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!

{Fake} Interview with Ben Ali

Exploring the Archetype of an Arab Dictator’s Mind

What is the point of conducting an election, like the one run in Tunisia today, when the results are known in advance? And why Ben Ali, like all other Arab despots, cling to their position so shamelessly and ferociously, when the world knows exactly how ruthless and rogue their regimes are? I wondered: If I put myself in an Arab dictator’s shoes for a moment (as disgusting as the exercise may sound), like say, Ben Ali’s, what would I think?

In an exclusive interview, and a rare moment of openness, President Ben Ali accepted to answer my questions, and believe it or not, the man was sincere:

Question: Mr. President, why are you so adamant to stay in office?

Zine El Abidine Ben Ali (ZABA): I’ve been running this country for some time now. I conducted a successful and peaceful coup in 1987. A coup is always dangerous you know: it could have failed and I could have been hanged. This gives you the feeling that you own the office considering the risks you’ve taken to get into it in the first place. This is a pattern you’ll encounter throughout the Middle East. I mean, if you take Morocco for example, it is true that the king doesn’t reach leadership through a coup, but by mere virtue of birth, but the whole dynasty at one moment in time, had to overthrow another one, and has since instilled the culture of ownership of land and people throughout generations: the idea that a throne grabbed violently, must at least provide to its owner the right to have the privileges of reign and governance. I put my life at risk in order to get this job. And a job you put your life at risk for, must reward you with at least a long term mandate. And while you’re in your position, you’re not only thinking of keeping the position for the sake of keeping it, you sincerely want to build something good for your country. You want to make history. So you sincerely think you need to have total control in order to fulfill the ideas you’ve been planning, and projects you’ve been secretly contemplating for so long. And then you sincerely have to muzzle opponents who don’t know a damn about how sincere you are. The problem is, ideas and projects need money, and money brings accountability, and accountability means questioning everything, including my sincere actions and legitimacy, and this I cannot take, since, as I say, staying in power is paramount for people like me. When you’re in that state of mind, notions like democracy and separation of powers become dangerous. As a matter of course, they cannot be tolerated, although it is necessary to keep a façade-opposition which would provide a showcase for the regime’s Western constituency. We have developed techniques in order to get to that result that it would take hours to explain.

Q: This is maybe the psychological aspect of the devotion you’ve developed, Mr. President, for your office, but are there any more worldly considerations?

ZABA: Power as you may know, comes with privileges. And during the 22 years I’ve been in power, I, and my collaborators, inexorably, gained profit from this position. You might accuse me of power abuse. I’d say, I’m a human being: power corrupts. I know what my regime is: a dictatorship. I know it isn’t sustainable and that sooner or later, I might have to face a challenger who might be in the same state of mind as me, when I first came to power. So a man in my position needs an insurance. What’s more, a regime like this is encircled by opponents, and the only way to preserve it, is to be surrounded by unprincipled but disciplined lieutenants. Throughout history, the only way to seal the loyalty of such praetorian guards, was by making them share the benefits and crave for getting closer to power. This, again, needs money, and the people are the ones who must pay for it. Progress (economic that is) also guaranties peace and stability, and that comes through business. You may think then that liberalizing the economy might bring wealth, that in turn would trickle down to the whole population, hence insuring the stability of the regime itself. But allowing for such a free market to prosper and spontaneously produce ultra-rich and powerful people, is in itself a threat to my position. I can’t afford to lose leadership, political, economical or intellectual… So I also must take position, a dominant one, in the market. Greed also plays a role, but as I say, loyalty is paramount for me, so when I learn that a Trabelsi [Ar], a high ranking military or security officer has embezzled to his own use, public money, or fraudulently acquired a property, I just look the other way. This is the price I know I have to pay to insure devoted and loyal associates.

Q: A final question Mr. President. Do you understand the concern of your people and their calls for democracy, and do you at least empathize with those who suffer from your regime?

ZABA: I understand that somebody in a socially subordinate position, would call for democracy, the only way for him to better his share in life. But you’ll understand that this is not an option for people like me. There is too much money, power and privileges at stake for me and my surroundings. I’ve created a regime where, keeping me in power for the longest time possible, has become a vital necessity for all those who have stolen and accumulated under my watch. To the point that if tomorrow I decided I wanted to quit power and establish genuine democracy, those same privileged might attempt to overthrow or just eliminate the threat that I would have become. Yes, it is sometimes a question of life and death. As for the people, the disenfranchised, there ain’t much ways about it: If they want power, they must get it. By all means, this won’t happen with people like me staying in power. We’re not the kind of rulers to reform or evolve. We are ourselves trapped in this hideous system we created.

