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magazine’s scope was strictly cultural, the answer eight years ago, on
the heels of the Iraq invasion, usually came down to some
combination of the words “America,” “Bush,” and local expletives.
Curious about whether that had changed, I repeated that itinerary this
summer, conducting a dozen panels in those same four countries,
with subjects representing the diversity of the Arab World, from fully
covered Persian Gulf oil heiresses to skirt-donning Beirut Christians
to democracy-minded Tahrir Square veterans to Casablanca slum kids
fending off suicide-bomber entreaties. Their viewpoint again proved
surprisingly consistent—and had shifted dramatically from my last go-
round.
That background narrative, it turns out, drives everything. It’s hard to
overstate the Iraq War’s effect on brand America: it fed into Arab
insecurities, exploited in turn by regional demagogues, that outsiders
are at fault for whatever ails them. At one raucous meeting at a
university in Casablanca, which we later dubbed “The Pinata
Session,” 120 students eager to tee off on an American, any
American, swarmed what was supposed to be a meet-and-greet with
two dozen journalism majors, showering us with two hours of
prewritten diatribes.
Contrast that with my recent visit to Casablanca, where I happened
upon a parade of 20,000 protesters, stretched across a half mile,
calling for democratic reforms from the autocratic King Mohammed
VI. For two hours, the placard-raising marchers chanted in unison—
The people of Libya and Syria keep getting killed—they’re not
afraid!.... Shakira got a million! (a reference to the singer’s fee at a
royal event)...Look, see, the people are scary!—and precisely zero
had anything to do with America (or Israel, for that matter). “The
consensus is this: it’s a Moroccan problem,” Reda Oulamine, a top
opposition leader, told me during the march, “and it’s being decided
by the Moroccan street.”

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