World Day Against Cyber Censorship

Reporters Without Borders is celebrating today, March 12, the World Day Against Cyber Censorship and is issuing an “Enemies of the Internet” list, naming and shaming countries where governments are restricting freedom of expression online.

Morocco has long been considered a relatively safe place for bloggers and journalists. It is no longer the case. While some major independent printed media has been shut down and journalists persecuted, forced to exile and often maliciously defamed, bloggers have been harassed, threatened and in some cases jailed for their writings.

Is Morocco an Enemy of the Internet? No straight answer to this question since Morocco is a country that cares about its image abroad, and if it wasn’t for the international mobilization and campaigns that regularly follow and highlight cases of violation of human rights and attacks on freedom of speech, I’m quite sure the Moroccan government wouldn’t bother going as far as blocking access to the Internet and censoring blogs and online news websites. But since a government cares for its reputation, there is always room for curving censorship by mounting targeted and well planned campaigns.

Threatened Voices is a website that monitors and maps cases where bloggers are being arrested, killed, or disappeared. It reports that more than half of threatened bloggers worldwide live in the Arab world. In Morocco alone, 5 bloggers are threatened, of which 2 at least are under arrest. Bloggers threatened in Tunisia and Egypt make up more that those reported in China and the whole of Europe, which goes to show that a region most commonly known as the Arab world, should most properly be called the black hole of freedom of expression online (and all other freedoms for that matter).

Yet, despite all this, people had the guts to speak up. Internet is considered a blessing in my country. Local communities are using it to improve their lives and assist the government in some areas when the latter could not or failed to deliver. In other cases people used the Internet to uncover gross abuses of power, to monitor elections, and to reveal widespread cases of corruption. Bloggers have been sharing their lives and thoughts while reporting on local news, sometimes making the news themselves, writing about, filming, or taking picture of places and people you won’t hear about in the mainstream media.

What does anti-censorship online mean? In my humble opinion it means protecting what in some countries has become the last frontier of freedom of expression, which is at the core of all other freedoms; the last place where people can still escape restrictions of oppressive regimes. It means using blogs, videos, pictures, social networks, podcasts and the innumerable tools available online to mobilize people around a cause, expose rights abuses, communicate local struggles and causes to the rest of the world, give voices to the disenfranchised and the minority groups, hold governments accountable, investigate and reveal the truth.

Homage: Howard Zinn

“What we learn about the past does not give us absolute truth about the present, but it may cause us to look deeper than the glib statements made by political leaders and the ‘expert’ quoted in the press. Class interest has always been obscured behind an all-encompassing veil called ‘the national interest.’ [...] Is there a national interest when a few people decide on war, and huge numbers of others -here and abroad- are killed or crippled as a result of such decision? [...] What struck me as I began to study history was how nationalist fervor permeated the educational systems of all countries, including our own. I wonder now how he foreign policies of the U.S. would look if we wiped out the national boundaries of the world, at least in our minds, and thought of all children everywhere as our own. Then we could never drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, or napalm on Vietnam, or wage any war anywhere, because wars, especially in our time, are always wars against children, indeed our children.” Excerpts from A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn.

France-Palestine: Lessons on Non Violent Activism

On Tuesday, January 26, 2010, I visited the glorious city of Lyon in east-central France, to attend a conference held in support of the Palestinian struggle, commemorating the end of last year’s criminal assault on Gaza. It was a freezing day. Bellow freezing. But boy it was worth it!

I met some outstanding people but most of all I learned some great lessons on non violent front-line activism.

The meeting was organized by a young local association called Resistance Palestine. An impressive panel of distinguished speakers and activists like British MP George Galloway, broadcaster and writer René Naba, University Professor and writer Jean Bricmont, international lawyer Gilles Devers and Palestinian minister Ahmad Al Kourde (via telephone from Gaza), among others, greeted the audience with some outstanding interventions.

Here are in a nutshell some thoughts and ideas heard in the conference, I wanted to share. Notes I scribbled down during my 4 hours train trip back home.

