Changes in Morocco Leave the Large Gap between Rich and Poor Unaddressed

Kudos to NPR once again for giving voice (literally) to the concerns of the poor and unemployed in Morocco. Here is a new piece about the situation in a country that has the widest gap between the rich and the poor in the "Arab world." You can hear the radio story by clicking on the link or read the transcript below.
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In Morocco, The Arab Spring's Mixed Bounty

by Deborah Amos

February 7, 2012

If you're looking for the reasons for unrest in Morocco, you can find some answers while zipping along in a golf cart at a resort in the historic town of Marrakech.

The rentals at this exclusive enclave are all five-star: large villas with extra rooms for a full-time butler and a chauffeur. There's a lake, a spa and an 18-hole golf course for the clientele — who are, it goes without saying, very rich.

"In Morocco," says Mustapha, a resort employee, as he takes a prospective client on a tour, "you have the money, you live good."
A Moroccan mother and child beg for money in Rabat, Morocco, last year. About 15 percent of the population lives on $2 a day, and the literacy rate is little more than 50 percent.


This place is called the Secret Garden. But it's no secret that the gap between rich and poor in Morocco is one of the widest in the Arab world. About 15 percent of the population lives on $2 a day. The literacy rate is little more than 50 percent and, political analysts in Morocco say, there's a lack of opportunity and lack of hope among the young.

Just a short drive from the golf course is another Morocco, one with no electricity or running water.

This neighborhood sits in the middle of an olive grove. The roads are unpaved, and the houses are made of concrete block and mud. A woman uses a branch to sweep outside her home. This is the poor Morocco.

Poverty is one of many issues that ignited protests in the region — and in Morocco. On Feb. 20, 2011, Moroccans took to the streets to demonstrate in a country considered one of the most stable in the region. King Mohammed VI moved quickly to placate the protesters by offering constitutional reforms and calling early elections.

But progress toward democracy has also revealed the limits of civil disobedience.

Desire For A Different Kind Of Monarchy

The spark came when a group of young Moroccans called for demonstrations on Feb. 20 with a YouTube video that stated their demands for freedom and equality — their motives for calling for the street march. For the first time, demonstrators were directly challenging the absolute powers of the king, says businessman Karim Tazi, who joined the protest.



"In a lot of Arab countries, the goal was a simple one — get rid of the dictator," Tazi says. "In Morocco, the situation was more complicated than that. No one wanted to get rid of the king, but they want a different monarchy, they don't want an authoritarian one."

Economist Fouad Abdelmoumni says they want a symbolic monarchy more like Britain or Spain and a parliament with powers. They want a democracy, he says, not through revolution, as in Libya, Egypt and Tunisia, but through reform.

"We have a whole generation that is emerging to politics, that is beginning to think of politics and beginning to have faith that they can lead their life and change their situation," Abdelmoumni says.

A year after the first demonstrations, reforms offered by the king are being tested. The head of the new government is an Islamist. His Justice and Development Party, or PJD, won the most votes in November elections, but the king and his advisers still retain substantial power, says Abdelmoumni, and can stall the proposals of the PJD.

"Will they be able to change the mindset where corruption and nepotism [are] the basic behavior of the state?" he asks.

That is the election promise, says Abdelmoumni, and party officials have already pledged to disclose the list of Moroccans who have benefited from a system known as grima, a French word that in Morocco means favors bestowed by the monarch.

"They will pay the price if they decide to go strongly against corruption, and they will pay the price if they don't go far enough, because the population is expecting a lot," Abdelmoumni says.


A Limit To The Changes

This population expects jobs. Unemployed college graduates protest every week in the capital. They shocked the country a few weeks ago when five set themselves on fire. Three were hospitalized and one died.

The new government's strategy is to seek economic growth and curb corruption, but Ahmed Benchemsi says that could lead to a collision with entrenched interests — the elites connected to the king.

Benchemsi, the former publisher of a popular news magazine, is now a visiting scholar at Stanford University's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law. In a visit home to Rabat recently, he explained that the monarch controls much of the Moroccan economy.

"[The king] is the No. 1 businessman in the country," Benchemsi said. "He's the No. 1 grocer, he's the No. 1 farmer, he's the No. 1 landowner, he's the No. 1 steel producer, sugar producer. ... He's a huge businessman."

And despite the new constitution, the king can still block any law he dislikes, Benchemsi says, adding that there are limits to the changes won by the protest movement a year ago.

It's a critique heard across the region from the young protesters who brought so many to the streets.

"They should have worked like a political movement," says Benchemsi. "But the thing is, the protest movement in Morocco is not a political movement. It is just a bunch of kids who dream of democracy — which is a beautiful thing, but it's not enough to shake a deeply rooted system like the Moroccan monarchy."

