English Language Media Gives Us Nothing to Read On the Belliraj Trial

We usually post articles covering the latest news in Morocco. Unfortunately, the English language media isn't covering anything about the Belliraj trial that is going on in Morocco now. There are a few things in Arabic and French media outlets. The best document to address the major due process issues with the case was written by Human Rights Watch and posted on this blog a few months ago. Here is the link

A friend of mine who has been attending the trial sent me an email a few days ago with details of what was going on and all of the mishaps that in some other country might actually be cause for a mistrial. I am pasting below what my friend wrote then, the circumstances with the hunger-strikers changes daily, but the details about the case are still worth note.

_______________
An Email from a Moroccan Friend Regarding the Belliraj Trial

17 of the 34 detainees in the Belliraj case, including the 5 remaining political detainees have been on an open hunger strike since last Monday. Their demands are not that they be released or declared innocent. What they're asking for is a chance at a fair trial. The appeals process thus far has been an even bigger joke than the trial. Every single one of the defense's requests is turned down. We're not talking about big things like providing evidence or witnesses, we're not even there yet. We're still at the stage of requestion translations, little things.

I don't know if you heard the bombshell that was dropped a few weeks into the appeal. Apparently the people who drafted up the official document with the sentences were so distraught they forgot to put "In the Name of His Majesty.... " in the header, therebye, legally speaking, rendering the whole thing invalid. This could have slid unnoticed. But then, the document (now the defense all has copies of the original) was later falsified, ok let's say rectified, with the King's name on it. The defense now has both copies, proving flagrant falsification of documents.

The judge decided to disregard the whole thing.

This is one of the very small example of the violations of the right to a fair trial.

This is in addition to everything that preceded, including arrest and search without identification or warrants, torture, falsification of signed "confessions" (the detainees were made to sign 20 to 30 of what was supposed to be copies of the original, a 20 page document itself , without being given the chance to read through them. The contect was later changed and attached to the signed page).

Last Thursday, the defense team for the political detainees withdrew as a protest, and with it several other lawyers for the other prisoners. Yesterday Belliraj's lawyer announced his withdrawal too.

With all this, the judge is continuing the trial as though nothing out of the ordinary is going on. The trial was postponed form last Wednesday till Monday. The prisoners will be on their 8th day without food, one of them has already been taken to the hospital, there's no defense team... but the trial goes on.

Drying Out Morocco - The Debate Over Alcohol Consumption

Here is an article from the Economist concerning the ever returning debate about the legality of drinking alcohol in Morocco. A "dry" Morocco would be great if it emanated from a place of Faith in people's hearts - but then of course some hearts need to be guided to what is best for them.
____________________________

Alcohol in Morocco
Glug if you're not local
A row over whether alcohol should be tolerated for some or banned for all

Mar 18th 2010 | From The Economist print edition

TOURISTS may be forgiven for thinking that drinking alcohol in Morocco is legal. You can happily buy the stuff in supermarkets, bars and smarter restaurants, but Muslims, who make up the vast majority of Moroccans, are strictly forbidden to drink it. Islamists dislike this compromise—and were delighted when the mayor of Fez, the religious capital, recently suggested it could become Morocco’s first entirely dry city.

It is not the first time that the Islamists have opposed the country’s tolerant attitude. In December Ahmad Raissouni, a hardline cleric, issued a fatwa calling on Moroccans to boycott supermarkets that sell alcohol. Two years earlier Islamist politicians had been outraged by the holding of a wine festival in Meknes, a conservative city at the heart of Morocco’s wine-producing region. Columnists in the populist press grumbled that Morocco was losing its Islamic identity.

Secularists have not been silent. After Mr Raissouni issued his fatwa, a human-rights group called for the ban on alcohol to be dropped altogether, arguing that, since it does not apply to foreigners, it thus discriminates against Moroccans.

It is a touchy issue, since Morocco wants to open up to the West and make tourism one of its main sources of income. The country’s 12,000 hectares (nearly 30,000 acres) of vineyards produce 35m bottles a year and provide 10,000 jobs in a time of high unemployment. Moreover, the state is the biggest vineyard owner and benefits from taxes on wine sales. Though Fez’s city council endorsed the mayor’s proposed ban, it is unlikely to go into effect. Tolerance, for the time being, prevails.