Taking the struggle into the political arena

At the very start of the conference, Abdelaziz Chaambi, co-organizer of the meeting, insisted on the fact that protests, which are at the moment operating mainly on an ad-hoc basis, should be coupled with a sustainable and more proactive effort of lobbying and institutional penetration. He deplored some short-lived experiences that sprung up during the Gaza massacre only to vanish right after the end of the assault, calling for a more concerted effort between pro-Palestinian organizations and for less selfish and self-destructive competition.

Small Steps politics and BDS

Jean Bricmont is a renowned Belgian progressive writer. He explained how in his view a “simple citizen,” enable or unwilling to take to the streets or to take major risks and go, like some chose to do, right to the front-line, right to Palestine, how this “simple citizen” who still wants to do something can still play a role in the bigger effort. Citing former American Senator James Abourezk, he explains the nature of the relationship Western politicians are having with Israel: a quid pro quo relationship pertaining more to fear of losing elections than any other proclaimed “special bond.” Based on this observation, Bricmont asserts that it is perfectly reasonable to see this relation reversed if only supporters of justice in Palestine could pressure their representatives, each one at his/her own level, to make it politically costly for legislators and decision makers to continue blindingly supporting the racist policies of Israel. A kind of micro-lobbying movement that, put together, would constitute a force to be reckoned with. It is applicable in the US, in Europe and in every Western-style democracy Bricmont says. (In this regard, I would recommend P. E. Blanrue’s very detailed and courageous book [Fr], Sarkozy, Israel et les juifs.) Brincmont then calls for the promotion of a double approach which he says is easy to apply, unrisky and effective. It involves:

First: BDS (Boycott, Divest & Sanctions)
Israel tries to ridicule the global BDS movement which it dismisses as ineffective, but Bricmont says that whatever the real impact of the movement it has an undeniable symbolic significance: it helps people emancipate from the psychological deadlock they’ve been driven into out of intimidation and fear of being labeled antisemitic, and gives them the opportunity to speak up.

Second: Small Steps
Bricmont explains that his experience shows how most of Western intellectuals and politicians from across the spectrum are fed up with Israel, -how they privately confess their helplessness in face of aggressive pressures from Israel apologists and how it is vital that steps made in the right direction should be supported and hailed, whatever small the steps might appear to be. The author deplores the lack of public support for actions in favor of the Palestinian cause often dismissed as insignificant. Don’t expect politicians to make any move, Bricmont adds, unless you guaranty them some kind of reward in return; any reward; be it symbolic.

The Legal fight

International lawyer Gilles Devers explains how unlike in Spain and the UK, the French Law doesn’t allow for an automatic issuing of an international arrest warrant following a complaint against Israeli war criminals who might be visiting the country. A complicated procedure makes the process futile. However, French or citizens from other democracies with similar jurisdictions, have the opportunity to file their complaints before the International Criminal Court (ICC). The lawyer then goes on giving a brief reminder of the history of the treaty behind the ICC that was signed but never ratified by Israel. He explains that the ICC at the end of the day “represents the will of the ratifying state parties who constitute its board.” Devers says that unless more countries supportive of the Palestinian cause ratify the ICC treaty, little can be expected from the court. Which goes to say that undemocratic Arab countries, unwilling to sign are in a way part and parcel of the impunity Israeli officials are enjoying, travelling around undisturbed.
Another field to explore is relating to BDS. Devers explains that legal actions systematically directed against companies sponsoring the occupation or investing in settlements or linked in a way or another to Israeli Apartheid, are very effective and can easily be filed before a French court (or any Western court for that matter), with a much enduring impact both politically and economically. But before going to the court, the lawyer explains that corporate targeting should always start (as a precautionary measure) by a written letter, warning the company that it is complicit of a war crime. Finally Devers says that the European Court of Justice is expected to issue in the days to come a decision on whether or not exports and imports to and from settlements built on the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967, should be made unlawful.

