Status Updates From Il libro del buio

"Tell me . . . It seems that Tazmamart never existed ? "
"So they say. It doesn't matter. It's true, i t never existed. I
have no desire to go see for myself. Apparently, a small forest of
old oak trees has moved over there to cover the huge pit. They
even say the village is going to change its name."

im gonna write a long ass review tomorrow, got sm to say I just have to collect my thoughts

Even if the soldiers manage to erase all trace of the dungeon,
they will never erase from our memories what we endured
there. Ah, my memory, my friend, my treasure, my passion!
We must hang on

No, we don 't have those here. The "disappeared"? The police are searching for them. We have to give the police credit, because they do a wonderful job.

she'll never set foot on Moroccan soil again! Traitor! Pervert!
Barbarian! She dares suspect us of having organized a system of
slow death in complete isolation! What gall! She's the tool of
our country's enemies, who envy our stability and prosperity.
Human rights? But they are respected-just look around you!
Political prisoners?

I flatten you, break your back, shove you into a pit, I let you
die by inches in utter, lifeless darkness, and then I deny every
thing. It never existed. What? A dungeon in Tazmamart? Who
is this insolent idiot who dares think our country has commit
ted such a crime, such an unspeakable evil? Throw him out!
Ah, it's a woman! Well, what's the difference, get rid of her,

But why destroy everything? Ah-to eliminate all traces of that horror!
Even worse than the experience of horror is the denial of its
existence.

I did not dare think that the mosque was the prison or that
the prison could be represented by a house of prayer.

It was July, and one of the guards had the ef
frontery to tell us, "Today is the festival of youth, the birthday
of King, whom God preserve and glorify . . . "

Why did this film obsess me? Why had I put it in a Moroccan
setting so real it became believable? A beautiful story, a miracle
of intelligence. That is what we missed and needed most: intel
ligence.

And then, at the last stroke of midnight, an invisible window came down
from the sky, imprisoning them, leaving them to fight among
themselves in their attempts to escape from that house of mis
fortune, a glass house of cruel fate for people who no longer
knew who they were or with whom they were living. We
watched them and had a few beers. They saw us laughing and
called for help

We were in the garden under a tent while the Moroccan
haute bourgeoisie-businessmen, politicians, society women
stuffed themselves with every imaginable delicacy.

At the beginning of July, we were treated to some meat: for
the first time in eighteen years, they served us camel meat, with
potatoes and peas. The portions were generous, but the food
stank: I had forgotten the smell of meat.

"To the Berbers, however, it meant something else entirely:
for complex reasons, a given family pledges allegiance to an
other family or tribe, placing itself under their protection, even
under their blessing. The ties become stronger and, above all,
sacred" that's uuusss ⵣ ⵣ ⵣ

"Mama died today. Or maybe yesterday, I'm not sure. I received a telegram from the nursing home: Mother deceased. Funeral tomorrow. Deepest sympathy. The meaning isn't clear. Maybe it was yesterday." Then I heard a different voice. "Today, I am going to die. Or maybe tomorrow, I don't know. My mother won't receive a telegram from Tazmamart, or any deepest sympathy. The meaning isn't clear. Maybe it was yesterday. "

Majid was the only one who managed to hang himself in that
prison. He had tied his clothes together to make a rope,
wrapped it around his neck, tightened it with all his strength,
attached the end of his shirt to the ventilation grille, and lain
down on the floor, pushing his feet against the door until he
throttled himself.

"No one argued with Majid. A Berber from Agadir, he was short, lean, with a twinkle in his sharp eyes." agadir fucking mentioned ⵣ ⵣ ⵣ

"A man shaken by two coups d'etat cannot forget about the rebels, naturally. Wait . . . I said "rebels" ? Me, I was no more of a rebel than any
other Moroccan citizen disgusted by the widespread corruption
and indignation forced upon an entire people."

It was also the period when General Oufkir, (minister of the interior, ordered that an administrative memorandum be read over the radio to announce the immediate Arabization of the teaching of philosophy, a move intended to weed out so-called subversive texts that had inspired student
demonstrations.

Later I would hear about the son of an important personage with the title of " Special Representative of His Majesty. " The son, a left-wing militant, had been condemned to fifteen years in prison for plotting against state security. It was a time of general paranoia. They were locking up students, often brilliant ones, simply for voicing the wrong opinions.

"I did not belong to the king"

Once I had experienced Tazmamart, Kenitra seemed like an almost human prison in spite of its reputation. There was sunlight there, and a glimmer of hope

This was a common punishment in the army: bound hand and foot, the
victim is buried up to the neck and left exposed to the summer
sun or the winter rains.
Perhaps our jailers had in their notebooks a list of mistreat
ments to inflict on us whenever they pleased