The demand in Morocco was to shake up the system, not destroy it. But if the government and the king fail to deliver soon, analysts say, the next confrontation could be tougher — against the monarchy itself.

In Morocco Being Unemployed is a Full Time Job

Here is a piece from NPR( National Public Radio) on the situation of the unemployed in Morocco.
Click on the link to listen to the radio piece that accompanies it if you like.
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In Morocco, Unemployment Can Be A Full-Time Job

by Deborah Amos

January 27, 2012

It is rush hour in Rabat, the Moroccan capital, and time for the march of unemployed college graduates.

They are part of a movement that has become a rite of passage. It's a path to a government career for a lucky few, even though it can take years.

"I have a degree, a master's degree in English, and I'm here ... idle without a job, without dignity, without anything," protester Abdul Rahim Momneh says.

During the Arab uprisings over the past year, political grievances have received much of the attention. But youth unemployment is also a crisis for every Arab government. In Morocco, the jobless rate is more than 30 percent for young people.

Last week, five jobless college graduates set themselves on fire to protest unemployment. One has since been reported dead. Self-immolation has become something of a trend in the region ever since a young Tunisian street vendor set himself alight in December 2010, an event that sparked the uprising there and served as a catalyst for other revolts.

Government employment is hardly a solution for joblessness, say the movement's critics. Morocco's bureaucracy is already bloated and unproductive; the huge government payroll is a financial drain, they argue.

Yet, under pressure from these protests, officials often give in, adding a few more positions. Organizers hand the government a list of the most dedicated activists to choose from.


An Expanding Movement

Every year, even more graduates swell the movement, hoping for the lifetime security and perks that come with a government job.

They gather in a park, dumping their backpacks. Each group has a slogan displayed on colored vests they wear to every march.

Mokhliss Tsouli is with the yellow group. He moved to the capital after earning a master's degree to join the protest full time. He says he protests four or five times a week. He says his yellow vest translates to the word "spark."

This permanent protest movement has become part of the landscape of the capital. It's a movement with strict rules and rewards. Organizers keep a tally. There are points for attendance and extra points for scuffles with the police. The points determine who gets to the top of the list and gets a job, Tsouli says.

"Sometimes there are students who come once a week, and they are not really activists," he says. "So we are updating the list that we will give to the government, to the decision-makers."

The country's new government has vowed to tackle unemployment. It was elected after Morocco's Arab Spring moment last year, when widespread discontent brought tens of thousands to the streets. There was no revolution, but King Mohammed VI responded with a series of limited changes.


Jobs, Not A Revolution

But don't compare that political movement with the aims of these jobless college grads, says Nasreen el Hannch.

"Oh, it's not the same. We are totally different because we are just looking for jobs," she says. "They are looking [to] change Morocco; we are not looking for change, only to find a job. So, we hope."

There's no hope the job crisis will go away without substantial political and economic change. Until then, a little social blackmail means at least some of these students will get work.

The government has already pledged to hire 20,000 more workers, but there are many more protesters, and those left unemployed would have reason to keep up the pressure.

Unemployed Moroccan Men set Themselves on Fire at Rabat Protest

Here is a short video from the Washington Post of Moroccan men protesting unemployment who then set themselves on fire. How terrible that people have to get to this point to be taken seriously.
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Five Men set selves on Fire during Protest in Morocco

Five unemployed Moroccan men set themselves on fire in the capital Rabat as part of widespread demonstrations over the lack of jobs, especially for university graduates, a rights activist said on Thursday. This video contains graphic content. (Jan. 19) (The Associated Press)

Stanford Professor and Prince of Morocco: Moulay Hicham ben Abdallah

Here is an article from the Stanford Daily about Moulay Hicham ben Abdallah, the outspoken Moroccan prince who now teaches at Stanford University in the United States.
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Professor, Prince
Wednesday, January 11th, 2012
By Natasha Weaser


Prince Moulay Hicham Ben Abdallah Al Alaoui, third in line to the Moroccan throne and consulting professor at the Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford. (Courtesy of Moulay Hicham Ben Abdallah)

Wearing jeans and a plain black sweater, he blended into the crowd of Stanford students and visitors, none of whom knew they were in the presence of a prince.


Being a prince “can be more of a nuisance than anything else. People scrutinize you and have preconceived notions like…does he wear a turban?” he joked.


Ben Abdallah, whose full name is Prince Moulay Hicham Ben Abdallah El Alaoui, is third in line to the throne of the Kingdom of Morocco and first cousin to the current King, Mohammed VI. Nicknamed the “Red Prince,” he is well known for favoring democratic reforms in Morocco and the Arab world. He does not, however, appreciate the title, stating in an interview with the French journal Le Debat that it was given to him by the same “information handlers” who nicknamed King Mohammed VI “King of the Poor.”


