END OF AN INTELLECTUAL

Once Najib becomes aware of things around him, he finds himself living in a more modest house of an aged woman. The house is built of plastered earth in a small village, the village where a very few people, the educated ones, send their kids to the school of the village. That old woman carefully looks after him as if she is the one who has given him birth, and worries a lot about him and his future. Though she was poor, she does her best and enrolls him at a kindergarten at the age of five.

Najib receives his very basic education, following by six years of elementary school, the school of Othman Ben Aafan, and 3 years of the college 11th January, in Dar Belamri, ten meter far from the city of Sidi Slimane, with success. He is the most brilliant student during both elementary and preparatory school. He is excellent at all subjects with no exception. It sounds he has been given an exceptional way of thinking. Sometimes he surprises even his teachers with his smart questions and answers.

Najib studies at Allal Alfasi high school in the city of Sidi Slimane. He is, as used to be, the cleverest and the beloved student of his class, not just because of his outstanding grades, but also because of his manners and talent, the signs of his smartness and modesty, and the reasons why his teachers like him as if he is their son, and so do his classmates and his age friends. His teachers, especially the teacher of English, believe in his innate intelligence.

[He enjoys sitting in front of the sea, trying to see what the sea waves refer to in parallel to the world where he is growing and being taught. He sees as if the sea waves try to warn him of a danger, an ambiguous danger, an unseen danger, but, unfortunately these waves often fail to do so and fall apart before reaching the beach. And so the more he tries to find an answer to this natural phenomenon, the more he finds himself wandering in the sky meeting the sea in a limitless point that refers to an unknown future]

That day, I have found Najib sitting, in a quiet silence, in front of the sea with his legs crossed, one over the other, and leaning his back on an old wall as if it has not been painted since the independence, and murmuring as if he has been saying a very special thank-you to the sea which he gets used to, and at the same time bidding a farewell speech that I have not recognized to whom he has been bidding. It seems as though he has been saying "goodbye" to a biased world that he cannot put himself on its map…

Najib studies and works hard. He gets his baccalaureate, and, as he does in every summer, goes to Tangier --In summer, the hot season, tourists pour into Tangier in huge numbers-- to look for a work. Looking for a work, this time, takes him four days and reduces four kilos of his weight. So after four days of search, he finds a part-time job as a construction laborer. He must do it as he has no choice. He spends three months doing this work. He always, after his shift, has a cold shower, and then goes down town and sit near the sea, his ivory tower, the only place that relieves him from the hardness of the work…the next day will be the same like today….until completing three months.

The summer ends. Nejib goes back home and collects the papers he needs for the university enrollment and goes to Kenitra, the city where he will carry on his higher studies at the University of Ibn Tofail, which already opens its doors for the new students. As the procedures goes, the enrollment in the English department is competitive and subject to a selection process and an interview. Najib is selected by the jury for his grade and passes the interview with two professors and gets accepted in Ibn Tofail University with all confidence he has. Then he studies for four years and obtains his bachelor's degree in English. Later he applies for a master of linguistics. He passes the written and oral test and studies for three years and the result is that he obtains his master's degree with success. He is happy. And if his mother has been still alive, she will have been happy also. [By the way, I forgot to tell you that his mother, who had raised him, died only a year before getting his baccalaureate]

With a master in hand, Najib, with hope, decides to start his career in the country where he has been born and taught. As a matter of fact, he tries once to make his dream happen, and he fails. He tries twice, and he fails again. He tries thrice, and he fails again. So failing thrice in finding a job in his country makes him understand that getting a job in his country becomes a path of the impossibilities. Wherever he goes knocking the doors of both public and private sector, failure welcomes him! He feels as though the whole sky is falling apart upon him.

Najib believes not! He feels scared! His dream goes with the wind! His world shattered!!! Then he cries for the country that is run by irresponsible people…He cries for the country that he loves more than he does love himself… He feels sorry for discovering that he has been living in the world where intellectuals are given neither recognition nor respect nor even a little chance to start their career…..Then a tear falls from his eye full of sadness and sorrow. He wonders once, twice and thrice, but, he finds no logic answer to his wonder. His common sense no longer works! Najeeb sighs and says some words, "when trouble comes, they come not in single spices but in battalions"

The history marks his success. However, he becomes a loafer, just a loafer, wandering aimlessly in the streets...

And that is only the beginning of his troubles. During the next five years, though he prefers the tar of his country to the honey of the others, he is forced to move to Dubai-- a cosmopolitan city where many nationalities, with different cultures, beliefs, and custom, work together-- with an open-ended employment contract in hand. There he works, what he does not like, for three years at a five star hotel. Since the weather of Dubai gets hotter and hotter day after another, he likes to try another country. This time, he tries Qatar, where he works for two years at a well-known restaurant. And no sooner he gets bored there and goes back home….No more than two years after he comes back home, he has an open heart surgery. This situation empties his pocket.

"Life keeps going, though circumstances…" tranquilly says Najib. ...............