Viva Palestina Continues

George Galloway never loses his sense of humor. The British MP says that if Egypt has decided to ban all land convoys to Gaza, it is because the Egyptian regime learned that Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez was to lead the next convoy. Galloway says that “Mubarak would have never allowed Chavez, the greatest Arab leader since Nasser, to come to Egypt because Mubarak would have been overthrown in a heartbeat.” (Smile.) Galloway says that Viva Palestina will challenge the ban decision in the Egyptian courts. He also announces that over the next months Viva Palestina will lead more convoys to Gaza, and this time by… sea! He says that there will be ships from South Africa, Turkey, Malaysia, Venezuela, France. “We need as many ships as we can from as many countries as we can, protected by as many flags as we can. We will unload the aids in Gaza. We will fill the ships with Gazan exports. We will establish an emergency line for Gaza” says Galloway. The British MP also announces the future creation of Viva Paletina Arabia that will be based in Lebanon.

Watch parts of Galloway’s intervention in the video bellow:

Keep it Free, Fast & Fair

Network Neutrality is a Matter for All.

It is common knowledge that the freedom people have enjoyed over the Internet so far has allowed for a level of creativity and innovation, unprecedented in human history. It has opened new spaces for expression and allowed new opportunities for business.

In countries lacking transparency and democracy and where governments still guard the gates of the Internet, dissenting websites and online services have regularly been blocked or hacked into. The recent China vs. Google episode is a case in point obviously.

According to OpenNet Initiative (ONI) Morocco is one of few countries in the Middle East and North Africa with no evidence of active filtering of the Internet. In its most recent report, published last August, ONI contends that:

Morocco’s Internet filtration regime is relatively light and focuses on a few blog sites, a few highly visible anonymizers, and for a brief period, the video sharing Web site YouTube. Sites advocating for the independence of the Western Sahara are no longer inaccessible. The issues Morocco faces in Western Sahara’s push for independence (sic), the specter of terrorism, and the protection of the royal family and Islam from defamation have led Morocco to crack down on free speech and the press, but have not led it to significantly censor the Internet. As Internet users can access blocked material on other accessible sites, it is clear that Morocco’s filtration regime is not comprehensive. Relative to the region, Moroccan Internet access is relatively free, but the fact that the authorities have started to prosecute online writers indicates limited tolerance to users’ online activities.

It is clear that the battle for free expression in those countries is intimately tied to the struggle for human rights and democracy in general and that the apparent “tolerance” vis-à-vis Internet access has no guaranties attached to it as long as the system of governance in those authoritarian regimes is not fundamentally changed. At least in those countries the players (government vs. the public) are out in the open and the stakes are clear.

The battle for a free Internet is fought elsewhere.

More worrying and more insidious are the efforts in western democracies by interest groups and lobbyists with enough money to pressure decision makers and allow a reshaping of the network so as to benefit the “gatekeepers.” Even more so in the US where Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have the ability and the incentives to control the free access to the network. The risk being, if the ISPs succeed in curving regulatory rules in their favor, to foreclose most of the innovation and creativity that most benefit from with a broadband service that is free, fast and fair. The service providers though control what we do, what we see, with what quality and what speed.

The debate over Network Neutrality has emerged in the US 6 years ago when the previous American administration started deregulating broadband companies and taking away most of the consumer safeguards. It’s a debate about monopoly vs. participatory, corporate vs. consumer’s choice.

If you consider this to be a local US issue then consider this paper by academics from the Internet Governance Project who work on global governance and Internet policy:

[It's about] the right of Internet users to access content, services and applications on the Internet without interference from network operators or overbearing governments. It also encompasses the right of network operators to be reasonably free of liability for transmitting content and applications deemed illegal or undesirable by third parties. Those aspects of net neutrality are relevant in a growing number of countries and situations, as both public and private actors attempt to subject the Internet to more control. Because Internet connectivity does not conform to national borders, net neutrality is really a globally applicable principle that can guide Internet governance.