His unorthodox views in the conservative kingdom led to his expulsion from palace grounds by his cousin, who ascended the throne in 1999 after the death of his father and Ben Abdallah’s uncle, Hassan II.


Morocco’s Al-Alaoui dynasty has been in power for four centuries and traces its lineage back to the Prophet Mohammed. The monarchy does not tolerate criticism.


“The authorities use the restrictive press law and an array of financial and other, more subtle mechanisms to punish critical journalists, particularly those who focus on the king, his family or Islam,” states the Freedom House 2011 Country Report on Morocco.


“The monarchy is a cultural and historical symbol,” Ben Abdallah said. “This is why Moroccans are aware of its crucial role in society and push for reform instead of overthrowing the regime…but there is a deep sense of frustration and impatience.”


His decision to publicly state his controversial views in 1995 was not taken lightly.


“I thought profoundly about who I was and what my country was,” he said. “It was not easy. There were high costs, and one of them was being ostracized and even vilified.”


Nevertheless, Ben Abdallah remains an outspoken political maverick, unwavering in his support for controversial publications and journalists as well as groups like the February 20th Youth Movement.


Raised in the Moroccan capital Rabat’s Royal Palace complex, Ben Abdallah attended the Rabat American School and graduated from Princeton with a bachelor’s degree in politics in 1985. After pursuing several entrepreneurial and humanitarian endeavors, he came to Stanford in 1995 to pursue a master’s degree in political science.


“Deepening my experience and my knowledge one way or another has never been interrupted in my life no matter where I go,” Ben Abdallah said.


In his witty, yet diplomatic, manner, Ben Abdallah compared Stanford and Princeton.


“Princeton is like an orchestra where you cannot play out of note but produce great music,” he said. “Stanford is like one big rock band where everyone is encouraged to make their own sound.”


After leaving the Farm, Ben Abdallah stayed in close contact with Larry Diamond, director of the Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL).


In 2007, Ben Abdallah left his home in Princeton, where he had been living since 2002, and returned to Stanford as a CDDRL visiting scholar.


At CDDRL, he has been deeply involved in the Arab Reform and Democracy Program doing research, mentoring students, giving talks and developing the program.


“My goal is to enrich myself and my community as well as foster general understanding of the region,” he said.


Although Ben Abdallah originally intended to stay at CDDRL for two years, he eventually decided to remain longer and is now a consulting professor. This means he regularly commutes back to Princeton, where his wife, Malika, and their two daughters live.


One of Ben Abdallah’s initial research projects at CDDRL was investigating the idea that the Arab world is incompatible with democracy, which he swiftly rejected as a false concept.


“There was an underlying thesis that there was something about Arabs that makes them accept authoritarianism, and I wanted to unbundle it,” he said. “I wanted to say, look, authoritarianism is here, but this is why it’s here. The factors are not cultural.”


The Arab Spring may have surprised the Western world, but not Ben Abdallah.


“I always felt that something was around the corner,” he said. “I knew that the status quo was untenable, and that in a few of these places something would have to give way.”


What surprised him was the movement’s place of origin, Tunisia, which had a strong security apparatus. He also did not envision the movement’s diffusion and transformation into what he called an “awakening.”


Despite the optimism in the movement, he said that the future of the region is uncertain. Setbacks, reversals and failures are all likely to happen as each country faces its own particular demons, he said, but he believes the trend towards democracy is irreversible.


“This is a new generation with new values,” he said. “Fear has receded, and societies will not remain idle.”


He also downplayed fears over the rise of Islamist parties throughout the region and in his native Morocco, where the Justice and Development Party, a moderate Islamist party, recently won parliamentary elections.


“This does not mean we will see the rise of theocracies,” he said. “People are not going to resist secular authoritarianism to fall into religious despotism.”


Although Ben Abdallah has vigorously championed reform in Morocco for the last two decades, he attempts to keep his expectations realistic.


“It took hundreds of years for the West to get things on track,” he said. “It will be a messy and laborious process for Morocco, but we’ll eventually get it right.”


Ben Abdallah’s work at Stanford and in politics is not the end of his pursuits. He also runs his own foundation, the Moulay Hicham Foundation for Social Science Research on North Africa and the Middle East, founded Princeton’s Institute for the Transregional Study of the Contemporary Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia and owns Al-Tayyar Energy, a renewable energy company that processes agricultural waste in Thailand.


“I barely have free time; I am juggling,” he said. “Every time I think I cannot handle more, someone else throws me another ball to juggle.”


