
The girls come from different social classes, one being the daughter of the other’s maid. They’ve been friends since they were little, but Fatiha sleeps on the floor in Kenza’s room, on an improvised bed…
They are not the same, nor is Morocco: there are two. And the social elevator doesn’t work. Worlds don’t mix, little girls don’t notice it, then, with adolescence, the cruelty of difference arrives. Even the language keeps them apart: Kenza speaks French, Fatiha Moroccan Arabic, not the classic that no one knows and is used only for writing or at university.
Is knowledge of the language a social marker?
Says something about the parent class. We don’t have castes like in India, but a strong social rigidity. The laws are antiquated, for example it is not possible to have sex outside marriage, we don’t talk about abortion…
She talks about it.
To underline the hypocrisy with which both things are done. The price, as in the case of Fatiha, is paid by women, especially if they are economically vulnerable. In Fatiha, Kenza comes to help, who has a different social network and knows a doctor.
“The green passport” by Zineb Mekouar, Nord (288 pages, 18 euros).
In the end Kenza makes a choice of principle, he doesn’t want his stay in France to depend on a marriage. While Fatiha’s ransom could go through a wedding.
Kenza was able to afford a refusal, Fatiha was not. When you have nothing else, all means are good.
Kenza’s grandfather, an aristocrat, ancient and close collaborator of the royal house, at one point says of the young people: “They must not forget that they are not only children of decolonization, but also the grandchildren of colonization”. You live in France: from your own experience, do you believe that at the origins of the recent and continuous rebellions there is also this feeling of “grandchildren of colonization”?
Yes, I think so. The theme of my book is also this, perceiving oneself as a foreigner, the difficulty of acquiring an identity in a new country. Young people, even if born in France, carry the weight of a post-colonial heritage. Not neutral at all, but very little known because it concerns different countries, incorporated into a whole: Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria… It is not enough to say: now you are in France, you are French. Everyone comes with a story about him. The second or third generations have discovered an identity which, however, has not yet been culturally integrated.
Is this what is needed, a cultural intervention?
Yes. And I believe that literature is a medium. It has the power to give you back the intimacy of the emotions of someone who is something else to you, and therefore helps you to understand it.
In the book, 2011 is a crucial date: why?
In that year, in France, a circular from the Ministry of the Interior decided not to renew the residence permit for those – graduates in France – who changed their status from “students” to “temporary workers”. A way to reserve hypothetical jobs for the French, put at risk by foreign students, who often arrived with scholarships promoted by the French government itself. It was a law born for political reasons, to vex the far right, certify a “we” and a “you”. It remained in force for only one year, because it was unconstitutional. But Kenza, like many other boys, had to return to Morocco, not having a Bordeaux passport from the European Union.
The relationship between two friends is also made of envy. In your opinion, what does one envy the other?
Kenza doesn’t have the power in this friendship, Fatiha has the power over feelings. They make different choices, for one virginity is important, the other doesn’t need a man… The years go by and they don’t understand each other. Perhaps they find each other, each in search of their lives.
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