In Morocco, an Alternative to Democracy

The Washington Post published a highly embellished op-ed titled “In Morocco, an Alternative to Iran,” that you can – but you shouldn’t because it’s a waste of time – read here, by Anne Applebaum in which she exhibited Morocco as a progressive Islamic democracy where scantily clad women wouldn’t look out of place, people holding signs peacefully demonstrate before the parliament without harassment, and journalists criticize the government freely. She lauded Morocco’s human and civil rights improvements; she urged the readers to see Morocco as an alternative to Iran, a country where elections are fraudulent and voters are beaten and often killed by police. I sent an email to Mrs. Applebaum calling her op-ed hogwash. It reads like a statement from the Moroccan Ministry of Interior, or an English translation of an editorial from the Maghreb Arab Press. In fact, it amounts to nothing more than a tourist’s perspective on superficial political and social aspects the government flaunts before the West as symbols of Moroccan democracy.

With a modicum of research, a basic understanding of democratic principles, any journalist with integrity and worth his/her salt would write a rather damning account on the state of democracy in Morocco. Moroccan journalists writing for Al Ahdat Al Maghrebia and Al Masae who summoned the courage to denounce the reprehensible infringements of the elite political parties and the aristocratic political figures leading or supporting them, and reported on high level involvement in the conspicuous buying of votes, intimidation of candidates, and falsification of voter registration during the June 12 communal elections, are rotting in jail right now, being interrogated by the judicial police which hastened to arrest them instead of investigating the crimes they uncovered. Moroccan newspapers Al-Jarida Al-Oula, Al-Ahdath Al-Magrebia, and Al-Massae were slapped with stupendous fines for allegedly defaming the Libyan leader Qaddafi; the Moroccan government not only does not intervene in favor of its immigrant citizens who are constantly mistreated and unfairly jailed in Libya, but litigates its citizens domestically to truckle to Qaddafi expecting a favorable stand on Western Sahara. The Moroccan human rights activists, such as Chekib el-Khiari, who stray from the government ‘scripted statements find themselves charged with Kafkaesque crimes and prosecuted. Citizens are often vilified and persecuted for voicing their grievances and challenging the government on unkept promises.

The month of June may as well be dubbed the month of quiescence in Morocco. The population protested one of the most fraud fraught communal elections in the history of modern Morocco with the most disconcerting detachment. Mexican and Turkish soap operas have drawn more emotional outbursts from Moroccans. The ongoing political parties’ acrimonious wrangling over positions is a travesty of the democratic process, a jesters’ act to amuse the palace.

Some candidates like Kaoutar Benhamou and Fatima Boujnah of the Authenticity and Modernity, a political party that in less than six months has turned into a political juggernaut, by virtue of their youth and inexperience, are not viable challengers to the heavy weights of the Moroccan political pit; they won not on the basis of their political acumen, previous achievements in the interest of society, or for espousing a political ideology; they offered nothing more than a promise to their deprived communities: running water, electricity, or an ambulance to service their medical emergencies. But what candidates did not promise the moon to ingratiate themselves with potential voters? Some even promised the hajj. They failed because their backers are not close enough to the king. Benhamou and Boujnah cannot vaunt to have taken the reigns of a daunting and rigged bureaucracy to effectively reshape the face of politics in Morocco. The driving force behind their youthful and propitious veneer is a monarchist, neocon, elitist, and feudalistic mindset whose manipulative techniques have suppressed the Moroccan population even since before 1912. A mindset that holds its pedigree as a mandate to run the country and understands Moroccans would riot for a piece of bread rather than to protest a spurious election.

The Interior Ministry put the election turnout at 51 percent. Independent media and other political parties contested the announcement and contended that voters registration did not exceed 32 percent. Glum Moroccan voters grew tired of mendacious candidates who regard politics as a sure way to buttress their bank accounts. Moroccan voters are well-aware that no candidate can stand against a legislation that ensures an uneven distribution of power; they are skeptical the government is built on the principle of consensus; they doubt an election the legitimacy of which is dubious can change the political landscape; they understand that in a governance that lacks the separation of powers, bars citizens access to potent leadership, and whose abridgement of people’s universally recognized freedoms and liberties is an established practice, democracy can not thrive. Che Guevara said it best when he stated “Democracy cannot consist solely of elections that are nearly always fictitious and managed by rich landowners and professional politicians.” In a country where, by design, over 50 percent of the population is illiterate or of limited educational background – only 27 percent of baccalaureate candidates passed their examination – and where an entrenched conservative political and economic coterie grinds its heels deeper into the nation’s face, democracy is engaged in an uphill battle.

Anne Applebaum’s op-ed is nothing more than a cheap sales pitch conceived to beguile foreign investors from the backstage Morocco. One can only speculate at whose behest such propagandist unstinting praise was written. Considering Applebaum’s professional trajectory, her previous articles on the Middle East and Islam, and her advocacy of all things Israeli, there could be only one answer as to who pulls her leash.

A. T. B. Copyright © 2009

Moroccan Elections: Votes A Dime A Dozen

In an expression of deepening discontent and rising popular cynicism, a procession of dozens of Moroccans led by a nonchalant barebacked herd of donkeys walked, last Tuesday, the streets of Nador in northern Morocco to protest an upcoming communal elections fraught with broad-based fraud, violence, intimidation, and political manipulation at the highest levels of the government. The protestors shouted slogans and carried banners denouncing the unethical practice by the candidates and the parties they represent of buying votes with cash or in-kind services. It has been rumored that a vote goes for 500 MAD (56 USD) and will increase as election day nears. Some have sold their vote for nothing more than a loaf of bread and a cup of tea. The protest was meant as a parody of the democratic electoral process and governance in Morocco.

The Moroccan government has introduced new registration and voting procedures designed to lessen, if not eradicate, election fraud and enhance transparency. The initiative has been hailed as a success by Azzedine Akesby, Transparency Maroc chief. Others, like Lahcen Daoudi of the Justice and Development Party, consider such governmental measures as ineffective and inveigh against the authorities’ unwillingness to seriously address electoral fraud. Interior Minister Chakib Benmoussa squarely put the onus of cleaning up the election on the political parties when he advised them, during an awareness raising campaign last April, to nominate scrupulous candidates.

The elections, which, in essence, should augur a positive political and social change by advancing national unity and the interests of the constituencies over those of the political parties and the government, has instead fueled tensions, by exposing political, ethnic, and tribal tensions and personal feuds among those vying for political power. Observers of the campaigns have been astounded by the frequency of violent physical confrontations between candidates and their supporters. The rallies organized by different parties have been cacophonous and laced with violent threats that the authorities have been incapable of muting. The reaction of the police force lashes between total inertia and outright excessive force using batons, tear gas, and water cannons as their intervention in Mohammadi on June 3rd, when a violent confrontation between supporters and canvassers of Assala Wa Al-Mouassara (Authenticity and Modernity) and those of Tajammou’ Al-Watani Lilahrar (National Assembly of Independents) erupted, demonstrates.

In a country the constitution of which prohibits the delegation of authority and where the monarch enjoys exclusive ascendency, the argument for putative democratic and principled elections that vindicate social equality and respect for the citizens is moot. High ranking political incumbents, in a flagrant abuse of their governmental office, routinely exert undue influence on the election process to give the edge to political parties whose agenda is aligned with the current government and the monarch. In fact, it is impossible to see the election of a political party that stands at odds with the king. Candidates and political parties, such as  Al Badil Al Hadari (civilizational Alternative) and Al Ishtiraki Al-Mouwahad (united socialist Party), that do not ally themselves with the governmental patronage see their electoral means drastically reduced and their members persecuted. Recently, the Moroccan media reported that the government allowed the Territorial Security Department to eavesdrop on the communications of over a hundred and thirty candidates; such drastic measure was justified by the Justice Minister, Abdelwahid Arradi, as necessary to “uphold the letter of the law and advance democracy” and as a means to prevent electoral bribery, racketeering, and fraud. Since such a controversial measure was disclosed to the media, one can safely assume the government meant for it to be a deterrent rather than a result-driven initiative. Some see the security measure as indicative of the government’s trepidation about foreign influence in the election and designed to ascertain the integrity of the candidates’ fealty to the king.

