By Ali Hassan Eddehbi

“My name is Iman. I am Moroccan and Christian. Yes, I am Christian, but I am not a foreigner. My father is Sahraoui, and my mom is Amazigh. I was born and grew up in Morocco,” says a young woman with a smile. Personally, I have found the opening sentences are enough powerful to draw us into the content of the video. The first opus of an upcoming series of short podcasts made by Moroccans, for Moroccans.

“Moroccan and Christian” is the title of this new program podcasted on a YouTube channel with the same title. “A series of short videos in which Moroccan Christians, in Morocco or abroad, will explain their Christian faith and reply to many rumors and misunderstandings about Christianity,” says the channel’s short description.

A bold choice for sure but also an innovative idea. Not only because the podcasters dare to appear with their uncovered faces, but also because the main point smartly highlights in a new and non-aggressive way that being Moroccan necessarily implies the fact of being Muslim. It is short, fresh, friendly, powerful, and, above all, instructive. Here are some reasons for which I think this video brings something new to the struggle for the freedom of belief.

Culture is common, faith is individual

In a perfect Darija sprinkled with idioms, Iman tells us her own anecdote of when her Moroccan husband visited his family in his village and they told him, “Why you didn’t come with your wife. Even if she’s Christian and doesn’t speak Darija, we will welcome her.”

It might be not thatfunny, but it tells volumes about the mainstream mentality. Since they knew that this man’s wife is Christian, they could not imagine that she is Moroccan. They have never seen it, so they think it does not exist, and by (a very harmful) extension, that it should not exist. Thanks to Iman for remind us of that fact!

Explaining not complaining 

Alongside the relatively open climate of the last few years, Moroccan religious, or non-religious, minorities started to claim their rights to express their faith and asked for abolition of some articles of the penal law which penalize conversion to a religion other than Islam. Repressed quite often by the authorities, these claims were supported by the international media and human rights organizations. The whole discourse was logically reduced to criticism of the oppressive penal law. This struggle between both ideologies has unfortunately depicted a simplistic picture: religious minorities are against majoritarian values and want to disturb us.

In this video, Iman intelligently escapes this trick and  simply explains her “right to choose the faith that makes her feel comfortable.” “Not only the law, but also society,” she says while describing the reason why Moroccan Christians have hidden themselves. In other words, her voice is not against society but rather tries to catch the attention and the understanding of the society. Calm down guys, it is friendly!

Explaining not proselytizing

Let us scroll back in time to 2010 when Christian volunteers and foster parents at a Moroccan orphanage were forced to abandon dozens of children after they were accused of proselytizing. The former Minister of Communication, Khalid Naciri, warned that the government would be "severe with all those who play with religious values, according to the BBC. He added that religious freedom is guaranteed under Moroccan law, but proselytizing is banned. The video has broken new ground in that the content is respectful of this “legal redline,” without any religious branding. Nevertheless, I am quite sure that some will still think that talking about another religion than Islam is itself proselytism.

 This mix is false and harmful – false because, according to the Oxford Dictionary, proselytism is an action to “convert or attempt to convert (someone) from one religion, belief, or opinion to another.” However, Iman and the other participants try to “express” their ideas without telling anything about the “good side of being Christian.”

Christian but (Not) for a fistful of dollars  

Iman looks urban and educated.  We can see the same profiles in the teaser of the program. A short video which shows six other urban and educated Moroccans. This challenges the cliché of the poor Moroccan who chooses to convert to Christianity because he or she is tricked by someone proselytizing who offers them money and promises of going to Europe or elsewhere.

Peace and love

Last but not least, Iman says she loves us. She loves Moroccans without any distinction of religion. Thank you, Iman.

The post I, Iman, a Moroccan Christian, love you all appeared first on Morocco World News.

By Mohamed Zefzaf

Boston - Muhammed Ali was a singular man who forever changed the world, a beautiful light that shone so brightly in the darkness of the 1960’s. Nothing could stop him from telling his truth, or from being completely himself. He was a giant among men-the best in us.

No one had ever seen a boxer like him before. He confused his opponents and dazzled boxing fans with lighting speed- his impressive footwork, a thing of beauty. But Ali wasn’t jus a boxer; he was also an icon for justice and a symbol of our common humanity.

He made history with his hands and feet, but with his supreme poetry too. Called variously by such sobriquets as the “Louisville Lip,” or “The Mouth that Roared;” this is the man who said of himself, “I am pretty...I fly like a butterfly and sting like a bee.”

Ali was an elegant butterfly- a man of principles who transcended race, color, and religion- an icon to people across the world. When drafted into the US army in 1967, he refused to be inducted on account of his religious beliefs.

For standing for his principles, he was stripped of his world Boxing heavyweight Championship. In the prime of his career, Ali was not allowed to box. Eventually, the Supreme Court ruled in his favor in the landmark 1971 decision Clay Vs. The United States.  Ali was finally allowed to box again.

In 1974 in Kinshasa, Zaire-today Democratic Republic of Congo-Ali’s opponent was the younger and bigger George Foreman. The heavy favorite, Foreman, a force of nature, ruled the boxing world, a fierce boxing machine- a cyborg of the 70’s. In what became known as “The Rumble in the Jungle,” Against the seemingly unbeatable Foreman, Ali resorted to a new style of boxing.

Ali employed the now famous “rope-a-dope” strategy; a defensive boxing plan cleverly designed to allow Foreman to tire himself. In doing so, Ali was able to exhaust his formidable opponent. In the eight round, Ali pounced on a spent Foreman, hitting him with a powerful right.

As Foreman fell, the artist in Ali restrained himself from throwing any more punches; instead, he waited, thus allowing the mighty and confused Foreman to fall in a spectacular and unexpected way.

There were also the mythical boxing matches between Ali and the underappreciated Smokin’ Joe Frazier. In 1971, a heavier and less nimble Ali faced the aggressive Frazier, in what was dubbed The fight of the century. The world lost its breath when Frazier hit Ali with a devastating left hook, sending him tumbling to the canvas of the ring at Madison Square Garden.  Ali lost to Frazier on their first bout.

For a certain generation at the time, it seemed the dream had died. But Ali would come back, again and again. In their grueling third and final match in 1975, known as  “The Thrilla in Manila”, the greatest boxing match ever, Ali won by outlasting Frazier in a dual of pure exhausting endurance in the suffocating humidity of the Araneta Coliseum in Manila, The Philippines.

Hajj Muhammed Ali’s greatest battle was yet to come.

Over three decades ago, he was diagnosed with Parkinson disease, a progressive degenerative disorder that slowly eats away the central nervous system. He bravely battled the debilitating disease.

Several years later, he lit the Olympic flame at the opening of the 1996 Olympic games in Atlanta, Georgia. Though Parkinson’s had weakened him, Ali walked with trembling hands and legs before a packed audience at Centennial Olympic stadium and lit the Olympic fire. The emotion of that moment is still engraved in the memories of all those who remember it.

When he died, he left instructions for his funeral arrangements. He wanted an interfaith service. He wanted people of several faiths to take part, not in mourning his death, but in celebrating his life.

Ali was a shinning example of a man who used the time he was given and his prodigious talent to speak for those who couldn’t. He was a true human being: Kind, just, flawed, loving; his legacy will continue to live on. In a divided world, Ali is an inspiration, an example for us.

Upon learning of the death of Hajj Muhammed Ali, George Forman simply said “Part of me passed with him…He was the greatest man I ever knew.”

In the Arizona night of Friday June 3, 216, surrounded by his family, Hajj Muhammed Ali died. A man, a father, a grandfather, a champion of the people is no more. His daughter Hana wrote on Twitter, “ Our hearts are literally hurting…But we are so happy daddy is free now.”

It was his wish to be buried where he was born, in Louisville, Kentucky. Yes, the prodigal son does return.

Rest in peace Hajj Muhammed Ali.

The post Remembering Hajj Muhammed Ali appeared first on Morocco World News.

El Jadida - Maraboutism is derived from the French word "marabout" which is in turn derived from the Arabic word ‘murabit’: a religious disciple or volunteer in a holy military camp. Today a marabout is a tomb of a saint very often with the particular name of the saint given to a specific site. Whole regions and cities in Morocco are named after local marabouts.

The predominant belief is that the sites enjoy the saints’ protection/sanctuary (hurum). Hence the popular name of saints: “Men of the Land / patron-saints” (rijal l-blad)—the slogan that goes “Morocco is the land of one hundred thousand saints” would not be an overstatement. In the past descendents of saints were known as marabouts and were seen to be endowed with the baraka (blessing) of God. Like shurfa (holy descendents of the Prophet), they enjoyed considerable privilege and symbolic capital almost as a separate social group.

Bel, Geertz and Eickelman argue that the fever of sharifism in the fifteenth century incited a lot of saints or their descendents to root their legitimacy in declaring themselves as shurfa. Hammoudi maintains that the social class of marabouts was complex; in practice its members could be classified either on top of the ladder, right below the shurfa, or lower than the masses of ordinary men and women, depending on the authority of the charisma they inherited. This means that unlike the category of shurfa depending on their predetermined social origin, the social category of marabouts was open to new members’ admission depending on their acquired religious / magical skills and people’s will, which may either elect pious people to the status of sainthood or may treat them as worthless misfits.

Historically, the maraboutic institution catered for the needs of the commoners, who unable to have some measure of control over their lives and convinced of weakness, looked for saviors with charismatic powers to protect them. Possibly projecting their unfulfilled desires, they imagined saints wielding all powers that they so conspicuously lacked themselves.

According to Hijazi, the dominated under magical influence saw saints as possessing miraculous powers including: resurrecting the dead; talking to them; walking on sea water; talking to animals and inanimate things; traveling outside time; foreseeing the future; abstaining from food and drink; knowing where treasures were buried; and being immune to poisoning. Saints have been considered legendary rescuers of the masses from situations of misfortune and disaster.

Historiographers such al-Bazzaz, a-Ttadili, and Boulqtib state that some have used their riches to house the poor and help the needy; some have helped in digging out wells and springs to water the land, and some have used their charisma to form alliances of murabits to fight invaders and despotic regimes. In times of famine, saints opened their lodges to accommodate the poor and the homeless. They distributed grain in miserable regions to alleviate the hunger of the poor.

In Fez, for instance, Ibn ‘AJuz reserved an acre of cultivated land for the poor. Abu Zakariya Yahya Ibn ‘Abd Rahman a-Ttadili offered in charity about two rooms of corn to the needy in Fez during the famine of 571H/ 1175 to the extent that he did not leave enough provisions for his blind son. The examples of saints’ generosity towards the wretched population abounded during medieval famines and droughts. In fact, the saints’ local help, as Boulqtib argues, was much more effective than that of the Almohad regime that was poorly dispersed throughout the country.

In those times of stress, the wretched population conjured up metaphor-saints responding to their own needs. They endowed them with all the powers they could not afford in their hostile environment. Saints were imagined as capable of invoking food from nowhere during times of famine, of bursting forth water-courses during times of drought, of healing illnesses during times of epidemics, and of releasing people from the yoke of oppression during times of tyranny. All those charismatic powers were recognized as the baraka of saints.

Saints’ movement would expand to a degree that each region owned its protective patron saints to spiritually uphold it during times of stress. Mulay Taybi Al-Wazzani was a good case in point. Once, the folk of Wazzan requested him to lead their rain prayers (salat l-istisqa’) during periods of dryness; when he did so, it was said that God sent his rain that fertilized the whole Country. Another example was what Mohammed Ben Ja‘far l-Kattani narrated about one of the saints in Fez.

When the rain became scanty and the Moslems were worried about their harvest, they would gather and head for the shaykh Sidi Mohammed. They would ask him to come out with them for rain prayers. He would lead them to the shrine of Sidi l-Haj Budarham, his own master. Then, he would tell them: “give me some water!” when they gave him water; he would fill his mouth and blew water into the air [thus performing a ritual of sympathetic magic to influence the rain; the shaykh’s mouth imbuing water with baraka]. Then the crowd of supplicators would return home. During the night, the rain would fall heavily.

The theoretical assumption here is that in ‘less protected communities’ [where] there is no adequate scientific understanding of [the] … distressing and socially disruptive events…culture prescribes definite institutionalized ways of dealing with ... them," as Beattie maintains. In other words, in social contexts where scientific knowledge that may provide an empirical alternative is lacking, illness, death from disease, starvation and oppression may be dealt with in symbolic and expressive terms. This does not mean that ‘advanced societies’ operate only by scientific empirical beliefs. They may also have at least some magical beliefs embodied in their religious or political rituals. But in less protected communities magical activity may have a more important function. Misfortune may be averted or alleviated by recourse to magico-religious beliefs and rituals.

Correspondingly, Moroccans, in the face of disaster and oppression, have delved in magical activities and sought the protection of saints; they have used their own popular culture to find solutions to their problems facing the effects of the harshness of nature (droughts, famines, epidemics, etc.), the exploitation of the Makhzen, and the repression of colons.

Legends surviving to the present represent saints as sultans at a small scale in their own regions. A number of saints, as the mythic tradition states, rose against the Black Sultan (seltan l-khal) and defeated him. The Black Sultan was a symbol of terror and oppression in the popular mind –take the example of the Pasha al-Glawi whom the collective memory designated as the Black Sultan of the Haouz (Pascon, 1983). The expression seltan l-Khal was used by the commoners to refer either to the Marinid Sultan Abu al-Hasan al-Marini (El Ouaret, 2001; Hajji, 1988), or as my respondents in previous field research claim to the Alawite Sultan Moulay Ismail due perhaps to their black color or dark powers. There are ruins of a palace of the seltan l-Khal in Ras al-Hmar on the boundaries between Rhamana and Doukkala.

Up to now, the binary opposition—saints vs. Black Sultan—structures the worldview of the maraboutic society. Its legends convey the war between the Black sultan and saints. Sidi Mas‘ud Ben Hsin in the region of Doukkala, for instance, is said to have aborted the seltan l-khal’s attack by sending bees and gadflies (nna‘ra) to chase him away. Ben Yeffu vanquished him by the magical aid of a black jinni with seven heads or by the divine Secret when he gave his orders to the invisible powers to rent the sultan off his horse and lift him to the skies.

The Black Sultan seems to be a mythic symbol of any Sultan whose rule has been oppressive in the history of Morocco. That saints can triumph over the Black Sultan expresses the symbolic protection they can offer to the subalterns, which elects saints to a higher social leading rank held in awe and veneration in their own regions; a political expression of sainthood whose historical roots we can still trace in Moroccan saints’ legends and maraboutic practices.

