Reading Morocco

Here is an article from Reuters about attempts to implement farm reforms in Morocco, and how Morocco is looking to secure Gulf money in order to do this. Unfortunately, the small farm method,which is better for the environment and poor farmers may have to be sacrificed in order to bring in the big money.
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Morocco says no funding threat to key farm reforms
Fri Nov 20, 2009 2:01pm GMT



By Amena Bakr and Zakia Abdennebi

SKHIRAT, Morocco (Reuters) - Morocco has the resources to press ahead with farm sector reform, even if many foreign investors are unwilling to commit for now, industry officials said.

Foreign investment in the north African country had fallen by a third in September compared to a year earlier, according to government figures, as the global banking crisis made investors loath to venture into new markets,

Morocco has said it needs to muster 150 billion dirhams to upgrade and diversify agriculture, which suffers from droughts and poor yields.

A 10-year farm reform drive seeks to replace cereals, which account for 75 percent of Morocco's arable land of 7.5 million hectares, with more lucrative crops such as olives and boost food exports as trade barriers fall.

Gulf Arab investors should be ideal partners for the plan as their countries need to secure food supplies after prices rose sharply.

Yet big inward investment deals have been largely absent.

At a two-day conference near the Moroccan capital Rabat, local officials sought to convince Gulf investors that heavy bureaucracy and complex land ownership rules, long seen as decisive obstacles, are a thing of the past.

The charm offensive has worked in some cases -- Saudi Arabia's Tabuk Agriculture Development Co. said it planned to invest about $10 million in Moroccan olive farming early next year. It started looking at opportunities in Morocco in 2008.

And an Abu Dhabi-based private sector investment firm told Reuters this week it had signed a contract to lease up to 700,000 hectares of farmland in southern Morocco and would invest 30 million euros.

Commitments so far are relatively small but Moroccan industry officials are staying upbeat, saying foreign investment is very welcome but not essential for its farm reform plan to succeed.

"There is already a commitment from (Moroccan) state and financial institutions," Tarik Berkia, a managing director at Moroccan bank Credit Agricole, told Reuters.

"The money is there. If there are big scale projects, we could call upon foreign funds. That does not mean foreign money is not welcome."

He said there was keen interest in farm projects from French, Australian, Spanish and Italian investors.

Some Gulf investors at the conference said they were starting to sit up and take notice of Morocco's farm sector.

"All the world is worried about food security and Gulf countries are investing in Sudan and Western Asia," said Ali Hamid al-Missifri, first executive manager at Qatar International Islamic Bank. "I think there's now an opportunity to go to Morocco -- it's a very important agricultural country."

Other delegates said they were still put off by Moroccan red tape and the relatively small size of farm units generally on offer.

"I'm not coming here to invest in small land," said Saad al Swat, chief executive of Tabuk Agriculture Development Co. "We're not talking about 500 or 700 hectares. Our farm in Saudi is 35,000 hectares... With a small farm, nobody is going to notice your input in the economy."

© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved

Posted by sumayya at 4:04 AM | 0 comments    
Labels: Agriculture, foreign investment

Here is a press release recently posted by Human Rights Watch about the treatment of Sahrawi activists by Moroccan authorities. They won't stop until somebody in the West tells them to stop. And let us not overlook the recent expulsion of Sahrawi activist Aminatou Haidar by Morocco to Spain where she is not being permitted to leave.
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Morocco/Western Sahara: Reverse New Rule on Sahrawi Activists’ Contacts
Police Use Demand for Prior Permission to Break Up Visits by Foreigners
November 16, 2009


"A country that prides itself on openness is now telling some citizens that they can't decide who may visit them...This is an unacceptable restriction on the right of association and the right to privacy."
Joe Stork, deputy Middle East and North Africa director

(New York) - Morocco is taking another regressive step on human rights by blocking "unauthorized" visits by foreigners to the homes of Sahrawi activists in Western Sahara, Human Rights Watch said today.

Since October 19, 2009, police have interrupted five such visits by Spanish journalists and human rights lawyers, telling them in each case that these visits they require prior clearance from the authorities.

This practice, which has no apparent basis in Moroccan law, represents a new restriction on the rights of Sahrawis and of visitors to the region. Previously, plainclothes police generally did not interfere when foreigners entered the homes of known Sahrawi activists, although they often openly monitored such visits from a distance.

"A country that prides itself on openness is now telling some citizens that they can't decide who may visit them," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. "This is an unacceptable restriction on the right of association and the right to privacy."

Restrictions on visits to the homes of Sahrawi activists coincide with a visibly tougher posture by Moroccan authorities toward those who advocate self-determination for the contested Western Sahara. Morocco has exercised de facto rule over the former Spanish colony since 1975 and considers it an integral part of Morocco. Other states have not formally recognized this claim.

Seven Sahrawis have been in detention since returning October 8 from a visit to the Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria that are administered by the Polisario Front. The Polisario is a pro-independence movement that contests Moroccan sovereignty and demands a referendum on self-determination for the people of Western Sahara. Moroccan authorities accused the detainees of harming "external state security" and referred their cases to a military court, a rare and ominous development for civilian defendants.

King Mohammed VI himself has signaled the new tone toward Sahrawis who favor a vote on self-determination and who, effectively, question Morocco's claim of sovereignty over Western Sahara.

"One is either a patriot, or a traitor," the king declared on November 6, the 34th anniversary of Morocco's "Green March" to take control of the region. "Is there a country that would tolerate a handful of lawless people exploiting democracy and human rights in order to conspire with the enemy against its sovereignty, unity and vital interests?"

The foreign visitors who were forced to leave the homes of Sahrawis in the recent incidents were Spanish journalists and lawyers who traveled to Western Sahara to observe the trials of Sahrawis and to collect human rights information.

In the most recent incident, on November 12, Luis Mangrané Cuevas, a lawyer representing the General Council of the Spanish Bar Associations (Consejo General de la Abogacía Española, CGAE) tried to visit Sultana Khaya, vice president of the Forum for the Future of Sahrawi Women, at her home in Boujdour. Mangrané had come to the region in order to observe the trial of Sahrawi activist Hassana Alouate.