The Nador procession was promptly confronted by the police and everybody was herded to jail. In a show of mercy, and maybe to send a message, the government will not prosecute the donkeys.

A. T. B. Copyright © 2009

Mawazine 2009: Festival L’Fouda

An investigation has been initiated to determine the causes of the human maelstrom that left the stadium littered with shoes and tattered clothes and led to the dramatic death of eleven people and the injury of over forty others in Hay Nahda stadium in Rabat. The tragedy struck when spectators attending the gratis Setati concert were exiting the stadium. The head shaking, sexdactyl Setati, being one of the most popular singers of Aita and cha’bi (Moroccan country music if you will) to come from ouled Hriz, drew, by official account, over seventy-thousand people to Hay Nahda stadium.

The concert was one of many organized within the framework of Mawazin, a music festival organized by the Moroccan government. The festival serves to put the country in an international spotlight by inviting iconic performers such as Alicia Keys, Kylie Minogue, Steve Wonder, Sergio Mendes, and others, and as a diversionary tactic by entertaining the Moroccan masses at a time when our national soccer and athletic teams, subsequent to an ongoing losing streak, failed to do the bidding of the leadership. Mawazine, to quote Marquis de Sade’s “L’Histoire de Juliette,” is this “opium you feed your people, so that, drugged, they do not feel their hurts, inflicted by you.”

The Mawazin organizers and government officials must have assessed that the residents of Hay Nahda, one of the most densely populated and impoverished neighborhoods in Rabat, would come in droves to enjoy the complementary popular singer’s concert. The officials who failed to control the flow of spectators into the stadium and allowed the total capacity of the venue to be exceeded need to be held accountable. The capacity of the Hay Nahda stadium is far less than the seventy-thousand people allowed in. Morocco’s largest sports complex, Mohamed V stadium in Casablanca, has a total capacity of sixty-seven thousand.

The Hay Nahda stadium has seven exits. Eyewitnesses interviewed by the local media lamented that only one was opened to allow people to depart the premises at the conclusion of the concert. Some even stated that people, spurred on by police and Mawazine security, rushed toward the sole exit like frantic cattle.

One can not discount Moroccan’s collective propensity to push and shove when in cramped and crowded quarters. Our streets are a constant stochastic flow of unyielding vehicles and pedestrians. We experience it everyday in our public transportation, government administrations, hospitals, and entertainment venues; standing in an orderly and disciplined line is an indicator of a lowly social status in Morocco. Affluent Moroccans, those one often hears saying “kulshi Dyalna” – “it’s all ours,” never stand in line. We laugh about it with family and friends; we complain about it much like we complain about the weather, matter-of-factly, without as much as an expectation that anything should be done to change it. Sadly, we’ve become inured to it. Every now and then, it leads to a tragedy solemnly reminding us that our primeval selves smolder just beneath the surface.

A. T. B. Copyright © 2009

Child Sexual Abuse On The Rise In Morocco

The Moroccan NGO “Touche Pas à Mon Enfant” made public, on Tuesday 19, 2009, its 2008 report on child sexual abuse in Morocco; the organization documented 306 cases of sexual abuse against minors in 2008, an alarming and shocking increase from the previous year. The number of cases reported by the “coalition against sexual abuses on minors” in 2007 was six times less. The dramatic jump is attributed to the increased accessibility to the internet, child labor, and sexual tourism. The study also showed that children eight years old and younger whose families are impoverished are the most victimized.

The NGO recognized the fact that a great number of committed abuses go unreported and pedophiles carry on their ignominious perversion unhindered. The conservative nature of the Moroccan society stymies efforts by different organizations and the government to address the issue. The families of abused children most often are reluctant to seek the support of the authorities and specialized foundations lest they’d be stigmatized by their neighbors and friends. Most often, the lack of education and awareness is the driving cause families of sexually abused children fail to recognize the distressing telltale signs of the psychological trauma victimized children silently endure.

Najat Anwar, the president and founder of “Touche Pas à Mon Enfant,” in what seems to me a flagrant attempt at auto-censorship, insisted the report does not represent the reality of the Moroccan society, and amounts to nothing more than the subjective assessment of her organization.

Nouzha Skalli, Minister of Social Development, Family and Solidarity, commented that pedophilia has been a perennial crime in the Moroccan society. She rationalized that an increase in the number of reported sexual abuse offenses against minors in Morocco does not necessarily constitute an increase in the number of victims, but is a good indicator that Moroccans are transcending the irrational fear of shame and dishonor – h’shuma and ‘aar – imposed by societal dogma.

Morocco’s lenient penal sanctions vis-à-vis pedophiles exacerbate the issue. The organization calls for an active combined involvement of all competent authorities to eradicate the problem.

The latest high profile case of pedophilia in Morocco happened in the northern city of Larache last October, but did not become public until April of this year. The incident involved an official in the Istiqlal Party. The complaint was initially lodged by the victim’s father who claimed his thirteen-year-old son was attacked by a cadre of the Istiqlal Party who attempted to rape him. The claim was substantiated by a medical report from a physician and a psychologist who examined the child. The alleged assault happened in the party’s offices in Larache. According to news reports, the father was visited in multiple occasions by a parade of local high ranking officials of the Istiqlal party led by its regional inspector Hassan Amer in an attempt to mitigate the accusation. The father was offered compensation then browbeaten to drop the charge, which he did. The case was reopened by the King’s prosecutor who insisted on seeing the case through the judicial process. The police arrested the perpetrator, Yassin Ait Tamelhit, who confessed to the crime. Yassin’s line of work is a pedophile’s dream come true; it involves constant contact with children; he is the local delegate of the Moroccan boy scout association; he also oversees the youth programs of the Istiqlal Party. His pedophilic proclivity was an open secret not only within the Istiqlal Party, but in the city of Larache.

In a preposterous judicial travesty, Yassin was ordered released on a 2000 MAD ($240.00) cash bail and allowed to return to his functions. Talk about sending the fox into the hen house. I wouldn’t be surprised if, on his way out of the courthouse, yassin was handed a tube of K-Y jelly by the bailiff.

A. T. B. Copyright © 2009

U.S. Report on Morocco’s Counterterrorism Strategy

The U.S. Department of State lauded the government of Morocco in its annual report on terrorism published by the Office of the coordinator for terrorism. The strategic report, titled “Country Reports on Terrorism 2008,” was submitted to congress on April 30, 2009.

The Moroccan government made significant progress in the past few years and succeeded in reversing an emerging fundamentalist Islamist trend that was taking hold in the country. It demonstrated a very granular understanding of the asymmetric nature of the terrorist threat undermining the country’s national security. However, AQIM and its regional proxies, albeit decentralized and operating with reduced capabilities, remain highly symbiotic and capable of sensational attacks.

The report assesses the threat of terrorist attacks against Morocco as arising mainly from “grassroots” groups associated with Salafia Jihadiya, a terrorist group founded by Mohamed Fizazi, who is currently serving a 30-year sentence in connection with the 2003 terrorist bombings and other terrorist activity, in 1992 after his return from Saudi Arabia. The group preaches an extreme interpretation of Islam impregnated with Wahabi fundamentalist precepts and strives in poverty-stricken shanty towns across Morocco. The U.S. State Department report indicated that the government of Morocco’s proactive counterterrorism operations greatly contributed to the derailment of the terrorist group, and thus lessening from its tactical effectiveness.

The State Department document pointed out that numerous intelligence assessments reported on an increased number of Moroccans traveling to northern Mali and Algeria to receive Al Qa’ida oriented indoctrination and training in Al-Qa’ida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) camps. I have previously reported – here - that some of these Moroccans travel to Iraq through Europe and Syria to engage in terrorist activity. The tactical combat experience and terrorist material application expertise – small arms manual, IED/VBIED fabrication and use, mortar and missile attacks – these individuals gain constitute a nascent strategic threat to Morocco.