Blog Action Day: Reclaiming Air and Earth

When I set about to write a post under Blog Action Day, which this year focuses on climate change, I wanted to do so through a personal experience. Whilst the following, I have to shamefully admit, has only partially something to do with climate change per se, it is an account of my genuine acquaintance with an impending global problem, getting closer to home.

After a ten month absence, I landed on Casablanca airport where the sky was wonderfully blue. I almost forgot how warm and agreeable the sun was at this time of year. It wasn’t exactly the suffocating heat of the Moroccan summer nor was it the feeble warmth of northern Europe’s nascent fall. The Moroccan clement whether wrapped me with a welcoming embrace that plunged me back, almost instantly, to a place I felt perfectly fitting into, as I made my way out of the cabin and into the newly built corridor inside Terminal 2.

As I walked toward the customs my eyes were caught by a series of glistening posters, venting the merits of some gargantuan resort projects set to be built along the cost of the Atlantic. “Mazagan Beach Resort: The immensity of the ocean, endless beaches, sweet-scented gardens and in a life-sized presentation box” said one of the billboards. On a marvelous picture on one of the posters, you could enjoy the immensity of the would-be golf, dotted with aggregates of small houses and swimming pools, in the middle of which emerge impressive hotel buildings. I knew the place. The Hawzi’ya forest, north of the city of El Jadida, the city where I used to live and where I was heading to visit my parents. In the face of it, I thought this was great: new job opportunities, great source of money that would get the local economy rolling again.

I stayed for a while in Quartier Maarif, the commercial district that spreads in the shadows of Casablanca Twin Towers. I like the place and can’t come and visit the city without stopping there. I love the cafés and the human energy that breaks out of the general chaos that appears to inhabit the place. But I couldn’t imagine that the levels of congestion, noise and air pollution would have reached such alarming levels.

A couple of days later, heading south toward El Jadida, I was struck by the speed with which the landscape appears to be changing. Constructions appeared to be mushrooming everywhere. And, a couple of kilometers before entering the long and magnificent El Jadida access avenue, there, an unfamiliar skyline emerged from the distance, right along the Hawzi’ya beach, where I expected to contemplate the expanse of the once thick and green forest.

As I drove close-by, I could see a long, delicately engraved wall, running along the road, encircling what appears to be a construction site, where workers could be seen between the looped edges of the fortress-like wall, frenetically digging, assembling stones, watering gardens and newly planted plants.

Along the wall, large banners attached to high posts read “Kerzner International,” “Mazagan Beach Resort.” The site runs for long distance and stops right in the middle of a wide naked field where once stood an abundant grove.

A couple of miles south, I drove by the Club Med and its guarded entrance, and the Golf which snakes across the southern end of the Hawzi’ya forest, right beside the beach.

I eventually entered El Jadida, where I stayed for a couple of days. It looks like most of the talk in the city was about the new resort project, set to be inaugurated by the king himself on October 15, and about Brad Pitt -I kid you not- allegedly acquiring a home in the site. Most people I talked to, thought the project was a good thing for the city. But some issues kept recurring though. First the effect the water-thirsty resort was having on the city’s water supplies and second, the loss of large parts of a forest that is believed to be at the core of a fragile and complex ecosystem that allows for the gentle and warm local climate to sustain itself. That added to the ever expanding Industrial Zone, notorious for its polluted air, filled with greenhouse gases, emanating from agro industrial factories and spreading in the outskirts of the city. Not to mention the phosphates processing plant in Jorf Lasfar, in the south. Whilst the economic benefits of the resort and all other job creating factories were mostly acknowledged, one could feel the unease with regard to the way such gigantic projects, now spreading across the country, were alloted with little regard for either the local population’s basic needs, nor the ecological impact they might have.

But the haunting question remains for developing countries like ours, on how we can hope for economic progress without damaging the environment or impacting on climate. It appears that the whole country took a pass on sustainability, obsessed as it is by economic growth, at any cost.