Police intercepted him near Khaya's house and said he would need authorization to enter. At the police station they told him he could meet with Khaya instead in a café. But when the two sat down in a café to talk, policemen arrived, ordered Mangrané to leave Boujdour and escorted him to a taxi station, where he boarded a taxi to El-Ayoun.

The details of the four previous incidents are as follows:

On November 10, at about 7:30 p.m., Mangrané and Dolores Travieso Darias, another Spanish lawyer sent by the GCAE to observe a trial, visited Hassan Duihi at his home in El-Ayoun. About 30 minutes later, plainclothes police came to the door and told Duihi, a member of the Sahrawi Associaton of Victims of Grave Human Rights Violations (ASVDH) who frequently receives foreign visitors, to ask the two lawyers to leave his home and return to their hotel. The police told Duihi that he must obtain prior clearance from the police for any foreigners he wants to have visit him at home.

On November 3, at about 9:10 p.m., six plainclothes policemen came to the home of El-Ghalia Djimi, vice-president of the ASVDH, in El-Ayoun, during a visit by two Spanish lawyers. The lawyers, Ines Miranda and Araceli Fernàndez de Córdoba Cantizano, were in town to observe the trial of Sahrawi activist Cheikh Amidane, on behalf of the International Association of Jurists for Western Sahara, which is based in Spain. The police told the lawyers they had to get permission to visit homes from the Communications Ministry and ordered them to leave the house. Djimi had been receiving for years at her home foreign visitors interested in human rights without first notifying the authorities. Officials have now told her that she must get permission from them in advance when she wishes to have foreign visitors.

On October 22, plainclothes police told two Spanish journalists, Beatriz Mesa of Radio Cope and El Periodico and Erena Calvo of Ser Radio and El Mundo daily, to leave the home of Sidi Mohamed Daddache, president of the Committee to Support Self-Determination in Western Sahara (CODAPSO), in El-Ayoun. Both reporters are based in Morocco and accredited by Moroccan authorities.

On October 19, plainclothes police came to the El-Ayoun home of Hmad Hammad, vice president of CODAPSO, and ordered Ruth Sebastien Garcia and Simplico del Rosario Garcia to leave. The two Spanish lawyers had come to El-Ayoun in order to attend the trial earlier that day of Sahrawi student activist Mohamed Berkane.

On three research missions between 2005 and 2007, representatives of Human Rights Watch visited many private homes in El-Ayoun and Smara, including those of Sahrawi activists. While plainclothes police frequently were visible observing the homes from a distance, they did not interrupt these visits.

"Human rights activists, like everyone else, should be free to receive and visit whom they wish, without getting permission," said Stork. "Authorities who restrict that right look like they are trying to cut off the flow of information about their own practices."

Posted by sumayya at 6:24 AM | 0 comments    
Labels: Political Repression, Western Sahara

Here is an article on the rug trade in Morocco and how the women who make the rugs rarely see the big bucks that tourists pay for them. Just another reason to bargain a bit harder next time you're in the souq.

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Moroccan carpet confidential


Rural women weavers struggle to earn a fair price for their intricate rugs.

By Erik German - GlobalPost
Published: November 13, 2009 06:20 ET
Updated: November 13, 2009 17:16 ET

KOURKOUDA, Morocco — It takes more than 20 pounds of raw wool and 60 days of handwork to fashion one of Morocco’s famous carpets. The weavers in this village say it’s hardly worth the effort.

“You can’t give a damn about carpets anymore,” said Rakia Nid Lchguer, 57, who, like many weavers in this country’s remote south, spent a decade perfecting her art, beginning at age 6. “The market barely repays the cost of the wool,” she said.

Morocco’s vibrant rugs come in a variety of styles — from flat-woven hanbels to the fuzzy creations crafted by Nid Lchguer and her neighbors. The pieces fetch hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars on carpet shop floors in Marakesh, Fez and abroad.

The rug stores are as common to Moroccan cities as bright lights on Broadway, and the haggling done inside is a visitor’s rite of passage. Hours can pass with merchants sipping tea, trading fibs with tourists about what the final price will be. Overpayment is the norm.

Yet middlemen ensure that little of that money finds it way back to villages like Kourkouda. While the World Bank estimates Moroccans make an average of $6 per day, in these arid hills south of the Atlas Mountains, that figure seems optimistic.

Seated on the cement floor of a home where she raised seven children, Nid Lchguer said immediate needs have sometimes forced her to sell a finished carpet for as little as $40. The raw materials cost her $33, she said.

While talking, she cleaned tufts of raw, ivory-colored wool by scraping it between two steel brushes. Her neighbor, Fadma Hassi, 65, stopped spinning yarn nearby and said, “That’s if you get to sell it.”

This time, the women have been lucky. Someone ordered on commission a plush carpet with roughly the same footprint as an American twin bed. With the help of a third neighbor, the weavers will split $50 three ways in exchange for an amount of labor that seems alien in a mechanized age.

The rug’s warp alone — a continuous string forming the piece’s vertical threads on the loom — will require hand-spinning a piece of yarn the length of 10 football fields. Among other tasks in the coming weeks, the women will hand-tie more than 100,000 knots no bigger than this lower-case o.

Not all Morocco’s carpets are crafted from hand-spun wool in isolated homes. Some weavers work in small cooperatives, others in factories. Some get their wool pre-spun at the market, others even buy synthetics. But the artisans — the overwhelming majority of whom are women — share similar problems.

“The money is not going to these ladies, for sure,” said Bouchra Hamelin of Al Akhawayn University, who teaches free marketing classes to Moroccan weavers and other artisans. “They don’t know how to write, how to read. They don’t have access to the internet so they don’t have access to customers.”

Instead, Hamelin said, men with trucks have access to the weavers. A middleman tours isolated villages and souks, buys low, drives to the cities, then sells high. “He is the person making the money,” she said.

Women in some villages have formed cooperatives in a bid to bypass middlemen. An association of 88 weavers in Anzal, about 35 miles from Kourkouda, have been marketing their wares directly to tourists since 2007. Like all the weavers interviewed for this story, they speak a local language called Tachelhit, which predates Arabic’s arrival to the region.