Morocco ’strategy in countering the asymmetric threat of terrorism required doctrinal and structural adjustments and a shift from the unilateralism of action and compartmentalization of services previously imposed to preclude a coup d’état. Morocco’s current strategy combines the skills and capabilities of the counterintelligence, human intelligence, and signal intelligence fields supported by a well-rounded analysis platform; the mobilization and sensitization of conventional military and law enforcement assets increased their responsiveness to terrorist indicators and turned a previously ad-hoc and burst reaction into an orchestrated and integral operation. The creation in 2008 of the Financial Intelligence Unit enhanced Morocco’s capability to restrict terrorists’ access to funds drastically limiting their effectiveness. Additionally, The Moroccan society’s natural propensity to reject terrorist acts is a decisive element in the government’s counter-terrorism strategy; leads provided by citizens resulted in the successful neutralization of many terrorist cells and the thwarting of their destabilizing operations.

Morocco’s anti-terrorism efforts, through the King’s “proximity strategy,” also focused on mosques and Islamic teaching facilities that lacked oversight and were at one time financially neglected by the ministry of Endowments and Islamic Affairs. Such places were a safe haven to radical Islamic fomenters, such as Sheikh Mohamed Ben Abderrahman Al Maghraoui, who used them to impress upon their fellowship a retrograde interpretation of Islam.

Addressing the socio-economic factors terrorist organizations feed on in their recruitment campaigns, the Moroccan government has launched in 2005 the National Initiative for Human Development, a $1.2 billion program focused on creating employment opportunities, improving infrastructure in rural areas, and alleviating poverty.
The report also highlighted Morocco’s continuous focus on international cooperation in combating terrorism. The government is constantly coordinating and deconflicting operations with European, U.S., African and Arab partners. High level Anti-terrorism executors ensure a rapid exchange of information and an expeditious approval authority channel that is not entangled in bureaucracy.

The counter-terrorism measures the government of Morocco implemented and the constant vigilance of its security officials yielded notable results. The report lists a number of counter-terrorism achievements prominent among them are the arrest, in February 2008, of a 36-person strong terrorist network in the cities of Nador, Rabat, Marakesh, and Casablanca, the apprehension of 35 members of a terrorist network specializing in the recruitment of volunteers for Iraq, the disbanding of a 15-person network calling itself Fath al-Andalus in Laayoune, and various cities in Morocco.

The Moroccan government made significant progress in the past few years and succeeded in reversing an emerging fundamentalist Islamist trend that was taking hold in the country. It demonstrated a very granular understanding of the asymmetric nature of the terrorist threat undermining the country’s national security. However, AQIM and its regional proxies, albeit decentralized and operating with reduced capabilities, remain highly symbiotic and capable of sensational attacks.

A. T. B. Copyright © 2009

The Pretending Health Minister

Moroccan Health Minister Mrs Yasmina Baddou - Photo ©MAP-All right reserved

Have you ever walked into a room and could not remember why you walked in? I believe that is how Yasmina Baddou spends her days at the Moroccan health ministry. Admittedly, the Moroccan health sector has been shoddy for decades. But a visit to Ibn Roshd, known as Morizgo, in casablanca, or any vermin infested public hospital – and private one for that matter – where destitute patients have to grease their palms to receive admittance into the premises and pay every step of the way to receive the medical attention the government ought to provide them for free, one gets a sobering sense of how declensional the state of our healthcare system is. Mrs. Baddou, whose judicial background hardly qualifies her to mend the budgetary and staffing ills of the Moroccan healthcare system initiated reforms that have been openly contested as ineffective by Moroccan health professionals. Her agenda has been criticized as being alienated from the health concerns of Moroccans.

Analysts contend that most Moroccans believe Mrs. Baddou’s appointment to the position was nepotistic; She is the daughter of Abderahmane Baddou, a prominent member of the executive committee of the Istiqlal Party, a former ambassador, and a State Secretary for Foreign Affairs under M’hamed Boucetta in the governments of Ahmed Osman and Mohamed Maati Bouabid; she is also the wife of Ali Fassi-Fihri, the newly appointed president of the Moroccan Football Federation and the brother of the current foreign minister. Growing up, she led a patrician life in France and Morocco far removed from what the majority of Moroccans know as the “lead years.” She was brought up by an elite fringe of the Moroccan society that regards accountability in the public service to the Moroccan citizens as a sign of abasement.

When the whole world is afoot in response to what the health officials of countries whose healthcare systems are more advanced than Morocco’s fear could soon turn into a pandemic of global proportions, Mrs Baddo wouldn’t deign to stand before the Moroccan public to enlighten them on the dangers of the swine flu and advise them on the alleged drastic measures her ministry put in place. Combined with the illiteracy “flu” over fifty percent of Moroccans suffer from, the lethal effects of the swine flu spreading in Morocco could be massive. Mrs. Baddou perfunctorily assured a handful of journalists that specialized ambulances had been made available, and enough surgical masks and vaccines had been purchased to counter the threat. Such statements from Mrs. Baddou only reinforce the belief that her competence as a health minister is rather lacking. Either that or she holds Moroccans in such low esteem that she reckoned any hogwash would do. The acting director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr, Richard Besser, stated that it would be months before an effective H1N1 swine flu vaccine is engineered and mass-produced; the six-month process entails growing samples of flu virus inside fertilized chicken eggs, breaking out the key proteins that provoke an immune response which are then purified, tested and packaged into syringes for distribution around the country. The U.S. has six facilities that specialize in the production of such vaccine. Morocco has none.

It is not a matter of how the swine virus will seep into Morocco, but when. A country’s preparedness to protect its citizens and counter a disease outbreak that has shown a sustained transmission among people so much so that the World Health Organization Director General Margaret Chan, after consulting with world-renowned influenza experts, declared a phase five alert, is measured first and foremost by the diligence and expertise of the people entrusted with executive powers. Mrs. Baddou, I am afraid, has neither the diligence, nor the expertise to keep Moroccans safe.

A. T. B. Copyright © 2009

When Apathy Kills

It was a rather nippy day for spring and pouring over this hamlet between Safi and Essaouira. The wet fields and the dirt roads were deserted and every now and then, a car or a truck zoomed by on the national route leaving a trail of muddy mist floating in the air. Travelers hardly stop here, Occasionally, a car would pull over just long enough for the driver to use the restrooms, drink some tea, and perhaps smoke a cigarette. A grand Taxis stopped in front of the only café in the area long enough for an old man to step out. The patrons looked at him through the glass door of the café with stolidity as he dragged his tired feet to a dry spot not far from the entrance and sat. The guy looked unfamiliar to the owner of the café who knows everybody in the region. The old man just squatted against a wall protecting himself as much as he could from the rain. He could not be one of those vagrants roaming from one village to another in search of odd jobs; although he was standing tall, the man was too old to work in the fields. Besides, he limped. Maybe he was a beggar who thought that the café would be a good spot to panhandle. There are hardly any other beggars around here and provided more travelers stopped here, the man could collect a handsome purse. But he did not walk into the café, nor did he extend his hand. He just sat there looking raddled. No one talked to him either.

He sat there all day. His clothes were drenched. Every now and then, he would stand up, limp a few steps to the left, stop in mid-motion, then limp back to where he was sitting. The seat of his pants was muddy, and the back of his jacket were sullied by the whitewash from the wall he was leaning against. His dark eyes were sucked into his skull; his protruding cheek bones pushed against the skin of his sunken face like the bridge of a hejhouj; his lips were a collapsed line over a toothless mouth; his nose, broken so many times, hugged the center of his face. Now that he was standing, people could see that he only had one shoe. In fact, he only had one foot. His other leg rested on a… peg. That explained the limping. It also affirmed the people’s belief that he was one of those handicapped beggars pullulating every nook and cranny of Morocco. But the old man just sat back down and hugged his knees. His head slung low. His lusterless eyes held that thousand yard stare.