Although his professional and family lives are rooted in the United States now, Ben Abdallah still keeps close ties with Morocco and returns often.


“I miss the community feel,” he said. “I miss my nephews and my friends. I miss walking on the streets hearing the call to prayer and smelling the odors of spices, so now and then I need to go back home.”

Moroccan Imams Being Dismissed After Requesting Freedom of Speech

Here is an article from Deutsche Welle about ongoing protests for freedom of speech by Moroccan religious leaders.
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Moroccan Imams Call for Freedom to Preach


Tight government controls on religious preaching in Morocco has led to a surprising wave of protest among the country’s imams. The resulting dismissals of the leading dissenters has sent shockwaves through the provinces.


It's been raining steadily all morning in Boujniba, a suburb of the phosphate mining town of Khouribga. Children jump over the puddles in the potholed pavements on their way back from school for lunch and the muezzin calls the faithful to the noon prayer of Dhuhr.

Among the men in their long djellebah robes making their way towards the mosque is Mohamed Samir. Until October he was imam of this mosque. Then the government sacked him. The decision caused a great deal of outrage among the local population.

"We cried a lot over him. We cried over his being sacked. We cried because we love him because he is a great person, an important person and he was forbidden to say the truth," said a fruit and vegetable stallholder called Omar, one of the signatories of a petition for the imam's reinstatement.


Learned spiritual leader

After prayers we go to Samir's home. In his front room, books that have overflowed from the shelves are piled on the floor. From in between the titles in swirling Arabic script, the familiar forehead of William Shakespeare beams down as we sit, talk and drink tea. These days Mohamed Samir has too much time to read. And to mull over the sudden way and the reasons why the government put an end to his career as spiritual guide to the people of Boujniba.

"The pretext the ministry gave is that I preached outside of what is permitted," he said. "I spoke about bribery, problems in the administration… corruption."

He had been a preacher since 1990. Then last summer he and some of his colleagues founded the National League of Religious Employees (NLRE) and Samir became its president. The NLRE has two goals, says Samir: To improve imams' living conditions and to win more space for freedom.

Unusual protest

Samir can no longer speak his mind in the mosque. But, in principle at least, he and his fellow members of the League can say what they like in the street. And – an unprecedented sight in Morocco – they have been staging demonstrations. The main ones took place in Ouarzazate, the gateway city to the Sahara Desert where support for the League is strong and in the capital Rabat.

In October, an NLRE demonstration in Rabat was broken up by police. The government, which declined to comment on what it said was such a delicate subject, has, it would seem, been taken by surprise by the emergence of the League.

Mohamed Darif, political science professor at Casablanca's Hassan II University and a specialist in religious affairs, says the imam protest movement is something startling and quite new.

"We had come to believe that the State had succeeded in integrating and domesticating religious civil servants," he told Deutsche Welle, adding that King Mohamed the Sixth, who holds the title of Commander-of-the-Faithful, took the imams' support for granted.

"They have long been part of the State apparatus," he said. "And, through them, the monarchy has always tried to prove its legitimacy."


Tight controls

For a quarter of a century, the imams have been under close State control.

In 1984, not long after the ayatollahs had swept the royal family from power in Iran, Morocco's Hassan II, Mohammed VI's father, ruled that, henceforth, the government would write imams' sermons for them.

Since that date, every week in time for Friday prayers, all the imams in the country receive a sermon. Most read it word for word. Others use it as a guide and inspiration. And not doing so is asking for trouble. Mohamed Darif says a hundred imams have been removed from their positions for straying too far from the government-provided text over the past decade.

For Human Rights Watch's man in Morocco Brahim Elansari this is incompatible with the identity Morocco is now claiming for itself as Africa's first constitutional monarchy. He points out that Moroccans voted this summer in favour of a constitution which has now been passed into law which enshrines freedom of speech.

"But in practice," Elansari told Deutsche Welle, "the Ministry tells the imams what to say each Friday and they don't have the right to say anything else."



Fresh hope

Back at Mohamed Samir's home, the youngest son of the sacked imam brings in mint tea, pastries and Moroccan ‘m'smen' pancakes prepared by one or the other or possibly both of his… two wives. Might we meet them? The request apparently causes a bit of a flutter at the other end of the house with the two ladies apparently debating what level of head cover would be appropriate.

They finally receive us wearing niqabs (the cover that leaves the face visible). Was he, I ask Samir, what he might describe as a conservative? No he said. A conservative wouldn't have introduced me to his wives. And if he were an extremist… a Salafist… he wouldn't just have lost his job. He'd be in jail.

Samir's profile is close in fact to that of the PJD, the Islamist party usually described as moderate that won the general elections just over a month ago and which has just formed a new governing coalition.

