OM OMG TOUGH2 min read

marseille is tough. stunningly beautiful, offering brilliant vistas on every corner, lively and amazing with all the various cultures living next to eachother. but tough.
the guy who sells us a tagine at the “marche arabe”, talks to me about sharm el sheick. he says, we don’t understand, he says we and seems to mean “we – the arabic world”, we don’t understand why these innocent people had to die in london and now these tourists, but we don’t understand either why nobody talks about all the innocent victims in iraq, all the people dying in their sleep, because a bomb missed its target. he means what the us army calls “collateral damage”. he asks why innocent victims in iraq are called “collateral damage”.
i agree with him, but it’s clear he won’t let me get a word in. he makes his point a second time. and then a third time just for good measure. i shut up, i listen.
later we go to see olympique marseille play young boys. the small kids walk in all smiling and innocent, but as soon as their team appears on the pitch they turn into raging lunatics, the chauvinistic pride and the toughness is already fully there. small kids, 5, 6 years old maybe. we sit in a family sector, but we know not to celebrate when young boys score first. a man, father of 3 kids, spots us as being from bern. he gives us a loooong mean look only barely making an effort to conceal his aggression in front of his kids.
the mythic, tough OM, olympique marseille, dominates the tough city. OM is everywhere. the OMcafe is located in prime location center stage of the vieux port overlooking everything. young boys lose, all is well. the kids turn back into their smiling and innocent selves.

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