If one visits a saint’s tomb, like Ben Yeffu for instance, one may have the impression that one is in the presence of a real Sultan. Ben Yeffu, the Sultan of Jinn or the Green Sultan as he is locally named, has bequeathed to his children and ardent devotees sacred places metonymically associated with his baraka. There you discover a dome, the ruins of a palace, a cairn (kerkour), and a horse’s hoof print all endowed with mythic attributes. The ceremonial rituals performed by saint-goers at these sites mainly follow a schema of submission to the Sultan-saint. A variety of symbols, rituals and myths combine with each other to shape a mythic edifice of a sultanic institution.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Morocco World News’ editorial policy

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By Hicham Bennani

Rabat - Are we witnessing a new positive run for Addoha, Résidences Dar Saada and Alliances?

Just few months ago, Addoha was trading at MAD 23/share, Dar Saada at MAD 130/share, and Alliances at MAD 35/share. Today, Addoha is Hovering around MAD 40 (73% increase), Dar Saada at MAD 180 (38% increase), and Alliances at MAD 66 (88% increase).

Many people are concerned now, should they be buying real estate stocks? Should they surf on the wave?

If you are bitten by a snake, you will be afraid of the rope. As a matter of fact, many individuals, Institutions and funds lost tons of money in the latest Casablanca stock market crash, after the speculative bubble burst leaving them stranded.

Why the prices of all the listed real estate companies rocketed? Have the market fundamentals improved?

There seems to be no plausible reason for the hike for the three companies. Market fundamentals are the same, and the economic situation of Morocco is not improving at a pace that can explain the boom in the prices of these stocks.

Moreover, theses companies have not announced any mega projects with lucrative returns that can boost their future earnings, at thus increase their valuations.

The PE ratio for the three companies might look within the acceptable range (10 to 15 times) compared to the benchmark in other developing stock markets.

However, one should keep in mind that the real estate in Morocco is in deep crisis, characterized by a high level of Leverage. In fact, the debt-to-equity ratio for the listed real estate companies is high, which makes these companies vulnerable to downturns in the business cycle.

I recommend selling the three listed stocks because the outlook is not clear, and because they outperformed the MASI and MADEX indices for no valid or logical reason.

The post Is Morocco Headed for a Real Estate Stock Bubble? appeared first on Morocco World News.

By Christopher Thomas

Rabat -Indian Vice President Hamid Ansari has just returned from his 3-day visit to Morocco from May 30^t to June 1^st, 2016. During his time here, Ansari met with Moroccan Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane, and a Chamber of Commerce and Industry was formed to facilitate bilateral trade. But why might India be interested in Morocco?

The most immediate answer is phosphates. Phosphates are used for fertilizer, making them extremely valuable to agrarian societies such as India. Moroccan phosphate resources are among the most extensive in the world, with only China and the United States reaching similar levels of production.

China, as of 2015, far outpaced Morocco’s phosphate production at roughly 100 million tons. However, China and India have a well-known rivalry that has resulted in war and seizure of territory in past decades. The strategic benefits of relying on Chinese resources to feed India’s people and bolster its economy are dubious.

The United States produced 27.6 million tons of phosphates in the same year, but Morocco produced 30 million tons, earning it a place among the two leading global superpowers. However, Moroccan phosphate reserves are the largest in the world by a significant margin; some estimates place Moroccan phosphate reserves at half of the world’s total.

This makes the kingdom an ideal trading partner to India, with resources that will only increase. Given the importance of food resources to a nation as populous as India, obtaining phosphates is a top priority. In return for these and other resources, India offers automobile manufacturing and pharmaceutical production to Morocco.

India’s influence in Africa has waned over recent decades, with rival China increasing its economic presence. To improve its own position on the geopolitical stage, India must become more involved with the affairs of so large a continent as Africa. This is especially pertinent given India’s ambitions to obtain a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.

On a more fundamental level, India and Morocco share certain societal outlooks and political situations. They certainly have no animosity for one another, as characterized by Vice President Ansari’s statement: “There are no points of conflict [between India and Morocco] and politically our outlooks do not clash.”

Similarities run deeper than a mere lack of conflict; both nations have a clearly dominant religion, but are nonetheless hubs of multiculturalism. Morocco has been an Islamic nation since the Arab conquest in the 8^th Century, but garnered a reputation for tolerance in al Andalus by fostering a society in which Muslims, Jews, and Christians could coexist. It later became a haven for Jews fleeing the Spanish Inquisition, and enjoyed a rare peace among religions in the Middle Ages and later centuries.

India is also home to significant religious minorities. As of 2015, it houses the third largest population of Muslims in the world, as well as a sizeable Sikh minority. Tensions and clashes among these groups have become central to the political stage. Morocco’s history of coexistence may provide a worthwhile point of reference to Indian political leadership.

Likewise, both nations govern territory that is internationally disputed. Morocco’s governance over its Southern Provinces/Western Sahara is a point of contention with the United Nations, which has encouraged a referendum that has proved unworkable.

Similarly, India governs large territories in Jammu and Kashmir, and the United Nations has also advocated a referendum that has failed to come about. India and Morocco share similar political flashpoints, which remain unresolved.

India and Morocco are separated by 8,458 km (5256 miles), but united by trade. The economic advantages to a partnership are abundantly clear, but the relationship could go far beyond an exchange of goods alone.

Perhaps Morocco and India can learn from their shared social and political issues and move forward together, expanding their relationship to a deeper and more lasting engagement. This may not be the intention of either government, but the parallels between their circumstances are clear, and may present an opportunity for progress and mutual understanding.

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By Irina Tsukerman

New York - The Obama doctrine of balancing interests in the Middle East, presumably Arab and Persian, Sunni and Shi’a, is not only failing on its face, but was never about achieving a balance to begin with.

As indicated elsewhere, Obama has talked about normalizing relations with Iran since running for office. As we further know now, Iran has made overtures with regards to what has become known as the “nuclear deal” in 2009. At no point has Iran indicated its willingness or interest in giving up its geopolitical ambitions of achieving regional dominance.

The secret, and later open, negotiations that took place did not take into account Iran’s meddling in and instigation of conflicts in Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen, as well as an attempted coup in Bahrain. Allowing the deal to proceed without taking the interests and concerns of any of the Arab allies of the US into consideration indicates that the administration was never concerned about balancing the interests of all parties against one another, but rather, in empowering Iran at the cost of weakening all the rest.

Months preceding and following the announcement of the negotiations showed the cooling in the relations between the administration and Saudi Arabia. Some tensions have been evident in the last few years; furthermore, the attempted coup in Bahrain, narrowly prevented did not meet much resistance or condemnation from the State Department. More recently, President Obama, visiting Riyadh, met with a very cool reception.

The courts have allowed the exposure of the Saudis to the 9/11 restitution claim, and just now, US blocked the delivery of cluster bombs to the royal family. Elsewhere in the Arab world, tensions continued, in part over the U.S. taking sides with Iran and Russia in Syria, and heavily critiquing Saudi Arabia, but not Iran, for involvement in the Yemen proxy war. In part on a more diplomatic level over a harder and selective line the US has started to pursue against some of its closest Arab allies, such as Morocco, in contrast to a toned down approach towards Iran.

During the past several years of the Obama Administration, there have been several attempts to the pass resolutions critical of Morocco’s alleged human rights violations in Western Sahara. Most recently, the U.S. proposed a punitive resolution that would penalize Morocco for the reduction in MINURSO staffing. The resolution was renegotiated in Morocco’s favor, but the country, the first to officially recognize the U.S. at its independence, and a staunch ally on many fronts ever since, was stunned with the unexpected and unbefitting acrimony in public.

 Though some believe that the current U.S. hard line on Morocco’s position vis-à-vis resolution of the conflict in Western Sahara is in the hands of the National Security adviser Susan Rice, heavily influenced by corrupt and fraudulent human rights activists, such as Kerry Kennedy, if we look at the broader scope of the Administration’s activities with respect to its Arab allies, a presidential decree makes more sense. Rather than being a result of rogue activities by overeager human rights-obsessed clique within the Cabinet, the resolution, and general failure to stand up for Morocco with respect to its territorial integrity and resolution of the conflict indicates a part of a wider strategy.

The National Security Adviser has more of a focus on defensive and security related issues than human rights, which generally fall under the guise of the State Department. Secretary of State John Kerry may or may not have associated with Ms. Kennedy, but he was at the center of the nuclear deal, and thus, was one of the most interested parties in keeping Iran happy and making sure the deal would not fall through.

To wit, the Administration recently admitted that it stopped sanctioning Iranian human rights violators after the deal. The Administration has made it clear that human rights are of no concern except when they can be used to support its political moves. President Obama, visiting King Salman at the height of the Raif Badawi campaign, failed to mention the activist by name, much less press the monarch over the wider issue of human rights abuses inside the country. Thus, the U.S. distancing itself from the Saudis has been based on considerations of pivoting towards Iran, which given the upper hand Iran has held throughout the negotiation process, could have only gone one way – U.S. was forced to choose between the old allies and the new, and was not allowed to play nice with both equally.

Further evidence of similar sacrifice of human rights considerations at convenience, has been the faux red lines drawn over Syria. Once again, the administration has admitted that its policy of untruthful promises of humanitarian intervention were never intended to be carried out. Rather, the administration stalled to see what Iran’s position would be, and saw no reason to aggravate Tehran’s man in Damascus, nor had any intention of working with its Sunni Arab allies to resolve the conflict. In the meantime, it pursued secret contacts with Assad. One does not plan invasions or military strikes if one is engaged in secreted outreach efforts. Obama was perfectly willing to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of lives in Syria, so long as the negotiations with Iran proceeded smoothly.

The fear of aggravating the Khamenei regime, the real hand behind the nuclear deal, despite the apparent usage of the “moderate” Rouhani, was evident even in the State Department’s failure to release the mandatory human rights report on Iran which is normally issued on a regular basis. Senator Ted Cruz, in staunch opposition to the administration, battled until the report was finally released. Nevertheless, the issue of human rights was never addressed as part of the deal, and the observers were led to assume that this administration simply does not believe that human rights is a central issue in politics.

After all, it was Secretary Kerry’s predecessor, Hillary Clinton, who, criticized China for promoting women’s rights. Yet, the administration’s position shifted with respect to Morocco. Without delay, it issued a highly damaging and disingenuous human rights report on Morocco, in addition to proposing the aforementioned resolution. After Ambassador Bush was summoned to Rabat for rebuke over the error-ridden document, the State Department admitted to “making mistakes”.

Separately, the ill-timed and unnecessary public resolution and the incredible report would seem like the produce of overzealous, amateurish junior diplomats unfamiliar with the strong relationship between the two countries, and wishing to make a breakthrough in the early stages of their career, based more in ideology than in common sense. However, when viewed alongside the parallel treatment of a well known human rights offender such as Iran, as well as the actions of the administration towards other Arab states, these actions emerge as mere pieces of a bigger jigsaw.

 But there is nothing puzzling about the result of the way pieces hold together. The administration is ready to do anything to please its new counterpart and insure the certainty of lucrative deals, alongside its European partners. Morocco is not oil rich, and offers fewer such opportunities at the current juncture. Moreover, Iran is aggressively expansionist in its global ambitions and the Sunni Arab states are not. The Administration chooses to appease the more aggressive, apparently stronger country which is using a stick and carrot approach to lure its new friends into doing its bidding.

Whatever the next Administration ends up deciding vis-à-vis Iran and the Arab world, Obama’s foreign policy will ensure a long process of withdrawing from some of the most damaging aspects of this unhealthy co-dependent relationship and towards restoring trust and ties with the old U.S. allies – if only for the sake of achieving a more balanced policy for the U.S. A foreign policy when one party openly manipulates the other cannot be called a balanced policy nor a balanced relationship. The U.S., in its eagerness to achieve normalization with the Islamic Republic, has negotiated itself into a corner where it has not yet achieved equal partnership with Iran and has already damaged its relationships with others. Let us hope that the next President will be wise enough to figure out a way out of this conundrum.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Morocco World News’ editorial policy

© Morocco World News. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, rewritten or redistributed

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Rabat - From the comfort of our Bahrain sofas, we all watched in horror on our TVs 700 people dying in just three days. Seven hundred refugees, believed to be mostly unaccompanied adolescents, drowned in the cold water of the Mediterranean without ever having time to scream. 

But since heart-breaking events like this have become so regular, this tragedy wasn’t enough to shake the world out of its stupor so that they could really see what was going on. Instead, most people chose to focus on news about the Cannes Film Festival, the latest album releases or celebrity divorces.

And when the story did manage to find a place in mainstream media, the news was once again received with a cold and calculated response by most of those who have the means to help. This happened despite the fact that something could have been done, and still can be, to end these tragedies. However, the frequency of these incidents and the incredibly high number of refugee casualties seem to have desensitised the world to such horrors.

This indifference and lack of empathy are certainly not normal. It is abhorrent, and it represents a truly shameful episode of our collective history. It seems that the world is losing touch with its humanity and reality, because it no longer comprehends these incidents as anything other than statistics or numbers. In truth, these are human beings, precious souls that deserve to live. Those 700 people who lost their lives in the Mediterranean might have been a beautiful baby, a precious daughter, or a smiling elder. They were definitely more important than celebrity news, fashion shows, politics or TV series. They were loved dearly; they were all valuable individual human beings. They all deserved respect, dignity and love just like those that chose to ignore their plight. Universal human rights should transcend religion, culture and ethnicity, but they didn’t. They stopped at Muslim borders.

It should also be noted that the persistent apathy seen in the Western world, a blatant aversion to refugees and mostly because they are Muslims, is playing a major part in growing anti-Western sentiment. In order to picture this better, put yourself in those people’s shoes.

Imagine that you have had to watch your relatives on TV drowning in high seas, because as they fled war, poverty or oppression, affluent Western countries didn’t want them. You would know that the world could have easily helped them, accommodated them, and protected them. You would realise that refugees were not welcome mostly because of their Muslim identity.

You wouldn’t be able to help but feel a surging resentment. And now, multiply this feeling by a million. This is what’s happening to those refugees’ families and friends who watched the Western world abandon their loved ones.

No one can deny the role this anger plays as terrorism becomes ever more intense. Even though there is absolutely nothing that can justify violence or terrorism, selfish and discriminatory behaviour towards members of a certain faith, to the extent they are abandoned to death, will inevitably generate hostility.

If we want any semblance of peace to come to our pain-afflicted world, this attitude has to change now.

