Found Moroccans camera averse

My wife and I travel to see interesting places and people and take lots of photos. If you like to do this too, do not go to Morocco! On our 2011 visit, people would run out of restaurants and physically accost us, demanding that we either erase the picture or give them money! 

This happened even at night in the big square filled with thousands of people. One man wouldn’t even let us take a picture of his cat!

Pictures of cute, little 6-year-old girls all dressed up for a holiday? Forbidden! The Berber market? Not only were there no folks dressed in interesting garb, the folks there wouldn’t let us take their pictures either.

I think this reaction to photos is a cultural thing, as we never encountered such a reaction anywhere else in the Middle East.

STEVEN EMMET

Solana Beach, CA

[See "Moroccans vs. cameras," Jan. 2013, and "Are city folk all business?" March 2014]