The 'incongruent' image of Morocco

Fascination or indifference ?
Stereotyped presentation with an air of exoticism denies much of the country’s reality

A "Morocco boom’’ looks set to break out in Japan this year – especially appealing to younger women through Moroccan tastes in fashion and beauty care.

Babouches (Moroccan slippers), tunics, marché bags, Tajin pots, mint tea glass, lamps shade, rose water, ghassoul, henna... all these things, both fashion items and decorative goods, are nowadays being regarded with growing interest.
Features about Morocco have already appeared in about 10 women’s fashion magazines over the last six months, and I know of at least two or three magazines that will feature Morocco in June.
This new phenomenon will touch and affect a vast swath of the Japanese population, and though it has been suggested that Morocco should grasp the chance to promote its business and tourism, it is important to be aware that beyond this optimistic outlook there may be potential downsides lurking, too. This is because, without exception, there are so many biased reports about foreign countries in the Japanese media.

As a result, I would now like to talk about aspects of Morocco the Japanese newspapers, magazines or other publications typically cover, and the kind of image of Morocco they have created.

First, I will explain briefly a peculiarity of international news coverage in Japanese newspapers, then examine the chronological change in publications’ coverage of Morocco over the last 60 years. Finally, I will point out the current trend in coverage of Moroccan topics in Japanese magazines and share my experiences when I have written articles about Morocco.

I will start by presenting a brief profile of international news coverage in Japanese papers.
Japanese daily newspapers fall into two groups: five national newspapers that circulate throughout the country and about 50 local newspapers that circulate within the provinces.
According to research by a certain Japanese Media research centre, the average percentage of space devoted to international news coverage in Japanese newspapers has declined to around 5% these days compared to around 20% 10 years ago.

Another study, by researchers of school of journalism in US, found that international news coverage accounted for slightly more than 7% of editorial space in Japanese local newspapers during the 1990s.

Regarding news sources, Japanese newspapers are dependent on just two wire services, Kyodo Wire Service and Jiji Press, for international news.
Indeed, with the growing financial difficulties facing the mainstream media with the rise of the Internet and the economic recession, etc, Japan’s media are increasing their reliance on these wire services as they cut back their own overseas correspondents to save costs.

In practice, most Japanese newspapers depend largely on the Kyodo Wire Service. Although Kyodo has a network of correspondents in "important’’ countries, it has only four branches in the Middle East – in Cairo, Jerusalem, Teheran and Baghdad -- and only one in Africa, in Nairobi, Kenya.

Among the major Japanese newspapers that still have overseas bureaux, also all these bureaux overlap with Kyodo’s – except for Johannesburg, where both the Asahi and Yomiuri newspapers, two biggest national newspapers in Japan, have branches.

Clearly, this sketchy presence across such a vast and complex area is a major weak point in attempts to cover the Middle East and Africa.

Another problem is the short period that Japanese correspondents normally spend at an overseas branch before returning to Japan or moving on to another overseas branch. As the correspondents normally leave such posts after about five years, it greatly affects their ability to really understand foreign issues and cultures and to
build a range of key contacts.

In addition, the desk editors in Japan encourage these overseas correspondents to produce typical – often stero-typical -- images of each country that they feel will appeal to their readers’ superficial curiosity rather than disturb or challenge them.

Among story types in Japanese papers, most of the space allotted to international news is for ``hard’’ news – in other words, news defined as serious, factual, and timely stories about important topics. How ever, the overseas news in Japanese newspapers tends to be more oriented toward social, sports and entertainment topics, rather than concentrating on political or conflict-oriented news.

Despite the current rising popularity of Morocco, however, news coverage from Morocco does not often appear in Japanese newspapers.

Myself, to keep up with Moroccan news, I mainly use a website named Japan Press Network, with which 52 Japanese local newspaper companies and Kyodo Wire Service are registered. I also check the mainstream newspapers, and have found several articles on Morocco.

In fact, by searching the Japan Press Network for the word "Morocco,’’ just 380 articles were listed from 2002-2010.

The main topics were sports and terrorist threats – with almost two-thirds, or 64%, accounted for by these two topics, with sports comprising 42% and terrorism-related stories 22%. Among sports news, both football and Moroccan athletes included other sports’ players respectively accounted for 32% of the total.

Following sports and terrorism, news dealing with politics, economics and social issues represented 12%, 3% and 1% respectively of the total Moroccan news articles in that search of the Japan Press Network from 2002-2010.

Politics included the Middle East issue and Forum for the Future in 2004; while social issues tended to focus on immigration problem in Europe.
In addition, Morocco has, for the last three years, figured in articles covering the ICCAT (International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas) and the IWC (International Whaling Commission).

Additionally, topics that have featured with some prominence have been Morocco’s exhibit at the 2005 Aichi Expo, grassroots relationships between Morocco and Japan, the royal family and world heritage sites and world culture coverage.

However, one important finding from my researches has been that news stories mentioning Morocco and relating to terrorism disappeared from the findings of website searches after 2008.

On the other hand, the amount of ``soft content’’ mentioning Morocco has been increasing since then – a phenomenon to which I will return shortly.

Meanwhile, it is interesting to note that website of the Japan Press Network for 2002-2010 yielded 462 articles in searches for "Tunisia’’ and 253 for "Algeria’’ – compared with the 380 found by searching for "Morocco.’’