Even leaders of the group acknowledge that sales haven’t been stellar. The association’s treasurer, Zahara Ait Ali, said she’s only sold four carpets since the group was formed — a typical number, group members said — for a total of about $300. Still, she said, working through an association is better than going to the souk alone and haggling with a carpet dealer.

“The professionals in Marrakesh, the people who work in the bazaars, they try to drive the prices down,” she said. “In our region no one will speak out about low prices.” It’s hard to tell precisely how much of a cut the middlemen are taking. After all, concealing the wholesale price is the essence of the game. But a brief encounter with a traveling rug merchant named Mohammed Ait Tar offered a clue. Flagged down on a rutted mountain track, he showed off a load of carpets jammed to the ceiling of his tiny, diesel Citroen Berlingo.

He pulled out one plush, coffee-table sized carpet from a stack of rugs he said were woven nearby. What he did next underscored the warm hospitality visitors often encounter in this region, and also hinted at how little the piece must have cost him.

“Here,” he said. “A gift.”

Posted by sumayya at 9:30 PM | 0 comments    
Labels: Moroccan women, rugs

Morocco was the only Country in North Africa that resisted Ottoman rule. So, its kind of ironic that a congress on Ottoman rule in the Mediterranean is being held in Rabat right now. If you are there, go have a look-see. Here is the article explaining the conference.
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Congress on Ottoman's Mediterranean to be held in Morocco
An international congress on Western Mediterranean under Ottoman ruling will be held on 12-14 November in Moroccon capital of Rabat.
Tuesday, 10 November 2009 11:35

World Bulletin / News Desk

An international congress on Western Mediterranean under Ottoman ruling will be held on 12-14 November in Moroccon capital of Rabat.

The OIC Research Centre for Islamic History, Art and Culture (IRCICA, Istanbul) and the Royal Institute for Research on the History of Morocco (IRRHM, Rabat) are jointly organising an International Congress on "The Maghreb and the Western Mediterranean during the Ottoman Period".

The congress aims to promote research on the history of the Maghreb and the Western Mediterranean region during the period of the Ottoman State by exploring the existing and new directions of research and offering scholars and specialists an opportunity to present their findings and share information, IRCICA said on website.

"The period will be covered comprehensively, to generate a forum of study and academic discussion on its various aspects. The Ottoman presence in part of the region under study had varying degrees and spheres of impacts on all of the region.

"Thus the theme will cover the relations between the Ottoman State and the Maghreb and Western Mediterranean region with regard to the effects of developments relating to the central state, the provinces, and the neighbouring countries, reciprocally; economic, social, cultural and educational developments, press and publications," IRCICA said.

An important aspect of the congress is that it will also address issues relating to historiography and the state of research on the history of the region during the Ottoman period.

The languages of the congress will be Arabic, Turkish, English and French. Simultaneous translation will be provided.

Posted by sumayya at 8:48 PM | 0 comments    
Labels: Ottomans

Please excuse us if we ignore all of the big celebrity visits to Morocco and post this article from Le Monde Diplomatique's English Edition about a Saharan artist, Aziza Brahim, who sings poems written by her grandmother in Hassaniya Arabic about the struggle for Saharan autonomy. ( I think there is a typo in the article. Her grandmother's name is most likely Bint Mabruk and not Mint Mabruk) If you click on the link, there is video.
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From Sahara exile to future freedom

A corner of the desert called home


Aziza Brahim, the Sahrawi singer, relays to the world the sorrows and the protest of her people. But her work is not just political: she sings, too, of love and life

by Colin Murphy

Three images of Aziza Brahim come to my mind: cross-legged on the floor of an adobe house in the Sahara, swathed in a traditional melfa, talking politics; legs dangling over the stage of the extraordinary Roman amphitheatre in Merida, Spain, singing to an accidental audience of daytripping tourists; and in foul temper and hoarse voice over lunch in London, a late night behind her and a nerve-inducing concert ahead.
Aziza Brahim sings La Sensación Del Tanque in Merida, Spain

Let’s start with the last image: Aziza Brahim, whose short album Mi Canto topped the World Music chart on the influential 
eMusic.com earlier this year, was in London at the behest of the city’s annual African Music Festival. Backstage at the Queen Elizabeth Hall later that day, a procession of eager young aficionados sought a few minutes with Brahim. Their enthusiasm was not simply for her music, however; some seemed barely acquainted with it. What they proclaimed was passion for her cause.

Brahim rewarded them, from the stage, with the concise proclamations of her politics that introduced each song. She carried a flag onstage with her, and spoke of a homeland enriched with the blood of the fallen. After the concert she talked business, in private, with representatives from a couple of small World Music labels.

That was this summer. So was the impromptu visit to Merida, a pit-stop on the long drive north, from an open-air concert in Seville, to her hometown of León. The day was hot, and Merida offered a timely break from the languor of the road. Brahim walked alone into the vast, empty Roman auditorium and swung herself onto the stage, perching at the centre, in its heart. She started to sing, and the auditorium filled with a song of war, of family and of the desert. She brought to the ancient Roman theatre a music whose antecedents had perhaps once been heard at the southern fringes of the Roman Empire. There were no proclamations of politics, and she returned to the road, refreshed.
Coming home

In October, after a summer of successful concerts across Spain and elsewhere in Europe, Aziza Brahim took a break. She flew to Algiers and then took an internal Algerian flight to Tindouf, in the west, near the border with Morocco. She was collected there by a friend, and they drove south, in a jeep. They passed through a military checkpoint that indicated they were leaving Algeria, though they were not near the international border, and then through another checkpoint, apparently unmanned, that signalled they were entering new territory. They left the road and drove across the desert, and arrived shortly at a house of rough cement-and-adobe walls with an iron sheeting roof and light radiating from small windows, low to the ground. It was three in the morning.

The steel door to the house opened with the approach of the engine, and children streamed out, followed by their parents. Inside, a long, low table was laid with plates of dates and biscuits, and music played on an old stereo powered by a car battery. Brahim greeted everyone, and introduced her sleepy three-year-old daughter: cousin, niece and granddaughter to the people who crowded around. A party started, and finished just before dawn with the family strewn on cushions and carpets throughout the house. Aziza Brahim was home.