Morocco is regularly afflicted by severe phases of drought. Paradoxically last month, the country experienced an unprecedented flooding that has struck the countryside, damaging crops and exposing much of the defective sanitation infrastructure in the main cities. This capricious and no longer predictable climate, to some extent, has brought the question of climate change, an issue that looked remote so far, to the popular level, although not to a level this would represent a major preoccupation, having to compete with more earthily (forget the pun) concerns.

In the meanwhile, the sight of the Hawzi’ya forest being literally uprooted, left an enduring pain in my heart. No longer will I enjoy the reseeding scents of wild flowers, or the shades of an unacquired tree in a wild field, only a couple of miles north of home. Or maybe should I just resign to an inexorable reality?

Fasting or not Fasting: That is Not the Question

If you fast; if you don’t fast, I don’t see any problem with that. We are all Moroccans. Keep your religion pesonal!

For more on the MALI movement of protesters who braved the ban on public eating during the month of Ramadan in Morocco, punishable by up to 6 months in prison and heavy fines, please visit Global Voices Online.

Morocco: Visa-Vie

“We no longer want an immigration that is inflicted (on us) but an immigration that is chosen, this is the founding principle of the new immigration policy I advocate.”
~ Nicolas Sarkozy

Aicha’s death wouldn’t have attracted much attention -it wouldn’t have caused so much horror and dismay if it couldn’t have been possible, if not to save her life, at least to assist her and ease her pain, and if the Moroccan authorities had delivered on the duties that every reasonable citizen expects from his or her government, and if the French authorities had acted in respect for a Moroccan life. Both authorities have connived in silence and indifference and left Aicha dying in pain and despair. For more than two years French authorities refused to grant Aicha Mokhtari a visa to fly to France and get treatment and dismissed her repeated appeals while the Moroccan authorities looked the other way. What kind of government treats its citizens like this?

Aicha Mokhtari was not asking for a favor from anybody, she was suffering in dignity, struggling against a terrible disease, that eventually took her life. To make sure that Aicha’s death will not be in vain, the Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH) is organizing a campaign[Fr] to denounce French inhumane immigration policies towards Moroccans and to protest against the deadly silence of the Moroccan government. Our lives worth better than a French Visa!

Please feel free to circulate this poster or join AMDH efforts (on Facebook [Fr] and other platforms) to denounce human rights abuses in Morocco.

Who Owns Morocco?

The last two weeks have been, arguably, one of the busiest and most exciting in the Moroccan blogosphere. The banning of two Moroccan weeklies, Nichane and TelQuel (who’s August issues were seized then destroyed by the interior ministry before any legal order was issued), and of the french daily Le Monde, has triggered a webstorm of protests against yet another violation of Press freedom in the country. The banned publications were about to reveal the result of a poll conducted amongst Moroccans who were asked to assess the first decade of their king’s reign. Although the survey showed an overwhelming support for Mohammed VI, the whole process was considered illegal and the journalists deemed blasphemous: the king is considered sacred, he rules by Divine right and the constitution puts him above the law. In no way, the traditionalists argued, he should have been assessed or his work evaluated.

While Moroccans are widely believed to be strongly attached to the 12 century old royal institution, which many consider as an inseparable component of their national identity, democrats and progressists, who never questioned the legitimacy of the monarchy, have long been pointing at the incompatibility between an executive monarch who reigns and rules on the one hand, and the need for a genuinely democratic and accountable state on the other. These fundamental contradictions have led many journalists, civil and human rights activists, ordinary citizens to pay the price for daring to confront the government, or by extension the establishment (the Makhzen as it is widely dubbed in Morocco) as materialized in this affair.

The problem in Morocco is that an organic component of democracy, accountability, has been willingly disabled, and criticism of the real power holders is de facto incapacitated. In other words, the country has a government who is vociferously and persistently claiming democracy, but who is ruled by a monarch who controls every aspect of power:

The king is head of the executive, although, and for the sake of protocol, he is flanked by a prime minister who’s role has been emptied and who transformed, in the prime minister’s own words [Fr], into an executioner of royal edicts and rulings decided on behalf of the elected government, by the royal cabinet, the real administration of the country, composed of a batch of highly trained, apolitical technocrats who are kept beyond the scope of any form of answerability apart from that of the monarch himself.

