If I say “Bearded”,
most people think of Islamic terrorists. Beards are now a symbol of
everything that is bad: ISIL, Al Qaeda, Boko Haram. It all brings to
mind insurgents and terror.


The West is using armies
and the most advanced technologies, such as drones, to defend itself
against these people. Ancient methods, like building walls, are also
used against beards, and unwanted migrants. Barriers of barbed wire
that have been put up at European borders, to stop refugees from
crossing, have stirred passionate debates “for” and
“against”, as if the method were new. It isn’t.


There has been a triple
barrier of barbed wire for 23 years in Spain, built to stop illegal
immigration from Morocco. The first was put up in 1993, the second in
1995 and the third in 2005. In the Spanish city of Melilla, the metal
barrier is six meters tall, with acoustic and visual sensors and
sharp blades (cuchillas). The blades work well. Each morning the
guards find not only pieces of clothes hanging from the wire, but
also pieces of flesh from those trying to cross the border.

Peace
and Love

My friend Riki believes
that “everything is relative”. He likes these philosophical
axioms, reminiscent of the studies he never finished. Riki has worn a
beard since the first hairs appeared on his face. In his photos as a
teenager he looks just like Jesus: tall, slim, with a soft, kind
expression which shows between a thick beard and long hair.

Forty years ago, when
Riki entered Morocco from Spain, making the journey in the opposite
direction from those of today, the barriers between the two countries
did not exist. He was a typical “flower child”, one of
those bearded hippies with long hair who professed and practiced the
sexual revolution, the free use of drugs, peace, meditation, love,
music, discussing philosophy.


For flower children,
Morocco was then a “must”. They would climb over the boundaries,
overcoming every kind of obstacle to enter.

Although the bearded
hippies were peaceful, they caused a lot of troubles to the Rabat
authorities. Many arrived without any money, and no intention of
working to earn a living.
They camped in the main squares, lay on
the ground anywhere, they dirtied the courtyards of sacred monuments;
they used public transport without buying tickets and they didn’t
have an ID. Also, their philosophy of free sex and their use of drugs
disturbed public order and challenged the rules and customs of the
Moroccan patriarchal society.


Because of their
appearance, they were easily identified. 
The police pushed them over
the Moroccan border back into Spain with their bare hands, sometimes
using clubs.

All
sincere wishes come true

But Riki had a saying
also for the black days. He would quote Gandhi: “Every sincere,
genuine wish, sooner or later comes true”. And so, together with
Riki, we got ready to enter Morocco, not at the port of Tangiers,
where the Moroccan police were more severe, but at the smaller Ceuta,
which was less controlled and is an autonomous Spanish city in
Northern African territory.


Our journey started in
the summer of 1974. Originally, we had not planned a stop in Morocco.
Our idea was to go to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka, from the Sanskrit, Lamkä
meaning, “sparkling island”).

India, Sri Lanka, Nepal,
Iran, Afghanistan were also countries which were a “must” to the
hippy community of the sixties and seventies. People would go to do a
pilgrimage, to learn directly from the gurus the postulate of
oriental philosophy, to discuss the sense of life with the Buddhist
monks, how to obtain freedom and how to find happiness.


There was a Buddhist monk
we loved in a special way: Prof. Čedomil
Veljačič. He was one of us, that is, a Yugoslav, from Zagreb.
Veljačič was a university professor. He moved to Sri Lanka, took
the monastic name of Bhikkhu and lived with the poorest monks, the
beggars. However, our Veliačič didn’t stop writing books, articles
and essays. We were enthusiastic about his ideas, we were inspired by
his life, we read his works out loud and discussed them in groups.
For years, we had planned to go and visit him.


But just when we were
about to do so, an unexpected event changed everything.

SOS

Neda, a girl from the
group who lived in Spain with her boyfriend, sent an SOS: he had
disappeared leaving her alone with a small baby, no money and no job. 
We therefore decided to change our program; we would first go to
Spain to save Neda, and then decide how to continue our journey.

At the time, Spain was
under Franco, a Fascist dictator, and there were no diplomatic
relations between Yugoslavia and Spain. To enter we needed a transit
visa which was issued at the Spanish embassy in Milan.


We left at the beginning
of July. In our group we had a future professor of medicine, a
theoretical mathematician who would become internationally
well-known, a philosopher. 
All committed hippies with beards and long
hair, extravagant clothes and minimum luggage: only a cloth backpack.

Traveling by hitch-hike
was common at the time among young people, and we didn’t think of
traveling any other way. Everything went smoothly for a while and we
felt that we were part of a well-organized relay. 

We travelled in two
groups. The meeting was in front of the “Prado” museum in
Madrid. 
We were to meet there in five days time, between midday and
one o’clock, to then go on together towards our friend, Neda.

Her cry for help worried
us so much that we gave up the idea of our much planned trip to the
East. However, when we met her, we found that the situation wasn’t
that serious. 
Neda told her story alternating between laughter and
tears.