When Aziza Brahim speaks of her pueblo, this is what she means: her people, who live here, in the Hammada of the Sahara. Brahim was born here 34 years ago. But when she speaks of her patria, she does not mean this place. She means another corner of the desert, some hundreds of kilometres to the west: one that is less arid, and far more developed; and one that is not within Algeria, but is – currently – within Morocco.

Aziza Brahim’s people are the Sahrawis of Western Sahara; Western Sahara was once known as Spanish Sahara and is today – depending on who you listen to – either a province or a colony of Morocco. Morocco claims historical, pre-colonial sovereignty over the territory (which has rich phosphate deposits and fishing waters) and has occupied it since the Spanish withdrawal in 1975; but the Sahrawis’ claim on their land is vindicated by an International Court of Justice ruling from 1975, stating that the territory has the right to self-determination.
Moroccan offensive

Following that ruling, King Hassan II of Morocco mobilised 350,000 people to march south into Western Sahara in an ostensibly peaceful conquest, known as the Green March; at the same time, but more discreetly, he sent in the army. Many of the Sahrawis fled east, across the Algerian border, where they congregated in refugee camps. Morocco fought the Sahrawi liberation army, the Polisario Front, till 1991 when a ceasefire was agreed pending a referendum on the territory’s status. United Nations peacekeepers came in to supervise the referendum; they are still there; the referendum has still not happened. Morocco has successfully stalled.

The refugee camps have become institutionalised, and are home to the Polisario government in exile. There is a basic administration in the refugee camps, some paltry free enterprise, and almost no formal employment. The Sahrawis survive thanks to humanitarian aid and remittances from the diaspora, like Brahim.

Returning home is a luxury Brahim does not afford herself often: this was the first visit in three years. She spent the week almost entirely around the family home; they danced at night to Mauritanian pop, shopped for melfas, brewed and drank endless small glasses of mint tea, and got to know each other’s young children who played together, barefoot, in the dust. One of the older children transferred a MP3 copy of one of Brahim’s songs to her mobile phone, and it was soon jumping from phone to phone around the camp, via bluetooth.

One afternoon during the week, Brahim brought us next door, to the home of her grandmother, Ljadra Mint Mabruk. Brahim’s grandfather had died earlier this year and her grandmother was in mourning. She was unable to leave the house or receive male visitors. Instead, she hung a muslin curtain across her room, and allowed us sit with Brahim on one side, while she talked to us from the other. Her silhouette was visible through the curtain, jabbing with her finger or waving her arms when she talked of her granddaughter’s music.

Ljadra Mint Mabruk is one of the most renowned Sahrawi poets. Known as “the poet of the rifle”, her war poems have become anthems of the Sahrawi struggle – anthems to which her granddaughter has given new voice, and new rhythm: many of Brahim’s songs are versions of her grandmother’s poems, performed in a fusion of traditional Sahrawi singing and western blues-rock. Brahim’s signature song, La Sensación del Tanque (the feeling of the tank), is a poem by her grandmother that describes the feeling of climbing into a captured Moroccan tank, imagining what had taken place inside it.

Composed orally in Hassaniya, the Arabic dialect spoken by the Sahrawis, Ljadra Mint Mabruk’s work has been little published and less translated (Brahim sings them in Hassaniya). One untitled poem, translated into Spanish by the Sahrawi writer Bahia MH Awah, concludes with the following lines: “We will show them that the Sahara is not Agadir/ Nor Casablanca/ It is simply the Sahara/ A people that aspires to their freedom/ And has pursued it across a century.”
Fighting through poetry

“I never thought that my poetry would be put to blues or rock”, said Ljadra Mint Mabruk (through Brahim’s translation). “They put them on the radio or on the television now, though I never thought of these things when I wrote them. Of course, the circumstances in which they were written limited their impact, but my intention when I wrote them was that they could be listened to wherever. I want what I write to reach as many people as possible.”

“She always wanted to fight through her natural medium, poetry”, said Brahim of her grandmother. That fight is one Brahim continues, relentlessly. “While my people are oppressed, and condemned to live in refugee camps, I am not going to stop”, she said. “I am going to try and bring the sorrows and protest of my people everywhere I go. I am very proud to be Sahrawi, to represent my cause.”

For now, Brahim represents that cause from a base in León, using her music to promote the cause even as the cause helps draw attention to the music. For Salek Baba Hassena, the minister for co-operation in the Polisario government, Brahim is well placed as a spokesperson.

“She represents the generations who were born, grew up and were educated here in the camps”, he said. “She represents the stages of exile and of the first years of the camps – the hardest years, the years of the war – and she has also lived through the stage since 1991, following the ceasefire, awaiting the referendum. And I hope she will live through the stage of liberty and independence.” From exile to future freedom, he said, her modernised Sahrawi music “encompasses these different stages”.

That freedom, he said, was “inevitable”. “The day of victory is certain. We are sure that this day will arrive – perhaps not soon, but it is guaranteed to come.”

I asked Brahim what she would do when that day arrived. “When my country is free, I will return and live there with my people”, she said, “and sing to them of other things: of daily life, of love and loves lost; of things I can’t sing of today, because they don’t mean anything to me, for now.”

Yet even though, for now, her music is intimately bound up with politics, Brahim is too complex a musician, and too ambitious a singer, for her music to be the slave to a cause. Politics, for her, is ultimately about her people, and her family: as on that hot afternoon in Merida, it transcends the specificity of their struggle; the lament becomes uplifting.

And if a nationalist music is characteristic of modernity, Brahim is in other ways post-modern: she has multiple identities that allow her to slip seamlessly between the starkly different worlds through which her family and her music take her. These are the different images of Aziza Brahim. Any one of them is merely a snapshot. The thing that unites them is her song.