The man laid there for two days. Never talked to anyone. Nobody ever talked to him. The owner of the café late at night, before shuttering down, covered him with a canvas to protect him from the rain.

Two days later, two cars stopped in front of the café. They were packed with young men and women. They had a sadness about their exhausted faces. The redness and puffiness of the eyes of some of the women clearly indicated they were crying. They all rushed into the café and headed to the counter. They did not seem like they wanted a table, or use the restrooms. One of the men pulled a picture and showed it to the owner.

“Assalamu aalikum! Have you seen this man, please? It‘s our father. He disappeared three days ago.”

The owner needed nothing more than a glance at the picture to recognize the man laying on the very mud under the canvas outside his café. He confessed that he wanted to bring the man inside, but was worried he would die in his hands, then he would be in trouble with the police.

Everybody in the café rushed outside; the women started crying and wailing. The sons pulled the canvas on their father; he was emaciated; his body was covered in mud; his hands tightly gripped his pirate-like peg with its leather cup as if it were a rifle – he had always refused to get one of those modern prosthesis. It took them a while to revive him; when he came to, he pushed against the wall and yelled: “foutez-moi le camp! enculés! Laissez moi tranquille!” He did not recognize any of them. And spoke only French.

The old man has a name: Mahmoud. He drifted 165 kilometers away from his home.

Three days earlier, the ninety years old man left his home and headed to the post office to retrieve his pension checks. See! When he was a gritty young man, he was conscripted into the French army and shipped during World War II to Italy with the 4^th Tabor to fight alongside the U.S. 1^st Infantry Division against the Italians and the Germans. When Mohammed V and his family were exiled to Madagascar in 1953, he joined the Moroccan resistance against the French. It was during one of the resistance operations he was involved with that he sustained a gunshot wound that resulted in the amputation of one of his legs from the knee down. After the independence, he joined the civil defense. His peg did not stop him from raising horses and becoming famous in Aabda and Doukala as a fantasia leader. He raised a family of eleven.

When he arrived at the post office, he was told that it would be four more days before he would be able to get his checks. Maybe that was the catalyst to his amnesia. His mind took him back to when he was in the French army. He forgot where he lived and that he had a family. He wandered aimlessly for a good part of the day before he decided to take a grand taxi to a place the name of which sounded vaguely familiar to him.

When he failed to return at night, his wife called their sons and daughters, and other members of the family. They printed his pictures and went out looking for him. They knew there was no time to loose. The search was frantic. Neighbors and friends joined the search party. They caught a break when the driver of the grand taxi recognized him. How could he not? He was the last old man with a weathered face, walking on a peg, and speaking French he saw. It was lucky he did not head to a bigger city such as Marrakesh or Casablanca; he would have drowned in the chaotic misery and the impregnable anonymity of its people.

When his family found him, it was clear he was robbed; he had no money, no ID card; his carte de resistant and French army card were missing too. Even his little leather pouch of tanfiha was missing.

What was really missing was the kindness of Moroccans to ask an old, disoriented man what his story was. Many more decent men and women are wondering the streets today under our uncaring gaze, enduring unnecessary suffering because of our opprobrious disregard. It would have been a shame for a man who has done so much, raised a family the love of which he has enjoyed all his life to die away from it, be labeled “unidentified” and buried in an unmarked grave.

A. T. B. Copyright © 2009

“Secret Son” By Laila Lalami

Laila Lalami ‘second novel, “Secret Son“, is finally coming out on April 21. I found Lalami’s debut novel, “Hope And Other Dangerous Pursuits“, published in 2005, a gripping tale of desperation and hope steeped in sheer realism. Her eloquent and graceful style cuts through the page with confidence as she depicts the successes and failures of four Moroccans undertaking a journey to a better life. Being a Moroccan, I was familiar with the subject, but her syle so enthralled me, I read the book three times.

“Secret Son” promises the same intensity. Advance reviews of the book have given it high marks.

Set in modern Morocco against a background of corrupt liberalism and Islamic fundamentalism, the novel explores the struggle for identity and the myriad ways in which the political, the personal, and the religious bind us together. Here’s a little bit about it: For years, Youssef, a young man from a Casablanca slum, has heard his mother’s stories about his dead and respectably poor father, stories he used as inspiration for his own life. But when a religious group, known simply as The Party, moves into town, he discovers the truth-his father is a wealthy businessman and very much alive. Youssef sets out to find his real father and enters his Westernized world, setting off a chain of events with disastrous consequences.

In the coming weeks, Lalami will be reading from and discussing “Secret Son” in different cities and venues throughout the U.S. You can find more details about the events here.

Buy the book and read it. If you have a chance to attend Lalami’s readings and congratulate her on her new book, please do so.

This Much I believe, Morocco

When I wrote “Iran ‘Secondhand Network In Morocco,” I commended the government’s response to an outside threat. Some misconstrued my statement as an expression of approval of the government’s overboard security measures against the Moroccan Shiite. I clearly stated in my article that I hoped the Moroccan government’s secret service had a comprehensively developed and well-balanced counterintelligence plan to address the issue. I agree with those who assessed Morocco’s current unfocused security operation against the Shiite as amateurish. It is most certainly conducive of grave human rights violations.

I stand against such actions.

According to multiple media reports, Moroccan and otherwise, the Shiite Moroccan citizens detained by the police were questioned on their association with Iranian officials/intelligence and involvement in proselytizing. I am not aware of any Moroccan being imprisoned solely for embracing the Shiite ideology. I do not, nor will I ever, condone police suppression of Moroccans solely based on their denomination, be it Islam, Judaism, Christianity, or any other religion or belief.

My assessment was not emotional, nor was it based on frivolous information. To me, having lived in the Middle East and studied Iran’s modern history for years, the Iranian intelligence threat to the unity of Morocco as a society is all too real. It strives on the complacency and generousness the Moroccan people are so famous for. Examples abound of how Iran drove a wedge between segments of societies in Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, and the Gulf countries. Iran’s intelligence modus operandi focuses on sectarian stigmatization and uses the Shiite population to foment discord within the permissive society that ensconces its sympathizers to influence the government’s decision-making process. Undoubtedly you would agree this is an apocalyptic scenario in Morocco where, if faced with a threat to its fundamental monarchic rule, the government will carry out an all-encompassing repressive campaign not just against the Shiite population, but all Moroccans. Should all Moroccans bear the brunt of the government’s wrath because a handful of Moroccan Shiite ideologists, unconcerned about the welfare of the majority and dissatisfied with Sunni doctrines, decided to sway the balance of power by aiding and abating a foreign intelligence service?

I think not.

It is a matter of national security and unity. The government has an obligation to protect the unity of Morocco from outside influences that bode ill. While I encourage action-driven political debates – a cornerstone to a democratic system, I decry those who abuse it and obtrude themselves on a people; while I denounce the government’s oppressive means in dealing with citizens opposing its policies, I strongly condemn those Moroccans who allow a foreign government with malign intent to inject sectarian divisiveness within our ranks as a society, to weaken the sacred and unifying fabric that makes up our Moroccan values, to compromise the integrity and security of our families. We may be inflicted with poverty and illiteracy; our politicians may be lacking integrity; our government may be insensitive to our pressing needs; we, nonetheless, should uphold our national unity and combat civil discord at all cost. I strongly believe that unchecked Iranian influences in Morocco will be prejudicial to the society. Whatever political, economic, and social divergence the opposition political parties or private citizens have with the government should be resolved in ways uninfluenced by outside pernicious entities.

This much I believe, and I stand by it.

A. T. B. Copyright © 2009

RAF Delegation At Luke

Furthering U.S. – Moroccan military cooperation, a delegation from the Royal Moroccan Air Force is touring Luke Air Force Base, the U.S. Air Force’s only active-duty F-16 Fighting Falcon training wing. Located west of Phoenix, Arizona, the base is home to the 56^th Fighter Wing. It is the world’s largest fighter wing with 180 aircraft, 27 squadrons, four tenant units, and over 6000 civilian and military personnel.