Algeciras

It’s all for the good, we
decided, discussing if we should return to Yugoslavia or get onto a
cargo ship and head for the East. We favored the idea of going to
Morocco, because it was close and because we now had a baby in our
group. So we headed towards the Spanish port of Algeciras.

The presence of the baby
girl, in a sense, held together our group. We treated her like every
one’s daughter, we looked after her together, we took it in turns to
carry her in a sort of marsupium, a large scarf fixed around the neck
like African mothers do.


With hindsight, I think
we were too relaxed, not to say irresponsible with a baby who was not
even a year old. A new born ran risks on a journey of this kind. But
at the time those problems did not worry us at all.

At Algeciras we had to
stop for three days. The Spanish police would not allow Neda to exit
Spain with a transit visa that had expired three years ago. We had to
wait for a permit from Madrid. The only inconvenience that this
obvious illegality caused, was to force us to stop. Neda was neither
detained nor questioned about where she had been and what she had
been doing in Spain for three years with a transit visa.


From other “flower
children” we learned that it was easier to enter Morocco going
through Ceuta. In Morocco we went slowly
along the Atlantic coast using public transport which cost very
little. We went through Rabat and Casablanca, then left the coast to
visit Marrakech, and finally we arrived at the much desired
Essaouira, the hippy Mecca.

Since we were not common
tourists, we did not stop to look at the ancient city, the monuments,
the impressive medieval fort or the museums, and we did not go
shopping. 
We followed in the steps of the famous hippies who had gone
before us: Frank Zappa, Bob Marley and Jimi Hendrix.

We
are from Yugoslavia

We looked for and stayed
in the company of other hippies. At that time, there were so many in
Morocco that we outnumbered the local inhabitants in some small
villages, especially in the small streets and the suqs. The Moroccans
were very kind, they welcomed us, helped us, gave us directions, and
accompanied us to the places we were looking for. But in the twenty
days we were there, nobody asked us to their home. And this, we
thought, was strange. In Yugoslavia it was normal that, after
chatting to someone, you would invite him home.


When we said we came from
Yugoslavia the locals would show enthusiasm, slap us on the back,
give us the name of our president, Tito, and someone would raise two
fingers in a victory sign, or raise their thumb to demonstrate that
all was well. We enjoyed this reaction and didn’t find it strange. We
Yugoslavs were used to being welcomed wherever we went, so the
friendliness of the Moroccans did not surprise us.

We had made no programs,
we had not booked anything in advance, it was all improvised at the
moment. The strongest impression left by that journey was the
slowness with which every thing we did evolved. As if our life was
going at thirty-three instead of forty-five revs.


This slowness could have
been the effect of the grass, which was in abundance. It was offered
to us for free, we shared it with the others as we did with the food.
Lots were smoking, also in our group, even in public, as there were
no restrictions, sitting on the ground in some piazzas or in front of
the bar where the locals joined us in this pleasure.

If you exaggerated, then
the local police would intervene and hit with batons.


After twenty days, we
were on the way back. In Barcelona, five of us climbed into an old
decrepit Volkswagen, given to Neda by a French friend who was going
home. It was a noisy wreck and half broken, and gave the impression
that it would fall to pieces any minute. Inside, it smelt of petrol.
After one thousand kilometers, we also discovered it rained inside.

Is
this car yours?

It was August, in the
peak of the tourist season, and the roads were full of cars, crowds
at the borders. “Our” car had French number plates and
maybe that was why nobody checked us, and we were allowed to pass
unhindered. All went well until we came to the border between Italy
and Yugoslavia, at Fernetti.

That was the last border
before entering our country. 
At that time, it was also the border
between the West and the East, the “iron curtain” dividing
the communist world from the capitalist.


That day it was raining
heavily, outside as well as inside the car. 
Our baby was restless,
and as soon as we arrived at the border, she started crying.

Two policemen stopped us,
and saluted by bringing their hands to their foreheads. 
They thought
we were foreigners, probably judging by our number plate. But as soon
as we showed our red Yugoslav passports, the policeman stiffened, he
studied the inside of the car through the window, he looked at the
bearded passengers and at the baby crying and he looked disgusted.


He asked for the car
papers. We did not have them. Unbelieving, he asked who was the owner
of the car, and Neda gave the name of her French friend. The
policeman did not understand, and then asked if one of us was “him”.


“No”.

“Well, where is he?”

“I think, in
France”, said Neda.

The policeman’s face
turned red.

The conversation
continued amid the baby’s desperate crying, our voices trying to calm
her, and the noise of the rain. The policeman runned his hands
through his hair, and walked a few steps as if to calm himself, then
went towards a colleague.


The two policemen looked
at each other without a word, then one shrugged his shoulders and the
other said: “Go”.

They swore at us, but
they let us go.


SOURCE: Balcanicaucaso