Category: all things moroccan

Last week marked the 40th anniversary of the kidnapping in Paris of Moroccan dissident Mehdi Ben Barka. A new movie by Serge LePeron retraces the major events of that day.

Things have taken a turn for the bizarre as Morocco, whose citizens used to be deported from Europe, is now deporting would-be immigrants from its own territory. The AP reports that a chartered plane full of Senegalese immigrants has left Oujda airport, after the events of last week, when hundreds stormed the barriers of the Spanish presidios in the north of Morocco. (Confused yet? Follow these links: 1, 2, 3 and 4. )

When I came across news of the Arts in Morocco Festival on the Literary Saloon yesterday, my first thought was: Why am I the last one to find out? (My second thought was: Why wasn’t I invited? I want a free trip to Marrakesh! Just kidding. Really. I would’ve paid to be there.) The festival was held in what looks like lavish surroundings (Ksour Agafay or Agafay Palace), though unfortunately it doesn’t sound as though it was open to the public.

Over at the Independent, Boyd Tonkin appears to have thoroughly enjoyed the city (lucky bastard). He sounds genuinely surprised that one of Morocco’s best-known writers, Edmond Amran El Maleh, is Jewish, and notes, en passant, that Moroccan writers don’t (can’t) really have the kind of ‘navel-gazing conversations’ so often heard in literary circles.

But local voices soon mocked our narcissism to underline the tough realities of a country with 50 per cent literacy, fragile basic education (especially in rural areas) and scant resources to support the kind of splashy, glitzy book scene that the British always love to hate. “It was so curious to hear you talking,” teased the Marrakshi poet, editor and teacher Yassin Adnan. “It was as if you’re coming from another planet.” No arguing with that.

Adnan is also quoted in this Telegraph piece by Sam Leith, where he says:

What a luxury to be able to complain that you are getting publicity for your hairstyle rather than your nifty way with a caesura.

What an astonishment to exist in a world of government subsidy; of well-stocked bookshops; of extensive literary pages in newspapers; of a world in which the best writers make a living.

When you look for a publisher in Morocco, he said, you aren’t arbitrating between the competing attractions of a chic independent and one with the promotional muscle of TimeWarner: you are trying to find someone who will print your book without you paying for the privilege. The readership you can expect consists, like as not, of the friends to whom you give copies of your book.

Morocco’s literacy rate is 50 per cent. There is no government help. Your chances of being translated into French are slim; into English, microscopic (only 0.6 per cent of Arabic writing, I was told, gets Englished). The whole thing – in the context of our quarrel – put me in mind of Alan Bennett’s remark that asking him if he was gay was like asking someone who had just crawled across the Sahara desert whether they preferred Malvern or Perrier water. We all, rather, looked at our shoes.

What surprised me wasn’t Adnan’s statements, obviously, but rather Leith’s admission that he’d read so little Arabic literature (he cites Mahfouz and the One Thousand and One Nights.) I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Not that Leith could have read much if he’d wanted to: So little Arabic fiction is being translated, and what gets translated isn’t even reviewed in the papers. Arabic literature needs its own Medici.

The Moroccan government has helped a human rights commission to find the graves of 50 political prisoners who died at secret detention camps in the 1970s, under King Hassan’s regime, the NY Times reports.

The group, the Equity and Reconciliation Commission, was set up by royal decree by King Mohammed VI to help discover what happened to hundreds of Moroccans arrested and tortured by security agents in the 1970’s, while the country was fighting separatists in Western Sahara. No official figures exist on how many people disappeared, but rights groups say it was up to 600. (…) “The recognition of the existence of the graves is a great step which underscores the willingness of the authorities that past abuses will not happen again,” a senior official with the commission said.

A great first step, to be sure, though much remains to be done to ensure that such repugnant practices never happen again.

Nadia Yassine, daughter of the infamous Cheikh Yassine and the de facto leader of the unofficial Islamist group Al-Adl Wal-Ihsane, is interviewed over at the BBC. Ms. Yassine has been in the news recently because of remarks she made to the press stating her preference for a republic rather than a kingdom in Morocco. The result: a prosecutor charged her with insulting the king. She was set to go on trial, but after unprecedented media attention, the trial was postponed and no new date set.

Of course, I support Yassine’s right to free speech, as well as her right to dispose of her body however she wishes, whether by veiling it or uncovering it. However, before we start turning her into a saint, consider first what kind of a republic she wants. You get one guess. That’s right. Islamic. And we all know what a great record Islamic republics have had in terms of human rights and free speech.

Next, consider Nadia Yassine’s stance on women’s rights. In the BBC interview, she brags about how her husband is a wonderful, wonderful man.

Her husband is a university professor and also a senior member of the organisation.

She says he helped her bring up the children and is anything but a traditional Arab husband.

Good for her. But, as it happens, the rest of Moroccan women aren’t married to her husband. They want to have equal rights under the law, and the recent reform of the Moudawana was a gigantic step in that direction. And what was Ms. Free-Speech doing? Why, demonstrating against the reform!

But despite that, she demonstrated against recent reforms of family law giving Moroccan women precisely these rights.

She says the demonstration was political in nature, and not religious.

The government’s reforms were cosmetic and mainly intended to improve its international image rather than helping women, she adds.

And while she complains about the ‘cosmetic’ (in fact, very real) changes, other activists, like those cited here, are actually doing something for women.

It has been clear for quite some time that Nadia Yassine wants street cred. (perhaps in preparation for turning Al-Adl Wal-Ihsane into a political party) and the recent skirmishes she had with the state prosecutor served that purpose for her. The fact that the prosecutor has backtracked means that there is some realization somewhere that the state has played into her hands. Let’s hope that this lesson has been learned. Nadia Yassine is one example of the disease that ails Morocco. I’d love to debate her, if given the chance.

Last week’s attack on the Spanish presidio of Ceuta by a large group of African immigrants in the North of Morocco has been replicated in the enclave of Melilla. As many as 650 immigrants scaled the border fences at once, and about 300 of them managed to get through.

There is no sign of change anytime soon, and we may well have to get used to these mass attemps at immigration:

Rodrigues agrees that “you mustn’t look back. You mustn’t ask yourself questions or it will break you psychologically.

“I’ve traipsed through nine African countries, including Niger, Senegal and Mauritania, before spending weeks in the forest in Morocco.

“I’ve not seen my family for almost two years. I came over to Melilla on Monday and it was hellish.”

Steven and Rodrigues say no matter how much extra security Morocco and Spain draft to the enclaves, no matter how much high-tech surveillance equipment they put in place, they cannot prevent further mass attempts by immigrants to force their way over the fencing.

“People will keep on trying to get to Europe. They will try, and maybe they will just die” in the process, opined Steven. “Africa is in a mess, there’s war, there is so much suffering. We want to leave all that behind,” says Rodrigues. “Spain is the nearest point for us. I’d have tried to get to France, but it’s too far, too difficult.” Asked why the immigrants just keep on coming, Steven pins the blame squarely on African governments.

What is sickening is that these latest attempts at immigration have cost the lives of at least six people at the hands of Moroccan and Spanish border police.