There have been instances when Internet Service Providers did use their dominant position to block content that threatened their economic interests:

[T]here are, unfortunately [...] cases where network operators have censored speakers who threatened their economic interests. In 2007, for example, AT&T muted the sound during a webcast of a Pearl Jam concert at the very moment Eddie Vedder, the group’s lead singer, started criticizing George W. Bush. Verizon, to cite another example, has blocked pro-choice text messages sent by naral to its members (who had even requested them). When activists objected to the decision, Verizon said it would block messages from all “issues-oriented” groups, then later apologized for the whole mess, blaming the initial decision on a “dusty internal policy.” Nevertheless, it kept the policy in place–reserving the right to censor any content “that, in its discretion, may be seen as controversial or unsavory.”

Jeffrey Rosen in The New Republic

[I]magine if this sort of blocking happened online, in the heat of a political campaign; even a brief delay could have a big impact in that context.

Derek Slater, Policy Analyst for Google Inc. to Global Voices.

The safeguards, scraped during the Bush years in 2005, are now in the process of being reestablished. The US’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has started a process to restore some of the rules that prevented powerful ISPs from controlling the network and harming consumer’s choice. The decisions and conclusions of the FCC are very critical to all Internet users around the globe. An active grassroots campaign is underway to pressure the FCC to reach the right conclusions in support of net neutrality.

Perhaps the most striking analogy is the one made with the way cable television has evolved and works. If nothing is done to preserve network independence and neutrality, the future of the Internet might look like this:

For further resources see links and videos bellow.

_________

What’s Open Net

Debunking the Corporate Myths on Net Neutrality

Keep the Internet Awesome

_______________

Further links:

Hey FCC, keep the Internet open — and awesome!
Debate on C-Span over Network Neutrality.
The Open Internet Coalition – a US coalition of NGOs as well as companies that support network neutrality.
SaveTheInternet.com
“Squaring the Net” resources on network neutrality.
Net Neutrality At Home Is Key to Promoting Democracy Abroad,” by Marvin Ammori, Free Press
Net Neutrality or Net Neutering: Should Broadband Internet Services Be Regulated by Thomas M. Lenard

Shooting an Elephant

To Shoot an Elephant is a documentary by Alberto Arce and Mohammad Rujailah. They both accompanied a group of foreigners who managed to stay embedded with the Palestinian Red Crescent ambulances during the 21 days of Operation Cast Lead launched by Israel against the besieged Palestinian people of Gaza exactly one year ago. The assault started in December 27th, 2008, and lasted until January 18th, 2009. Horrific days of endless bombardments, random sniping of children, women, elderly, rescue workers – bombings of civilian areas, hospitals, ambulances, schools, mosques, UN headquarters that resulted in the killing of over 1,400 Palestinians, almost entirely civilians and the death of 13 Israelis. A global screening of the film was organized around the planet commemorating the first anniversary of the end of the assault.

The title is a reference to George Orwell’s essay during the years he was serving the British Empire as a police officer in Burma. Orwell’s witnessing of the horrors of imperial rule, the murderous absurdity that it entails, the level of human raw feelings of injustice that invariably transform into hatred, still holds to this day.

Two hundred and forty screenings were held in different communities around the world. I attended the one organized in Paris by Clement and Julien from Regarde à Vue, a group of socially engaged activists who advocate the free diffusion of citizen generated media. Their work is entirely under Creative Commons and they regularly share and exchange experiences and conduct workshops in different communities noticeably in Palestine where they are helping make video, a tool for expression as well as resistance. By the way they will be going to Dheisheh near Bethlehem soon and are asking people who might be able to help, to donate video cameras through their association to young would-be Palestinian citizen reporters there.

The Film is a slap in the face. People are justifiably moved by images coming from disaster-stricken areas of the world like Haiti hit by a horrific earthquake lately, but I guess the emotion is taken to a new level when the disaster is so conspicuously man-made, unjustifiable (indeed illegal), and avoidable. An overwhelming sense of anger together with feelings of injustice, helplessness and shock makes the experience even more compelling and engaging. I, for one, feared that the film would drift too much into a mere pornography of death and misery. I also was anxious to see whether the film would end up preaching for the converted. All in all it is a real, unformatted, unmanicured eye witness account about what really happens when ordinary people got bombed and collectively punished whether in Guernica, in Warsaw or in Gaza. And although, for the sake of preserving human dignity, I might have some contention about where the limits of filming agonizing people and dead bodies should lie, I still want to believe the film respected the suffering victims it happened to film.