This shameful apathy must come to an end. Our world has more than enough means to help these people, who need it desperately. People’s lives are more important than politics, national interests or money.

Let’s rise up to the task of being human beings and do every single thing we can to help the people that truly need it.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Morocco World News’ editorial policy

© Morocco World News. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, rewritten or redistributed

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By Souhil Alouache

Fez - The current discussion about Islam, Muslim refugees, American Muslims, Donald Trump and his anti-Muslim bigoted rhetoric takes us back to the 16^th Century play by William Shakespeare, Othello. The hero in this play is a Moor, a migrant in a foreign country, who joins the army of Venice and rises through the ranks to general.

During this period of time, the Ottoman Turks represent to the people of Venice and England a vicious rival that occupies their minds and souls. They are invariably portrayed as villains and viewed with intense suspicion and hostility. The Venetian elites send Othello to Cyprus to fend off the Turks, who invade the island. Othello leads his Christian army against the so-called “Muslim heathens” in Cyprus. After a fierce battle, the Christian army wins, destroying the Turks’ ships. Religion enters emphatically into this equation: the Venetians are Christian, and the Turks are Muslim.  For the Venetians, the Turks are the abhorred enemy whom the Christians fought during the Crusades.

In this drama, Othello decides to marry a Venetian Christian woman named Desdemona, the daughter of a well-to-do man. Yet his decision is not welcomed by some, particularly his standard-bearer Iago. Iago hates Othello after Othello overlooks Iago for promotion, instead appointing fellow soldier Cassio to lieutenant.  Othello is an archetype of honor, courage, loyalty, and commitment to principles. Despite this, he receives the opposite treatment in Venetian society. Iago, on the other hand, is a manipulative character who preys on honorable personalities. He masks his deceit with a façade of loyalty, is selfish in the extreme, and does not believe in love, conscience, or honor. He stands completely outside the sphere of ethics. His methods are cunning; he plots to put an end to Othello, the Moorish hero.

In such an environment of stress and conspiracy, especially with cultural and ethnic differences, Othello’s integration into Western society is not easy. Indeed, it is a perilous experience, and he discovers that despite his sacrifices and military service on behalf of Venetian society, he cannot break the entrenched negative stereotypes in the mind of the Western characters about Arabs and Muslims.

Othello, the Moorish immigrant, poses a plethora of questions about Islamophobia in Western societies: Is the fear from Islam and Muslims in general so engrained in the psyche of Western characters that it cannot be eradicated? Is Donald Trump just echoing Western skepticism about Islam and doubting Muslims as Iago and Brabantio did in the play? Is it believable that the fear of many centuries ago still exerts its influence on the Western consciousness? Is it fair to say that this racist propaganda is exclusively an issue of the past, or is it also evoked in the contemporary West? And is it therefore a character of the Western psyche?

An outstanding question the play poses is, “Who is the real enemy of civilization?” Is it the Moorish immigrant, Muslim-born Othello who defends a land that is not his against an army with which he shares a number of ties, including religious origin, culture, ethnicity, and history, or is it the European Christian, Iago, whose business is destroying a symbol of victory for the sake of his personal interests, driven by hatred and revenge, and exposing an entire people to war? These very same set of questions are applicable to Obama’s foreign policy in the Middle East, and the Muslims in America contributing considerably to the realization of the “American Dream.”

We should keep bear in mind that among foundational factors of Western power, and American power in particular, is ethnic and cultural diversity. One must not forget that the Muslim community has done well despite the racism to which it is exposed. When a man like Donald Trump declares that “We have no idea who is coming into our country, no idea if they like us or hate us,” and calls for imposing a “total and complete ban on Muslims,” he makes himself a fascist, manipulating the fear of Islam that circulates through the blood of many Westerners.

From a discursive point of view, Donald Trump is faithful to the tradition of Orientalism and an excellent pupil of Flaubert, Disraeli, and Massignon. When he says “Muslims,” he is blindly homogenizing, leaving no room for difference. And this religious reference is also problematic; why did not he say Arabs? Or refer to nationality? Why did he define the entire issue by Islam? He also uses the present tense “are,” entailing a timeless group of people as being always somehow transfixed and etherized. The ethnographic present he used leaves no way to deal with the issue in some sort of creative and objective way.

These Muslims, against whom his campaign is mounted, are not at all respected or recognized for all that they have contributed to America. They are denied the recognition that many of them are soldiers in the American army and defending the country as the character Othello did for Venice four centuries ago, whereas Trump was raised in peace. Muslims serving in the White House working day after day to maintain the Constitution and serve the people are overlooked.  Donald Trump’s discourse reflects a pathological enigma in the mentality of some Westerners, a mentality that is contaminated by xenophobia, and religious and ethnic bigotry.

This play is tightly connected to contemporary political debates and cultural phenomena. Othello is an attempt to communicate a central idea: that the West and the East, at least until now, are two irreconcilable entities characterized by a historical antagonism. It also points out that values of hostility, hatred, and exchanged fear will permanently be the formative and dominant rules in this encounter despite all calls for coexistence, denouncing violence, and initiatives taken for spreading tolerance that appear from time to time and which die immediately when faced up with the harsh historical realities and bloody political agendas exercised around the world in the name of civilization and spreading democracy, and too, when a fool like Trump launches the kind of statements.

Thus, those calls are only daydreams unless they experience a shift from the sphere of slogans and abstract sweet ideas to a daily life culture, unless they are extended from the academic platonic zone to the battlefield of politics and decision-making.

The existence of such a play discussing salient issues four centuries ago explains the continuity of false historical beliefs and triumphalist clichés, hardening attitudes, and demeaning generalizations. It also reveals the maintenance of exchanged negativity between two poles governed by power relations and hegemony. This astonishing congruence between the past and the present in the relation of the West and the East at the level of discursivity mirrors our failure as human beings in achieving any tangible progress. This is the case, because we are still occupied by the exact same debates, fears, and prejudices that Shakespeare portrayed centuries ago. Our conceptions about the other are naturally biased and are affected by the images and the discursive formations to which people’s cultural imagining is exposed.

Edited by Christopher Thomas.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Morocco World News’ editorial policy

© Morocco World News. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, rewritten or redistributed

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Washington - In reporting on Morocco, "objectivity" and “journalistic ethics” do not appear to concern most French journalists these days. Recent scandals in its coverage of the Maghreb, the once loved and revered French Media has shown a level of media bias and unethical behaviors that are more common in autocratic nations than in the land of 'liberté, égalité, fraternité'. Once respected and even feared, the French press is losing its moral high ground in the francophone world.

 While the French media has a long history of neglecting “good story” about Morocco, the French press coverage of Morocco in the last few months has been more biased, hypocrite, ignorant and unethical. France 3 and Le Monde, to mention few outlets, have shown a degree of arrogance and sense of cultural superiority never seen before.

The French media has been failing to provide sufficient coverage to some of France’s own social and political ailments. Instead, it has turned to its formers colonies to fish for “sensational” stories. This double standard might explain French public television recent «documentary » about Morocco.

The latest outrage was prompted by French veteran journalists Jean-Louis Perez’s “documentary” about King Mohammed VI’s fortune. The piece titled “Secret Reign” was aired on French public television channel France 3 on May 26 after much fanfare.

The “Secret Reign” went into specific details about the relationship between Morocco’s big corporations and the Royal holdings run by the King’s aids. This approach is revealing as it underlines some of the French elite’s sentiments about Morocco’s Royal system.

While some of the subjects discussed in this so-called documentary are concerns that Moroccans, their government should address, the demeaning manner by which France 3 approach these issues was unprofessional, unethical and one-sided.

There are Moroccans who agree with France 3 that the Kingdom needs immediate judicial and economic reforms. Well, France may need some of the same reforms given the high number of corruption cases brought against French politicians. Morocco has cases of torture in police stations, so do France, the USA and Sweden.

The chief complaint against France 3 is its biases in source selection. Perez, pseudo-expert on the Maghreb, picked and chose sources that will support his version of event, while ignoring stories that will present a contrasting view.

 Notwithstanding Jack Lang’s, a Former French Minister, intervention defending Morocco, France 3 did not show any Moroccan minister or politician, form either the current or past governments, who may have given more centrist views of the current conditions. Consequently, the program did not present any counterbalance opinions that could have refuted some of French society’s perceived racial and social prejudices against Moroccans and their political system.

In fact, as some of the Moroccan guests who appeared on the program asserted after the airing of the show that Perez and his cameraman Chautard never revealed the nature of their project.

Despite all the media pomp, the so-called documentary was nothing but a collection of old videos, YouTube clips and interviews of known Moroccan exiled opponents whose views and stories were heard before. In summary, the “Secret Reign” did not show anything new.

In given a slanted account of Morocco’s current political and economic climates, France 3 has shown it agenda-driven editorial line and its neo-colonialist coverage of the Maghreb.

Looking at the stations choice of themes, pictures and videos, France 3 and its editorial board is saying  believe that “these Arabs”  still live in the Middle Ages  ruled by medieval sovereigns.

The most startling feature about the “Secret Reign” is its omission of recent reforms in Morocco. In ignoring facts and trends that have in fact made Morocco more politically open, France 3 rendered its show irrelevant and unhelpful to the reform-seeking activists in the Kingdom.

Before the France 3 fiasco, veteran French journalist  Eric Laurent and  Catherine Graciet, were caught taking money from Moroccan officials in exchange of non-publishing a book critical of King Mohammed VI. They were charged with attempted extortion and are currently awaiting trial.

France 3 journalists know too well where to go to get voices that could have casted a different light on Perez version of the story. Instead they went with unbalanced account demonstrating once again that France still thinks that the Maghreb is a cultural and racial protectorate that needs a European guardianship.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Morocco World News’ editorial policy

© Morocco World News. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, rewritten or redistributed

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By Lahcen Haddad

Rabat - While Europe struggles with questions of secularism, the war against anti-Semitism and racism, and Islam’s compatibility with the Modern State, Morocco is promoting a moderate and tolerant Islam, one that spreads beyond its borders.

The Kingdom of Morocco has always been a welcoming land for all religions while still honoring its own laws. The new Moroccan Constitution established in July 2011 reaffirms this principle: “Islam is the religion of the State, which guarantees for all the free exercice of faith.” The Constitution asserts that the King of Morocco is the Commander of the Faithful, and not only the commander of Muslims. This phrase represents what the Moroccan monarch embodies: a religious and pacific authority as well as a source of religious unity.

The constitutional text thereby creates a sanctuary for millennial unity. Although the majority of the Moroccan population is Muslim, it has always lived in perfect harmony with all other religious groups. Christian foreigners and Moroccan Jews have reported that they are able to practice their faith under good conditions and without interruptions, with the exception of cases of outright proselytism.

The close proximity of churches, synagogues and mosques in some cities therefore comes as a shock to no one. The Kingdom prides itself on  hundreds of Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox churches within its borders, a Museum of Moroccan Judaism (the only Jewish museum in the Arab world), numerous well-preserved synagogues, and, thanks to King Mohammed VI’s efforts, more than a hundred newly renovated Jewish cemeteries.

Morocco is undoubtedly well aware that this religious unity is fragile; the kingdom sits within an unstable global context plagued by terrorist attacks from ISIS and other smaller terrorist groups in Europe, the Middle East and West Africa.

These conflicts are the reason that Morocco has chosen to adopt a “voluntarist” religious policy that promotes a more enlightened Islam. The creation of the Mohamed VI  Foundation for African Religious Scholars and a center for research and training in interreligious relations are just two manifestations of Morocco’s tolerant religious policy.

To this day, Morocco is the sole model of Islamic instruction to be considered a middle ground alternative to the purist and dogmatic approach preached by jihadist groups and certain influential centers in the Middle East.

Furthermore, following cooperation agreements between Morocco and other countries, many imams and preachers have come from Sub-Saharan Africa  and Europe, particularly from France, to attend theological training in Rabat that  teaches tolerance and opennesss; the educational tools used there have been adapted for religious education on the internet as well.

The Kingdom is not hesitant to dispatch prominent clerics to run conferences in French, European and Sub-Saharan mosques. By leveraging both its security policy and religious diplomacy, Morocco hopes to build a link between spirituality and moderation so that young believers may find a true alternative to the jihadist cause. These efforts are the Kingdom’s main contribution to the global war against terrorism.

Translated by Rania Tazi

Mr. Lahcen Haddad is Morocco's Minister of Tourism.

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Lethal Radical Islam

Rabat - In Morocco as in other Arab countries, Islamism has taken root in the poverty-stricken areas, in the outskirts of major industrial cities: the belts of poverty.

In 2003, Casablanca experienced terrorist attacks in a popular tourist restaurant and internet café. Suicide bombers, coming from the shanty town of Sidi Moumen, aimed the first attack directly towards discouraging Western influence by getting rid of some of its perpetrators – Western tourists travelling in Morocco. The second attack, in an internet café, perhaps more indirectly, discouraged Western influence. Because the attack was carried out in a cyber commodity, this could perhaps be seen as a statement against outside influences that can permeate this North African society by way of the internet.

However, Islamism is seen as a threat to the government of Morocco both because it invokes violence and destruction and challenges the governmental regime in place. In Morocco, specifically, the idea of Islamism is a challenge to the Moroccan king because it doubts his legitimacy as amir al-mu’minin, the “Commander of the Faithful”, or head of religion. The very idea that the marriage between Moroccan politics and Moroccan Islam is insufficient or ill-functioning is both one of the major claims of Islamists and among the most threatening challenges that the Moroccan state has experienced. The Islamist opposition to the Moroccan government inadvertently crosses two red lines, challenging both the king’s legitimacy in matters of the state, and the current presence of Islam in politics as incorrect and insufficient.

Mohamed Daadaoui, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Oklahoma City University in the US, argues, in this regard, that:

“Beginning in the 1970s, however, a conflict emerged between the state and a resurgent political Islam that posed a new kind of challenge to the monarchy and its religious authority. The conflict centered on control of the religious and symbolic public space and on the regime’s authoritarian control over state institutions. After the 2003 terrorist attacks in Casablanca, the state cracked down on Salafi Islamists. The state also used its exclusive control of traditional media outlets to reinvigorate the national significance of Sufi mystical Islam and, in effect, to reclaim and secure the spiritual identity of the country. Sufi Islam is at the core of the state’s religious narrative and has been instrumental in maintaining the regime’s monopoly over national religious identity. Today, the contours of this public space continue to be challenged and redefined, with little to no instances of radical violent Islamism.”