Using and Re-Using Cell Phones in Rabat, Morocco

Here is an nice video piece on cell phones in the Rabat medina from Global Post.
___________________

Women of Morocco : Critiquing Exoticism

Here is an article from the New York Times Arts Section about the exoticism exercised upon the image of the Moroccan woman.

_________________________________________________


Art Review | New Jersey
Reviving the Exotic to Critique Exoticism
By BENJAMIN GENOCCHIO
Published: March 4, 2010


“Lalla Essaydi: Les Femmes du Maroc,” an exhibition at the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, draws attention to one of the most interesting if puzzling developments in contemporary art: a revival of exotic, often historical imagery of people from faraway places in the name of a critique of exoticism.



“Les Femmes du Moroc: Grand Odalisque”


Ms. Essaydi is a Moroccan-born, New York-based photographer who has risen to prominence for her beautiful, striking imagery dealing with the role of women in Islamic societies. But much like Shirin Neshat, Shahzia Sikander and other successful expatriate female artists from Muslim nations, she trades in stereotypes, reflecting back at us our own misconceptions and prejudices.

The current exhibition of work by Ms. Essaydi, a touring show from the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, in Lincoln, Mass., consists of 17 color photographs of Moroccan women dressed up and arranged into staged scenes appropriated from 19th-century European and American Orientalist paintings. Among her sources are paintings by well-known artists like Jean-Léon Gérôme, Eugène Delacroix, John Singer Sargent and Frederic Leighton.

The artist has scrawled Arabic calligraphy on her photographs. It is written in henna, which is used by women in South Asia and in some Islamic countries to decorate the hands, feet and body for marriage and other ceremonies. The calligraphy, loosely applied, is largely obscured by its presentation; for the most part it is illegible, even to those who read Arabic.

Though this is not a big show, the visual elegance of the works is overwhelming. They are beautiful and alluring; my immediate reaction on walking into the show was “Wow.” The impact can be attributed partly to the fetishistic and sometimes openly sexual aspects of the Orientalist originals, and partly to the decorative use of the calligraphy, which adds a pleasing patina of age.

Those who have studied art history will probably recognize several of the source images. “Les Femmes du Maroc: Grande Odalisque” (2008), showing a naked woman wrapped in a sheet on a bed, is an appropriation of Jean August-Dominique Ingres’s iconic painting “The Great Odalisque” (1819). Ms. Essaydi’s figure seems remote and unavailable to the viewer, unlike Ingres’s temptress.

While Ms. Essaydi changes her source images, stripping them of their luminous colors, removing male figures or replacing them with women, and covering up the nudity, I am not sure that she always transforms them enough. Too often her photographs look like an exercise in voyeurism, replicating rather than revising the stereotypical imagery she is working with.

Take, for example, “Les Femmes du Maroc #1” (2005), based on a Delacroix painting, “Algerian Women in Their Apartment” (1834), depicting three Arab women as slaves imprisoned in an exotic and secluded harem. Ms. Essaydi simplifies the setting by eliminating the colorful draperies and props, but her picture still retains some of the languorous sensuality of the original Orientalist painting.

My problem with these photographs is that Ms. Essaydi, by retaining the basic compositions, gestures and general style of dress of the original paintings, often leaves her women stuck in the same Orientalist fantasy that she purports to critique. Instead of changing the way in which we see Arab women, these photographs revive old-fashioned stereotypes.

“Les Femmes du Maroc #4” (2005) is an instantly striking photograph based on “The Slave Market” (circa 1867), one of Gérôme’s best and most famous paintings, which shows a slave woman having her teeth inspected by some prospective buyers. It depicts a degrading scene, the woman reduced to a piece of property. Nothing about Ms. Essaydi’s photographic copy changes this.

In the exhibition catalog, Nick Capasso, the show’s curator, argues that Ms. Essaydi presents us with images of women who are “empowered.” That’s the party line on these photographs. Sometimes I think it makes sense, as with “Les Femmes du Maroc: Grande Odalisque,” but at other times it just doesn’t work. I don’t see how there can be anything empowering about images of women as sex slaves.

No doubt the use of text on the images is meant to give these women a voice, to show them as more than just passive bodies. But given that the text is mostly illegible, it becomes just another decorative element enhancing the aesthetic appeal of what are essentially clichéd images of the East seen through the lens of Western desire.