In Poitiers, central France, over 80 people gathered to watch the film thanks to Sylvette from Comité poitevin France Palestine.

In Morocco the documentary was screened in Ecole Hassania des Travaux Publics.

More screenings are getting scheduled.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

Reflections on an exceptional year

I haven’t been updating these pages lately as often as I would’ve liked, and there were certainly so many things that happened last year that deserved the mention. I don’t want to go through the ritual listing of ups and downs as I used to, but I wanted to write down some short thoughts that come to mind at this moment in time, so as to fix and prevent them from evaporating as we supposedly turn a page and start a new year afresh.

First Thought
Beirut: Touching the Levant
The funny thing about me putting my feet in a region or a country for the first time, is this recurrent urge that props up one’s conscience and senses so that they’re forced into full capacity in order to grasp the magic of the moment: every smell, every feel counts. This often causes me insomnia and proves to be a rapidly exhausting experience. Beirut is no exception. What a wonderful city. I visited Beirut last December as I was attending the second Arab Bloggers Conference to which I had the privilege and honor to be invited, thanks to Global Voices, and where I met wonderful and inspiring “beebull” (people). We visited the city mostly by night. From the little aspects of the city’s life that I got to watch, mainly in the Hamra district, it reminded me of Casablanca: the same modern vs. traditional contrast, the same agitated nightlife, the same chaos, the same foolish driving habit, the same omnipresence of fast food and the same obsession with food in general. Only in Beirut I sensed a much bigger appetite for life: peace is so elusive and life too short not to be passionately enjoyed I suppose. Women are also seemingly more visible in the streets, bars and restaurants. Whether veiled or not, women here seem definitely more emancipated. Also, you wouldn’t in a lifetime find in any bar or café in Casablanca a menu reading:

More than a café, it was envisioned [back in 2006] as an open cultural space where all could come to socialize, read, meet, surf the net, and discuss issues of the day. t-marbouta was set to open on July 2006, but the outbreak of war that summer prompted a change of plans. The café instead transformed itself into a relief center and a hub for volunteers who came together to provide assistance to those displaced by war. This experience only enriched the original idea and teh quickly turned into a social space. From the the beginning t-marbouta has sought to be politically and socially engaged. We encourage the boycott of all goods that benefit Israel and try to maintain reasonable prices in the ever-gentrifying Hamra. –the anti-management.

Menu of a Café downtown Beirut, in Hamra district, called t-marbouta تاء مربوطة

Which goes to show how much politics, history and activism are present in the life of a city that was once the Pearl of the Levant, torn by war, violated by Israeli invasion then criminal bombardments, and that may look banal at the surface today. But a city that, with all those flickers of light and beauty put together, had made many of us fall in love with it instantly.

Second Thought
Mohammed VI: Falling from Grace
After a decade of reign, it became clear during 2009 that the Moroccan regime is not going to depart from past repressive policies. People are being jailed for their political opinions, journalists for their writings. Foreign publications have been repeatedly banned, bloggers harassed and imprisoned, cases of torture and unlawful arrests been reported. What worries me most is this distant, disinterested attitude of the Moroccan king. An apparent detachment that would have been healthy in a genuinely constitutional monarchy where the monarch contents himself with an honorary role. But when the king is supposed to be the autocrat, one wonders who really is in charge. Arguably the king still benefits from a large popularity as shown by a poll conducted earlier last year and subsequently banned, because deemed illegal. But his apparent indifference in the face of repeated attacks on freedoms and human rights, supposedly conducted by his conservative entourage, has inexorably sealed the rupture between him and a progressive and liberal base, mostly young, cosmopolitan or living abroad, which we might now call the Ninepercenters, and that could have given his reign a salutary support and nurtured his image. We rather ended up with a repressive plutarchy, repeating the same recipes of the past.

