There are two elements of a place brand that can add greatly to its competitive edge and distinctiveness. These are authenticity and storytelling. Marrakech, Morocco is a place that instantly evokes exotic images for many people.
Morocco is one of the last places in the world where storytelling still exists as a public entertainment and adds to its exotic authenticity. But it is quickly dying out. Richard Hamilton is the author of The Last Storytellers: Tales from the Heart of Morocco and has an fascinating article in “New Africa Analysis” about the vanishing storytellers of Marrakech.
The storytellers have been part of an informal education system in the country where the illiteracy rate is forty percent. Oral tales were therefore the best way for people to understand the world. In the 1970s there were eighteen storytellers in Marrakech, now there are less than half a dozen and they are all old men, with no apprentices. The country’s young population is turning instead to television and the internet.
UNESCO did have plans to record the stories on its website. It was ironic that technology which had been the storytellers’ killer, could turn out to be their savior, but sadly this project has lost momentum. If these storytellers disappear Morocco will lose part of its national identity and Marrakech part of its authenticity. And since the stories have universal themes, they are the world’s inheritance and we will all be poorer with their passing.
a heart warming and sad story!
Posted by: freelance writer | February 21, 2012 at 12:07 PM