“Lalla Essaydi: Les Femmes du Maroc,” Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, 71 Hamilton Street, New Brunswick, through June 6; (732) 932-7237 or
zimmerlimuseum.rutgers.edu.

Moroccan poet, Mohammed Bennis, wins Maghreb Culture Prize

Here is an article from the Moroccan National News Service on an award given to the Moroccan poet Mohammed Bennis. Beneath that is a poem of his that posted on Poetry International Web. You can read the original Arabic poem at this link to the PIW site.
_________________________________


Moroccan poet wins Maghreb Culture Prize

Kairouan - Moroccan poet Mohammed Bennis was awarded, on Thursday in Tunisia, the Maghreb Culture Prize in recognition of his outstanding literary achievements and poetry works.

The award was handed over to the Moroccan poet by Tunisia's President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali during the closing ceremony of Kairouan Festival in presence of several Arab and Islamic personalities.

Born in 1948 in Fez, Mohammed Bennis is a founding member of the House of poetry in Morocco, which he chaired from 1996 to 2003.

He authored over twenty books of poetry, prose, essays and translations. He was awarded in 1993 Morocco's book prize, and received the Italian Prize of Calopezzati of Mediterranean Literature in 2006, in addition to the Atlas translation Prize in 2000.

Last modification 02/25/2010 07:54 PM.
_______________________________________


from Hieroglyphs

by Mohammed Bennis


1

A ghost
You attend to the ruby time
No east will rise in you or west
A niche
Drowned in blue rustle shrouded by the Kingdom
A clay horizon
Eternity
Dangling like a bunch of grapes
For a hand that drifts away
And dies

A stone
Forgets its master
Was he
Here
Or was he there
A stone above a stone
Rises to watch you
The comer
No one
Is still awake but you

A silence attends to me
And for you my guest
There will be a night of papyri
And a night of
Ageless
Distances
Arriving in hissing scents
The night’s end
And beginning
Are identical
Friezes are becoming one
Under the feet of the river’s dusk
Intoxication echoes resonate inside me
And fade away



© Translation:James Kirkup
From: Almakane alwathani

Mosque Minaret Collapses in Meknes, Many Die

Here is an article from Reuters the minaret collapse at a Meknes mosque yesterday in Morocco.
The BBC did a photo essay on the relief attempts/reaction that can be seen here.

(( We are from God and unto Him we return ))
________________________

Moroccan mosque minaret collapses, kills 38
RABAT
Fri Feb 19, 2010 6:31pm EST


RABAT (Reuters) - A four centuries-old mosque minaret collapsed in Morocco Friday, killing at least 38 people and injuring more than 70 worshippers, hospital officials and witnesses said.



"The number of dead reached at least 38. I have this death toll from rescuers and doctors and officials at the hospital," parliamentarian Abdallah Bouanou, who is also a doctor, told Reuters from the scene.

"I counted myself 13 dead. Their corpses were pulled out of the rubble by rescuers," he added.

Local civil defense commander Alaoui Ismaili said the rescue operation was slow because of the narrow streets in the old city medina district where the collapsed mosque minaret is located.

"We are using only manpower, not equipment as we cannot bring heavy equipment through these streets," he said.

"We are moving with great cautiousness also because the walls of houses and shops adjacent to the mosque are fragile especially after the heavy rains of the past days," said Ismaili.

The state news agency MAP, citing an official provisional toll, said 36 were killed and 71 more injured in the incident.

"About 300 worshippers gathered inside the mosque for the Friday afternoon mass prayers. When the imam (preacher) was about to start his sermon, the minaret went down," Khaled Rahmouni, whose home is near the mosque, told Reuters by telephone.

The Lalla Khenata mosque minaret collapsed in the old Bab el Bardiyine neighborhood of Meknes, which is about 140 km (80 miles) southwest of Rabat.

Neglected old buildings in the old quarters of Morocco's cities collapse fairly often, but the fall of a minaret is rare.

(Reporting by Lamine Ghanmi; Editing by Jon Hemming)

Organic Farming Growing In Morocco

Here is an article from the Global Post on organic farming in al Maghreb.

___________________

Morocco's organic farming is growing

Community supported agriculture is sprouting in Morocco.

