In the wake of this societal failure, when Americans of every race, sex, and ethnicity are reconsidering their trust in the police force and American judicial system, on social network forums and news media outlets alike we as a country are coming to the realization that we have divergent and sometimes competing ideas about trust. After three and a half months abroad, it seems timely to reflect on the nature of trust that I have found here in Morocco, a lived experience in many ways different from my own in America.
Older generations of Moroccans recall the “Years of Lead” under King Hassan II, the late monarch whose vision of Moroccan progress came at the expense of freedom of speech and human rights. Under Hassan II, torture, police brutality, and the mysterious disappearance of academics and political opponents was not uncommon. The post-colonial Moroccan state may have proven itself a strong arm, but at the expense of the trust of its populace.
The weariness of older Moroccans is met with the overt cynicism of younger ones. It is not an uncommon idea among Moroccan youth that police serve to protect the tourists at the expense of locals. Compounding this problem is the deep-rooted corruption and cronyism embedded within the Moroccan bureaucracy. For a small bribe, state judges can sign off on the marriage of a 14-year-old girl, elusive building permits can suddenly appear, and illegal drug possession fines can disappear. While the February 20th Movement, the veritable Arab Spring in Morocco, did introduce constitutional changes promoting personal rights, behind this facade, Moroccans continue to maintain their distance from the legal institutions.
This is not to say that Moroccans are a leery lot, but rather that they place their faith not in faceless institutions but rather in each other. Lacking a government-backed welfare system, street beggars and the homeless place trust in the kindness of strangers; sans cameras to deter potential shoplifters, shop owners in the souk readily leave their stalls under the supervision of neighboring shopkeepers. It is not uncommon for waiters to ask you to remind them how many drinks were ordered or trust that you do not dine-and-dash.
What in the United States might be foolish, in Morocco is simply faith. I was unsure how much, if any, of this blind trust had rubbed off on me until a trip last weekend to Fès. Wandering the old medina after dark, the largest of its kind in the world, my friends and I stumbled upon a narrow alleyway just asking to be explored. All of a sudden, the shadow of a woman appeared at the end of the alleyway and a hand, beckoning us to come forward.
While in the United States such an action might have prompted me to do a quick risk analysis or mental pros/cons, my friends and I, immersed in this Moroccan culture of community-based trust, ventured forward almost reflexively. Once inside the building, a multistory home, we were greeted by our hostess, a young woman, and ushered into her salon where we spent the next hour meeting and conversing with family members coming in and out over hot mint tea and cookies.
This entire semester has required an unprecedented amount of trust, both on the part of myself and those around me. My American family trusted me to spend a semester in North Africa, despite the frequent State Department alerts that would advise otherwise; my Moroccan family has trusted me to respect and live as part of their home, their extended family, and their religion.
Looking to the future of the American legal system—because, after all this, there is no question that it needs to be reformed—I know that long term solutions to the systemic issues raised by the Brown and Garner cases will not come from top-down reforms but rather by creating networks of trust among community members.
Rebuilding trust will be a community effort, requiring a frank and evenhanded national discourse about topics that can be, to say the least, uncomfortable. But trust is by nature unsettling, and, if the events of the past few weeks have been any indication, we are a nation more than primed for a shakeup.