The monarch is also technically in control of the legislature (indirectly, as a jurist friend of mine might add), whereby law proposals emitted by the palace are approved without further discussion or debate whilst alternative law proposals which might be considered challenging for the establishment (they seldom pop up under the parliament’s roof anyway) are opposed after swift discussions or dismissed out of hand within parliamentary groups if deemed too “contentious.”

All the rulings, verdicts and laws in the land are pronounced under the name of the king who also enjoys the role of a military and religious leader (Amir Al’Mou’minine or Prince of the Believers).

The current state of affairs and the obvious autocratic regime that it breeds is prescribed by the constitution of the country which, the traditionalists would claim, was approved by “national consensus.” The text was first promulgated back in 1962, right after independence from colonial France, from which it borrowed the main outlines with the purported ambition to establish a modern state run by powerful and independent institutions. But it was then amended eight times in order to further increase the king’s prerogatives – indeed written for and by late Hassan II, a jurist incidentally who submitted the text to eight popular referenda, all blatantly rigged and engineered to look (mostly to the the outside world, or at least this was the thinking of those in charge) as overwhelming popular endorsements for the monarch and his proposed system of governance, with often approval rates surpassing the 99 percent mark.

I become politically conscious in the late 90s, at the end of the reign of Hassan II, when the country was enjoying a democratic “spring,” gained after decades of struggle for freedom, equality and democracy, mainly conducted by the Moroccan left. The late king having lost his strategic clout after the end of the cold war and sensing his death approaching, had no choice in order to preserve the monarchy, but to give back to an elected executive, although partially, the prerogatives he has been keeping for himself for too long. He freed political prisoners and cautiously accepted to start a process of democratization that will guaranty a smooth transfer of power to his son.

The accession of the socialists to the government -companions of late Mehdi Ben Barka-, the political virginity and the purported reputation of benevolence of Mohammed VI, who succeeded his deceased father in July 1999, all this preluded very optimistic expectations. They were exhilarating times.

But neither the apparent inclusiveness of the regime toward historic opposition parties (which turned out to be mere cooptation), nor the advent of Mohammed VI has resulted in democracy. Quite the contrary.

Independent media, bloggers, human rights activists, even the own cousin of the king, they all learned very early on that what was actually happening is a replacement of the old guard by a new and younger one, made up of close friends of the monarch, influential businessmen, powerful landowners, military figures: a new Makhzen.

Attacks on freedom of speech have been mounting recently (please read links about Mohamed Erraji , Fouad Mourtada, Zahra Boudkour [Fr] amongst many others). The latest of which was the banning of the aforementioned poll, triggering an immediate and spontaneous protest reaction that arose mainly amongst bloggers, spiraling into a Twitterstorm that led to the creation of a Facebook group calling itself “I’m a 9%” (made up of a little less than a thousand members now), and a Hashtag page on twitter. The “I’m a Ninepercenter” epithet, which refers to the 9% of people in the poll who declared being unsatisfied with the first decade of Mohammed VI, was never meant as a polarizing theme. Indeed many of the group members declare being part of the 91% satisfied, yet they chose to join the movement basically to protest a pattern of recurrent attacks on freedom of expression.

I put the question on the Facebook group pages, under the rather flashy -I have to admit- slogan: Give me a Five for Morocco! basically asking people to give me five urgent measures that they, members, would consider most needed for the country, and the result I hastily gathered showed quite an interesting (non scientific) outcome.

Out of the 35 people who answered my request, almost half felt that a constitutional reform was needed in the sense of establishing a parliamentary monarchy, equivalent to the Spanish or the British. Another half estimated that education was a priority in a country that is still plagued by widespread illiteracy with an estimated shameful figure of 60%. Overall, measures proposed by correspondents came, in terms of popularity, in that order:

Constitutional reform and the establishment of a parliamentary monarchy.
Reform of the educational system and the eradication of illiteracy.
Reform of the judiciary, insuring its total independence.
Ensuring a more just economy, freed from the hegemony of the Moroccan establishment (the Makhzen).
Ensuring freedoms; all freedoms.
Separating state from religion and ensuring freedom of conscience.
Fighting corruption.
Ensuring a more equitable health system.
Rethinking the country’s foreign policy.
Unifying the progressive/leftist forces.
Reform of the administration; getting rid of the burden of a heavy bureaucracy.
Working on improving mentalities (sic).
Promoting solidarity and reforming social policies.
Ensuring the principle of equality.
Reforming the electoral system.
Reconciling with the past, correcting present violations and preventing by means of law any recurrence in the future.
Strengthening the moral and symbolic roles of the monarch.