The former preacher's main hope now is that the new PJD-led government will be more sympathetic to the League's demands and that he might even get his old job back. He's now working as a guard for the phosphate mining company:

"But that's not the job I was put on Earth to do," he said.

Author: John Laurenson, Morocco
Editor: Rob Turner

Swimming to Europe by Way of Cueta (Sebta), Morocco

Here is an article from Radio Netherlands Africa about people from Sub-Saharan Africa seeking refuge in Cueta/Sebta as a step towards reaching Europe.

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Swimming Towards the Future
Published on : 27 December 2011 - 2:51pm | By RNW Africa Desk


The refugee camp in Ceuta, a Spanish enclave in Morocco, has been facing severe overcrowding during the last couple of weeks. Again. Africans have found yet another way to get in – by swimming around the border fence. Large numbers of people make the attempt at the same time to reduce the chances of being caught.

By Lex Rietman

Dusk is falling at Ceuta refugee camp. The sun is setting early on this winter day, but there is just enough light to enjoy the view over this fortified Spanish city on Morocco’s northern coast. The town is spread out below us, with the Strait of Gibraltar to the left. On the other side of the water, the last rays of sunshine bathe the rock of Gibraltar in a golden glow. That’s where the prosperity of Europe begins – a corny Hollywood movie couldn’t have done it better.

Crisis or no crisis, Europe still embodies the hopes and dreams of millions of Africans. For the residents of the Temporary Immigrant Housing Centre (CETI) – the official name of this compound on the mountain just outside town – only half the dream has come true. After all, Ceuta is Europe but then again, it isn’t. Across the water, on the Spanish mainland, is where the Schengen area begins. There, you are free to travel, with no internal border controls. But reaching Ceuta is nevertheless a big step towards realizing the dream.

Reinforced border
In recent years, Ceuta has been turned into an almost impregnable fortress. Six years ago, hundreds of Africans managed to force their way into the city from Morocco. The European Union has responded by spending millions of euros on border reinforcement. What is more, for a few years Morocco has been actively cooperating in the fight against illegal immigration. In return, Rabat has negotiated favourable trade conditions with the EU.

All these measures, however, don’t discourage the African refugees. Ibrahim Traore, a 21-year-old Cameroonian, has been in Ceuta for two weeks now. “Around 100 of us jumped into the sea on the Moroccan side – 78 of us made it,” he says. “I was very lucky, because I managed to get here after only three months of waiting in Morocco. On the other side of the border hundreds, maybe thousands of people like me are hiding in the mountains, waiting for a chance. Some have been waiting years.” Anyone unfortunate enough to be caught by the Moroccan police is deported to Mauritania, 3,000 kilometres to the south.

Speed record
“Four months and eleven days.” With astonishing accuracy, 26-year-old Cédric from Chad tells us how long he has been in Ceuta. He must have set some kind of speed record, because he left his village “on 12 March 2011”. Cédric also arrived in the Spanish enclave across the sea, but not by swimming. With six other people, he bought a Zodiac dinghy and they managed to reach the Ceuta coast. When asked whether he is doing alright in the refugee centre, he says: “Yes, I’ve got nothing to complain about, though I do get bored occasionally.”

CETI isn’t a normal refugee centre. The centres on the Spanish mainland are detention centres under the jurisdiction of the Interior Ministry. The poor facilities and harsh treatment of immigrants regularly prompt sharp criticism by humanitarian organisations.

Sense of dignity
But like Melilla, the other Spanish enclave in Morocco, Ceuta has an open refugee centre. Residents receive an ID card and are free to go wherever they want within the enclave. Director Carlos Bengoetchea stresses the psychological importance of this approach: “It gives them a sense of dignity and of being legally protected,” he says. “Finally they have become a person again, often after years of travelling without documents, at the mercy of corrupt policemen.”


In the centre, refugees can take computer, language and cooking lessons, and it has a small, but much-used gym. The original gym was bigger, but is now being used as a dorm, out of necessity. Today, the centre is home to 700 refugees, 200 more than it was officially built to house.

Relaxed
Even so, there’s a relaxed atmosphere in the compound. “The question is for how long,” says Carlos Bengoetchea. “We’ll have to wait and see what Prime Minister Rajoy’s new right-wing government decides to do with the centre. Judging from his party’s tough stance on immigrants, it doesn’t look good.”

Moroccan Clementine Production up 6% - Export Season Begins

Here is an article from Freshplaza.com on the beginning of the citrus export season in Morocco. We already have some in our grocery store here in the US.
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Citrus production Morocco increases by 6%

The export season in Morocco has started. The season, which runs from November till the end of June, holds good promise. Sufficient rain fell during the last year (the citrus production is 70% dependent on water from reservoirs and 30% of sub-soil watehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifr) and the quantity of the production has increased by 1200 HA new plantings. According to the ministry of Agriculture the citrus production this year increases by 6% compared to the previous season, a quantity of 1,86 million tons.