Posted by sumayya at 6:56 AM | 0 comments    
Labels: Aziza Brahim, Western Sahara

Here is an article from the official voice of the Moroccan government, MAP, on the opening of a Quranic school by the king M6. It's interesting how all the cards in the deck get "played." And please note the caveat the begins " while taking into account the contemporary changes...." Perhaps one day the believing religious people will be left alone with their religion and the journalists with their journalism without the government feeling the need to "shape" everything.
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HM the King inaugurates Koranic school in eastern Morocco

Ferkla essoufla - HM King Mohammed VI inaugurated on Friday the "Imam Nafia" Koranic school in the rural commune of Ferkla Essoufla (province of Errachidia, 482 km southeast of Rabat).

The educational facility, worth some 2.82 million dirhams ($385,000), spans on an area of 2,000 square metres, and includes classrooms, two rooms for Koran memorization, an IT room, a library and other administrative spaces.

The school will provide a mutli-disciplinary training in sharia, while taking into account the contemporary changes requiring openness on modern sciences and foreign languages.

The school has a capacity of 245 students for the 2009-2010 academic year, an average of 30 students per class.

This institution is designed to contribute to spreading religious knowledge and teaching students the authentic values of the Islamic religion, including tolerance, rectitude and moderation.

The province of Errachidia counts over 7000 students enrolled in 154 religious education schools and institutions.

Last modification 10/30/2009 04:33 PM.
©MAP-All right reserved

Posted by sumayya at 5:14 AM | 0 comments    
Labels: King Muhammad VI, Religion

Let us ignore the nonsense of the Tunisian elections and look instead of at the winners of Beirut39. Its a project to find the 39 best Arab writers and poets under the age of 39. This year five Moroccans have been chosen amongst the group. Below is a portion of the press release explaining Beirut39 and then below that is a short story written by one of the chosen Moroccan writers whose name is Abdelkader Benali.
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PRESS RELEASE: As part of Beirut 'World Capital of the Book' festivities, Hay Festival announces the complete list of the 'Beirut39' Project at the 2009 Frankfurt Book Fair. 'Beirut39' will celebrate the best 39 Arab writers under 40 in Beirut in a festival on 15-18 April 2010. An anthology featuring the authors will be published simultaneously in English and Arabic by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc and Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing.


The 39 writers that have been selected to be part of the Beirut39 project are:

Abdullah Thabit (Saudi Arabia, 1973), Abdelaziz Errachidi (Morocco, 1978), Abdelkader Benali (Morocco/The Netherlands, 1975), Abderrahim Elkhassar (Morocco, 1975), Abderrazak Boukebba (Algeria, 1977), Abdellah Taia (Morocco, 1973), Adania Shibli (Palestine, 1974), Ahmad Saadawi (Iraq, 1973), Ahmad Yamani (Egypt, 1970), Ala Hlehel (Palestine, 1974), Yahya Amqassim (Saudi Arabia, 1971), Bassim al Ansar (Iraq, 1970), Dima Wannous (Syria, 1982), Faiza Guene (Algeria/France, 1985), Hala Kawtharani (Lebanon, 1977), Hamdy el Gazzar (Egypt, 1970), Hussein al Abri (Oman, 1972), Hussein Jelaad (Jordan, 1970), Hyam Yared (Lebanon, 1975), Islam Samhan (Jordan, 1982), Joumana Haddad (Lebanon, 1970), Kamel Riahi (Tunisia, 1974), Mansour El Souwaim (Sudan, 1970), Mansoura Ez Eldin (Egypt, 1976), Mohammad Hassan Alwan (Saudi Arabia, 1979), Mohammad Salah Al Azab (Egypt, 1981), Nagat Ali (Egypt, 1975), Najwa Binshatwan (Lybia, 1970), Najwan Darwish (Palestine, 1978), Nazem El Sayed (Lebanon, 1975), Rabee Jaber (Lebanon, 1972), Randa Jarrar (Palestine/Egypt/USA, 1978), Rosa Yassin Hassan (Syria, 1974), Samar Yezbek (Syria, 1970), Samer Abou Hawwash (Palestine, 1972), Wajdi al Ahdal (Yemen, 1973), Yassin Adnan (Morocco, 1970), Youssef Rakha (Egypt, 1976) and Zaki Baydoun (Lebanon, 1981).

Beirut39 is a Hay Festival project which aims to select and celebrate 39 of the most interesting Arab writers under the age of 40 as a part of the Beirut World Capital festivities 2009/10.

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*

From May the Sun Shine Tomorrowby AbdelKader Benali

Translated from the Dutch by Susan Massotty

1

Malik Ben weighed 300 pounds on the day he decided to have his name removed from the Yellow Pages. Lugging all that weight around day after day had gotten to be a chore, which is what prompted his second resolution: to go on a diet.

Malik had dark features. Black hair, which took on a reddish sheen-a kind of auburn he rather liked-whenever he spent too much time in the sun. Brown eyes, the same shade of brown as in the paintings of the old Dutch masters. Pupils that sometimes glowed with visionary intensity. Tawny, leathery skin, tough as birch bark, which served as a visual reminder of his parents-children of high deserts and mountains, where rattlesnakes slithered across the sun-baked soil and goats leapt from ledge to ledge. It was the kind of skin that would still be firm in old age. Malik used his hands a lot when he talked. He was delighted when his hands assumed the leading role halfway through a conversation and did the talking for him. They'd been made for the job. Hadn't the Spanish Lady told him so?

Malik Ben was a healer. He healed people who were no longer in touch with their true, authentic selves. He referred to himself as an "authenticity healer." His job was to help people recover their lost souls. It was a task he had taken upon himself. In the past, poets had been entrusted with the soul's welfare. But since no one believed in poets anymore, Malik had felt compelled to assume this responsibility.

Thanks to his verbal skills, Malik made contact with others quickly and easily. But he was also a good listener-a quality his clients valued even more. It was his listening skills that paid the bills.

Malik's office was in the heart of Amsterdam, in the basement of a nineteenth-century town house a stone's throw away from Leidseplein. Callers were obliged to ring a bell that jangled loudly. Even before they stepped inside, Malik could tell what was on their minds by the expression on their faces.