Sufism is apolitical

As much as Islamism is concerned with permeating all external areas of life, Sufism is focused on the internal workings of each individual. The religion stresses personal enlightenment by encouraging all people to look into themselves in order to find Allah. Sufis are focused on their search for a way inside themselves that will lead them to God, and believe that the path to Him can be found through meditation and purification. Because Sufism is so internally focused, Sufis are seen as inherently apolitical and uninvolved in political affairs. Sufism encourages believers to disengage from the material world, which includes politics and government, in order to better align oneself with the spiritual world and learn the truth, God. Sufism teaches that the material world is all illusion, and because of its illusive nature, it is better to free oneself from the bounds of material life and search for reality and understanding in the Divine.

On this particular aspect of Sufism, Hassan Al-Ashraf wrote in Al Arabiya News, that:

“By virtue of its focus on religious practices, Sufism, a type of Islamic, mysticism, is a trend that does not aim at intervening in politics or public affairs unlike other emerging Islamic parties in Morocco. Absence of political ambition among Sufi groups has made them the Moroccan government’s way of choice to fight extremism.”

Al-Ashraf goes on to say that government official support to Sufism is shown through generous financial assistance:

Financial support is among the government’s strategies to encourage the spread of Sufism in Morocco. This is basically done through issuing royal donations in the name of King Mohamed VI to “zawyas,” shrines in which Sufis perform their rituals.

In addition to promotion in the official media:

“Promotion of Sufism in the media is another of the government’s ways to boost the trend. TV shows are dedicated to broadcasting Sufi “dhikr,” Arabic for “remembrance,” in which Sufis engage in devotional dancing, recitation, and meditation ceremonies for the purpose of remembering the blessing of God.”

Maraboutism, a Moroccan reflection of Sufism

Religion has always been important in the lives of Moroccans throughout history, but it was always moderate and respectful. Jews have lived and thrived in Morocco for 2000 years, thanks to this moderation. When the Sephardic Jews were kicked out of Spain after the Reconquista in 1492, Morocco was one of the few countries that opened its door generously for them, and since they dominated the Moroccan economy to the extent that they became the Sultan’s businessmen: tujjar as-sultan. The Jews also dominated, since then, Moroccan diplomacy and international trade.

Jonathan Katz, after visiting Morocco and meeting with Moroccans of different creeds and cultures had this to say about Moroccan diversity and Sufi tolerance:

“So, from Morocco, what I would like to say is this: Tolerance is not the province of Western white people alone. I saw a greater acknowledgment for the intersection of different identities — Moroccan and Jewish, Berber and Muslim, Arab and francophone — than I have ever seen in much of the West.”

Moroccan Islam, though this term is rejected flatly by Islamists, who believe there is only one Islam with no local colorations, is a mixture of Sufism and Maraboutism. The Sufis came from the east around the 15^th century and spread around the country, preaching a moderate Islam to uneducated farmers. On their death they were elevated to the rank of religious saints: Marabout, and rural people built shrines on their tombs and gave them baraka “divine grace” attributes that allow healing powers. So, there are hundreds of saints around Morocco with different healing powers and whose baraka is celebrated every year at the end of the agricultural cycle (a pagan concept) by a moussem “festival,” organized by the entire tribe for days, reminiscent of ancient pagan rites.

Since the advent of the Arab Spring in 2011, the establishment, which had always favored Sufi Islam, has further increased its support to religious lodges, such as the powerful and popular Boutchichiya lodge based in Madagh, near Berkane, in eastern Morocco, which boasts a membership of two million people in Morocco and worldwide made of civil servants, intellectuals and government officials. In Morocco, there are dozens of other Sufi religious lodges and orders that owe allegiance to the monarchy and give it its religious legitimacy and political strength.

For Clifford Geertz, the renowned American anthropologist of Islam, Sufism and Maraboutism are well-rooted within Moroccan society and psyche:

“Islam in Barbary was – and to a fair extent still is – basically the Islam of saint worship and moral severity, magical power and aggressive piety, and this was for all practical purposes as true in the alleys of Fez and Marrakech as in the expanses of the Atlas or the Sahara.”

Realizing, also, that the fragmentation of the religious representation will make the imarat al-mu’minin (Commandership of the Faithful) stronger and more legitimate, the King has allowed recently the presence of Moroccan Shiites in the north of Morocco, under strict conditions of allegiance to the monarchy.

Is Sufism definitely the antidote to Islamism?

Morocco has gone through the Arab uprisings and the ensuing Islamist power takeover unscathed, thanks to the predominance of Sufi Islam in the majority of the Moroccan territory, which is almost as old as the monarchy itself. Moroccan Sufism, represented by omnipresent Maraboutism is tolerant, open and accepting of the other in his “otherness,” has earned the country much respect worldwide.

Today, many countries are approaching Morocco to benefit from its religious experience, especially in the field of Imam training and as such dozens of foreign students are been registered in the “Imam Academy” of Rabat. Thus, Moroccan Islam couched in Sufism has proved to be a successful antidote against religious extremism, in all its forms, and proof of that is that the “Moroccan exception” is a tangible reality in the Muslim world.

You can follow Prof. Mohamed Chtatou on Twitter: @Ayurinu

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Rabat - Human phenomena hardly have one single and simple cause. Education in Morocco is no exception. The dramatic drops in the performance of students at the various school levels are not either. For a long time, the studies that have attempted to explain them have been at difficulties pinpointing the most preponderant factors in the process.

In fact, while they identified living standards as possible factors of the drop, found flaws with the quality of teaching aids and the adequacy of initial teacher training and the relevance of in-service development programs. And while they concluded to the obsoleteness of the curricula, the backlash of off target objectives, the anachronism of the pedagogical methods adopted, the changing learning attitudes of the students and the competition of the virtual sphere, they were unable to design solutions that could invert the trend. Actually, the curve of the drop kept getting steeper and steeper and none of these factors was found to have a determining effect.

Like everyone else, I had only these factors to hold to in hope that addressing them would avoid a wreck. Most attempts, mine as well as those of colleagues, each at his own level, remained in vain. This year, however, and after a long resistance, I was overcome. I had no choice but to accept that I was completely wrong. The temptation I was resisting for years was to admit that some sort of moral decay had been undermining society at large and aspects, layers of the educational system in particular.

Many years ago, there was talk that cheating was taking many new forms. In addition to the ingenuity of test takers who innovate in fraudulent methods using electronic devices, information technology, and mobile telephony, there were also cases of staff who leak tests, schools that inflate continuous assessment grades to favor their students, regional administrations that cater to their failures by guaranteeing pass grades to students in classes they had hardly taken, teachers who assign undeserved grades for ethnic, regional, ideological, and political reasons, and exam supervisors who help candidates cheat. Scandal was everywhere!

I had heard of these issues and as a matter of fact had also documented a few cases, but like everyone else, I had preferred to think they were limited and of minor scope. A few days ago, after the baccalaureate exam, footage of candidates admitting that supervisors were kind and helped them cheat in the exams changed my mind. The system has been unable to be redressed because corruption has been undermining all its structures and infecting many of its human resources. In such cases, the problem is that a bad fish rots the whole basket.

What I had not heard about before is that some of these difficulties were familiar in other countries, too. In fact, I have learned recently of cases of classes that did not have teachers for some key subjects such as math for the three months preceding the baccalaureate were not that rare in France. The difference between the cases in Morocco and in France may, however, be that in the case of Morocco solutions have been, according to students, negotiated with the Academies while in France, students and families are left to their own. No solutions are proposed, and students are left to themselves. The fact that more are swimming against the current does not, however, make it easier or more pleasant!

The dominating mood among young Moroccan students is such that many expect teachers to cheat, to help them do so, and to close their eyes to their cheating. Should an invigilator venture to want to enforce regulations, they are very likely to be met with physical violence either in the exam room or out of school. Cases are not rare.

A candidate for the first year baccalaureate told me that competition is not fair and that unless your parents have a talk with whomever is concerned, or you are allowed to cheat the day of the exam, you will have no chances to make it with average grades that would allow you to do what you would like to later in life. My efforts to explain away his attitude were vain. His conviction that the system was corrupt beyond redemption was much stronger than my arguments.

It also happened that students of my own complained that I was not fair in expecting them to perform at the level of their classes, keeping them in class for the whole time scheduled for the session, asking them to do homework, not being flexible with attendance, and actually taking absence into account in their final grades. When I explained that my job took place in compliance with regulations and within professional and moral frameworks, they thought I was either not realistic or overdoing it. In any case, no one cared, they seemed to be convinced. In a few cases, some tried to negotiate grades and were very short of offering compensation.

To sum up, the problem seems to be not one of syllabi, quality of teaching materials, teacher training, or commitment of teachers. It seems that it is far more complex. While it may include any of the factors already mentioned or all of them, it is essentially one of perception, social assessment, mentality, culture, and attitudes. The perception, whether accurate or not, is that society is not fair, and because of this, it neither acknowledges excellence nor does it reward effort.

Consequently, it is assumed that achievement is possible only to those who can use the system, manipulate it, and beat it at its own games. Correcting the system would therefore require work on these perceptions and providing evidence to all that achievement depends exclusively on merit. This in turn, depends on equalizing achievement opportunities to all. This, however, is not the exclusive responsibility of the educational system. It involves eliminating from the learning environment all the effects of economic and social status as well as those of geography and administrative organization in the country. The question, it seems, is one of trust in the system and in its moral capacity to treat citizens equally. It is not moral. It is political and social. It has to be addressed politically and socially.

Meanwhile, cheating remains an offense, and offenders must be dealt with according to the laws in effect.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Morocco World News’ editorial policy

© Morocco World News. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, rewritten or redistributed

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New York - When I first learned about the mass shooting in a gay nightclub in Orlando, my first reaction was of sorrow for the victims and their families, but also of fear. I feared the perpetrator would turn out to have an Arab name. I was sure, if that were to be the case, the heinous crime would be labeled an act of “Islamic terrorism” regardless of whether the murderer had any link with a terrorist organization. I was sure the media and officials would immediately find a link between him and ISIS or Al Qaeda.

My fears soon materialized. A few hours after the shooting, Orlando authorities disclosed the identity of the shooter as Omar Mateen, a U.S.-born citizen of Afghan descent.

As soon as his name was identified, the media hastened to label the crime as “Islamic terror.” What was troubling is that the FBI claimed, without further investigation, that there were signs indicating the mass killing was related to Islamic terror.

As has been the case following such incidents in recent years, there were those who jumped to conclusions, mostly negative, about Islam and Muslims, and tried to exploit the situation for political gains; there were those who immediately warned against this very ignorant or fear-mongering attitude; and then there were many voices who called on “enlightened Muslims” to come out and condemn “radical Islam” and “Islamic terrorism.”

I, myself, received some private messages from friends asking me why I don’t stand up and apologize on behalf of Islam for what happened.

To these and to the world, I would like to say that, while I condemn this atrocious crime in the strongest terms and feel sorrow and sympathy for the victims and their families, I have no intention to apologize on behalf of Islam.

Contrary to the narrative propagated by a Western media bent on brainwashing people, Islam does not condone the killing of innocent people and there is no such thing as “radical Islam” or Islamic jihadism. Islam, as a religion observed by over 1.6 billion people, is a religion of peace, tolerance and compassion. Any acts of violence committed by individuals who call themselves Muslims are the result of a multitude of factors, are not the result of the religious teachings of Islam, but to the contrary, are often due to isolation from the Muslim religious community.

In fact, killing innocent lives is considered the most condemnable crime in Islam. The Quran says that “whoever kills a human being not in retaliation for murder or to spread mischief in the land, it shall be as if he killed all mankind, and whoever saves the life of one, it shall be as if he saved the life of all mankind.” This verse, and countless other texts, show clearly that Islam forbids the killing of innocent people. This verse applies to the victims of the Orlando shooting regardless of their sexual orientation since they are human beings.

No sane person follows a religion that calls for the killing of innocent people. If we apply the narrative inculcated by unscrupulous politicians and ideologues bent on controlling our lives and the way we should think and perceive things, this would mean any time a person from the over 1.6 billion people throughout the world is involved in a crime, we should link their crime to Islam and label it as terrorism.

This leads us to the dangerous practice we have been witnessing in recent years wherever a Muslim is implicated in a murder or mass killing. While in the past, the terrorism label was limited to organized groups with a clear political agenda who perpetrated targeted acts of terrorism in different places, such as Al Qaeda, in recent years, this “privilege” has been broadened up to include any single Muslim person involved in a killing or mass shooting.

Regardless of whether a Muslim perpetrator belonged to a terrorist organization or was mentally impaired or had psychological problems, he is labeled immediately as a terrorist. The presumption of innocence does not apply when the murderer is Muslim. The fact that he belongs to this religion suffices to make him a terrorist.

What is still more dangerous and shows double standard is that every time a Jew or a Christian is involved in a mass shooting, Western media and officials rush to emphasize that the suspect is “mentally ill.” Think for example of the case of Dylann Roof, a white supremacist who killed nine innocent people in a black church in Charleston, South Carolina on June 17, 2015. Following the mass massacre, not a single news outlet or politician labeled him as a terrorist or even as a racist.

The same Senator Marco Rubio who rushed to condemn the Orlando shooting as an “act of terrorism” said he was “saddened by the news from Charleston.” Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina described the Charleston shooting as “one of these whacked-out kids”. For American politicians, Roof was not a terrorist, but merely a mentally deranged “kid”. The term terror had no chance to be used in such case. We can just imagine what their reactions would have been if the perpetrator’s name had been Omar, Mohammed or Ali.

When Roof killed the nine innocent African American people, were other white Americans urged to apologize for the crime? They were not and they had no reason to be. Regardless of his motives, Roof could not represent the whole white American community.

The same should apply to cases where a person with a Muslim sounding name is involved in an act of mass murder. We should call things by their name and place the debate where it should be placed. Why should I as a Muslim apologize on behalf of Islam?

Omar Mateen was born and raised in the US and went to American schools. He acquired weapons in the U.S. Islam has nothing to do with what a lone wolf can do in its name. As a Moroccan Muslim, I have no relation with this person. He was a criminal. He does not represent me and I have nothing to do with him, nor did anybody elect him to represent Islam.