(Please see details here.)

As I say, this exercise is in no way meant to be statistically accurate nor representative. It reflects mainly the point of view of young, cosmopolitan and educated, most likely left leaning Moroccans.

At this stage one can’t help wondering, as veteran pro-democracy militant Moumen Diouri pioneered in asking: Who owns Morocco? And not only in economic terms. To whom belongs morocco? A basic question that ought to be answered through a badly needed constitutional reform. Do not the people deserve the right to have a say on how they are governed and on who really governs them?

Moroccans have always been infantilized and hold as immature by the system, the country run as if it was owned by one person. The Nine Percent movement symbolizes this progressive segment of the Moroccan population who wants to reclaim what, at the end of the analysis, belongs to the people: a land they collectively own, a government they pay and therefore should be able to hold accountable, a fabulous and rich history they should be able to revisit, rewrite if need be, beside a tradition they hold dear and a monarchy they undoubtedly respect.

Further sources and links about the 9 percent movement:

Le Parisien – Le «mouvement des 9%» soutient «Le Monde» [FR]
Libération – Une liberté d’expression reelle mai non garantie [FR]
The National (UAE) – Moroccan Dissent Alive on Twitter
Le Blog des Blogs/Courrier International – Beacoup de bruit pour 9% de marocains [FR]
Arret sur image – Sondage censuré: La Blogosphère marocaine partagée [FR]
Maghrebia – Morocco’s blogosphere buzzes over the banning of two magazines
The Nine-Percenters: A Moroccan micro-blogging mutiny by Ted Scheinman and Aaron Wiener in The Online Journalism Review
Jillian C. York for Global Voices Online – Morocco: Bloggers React to the Banning of Magazines
Jillian C. York for the Huffington Post – In Morocco, 91% Approval isn’t Good Enough
The Nine Percent Nation by Jesse Walker for the Reason
Jillian C. York evoking the Nine Pourcenters on a radio Interview for WorldStream Radio
Global Voices en Français » Maroc : “Je suis un 9%” – Des blogueurs réagissent à la censure d’un sondage [Fr]

Why I’m a Nine Percenter

“Morocco is a state which operates far from optimal because it has too little relay. Most of the public space is squatted by the clamor of a great orchestra of nihilist pest, whose members compete in nuisance, insensitive to the terrible damage they have inflicted on this nation.” Khalid Naciri, Minister of Information and spokesperson for the Moroccan government in Le Matin (state run), 5 August 2009.

My blogging activities have been very rare lately, mostly for professional reasons but also because I have been busy twitting and Facebooking for and about freedom of speech in Morocco. So I found it convenient -although this issue is no longer making the headlines- to just copy and paste the text bellow of an interview I had by e-mail with writer, activist, blogger and friend Jillian C. York to share it with anyone dropping over in case they were wondering: Nine Percent what?

Interview with Jillian C York, 3 August 2009.
See also Jillian’s piece for the Huffington Post.

1. Why do you think the government is so eager to clamp down on the two publications, particularly in light of the fact that 91% of those polled actually support the monarchy?

The government’s reaction might understandably be seen as odd for an outsider: why on earth would any government bring itself opposition and ban the results of a poll that shows figures of overwhelming endorsement of the regime? But to be rightly understood, the attitude of the Moroccan government should always be seen in the scope of the country’s history and of the kind of special relationship that the monarchy wants to perpetuate with the Moroccan people: an adult-to-child kind of relationship. In other words, the common belief inside the circles of power, amongst members of the establishment, the wealthy landowners, the businessmen close to the power, the security bosses, the notables who’s power and privileges depend upon a continuation of the status quo, and within the royal family itself is that any opening of the public space which might empower the masses might also signal a process of accountability that may end up dismantling this whole system of nepotism that the Moroccan oligarchy counts on.
Having all this in mind, one can easily understand the mind process behind these repeated attacks against freedom of expression, driven by the principle that ordinary Moroccans should always be remembered that the Makhzen (or the Moroccan establishment as described above) should not and can not be subject to any judgement, criticism, assessment or study regardless of their outcome. “Sacred Institution” is the phrase often used to hide the more down-to-earth motives exposed earlier.

