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Tangier: Gateway to Africa
Venturing into Morocco, John Burke visits Tangier, a city of history, nightlife and strict religious morals.
by John Burke
For travellers going north or south, the port of Tangier is the gateway to a continent. People go to, or through, what the Arabs call Tanja largely because it is the only spot where Africa almost touches Europe. Being only 38 miles from Gibraltar, it is an easy excursion for visitors or residents along the Costa del Sol who can embark at harbours or airports on either Spanish or British territory.
The popularity of Tangier is also due to its beaches and climate, for the breezes where the Atlantic meets the Mediterranean never let the temperature exceed 26C yet the town is warm well into October when the minimum is around 16C.
If this sounds like a familiar cocktail of sea, sand and sun, the real kick is basking in the notoriety of a peep at Tangier's shady history. There is a certain cachet about sending a postcard showing the white-walled, flat-roofed, palm-fringed houses clinging to the hill above the port, and franked with Arabic squiggles next to the French-Spanish version: Tanger.
So old is the city that gave its name to tangerines that it is mentioned in Greek myths. The geographical Pillars of Hercules (rocky Gibraltar and its Moroccan counterpart) are named after the hero who, it is said, parted the continents after slaying Atlas and bedding his wife, Tingis.
Once the Moors were expelled from southern Europe the Portuguese crossed to Tangier, which was awarded to the British when Catherine of Brogans married Charles II. Although the fever-ridden garrison left shortly before Gibraltar was taken, one way or another there is an Anglo-Saxon legacy - as witness the church of St. Andrew.
Tangier became a haven for corsairs along the Barbary Coast (so called because Berbers as well as Moors formed Morocco). The eventual tribal unrest inland - plus the Kaiser's visit - brought about a France-Spanish protectorate. The British insisted that Tangier should be a completely international zone, and so it was from 1906 until six months after the entire sultanate became the Kingdom of Morocco in 1956. Hankering after its cosmopolitan status, Tangier got back its pre-war status of a freeport in 1962.
Few know about the city's dim past, but the news has spread that anything went, as regards money and morals, until a crackdown by the city-fathers. Their aim is to encourage package-tours and placate Muslim purists, but that too means a conflict of interest. Thus, mosques like that of Sidi Bouabid, with its garishly tiled minaret, cannot be visited, and it is unwise to photograph too closely the women of Tangier who, veiled or not, usually wear an overdress down to their ankles.
Playboys, refugees and adventurers of all kinds gravitated to the city, a hotspot that was called the "ragamuffin city" by Truman Capote long before the East End gangster, Ronnie Kray, sampled its forbidden fruits.
The now faded cafes were the rendezvous of literary figures like Oscar Wilde, Andre Gide, Jack Kerouac, Tennessee Williams and Ian Fleming, whose undercover work gave him ideas for 007. Cecil Beaton photographed the white-washed alleys and brooding arches, while the bright lights lured various artists from Henri Matisse to Winston Churchill.
Guides and greybeards still recount the wild parties of the Woolworths' heiress Barbara Hutton, who had steep, old streets widened for her Rolls-Royce. Tourists gape at her Villa of Sidi Hosni which General Franco had wanted to buy. Formerly it housed a Moslem mystic inside the sultanic compound, which is now a museum. There she would hold court amid camel-drivers and belly-dancers. Listen for the cry "Woolworth's price" from the hawkers with their hand-beaten daggers and toy camels.
For further information on travel in Africa, visit Travel Africa Magazine
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