Third Thought
Najib Akesbi: Renaissance Man
Thanks to Cap’Dema, a young and very active Moroccan association based in France and led by progressive activists, some of them brilliant bloggers, I had the unique opportunity to meet Najib Akesbi, the respected and much admired founding member of the PSU party (Parti Socialiste Unifié) during a conference held in the SciencePo institute in Paris. The man is an inspiration and it was interesting to see the contrast between Akesbi’s honest and clear-cut discourse and reading of the situation in Morocco, and that of an opportunist like Nabil Ben Abdellah, a supposedly journalist by training, so-called ex-communist, previous communication minister and who also was in the panel. Parts of the conference can be watched on YouTube.

Fourth Thought
Talk Morocco: Giving Voice
It’s been long overdue, but now it’s there: an edited forum for bloggers, journalists and authors who populate the media landscape in Morocco. A place where they can all come together and discuss a given subject related to Morocco. With Jillian C. York, we’ve been presenting the project in the second Arab Bloggers Conference in Beirut where much of the feedback has been positive. Criticism focused mainly on the fact that we were using English as the primary language for the site’s front page. We have since been working on translating the site but we also realized that some manpower was needed and have since launched an appeal for volunteer translators. Considering mounting restrictions on freedom of speech in Morocco, where now journalists and bloggers can be put in jail for their writings, any platform that would allow for more space of expression and that would bring those energies and individualities under the same roof, seems needed even more today than ever before. Since Talk Morocco has been designed as a collaborative, and to some extent a user generated project, we hope that it will strike a chord with the ever growing audience interested in everything that relates to Morocco.

Fifth Thought
Mubarak: Epitome of Disgrace
As the world commemorates the first year anniversary of the criminal assault on Gaza, I can’t help but feeling disgusted by the attitude of the Mubarak government. My most cherished hope for the new year is for that one regime to be suppressed. Maybe then all the other stooge Arab regimes can be toppled once and for all for the sake of humanity. My heart goes out for the people of Gaza and the Palestinian people as a whole.

Final Thoughts
Good Reading
I’ve come across some wonderful books at the end of last year but never really had the opportunity to read them. So here is my top three books recommendation for the new year:

Bareed Mista3jil: True Stories collectively written by anonymous authors
A unique collection of short stories from people of “non-conforming sexualities and gender identities.” The book gives voice to queer women in Lebanon, a community seldom heard of in our region of the world. Touching.

Master and Disciple: the Cultural Foundations of Moroccan Authoritarianism by Abdellah Hammoudi
It’s not an easy read given its very academic style but it is worth the effort since the book disentangles the historical constructs and cultural frames that led to contemporary structures of repression in Morocco. Powerful.

The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappe
A forensic historic account, supported by impressive archival evidence, of the Zionist scheme in Palestine. A masterpiece.

Global Voices: Deconstructing the Stereotypes

I remember when back on Tuesday, September 11, 2001, I was sitting in front of my TV screen, watching in sheer horror the images of the Twin Towers burning and then collapsing in a cloud of dust and death. I was in Casablanca, Morocco. At the time I was finishing my medical studies writing a memoir, which, as the sole professional activity I had, allowed me plenty of time to socialize and spend whole evenings with friends in different cafés of the city, mostly gossiping and talking politics. But that particular evening was special. We gathered as usual at Café Al Khayma, on Ghandi street. That night I saw how reason can be so rapidly swept away even from the most liberal minds, when the rhetoric, fueled by shocking images, supports a stereotyping propaganda. An additional shock was added to the horror of the attacks themselves: there was no more universal values, no more shared humanity… it was US and THEM. And you can imagine the feeling of emptiness and sorrow in one’s heart when you have no idea what comes next, and when you feel that the world has, by tacit common agreement, decided to enter into an era of hate and darkness.