2. Do you see Moroccan press laws (and their application) as regressing?

The press is relatively free to address many subjects in comparison with other neighboring countries, but the Press Law explicitly restricts the scope of expression to the confines of so-called red lines providing for imprisonment in such vague terms that it exposes journalists to liability from a judiciary that is far from being independent anyway. All in all, the media has to deal with the inextricable dilemma of trying to comment public and political life in the country without being allowed to have an objective analysis of the centers of power, which lie mainly between the king’s hands, who’s hegemony covers, de facto, the executive, the judiciary, the military and religion. From this perspective, yes, the Press Law is regressive.

3. Although the Interior Ministry has spoken, why do you think there’s silence from the royal family on this issue?

I think it has to do with at least three aspects of the monarchy and the existing customs. One: Mohammed VI, contrary to his father has quite a low key approach to politics. Since his accession to the throne he has surrounded himself with an army of spokespersons, a novelty for the monarchy, serving as a buffer between the public and the palace, and has noticeably avoided contacts with the media. Indeed he has never given a press conference and his rare interviews were mainly conducted in a written rather than spoken form. So this aspect may explain in part, the apparent detachment of the king even in matters that might concern him in person, like in the issue at hand. Two: the very nature of the Moroccan system, where the monarch rules by “divine right,” doesn’t allow for the “commander of the believers,” who’s by essence not only above the law but also beyond the reach of common mortals, to descend into the public debate and enter controversial debate with those who are supposed to be his subjects. Three: Often in matters of lése-majestè, the king has usually had a distant approach: a mixture of both condescendent and indifferent postures. This allows him retrospectively the room for -at his discretion- granting pardons to whom he chooses, hence having the possibility to claim his gratuitousness and charity which often plays well with both domestic and foreign constituencies.

4. Do you foresee any legal repercussions on Ahmed Benchemsi?

The authorities have long adopted a cynical modus operandi as far as punishing discourteous journalists is concerned. Each time there is enough mobilization of the civil society and/or the international opinion against their actions, they systematically avoid jail sentences and resort to more subtle ways to pressure “offending” journalists. They use a Press Code that is specifically designed to impose colossal fines then wait for the media attention to fade away to launch a sophisticated campaign of economic boycott and demonization. Benchemssi has been for some time now on the Makhzen’s radar screen and fortunately for him and for freedom of the Press in Morocco, he has been allowed so far to keep on working and publishing his magazines. An opportunity that some of his colleagues, especially in the printed Arabic speaking press, have not been granted. Thanks to the support Benchemssi and his publications have inside and outside of the country, and hopefully with the campaign of support that took upon itself to denounce the seizure of the magazines and the censorship of the results of the poll, he might be allowed to go back publishing Nichane and TelQuel. He probably will be sentenced to pay a huge fine and then the Makhzen will concentrate on the business of bringing him and the people who work with him on their knees.
That’s unfortunately how it works in Morocco.

5. What effect do you think the Twitter and Facebook campaigns will have?

To be honest, I’m not sure whether this campaign which started quite spontaneously, will have any practical, short-term effect on the issue at hand. And I believe that it will take more that an online campaign to change the rigid and quite regressive mindset that is at the core of the main problems that hold Morocco behind. Of course the campaign and those who participated in it can not be scientifically considered representative of Moroccans as a whole, but what I’m quite sure about is that the campaign and the energetic response to it, shows without the shred of a doubt that whilst the majority supports and adheres to the royal family and the person of the monarch, they are eager to see the existing system evolve so that they at last can be considered as adults, capable of expressing themselves responsibly without having an intrusive government lecturing them on what they should watch, read, say or hear.

Buying Time

“I say why are our memories so short? Have our Jewish sisters and brothers forgotten their humiliation? Have they forgotten the collective punishment, the home demolitions, in their own history so soon? … The apartheid government was very powerful, but today it no longer exists. Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Pinochet, Milosevic, and Idi Amin were all powerful, but in the end they bit the dust. Injustice and oppression will never prevail.” Archbishop Desmond Tutu.