COVER N. 246 - MOROCCO  

Postmark: Barid Al-Maghrib - Dima Maghrib 20-12-2022 / Meknes 26.04.2023

Posted on the 26th April; Received on the 5th May 2023
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Pierre is also a frequent contributor of unexpected items for my blog, which day by day is steadily growing with  a little help from my friends.

Merci Bien Pierre, pour ce chouette pli!

I've spent 10 days in Morocco very recently, but I was on an organised tour (big mistake....) so I did not have the time to go to the post office and do things the proper way (more on that for a later post), so receiving a nice and proper FDC from Morocco, more that makes up for the inconvenience.

Dina Maghrib - Morocco Forever - reads the legend on the flag with a lion, an allegory for Morocco's national soccer team,  "Atlas Lions".

I really do not care about soccer at all. And it is one of those themes that I'd rather not go into, because much, very much, of what I would have to say, would be far for being uplifting, optimistic, positive,...

But, being Portuguese, I can understand  the impact a good performance of a national team can have on the country's self-esteem, given the absurd place the game occupies in the habits and aspirations of a population that bows to two creeds: God and soccer (and not always by that particular order....).

Of course, in Morocco, God may answer by a different name than the One here revered, but I feel that soccer occupies the same space in the collective imagination of its people as in that of my own.

During last world soccer championship, Morocco had a brilliant performance, having risen to the 4th place in the final classification after beating the Portuguese team in the quarter finals.

I said I wouldn't go there, but I can't evade it. Just to show the level of idiocy and “irreflectiveness” soccer can impart on soccer alienated human beings, I will tell a little story.

I was watching the news on TV, on the day or days after the defeat of our team by Morocco's.

As usual, soccer was all over the news and an earthquake or a nuclear explosion could have happened somewhere and still that would not scratch the news alignment and time distribution.

A soccer specialised journalist, a true scientist in the unfathomable ways of the sphere, as we have so many, everyday, on tv, was interviewing someone. I can't remeber if it was our national coach or anyone else, but it was someone directly connected to the team.

"How do you feel after losing to a team such as that?"

I couldn't stand it! The level of supremacism, racism, stupidity such a question implied was absolutely staggering!

"A team such as that? " a team that goes on to the final selection of a world championship, and ends up qualifying in the 4th place? The question coming from a national whose team has only once earned an European championship, and most of the times wins nothing in spite of having a plethora of first grade artists in the team (or could this also be one of the reasons...?) made me quite uncomfortable...

Anyway... My  belated congratulations to Morocco and its team... a team "such as that", may well be champion one day!

The performance of Morocco's national team gave rise to absolute hysteria on the streets (much the same as it happened here when our team won the European championship) and on the wake of the team's last game, which took place on the 17th December, the celebratory  9 Dirham stamp that can be seen on my FDC was promptly issued on the 20th.

Should the Lions have won, I would bet on an overprinted legend: “Champions”.