The production of oranges is estimated at 975,000 tons, which is 52.3% of the total citrus production. It is expected that 496,000 tons of the variety Moroc Late (44%) and 375,000 tons (35.5%) of the Navel will be produced. The small citrus is also important in the total with a quantity of 764,000 tons, of which 509,000 tons are clementines. The new varieties, such as Nour, Nules and Afourer are estimated at 95,000, 84,000 and 43,000 tons respectively. Souss remains the most important region for the production of citrus fruit. This season a total production of 744,000 tons is expected, which is 40% of the country total. The region Souss is followed by El-Gharb with 336,000 tons, Tadla (272,000 tons), Oriental (269,000 tons), Haouz (140,000 tons) and Loukkos (35,000 tons).

According to Aspam the increase in the supply will result in an 8% increase in export. Nevertheless Morocco only exported 110,000 tons (mainly clementines) up to 1 December against 160,000 tons in the same period last year. This delay does not cause anxiety according to Ahmed Derrab, general secretary of Aspam. Also not when the traditional markets as a result of the crisis ascertain a decrease in demand. Various other contacts have strengthened in the meantime, such as those with North America, which now already obtains 12% of the export, just as the contacts with the new markets in Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland and Lithuania. The Moroccan producers look more and more to Asia, especially China, where the citrus is available in the supermarkets in Shanghai.

The general secretary also mentions that on the traditional market itself there is enough to correct "Markets like Great Britain, Germany and the Benelux have been neglected. This is because they are selling areas where Spain causes problems for us and where we could not interfere because of the lack in the growth of production" Ahmed Derrab says. He also points out that there should be more invested in the Russian market, which bought half of the Moroccan export in 2010/2011.

This season the export is expected to be 1.3 million tons, of which 200,000 tons are clementines. The remaining quantity has already been booked by the local market, where the direct consumption by private citizens is very large and profits good because other products such as apples and bananas are very expensive. Nevertheless professionals complain about the taxes levied by the wholesale market without any reason. Also the condition of the logistics is also a reason to complain. To they add there is a bottleneck between the non-structured markets and the increase of the number of agents. "Contrary to what is believed the large distribution in Morocco does not take more than 15,000 tons in total annually" Ahmed says.

Aspam mentions that demand for the current year is present, but that they hope that this will increase, especially the demand for the variety Moroc Late. The big question is what prices will do. The clementine is expected to be somewhere between 0.49 and 0.81/kg and the orange between 0.25 and 0.57/kg. Morocco expects a citrus production of more than 2.9 million tons in 2020.



Publication date: 12/20/2011
Author: Gerard Lindhout
Copyright: www.freshplaza.com

More Moroccan Women Proposing to Men for Marriage

Here is an article from Al-Arabiya, on the rising tendency of Moroccan women to express their intentions of marriage directly to Moroccan men.
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More Moroccan Women Propose to Men

Tuesday, 20 December 2011
By Khadija al-Fathi
Al Arabiya Casablanca

In conservative societies, it is always expected of men to take the initiative as far as marriage proposals are concerned and girls who decide to reverse the situation are likely to be criticized for breaking a long-standing tradition. The remarkable rise in the number of women proposing to men in Morocco has shed more light on the phenomenon and drove many to analyze the reasons for its prevalence.

“I proposed to my husband,” Naeema al-Mansouri told Al Arabiya.
Mansouri recounted the time she met the woman that later became her mother-in-law and offered to marry her son.

“We were in a wedding and I met her there. Another woman asked her how her son was and she said he found a job and was looking for a wife. I told her that I can make a good wife for her son and that I am good at cooking and household chores.”

The woman, Mansouri added, told her that she likes her and that she has no problem with her marrying her son, but said he has to decide when he gets to see her.

“I met him and he liked me. He said he would marry me provided that we live with his mother who would feel lonely if we lived away from her. I agreed and now she is like a mother to me.”

Hend, a woman in her thirties, first proposed to her future husband jokingly.
“I told him I am willing to bring a bunch of flowers and ask him to marry me,” she told Al Arabiya.

Hend added that he asked her whether she was serious and she told him that “the man who refuses to divorce his wife when she asks for it is not a man and so is the man who refuses to marry a woman when she asks for it.”

“Of course I am a man,” he replied then went to visit her parents with their family.

Hassan al-Haithami, editor-in-chief of the Justice and Development Party’s website, does not mind marrying a woman who proposes to him as long as she has all the traits he needs in a wife.