I knew there were people out there still clinging to reason. But where to find them?

Watching mainstream media wasn’t going to help. Misinformation, disinformation, twisted realities, misconceptions, diatribes, bias… it’s all there. In an era when most media outlets are getting more and more concentrated, serving state or private interests, truth gets lost in the mayhem of violence and stereotypes.

You then realize that to get the news and deconstruct the stigmatizing and polarizing speech (from all sides) and get to know other peoples better, you’ve got to go out there and seek the information, strive for it and get it from and by real people. Doing it in the real world is the better way I can imagine, but it takes time, may cost a lot and is not always feasible.

There you realize how much Internet is a blessing. Back at the time (2001) the net, although having the potential to bring people together, and although some patterns of social media were starting to emerge, wasn’t ordered enough to offer the alternative. But then blogging was invented and bits of news from personal points of view started submerging the web. But then the question remains: how to read through this mass of information? What is reliable?

Global Voices (GV) offered me a convincing answer. The founding idea was both simple and brilliant (at least as I understand it): tell the story of ordinary people, by ordinary people. The organization is celebrating it’s fifth anniversary this year, and since it started, it has helped convey the voices of many bloggers of different background, from every corner of the planet, covering regions and events seldom considered newsworthy by traditional news outlets. Since I joined GV back in April 2009, my life has literally transformed. Beyond the fact that I have become addicted (happily) to social media activity, and beyond the fact that it has helped me meet wonderful people, it also helped me somehow find inner peace, in the sense that it offered me the proof that people are so the same!

There are so many stories out there, posted on GV (this year alone), that help illustrate that fact. Take the story posted by prolific Diego Casaes on violence against women in Brazil for example, or Onnik Krikorian’s coverage of bloggers’ harassment in Azerbaijan.

Blogospheres and social media at large covered by Global Voices are wonderful realities to study and follow. Indeed, I think they are the most important and exciting ongoing human sociological phenomena since… I don’t know… the invention of the telephone? These are personal stories from around the world, shared opinions, sorrows, and joys debunking the most vicious arguments that kept people apart based on their cultural, religious, skin color or ethnic differences. People are literally recording a corpus of contemporary human history, not by experts, nor by any other intermediaries: news and history written by the people for other people.

Ech Chenna: a Princess of Hearts

“I had just come off of maternity leave. This young girl (a single mother) was in an office near mine breast feeding her baby. The social worker came in, gave her a piece of paper to sign and pulled the baby away (to be placed in an orphanage or up for adoption). I remember the time: 5:30 p.m. I couldn’t sleep that night when I got home. I said, ‘This has got to stop.’ I could feel her pain.” Aïcha Ech Chenna, founder of Solidarité féminine.

I was a young medical student and it was only my second year as a trainee when I was first assigned to the obstetric ward of Ibn Roshd Hospital (Maurice Gaud) in Casablanca. I was impressed, maybe even scared, like most of my young colleagues, by the sheer chaos in the ward and the huge amount of activity and number of women who needed help. And amongst those patients were the youngest who were noticeably scared. One could see the despair and horror that the distortions due to the pain of pregnancy labor could hardy conceal from their faces. I was later told that those young mothers were in fact unmarried; that they were “b’nat l’hram,” or illegitimate mothers.

We heard terrible stories about some unwed pregnant women being rejected from clinics by doctors or nurses, and about newborns being abandoned near the gates of hospitals and clinics, and we saw those same abandoned babies and infants (“ben X” they were called, or “son of X”) being brought to the maternity unit, malnurished and dehydrated.

To be fair, those women were reasonably well treated, though one could sense the coldheartedness with which their cases were addressed. It was then that I first heard of organizations like “Solidarité féminine,” “Association enfance espoir Maroc” or “Bayti,” and of wonderful people like Aicha Ech Chenna who took upon themselves the burden of helping those young mothers and abondened children, in a society that continues to put the responsibility of extra-marital relationship, mainly on women. A terrible stigma that only people like Ech Chenna might help erase.