Morocco, which will soon receive a squadron of F-16 from Lockheed Martin (read related story here), is building an air force base specifically designed to support F-16 operations. The Moroccan delegation, led by Colonel M’hamed Saufi, was welcomed by General Kurt F. Neubauer, Luke’s commanding general. Members of the delegation are receiving field instructions on the mission support and maintenance of F-16 and the organizational elements involved in the base operations of a fighter wing – civil engineers and fire department, communications, logistics readiness, security forces, and base services. The Moroccan delegation is also visiting 162^nd Fighter Wing, Arizona Air National Guard, where Moroccan F-16 combat pilots and crew chiefs receive training.

This is not the first time personnel from Luke Air Force Base interact with Moroccans. In May of 2007, thirty-seven members of Luke’s 944^th Medical Squadron visited Guelmim during the joint U.S. – Moroccan exercise known as African Lion. The medical team assisted over 3,746 patients in six different sites in the area of Guelmime in six days.

A. T. B. Copyright © 2009

Iran ‘Secondhand Network In Morocco

Moroccan authorities are conducting an aggressive country-wide campaign against Shi’a ideology. Over the weekend, a number of individuals, all Moroccan citizens, suspected to be Shi’a adherents have been arrested and “soft” interrogated; their homes were searched and documents believed to be Shi’a propaganda were confiscated. The authorities are trying to determine if these individuals have affiliations with the Iranian intelligence security elements.

Morocco’s Investigations should cover those who had known associations with Saddam’s Iraqi Intelligence Services (IIS) as well. Much like Baghdad’s museums in the power vacuum that resulted from the U.S. invasion in 2003, media sources reported that Iraqi Mukhabarat offices were looted; large quantities of documents went missing from the IIS Special Operations (14^th) Directorate in Salman Pak, south of Baghdad. It is believed that Iranian intelligence operatives were able to whisk the documents into Iran. The intelligence documents consisted of reports on and from sources of the IIS in Arab countries. I am speculating that Iran is blackmailing those sources and using them to fulfill its own agenda. The use by the Iranian intelligence of the Iraqi school in Rabat as a shiite propaganda platform indicates how far reaching their operations are.

The Moroccan government’s actions to counter the dissentious Iranian threat are commendable. I hope the Moroccan internal security service has a proactive counterintelligence plan to address the issue that is not limited to reactive and cursory investigations.

A. T. B. Copyright © 2009

Countering The Iranian Threat

The recent political rift between Morocco and Iran was long overdue. Morocco ‘stand, far from being reactive, is deliberate and pragmatic. It was based on clear indicators as to Iran’s malign intent vis-à-vis Morocco. Unlike other Arab nations, especially Middle Eastern ones which, by virtue of their geographic proximity to Iran, are compelled to deal with it, Morocco can afford to forgo relations with the Islamic republic. This is not the first time the two countries have an axe to grind with each other; in 1981, Tehran ceased its diplomatic relations with Rabat for hosting the deposed Iranian shah. It took a decade for relations to thaw.

The past few years saw an expansion in economic cooperation between the two countries; Morocco’s strategic geographic location provided Iran with a launching pad to European markets; still, trade between Morocco and Iran did not surpass $20 million; chump change in both countries’ international trade revenues.

Some Analysts speculated that Morocco severed its diplomatic relations with Iran in response to the latter’s irredentist claim against its neighbor Bahrain. The Moroccan government did send a missive to Bahrain reemphasizing its solidarity with the government of King Hamad bin Issa Al-Khalifa. The move angered Tehran which summoned the Moroccan chargé d’affaire to forcefully express its disapprobation.

Other analysts contend that Morocco is being used as a proxy by Saudi Arabia and other Arab Sunni Gulf countries to weaken Iran’s influence in Arab countries. Saudi Arabia has been competing with Iran for strategic leadership in the Gulf. Adherents to the Shiite ideology in Saudi Arabia constitute 20 per cent of the population and are a powerful influencing element for Iran. In February 2009, thousands of Saudi Shiites protested what they labeled discriminatory and anti-Shiite actions by the Saudi government. Such demonstrations were unprecedented in the Saudi kingdom. Saudi intelligence believes the demonstrations were fomented by Iran.

Morocco’s foreign minister, Taib Fassi Fihri, presented yet another explanation to Morocco’s cessation of its diplomatic relations with Iran. He stated that Iranian officials and their missionaries have been actively proselytizing in Morocco using cultural activities as a cover. Their campaign to spread the Shiite ideology reached beyond Morocco’s borders to target Moroccan immigrants in Europe. Morocco considers such activities undermining to its religious fundamentals and interfering with its internal affairs. Iranian foreign minister Monouchehr Mottaki denied the accusation and called Morocco’s reaction a setback to Muslim unity and erosive to Palestinian support.

Taib Fassi Fihri ‘statement is euphemism for what Moroccan intelligence services labeled Iran’s offensive counterintelligence and Human intelligence operations to recruit sources and establish a clandestine operating base to advance its agenda in the region by threatening and intimidating the Moroccan government.

Iran’s hegemonic ambition has been robust since the overthrow of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and the ascendancy of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in December 1979. Undeniably, the new theocratic government was supported by millions of disgruntled Iranians who regarded the Shah as a pampered puppet of the United States. Because of its radical ideology that called – and to a certain extent still does – for the overthrow of capitalism and American influence in the Middle East, Khomeiny’s regime found his oil and gas rich neighbors rather apprehensive. The fledgeling Shiite fundamentalist government engaged in aggressive intelligence operations in the Gulf countries; it was driven by a single requirement: survival. Saddam’s war against Iran was largely financed by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, and Qatar. The United States provided tremendous logistical and intelligence support. The strategic aim was to deflect Iran’s exporting of its ideology to neighboring countries and to deplete its economic and military resources, thus making it less of an influence on the balance of power not just in the region, but worldwide. The Middle Eastern countries rely heavily on U.S. support to keep Iran at bay. U.S. Navy’s 5^th Fleet in Bahrain, CENTCOM’s prepositioning bases in Qatar, and USAFCENT’s bases in Oman and United Arab Emirates constitute a powerful deterrent to Iran’s regional political and military ambitions.

Iran’s foreign agenda has weakened its economy; inflation exceeds twenty-five percent; forty percent of Iranians under thirty years of age are unemployed; the country imports forty percent of it domestic oil consumption; the business sector is heavily subsidized. Despite its current social and economic woes, Iran remains a serious contender in the international scene. So much so that The U.S. is now realizing that peace in Iraq will not be achieved without the active cooperation of Iran. Iranian influence on the dynamics of Iraqi politics is such that most Iraqi powerbrokers are believed to be on the payroll of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS). In April, 2003, when U.S. forces entered Iraq, Iran had an established sprawling network of intelligence agents and thousands of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps – Quds Force (IRGC-QF) operatives standing by to unleash havoc across Iraq by training, advising, supplying, and directing Shiite groups. The tactical sophistication of Iraqi Shiite led insurgency operations and the advanced and effective weaponry they used, such as the devastating Explosively Formed Penetrators (EFP) and the Misagh-1 MANPADS, were trademarked in Iran. Iran’s covert operations in Iraq were not intended solely against the United States; they conducted countless assassinations and bombings against Iraqi political groups they deemed unresponsive to their scheme. In southern Lebanon and Palestine, Hezbollah and Hamas surged as a resistance force to reckon with. Their armed wings, the Islamic Resistance and Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, have been trained and equipped by IRGC-QF and their political leaderships mostly advised and financed by the MOIS. They drive a wedge in the region’s political mosaic and blatantly echo Iran’s political rhetoric and advocate its agenda. The potency of Iran’s radicalism and subversiveness became undisputable during the July 2006 war and the January 2009 Israeli attacks on Hamas.