“There is nothing wrong with a woman asking a man to marry her. These are feelings and you cannot control them and decide who says what. There is nothing insulting for a woman to do that. In fact, I find it very brave,” he told Al Arabiya.

Rukaia Zayed, a housewife and a mother of four, disagreed to this breach of traditions.

“If a woman proposes to my and he agreed, I will disown him forever,” she told Al Arabiya.

Zayed explained that in this case she will discover what a weak personality her son has and how indifferent he is to the social and family norms in which he was brought up.

For sociologist and university professor Abdul Samad al-Dialmi, the rise in the number of women proposing to men is part of a female campaign to promote the principles of gender equality.

“Moroccan women are proving that they will not surrender to spinsterhood and that she has the right to tell a man if she likes him and wants to marry him because they are equal,” he told Al Arabiya.

Dialmi objected to regarding this action on the part of women as too daring and argued that society has to admit that this is one of women’s rights.
Abdul Razek al-Jay, professor of Sunna at Rabat University and member of the Scientific Circle for Islamic Studies, said that men are usually the ones who propose to women because this is what tradition has always dictated, yet there is nothing wrong with it from the religious point of view.

“Prophet Mohamed’s first wife Khadija was the one who proposed to him, yet this has not been part of the Sunnah because it is not socially common,” he told Al Arabiya.

Jay explained that Islam is the religion of equality and that is why it is the woman’s right to propose to a man if she finds in him the traits she seeks.
“The only problem would be if the woman proposes to the man because of how rich or handsome he is and without paying attention to his morals. She will in this case have fallen into the trap of imitating Mexican and Turkish soap operas that have lately invaded the Arab world,” he concluded.

(Translated from Arabic by Sonia Farid)

A Global,Quality Education for Moroccans in Morocco?

Here is an article from the Chronicle of Higher Eduction on a newish educational initiative, the International University of Rabat. The article came out a few months ago, but it seems more interesting than the recent coverage of events in Morocco.
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In Morocco, Visions of a Silicon Valley Campus
By Ursula Lindsey

Rabat, Morocco

Noureddine Mouaddib left Morocco to pursue his university studies in France over 30 years ago. He became a professor of computer science at the University of Nantes and a member of the French national council for higher education and research.

Yet Mr. Mouaddib's thoughts turned often to his native country, where, he says, emigration has remained unavoidable for those who want to pursue higher education. "In the global South, as soon as you graduate from high school, you wonder: Where will I go? Canada, France?" he says. "If you look at world rankings, there isn't a single internationally visible university in Africa, with the exception of South Africa."

Yet even as more and more young people in the region aspire to a good higher education, opportunities such as the ones he enjoyed have shrunk, he says. "Moroccan students and African students from modest backgrounds are no longer able to come to France or Europe to study. ... The door's been closed. With what they ask to get a visa—it's impossible."

It was those realizations that led him, in 2005, to envisage the creation of the first global research university in Morocco.

Mr. Mouaddib undertook a feasibility study and began talking with government officials, colleagues, and members of his country's diaspora about the need to create an internationally oriented, R&D-driven university in Morocco.

This September the International University of Rabat, here in the capital city, is set to welcome its first 200 students.

"Rather than young people traveling toward knowledge"—and finding their path littered with obstacles—Mr. Mouaddib says, "we'll move knowledge toward them."

The university is a public-private partnership. Mohammed VI, the Moroccan king, donated the 20 hectares—about 50 acres—in a new technology park on the outskirts of the city. Classes, which this fall are being held in temporary offices, will move there next year, and the campus should be completed by 2015. The university plans to have 280 faculty members and 5,000 students by 2020.

Two pension funds, one French-run, the other operated by the Moroccan government, are the two main investors, contributing over a third of the university's planned five-year budget of 1.12 billion Moroccan dirhams (about $130-million).
Moroccan Context

The curriculum has been conceived to complement government development plans and with emerging sectors in the Moroccan economy in mind.

The country is in a construction boom. In recent years, Moroccan authorities have begun major infrastructure developments focused on transportation, tourism and affordable housing. The government is also committed to developing local sources of alternative energy; plans are to have about 40 percent of the country's energy be wind- and solar-generated by 2020.

The new university has responded accordingly. "Many students can't find the degrees they want in Morocco," Mr. Mouaddib acknowledges. "We are focusing on disciplines that are new and that respond to national development needs."

In addition to business, political science, and information technology, Rabat will offer programs in renewable energy; railway, naval, automobile, and aerospace engineering (several airplane manufacturers have set up facilities in Morocco recently); and architecture and design.

Fifteen faculty members are in place for this fall, and the university plans to hire 20 more for next year, and to continue increasing the faculty ranks year by year.

