Morocco: Should I flee my country?

Source: anonymous blog post at Tetu.com translated by F. Young

I am a young Moroccan male, and I want to publish my story.

1989: At the age of 4, I was raped by a male neighbour who was older than me. Fearing that the entire family would find out, my parents did not lay a charge. They only moved away from the neighborhood.

1999: At 14, I begin to develop somewhat of an attraction to the masculine gender. I join a gym to have the most contact with people of my sex. At the time, I was completely ignorant of the reason for and the meaning of this attraction.

2000: I start to worry, to live in anxiety, doubts . . . . I cannot understand why I am drawn more and more to males. During the winter holidays, I find myself alone with a female cousin, who wants to have an intimate moment. She starts to caress me, to kiss me . . . . She is very beautiful, but I am disgusted by this idea, and I refuse to make love to her or that we continue to flirt. At first, I thought that this reaction was due to nerves, but, a few months later, I discover my truth—a truth that I surprised and shocked me and that changed my life—while preparing for the final exam in the final year of college: As I review with a buddy, I suggest to him that we simulate a making out scene. I told him that it's just so that the day we have direct contact with a female, we will be experts on making out. Except that the simulation ends up as making love. At that time, I have mixed feelings. I am happy with what I did, but at the same time I am afraid of what I am: a homosexual. Because, yes, I understood the nature of my orientation. I spend a few days alone to think. I'm afraid that my parents may discover the truth about their son. I fear the eyes of society. And then I think for the first time to end my life. I am 15 years old.

2001: I am in high school. Many students try to go out with me. I have a handsome face and especially I have beautiful eyes. But I always refuse their advances. Many people then begin to have doubts about me, especially since I'm interested in everything that is feminine (makeup, hair . . . .). The other students start to call me dirty fag, and I get more and more stressed out. I can no longer stand what people say about me. Then I stop going to school, attending only on days when inspections or exams are scheduled. Logically, the 2000-2001 school year ends with a catastrophic average of 8 / 20 and the requirement to repeat the year.


2002: So I repeated the year. And my new year unfolds like the previous one. Everyone insults me, laughs at me, calls me a fag. I am excluded from all male activities. I had been a good handball player in junior high, but I am excluded from the team by the players of the high school team. Again, I cannot stand what is happening around me and I begin to use drugs. Drugs help me take the classes, and I'm not allowed to repeat a second time. And despite all this suffering, I still manage to pass my year.

2003: I changed high school to change the climate, but I have even more problems at the new school and I'm always insulted, rejected and attacked. And I react the same way as before, with drugs and truancy. The worst happens during the regional exam . . . . I meet a young student who comes from a private high school. I flirted with him in the washroom and the management found out . . . . I pass that year, but I am expelled from school. The administration asks me to find a school that will accept someone like me . . . . I spend a horrible vacation wondering if I can find a school that will accept me since the reason for my expulsion is recorded in my school records. I want at any price to have my diploma. I try several high schools, which all reject me . . . . In September, I must confess to my parents that I was expelled from school . . . . I tell them it's because of my too many absences. But my parents accompany me to my previous high school and there they discover the truth about their son. My father then decides that I need to stop my studies and never leave the house, but my mother convinces him that I should at least get my diploma.

2004: I finally returned to my studies a month and a half after the start of school year. And on top of my suffering in high school, I live in a small prison. My father manages my time and I'm not allowed to be out after 7 PM. I am deprived of the outside world, and my father forces me to practice the Muslim religion 100%. I even have to imitate the early Muslims (prayers, more prayers after midnight, fasting on Mondays and Thursdays, simple clothing, no big-name brands, attendance at Islamic meetings and lessons, sleeping in mosques . . .). He does everything to get me on the straight and narrow. Harder still, my father takes me with him on weekends on construction sites to do masonry work. He tells he will make me a man, a real one. And I have no right to protest or to make any claims, or else I am beaten like a dog. Despite everything, I manage to get my diploma. And then my parents give me a big surprise: they try to marry me to a cousin who lives in Nantes. I refuse. I am then beaten and expelled from home. At 19, I have nowhere to go. Especially since my father had and still has great power over the family: no one is willing to accommodate me. So I find myself sleeping anywhere, eating anything, alone with my suitcase and my diploma. I spend three months on the street. I then decide to go to Marrakech, to register at the hotel school in the city, as that institute offers in-house accommodation and food. I joined this school in October 2004.