If every Muslim has to apologize or justify themselves every time a lone wolf does something like that, then by the same token every American has to apologize to the carnage George Bush left in Iraq  prompted by what he claimed was divine inspiration. More than 1 million of innocent Iraqis were killed by Americans, by American weapons, and more than five million were maimed. A whole country and the cradle of civilization lays in shambles in the name  of Bush’s religious beliefs. Have Americans apologized to Iraqis for this? The same applies to American drones that kill innocent civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan every day. Should we ask Americans to apologize for what their country is doing in violation of international law.  No, I don’t think so. Similarly, I don’t think all Muslims are responsible for the acts of few Muslims.

To understand the Orlando shooting and more importantly prevent similar attacks in the future, one must understand that it is a gun proliferation problem not a religious problem. Omar Mateen was on the FBI radar for some time, so why was he able to acquire such weapons? There has been more than 1,000 shooting in the US since 2012; should we label those murderers as Christians?

The debate should be where it should be and Americans have to ask the right questions and ask their officials why their government refused to ratify the arms trade treaty signed in the United Nations in March 2013 and why US Congress is impeding any debate or progress in gun control in the country. If weapons were not readily available to anybody willing to acquire them, Omar probably would not have killed 50 innocent people.

To those who call on Muslims to apologize for something over which they have no control, I call on them to apologize to Muslims on behalf of their media and politicians who discriminate against and incite violence against Muslims. The narrative prevailing in the West has locked Muslims in two categories: either moderate or radicals. That means a Muslims does not have the right to be mentally deranged, bipolar. If someone who suffers from this commits a crime, he can only be called a terrorist.

Omar Mateen had a track record for being bipolar and probably a homosexual in denial, and he should be considered as such. A phone call from him to the police to swear allegiance to ISIS sounds as lame proof that will never help America fight the scourge of mass shootings and understand the real motives that push people such as Omar and Roof to take the lives of innocent people.

A shorter version of this article was published on the New Arab 

Samir Bennis is the co-founder of and editor-in-chief of Morocco World News. You can follow him on Twitter @SamirBennis

The post Orlando Shooting: Why I don’t Apologize for Islam appeared first on Morocco World News.

By Bryn Miller

Rabat - On Monday night, Donald Trump delivered a foreign policy speech reiterating his call for a ban on Muslim immigration and highlighting the potential danger of Muslim-Americans. Relying heavily on fiery rhetoric, the presumptive Republican nominee’s speech was reminiscent of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s unabashed fear-mongering tactics in the 1950s.

Speaking at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire, Trump blamed the tragedy of the Orlando shooting on Democratic immigration policies and encouraged America to wake up to the reality of “radical Islamic terrorism.” “It’s not just a national security issue,” he asserted, “It’s a quality of life issue… We need to tell the truth about how Radical Islam is coming to our shores.”

The truth, according to Trump, is that Democratic immigration policies permanently admitting “100,000 Muslim immigrants from the Middle East every year, and many more from Muslim countries outside the Middle East” have “imported” Islamic extremism into America.

According to Department of Homeland Security statistics, the United States permanently admitted slightly more than 61,500 immigrants from the Middle East annually between 2005 and 2014. Trump cited the Boston Marathon bombers, “large numbers” of Somali refugees in Minnesota that have tried to join ISIS (only nine men  have been accused), the San Bernardino shooters, and Omar Mateen as examples of the potential perils of allowing Muslims to immigrate onto American soil.

“The bottom line,” Trump asserted, “is that the only reason the killer was in America in the first place was because we allowed his family to come here.” According to Trump, hundreds of immigrants have been charged with terrorist activities since 9/11.

If elected, Trump promises to use his executive authority to “suspend immigration from areas of the world when there is a proven history of terrorism against the United States, Europe or our allies, until we understand how to end these threats.”

Trump failed to clearly differentiate between the tiny percentage of radicalized immigrants he was referencing and the hundreds of thousands of law-abiding Muslims that have immigrated to America since 9/11. On the contrary, his speech seemed to insinuate that large numbers of potential Muslim immigrants adhere to extremist Islamic doctrines.

Claiming that “vast numbers” of Muslim immigrants reject American values, Trump contended: “We cannot continue to allow thousands upon thousands of people to pour into our country, many of whom have the same thought process as [the] savage [Orlando] killer… I don’t want them in our country.”

Trump also insinuated that American-Muslim community has been complicit in terror attacks, claiming that “Muslim communities must cooperate with law enforcement and turn in the people who they know are bad – and they do know where they are.”

New McCarthyism 

Trump’s heated speech and his proposed policies regarding Muslim-Americans and Muslim immigrants mirror Senator Joseph McCarthy’s fear-mongering tactics against alleged Communists. McCarthy rose to the national spotlight in 1950 as Cold War tensions between the Soviet Union and America heightened. American fear of the “red menace” of Communism during this period closely resembles the fear of radical Islam and terrorists today.

Enabled by the public’s paranoia about infiltration by Soviet spies, McCarthy began a nation-wide witch hunt for potential Communist sympathizers. His tactics targeted liberal State Department workers, Hollywood actors, individuals exercising their constitutional right to politically express communist views, and many individuals with no affiliation to the Communist party.

 McCarthy’s policies led to widespread blacklisting in many industries and economic hardships for hundreds of thousands of Americans. In addition, he used intimidation tactics in court and convinced major companies to blacklist any employees that exercised their Fifth Amendment right to remain silent. Public anxiety and dissenters’ fear of being targeted allowed McCarthy to carry out a virtually invulnerable campaign for five years. However, he crossed a line in 1954 when he accused the army of harboring Communists. The public turned against him, and McCarthy’s reign is now considered a dark time in American history.

Although McCarthy’s policies contradicted America’s founding principles, many officials and civilians initially supported or passively watched his hunt for Communist sympathizers. Cold War expert Ellen Schrecker explains that many of these bystanders “were patriotic citizens who, however squeamish they may have been about the methods of McCarthy and the other investigators, agreed that communism threatened the United States and that the crisis engendered by the Cold War necessitated measures that might violate the rights of individuals.”

Like McCarthy, Donald Trump attempts to frame his proposed ban on Muslim immigration and discriminatory policies towards Muslim-Americans as necessary steps to prevent a major crisis. It is not surprising that there are striking parallels between their approaches, especially since Ron Cohn, McCarthy’s infamous top lawyer, mentored Trump for 13 years. Trump’s speeches themselves rely on the same logic and rhetoric about the enemies within America’s borders that McCarthy used in his ascent to the national spotlight 66 years ago.

Here is a comparison of McCarthy’s first landmark speech and Trump’s national security address:

1)  The difference between “us” and “them” is moral.

McCarthy: “The great difference between our western Christian world and the atheistic Communist world is not political, gentlemen, it is moral.”

Trump: “Many of the principles of Radical Islam are incompatible with Western values and institutions… Why does Hillary Clinton want to bring people here—in vast numbers—who reject our values?”

2)  America and the “civilized world” is in a clash of civilizations with the enemy.

McCarthy: “This is a time when all the world is split into two vast, increasingly hostile armed camps... this is the time for the show-down between the democratic Christian world and the communistic atheistic world.”

Trump: “America must unite the whole civilized world in the fight against Islamic terrorism, just like we did against communism in the Cold War.”

3) America must face the realities to protect itself.

McCarthy: “Unless we face this fact, we shall pay the price that must be paid by those who wait too long.”

Trump: “If we don't get tough, and we don't get smart – and fast – we're not going to have a country anymore -- there will be nothing left.”

4)  The real enemy is already inside our borders.

McCarthy: “When a great democracy is destroyed, it will not be from enemies from without, but rather because of enemies from within.”

Trump: “But Muslim communities [in America] must cooperate with law enforcement and turn in the people who they know are bad – and they do know where they are.”

In addition to his broad implication of the American Muslim community, Trump and his supporters have targeted President Obama and Clinton aide Huma Abedin  as potential terrorist sympathizers.

When observing similarities between McCarthy and Trump, it is not illogical to fear that these two targeted attacks on the President and Abedin may be the first of many. As Islamophobia and paranoia sweeps the country, it is important to remember how McCarthy came to power and the damaging, lasting effects of his policies.

However, the lessons of McCarthyism provide hope that America can overcome Trump’s powerful ideology of exclusion before inflicting irreparable harm on the Muslim-American population, immigrant communities, and political discourse.

The post Donald Trump’s Call for Ban on Muslim Reminiscent of McCarthyism  appeared first on Morocco World News.

By Hicham Bennani

Casablanca - In 1958, Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Luxemburg, and the Netherlands decided to establish an economical block to create a single market, and consequently gave birth to the European Economic Community (EEC). The United Kingdom joined the European community in 1973.

In 1993, the European Union (EU) replaced the EEC to allow other countries in, and to widen the scope of the union to climate, environment, health, external relations, security, justice and migration issues. Today, the EU comprises of 28 European countries. 19 out of the 28 EU member countries use the euro (€) as their official currency.

To brexit or not the brexit, that is the question

In fact, that is not the first time the UK holds a referendum to vote on the issue of European membership. In 1975, a referendum was held in the UK, where 76% of the electorates voted to stay within the EEC. The referendum planned for June 23^rd 2016, will be the second time the British electorate would be asked to vote on the issue of European Union membership.

The United Kingdom (UK) consisting of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and Gibraltar will vote in the referendum.

Regardless of the pros and cons of the Brexit on the UK, the brexit could be beneficial and harmful to Morocco on two levels: Casablanca Finance City and the Moroccan Sahara.

How would Brexit benefit the Moroccan Casablanca Finance City (CFC)?

With the UK within the EU, banks and financial institutions are able to sell their services to the European bloc, particularly FOREX trading, investment banking, insurance and asset management. With the UK out, it would be harder for these institutions to compete within the EU, which could push them to dislocate and move their services to other financial hubs.

The Casablanca Finance City (CFC) has a lot to gain from the brexit, mainly by attracting the harmed financial institutions. This could be done by offering them added values and benefits, and by initiating new laws and reforms to improve the business environment in the CFC.

How would Brexit harm Morocco on  Western Sahara , Ceuta and Melilla issues?

In September 2014, Scotland held an independence referendum to decide on whether to remain in the UK or become an independent country. Voters decided to stay in the UK with a very narrow margin ( 55 percent Vs 45 percent). According to the polls, one of the reasons Scots decided to stay, is the risk of Scotland leaving the EU in case of independence.

Now, if brexit succeeds, Scotland will automatically leave the EU. That means that if Scotland decides to go for another independence referendum, the voters will most probably vote out. If Scotland becomes independent, Catalonia and Gibraltar might also vote for independence.

 If Spain loses hope of recovering the sovereignty of Gibraltar, Morocco can forget about recovering Ceuta and Melilla and the Chafarinas islands.

On another hand, if Catalonia and Scotland become independent, the UK and Spain would most probably try to push for a referendum through the UN in the Moroccan Western Sahara, whose result is uncertain.

The post What a Brexit Could Mean for Morocco? appeared first on Morocco World News.

By Haïm Zagouri

Rabat - Everybody still remembers the resounding failure of Moulay Hicham’s maneuver to have Mounir El Majidi, the private secretary of the King of Morocco, arrested in France when the prince and his protégé, Zakaria Moumni, filed a complaint for torture against this close collaborator of the King.

The unveiling, by Jeune Afrique magazine, of yet another machination confirms the reality of this demonic will the King’s cousin has to gang up, time after time, with scoundrels who have no faith or law in the vain hope of damaging the image of Mohammed VI and his entourage. It is an unvirtuous horde that forms the inner circle of Moulay Hicham’s camarilla who have become notorious for their sulphurous careers more than for their “variable geometry” political dissidence. It is the case of Aboubakr Jamai, this mythomaniac journalist who is so attached to his stock-in-trade hackneyed thesis according to which the King of Morocco still has the monopoly on the national agro-food industry, although he is perfectly aware that SNI issued official statements regarding its disengagements of Cosumar, Centrale Laitière, Leusieur Cristal and Bimo which took place in complete transparency.

Nevertheless, Boubky (the nickname Jamai earned because of his endless whining) enjoys justifying his “exile-escape” in France by his inability to pay a fine of MAD 3 million in damages for having defamed the Belgian Claude Moniquet of the European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center (ESISC) while forgetting, strangely enough, to mention the reality of his financial turpitudes.

Together with Fadel Iraki, the picturesque insurer, and Ali Ammar, the Kerviel of the former Wafabank, Jamai arranged a judicial dissolution of the firm publishing Le Journal Hebdomadaire so as to avoid paying a debt of MAD 14 million to the government, including MAD 5 million to the National Social Security Fund (CNSS) and MAD 7 million in taxes. This tax dodger, who continues to launch his diatribes against the alleged hegemony of the “economic Makhzen,” is the same person who chose to buy a plot of land measuring 2000 square meters in Bouskoura instead of paying the social security contributions of his employees.

Ali Lmrabet’s profile is no less ambiguous since he was fired from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation for his readiness to use his fist instead of diplomacy. This potential innkeeper of Tetouan thought he could make a living while insulting everything that moves in his newspapers to the extent that other journalists, such as the Spanish Ignacio Cembrero, have become convinced that he is a psychopath.

Following several misadventures in the press, this troublemaker went broke and now recognizes, shamelessly, that it is his Spanish wife who gives him his pocket money. He became a master in the art of signing contracts with Spanish publishing houses from which he raked substantial advances in euros ... without delivering any manuscripts. This is surely a “pinching” and “satirical” theft.

The other Ali, Ali Amar, does not need any introduction when it comes to “craftiness” since his bank robbery in 1995 went wrong. Using false documentation, that scheme was supposed to deal a fatal blow to the national exchange reserve. Afterwards, he turned to journalism. However, rumor has it that he kept his old reflex to swindle: he allegedly did not leave the former Le Journal Hebdomadaire empty-handed.

He benefited from “barter” contracts while the employees were deprived of their CNSS rights. Subsequently, his name is once again conspicuous in a vulgar case involving a house burglary that he committed together with his former dulcinea, Zineb Rhzaoui. Later, a French news website with whom he collaborated sacked him for plagiarism. This is what we can call a real “change within continuity.”

Finally, there is Moulay Hicham’s favorite “Scrooge MacDuck,” the one who teaches him the few French pompous sentences he enjoys using with French TV channels in an attempt to imitate the unique style of Hassan II. Obviously, we are talking about Ahmed Reda Benchemsi who managed to obtain a scholarship at Stanford University by including dithyrambic promotional reports about Mohammed VI’s cousin in his admission file to this American university. Nevertheless, Benchemsi, who had to settle with writing Moulay Hicham’s biography, is not only an excellent pen mercenary; he is also willing to break that same pen by denying his identity provided that there is a stack of cash to be made. This is what the American journalist Max Blumenthal unveiled in 2013 following a long journalistic investigation revealing a fishy link between, “Free Arabs Press,” a new website launched by Benchemsi and the American Islamic Congress, an inherently Islamophobic organization linked to American conservatives.

