Tangier, City of Mythical Splendour

With their exotic flair and Arabian Nights appeal, many holiday destinations in the Arab world exert an irresistible pull on western visitors. Alfred Hackensberger spoke with the Swiss author and translator Florian Vetsch about oriental clichés and his new book Tanger Trance (Tangier Trance)

​​The thrill of the unknown and the foreign plays a key role in travel. Why do people find unknown places so fascinating?

Florian Vetsch: Because they are different and should stay that way. Because they broaden our horizons, take us beyond our own narrow world. Only through the experience of foreign shores can we begin to understand our own home ground. How can someone who has never experienced anything foreign really know his own territory? Only those who have been outside know what it means to be inside. Those who stay inside do not know what it means to be inside.

Me, my own, the other – these are Western concepts, categories. Doesn't that mean we make separate compartments for things in our heads?

Vetsch: We all have our own history: habits, formative influences, structures, codes – some of which have been in our heads since childhood and youth – cultural, social or familial biases. They are not bad per se. They serve as an initial orientation for us. They only become dangerous when we are not aware of them as such, when they remain in an unresolved realm. We ourselves – and above all, others – can then easily fall victim to them. In connection with all that is foreign, this means that we can tend to thoughtlessly glorify it or condemn it.

A hint of the exotic seems to make foreign things more attractive …

Vetsch: Yes, people seem to view a destination as exotic as soon as it lies beyond their ken, outside their own cultural horizon. It then harbours a degree of foreignness in and of itself that is sufficient to warrant the description "exotic".

Isn't it mostly about clichés? People "in the South", for example, are seen as more warm-hearted, more open or lively ...

Vetsch: Of course, it's easy to fall into such clichés! Everything is laced with illusion. We are never really immune to that. Total objectivity doesn't exist. But confronting reality helps to correct false images.

​​Whether package tourist, adventurer or intellectual, we all like to give an account of our adventures once we get home. People try to categorise and classify the foreign country, its people and its culture. What kind of process is involved in this?

Vetsch: I think it's a many-layered, complex and extremely individual process. When you make a journey, you naturally have lots to talk about afterwards. And that's a good thing, because recounting it helps to keep in motion the process of trying to understand what has happened to you through the experience of the foreign. The fact that we tend to align our accounts with those of others also helps us to check our own experiences against those of others, sometimes revealing to us their subjectivity. Although categorising and classifying things we have experienced as foreign is unavoidable, it should be done with a certain amount of "mental reservation". The classifications should be open concepts, subject to correction and expansion.

Is it ever really possible to fully understand a foreign culture? Should we even want to?

Vetsch: One can probably never know enough about other cultures, never find out enough about them. A sentence like "I understand Islam" or "I understand the Moroccan culture" is something I would never dream of saying. I even find it presumptuous to claim to understand one's own culture. For me, it's about trying to penetrate something unknown, about constantly delving deeper – processes that are never completed.

How important is it for you personally to travel, to be "on the move"?

Vetsch: Being on the move – both the outward and inward journey – means a great deal to me. Reading is, for example, a form of inner travel. I am a mental nomad. Rimbaud's sentence: "I am the other" is something I can subscribe to. If you haven't travelled for a long time, then there is this feeling, when you're finally sitting in the train or on the plane, of layers of encrustation loosening up, of obligations falling away. I really treasure that.

You have been taking trips to Morocco for over 20 years, particularly to Tangier, which has enjoyed a legendary reputation ever since the days of the International Zone (1923–56). What makes this city so fascinating to this day?

Vetsch: In the days when Tangier was still the International Zone, many went there for financial reasons, because life in the city was incredibly inexpensive for people from the West. Others were attracted by the libertine atmosphere: the city as a mecca for sexual non-conformism and a centre for drug trafficking. Added to this was a pleasantly mild, warm climate, even during the summer months. I came to Tangier for the first time in 1993 to visit the US writer Paul Bowles, who in the meantime has sadly passed away. I was working on a German translation of his poetry.

​​In response to the question about what makes Tangier so fascinating, I could reply with a remark from Bowles's autobiography Without Stopping: Tangier is a magical city whose asphalt is steeped in legend, perhaps comparable with ancient Athens or Alexandria, with Paris or New York.

These are stories that serve to fortify and overlay the legend. Is the idea of a city continually reinvented through a collective process?

Vetsch: Exactly, there are layers on top of layers. They come together to form a texture, and we all continue to weave in our own bits, distorting this or the other corner of the whole fabric, adding something here, taking something away there, flipping it over to the other side.

What contribution does your new book Tanger Trance make to the legend of the Moroccan port city?

Vetsch: Trance has to do with vibrations, mythical substance. In thematic terms, trance has to do with drugs, music, eroticism and poetry. The book contains about 60 texts, a collection of short texts: "points in time", as Abdelwahab Meddeb remarks in a rich allusion in his foreword. There are short notations, occasional and commemorative poems, haikus, anecdotes, recollections, aphorisms, portraits …

A literary sequel to your book Tanger Telegramm (Tangier Telegram)?

Vetsch: Yes, that was a 350-page anthology, with texts by 60 different authors about the northern Moroccan city. In Tanger Trance I work from a completely different perspective, creating short literary "spots and shots", writing poetry and opening up a kaleidoscope of my own memories.

Interview: Alfred Hackensberger

© Qantara.de 2011

Tanger Trance, with photographs by Amsel and texts by Florian Vetsch (German, English, French, Arabic), 240 pages, 98 colour illustrations, Benteli Verlags GmbH 2010

Editor: Aingeal Flanagan/Qantara.de

Qantara.de

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