October 2004-September 2006: At first, I thought that everything was going to be a lot better, especially since I met three fellow students in Marrakech, a Lebanese, a Mauritanian and a Moroccan, who are all three gay and interns like me. To have a little money, I begin working during my studies. Managers of restaurants and nightclubs welcome me warmly when they suspect that I'm gay, and I become a slave. At first, I like to have sexual partners, but, over time, managers require me to have sex with anyone, old gays over 60 years, young underage gays . . . . I become a "sex machine" and I'm not allowed to choose my partners. Morocco should thank me because I have greatly contributed to the development of (sex) tourism). But meanwhile, I have great difficulty in school because of our band of 4. We are not allowed to spend the night in the same room, not allowed to be in the showers at the same time, not to mention insults, attacks and threats. I receive several threats from strangers, and we are constantly in fear of the school administration, which has the means to make us suffer (chores, housework, being prohibited from the major outings on weekends, no work placements . . .). The Director of Studies always prevented me from getting interviews to work outside of Morocco; he did not allow me to go to the Disneyland interview even though I was the best in my class in English since I have a diploma with a languages specialization . . . . Life in the boarding school became a nightmare: insults, thefts, verbal and physical attacks, ever increasing threats. I can’t stand it anymore. I get my BTS diploma. I have the possibility of continuing my studies, to get a professional license, except that they threaten to kill me if I choose to pursue. The worst is that I cannot even complain, because the Moroccan penal code can put me in jail.

October 2006: I have come to Casablanca. I have some money to rent a room in a working class neighborhood. A neighborhood where they don’t fool around. If people know you're gay, you're dead. I could not find work in tourism. I must say that I did not really try to work in this area because I know I will be used again as a "sex machine." I work in a call center, where I do whatever I can so that nobody knows that I am gay. Young girls often invite me to go out, travel, make love, and I refuse each time. I tell them I am a good Muslim and that is why I refuse to go out with girls . . . .

2007: I'm still working in the same call center. I spend a while without having sex. I am at the end of my rope. Finally, I meet a gay that I invite to come to my home: fatal error. The neighbours hear our groans and surprise us: We get beaten; they take everything that I have in the room: money, cell phone, TV, computer . . . . The good Lord wanted us to stay alive. Since then, the one with whom I had this liaison refuses to talk to me. Again, I find myself homeless and without money. So I have to find a new home. At the same time, I have problems to work with some Islamic fundamentalist men [“barbus”] who suspect that I am gay. They start to harass me, and I am now rejected by all the young men. The degree of tension has increased to the point that I am afraid that something will happen to me. I end up resigning in October 2007.

2008: I started a new job in another call center. And there, I have not encountered any problems and I even found a partner, a French national who was the associate director of the center. We are together all the time. In short, my life is finally stable. Until my partner tells me he wants to leave Morocco to return to Toulon [France]. He leaves in May. In July, when I need Social Security documents, I discover to my surprise that I was never declared by my new employer. When I claim my rights to the new Director, warning him of my intention to go to a labour inspector, he threatens to publish on the net my videos with my French partner. I did not know he knew of our relationship. So I let the matter drop, and I leave the job without being able to claim my rights . . . .

2009: I have again started a new job. And again, I do my best not to disclose my sexual orientation. As in other companies, I find myself alone against people who reject me; young men insult me; young girls make fun of me in every way possible. I head for the virtual world, the Internet, to try to find partners, and in June, I meet one. After a few days of conversation on the net and a meeting, he invites me home. He puts something in the drink he gives me and I lose consciousness. In fact, he raped me and he begins to threaten to publish the videos and blackmail me. He knows where I work, where I live . . . . And for the third time I quit my job. I am totally desperate and I am really thinking about suicide. Will I ever have a normal life? I then spend seven months without working. I only think about what I can do with my life.

2010: In January, I started seeing a psychologist, to be at least able to admit to someone that I'm gay without fear. The psychologist suggests I try to leave Morocco. And since that time, I think only of this: escaping my country! I got a job in April 2010, a job in which I speak to no one so as not to have any problems. And I rented a small room in a working class neighborhood to save money for my trip.

I have not had sex for over a year and a half, and recently, I again started to receive threatening messages by SMS and facebook, but I still cannot complain . . . . I have not seen my parents for over four years. My father told me I was the shame of his life and if one day he ran into me, he would kill me without regret, and I was not his son.

I want to have a normal life. I'm normal. The only difference is that I'm gay. It's my life. I was born like that. Why people do not want to accept me and seek to destroy my life by any means?!

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