By Erik German - GlobalPost
Published: February 16, 2010 11:07 ET

SHOUL, Morocco — On a 50-acre farmstead outside the country’s capital, the scene did little to evoke agriculture on the cutting edge: Two lanky men in mud boots labored across a loamy field.

Slowly and by hand, they dropped seeds into rows of furrowed dirt. Behind them, a third man guided a horse-drawn harrow that looked as old as farming itself, covering each kernel with a layer of coffee-brown earth.

As this trio of laborers planted winter peas, they were practicing a form of agriculture that counts as innovative even in Europe or the United States. The operation is completely organic and its owner, Mustapha Belhacha, 31, has struck a deal with a group of urban families to buy his produce half a year before it comes out of the ground.

“We take the money in advance, with checks, in a way that’s truly new,” Belhacha said. “This system is more consistent, it gives us time to think about what we need to plant, what the customers want.”

Belhacha has joined what may be Morocco’s first association dedicated to Community-Supported Agriculture, or CSA. The group’s founders aim to change the way farming is done in this North African nation.

The surging popularity of organic food in the United States and Europe has been matched by a steady rise in organic farming in the developing world. The amount of land under organic cultivation worldwide has more than doubled since 2000, according to the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements, a non-profit trade group based in Bonn, Germany. According to the group’s latest survey, more than one third of the world’s 79 million acres or organic farmland are in Latin America, Asia or Africa.

Operations like Belhacha’s — in which small, organic farmers contract with local customers to deliver weekly baskets of in-season produce — make up a still-smaller subset of this number. But experts on this kind of localized, personalized farming say the model is well-suited to take off in countries where agriculture has not yet been completely overtaken by heavy industry.

“I think CSA has tremendous potential in the developing world,” said Steven McFadden, author of “Farms of Tomorrow,” and several other books on community-supported agriculture. “It doesn’t necessarily require the kinds of inputs that industrial agriculture relies on.”

The forerunners to the modern CSA model first appeared in Japan and Switzerland during the 1960s and 1970s. The movement then spread to America in the mid 1980s, starting with just two farms in rural New Hampshire and Massachusetts and growing to include more than 12,000 operations today, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department.

Now similar partnerships between consumers and growers are taking root on the temperate, cactus-lined farms of Morocco.

The founders of Belhacha’s CSA group, called Sala Almoustaqbal, began with little more than enthusiasm, a garden and a friend’s garage. Touriya Atarhouch was a biologist by profession but three years ago she decided to indulge and expand her passion for gardening. She and her husband, Najib Bendahman, with the support of several friends hungry for organic produce, started their own farm and convinced two other growers to retool their operations.

In exchange for doing so, the farmers were promised a steady salary of about $1,200 each month.

“Plenty of farmers came to us at first, saying this is super interesting, 10,000 dirhams a month is good. But what does that entail? It entails working every day, from morning to night, and all year long,” Atarhouch said. “It’s a continuous, diversified production. You’re always learning. There are always problems, so it’s not easy. That’s why we don’t have that many new farmers joining the project.”

They have graduated from handing out produce in a co-founder’s garage to doing so at an upscale school in Rabat, Morocco’s capital city.

She estimates the 100 customers in their network pay about 20 percent more for their vegetables than they would at neighborhood markets. As a result, the group’s clientele — about half of whom are foreigners, half Moroccan — tend to be educated and affluent. As the program grows, Atarhouch said she hopes to be able to offer weekly vegetable packages priced within reach of working-class Moroccans.

“Honestly we cannot help both growers and consumers at this point,” she said. “There’s less support converting to organic in Morocco than there is the U.S. and France. We have to take care of ourselves. So that means for the moment, we can only help the growers.”

Besides the steady pay, the project’s farmers cite other benefits of going organic. “Chemical fertilizers are expensive,” said Radouane Elkhallouki, who runs a farm a few miles south of Belhacha’s. “We cut costs by using plant and animal waste — which also help the land stay productive.”

The slightly higher cost hasn’t seemed to diminish enthusiasm for the project’s produce in Rabat. The waiting list to join the group is 100 families long, with friends of departing expats jostling for rare open spots.

“I have a little boy and it’s much better to give him organic than chemical vegetables,” said Saloua Mnissar, 37, who joined the group six months ago. But what does she think is the biggest advantage organic produce?