This information did not come as a surprise to Benchemsi’s ex colleagues. They still remember the greed of this “sunflower” journalist who was eager to reap advertisements for his magazine Telquel, and who even negotiated a compromise with the assassins of freedom of speech in Morocco, as he called them at that time. In this regard, it is said that before writing his editorials, Benchemsi would invariably consult with Hamidou Laaniguri, former Head of the National Police. This did happen, of course, before Benchmsi became was recruited by Human Rights Watch.

There are still many other swindlers amongst the camarilla of Moulay Hicham and it wouldn’t be fair to forget the case of El Houcine Mejdoubi, a journalist who has always been eating out of Moulah (his Master) Hicham’s hand. There is also Abdellatif Housni, the academic who claims to be the director of Wijhat Nadar, a quarterly magazine whose turnover was never published. Ahmed Benseddik is another nutcase who renounced his allegiance to King Mohammed VI and, in return, the cousin of the latter paid his son’s tuition in the UAE. Omar Brouksy cannot be left behind since he occupies a special place among the obsequious in “Hicham’s List”.

Moulay Hicham, who is not at all embarrassed to be the godfather of such a sick clique, never missed an opportunity to hurl insults at the narrow circle of individuals surrounding the King. In his account of the occasional private conversations he had with the prince at that time, journalist Abderrahim Ariri revealed that Moulay Hicham asked him to use MAD 50 million to finance an “anti-system” newspaper. However, it is known that Mohammed VI has always been a stickler for the respect by his close collaborators of the power of ethics, and does not accept, under any pretext, that a member of his entourage evade taxes, indulge in corruption, or greedily take up any advantage, profiting from their proximity to the monarch. Those who have tried to do so got nothing for all their trouble.

It is this royal intransigence towards every abuse of power that torments the mind of Moulay Hicham. Instead of asking himself if the sharks surrounding him are as irreproachable as the people in the royal entourage, he continues to exude slander and calumnies about the aptitude of the King’s narrow circle to manage state affairs, while asking perfidiously, “Where did the influential people that surrounded Hassan II go?”

One swallow does not a summer make and Moulay Hicham’s amnesia needs a reminder of the powerful family ties among the Moroccan monarchy and the unfailing loyalty of its members. Such a thing would expose the acute conspiracy mania of the “Red Prince” who claims to want “to disrupt the Makhzen” while he secretly dreams to embody it in a despotic or even a tyrannical way. And so is the conviction of some of his scapegoat servants.

It might be true that no truth can be retrieved from comparison; yet, Moroccans will never forget the brave decision of the prince Moulay Ali Alaoui, Mohammed V’s nephew, who voluntarily joined the royal family during their exile in Madagascar. Throughout his life, he worked very hard to defend the strategic interests of Morocco. It is rather during hard times that this “dignified cousin of Hassan II” wanted to express his unfailing loyalty to the late King.

What about Mohammed VI’s cousin Moulay Hicham? Would he have reacted with the same nationalism to defend the legitimacy of the monarchy? Of course not. It is most likely that, from the point of view of his very western culture, he would have rather swindled Ben Afra, not to demand the return of Mohammed V, but to take his place.

At least, this is the logic that is reflected in Moulay Hicham’s innumerable schemes, including the one he managed to make a certain gutter press swallow before bitterly regretting, at the end, having been trapped by a manipulative prince who aspires to completely fabricate a profile of an opponent tracked by the Moroccan security services and who has no choice but self-exile in the United States, nurturing an unconfessed hope of coming back to the Kingdom as a revolutionary of cumin.

It is exactly this logic of obsessive victimization that sums up the whole life of Moulay Hicham. As it was pathetically staged by the ghostwriter Benchemsi in the autobiography of the prince, Moulay Hicham would be the one, the only and the exceptional whipping boy of the royal entourage who decided to use him as a punching ball.

Consequently, it is the King’s close collaborators who would have ordered Bank Al Maghreb to reject, for lack of sufficient funds, a check for MAD 2 million, recently issued by Moulay Hicham to pay his debt to late Omar Slaoui, the brother-in-law of his wife Malika Benabdelali, although he was perfectly aware that he was terminally ill.

In the face of such an embarrassing situation, it is not Moulay Hicham’s condition that stopped the deceased’s family from enforcing their rights and resorting instead to a procedure of bank protest. Rather, it is that the family wanted to avoid any scandal that might indirectly malign the royal family; all the more so that every member of the Slaoui, Kadiri and Benslimane families know that the “Red Prince” is a bottomless pit.

It is also an invisible hand from inside the palace that incited Moulay Hicham to stand Michel Azeroaul up once the businessman demanded the settlement of his debts of millions of dollars. It must be a wave coming from the palace that pushed the businessman Abdelaziz El Mnezhi to put up, almost on a daily basis, with the humiliation of begging Moulay Hicham to pay his dues so that he can pay his daughter’s tuition abroad.

Finally, it is surely the umpteenth trickery fomented by the palace that made Moulay Hicham extort MAD 800,000 from the virtuous private education professional, Saloua Rabii Al Andaloussi, who might go behind bars for personal bankruptcy. The list of victims of the insolvency of Moulahom (their master) Hicham gets longer and longer. Seek advice from Abderrahman El Cohen, the dean of the scapegoats of the prince, or from Omar and Hicham Kadiri and even from the Chaabi family.

The financial collapse of Moulay Hicham is such that even his administrative staff frequently complain of late payments of salaries and other monthly charges. Not to mention Ali Sqalli Houssaini, the attorney, and Jaouad Chraibi, the notary, who have had enough of piling up unpaid fees and are now threatening to make a public scandal in order to obtain their dues.

Everybody has come to understand it. By dint of plotting all his life against other people, Moulay Hicham ended up becoming the shadow of his failures and the main actor of his own decadence. He was so busy trying to prove how well-founded Hassan II’s premonition was when he gave the prince a punctured dollar. It was a gift that, seventeen years after the death of the late King, continues to symbolize the actions of Moulay Hicham and his braggarts responsible for hatching dirty tricks to tarnish the image of Morocco and that of the regime, the regency of which the prince hopes to inherit.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Morocco World News’ editorial policy

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By Génesis Román Melgar

New York - We face a world where people are being brainwashed by media, and where media often portrays the truth in the wrong way, having a damaging and painful impact on the lives of people. In this case, Muslims. It is disheartening to see such peaceful religion being referred to as a repressive, harsh, and violent one.

Yes, we are being confronted with what they call “radical Islam” which has led to a term known as “Islamophobia”. These terms have been created as a result of the wrongful actions of people that called themselves “Muslims”. Their actions, which have been condemned worldwide, did not only damage the reputation of a peaceful religion, but also the lives of its true followers and believers.

Media is not helping in educating people about the true fundamental principles of Islam. instead, it takes shortcuts and associates this religion with terrorism whenever a Muslim, whether he is a criminal or suffers from mental illness, is involved in act of murder or mass shooting.

The radical actions of these lone wolves and of ISIS should not be referred to as “radical Islam”, because it is not Islam. In fact, the word “Islam” should be taken out of it. This religion has nothing to do with the actions of these people that call themselves followers. Sadly, people that have little to zero knowledge about the religion, are most likely to believe what media tells them. This, in itself, is very dangerous. Consider the term “Islamophobia”. It’s angering to even think that society has developed some sort of a phobia against Islam, not out of knowledge but because of the anti-Islam media discourse.

The truth is that, as philosopher Karl Popper stated, “True ignorance is not the absence of knowledge, but the refusal to acquire it.” We can take his statement and apply it to what is happening with those who do not have knowledge of Islam. instead, they prefer to go by media says and shows about “Islam”, rather than go into the books and read the truth.

As a person that has opened to Islam and its teachings, reading the Quran and the hadiths, has allowed me to respect Islam as a religion and as a positive guide to guide my life. Embracing and respecting each others religions, is one of the fundamental keys that will lead to world peace. Specially today, where one of the most rapidly growing religions is being demonized by many people.

Muslims and my interactions with them has definitely helped me embrace the religion in a deeper level. They are caring, loving, and compassionate people. At least those who follow what the holy book teaches them. Those who have no knowledge of this religion, will make their own conclusions and will have their own opinions with respect to certain beliefs and practices that are ingrained in Islam.

If people, like I did, commit to learn about the religion, they will find themselves opening their hearts to Islam. There is a reason for every teaching, and there is always a “because” to every “why” that is raised. This religion has nothing to do with what is going on in the world now. Radical groups make their own interpretations of the religion, which turn out to be wrongful and false. They do so at the expense of the lives of others, and damaging the lives of those true believers that follow Islam, the only right and true Islam.

As a person who has considered to convert, as many others may feel, I experience feelings of anger, sadness, and frustration to see the world views towards Islam. This is why I firmly stand up for Islam and all the Muslims in the world. We are brothers no matter what religion we are, and we need to support and take care of each other. I encourage people to study the real Islam and inform themselves well before judging. Those who would like to convert, follow your heart, and do not let these events and the opinion of people keep you from doing it.

To all Muslims out there, I stand up right next to you. Brothers and sisters, be strong and keep your heads up high. This too shall pass, and Islam as a religion will stand firm just like its peaceful teachings do. History is being written, lets help it be a good one. Voice yourselves, share the love of Islam and teach others the truth of this religion.

“Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared."

As Muslims, it is your duty, to teach others about Islam, about its beauty, peaceful and righteous teachings. We need to help people that have the wrong idea of it, receive the truth. Without knowledge, assumptions and judgments are falsely made, as we are experiencing now. Let’s not see this happen, when we can do something about it.

The post Why I Want to Embrace Islam appeared first on Morocco World News.

El Jadida - It seems that the sultanic institution is an historical and ideological constant in Morocco, containing archetypal means of subjectivation of the masses. In the same vein, Hammoudi (1997) states that: “God ordains that the community never remains without leader (imam) and indicates to everyone through the consent of the community which candidate is his elect." The relationship between the ruler and the ruled is thus sacralized by the Will of God. Historically, the ritual of sanctification of the duty of the sultan has been sustained by the ritual of al-bay‘a (ceremony of allegiance).

The bay‘a to the sultan echoes the “allegiance of benediction (bay‘a ridwan) granted by God to the Prophet when he was sent by the former as a messenger, thus the ritual of allegiance forges a link between the accession of the sultan to the throne and the archetypal events of bay‘a ridwan” (Bourqia, 1999). Generally, in Moroccan popular imagination, Sultans like saints are believed to be endowed with the hereditary powers of their holy lineage. The authority of sultanic rulers is culturally aureoled with supernatural attributes. Deep-rooted in cultural imagination is the belief that sultans have inherited a spiritual force (baraka), and are endowed with saintly attributes thanks to their descent from sharifian lineages.

The Sultanic ruling institution is also considered in the popular mind as a distributing centre of charity and protection to its loyal subjects. The benevolent work of the sultan in the form of alms-giving (sadaqat) and gifts (hibat) mandate donees’ utter obedience and surrender to his Will. Historically, the tribes and saint lineages who benefited from the Sultan’s donations supported his policy and battled on his side in times of stress.

The gift-exchange model (in‘am (donation) vs. loyalty) endows the sultanic institution with a benevolent veneer and obscures the violent facet of its rule. Through the charitable model, the masses may see in the Sultan a source of prosperity and dispensation of baraka. Let me explain that this cultural representation does not stem from an isolated act of charity the sultan may engage in as an individual, it rather has a whole cultural legacy behind it that legitimates the act of charity and parcels it in an aura of sacredness. In other words, the sharifian sultan, the grandson of the Prophet, is regarded as an inherent almoner.

As an Islamic authoritarian ruler, the sultan is characterized by an autocracy incarnated in the divine king. Obedience to the Emir is not chartered by a binding contract or mediated by delegatory institutions. Tozy (1999) maintains that Moroccan subjects are not supposed to give up their loyalty to the sultan and live in dissidence, which was the case in the history of Morocco for some Berber tribes living in ssiba—beyond the pale—, a political stance that derived its social origins from the Berber tribal segmentary structures. Yet, tribes in blad ssiba still held communal links with the sultan, especially in times of tribal conflicts or menace from without though contesting sultanic power to levy taxes (see Ayache, 1979).

Utter submission to God requires utter submission to the Imam. This has ranked as a moral obligation for the Muslim. Historically, it was said that a despotic sultan was far better than anarchy (sultanun ghashum khairun min fitanatin tadum). The texts of allegiance publicized in 1979 reinforced this idea of blind allegiance to the ruler. They affirmed that “We are witness to the fact that our Lord and messenger Sidna Mohammed, Allah’s servant and Prophet, came to us with the obligation and normative conduct (Sunnah). He said: ‘if you travel by a community and you don’t find a sultan in it, do not go inside! The sultan is the shadow of God and his arrow on earth.” He also said: “he who died and was not bound with a yoke of allegiance, he died a death of al-Jahiliyyah (Ignorance of Divine Guidance)” (as cited in Tozy, 1999).

The texts summed up a historical conviction that Moroccan ulema had always been worried that Moroccan people should keep unified around a symbolic leader from the lineage of the Prophet. Abdellah Gannoun, the head of the ulema League between 1956 and 1992, said that the ulema were the last to give up their loyalty to the monarchy even if its legitimacy happens to be abnormally challenged. They were, and still are, so much concerned about the unity of the umma than about the legitimacy of the rule. They fear the occurrence of fitna.

The Moroccan sultan also derives its legitimacy from its holy lineage and saintly attributes. The political idioms used in bestowing legitimacy on the sultan are borrowed from the maraboutic discourse. As heir to the throne, the prince is named “Inheritor of his Secret” (waritu sirrih), secret in the sense of saintliness (see also Bourqia, 1999). The constitutional text of 1908 includes article 7 which states that “it is an obligation that each of the sons of the sultanate must obey the sharifian imam and respect him for his person because he is the inheritor of his blessed baraka” (Tozy, 1999; 2003). The sacred attribute of the monarch will be insisted on in ensuing constitutions but once again with modern formulations. Baraka of sultans has also been recorded in the royal history of Morocco. As Bourqia reports:

In listing the accomplishments of Muwlay Isma‘il, Ibn Zaydan [royal historian] emphasizes the generosity of the sultan and the prosperity people enjoyed during his reign because of his baraka. The historian al-Nasiri also states that when ‘Abd al-Rahman Ibn Hisham became sultan and the people offered their allegiance to him (which the author refers to as bay‘a mubaraka), the country enjoyed peace and prosperity; the rains came and prices fell, proving his blessedness to the people. The baraka of the sultan brings rain, a highly significant belief in a semiarid culture. Writing about Mawlay Hassan I, the same author says: ‘when he came to the throne, people were happy because of his auspicious person’ (Bourqia, 1999).