Iran’s recent assertive PR campaign against Israel propelled it as a staunch defender of the Palestinian cause in the Arab street. The Arab governments’ abject failure to adequately address Israel’s murderous attacks against Gaza boosted Iran’s popularity not only among Shiite Arabs, but Sunni ones as well. To maximize on its popularity and the anti-Israeli sentiment permeating the Arab and Muslim world, Iranian diplomatic missions stepped-up their activities in Arab countries, including Morocco. Using Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza as templates, the Iranian mission in Morocco uses proxies to provide social services, operate regular schools, hawzas, and hospitals, and provide financial assistance to small businesses and farmers. It establishes Iranian financial institutions claiming to enhance trade between the two countries. It provides Arab youths academic opportunities in Iranian universities. In fact, the Iranian social, educational, and financial programs are far from being philanthropic. They are covers for a well structured counterintelligence human intelligence operational cycle Iran has tested time and again in many other countries. It uses them to imbue the population with its brand of insurrectionist Shiite ideology; once the population is indoctrinated, Iran establishes operating bases that will provide safe houses, training camps, weapons, transportation, and finances; it creates front companies and associations; it starts spotting and assessing for sources in key official position and political parties to influence the government’s decision-making process. Once it takes hold, it would be difficult to deter Iranian influence and stop its meddling in Moroccan politics. A hezbollah or Hamas-like organization inside Morocco would be a deleterious threat to Moroccan sovereignty and divisive to its social fabric.

Albeit necessary, Morocco’s uncompromising strategy in countering the Iranian threat to Morocco’s national unity might backfire by pushing Iranian operatives and their Moroccan backers underground making them far more challenging to expose and neutralize. Iranian intelligence could also redirect its support to Polisario and work in concert with the group to weaken Morocco’s territorial integrity.

A. T. B. Copyright © 2009

AFRICOM: Plowing Ahead

Gen. William E. “Kip” Ward appeared before the Armed Services Committee March 18, 2009 to discuss AFRICOM’s challenges in promoting stability and security in Africa. AFRICOM’s efforts are driven by national level requirements with an endstate to degrade and eliminate transnational and local security threats – Islamic extremism – and minimize Chinese, Russian, and Iranian influences in the continent. The acomplishment of its mission depends on enhancing the capabilities of African nations and increasing their dependence on U.S. military hardware and systems, operational advisory, and intelligence sharing through military-to-military engagements, US sponsored civilian programs, and clandestine anti-terrorism operations.

Rep. Vic Snyder (D-AR), a member of the committee, inquired about the role of AFRICOM in the enduring conflicts in Africa, specifically the Ethiopian/Eritrean border conflict and the dispute between Morocco and Polisario. Gen. Ward tap danced in such an expert fashion the late Gregory Hines would have been proud.

Gen. Ward: As it comes to the role that we play, the command, the military role, you know, where there are political agreements that talk to, one, creating stability, that talk to, two, the need to create a force, a security force, that would in fact help the legitimate government of a nation provide that control or that stability, where there is a lack of training, a lack of equipment, a lack of interoperability, a lack of working effectively to some degree with its neighbors where, again, there is the political will to do so, and the determination is made that we in fact can play a role in increasing the capacity to address those deficiencies, that’s where we as a command, a military command, come in to take a role, to increase the capacity of those nations to do such.

Morocco hardly considers Polisario a “neighbor.” It is worth noting here that the US government does not recognize Moroccan sovereignty over what it terms “Western Sahara.” AFRICOM’s perspective becomes more evidently discordant when we know that U.S. Marine Corps Forces, Africa (MARFORAF) annually conducts a bi-lateral exercise – AFRICAN LION – with the Moroccan military in southern Morocco.

According to news reports, the U.S. and Morocco were discussing the establishment of an AFRICOM base in southern Morocco. Both AFRICOM and Morocco deny such discussions ever took place. During his testimony, Gen Ward revisited the issue stating that AFRICOM headquarters will remain in Stuttgart, Germany until 2014. Its current location provides the stability and focus necessary to develop its standard operating procedures (SOPs), doctrines, and directives, expand its operations in the continent, refine its posture, and strengthen its relationship with its African partners. In the meanwhile, its operations are supported by forward operational sites such as Ascension Island, 1000 miles west of Africa and Camp Lemonier in Djibouti; Several other sites such as EUCOM’s Army Southern European Task Force in nearby Vicenza, Italy, CENTCOM’s prepositioning bases in Qatar, and NAVCENT’s 5th fleet in Bahrain provide logistical support.

CIMIC procedures course in Agadir, Morocco

AFRICOM’s Foreign Military Financing program spent $18.7 million in fiscal year 2008. A large chunk of it, according to Gen. Ward, went to Tunisia and Morocco. The program’s strategic goal is to increase the interoperability between the U.S. and these countries’ hardware systems and enhance asset capabilities in bi-lateral operations. Other AFRICOM programs Morocco will stand to benefit from in 2009 is PHOENIX EXPRESS, a naval exercise spearheaded by U.S. Naval Forces, Africa (NAVAF) and involving not just African navies, but European ones as well. Morocco’s participation in the program will improve its maritime interdiction capabilities and, hopefully, allow it to cauterize the worsening hemorrhaging of illegal immigrants and drugs from Morocco’s northern shores.

A major divergence in AFRICOM’s mission, in my opinion, is its insistence to support established governments in sustaining political stability whilst advocating democracy. There is a consensus among observers of Africa ‘strategic affairs that the majority of African governments have not been empowered by a popular support. The elections most African governments organize and AFRICOM vaunts before congress and through its Operation Objective Voice (OOV) are spurious.

A. T. B. Copyright © 2009

For Life Alone

There are snippets of conversations that cling to your memory insusceptible to the effacing effect of time. I will never forget one such a conversation I had with some American friends twenty years ago. We were having dinner and talking about Morocco when one of them asked: “are people in Morocco still living in caves?” I took umbrage at what I perceived as his supercilious and downright racist attitude. I snapped back explaining that we live in houses, wear clothes, drive cars, watch television, go to schools much like Americans do. My anger must have seeped through my face and vibrated through my voice; the subject was quickly dropped.

It’s only a few years ago that I discovered that indeed, twenty years ago, whole families in Morocco lived in caves; today, many more still do. It’s a reality most Moroccan city dwellers were unaware of. It is an aspect of our country our political leadership and officials never mentioned in their florid speeches and our news media never depicted in their self-serving articles and television programs.

Recently, grim images of poverty akin to the middle ages flashed on the screens of our national television and the pages of our written media. Such unusually unreserved veraciousness is induced not by the establishment’s belief the citizens have an indubitable right to the information; the investigative reporting of foreign news outlets combined with the government’s failed attempts to restrict satellite television and the internet – Morocco is a signatory of the Arab Satellite Broadcasting Charter – and the Moroccans’ voracious curiosity to learn about their country forced the release of information that was previously buttered in exclusivity.

In today’s dynamic geopolitical and global environment where poverty is considered a bearing ground for religious extremism, terrorism, prostitution, and drug trafficking, the government has discovered that the disclosure of Morocco’s “old poverty” generates unforeseen funds from wary Western intelligence agencies concerned that throngs of poverty-stricken Moroccans would march into their cities strapped in suicide vests. So far, Morocco has received over four billion dirhams in European subsidies. This year, additional European Union investments will aim at healthcare and education reform, water system purification, and transportation in rural areas. These projects will have extensive European oversight to ensure their successful achievement.

However, uncovering such realities outside of ordained channels throws government officials into a tizzy. The antiquated and backward looking political mentality of the Moroccan government sees such a pandemic reality as undermining to their “democratization and developmental” agenda. It castigates private citizens and Moroccan human right associations for criticizing its discrepant rhetoric, but it has no compunction justifying its profligate spending in ostentatious projects such as a twenty kilometers long tramway network in Rabat and a twenty-eight kilometers long one in Casablanca as necessary. This is while citizens outside Rabat and Casablanca, lacking the most basic services, are dying; services the government is obligated to provide, but fails to do so.

