The death of Mahmud Darwish ten days ago upset me beyond words. I loved his work, both the early, nationalist poems and the later ones on more personal themes. He was an invited guest of the Casablanca Book Fair in 2007, and I had been excited at the prospect of hearing him read. Then the organizers changed the venue to a theater in Rabat at the last minute, and I couldn’t get there. I don’t think I will ever forgive myself for missing it.
I have not seen much attention in the English-language press to the trouble that Rachid Niny, one of Morocco’s most popular columnists, finds himself in at the moment. The facts of the case, as far as I can tell, are that Niny alleged in one of his articles that a prosecutor in Qsar el Kebir attended a gay wedding held in the house of a trafficker (there was no wedding, but a video purporting to show one landed on YouTube and created quite a ruckus.) The town’s four prosecutors took Niny to court in the capital of Rabat and the judge found Niny guilty of slander, fining him 6 million Dirhams (approximately $850,000.)
All right. Time to pick your jaw off the floor.
This the largest fine ever in the history of libel judgments in Morocco. Undoubtedly, Niny ought not to have printed something for which he did not have proof. But let’s face it: newspapers in Morocco indulge in rumors and blind items on a daily basis. This was a blind item, not a direct claim. What makes this affair murkier is that Niny was recently mugged at the train station in Rabat, and robbed of his cell phone and laptop. Coincidence? Of course not. In addition, Judge Alaoui, who presided over this case, is the same judge who found against Boubker Jamai last year, against the magazine Nichane, and several other journalists. The judgment is clearly meant to crush Niny’s newspaper, Al Massae, which has become the largest in Morocco.
(Oh, and don’t even get me started on why these prosecutors think it an insult to be called gay.)
I am baffled as to the thinking here: What is the point of it? Niny will simply leave the country, and go write for a magazine that is bigger and more powerful than Al Massae. I myself don’t like his columns, except the satirical ones, and I think he is be a bit too cavalier with personal freedoms. The irony now is that he will need the help of all those freedom of expression activists he wasn’t always so keen on. I hope they prevail, and that he will be able to continue to write and work in his own country.
After a journey that took me on planes (three), trains (two), and automobiles (two), I am now in Ferrara, Italy, to attend the Festival Internazionale in Ferrara. I am staying in a converted monastery and my room is very bare, with just a bed, a desk, and a dresser. There is no internet access, and the phone doesn’t let me make outgoing calls. A large crucifix hangs on the wall above my bed. The red-tiled hallways, the old furniture, the multiple Christs on the cross everywhere remind me of the grade school I attended, which was also in a converted Catholic institution in Rabat. There are relatively few cars on the cobbled streets of the village, because most people ride bicycles. So it’s very quiet and peaceful, and I find myself thinking what a great place this would be to write a book. But I am here to talk about one: The Italian edition of my book just came out, and my publicist is starting things off with a reading here. More soon, I hope.
Protests over a 30% hike in the price of bread quickly degenerated into full on riots in the town of Sefrou, and ignited several other demonstrations around the country, including in Rabat. (A loaf of bread or a baguette normally costs 1.20 dirhams. The new price would have been 1.56 dirhams, which is outrageous, especially considering the importance of bread and bread products to the Moroccan diet, particularly among the poor.) Yesterday, the Moroccan government announced it was canceling the hike, probably out of fear they would end up with a repeat of the bread riots of 1981 in Casablanca, which left several hundred people dead.
The United Nations has closed its HCR office in Rabat, due to what it claimed were violent protests by refugees.
The UNHCR says there are some 600 registered refugees in Morocco, along with some 10,000 illegal migrants. Some 30 people who are camped outside the UNHCR office denied using violence during Saturday’s demonstration.
They also want the right to work and say that those from Arab countries receive favourable treatment. UNHCR said they closed the building because they could not work under the threat of violence which was intolerable.
It also said it does not provide refugees with financial assistance anywhere in the world.
Paulin Kuanzambi, an Angolan refugee who is the president of the Collectif des Réfugiés in Morocco, pointed out in an open letter that this is not the first time UNHCR closes its doors in Rabat. He called on the Moroccan government to uphold the rights of refugees under the Geneva convention. Let’s just say there’s a long, long road to go before that becomes a reality.
I was relieved when I had to travel to Rabat for the Fulbright Symposium because it meant I would get away from the news coverage of the foiled terrorist attack in Casablanca. Last week, As Sabah published a color picture of the torn body of Abdelfettah Raydi, the 24-year-old man who blew himself up inside a cyber cafe in Sidi Moumen on March 11. Al Massae showed the second terrorist, 17-year-old Youssef Khoudri, while he was transported to Ibn Rochd Hospital. An Nass, meanwhile, printed a photo of him being stitched up. Not to be outdone, La Vie Economique did a dossier on the events, and included a photo of the severed head of Raydi.
Despite the sensationalism, the articles accompanying the photos were, for the most part, well researched and interesting. They included interviews with the man who had alerted police, with witnesses and survivors, and with the terrorists’ family and neighbors. Many journalists asked why nothing had been done about the shantytowns in Sidi Moumen since the attacks of May 2003, and cautioned that more attacks remain possible so long as there is fertile ground for them. But a columnist for Aujourd’hui le Maroc fumed that “barbarians should not be pitied.” (You’d think you were reading Max Boot.)
The details that have emerged certainly give pause: the seizure of 200 kg of explosives in Sidi Moumen; the fact that Raydi had already served two years of prison for suspected Salafi activities before being released in an amnesty in 2005; the claim that it took only two weeks to convince Youssef Khoudri–an illiterate mint seller and sometime drug user who lived in a one-room house with his five siblings and parents–to take part in the attack; the suggestion that the targets included the police headquarters on Zerktouni; and so on.
All this took me back to my work. Large parts of my novel are set in Sidi Moumen and it is difficult to write about something knowing not only that it could happen, but that it does happen. It’s not easy to use one’s imagination while at the same time grappling with a similar reality. In the end, I had to shut off the real in order to focus on the fictional; I had to stop reading the papers–at least until coverage subsides–so I can finish my novel. The symposium came at the right time.