Thus, the figure of the sultan has been surrounded with benediction and represented in the popular mind as a distributing centre of prosperity and providence. Up to now, cultural representations of the monarch as a source of prosperity still survive even with the appearance of modern state institutions. Moroccans long for the King’s propitious visits, inaugurations, openings and business launches. The rest of governmental officials are reduced to opportunists and mercenaries in popular imagination. Though this may have bad repercussions on the social representation of democracy in that it may conduce to people’s distrust in state institutions such as governmental offices and parliament houses, it still reinforces in another way the benevolent image of the King.

Historically, the royal charitable model has been institutionalized in what has been termed hibat (donations) and in‘am. The main beneficiary from such donations were zawiyas that increased their capital through “donations” (in‘am/hibas) they received from sultans in the form of “mortmain land” (al-waqf). The Zawiya Nasirya, for instance, benefited from mortmain land, mortmain salves and houses (Shadili, 1989). Also, there were zawiyas that benefited from “charity” (sadaqat) and “alms taxes” (zakawat) given to them by the nearby tribes. In the long run, powerful zawiyas acquired land and launched commercial investment. Their shaykhs invested in the zawiya’s capital to grow its income like the example of Iligh, Tamgrout and Wazzan, a material propensity that pushed some zawiyas to choose mqaddems (superintendents) on the basis of their experience in commercial transactions rather than on the basis of their religious knowledge (Laroui, 2001).

In the nineteenth century, the most important gifts zawiyas received in return for the services they offered the Sultanate were the iqta‘(land property). Those gift properties called in‘am/hiba usually reinforced the allegiance of zawiyas and evinced the Sultan as a symbol of protection (ri‘aya/himaya) and charity (ni‘ma) (Hammoudi, 2000). Those pieces of land, called ‘zibs, had the advantage of being exempted from the institutional alms-tax. Their owners received decrees from the Sultan to be honored and respected ([dahirs li ttawqir wa l-ihtiram] “decrees of honor and respect”).

As for donation decrees, they allowed the shurfa to exploit the land and its occupants. As Halim (2000) argues, “la concession portait sur la terre et sur ses occupants que le souverain livrait au concessionnaire ; d’où leur nom de ‘msellmin’ (livrés). Ces derniers dépendaient, désormais, complètement de leur maître”. Until the beginning of the twentieth century, the occupants, ‘azabbs (tenant farmers), could not leave without the shrif’s permission. Escaping from the shrif’s domain was considered as escaping from the Sultan’s domain. The shrif could lend his ‘azzabs to another shrif for a particular period but could neither sell them, nor offer them, nor yet hire them (as cit in Michel, 2001).

Practically, by honoring the sharifian community, the Sultan won public esteem not only because he was also shrif but because his rule depended on their support. History records that some brotherhoods were more influential than sultans. The shurfa of Wazzan, for instance, used to grant rising sultans their blessing on coming to the throne. Westermarck (1926) heard that in Fez when the new Sultan mounted his horse during the allegiance ceremony, the head of the Wazzan shurfa living in the place where he was proclaimed would hold the stirrup and help him mount his horse, thus bestowing on him the baraka of Dar Dmana (the House of Immunity) Wazzan. The same anthropologist alludes to “a saying that although no Wazzan shereef can rule as sultan, no sultan can rule without the support of the great shereef of Wazzan”.

Sharifism on which we touch contains important elements for understanding the legitimization of monarchic rule in Morocco. The shurfa claim a lineage to the Prophet and rely on their traditional but now also state-mandated symbolic capital to stress social distinction from the commoners ('amma). Royal decrees of consideration and respect (ttawqir wa l-ihtiram) were issued to support the class of shurfa and, historically, freed them from paying taxes and made of their vicinities asylums for the oppressed. They were granted the right of sanctuary (hurum), by decrees of immunity, extending over vast lands surrounding saints’ lodges, and were declared impervious to assault, “which meant that it was outside the Makhzen’s jurisdiction, and thus any fugitive who might take refuge in such asylums was exempt from pursuit” (EL –Mansour, 1999). Land grants—sometimes with occupant workers— were offered to the shurfa in return for supporting the sultan’s policy.

Decades ago, membership cards edged in green and red resembling official police passes were issued by the Ministry of Interior, at the local level by the Mayor’s administration, to shurfa who owned decrees of consideration and respect, in order to grant them special privileges for opening doors and expediting administrative transactions with local authorities.

Like color and religion, sharifism is thought to be based on inherent characteristics that mark the shrif’s fixed and lasting social status unresponsive to change. As Hammoudi states: “social status was based on criteria which individuals theoretically could not modify; birth, skin color, religion, and to a certain extent occupation” (Hammoudi, 1997). By virtue of their lineage, the shurfa were located at the top of the social scale. Their sharifian lineage bestowed on them the right to rule, to have prerogatives and to own khuddam (servants). This was an inherited social standing that was very difficult to change. A person’s status was clearly defined. One might attain a high social rank by virtue of social capital, wealth or knowledge, but “in practice status emphasized difference while individual effort tended to bring about equality. Such was the rule in a society keen on ‘ontological inequality’” (Hammoudi, 1997).

Thanks to his sharifian social origins, the sultan has never been confused with the profane apparatus called the Makhzen of which he is in charge. Moroccans tend to discern the Mahkzen as being discriminate from the inviolable person of the sultan. Michaux-Bellaire and Gaillard (1909) argue that this traditional form of state was a subsidizer of social anarchy; it worked to fuel the conflicts between tribes and strengthen its role of arbitration. National scholars like Laroui (1997) state that the Makhzen was not only a repressive force or just a tax collector but was also protecting the peace of tribes and handling their political problems. It was not an institution created in colonial times or an anti-colonial apparatus of resistance. Sultanism was rather an ancient form of rule that historically developed from inside Moroccan elites and welcomed its recruits from notables, leaders of tribes and sharifian families.

The profile of the agents of the Makhzen was intended to be a model of conduct for the rest of society. The obedience the royal servants evinced to the sultan was unquestioning. The lexicon used by the sultan when addressing Makhzen officials reinforced the blind trust the ruler demanded of his faithful servants. An expression of address goes: “khadimuna al-arda” (Our obedient servant). The servant like a disciple of a maraboutic master must fulfill the commands to the letter. As a Makhzen official puts it: “I am a closed lock and the key I gave it to Sidna (my Lord).”

Unlike the sultan, the Makhzen is not endowed with benediction. It is rather a profane institution targeted for its positive and negative activities by the population. Represented as an earthly apparatus, it appears more or less secular in that it is a butt of negative and positive attitudes. Its main task is to safeguard civil order and protect the interests of the state. This task may sometimes require the use of violence and the setting of emotions aside. The Makhzen has the power to infiltrate everywhere and every field.

Though the sultan is at the head of the Makhzen and in practice this apparatus has all the time enabled him to exercise his power, he is never equated with it in the popular mind. Even historians sometimes refer to sultans being unaware of the corrupted activities of the Makhzen. The cultural representations shared by Moroccans about the Makhzen never confuse the sometimes illegitimate conduct of the Makhzen with the perennial legitimacy of the sultan.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Morocco World News’ editorial policy

The post The Cultural Representation of the Sultan in Morocco appeared first on Morocco World News.

Rabat - Some years ago, the late Larbi Messari, journalist, newspaper editor and former minister of communication told the press that Moroccans were “audio-visual migrants” because they spend most of their time watching foreign television, especially since the advent of the digital era.

This behavior clearly denotes the Moroccan public’s weariness towards its national channels that do not meet its television expectations. They prefer to seek quality elsewhere. And by so doing, totally ignore the national media landscape.

Today, people’s distaste hasn’t changed. Worse, viewers find that national channels are not only unprofessional, but they, also, blatantly insult their intelligence and do not bring them any added value either in the entertainment, information or education.

Arrival of 2M

In the mid-80s of the last century, when there was only one channel in the Moroccan media landscape, monotonous and rather propagandistic in character, the government created a private fee-paying channel cloned on the model of France’s Canal+: 2M. Just like its French counterpart, it was broadcasting entertainment programs, documentaries and films in encrypted format. Besides it, also, offered unencrypted programming including talk shows, using bold political tone, especially at a time when Morocco was still in the throes of the era of bloody repression of political opponents of Hassan II’s regime, known as: “Years of Lead.”

[caption id="attachment_190076" align="aligncenter" width="683"] 2M widely-appreciated comedy[/caption]

The talk shows, in question, had a high rate of viewing and were followed with great diligence by common people especially in big cities, as 2M’s signal was not available in many regions of the country. But, unfortunately, because of the narrowness of the Moroccan market, in terms of paid subscriptions, this channel soon went bankrupt and fell under the control of the Moroccan state to become, with time, yet another monotonous, insipid and bland TV state channel.

Consequently, 2M quickly lost its avant-garde identity it acquired while being a paying channel and became public like RTM (Radio Television Marocaine), with the unscripted mission to stupefy the Moroccan viewers with anesthetic programs , shows, series and multitude of Egyptian , Lebanese , Mexican and Turkish soap operas, as well as, singing and dancing shows and endless newscasts. Moroccans, feeling insulted, turned to watching videotapes they rented, for almost nothing, from video clubs that sprouted everywhere like mushrooms. This was an unexpected opportunity for Moroccan viewers to flee the systematic dull and unimaginative two national TV channels. 

[caption id="attachment_190078" align="aligncenter" width="450"] 2M TV station logo[/caption]

However, in the 90s of the last century a technological breakthrough brought unexpected relief through satellite television. Desperate, Moroccans deprived themselves from their national couscous meal, initially, to use its dish to receive the signal of entertaining and varied French TV stations. Then, one day, came about the satellite TV and Moroccans migrated happily to it, for good. Few years later, this migration became final with the arrival of digital technology and the Internet with its wide choice. It was a big relief for Moroccan people hungry for quality TV programs and quality news and news analysis.

Moulting without renewal nor rebirth

In the beginning of the third millennium, a huge transformation happened within Moroccan television. The big change started giving hope to people that Moroccan TV would eventually become citizen-sensitive, responsible and respectful. But unfortunately, none of this occurred. RTM became SNRT, a TV company, then a bouquet of channels were created: a cultural channel, a sports channel, a religious channel, and local and international channels. But in the end, all these channels were only dismal clones of the former boring RTM, which is now calling itself al-Oula, meaning the first channel. For some viewers, it can only claim the first rank or place in stupidity and absurdity. It turned out later that this change of RTM into SNRT, as expected, was no more than a legal transformation with no qualitative corollary, whatsoever.

In the end, the creation of the SNRT and a bunch of channels did change neither the program content nor the television policy of this state-owned media. It is no more than what it was in the past, a propaganda tool totally gagged by the establishment and entrusted with promoting subliminal self-censorship, blatantly.

Blames

What do people blame SNRT for?

The blames are multiple from viewers, TV critics and external / internal journalists.

Program content shows a certain lack of professionalism, realism and truth:

• News broadcasting:

News casting is endless and without any substance. Information broadcasting never obeys to the importance and relevance of the event. It follows a formal classification of activities and events according to the importance of the person concerned: royal, prince-related, ministerial, economic, social, regional, sports and weather. News of utmost or great importance rarely make it to the beginning of the newscast contrary to what happens in western TVs where royal or presidential info goes to the end of news broadcasting if it is of ceremonial importance only.

Moroccan television never calls on experts, analysts, specialists and university professors to dissect information and analyze it thoroughly, but, instead, it is always asking ministers or other officials to give tasteless descriptions of meetings, conferences or official openings, and these happily waffle endlessly, irritating viewers beyond belief.

• Talk-shows:

There are very few talk shows in SNRT’s programs. Those that exist do not have any audio-visual value because producers and presenters usually invite their acquaintances, relatives or friends. So, consequently, the content remains poor and uninteresting. To avoid any political overflow, talk-shows are all taped in advance, and only a handful are performed live, and their participants are carefully handpicked.

• Musical programs:

These evening musical programs of singing, dancing and total relaxation abound. Although they are expensive, they do not require much intellectual effort. They are about inviting a bunch of musicians, singers and folk groups, one or two comedians and one or two celebrities who are interviewed by a presenter and or male/female presenter duo. They sing and dance, and that’s it. These programs are aired on Friday, Saturday and holiday evenings. They are entertainment programs that numb one feelings and sense of existence and discernment greatly.

[caption id="attachment_190080" align="aligncenter" width="704"] Musical evening on 2M[/caption]

• TV movies:

They are generally of good quality and texture and deal with social problems of everyday life of ordinary people, but they are rare.

• Documentary films:

They are generally good and well appreciated by the general public because of their educational content. A case in point is the excellent documentary of the discovery of Morocco entitled "amoudou."

• Magazines:

TV magazines, without any exception, all adopt the same format: two so- called experts are invited to the studio to discuss a given subject related to politics, society, economics, education, religion, etc. The producers will interview few people in the street, a common practice referred to as radio trotoir to introduce some variety. But, all in all, these magazines never deal with the sticky national issues and if they ever do, it is in a superficial manner. Thus, these programs are mostly hollow and far from the required quality.

Moroccan TV journalists excel in sweet talk and cajolery, using a jargon and clichés that viewers reject and regard as a flagrant insult to their intelligence and moral integrity. Some of these are as follows:

• Morocco is the most beautiful country in the world;
• Morocco is an exception in the Arab world;
• Moroccan democracy;
• All is well and perfect in Morocco ( goulou l3am zin );
• Morocco is experiencing exceptional growth and stability like no other country in the Arab world, etc.

All the views presented by the channel, either in their external productions, newscasts, aim to praise the establishment and the government and participants are encouraged, indirectly, to make use of honeyed feelings and congratulating language and tone. Something that infuriates the ordinary viewer who endures daily corruption, nepotism, bureaucracy, unemployment, inequality and poverty and he is duly wondering where is the beautiful and generous Morocco portrayed in the national TV located.

Unfortunately, national television is very far from reality, it seems to be living in the shackles of a lie, an endless lie, where constructive criticism is banished, and where different perspective is limited. Consequently, the unpopularity of Moroccan television is, undoubtedly, the result of its permanent lie, its insulting behavior and its glaring lack of civility.