The number of university students in Morocco has risen steadily over the past decade, to more than 300,000 today, and is projected to as much as double by 2015. Yet public universities here remain largely focused on humanities and social-science degrees that, critics say, give graduates no marketable skills. Morocco has only nine engineers per 10,000 people (compared with 40 in Jordan and 130 in France). The government has not yet met its goal of devoting 1 percent of gross domestic product to research and development.

Mr. Mouaddib says his standing in the academic community and decades-old network of contacts helped him get his project going quickly.

The university's faculty has been largely drawn from the Moroccan and North African diaspora. It was "something personal I wanted to do," says Mokhtar Ghambou, a professor of literature at Yale University, of his decision to help shape the Moroccan university's core humanities component. "At a certain point you feel nostalgia. You start to wonder, What can I do for my native country? To think about what you can contribute."

Many of the scholarly recruits have helped structure partnerships between Rabat and their own colleges, and have brought corporate research sponsors to the new university. Mr. Ghambou himself hopes to divide his time between Yale and Rabat.
International Orientation

In the new university's name, "the word 'international' is not rhetorical," says Mr. Ghambou. "This is a unique project. People are joining from all over the world."

Marcia C. Inhorn, a professor of anthropology and international affairs and chair of the Council of Middle East Studies at Yale, visited Rabat last year in a delegation led by Mr. Ghambou.

As part of its mission to promote understanding of the contemporary Middle East, she says via e-mail, the council is looking to collaborate with "promising partner institutions" in the Middle East and North Africa. Yale hopes to engage in student and faculty exchanges with the university in Rabat, she adds.

"Moroccan-American relations are being strengthened as well, and [the Council of Middle East Studies] wants to be a part of this hopeful moment," she writes. "Yale is currently in a major process of internationalization/globalization, and the Middle East is near the top of its lists of priority areas."

Most of Rabat's partnerships are with major French universities—not surprising, given Morocco's historic links to France. The goal is to "combine the French and U.S. systems, pick the good things from both," says Mohammed Cherkaoui, a professor of mechanical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, who will lead the Moroccan university's engineering department.

Rabat hopes to offer dual degrees with many of its foreign academic partners. Students will be required to spend two semesters abroad, and instruction is to be in both French and English.

The new university's other defining characteristic is a focus on applied research.

Morocco's ministry of energy will finance a five-million-euro (about $6.5-million) project to increase the efficiency of solar cells, says Mr. Cherkaoui, who adds that the university will make research on renewable energy "part of its identity." Rabat's corporate research partners include the engineering giant Siemens AG, the media company Vivendi, and the aerospace company Thales Group.

Alongside government and corporate-backed research and development, says Mr. Mouaddib, the university will focus on "niche" research.

"We won't produce super-high-tech products," he explains. "We'll work on products that meet the needs of the local, of the African, market. In other words, inexpensive innovations."

The engineering department has already patented three alternative-energy devices. Designed to produce power for domestic use, they are a wind turbine that will function even with very weak breezes; a light panel that shuts off automatically when it detects other sources of light; and a solar-powered water heater.

There is demand for such devices in Morocco and other African countries, where many rural areas remain off the electrical grid, says Mr. Cherkaoui. In fact, Rabat is already negotiating their commercial mass production.
Regional Ambition

The university hopes that at least 20 percent of its student body will come from sub-Saharan Africa. And it wants to offer opportunities to deserving student of limited means. It will give academic scholarships, covering the approximately $7,500 yearly tuition, to a fifth of its students, as well as help them get bank loans to cover living expenses.

Dina El Khawaga, the Ford Foundation's program officer for higher education in the Middle East and North Africa, says the university has the potential to create a "more human and more egalitarian face to the internationalization of education in Africa."

But even South African universities—by far the best in the continent—haven't had an easy time attracting students from other African countries, she notes. Rabat's administrators will have to address a number of questions: "Will they offer remedial classes? Who says Morocco will facilitate visas for students? Will scholarships be available to non-Moroccan students? What kind of institutional partnerships will allow them to reach this 20 percent [target of sub-Saharan African students]? When you are in a Dar el-Salam high school [in Senegal], what will encourage you to get up and go to Morocco?"

"Theres a whole strategy that needs to be put into place," says Ms. El Khawaga, sounding a cautious but still optimistic note."I'm really dreaming that this will be a nice initiative by a non-oil country to make a research hub in the next decade. But we have to be patient. Our expectations have to be low."

Mr. Mouaddib's vision is nothing if not ambitious. He envisages his new university as a catalyst for national and regional development and innovation, the center of a North African Silicon Valley. "Morocco can be a regional leader." he says, "given its potential, its position, its stability."