Land was expensive in Amsterdam, so every inch of space was put to optimal use. Malik's cubbyhole couldn't have measured more than 80 or 90 square feet, but it served his needs: his occupation didn't require a whole lot of space. The elm trees lining the street added an air of majesty, though the roots had gradually pushed up through the paving and cracked the sidewalk in several places. Drivers and pedestrians had never been heard to complain. The gnarled roots had a certain charm. People were used to them. Every once in a while somebody tripped over one, but it was usually a tourist, who scrambled to his feet and went on his way without noticing the beauty of the street.

Malik, down in his basement, stared all day long at shoes-sneakers, boots, pumps and high heels-as they strolled, stumbled and scurried past. He never tired of the scene. Sometimes the shoe-wearers came inside and were given a face and a name. They shook Malik's hand, sat down and told their stories.

*

Malik Ben's services were listed in the Yellow Pages under "Entertainment," though it was hardly an apt description of his work. They'd stuck him in that category because they hadn't been able to come up with a better alternative. The deed had been done before Malik had realized what had happened. "It's like putting a hobble on the wrong leg of a donkey," his father would no doubt have said. Malik didn't worry about it, since most of his clients found their way to his office through word of mouth anyway. Being listed in the Yellow Pages showed that he took himself seriously, and that's all that mattered.

He'd wanted to be listed under "Alternative Medicine," but the Yellow Pages people had flatly refused. His other suggestions, such as "Alternative Therapy," "Psychological Counselling," "Spiritual Guidance" and "Career Consultancy," had likewise been vetoed. The Yellow Pages had a monopoly on headings. If you didn't fit under one of their headings, you didn't exist.

Practitioners of alternative medicine were required to hand over proof, such as a diploma, a certificate or an official letter stating that they belonged to a professional organization or association. But Malik couldn't produce a certificate and wasn't a member of anything, which is why he found himself listed in the Yellow Pages among the clowns, the contortionists and the male strippers, who entertained their female audiences with enviable cocksureness. In sheer desperation, the Yellow Pages people had placed Malik in a handy catchall. He hadn't even bothered to argue, but had simply gone forth to do good.

He was frequently asked at parties to explain his chosen line of work. "What do you actually heal?" It was then that he discovered that people had been given tongues to make life difficult. Your body might be in perfect shape and your cheeks cleanly shaved, but your tongue got so twisted up that nothing came out right. His few well-meaning stabs invariably trailed off into incoherent babble. His usual eloquence let him down just when he needed it the most. What he wanted to say, with studied casualness, was, "I try to restore the self-confidence of successful people who have lost their nerve." But it never came out casually. His tongue refused to cooperate. Instead, he usually said something like, "What's wrong with wanting to give people back their self-confidence?" It sounded defensive. It sounded like a counter-attack. And that had nothing to do with entertainment, much less clowns.

Faced with such a cryptic explanation, people usually looked at Malik as if he were the one who needed help. At that point, he would resort to an even simpler explanation. "I'm a kind of mental coach. I give my clients a psychological boost." That's how low he'd stoop in an effort to appear open and intelligible.

It takes a lot of energy to make yourself completely understood at parties. When Malik could bear the puzzled looks no longer, he'd make use of his last option: he'd slip quietly away. On the way home he'd feel empty and misunderstood, but the feeling never lasted long. Walking past his office was all it took to restore him to his usual good spirits.

Malik never felt sorry for himself. After all, he'd launched his career at the right time. With the grace of a skater, he danced across the slippery ice of an economic upturn. In the two hundred years since the Industrial Revolution and Hegel, there had never been a period in which human authenticity had been so sorely tried. The rat race and rampant consumerism had taken their toll. The winds of spirituality had swept in, cold and implacable, yet at the same time powerful, mysterious and irresistible. Malik knew that there was nothing new under the sun, but others marvelled at the New Age. He realized then that the writing was on the wall. It was a sign that people no longer knew what they were doing. And so he felt entitled to speak up.

Statisticians worked night and day like busy bees, gathering statistics to prove that humanity was in dire straits. Malik loved statistics. He rocked himself to sleep with statistics: his grade-point averages in school, his monthly profits, the average tax burden in the countries of the European Union, the rate of absenteeism among office workers in metropolitan areas.

Even without the help of statisticians, Malik would have noticed that a fundamental change had occurred. More and more people seemed to wonder who they were and to fall apart under pressure. As a result they lost touch with their inner selves. Or so the theory went. To make matters worse, some of them never managed to reconnect. They remained lost souls, forever in search of their identity. In Malik's opinion the human soul had more to do with personality than with religion. He didn't want his clients to misunderstand him on this point.

If anyone doubted his diagnoses-and therefore the need for his services-he pointed to the news reports in the media. One glance at the front page of the daily papers was enough to convince anyone of the seriousness of the situation. Presidents were losing control of the images they created of themselves. Not because the oil fields were drying up, but because they themselves were. Malik always smiled fiendishly as he perused the headlines. The more sensational the news, the better-his livelihood depended on it.

Malik knew why he had been able to adapt so quickly to the spirit of the times. He was the kind of person who learned from experience. And experience had taught him that it was better to blend in than to stick out. Nonconformity was charming in small doses, but too much was fatal. People who flaunted their differences were shunned; people who adapted were subtly rewarded. Malik didn't know all the ins and outs of this subliminal game, but he enjoyed playing it. Natural forces seemed to be at work, and Malik was instinctively drawn to natural things.

If he hadn't identified so strongly with the age in which he lived, Malik wouldn't have been able to rake in quite as much money. He imitated everyone he came into contact with, including absolute idiots. He unconsciously adjusted the tone and pitch of his voice to match that of the person he was talking to, even if it was someone he barely knew or didn't even like. It wasn't that he didn't respect other people. His profession, after all, required total commitment. Irony was taboo. The sharpest criticism could be communicated silently.

His desk was neat and tidy. It was cleaned twice a week by a small, smiling Colombian named Chiquita. That's what she called herself at any rate, though he had no idea if it was her real name. He loved his desk. He cherished its smooth surface, its elegant size and shape. One day he asked Chiquita if she knew Juan. It was a stupid question, since it assumed that everyone in the world knew everyone else. She laughed, because Malik was always bombarding her with questions she couldn't answer. He knew his desk would never be cleaned if Chiquita weren't around to do it.