[caption id="attachment_190082" align="aligncenter" width="436"] Al-Oula TV station logo[/caption]

Ramadan’s television

The holy month of Ramadan is the only time the viewer seems to be reconciled in good faith with national television. Thus, this “audio-visual migrant” deigns to return “virtually” to the country to watch local television, at least before and after “ftour,” while consuming nonchalantly his bowl of harira accompanied by Andalusian music and local entertainment. But every year, nevertheless, he feels betrayed: a lot of mediocrity, amateurism, and many lies as usual. It seems that in the national TV realm, nothing changes, just more of the same.

Candid camera is served each year along with the dates and milk of “ftour” seems to be an entertainment which, instead of making the viewer laugh, laughs at him in the end, and so he becomes the butt of the farce. Candid camera, which, in principle, is a hidden camera and aims to ensnare the average citizen or a star in a comic trap and sticky situations that generate spontaneous outbursts of joy or nervousness, is not finally as hidden as it is supposed to be, according to the national press. Indeed, it seems that candid camera is a real deception. The target citizen or chosen star have advance knowledge of the whole scenario and act accordingly , in return for a payment , a detail that spoils the charm and innocence of the program altogether .

Sit-coms products seem to be, somewhat, the exclusive realm of the company Ali & N of the pampered and golden boy of the seraglio Nabil Ayouch, who, somehow, seems to win all the big contracts of SNRT as to what concerns comedy and fiction. There was, however, last year and the year before, a real quality product entitled “lcouple” of two great Moroccan actors: Hassan Fad and Dounia Boutazout, who managed to combine, in a professional way, comedy and satire and had a dazzling success first in television and, on the web, thereafter.

[caption id="attachment_190084" align="aligncenter" width="794"] Placard publicizing Ramadan program on al-Oula channel[/caption]

While Ramadan TV movies seem to be wavering between good and bad shows, Moroccan theater seems to prance to the top of success with most plays making it to television. But Moroccan theater remains completely ignored by the government as what concerns aid, encouragement and promotion. But, despite all the difficulties it is facing, it is definitely successful: it entertains, educates and shows the critical problems of Moroccan society openly, with much determination and courage. Musical evenings, as usual, are tasteless and greatly lacking in imagination and inspiration. They exhibit alarming mediocrity in content and performance.

Television production companies

Apart from the news and some homemade magazines, the majority of the SNRT programs are produced by external production companies that are collecting a huge jackpot but are unable to produce quality material. Why?

These production companies have been extensively founded by former TV professionals, officials or journalists and continue to have acting and rewarding accomplices inside the institution that help them get fat contracts by unlawful means.

Tenders are launched by SNRT, production companies in question submit their offers. Thanks to their internal complicity, they manage to win the contract. This win-win fraud scheme is cutting is hindering the efforts and will of young companies to bring new blood added value to TV production and develop the concept of creativity, bringing quality and freshness without forgetting much-needed innovation.

But for now, it seems that instead of giving a chance to everyone, SNRT continues to pour into a primary tribalism and nepotism, common in the Arab world.Indeed, the golden boy of the seraglio, Nabil Ayoub, son of the Ayatollah’s official com, the great patriarch Ayouch, got a phenomenal multi-billion centimes contract from the two behemoths : SNRT Al-Oula and 2M , just because he is called Ayouch and that leaves no space for newcomers, in the least, and forces the exit of competition and quality.

Imperious necessity for the withdrawal of the state from the audio-visual landscape

Morocco cannot set claim to good governance as long as the state continues to control, directly or indirectly, the media. In the past, controlling the information outlets rhymed with the control of power. Today, it is synonymous with outright dictatorship, especially in the aftermath of the Arab Spring.

Because of this unjustified control on media, Morocco continues to endure unnecessary finger-pointing from international organizations such as Freedom House, Transparency International, Reporters without Borders, etc.

It is anachronistic that modern Morocco of the 2011 constitution, open on democracy and political progress can continue to control the media and, especially, television. It is counterproductive and bad for the image of the country. Time has come to give national media unrestricted full freedom and open the audio-visual sector to private broadcasters to bring quality and innovation and the added value that will result, ultimately, in economic, political and social development.

It is also inconceivable that Moroccans would continue to pay a fee, hidden in their water and electricity bills for an antiquated television that does not meet their expectations. A television that seems to be more interested in paying lip service all that is official rather than dealing professionally with the serious ailments and headaches of the country, such as:

• Rampant youth unemployment;
• Corruption ;
• Nepotism ;
• Poverty ;
• Power abuse ;
• Bad governance ;
• Poverty and lack of solidarity and sharing ;
• The indecency of the political class ;
• Sexual harassment;
• Identity issues;
• National cultures : Amazigh, Darijophone, Hassani and Jewish;
• Failure of the national educational system; etc.

Unfortunately, Moroccan television is only interested in inaugurations, celebrations, speeches and official activities, official statistics, etc. This television is heavily weighed down by its official identity that is making it lose all credibility vis-à-vis of the public who is forced to migrate to foreign quality TV stations.

The television of Rabat

Many Moroccan citizens living in the countryside are calling the SNRT, with all its numerous useless clones: tilifizyoun dyal rbat “Rabat television.” It is a popular judgment full of teachings, but also very critical of this institution, which is supposed to represent and serve all Moroccans, without exception but fails miserably to do so, regrettably.

The SNRT, in its current form should consider creating a rural television that would provide entertainment and deal with the concerns of half of the population of the country, such as: agriculture in all its aspects : modern irrigation techniques; use of fertilizers; drought-resistant crops, plants, and fruit trees; rural needs in education; health and infrastructure; rural solidarity twiza , etc. Television could possibly study and get to know habits, customs and manners of rural groups of physical and human geography of the hinterland bearing in mind that urban Moroccans ignore everything about deep Morocco.

It is absurd that the Moroccan television that has over 52 years of age has never thought to undertake sociological field studies to see how it is perceived by the Moroccans it is supposed to serve. Secondly, it is inconceivable that this television has ever thought about starting an external evaluation system on its programs as well as an internal one.

The evaluation culture has never been the strength of this television and it may not be for long. This attitude seems to be telling Moroccan citizens: we do not need to be evaluated, we know that we are on the right path: the official path, of course. Indeed, even the French audience measurement company MarocMètrie, that was hired to conduct audience measurements, seemed to be only interested in its big contract money. Its measures are sporadic and are ignoring many salient social aspects. In France, where the outcome measures are published weekly, as for Morocco it is seasonal , and the worst is that there is some aspect that this audience measurement does not take into account, official TV business, on account of fear of alienating the establishment and consequently losing the lucrative contract it gets from it .

The television of Rabat, which is broadcasting 24 hours a day, could have used some of the time slots for functional literacy, women empowerment, good citizenship, but it is not. For many people, the television of Rabat is not a citizen television, but television of singing, dancing and relaxation: tilifizyoun chti7 ou rdi7 .

Reinvigorate the Moroccan audio-visual landscape

Moroccan television, in its current format, will continue to cower in its mediocrity, because in a sense, it has a monopoly of the Moroccan audio-visual landscape and does not have to face any form of external competition, so it is by no means forced to innovate to please. It is indulging in its monopoly status and it is just perpetuating itself magnificently without any fear of the outside world, at all.

To end this situation that does not please the Moroccan public, it is urgent for the government to liberalize the Moroccan audio-visual landscape by offering television operating licenses to private companies to stimulate the sector and allow the Moroccan public to choose the entertainment they want.

Moroccan television is a television from the Neanderthal age, in a figure of speech, in the sense that it is only aping world TVs in providing the service without caring about quality and is, in no way, encouraging innovation and creativity, and owing its survival to the protection of the state and not to any of its dynamic achievements.

In one word, it’s a television of another time, another era, which should, in principle, exist only in museums and history books and not in reality, because it does not serve society but only serves itself, alas.

You can follow Professor Mohamed Chtatou on Twitter: @Ayurinu

The post The Moroccan Antiquated Television appeared first on Morocco World News.

New York - Spain’s general election will be held on Sunday June 26. This will be the second election in six months since Spain’s political parties failed to form a government following the elections of last December.

What is most striking about the list of candidates presented by the country’s main political parties, the Partido Popular (PP), the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE), Podemos and Cuidadanos, is the absence of candidates of Moroccan descent. There are more than 766,622 Moroccans living in Spain contributing to its economy, among whom more than 75,000 are Spanish citizens. Yet despite their prevalence in the country and their importance in many vital economic sectors, Spain’s political parties ignore them.

While it is bad enough to marginalize a significant population, for Moroccans living in Spain and observers, what adds insult to injury is not only that Moroccan-Spanish nationals have been deprived of the right to be represented in parliament, but that a major party like the PSOE has decided, if it wins the elections, to present a candidate from Senegal as potential Minister in charge of immigration.

While the Moroccan community represents about 2 percent of Spain’s population, there are fewer than 63,000 Senegalese immigrants in Spain. Given that Moroccans represent the second largest foreign community in Spain after Romanians and the first non-European community, they should be given a voice in government to reflect their concerns and defend their interests, as well as the interests of all communities of foreign origin.

In contrast to the utter lack of political representation in Spain, the Moroccan community in other European countries, such as France, the Netherlands, and Belgium, is fully participating in the political life of its respective countries. The most emblematic example is that of France, where there are currently three Ministers of Moroccan descent.

This is prompting analysts to wonder what is preventing Moroccans from fully participating in Spain’s politics and being represented in parliament. Is it because there are few Moroccans who qualify to be candidates in elections or be present in the government?

When the press asked PSOE Secretary General Pedro Sánchez why his party did not field Moroccan candidates in the elections or as candidates for a position in the government, he said that he was not sure how Spanish voters would react to candidates of Moroccan descent.

Spain has yet to come to term with its Muslim past

The Spanish politician’s remark reflects the negative image of Moroccans in Spain’s collective memory. Surveys conducted in recent years in Spain show that Moroccans are the group that inspires the least sympathy in Spanish public opinion.

The negative image of Moroccans in Spain is neither a coincidence nor the consequence of the diplomatic friction between Morocco and Spain since 1956. It is rather the result of the historical trajectory of the country, during which Spanish intellectuals have tried to disown their country’s Muslim past and demonize Muslims. The best way to understand the reason for the negative image of Moroccans in Spain is to see how they are presented in Spanish history and textbooks.

Since the end of the Reconquista, many Spanish intellectuals have conducted in-depth works to re-write their country’s history in order to purify it of every "foreign" element that undermines the view that Spain’s character is exclusively European.

In addition, the Reconquista marked the start of long and uninterrupted process during which Spanish society began the “Latinization” of its history and national identity.

The common theme of books published since the Reconquista is that the presence of Muslims in Spain was merely a temporary accident of history. To corroborate this claim, these advocates of a “sanitized” Spanish identity attempt to show that since the early years of Muslim rule in Spain, the indigenous population had begun to mobilize opposition to expel its enemies. Given the role that Moroccans had played at the birth of the golden age of al-Andalus and in disseminating Islam in present-day Spain, the narrative of hate directed at Muslims following the early days of the Reconquista was mainly focused on Moroccans.

During the effort to reconstruct the Spanish identity, any analysis that adopted an approach that did not corroborate the dominant narrative about Spain’s history was dismissed as a diversion from Spain’s historical tradition. That tradition consisted of praising the genius of Spain’s indigenous people and emphasizing their role in the splendor and cultural sophistication of al-Andalus.

The objective pursued by Spanish intellectuals was to distance themselves from the Muslim east, considered incapable of being the origin of such splendor. The analyses made in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries respectively by authors like the Conde of Campomanes and Jose Antonio Conde, who criticized the ethnocentrism prevailing in their country with respect to Muslims, had no chance of being accepted by the Spanish ideologues of the time.

Spanish professor Bernabé López García notes, for example, that for his statement in the preface of his book Historia de la dominación de los árabes en España that "virtually all nations were barbaric when the Arabs were scientists," Jose Antonio Conde was vilified and accused of sabotaging values built on a partial view of the past.

The vision that has prevailed since then is that of anti-Muslim authors, such as Javier Simonet, Julian Ribera, Modesto Lafuente, and Menendez Pelayo. Unfortunately, the same interpretation of history is still conveyed in Spanish textbooks. Speaking of the society of al-Andalus, the authors of textbooks give a very narrow view of that cosmopolitan society and overlook the more or less peaceful coexistence that existed between Muslims, Christians, and Jews during that period. Thus, they portray eight centuries of history in in terms of a confrontation between good and evil, whereby good was represented by the indigenous people “trying to recover their territory” from the hand of the bad “invaders", Muslims.

Rather than focusing on the coexistence that prevailed between Muslims, Jews, and Christians, the overwhelming majority of Spanish intellectuals portrayed Muslims as “invaders, barbarians, and fanatics.” Thus, the narrative provided by Spanish textbooks reflects Spain’s inability to accept the Muslim dimension of its identity.

This reading of Spanish history prevails also in the way in which Moroccans are portrayed in the Spanish history books addressing the wars between Morocco and Spain from 1859 to 1926, as well as the Spanish Civil War. According to prominent Spanish authors such as María Rosa de Madariaga, while history books that covered the wars between the two countries depicted Moroccans as “hordes of uncivilized, lascivious and unsavory people,” the narrative regarding their role in the later Civil war described them as “bloodthirsty and savage murderers.”

Given this view of Moroccans, it may well take Spain several decades or even generations to accept Moroccans as an integral part of its social fabric and conceive of the idea that a Moroccan could be elected to high office, whether in the parliament or in the government. However, for Spain to get there, it will first have to take a good look at history, accept and recognize the contributions of Muslims to its greatness, and perhaps even apologize for expelling the millions of Muslims who were thrown out of Spain in the early sixteenth century for the simple reason that they were Muslim.

Just as it did when it recognized and redressed its persecution of Jews through its decision to grant Spanish citizenship to all descendants of Sephardic Jews who were expelled from Spain in 1492, Spain should redress its wrongs against Muslims -ncluding the five million descendants of the expelled Moriscos (Moors) who now live in Morocco. Without such recognition, it is highly unlikely that Spanish citizens of Moroccan descent will play any significant role in Spain’s politics in the foreseeable future.

An earlier version of this article was published on the New Arab

Samir Bennis is the co-founder of and editor-in-chief of Morocco World News. You can follow him on Twitter @SamirBennis

The post Legislative Elections: Spanish Parties Shun Moroccan-Spanish Nationals appeared first on Morocco World News.