However, even though more articles about Tunisia were listed, a notable portion, – 70% – of them related to football news. That is because the Tunisian national team qualified for the World Cup in 2002 and 2006 – and especially because, in 2002, Tunisia was one of Japan’s opponents. Other topics about Tunisia are sports other than football (9%), the Carthaginian Exhibition held in Japan in 2009-2010 (4%) and terrorism issues (4%).

Meanwhile, Algerian news coverage is more varied than the other two Maghreb countries.
For instance, Japanese newspapers allocated 16% to sports news, of which 9% was to football, 14% to terrorism issues, 7% to disasters – especially a major earthquake in 2003 -- and other political or social news, including OPEC, the relationship with France, and so on.

In terms of news values alone, it is perhaps not so surprising that in Japan, mass media coverage of events in other countries, especially developing countries, puts considerable emphasis on crises.

However, this can all too easily lead to distorted misunderstandings of such regions as the Middle East and Africa through a lack of knowledge.
After 9.11, the mass media exploited ‘terrorism’ and ‘terrorists’ to provide the public with a negative image of Islam and the Moslem world.

Nonetheless, although the terrorism issue has led to a negatively evaluation of Moslem states in general, it is amazing that this link does not exist in relation to the image of Morocco in Japan.

For instance, South Africa, where the World Cup starts in two weeks, is now a hot topic in the Japanese media. However, along with all the coverage of football itself, the RSA as a country is presented in some negative ways as being a very dangerous, savage and uncivilized land.

As compared with such malicious attitudes toward the Middle East and Africa, Morocco maintains a favourable position in the Japanese media.

An examination of publications about Morocco over the last 60 years may cast some light on the favourable way in which Morocco is presented in the Japanese media today.

Since the 1951 book ‘Morocco’ by Yoshihiko Yamada, through to the 1970s and ‘80s, travel has been the subject of the majority of the publications concerning Morocco. In 1985, the guide book series ‘Chikyu no arukikata’ added a ‘Maghreb edition,’ and four years later, in 1989, a `Morocco edition’ was published separately from Maghreb one. Since the chief targets of this guide book series were back-packer travellers, Morocco become popular as a relatively unexplored region of
the world by Japanese people.

Then, during the 1990s, the number and range of topics being covered in magazines and other publications about Morocco gradually increased and expanded. Among them, too, were features or books particularly orientated to women readers – and that represented a remarkable turning point in the changing the status of Morocco in Japanese perceptions.

It was in 1997 that ``feminine’’ travel books with plenty of illustrations began to be published, and the number of publications about Morocco targeting women has accelerated since 2000. After the 2005 Aichi Expo, when Morocco’s pavilion was widely reported as having been a success, the output of printed material on Morocco dramatically increased in Japan, including not only books on travel topics, but also covering food, interior design, decorative goods and beauty matters.

Why Morocco?

One of the reasons for many Japanese to be charmed with Morocco is ironically related the country’s proximity to Europe, especially France, and more especially Paris. During the current Morocco boom in Japan, for instance, many stories are being published that start off with phrases such as, ‘French Moroccan style’ or ‘Morocco, which French people adore.’

However, in contradiction to this sense of familiarity, exoticism also excites Japanese curiosity. In descriptions of the life, towns and cities, for example the word ‘labyrinth’ often appears – lending an air of mystery.

But over and above everything else, Morocco is regarded in Japan as a Utopia for forgetting busy daily life and healing both mentally and physically. This means it is closely connected to the current ‘slow life’ and ‘eco-life’ vogues.

Consequently, magazines and publications conjure up a euphoric atmosphere in covering Morocco, presenting heart-warming stories and magnificent visuals chosen for their powerful appeal to the emotions. In particular, there is a focus on exotic locations, describing the Sahara desert, luxurious hotels and lively, exciting ‘souk’ markets – though more in-depth background coverage is very rare.

To create the absorbing image the mass media does, political and social issues are the most obvious omissions from such publications. That is, the reality does not exist there – as if the human being of Morocco is presented without a face.

This can – and does – lead to wrong or dubious coverage in the Japanese media.

For instance, I have had experiences of discussing with editors their misunderstandings.
On one occasion, in a small piece about Morocco, my editor asked me to add the "explanatory’’ phrase ‘Morocco is sophisticated due to the influence of France’. She was not only ignoring – or ignorant of – the history of colonization, but also much ancient Moroccan and Maghreb culture as well.

On another occasion, a woman writer commented: "Moslem women enjoy beauty care at home because they are not able to go out freely."

Clearly, this not only provides a negative image of women living in the Islamic world, but certainly, too, I doubt that it is generally accurate in Morocco.

A further example of misleading coverage of Morocco in the Japanese media that I came across recently was in no less than a cultural travel magazine, which  declared: ``Indigenous Berbers remaining in beautiful mountainous districts still sustain their traditional customs without significantly changing their life-style. On the other hand, Moroccans of Arab origin live in urban or on the plains.

So, although it is heartening to see such great interest in Morocco among the Japanese public at this time, that boom is not without its anxieties.

To dissolve illusions that may have arisen, the Japanese media must now seek to genuinely learn and explain more about the various aspects of this mysterious ‘labyrinth’. And in the process, it will also foster a further increase in the number of the country’s "Morocco fans.’’

In this more enlightened way, Morocco may then come to play an even more important role in welcoming Japanese people to the wisdom of the Middle East and Africa – and it is certainly high time to achieve a solid relationship between Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

(28 may 2010, 4th conference international of Africa-Asia cooperation in Rabat, Morocco)