In fact, she meant more to him than he did to her. When he no longer needed her services, she'd quickly find herself a new employer. He, however, would soon be working in a pigsty. Besides, Chiquita was one of the few persons he talked to outside of his work.

A picture of the Vatican adorned his desk. He kept it as a reminder of a weekend he once spent in Rome. Chiquita was a devout Catholic, so she always dusted the picture and polished the frame until it gleamed. She'd never been to Rome and didn't have the faintest idea of what went on in the Vatican, but the Pope's residence clearly had a special place in her heart.

The picture represented something else altogether to Malik. He thought of it as the perfect symbol of how slowly things change: an event that seems like a major upheaval today is actually just a blip on the human landscape. The picture comforted him and gave him the courage to go on with his work, which obliged him to get up early in the morning and to exercise an infinite amount of patience.

...

15

Like Malik's parents, the Spanish Lady and her husband had been refugees. Refugees with a small "r," an "r" that tried to make itself as small and inconspicuous as possible. Their story wasn't exactly grand either, and when urged to tell it, they looked positively embarrassed. They began to stutter so much that nobody ever made them finish the story. Beneath it lay a deep dark secret they didn't want anyone to know. He remembered the words of the Spanish Lady: "We were all orphaned by the Civil War. We all had to fend for ourselves. There was no need to shout it from the rooftops."

This more or less fit in with what Malik's parents had always told him: "People everywhere are sometimes forced to flee for their lives. We weren't the only ones." Years ago, long before the refugee question had become a burning issue with an even greater news value than floods and famines, Malik's father had seen a group of refugees on the eight o'clock news and had pointed out, with brutal honesty, which ones he thought were going to make it. Apparently he had an eye for that kind of thing.

The Spanish Lady had amassed a fortune in her host country, just as Malik's parents had. They'd made the most of their opportunities and succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. No one had ever thought that Malik's father would one day be so rich that he'd never again have to worry about money. This was the same man who'd been welcomed to Holland by a clergyman who'd thrust a pair of underpants into his hands and then assigned him to a hastily built barracks. "You've got to strike while the iron's hot," his father always said, "and not get discouraged when times are tough. Remember, you can always get a bowl of soup from the Salvation Army." It was his father's mantra, and it sounded good, the way he said it. His father had saved the underpants. "They're a sacred relic," he said. "One whiff of those underpants and I'm reminded of my first few weeks in this country. The same feeling of despair comes over me. And that's good, because it gives me energy."

Malik's parents had arrived here with only two plastic bags, which contained their entire belongings. Holland had thrown open its borders to people whose voices had been silenced in other parts of the world, to people who longed for freedom and came to this country or to similarly welcoming countries to lick their wounds. They wanted to live their lives in peaceful surroundings, in places such as Ommoord, Poggibonsi, Sint-Niklaas or Aarhus. Holland was the oasis Malik's parents had been longing for.

"We made the right choice," his father concluded soon after his arrival. "We'll get along fine in this country."

"The toilets are dirty," his mother said.

"Dirty toilets, clean kitchens-isn't that how the saying goes?"

"I don't know and I don't care."

His father had felt at home right from the start. Before long his parents moved into a rented apartment in a working-class neighborhood. His father had promptly paid a visit to City Hall, the Chamber of Commerce and the Red Cross: to City Hall to register as a new resident, to the Chamber of Commerce to request a registration number for his future business and to the Red Cross to get a list of the most frequently occurring accidents and viruses in the Netherlands. He came home and told his wife that she should never stand on a ladder, since ladder-related incidents accounted for 80% of all home accidents. He visited the local churches, tasted the soup at the Salvation Army ("because you never know when you might need it") and took his wife in to taste it too ("this has got to be rock bottom").

Melissa Ben had wanted to go to Switzerland because it had mountains, chocolate and neutrality. Switzerland was a country that didn't belong to anything, much as she and her husband no longer belonged anywhere either. That was how she looked at things. She had a strictly dualistic view of the world. People were either rooted or uprooted, secure or adrift, starry-eyed or down-to-earth. To Melissa, there was nothing in between.

In the eyes of Roxander Ben, however, his adopted country could do no wrong. While Holland was admittedly infected with the revolutionary spirit of the times, it never seemed to progress beyond the flower-power stage. Soon after his arrival, the whole country suddenly seemed to go searching for its identity, only to find a ready set of hippie credos, hippie gurus and hippie manifestos. Not even this could shake his father's faith. Holland in the 1970s was a land of peace and harmony, where opportunity knocked on every door and the soup was rich and creamy.

The difference between Malik's mother and father was never more apparent than in the way they dealt with strangers. One evening his father came home with a woman he'd bumped into on the sidewalk. They'd struck up a conversation, and he'd decided to introduce her to his wife. The moment Melissa Ben caught sight of her husband, fumbling with his keys outside the door, she hid behind the drapes, terrified of the unexpected stranger who was about to enter her private domain: an apartment without decent drapes, without books, without memories, without anything you could point to and say, "Look, that's ours. That's who we are." A home, in fact, without the slightest bit of hominess.

The last thing she wanted was to be confronted with the hussy in tight jeans who was standing on her threshold. A woman who was bound to think she was ridiculous in her strange caftan. A woman who would look down on her and start flirting openly with her husband because she knew she could get away with it. Besides, the apartment still reeked of the spicy dish she'd prepared for her husband's supper. Melissa Ben hated to cook.

Roxander stepped inside and called her name, but she didn't answer.

"My wife is shy," he announced to the sophisticated creature at his side. It was a blatant lie, but lying was second nature to him. He promised over and over again to tell the truth, yet when push came to shove, he always lied. He liked to joke about it: "Truth brings the world closer to you. Lying brings you closer to the world."

Don't make things worse than they already are, she thought. Don't drag my name through the mud in front of strangers! But he did make things worse. He loved making things worse. He invited the Dutch woman to sit down and told her that his wife would be back soon, without saying where she'd gone, but implying that she'd just slipped out for a moment.

"Unfortunately, all I can offer you to drink is tea," he said.

"I'd love some tea!" the woman cooed.

Melissa-still behind the drapes-balled her fists. What a suck-up, she thought.