One has to wonder how such a cradle of civilization from which the Moors launched into Visigothic Hispania in 711 CE, thus introducing a Medieval Europe to science, medicine, philosophy, and literature, failed to retain some of that enlightenment and prosperity. One has to wonder why modernity – not civilization – founders once it transcends city limits.

While frolicking tourists sunbathe on beaches and dine in swanky resorts, while a few thousand elite Moroccans are living high on the hog, millions of malnourished, destitute, and sallow Moroccans in remote rural areas scratch the dirt for survival and take shelter in dwellings so sparsely furnished and poorly built that they look like caves. In this post-apocalyptic diorama, they sleep swallowed in whatever clothes and blankets they own to avoid freezing to death; they cook in tin cans; their women bleed to death giving birth; their children die of diseases the modern world thought eradicated; their men are despondent; weather permitting, they trek over xeric dirt roads and down jarring mountain slopes for countless hours and miles to reach a paved road. They share this country with us, but they live a different reality. The only sign of a government they see in their regions is a tattered flag whipped by the wind; the last time they saw a qaid must have been when the government was collecting “voluntary” donations for the eponymous Hassan II mosque.

The question is still ringing in my ears like a bad case of tinnitus. But at least now I have an answer.

Yes! Much like troglodytes, we are still living in caves.

But let us not succumb into hopelessness. All is not lost. The anti-poverty national Initiative for Human Development (INDH), a large-scale development project launched in May 18, 2005 and designed to provide the basic infrastructure to millions of Moroccans to alleviate poverty, marginalization, and social exclusion in response to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is already bearing fruit. The poverty rate is nose-diving like a famished Jaeger. People are getting richer by the minute. And by people I mean Prime Minister Abbas El Fassi, High Commissioner for Planning Ahmed Lahlimi Alami, Minister of Social Development Nouzha Skelli, and their ilk. If you haven’t seen anything from INDH yet, do not worry. They will soon send you an email with a claimant number for your jackpot, your ticket out of poverty. It might take a while for them to get to you; INDH is giving each and every Moroccan the individual attention they deserve no matter how far-flung your cave may be.

A. T. B. Copyright © 2009

The Lingering Legacy Of Hassan II

When diluvial rains and heavy snows battered most of Morocco for weeks, the howling winds blew the cover on the fraudulent activities of government officials. Their nostrums dissolved transforming the already dreary and treacherous landscapes of rural Morocco into a death trap for many. While our politicians warmly spent quality time with their families in swanky homes surrounded by manicured front lawns and blossoming roses, Moroccans were treading water and trudging through mud to survive the collapse of their abodes. Government officials tracked the catastrophe with the nonchalance of a cracked up whore at the end of her busy night. It took the King ruining his $1,500.00 custom made Roberto Cavalli designer shoes and conducting a sudden visit to Ain Tawajtat near Fez to snap government officials out of their unwholesome inertia. It is one more indication that sustains the analysis there are two political mindsets operating in Morocco today.

King Mohammed VI, regarded as the poor people’s monarch, aspires to modernize and democratize Morocco. Since he ascended to the throne in July of 1999, he has been an energetic advocate of social and political reforms that paint Morocco as a progressive and secular Muslim country more mindful of human rights and tolerant of political dissent. Such an outlook puts him in a stark contrast with the modus operandi of his late father, Hassan II, whose 38 years-long autocratic style stifled opposition and widened the chasm between the government and the citizenry.

Despite the King ‘spirited efforts, the changes have been emerging at a snail’s pace; degenerating social services, spiraling unemployment rates, and growing illiteracy numbers remain intractable problems. The worsening poverty, represented by sprawling squalid and vermin infested shantytowns in the outskirts of all Moroccan cities, unschooled teenagers high on solvents marauding the streets for an opportune hustle, and beggars with toddlers in tow rapid firing a litany of complaints at passersby their extended arms soliciting alms, has been in recent years a fertile recruiting environment for radical Islamic groups; Official Islamic political parties, supported by a large segment of the population, surged as a force to reckon with in the Parliament.

The King’s democratization agenda comes with one self-evident provision; dissolving the legislature and dismissing the government remains his unadulterated authority. The preservation of the monarchy as an ineluctable ruling platform in Morocco is a top priority. In that, he is assisted by the secret services of foreign governments such the United States and France. Since 1956, the monarchy has been equated to stability by foreign governments having a vested interest in Morocco ‘strategic role in the region.

Despite the fact that King Mohammed VI has placed young reform-minded technocrats within the current government, the majority of government officials are party to an entrenched and nepotic old guard led by the Prime Minister, Mr. Abbas El Fassi. The opaque and graft-ridden government is a perennial thread extending the deeply ingrained political intolerance that characterized the reign of Hassan II. It maintains, if not widens, the extensive divide between it and the grass roots. Its old-timers claim to have snatched Morocco’s independence from France while in fact they were relishing the comforts of French schools and returned just in time to fill key government positions in the late fifties and early sixties. While over fifty percent of the Moroccan population is under twenty-five years of age, illiterate and unemployed, the elite’s children are receiving the best education American and European schools could offer, putting them on the right track to take over Morocco’s affairs for generations to come. The old guard consorts with prominent Moroccan businessmen to exert a monopolistic domination not only on the Moroccan economy, but the political decision-making process as well. While democracy is widely viewed as integral to the Moroccan political landscape of Rabat and other large cities today, it remains mostly theoretical in most of the country, especially rural areas where tradition is deeply rooted, access to advocacy groups is restricted, and international oversight is non-existent. Those who complain are stigmatized and even persecuted. Such an environment did much to exacerbate the political and economic quandary in which Moroccans are mired; the government has unabashedly forsaken the common man, and the common man, for self-preservation, has resorted to corruption, drug cropping, prostitution, and illegal immigration. The old guard’s lack of accountability is flagrant and unchecked – unless the king intervenes that is.

The people’s access to the king is tightly controlled by the old guard, but the king’s access to the people is unhindered. Often, unannounced, Mohammed VI would visit a commune. Such visits would offer a glimpse at how government officials isolate and intimidate the citizenry while plundering the country’s riches. Schools are not being constructed; roads are not being paved; basic services are not being provided. Such royal visits to destitute locations of the kingdom leave the government scampering around like frightened chickens. The king’s micromanagement of some projects results in a rapid governmental response, and as if by magic, an improved work ethics.

It was indeed a gracious gesture for Mohammed VI to step into the mud and stand, albeit for a brief moment, where his homeless, sodden, and freezing citizens slosh on a daily basis. I am afraid the glimmer of hope his visit ignited into the hearts of his servants disappeared the moment he left them in the hands of his government officials.

A. T. B. Copyright © 2009

Israel’s Mighty Monkey Wrench

 

“Offensive, discriminatory, and unacceptable” is how the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations described the United Arab Emirates’ denying Shahar Peer, an Israeli tennis player, a visa to participate in a profitable women’s tennis tournament in Dubai. It called for the Women’s tennis association to boycott future tournaments in UAE. It also called for the Association of Tennis Professionals to cancel the ATP tournament scheduled this week in Dubai if UAE bars Israeli tennis player Andy Ram from participating.

 

Of course, Andy Ram not only got a visa to enter UAE, but special security measures are enacted to provide him a buffer from pestilent protestors incensed by Israel’s appalling attacks on defenseless Palestinian civilians.

 

Wait a minute! The governments of the whole world (the U.S. excluded), outraged and crying foul, did not stymie Israel’s murderous assault on the Gaza Strip and its killing of hundreds of children, but it took a group of American Jews, bristled that two mediocre Israeli tennis players could not swing their tennis balls in front of Arab spectators, calling for the cancelation of a derisory tennis tournament for UAE to shamelessly yield.