“The taste,” she said, “the taste.”

The Green Tea Forecast - Morocco Leading Importer

Here is an article from World Tea News
____________________


Market Research Firm Releases Green Tea Forecast
Wednesday, 10 February 2010

by WTN Staff

Global Industry Analysts, a 20-year-old market research firm based in San Jose, Calif., has released a report on the global green tea market predicting that it will exceed 1.2 million tons by 2015.

Rising health consciousness coupled with consumers' increasing awareness of the health benefits of green tea will drive growth in demand for green tea, according to a news release by Global Industry Analysts. It claims that China is the largest producer of tea in the world, and that Morocco is the leading importer. Europe, meanwhile, is the fastest-growing market for green tea extracts.

The full 406-page report carries a price tag of $3,950 and includes 128 tables. According to GIA, researchers culled data from primary and secondary sources. Using data extracted from online research, the report profiles 154 companies including specialty tea makers Celestial Seasonings, Vultaggio & Sons, Honest Tea, Inc., ITO EN, Numi Organic Tea, Oregon Chai Inc., Suntory Holdings Limited and The Republic Of Tea, in addition to several multinational tea and beverage corporations.

This is GIA's first report on green tea specifically. It did one other, in March 2008, on coffee and tea.

Reading Crisis Alarms Moroccan Writers

It seems that there is crisis of book reading in al-Maghreb. Maybe turning off some of the televisions might help. Just a suggestion. Oh yes, and I would really disagree with the statement that most of the books in Morocco with the best info and analysis are in English or French. But I guess it depends on what kind of information one values. Here is the article from Magharebia.com

____________________


'Reading crisis' alarms Moroccan writers

2010-01-28

Ministry of Culture data show that Moroccans read only 2.5 books per year, while 1 in 10 don't read books at all.

By Naoufel Cherkaoui for Magharebia in Raba — 28/01/10


Worried by what they characterise as a national "reading crisis", Moroccan writers recently gathered to discuss restoring readers' love of books.

Cultivating a love of books begins in school, agreed the authors who took part in the January 22nd event in Rabat.

"We believe in the fundamental role that books play in the field of education," said conference organiser Mohamed Madkouri, who also chairs a pro-education group called the Popular Childhood Movement.

"We're implementing an annual programme for reading because our focus is on the problem of children and young people's aversion to reading," he added.

Writer Mohamed Behjaji suggested that a joint effort by the ministries of Culture and Education to encourage reading in schools may help Morocco overcome the reading crisis.

"There should be an international book day in which exhibitions are organised to remind people of reading," he told Magharebia on Friday in Rabat. "Moreover, there should be a partnership between the Ministry of Culture and the Interior Ministry for helping local councils acquire books. It's also a duty to start a real dialogue on the issue of book distribution."

Behjaji said the internet had dramatically changed reading habits.

The internet is a "dilemma" in that it offers opportunities to interact with the world, but it also has "two dangers", writer Mohamed Moujahid told Magharebia.

"The first is that knowledge comes to us through [the internet] in pieces, while book-based knowledge comes within the framework of a certain context," he said. "The second danger is laziness, because we've become addicted to copying and pasting."

A survey undertaken by author Hassan Ouezzani paints a bleak picture of the state of reading in the country. Citing research conducted by the Ministry of Culture in 2001, he said that Moroccans read only 2.5 books per year, while 1 in 10 do not read books at all.

In his work "The Book Sector in Morocco: Reality and Horizon," Ouezzani researched the types of books available to Moroccans. He found that more than 27% of the total number of publications was in the literature and criticism field, while legal sciences accounted for 18.11%. French-to-Arabic translations were far and away the most numerous, which he said might point to a shortage of books originally published in Arabic.


Khaldoun Mesnaoui, who heads the New Horizon Movement to promote cultural instruction and awareness, said more Arabic-language publications need to be created.

"There is also a problem at the level of quality," he told Magharebia. "Most of the books that are rich in valuable information and in-depth analysis are published in English and French."

Mesnaoui said the family and schools played key roles in encouraging students to read.

"I think that in order to get out of the crisis that reading is now undergoing, we need to have education for citizens that makes them understand that reading is a part of their daily routines," he added.