Morocco: Back to Square One

“As you prepare for the Forum for the Future in Marrakesh next week, we’d like to bring to your attention a sharp spike in government repression in the host country, Morocco. The Committee to Protect Journalists, has documented an aggressive crackdown on independent news outlets and journalists that has occurred over the last five months and has included judicial harassment, politicized prosecutions, obstruction, and censorship.” Open letter to Secretary Clinton, from the Committee to Protect Journalists, October 30.

Morocco will be hosting this week the ostentatiously dubbed, “Forum for the Future in the Broader Middle East.” A kind of Davos of the southern shore of the Mediterranean where ministers of foreign affairs, representing unelected, unpopular heads of states, will chat with the Americans, as good old friends about the future of a region stupendously strategic for the world.

Earlier, Clinton, in a clear departure from her previous administration’s stated policy, praised Israel for what she considered “unprecedented” concessions by the Israeli premiere. She just landed in Morocco, a country that I expect she will praise for “unprecedented” democratic achievements.

Two major international NGOs defending freedom of speech worldwide (RSF and CPJ), have, in an honorable move, sent an open letter to the U.S. Secretary of State urging her to put pressure on Moroccan authorities. But in a world of up-side-down logic and political intrigues, there is little hope Clinton would be bothering her Moroccan hosts. At least not so much as she has been “pressuring” her Israeli hosts on the settlement issue.

In the last 5 months, the Moroccan government has been waging a war against independent journalists, clamping down on what was once considered, the most vital, irreverent and challenging independent media in the region.

Bar(a)ka! (This must stop!) say Moroccan microbloggers who have been quick to react to their government’s repressive move.

Ben Barka’s Nightmare

“Once upon a time, there was a Sultan who had a beautiful elephant, whom he adored. Much to the dismay of the local population, the animal wandered freely in the city of Fez, causing every day, enormous damage. Gathering all their courage, the people of Fez decided to send a delegation to the palace to present their grievances. On its way, the delegation lost most of its members. All but two daring delegates, who courageously came before the Sultan: “Majesty, you own an elephant so charming that the people of Fez are happy to offer it the company of a female.”

This is a story, reportedly, the late internationalist Moroccan opposition leader, Mehdi Ben Barka, liked to tell his young comrades (see page 299 of Gilles Perrault’s Notre ami le roi -Folio – 1990), whilst teaching them the merits of democracy and freedom.

Mehdi Ben Barka: a Spirit that Refuses to Die

With an unflinching belief in the future, Ben Barka’s generation, inspired by an international drive for emancipation, helped pull the country from its feudal past, and, bearing tremendous sacrifices, despite a reluctant and brutal regime, helped plant the seeds of a modern state.

Forty four years after his abduction in Paris, which anniversary we’ll be commemorating tomorrow, needless to say that the elephant still tramples on the holy mess of Moroccan public and political life, with even more damage than what ever Ben Barka could have envisaged.

What started as a benign transition toward a brighter, liberal and free Morocco, looks now more like a cheesy play, where protagonists, stuck in an empty theater and exhausted by a boring story that repeats itself again and again, try to convince themselves that their master will end their torments one day. But this never happens.

On a weekly basis, journalists are being dragged before judges, handed down prison sentences, financially asphyxiated and treated like criminals. During the dark era when Ben Barka and later on, leftists were tortured or put to death, there was at least one man in charge. Hassan II was a cruel despot, no doubt, but at least he didn’t lack neither presence, nor charisma, nor ingenuity in crime. Today, the feeling is of a shady group of powerful and privileged, who are pulling the strings, lurking in an inner circle close to the king, who seems to be the last one to know when his own subjects are beaten up in his name. Giving way to an insidiously dangerous perception of a ship without a captain.

And whilst the truth about the assassination of Mehdi Ben Barka still is one of the most guarded state secrets, the spirit of the man will keep haunting us, inspiring generations upon generations of Moroccans who no longer want to be considered as mere subjects of his majesty. Citizens who have the courage to point at the elephant and say: this is wrong!