*

Roxander offered the woman some of Melissa's homemade cookies. His guest seemed to feel completely at ease. She had a soft, inquisitive voice. She thought the tea was delicious, the cookies even more so.

"If that woman had been the least bit sensitive," Melissa said to Malik years later, "she never would have sat down." As it was, his mother had been made to feel ridiculous.

"There's something I'd like to show you," Malik's father said to his guest. He trotted off and came back with a roll of toilet paper. "In my country," he said, "we don't have toilet paper. It's such a wonderful invention, and yet it's so wasteful! Incredible, isn't it? Imagine inventing a fantastic product like this that costs next to nothing to produce, yet commands a price that verges on the hysterical. Just think of all the trees!"

The woman laughed. "So what did you wipe your heinie with?"

"Your 'heinie'? What's that?"

"Your rear end."

He laughed. "With a sharp pebble or a sheet of newspaper. Preferably yesterday's paper, but it depended on the news. A good-sized pebble is the best. A little poking and prodding never hurt anyone. " The two of them laughed.

He's definitely making things worse, Melissa thought. It's getting worse by the minute. Now he's dragged my country's reputation through the mud, and all to please a woman.

The visitor told Roxander that she was impressed by the Regime of No Color-the regime that ruled the country from which he and Melissa had fled.

"There isn't an ounce of truth in what you've been told," Roxander said. "The Regime of No Color has destroyed my country. Look at me. What's a strong, healthy man like me doing here? I didn't leave my country because I hated it."

"Maybe you left because you wanted to tell the story of your country."

"Boy, have you got your head in the clouds! My country doesn't have a story to tell. All it has is poverty and despair. Our TV broadcasts the same crap day after day."

"You must be exaggerating."

"Me, exaggerate? Who's the one who's exaggerating-the person who calls a spade a spade or the person who admires the emperor's new clothes?"

"You've picked up our language pretty fast."

Malik's father realized that talking to this woman had been a mistake. "An animal doesn't abandon its territory without reason. The territory itself must have changed in some way, wouldn't you agree? For example, the animal no longer feels safe, or isn't able to find enough to eat. Anyway, I can tell you why this animal," he said, pointing to himself, "left its territory. I was chased out of it, because I was a spy who refused to give his prized possession to the wolves."

16

"So this is where you've been."

Those were the first words Roxander Ben uttered to his wife when he found her behind the drapes. Two hazel eyes, anxious but hostile, stared back at him. "I see you've been playing hide-and-seek," he said. "We waited for you all evening."

She looked at him. "You don't have a clue, do you?" she said. She strode over to the table, snatched up the roll of toilet paper and waved it angrily in his face.

"You can put that back in the cupboard," he said. "Show-and-tell is over. You missed all the fun. She was impressed, she had a good laugh, and she was confused. Just like I wanted her to be."

"I didn't miss a single word. You came waltzing in here with a strange woman. You made our country seem ridiculous by claiming we didn't have toilet paper, and you made it sound as if we escaped from hell. What on earth will she think of us?"

"I've got a plan. But in order for us to carry it out, you'll have to put on those high heels I bought you last week."

"The red ones? What for?"

"We're going to make a baby. Who else can we tell the story of our lives to except our own child?"

"You want us to do it now . . . this instant?"

"No, when the clock strikes hickory, dickory, dock. I'm going to take a shower, and after I've dried myself off, we can get started. It'll be this century's greatest project. It'll be the best baby ever. We'll show the regime that we haven't been beat!"

If Roxander Ben hadn't added that last sentence, in which he turned the birth of their child into an act of resistance against the regime, Melissa Ben would no doubt have slapped him or cursed him or even bitten off his ear. But she was prepared to do anything to defy the regime. So she put on her red high heels.

Melissa missed her homeland too much to settle easily into a new country. She had specialized in the geology and morphology of mountains. Her country was located in the middle of a high mountain range, and she'd written her master's thesis on the transitional zone between mid-sized and high mountains. Holland didn't have a single mountain, but that didn't stop her from thinking up research projects that she'd give her eyeteeth to implement. Dutch geologists invariably ended up working for the oil industry, and one of the oil companies did in fact have an opening for a geologist. They were anxious to hire her, because they were looking for someone to do field work in the country ruled by the Regime of No Color. They promised to give her a Dutch passport so she could go in and out of the country without getting into trouble with the authorities. The oil companies worked hand in glove with the regime. Melissa rejected the offer. The very thought of it made her blood boil.

Roxander begged her to reconsider. "Once the oil starts to flow, we'll be swimming in the stuff. In money, I mean."

"I don't want to be swimming in money, not at my country's expense."

*

"Oil is oil," he said. "Nobody asks where the gasoline comes from when they fill their tank. We can use that money to send our child to a good school, to put decent clothes on its back. Can't you set aside your principles for once? We're poor. We can't afford to have principles."

"You're such a bastard," she said. "You're asking me to sacrifice everything I ever stood for."

"I may be a bastard, but at least I'm an honest one," he said. "I'm not going to sugar-coat this for you. The next few years are going to be tough. If you don't take that job, someone else will. I don't intend to be made a laughingstock forever. The only thing you need to sacrifice is your inability to face reality."

"You smooth-talking bastard! There's nothing left of the ideals you used to spout so often. Peace. Truth. Justice. They don't mean a thing to you anymore."

Roxander grabbed his wife by the throat. "I don't ever want to hear those words again," he said. "I've had it up to here with words like that. Those words have been our downfall. Words are indestructible. They never change. People do. Our entire country went chasing after a few simple words, and look what it got us: corruption, manipulation, mutual distrust and a pack of lies."

For weeks Melissa was besieged with phone calls from the oil company. "The answer is no," she said. And again: "The answer is no!" They raised the salary. "The answer is no." They threw in bonuses, added more vacation days, upped her chances of promotion. "The answer is no." Roxander could have strangled her. Instead he watched as Melissa destroyed their one chance to live a life of relative ease.

"The answer is no!"

Posted by sumayya at 9:31 PM | 0 comments    
Labels: Abdelkader Benali, Beirut39, Moroccan Literature