[...] Not only are we badly paid for long hours of work but the work itself is uninteresting: we do not make traditional motifs patiently learnt over the years at Malama's, but designs that the Germans want. Our factory works with the Germans. They have very bad taste - a pale carpet with no colour, no mystery, and always the same thing. They have been asking for the same carpet since many years now: a white one with a rare yellowish design. And you have no idea of what Latifa and I can do. We make Rbati as well as delicate designs. It is the Germans who buy Moroccan carpets but they want unauthentic, 'bastard' carpets - a little German, and a bit Moroccan... And we contain all our energy, thousands of motifs and colours which will never be seen for no one asks for them.

Source : "Tourism, culture and development in the Arab region", UNESCO, 1999

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