 

It would be naïve to believe that UAE was worried about a vainglorious sports event when it acquiesced. The Emirs are solicitous about the “123″ nuclear cooperation accord former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice signed with her UAE counterpart Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zaid Al-Nahyan on January 15, 2009. The treaty, which will allow UAE to build a nuclear reactor for civilian energy production, needs congressional approval to become a law. Congressional approval will not be forthcoming without Israel’s blessing.

 

 

A. T. B. Copyright © 2009

 

The Appeal Of “Taken”… Kill A Moslem

 

At the behest of friends, I went to see “Taken” this weekend. The movie ranked second in the top box office list with a total of 20.3 million dollars. To me, that is a good indicator the American audience loved it.  I saw the trailers, but I was not expecting more than a mindless action movie.

I walked into the showroom holding my cup of a double Americano – which as I always do, snuck in. The place was packed. A couple of seats were spared at the two very front rows. I wasn’t gonna watch the movie with the tip of my nose touching the projection screen. Instead, I walked up the side stairs and sat on the red carpeted floor just as the movie started.

The storyline is mundane. A CIA operative with “a very special set of skills”, played by Liam Neeson, devoted his career  to being what he labeled “a preventer,” making sure America’s enemies were eliminated. His service to his country had a steep price; his wife divorced him taking his daughter away from him. Guilt-ridden for neglecting his daughter’s needs while chasing terrorists around the globe protecting the US, he retires and settles in Los Angeles where she now lives with her millionaire step-father and mother.

The daughter, who is seventeen, decides to go on a trip to Europe with a friend. He is reluctant to approve it because his CIA experience taught him anywhere outside the US is dangerous. But he relents. Lo and behold, the daughter and her friend are kidnapped in Paris by a sex trafficking ring. The ex-CIA dotting father then flies to Paris, traces his daughter’s kidnappers in a record time, picking up hot leads faster than a hooker could wash her crack and sell it again. He drops bodies left and right. He even gets to torture one of the kidnappers and shoot the wife of a former intelligence “buddy” to get the information he needs. He kicks ass and takes names and finally saves his daughter and returns with her to LA where he is celebrated as a hero by not just his ex-wife, but her husband too. I was left wondering why the CIA is not sending agents like him to Afghanistan. This guy could have found Ossama Ben Laden in a couple of hours.

As I said earlier, a blood drenched, revenge driven B movie with all the explosions and car chases to keep you on the edge of your seat gawping.

I was gravely mistaken.  

This movie was much more than that. It had a message to the younger generation. That is why, despite the lurid violence, it was rated PG13. I became more sensitive to the underlying message as our hero charges on in Paris behind the scent of his daughter. The first indicator came when he and his buddies from the agency reminisce about an operation against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hezbollah? How is this relevant to the story? Later on in Paris, our hero locates, at Rue Du Paradis (how symbolic), a group of Albanians who allegedly are his daughter’s kidnappers. They all had on their hands tattoos of a crescent and a star, a symbol generally regarded as Islamic nowadays. Our cowboy kills the evil Moslem men faster than Bob Munden draws his weapon; he saves one for torturing CIA style.

Then, he follows his leads until he finds his daughter being auctioned like a slave. The auction was run by a rich French businessman who gets wacked too. This part of the movie would have been more a propos in 2002 and 2003 when congress changed the names of French fries and French toast to freedom fries and freedom toast.

And guess who buys the kidnapped virgins? A fat, pompous, and cowardly Moslem Arab.

The audience cheered our hero on throughout the movie with applause, words of encouragement, and finally a good cheer when he shot the fat, pompous, and cowardly Moslem Arab as he hid behind the whimpering all American teenager.

The 93-minute movie got an 8 out of 10 rating on IMDb Its message is loud and clear: the enemy is Islam and whatever the US does to protect itself, no matter how unlawful it is, is justified.

In 2007, I saw another movie that tackled the theme of sex trade with more intensity and realism. It was “Trade.” It tells the story of a 13-year-old Mexican girl who was kidnapped by a sex trade ring in Mexico City and sold to pedophiles in … the US. “Trade” was based on the New York Times Magazine article “The Girls Next Door” by Peter Landesman who chronicled the operations of sex trafficking rings in American suburbia. The American audience was not as receptive of it as it is of “Taken.”

“Trade” could have been a tremendous success if the sex traders were Moslem and the protagonist killed a dozen Arab looking men to save the 13-year-old victim. Don’t you think?

 

 

A. T. B. Copyright © 2009

 

The Moroccan Katrina

 

The dams are overflowing. More than 150 000 acres are flooded. Thousands of homes are destroyed leaving the residents stranded in the wet and frigid weather battling hypothermia. The death toll is high. Piling snow blocked a number of national roads isolating cities and villages from the rest of the country. Since this is the official report, we know the reality is much worse.

 

In urban areas, the local authorities struggle to help the population with the meager heavy equipment they can muster. Some of the equipment comes from private construction companies in the area. Their efforts to beat the next flood and provide assistance to the next family whose house tumbled like a sand castle seems futile. Destitute people are stuffed into tattered tents in throngs. Regional governments are ill-prepared for the levels of rain and snow dumped on their locations. The government has nothing to show for the eight million dollars it claims to have spent on twenty-four flood protection projects between 2002 and 2007. Once more, the population bears the brunt of the toll.

 

The government is not lagging, though. With the best interest of the population at heart, it signed a nature conservancy cooperation agreement with Spain to safeguard the Moroccan national wildlife environment along its Mediterranean shores. The cooperation will aim at providing a sustainable expense of unbroken forests and lakes where migratory birds can congregate and other animals can roam unperturbed. The budget for the ecological projects is in excess of four million dollars.

 

Considering we suffer from a surfeit of social and economic problems that have lately been exacerbated by the inclement weather, this move is highly incongruous.

 

I never suspected we have a strong green lobby in the government able to influence national priorities and convince our concerned policy-makers animals are worth more than the welfare of their constituency.

 

Needless to say, Moroccan migrants crossing the Mediterranean in search for a better life and those whose homes have been destroyed and their fields flooded because of the downpour will not benefit from the nature conservancy projects. I am sure they are already enjoying their excessively eco-friendly environments.

 

A. T. B. Copyright © 2009

 

Israel vs. Hamas: Unfinished Business

 

The ceasefire Israel and Hamas reluctantly committed to on Jan. 18 was broken today as Rockets fired from Gaza shelled southern Israel and fighter jets targeted a metal foundry allegedly used as weapons factory in Rafah. A pro-Fatah militant group claimed responsibility on the pre-dawn rocket attack on Israel. This new round of hostilities brings to a halt a short-lived truce, aggravates an already horrendous situation, and threatening a precarious peace.

 

The disproportionate military responses to Palestinian militants’ attacks garnered a large popular support base for the Olmert’s government from the security wary Israeli population. It will certainly maximize on it in the upcoming Feb. 10 election.

 

I don’t understand why Palestinian militants, Hamas and Fatah, pursue a course of action that clearly enhances Israel‘s regional security posture and advances the policies of its government. The last Israeli offensive was a clear indicator that the risks Hamas takes in its abortive rocket attacks far outweigh the gains. In fact, Hamas and Fatah’s ill-advised policies have had no political, social, or economic gains; the lives of ordinary Palestinians have been significantly degraded because of the Palestinian leadership ‘short-sightedness.

 

In his interview to Al Arabiya, President Obama states “the United States will sustain an active commitment toward reaching the goal of two states living side by side in peace and security,” while his Middle East envoy, self-proclaimed Arab American George Mitchell, was in Jerusalem on Wednesday to assure Israel that Obama’s administration is primarily committed to its security and its legitimate right to self-defense.

 

I am certain of this: there will never be peace between Israel or any current or future Palestinian government. Neither Israel nor the Palestinian leadership will prosper in a peaceful co-existence. Other power brokers such as Syria, Iran, and the United States polarize the conflict further. War is the money-maker.

 

A. T. B. Copyright © 2009

 

A Thank You Note To Bush, Cheney, Rice, And Rumsfeld

Dear former President Bush, former VP Cheney, former Secretary of State Rice, and former Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, the world should be thankful to you for the following: