The New Court Jester

Before he uttered a word, Mr. Abdelilah Benkirane, the new Moroccan Prime Minister, was made to understand he will be challenged. As he stood before the lectern to address Morocco’s bicameral Parliament, parliamentarian women stood up holding printed slogans expressing their indignation at the trifling representation of women in his new government and chanting their intention to be no milquetoast opposition. Outside the parliament, another group of women demonstrated; their voices squawked through loudspeakers to deplore the regression of the status of women. Mr. Benkirane was hardly nonplussed as if he expected such an outburst. 

In his speech, he outlined his government’s multi-tiered program to address the set of challenges that have overwhelmed his predecessor and dejected the public. He predicted a 5.5% growth over the next four years and a 1.6% reduction in the unemployment rate to 8%; he promised to stabilize the inflation at an appropriate 2% and to slash the budget deficit to 3% of gross domestic product. He vowed a better execution of the “Cities without Slums” program by expediting the construction of 840,000 housing unit. Eradicating corruption and poverty are his national priorities. Honoring Morocco’s agreements with the European Union and other partners, and fostering new international relations are the framework of his foreign policy. Protecting Morocco’s monarchic institutions, its borders, and national security are the bedrock of his government ‘strategy. The new constitution will be its guiding light.

To many, Mr. Benkirane ’speech was motivating, even inspirational. A pugnacious political opposition, mostly disgruntled former ministers and officials turned representatives and councilors, described the speech in a frothing rebuke as nothing more than a wish list and rote slogans. They deplored the lack of details on how the recently formed government will execute. They inveighed against the lack of urgency and criticized Mr. Benkirane’s long view. It is clear that the opposition is vehemently unwilling to take the high road and make a good-faith effort toward political impartiality. It has already started building a wall of obstruction and concocting schemes to subvert any initiative the government proposes in order to delegitimize the PJD’s ascension to the Executive.   

Mr. Benkirane’s agenda is riven with conflicts and contradictions. If we are to base our analysis on facts, Mr. Benkirane’s critical tasks seem highly inexecutable. To maintain the inflation at 2%, the government will have to raise interest rates and discontinue government subsidies; it will require enacting austere fiscal policies that will throw Morocco into an economic depression neither the public, nor the government – unless it aims for a bloody revolution – is ready for. To revitalize the economy by drawing international investment, fostering entrepreneurship, and lowering the unemployment rate will require, among other steps, decreasing interest rates. How Mr. Benkirane will reconcile opposing economic strategies is unknown at this time. He seems to fudge on key issues; he sometimes talks about reducing inequality; in others, he promises expanding opportunities. In light of Europe’s economic recession, a 5.5% growth over the next four years is improbable.

Mr. Benkirane’s popularity could be chalked up to his audacious denunciations, during his rallies, of unprincipled politicians and his unrelenting confrontations with Abbass el-Fassi’s government over the inconstancy of its members. But so far, there are no reassuring signs he is the bellwether Moroccans believed he would be once at the helm of the government. Since winning the election and his subsequent appointment by the King as Prime Minister, he has seeing his image change in the collective psyche of Moroccans. His floundered attempts at forming a government portrayed him as a weak-kneed concessionist. By handing over ministerial portfolios to individuals who have participated in previous administrations, some such as Mohand Laenser since the early eighties, people, especially the young and disenfranchised segment of society, consider him now a member of the Makhzen establishment he has once railed against. Allowing Mr. Aziz Akhanouch to resign from the Independents’ National Rally party to join the new government and carry on his duties as Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries is a clear constitutional transgression.

And it is not the only one.

Creating ministerial positions without assigning portfolios to accommodate the power-grabbing aspirations of organized political interests the public deems undesirable is another one. The negligible representation of women in the new government is yet another example of how dismissive Mr. Benkirane could be of the new constitution when it oppugns his Islamist leaning or his political duplicity. The unemployed have grown convinced they have been hoodwinked into believing that Mr. Benkirane is a reform-minded outsider who will put the kibosh on their woes. However, they quickly realized how the patriarchal level-headedness he demonstrated before the election has morphed into a churlish assertion of regulatory power only a few weeks after he assumed power. Last week, four unemployed youths who hold higher degrees self-immolated in Rabat when they became exceedingly harassed by the police during a sit-in. Demonstrations organized by activists in major Moroccan cities have been violently confronted by security forces resulting in the detention and hospitalization of hundreds of participants. Human rights and individual freedoms are slowly and steadily deteriorating.

These are strong indicators that Mr. Benkirane has transitioned from a belligerent opposition leader to a consummate “makhzny.” They reinforce the view many Moroccan analysts share that the electoral success of the PJD was orchestrated and only serves to placate the mounting populist aversion to the status quo.  

As their hopes blink out into oblivion, the Moroccan people are no longer swayed by the bloviation of politicians and businessmen who act as if they will flog the nation into prosperity when in fact they are depleting its resources. They understand that Mr. Benkirane is nothing more than the new court jester; the blame falls squarely on the King. They have grown intolerant of the unvarnished condescension directed at them from the palace. The recent inauguration by the current heir apparent to the throne of a zoo in Rabat is a clear illustration of how nothing will be changing in Morocco. Moroccans saw an eight year old child around whom high ranking city officials and politicians could not walk upright out of fear; they lavished upon him profound veneration, kissing his hand and never calling his name as if doing so were a blasphemy. Instead, they referred to him as “The Name of my Master.” The inauguration gave insight into the upbringing of Morocco’s future king. Before he understands the underlying principles of governance, the strategies of politics, the glorious history of the people he will inherit and upon whom he will be king, he is taught first and foremost that he is the apotheosis of mankind, that people need to be obsequious servants at his whim. 

Where is the dignity in that? No Moroccan in his right mind pines for the era of Hassan II, nor does he look forward to the era of a Hassan III who believes the people ought to serve him and not the other way around. No wonder demonstrators around the country today are chanting: “You king, you vile enemy of the masses.”

A. T. B. © 2012

2011… To Be Continued

2011 will be remembered as the year a young Arab generation leaders, intellectuals, and parents thought to be politically vain, unengaged, timorous, convulsed and toppled three dictators and caused others to reassess their positions, make concessions, and reform their ways. So many died for intangible ideals such as freedom, social justice and equity, democracy. Others wanted nothing more than an honest job, a decent living, a dignified existence. Many hold Mohmmed Bouazizi’s self-immolation as the catalyst of the revolution that spread like wild fire.  Somehow his demise pinched a nerve many believed neuroparalytic.

Bouazizi is hardly exceptional in the Arab world. In fact, his plight is rather mundane. Many young Arabs eke out a living in ways fraught with danger and uncertainty and are constantly harassed by corrupt police. Their meager sources of income have always been targets to unscrupulous legislations. Many young Arabs self-immolated when their options were drastically reduced and their legitimate grievances ignored by their political leaders.

Somehow, Tunisians decided that the government’s lack of compassion with Bouazizi’s plight was a slap across the nation’s collective face.  Its judicial unctuousness could no longer dupe the people. It was too much to bear. Most saw Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali’s pity visit to an expiring Bouazizi as a devious maneuver to appease the brewing anger of a nation that can no longer silently witness the government’s heedlessness to their needs. It blew the lid on the feral rage Tunisians felt about their precarious economy while Ben Ali and others of his ilk were basking in lavishness.

The Egyptian and Libyan revolutions have been fairly successful because people have come to grips with their own strength as powerful brokers of change in countries where the only change ever allowed was seldom palliative to the people and always initiated by unrepresentative prehensile officials. I say fairly successful because the revolution is ongoing. It has become clear that Arab Heads of States are only the tip of the iceberg. Behind the dictators stand a more powerful oligarchy that has demonstrated it has no compunction thrusting one of their members on the gallows to save the status quo. People in Tunisia understood that Ben Ali, and Mohammed Ghannouchi who tried to head a transitional government afterwards, were nothing more than the executors of policies devised by the Constitutional Democratic Rally. It has become clear now that Egypt’s military has been the true deleterious drive behind Housni Moubarak. It has been suspected that many of the politicians, military commanders, and businessmen who supported and often conspired to strengthen Muammar Qaddafi’s rule are now heads of newly formed political parties vying for power in the emerging government.

Thanks to the ingenious use of social media as a political tools, the Arabs have grown quite skilled at discerning between fundamental political changes and nostrums concocted to mitigate social unrest and deceive people into believing that their will is being fulfilled.

Much has changed in the Arab World in 2011, but clearly the revolution is not over yet. 2012 promises to be a delving year for the Arab world.

(to be continued)

  A. T. B. © 2011

Morocco’s Museum Of Things I Can’t Afford

As I sat in Fanajeen, Aasmaa, Akhannouch’s café, contemplating a map of Morocco amputated of its southern provinces in a Morocco Mall brochure while sipping from my 30 dirhams cup of coffee, I couldn’t help thinking Salwa Idrisi Akhannouch, the queen of retail franchising in Morocco and CEO of Aksal Group, must have sensed Moroccans’ bubbling need for a new shopping and entertainment experience. The venue is palatial and its three floors teemed with an overjoyed crowd that raged like white water through its arteries, seeking to be part of the hottest action Casablanca has ever seeing.

The excitement was palpable. There are no symptoms of poverty here. Since December 5^th, the day it opened its doors with an extravagantly overpriced “J-Loesque” fanfare, visitors from Rabat, Marrakesh, Fez, Meknes, and Tangier, have been flooding Casa-Voyageur and hopping in cabs to Morocco Mall; others drove their BMW’s, Audis, Mercedes, and Range Rovers; and yet, others rode buses, or came on foot. The taxi driver told me it was his sixth trip to Casablanca’s new shopping landmark. The venue expects 14 million visitors and revenues in excess of two billion dirhams a year. Although it lacks a helipad, the premise is impressive. With its 350 high-end and well-known signature fashion brands stores, IMAX cinema, an aquarium, an arcade, an ice skating rink, and a musical fountain mimicking the Bellagio’s, it is guaranteed to be a Mecca for Morocco’s wealthy families and a broadening middle class base with a rapidly increasing purchasing power.

At least, that’s what Salwa Idrisi Akhannouch believes based on an article she wrote for the Oxford Business Group titled “Moving on up.” She further stated that the retail fashion market is compelled to expand to satisfy Moroccans’ demand for quality fashion clothing. To that end, her company co-developed, along with Saudi Arabia’s NESK Investment Group, the Morocco Mall. In the same article, Salwa Idrisi Akhannouch predicts the project will have “important social and economic impacts for the country.” Not only will it promote growth and create jobs, she adds, “it will change Moroccans’ life styles and buying habits.”

Such spurious arguments have become the meme of Morocco’s wealthy business families.

I don’t see how Salwa Idrisi Akhannouch’s just-add-money franchises that make up Morocco Mall will translate into an agenda for broad prosperity; they neither develop a skilled labor force, nor improve the local and national economies. It is a pure profit venture that exploits the country’s cheap labor and lax employment laws, and facilitates the transfer of millions of dirhams toward Europe. Of course it generates revenues, but those are not positively impacting communities in dire need of adequate schools, hospitals, and other public service institutions because thanks to her husband’s connections Aksal Group enjoys unique tax breaks. Morocco Mall and similar other businesses will become even more profitable to foreign investors when the transitional period for custom tariffs dismantling ends on March 1^st, 2012. The five thousand employment positions Morocco Mall created are low-paying service jobs; hardly enough to put a dent in Morocco’s chronic unemployment and soften the brunt of its current economic recession in which the government is forced to subsidize commodities to avert a major security crisis. Morocco’s GNI per capita in PPP dollars is $2,750 yearly; according to a study by the High Commission for Planning (HCP), 60% of Moroccan household have a monthly income of less than MAD 4,227, 40% less than MAD 2,892, and 20% less than MAD 1,930. Household consumption has been lagging, the poverty rate climbing, social mobility stagnating, and wealth inequality widening.

Millions of Moroccans, although scraping by on low-earning income, believe the malarkey coming from certain business circles such as Salwa Idrisi Akhannouch’s. They are of course in denial that Morocco Mall is beyond their buying power. Instead of adapting financial restrain, they are willing to stretch their paychecks and sacrifice necessities to earn bragging rights that they’ve shopped at Morocco Mall. For a few hours, they leave a world of woe behind and relish a slice of Europe that, so far, does not require a visa.

The fog of economic profiling is thick around Morocco Mall. A friend of mine who happens to be a lawyer decided, after a walk along the corniche, to take his teenage son to Morocco Mall to check it out. He was promptly stopped at the door by two security employees highly trained in sniffing the whiff of poverty on people and recognizing the wooziness of hunger. They toted handheld radios – the ubiquitous paraphernalia of authority in Morocco. They explained that he and his son couldn’t go in dressed the way they were. My friend and his son were decently dressed in locally made jeans and shirts, except…. except that they were wearing flip-flaps. He was incensed. He complained loudly and refused to leave. He was embarrassed that his son had to see his father subjected to such humiliation. Isn’t Morocco Mall open to all public? A manager finally came out and after a brief debate, decided to let them in. By that time, my friend had lost his urge to goggle at Louis Vuitton bags and Gucci dresses. Such an incident is not isolated. Excluding some Moroccans seems to be a management standard operating procedure; after all, Morocco’s journalists were never invited to the inaugurations.

Deciding between Sidi Abderahman and Morocco Mall

Morocco Mall is surrounded by miserable and decaying patchworks of slums baked by the sun and through which a salty breeze sleathers. Their residents, stifling under the pall of poverty, will give Sidi Abderehman a break and come to Sidi Morocco Mall for no other reason than to drool over things they can never afford; a classic case of the waif ogling at freshly baked napoleons through the window of an expensive bakery. Those who do not reflect – at least visually – a certain economic standard will be barred from entering; impressed upon them will be their lack of worth and the power of a minority in society. The yawning inequities between poor and rich are spotlighted at the entrance. This will only further strain the already tenuous cohesion within society. Instead of a driver of prosperity for all, as Salwa Idrisi Akhannouch would like us to believe, Morocco Mall will most likely highlight income inequalities. An International Monetary Fund report published last April found that gaping income disparity undermines economic growth within communities.

The obvious question is why does Salwa Idrisi Akhannouch have such breathless optimism in the face of economic gloom? When Galerie Ben Omar in Maarif opened, it was the talk of the city. Anybody who’s somebody had to shop at Gallery Ben Omar. It is now a faded ghost of its old self. Twin Center and O Gallery, across from Megarama, also became the premier destination of Morocco’s fashionistas and, for a few years, achieved a degree of success. As it turns out, they were only mid-term investments. Once the initial cost is recouped and a predetermined rate of profit achieved, the business is left to rot. I suspect the same fate awaits Morocco Mall.

I headed to the aquarium. There was a huge line. The cover charge was 25 dirhams. There was a time when Casablanca had a beautiful aquarium. Few remember it. I decided to forgo gazing at fish and headed for the door just as security dragged a well-dressed young man outside. The crowd said he was a college student who, being broke, decided to wear a jacket he fancied and walk away with it.

A. T. B. © 2011

I Can’t Believe It’s Not Democracy

Abdelillah Benkirane, Abbas El Fassi, Nabil Benabdellah, and Mohand Laenser

The unflappable Mr. Abdelillah Benkirane, who billed himself as a spur to political virtue, the ultimate standard-bearer willing to stake his political future on standing up for the people, has succeeded in ushering in a golden age of nonpartisanship when he secured a most unlikely coalition for his executive cabinet. The Independence Party (Istiqlal), the Progress and Socialism Party (Takadum Wal-Ishtirakia), and the People’s Movement (Alharaka Ashaabia), in a rare instance of syncretism and out of an unadulterated sense of patriotic urge to advance the relentless inculcation of democracy in Morocco, have decided to brush aside their fundamental ideological differences with the PJD and join its new government. Once the ministerial portfolios assigned and the new formation is blessed by King Mohammed VI, the new government can finally attend to the pressing matters the public cares passionately about. Abbas El Fassi commented on the new coalition by saying: “WE’RE BACK!” Salahddine Mezouar, the Minister of Economy and Finance and the President of the National Independents Rally, is being alienated, not only by Benkirane, but by his former partners in crime as well. He is so dejected about this he hardly has the energy to steal anybody’s money.

We were on the precipice of despair, people; on the brink of a bloody revolution; stalked by anomie. Thanks to the initiative of His Royal Highness who has always been attuned to the needs of his people and to the political parties whose stalwart effort greatly contributed to the success of last month’s Legislative election, we are skipping the Arab Spring and going straight into the Moroccan Summer. But don’t pull out your Lancaster tanning lotion and don your swimsuits quite yet, especially the ladies, until PJD strategists section the beaches by gender and provide ushers to assist the public. The Moroccans, with their dream to forge a sustainable democracy galvanized by a reformed constitution and a new government that has vowed to disown the deleterious strategies of its predecessors, await with panting anticipation the badly needed implementation of new social, economic, and political fatwas that will restore confidence, energize the employment market and drag them out of the ditch of poverty.

Let’s not concern ourselves with the fact that the parties invited to be part of the government greatly contributed to the corruption, incompetence, and cronyism that have hamstrung the nation’s progress since the independence. Don’t get wrapped around the axle because a few bloggers and journalist got arrested and activists were intimidated by a few shoves and slaps and the occasional knife stab from hired crack heads. Look at the bright side of things. Those crack heads are now gainfully employed. Disregard the fact that during the tenures of Abbas El Fassi, Nabil Benabdellah, and Mohand Laenser, corruption was so widespread many analysts thought it a spin-off of a governing strategy. Don’t let the effulgent and shameless lack of personal rectitude previous ministerial officials from these parties cloud your judgment and stamp your hopes. It is true that the men entrusted to lead us in Benkirane’s government have devised cynical designs to retain the ability to expand their personal and their parties’ influences and maintain the status quo. That was before we began our historic shift. They are now paragons of integrity.

Royal Appointment Ceremony of 28 Ambassadors, Dec. 6th, 2011

Now that we have a new constitution and democratically elected officials, the notion of a Moroccan government as a cesspool of Makhzen ideologues appointed to crucial position of influence regardless of ethics and competence is quickly fading in the rearview mirror of our history. Have no doubt that by emphasizing the eminence of the new constitution in his 17 June 2011 speech, the King widened the scope of democracy so much that he foreordained the success of Morocco’s democratic experience. You might feel compelled to think of that speech retrospectively as a sedating sophistic discourse. Don’t pay too much attention to those polarizing pundits and activist bloggers who draw your attention to the fact that by appointing twenty-eight Ambassadors on 6 December, the King acted in violation of article 49 of the constitution. What could be a better lesson in democracy than the King himself taking the time to show the people the wrong example? After all, the King’s appeal resides in the fact that he is something of a paradox: he counsels democracy, but feels his actions represent the national will. I know you are urged to look at his adding the controversial Fouad Ali El Himma, a political hack whose lack of credibility is terminal, to his advisory staff as a blunt statement that further reinforces the Moroccans’ impression that Mohammed VI is still using the master script of governance written by

Fouad Ali El Himma

Hassan II, only framing it in a way befitting of today’s highly politically sensitive environment. Such assertions are absurd. There is no one in Morocco that could advise the King on how to mix a Manhattan better than Fouad Ali El Himma. Of course, for El Himma, now that the PJD is in charge of the government, there is no safer place to drink one than in the Palace.

I wouldn’t call what’s happening in Morocco democracy, but I would be happy with something like: “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Democracy.” 

A. T. B. © 2011

 

PJD: Mission Impossible?

Abdelilah Benkirane, the PJD’s (Justice and Development) leader, is living an enviable political moment. His party’s electoral win hurtled him into the inner circle of the King’s decision making process. He was summoned to the Palace to be officially nominated as Prime Minister and tasked with the formation of a new government today. He will most likely be advised of the King’s agenda in due time and required to ensure that his future government’s plan of action accommodates it. I am fairly certain that the King’s agenda and the PJD’s coalesce under the general premise that the primary focus is the nation’s interest.

The PJD surged in the polls taking 107 of 395 Parliament seats last Friday humbling the parties known to form Morocco’s power structure. Al-Istiqlal came in a distant second with 60 seats. Of the 13 million registered voters, 45.6% participated. The results of Morocco’s first “wave” election show that there is a national consensus that the country’s traditional and sclerotic political parties might be the source of all evil. There is an urgent need for a dramatic transformation of the political culture and the PJD might very well be the harbinger of genuine democracy in Morocco.  

I admit I was too conventional in my analysis of the outcome of the election. I figured it would follow a familiar script in which al-Ahrar, al-Istiqlal, PAM, or al-Itihad al-Ishtiraki would take the lead. The PJD, a moderate Islamist party which has been dismissed as too radical, humiliated, scorned, and ridiculed by an ossified political structure that hoped it would flare and fizzle, has emerged as a change agent of epic proportions. It has cast itself during the electoral campaign as an alternative to the political oligarchy whose wealth and control over national resources are no longer enough to buy it an electoral victory. The majority of Moroccans, including the youths of 20 February Movement, the internet and social media savvy rebels and activists who most certainly do not share the PJD’s views, concede it is the only political party in Morocco today with the fire power and a grand enough ambition to remodel the Moroccan political structure and change its withering ways. The party promised real solutions to the enormous problems Abbas El Fassi’s cratering government exacerbated, if not created. It announced bold and dramatic changes: decreasing poverty by 50%, increasing minimum wage by 50%, and eradicating corruption.

Benkirane was able to masterfully steer his party to tap the people’s simmering angst about a crippling stagflation. He demonstrated a confident command of issues and a knack for sound bites Moroccans related to. His eloquent, yet colloquial rhetoric is often change inspiring exhortations suffused with passion and clarity and carrying just the right amount of florid quotations from the Koran and the Hadith. By emphasizing high ethical standards in the practice of politics, he was able to attract a sizable young electorate that has grown tired of the self-serving back-room deals of the other parties. Public anger at a coterie bent on morally and physically looting the country and the global economic distress brought the PJD back from political irrelevance and front and centered it on the electoral stage.

Needless to say, The PJD will have to live up to the huge expectations of the Moroccan people. Benkirane often bridled at the criticism that the PJD is an Islamist party explaining that it is a political party that uses Islam as a reference. Nonetheless, its perceived religious doctrine evokes serious concern among moderate Moroccans that the party’s hardliners will attempt to cut the country’s ties with the West. There is a sense among people that the PJD will remain locked into its dogmatic orthodoxies; there is a fear its minders will start patrolling the streets shutting down bars and evacuating beaches enforcing scriptures. The PJD’s leadership is well aware that doing so will sabotage its future. It will have to fashion itself into an icon of political moderation and religious tolerance.

Based on their comments to the media, PJD’s leadership understands there is a paramount requirement to rebuild people’s trust in the government before committing to any transformational quixotic agenda. Threatening to change everything at once will magnify distrust and undermine its legitimacy. People need to know that they will be treated with dignity by an independent judicial and the security service is accountable for its actions. Before tackling corruption and other forms of moral deprivation, they need to create jobs, enhance public service, mitigate poverty, and enforce existing laws on gender equality and child labor. And by any standard, that is a tall order to fulfill for a party lacking experience in government management in the rough and tumble Moroccan society. 

A. T. B. © 2011

     

Moroccan Government to Citizens: You Supply The Vote, We The Results

Surveying the Moroccan media’s coverage of today’s election, I got the impression the political parties are locked in a vicious, but healthy fight for power. I have intently read, listened, and watched as the leadership of the thirty political parties vying for a parliamentary majority reveled in exposing their grand vision of Morocco under their governance in newspapers and magazines and on national radio stations and television channels. They vowed to put the people’s interest before their partisan agenda; to ease the collective anxiety and earn the people’s trust, they bemoaned the irresponsible and undemocratic practices of erstwhile governments. They passionately pleaded with the citizens to denounce electoral graft and demonstrate civism by committing to the newly voted constitution and aiding in the construction of a more democratic culture.

The Moroccan government cranked up a robust campaign to urge people to vote. It commissioned three twin-engine planes to drop leaflets in remote areas to animate voters. The airwaves have been saturated with countless programs and ads sensitizing people to the importance of voting. Actors, singers, intellectuals, and politicians have been mobilized to tell the masses, in almost personal pleas, that it does not matter whom they vote for so long as their voices are heard. The streets are littered with fliers, banners, and posters reminding them to head to the polling stations to cast their ballots. The government’s efforts to educate people on the value of electoral participation as a public entitlement that should never be relinquished is indeed commendable and should be encouraged.

I felt the urge to vote. I did what I usually do in similar situations. I lay down and let it pass.

Somehow, millions of Moroccans are skeptical. They wonder how could a government that has lacked responsiveness to their most basic grievances for the past five years all of a sudden pay lavish deference to them. Since the electoral campaign started, ten ministers, as crass as they come, have left the comfort of their swanky homes and parked their Audi A8’s to tread through impoverished neighborhoods and among the commons. They danced for the people and laughed with them, they shook their hands, told them jokes, made promises and served meals. Most people know exactly how long this paroxysmal kindness will last. Not a day past 25 November. These are the same ministers who for the past five years have shown utter indifference to the plight of Moroccans. Something is rotten in the state of Morocco.

While the media is promoting the practice of democracy, the government’s security elements are arresting those calling for the boycott of the election and instigating criminal attacks on young activists leading demonstrations and organizing sitting-ins. The latest to be attacked is Sarah Soujar, stabbed Tuesday night during a demonstration in Sbeta in front of a swarm of suddenly lethargic police force.

I step out of my house one morning and I come face to face with Karim Ghellab, the Minister of Equipment and Transformation and Provincial Secretary of the Istiqlal Party. He was flanked by the Qaid and other sycophants. The streets were cleaned spotless as if the King himself was coming to visit. Before becoming a minister, Ghellab had campaigned for a parliamentary seat three times and won. He and most other candidates see the people though the prism of election. Once the election is over, Ghellab wouldn’t touch my neighborhood with a ten-foot pole. Why would he? The guy never experienced the life the majority of Moroccans endure; he attended Lyautey and finished his studies in France before returning as an engineer to a privileged professional post as a regional delegate of the Ministry of Transportation and a reserved seat within the Istiqlal Party leadership where his father, Abdelkarim Ghellab, was a prominent figure – one of the signatories of the independence document. Looking at the background of most of the well-heeled candidates, one quickly realizes that what needs to be changed first is the old guard.

Twice or thrice every hour, Moroccan viewers are invited to participate in a trivia game on TV; they are asked a simple question such as: what color is the white polar bear? Viewers are urged to send the correct answer via text message to a number displayed on the TV screen to win between five thousand to fifty thousand Dirhams and a brand new car. Each text message cost the participant ten Dirhams – a little over a dollar. Millions of Moroccans participate generating tremendous revenues to Maroc Telcom, Meditel, and Inwi.

The Moroccan government is using the same strategy. The results, I suspect, are already secured. What matters is a large turnout to give the fabricated results legitimacy.

So far, only 35% voted. We Moroccans are not easily duped. Then again, it wasn’t so long we were swept by Mawazin.

A. T. B. © 2011

Qaddafi: Return To Sender

Guess who's next!

And so, it has been proven that the King of Kings of Africa, the Guide of the People was a mere mortal who bled red like the rest of the Libyan people he tortured and executed. For once, his hands were covered in his own blood and not others’. The circumstances of his demise are still unclear. His eighty-vehicle strong convoy was annihilated by strafes of fire from NATO gunships as he was escaping westward from Surt, his hometown and final stronghold. He sustained injuries from that attack, but he was alive when rebel fighters pulled him out of a culvert where he was holed up not far from the site of the attack. Whether he bled to death or was vengefully executed by his captors is unknown at this time.

The blurry videos and pictures of Qaddafi’s capture and death broadcast on al-Jazeera and other Arab networks, sinister war trophies purloined from history by a bitter crowd, depicted a bloodied and livid man verbally degraded and physically abused by his captors. I deplore the unfair death of any man no matter how despicable he might be, but it is understandable how the young rebels, being primarily a civilian armed force driven more by reprisal than professional military discipline, could fail to stop on a dime and lack magnanimousness towards a dictator who brutalized so many. They seethed in a claustrophobic police state without a voice for so long that when they finally came face to face with the dictator that gagged them, they had to sound as loud as machine guns.

No one really cares. Everyone in Libya is ecstatic that the leader of the revolution who spoke the mind he lost is dead. They see it as a fitting end for an egotistic and self-delusional murderer who, when they peacefully voiced their grievances, formed his goons and hired mercenaries into dead squads to kill the men and rape the women.“I am a glory that Libya cannot forgo and the Libyan people cannot forgo, nor the Arab nation, nor the Islamic nation, nor Africa, nor Latin America, nor all the nations that desire freedom and human dignity and resist tyranny! Muammar Qaddafi is history, resistance, liberty, glory, revolution!” he proclaimed in February in his inimitable way. He gave a whole new meaning to the enlightening words Steve Jobs shared with students at the commencement speech to the Stanford class of 2005—“Stay hungry and stay foolish”.

Would it have been ideal to mete out institutional justice to Qaddafi and the nation’s erstwhile tormentors in his employ? Of course. It would demonstrate that the populace has a stronger esteem for the rule of law and would have set the future Libya on a solid path to democracy. In essence, is it not a total absence of equity that the Libyan people reproach to the rule of Qaddafi? But Libyans feel that his death brings an immediate measure of closure to forty-two years of Praetorian governance a lengthy trial could never deliver. The people are so traumatized that they no longer want to see his unbridled oratory theatrics, hear him spew invectiveness on the rebels, agonizingly rant about how Libya is victim of a Zionist, U.S., and NATO conspiracy to steal Libya’s oil and gold, and boastfully claim he is the Brother Leader of the Revolution who brought glory to the Libyans.

After the euphoria of freedom dims, the challenge of building a consensus around a central government will become more immediate. The dangers of widespread fighting among tribes and factions for influential portfolios in the next government are palpable. The Transitional National Council has been criticized as being opaque and unrepresentative of all Libyans; It has failed to assuage the fears of residents whose relationship with armed militias that are supposedly maintaining order has become fractious and confused. Its leaders have already announced they will resign once victory is attained. Now that the primary and unifying mission of the rebels has been accomplished, the conflicting and hidden agendas of Libya’s power brokers, some funded by the U.S. and NATO while others are supported by China, Russia, or Iran, will emerge. The fighters will consolidate along tribal and geographic lines. This problem was already apparent when multiple rebel groups from different cities and with distinct tribal affiliations clashed with each other in Tripoli. Qaddafi might have died, but the violent culture that fed his youth is still the source of intellectual nourishment for most Libyans. As Che Guevara once said: ” cruel leaders are replaced only to have new leaders turn cruel.” It will take tremendous political willpower and restrain and civic selflessness from all to navigate the next formative stages of Libya’s future and prevent the chaos Qaddafi had eerily predicted would ensue upon his removal.

A. T. B. © 2011

On Killing U.S. Citizens

A few days ago, Charlie Savage wrote an article for the Times reporting on a sub-rosa 50-page U.S. legal memorandum drafted in 2010 justifying the execution of a U.S. citizen without a trial.David Barron and Martin Lederman, the drafters of the memo and both decisive lawyers in the Office of Legal Counsel then, posit that the killing of a U.S. citizen that has never been found guilty by a court of law is compatible with the character of the Constitution if the individual constitutes an eminent lethal threat to innocent Americans and the conditions for his arrest are prohibitive. While no one will dispute that al-Awlaki was the instigator of terrorist attacks against the U.S., I would argue that his arrest in Al Jawf province in Yemen’s northern desert would have been less tasking on a Special Forces unit with air support than fast roping into a fortified multimillion dollar mansion a short distance from a Pakistani military academy in the swanky Abbottabad neighborhood, home to retired senior Pakistani military officers and Internal Security Service agents.

The memo explains that Anwar al-Awlaki, since he’d pledged allegiance and given an operational advantage to a terrorist organization that is actively waging war against the U.S., has abdicated his rights to due process. This argument is supported by numerous interpretations of existing U.S. laws. Immigration and Nationality Act: Act 349, 8 USC 1481 states that a “person who is a national of the United States, whether by birth or naturalization, shall lose his nationality by voluntarily performing any of the following acts: attempting by force to overthrow, or bearing arms against, the United States, engaging in a conspiracy to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them.”The Constitution authorizes the suspension of habeas corpus in cases of rebellion and when public safety may require it. It wouldn’t be a stretch for the Obama administration to assert that al-Awlaki’s activities amount to a rebellion. The Obama administration can also cite the Authorization For Use Of Military force against terrorists, a resolution passed by congress on September 18, 2001 granting the president the power “to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.”Still, the judicial process was compromised and the decision to kill al-Awlaki was taken behind the closed doors of the executive branch, unchallenged by public scrutiny. And even if the question were raised to a public debate, and the president consulted with congress, the killing of U.S. citizens based on a self-serving memorandum written by an office that squarely falls within the sphere of influence of the Executive branch would be unbecoming outside of a due process that grants the right to discovery, legal counsel, and a review by a jury of peers.

Al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, also a U.S. citizen, were targeted by two drones remotely operated by the CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command. The death of al-Awlaki, whom the U.S. government paints as a potent propagandist and a linchpin of al-Qaeda operations in the Arabian Peninsula, wraps up years of DoD and CIA clandestine and covert anti-terrorism operations. According to federal law enforcement officials, al-Awlaki was directly linked to Nawaf al-Hazmi, Khalid al-Mihdhar, and Hani Hanjour, three 9/11 hijackers from Saudi Arabia, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 2009 Christmas day failed underwear bomber, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist who shot and killed thirteen soldiers in Ft. Hood, Texas, and Faisal Shahzad, the failed Time Square bomber. Strangely enough, al-Awlaki also has connections to the U.S. Department of Defense. Shortly after 9/11, he was spotted at the Pentagon. The DoD strongly denied the information when it surfaced. When the 2009 Ft. Hood shooting happened and the pictures of al-Awlaki and Major Nidal were broadcast side by side on national television networks, a low level Pentagon employee recognized him and called the FBI. When it finally admitted to al-Awlaki’s presence in the Pentagon, DoD officials explained that it was part of an unofficial outreach program designed to connect with “…with leading members of the Muslim community.” And therein lies the casuistry. Of all the moderate “leading members of the Muslim community” in the nation, the Pentagon found no better representation than al-Awlaki. In early 2010, the Obama administration added him to a secret “capture or kill” CIA list.

Khan, on the other hand, was not a high value target for the CIA and his death in the operation targeting Awlaki is considered “collateral” by government officials; he was nothing more than the chief-editor of al-Qaeda’s “Inspire,” an English written magazine that accepts contributions from schizoaffective psychotics with an anti-U.S. penchant. While living in Virginia, he was investigated by the FBI for his radical views, but his activities were protected by the First Amendment; he was never charged with a crime. Both individuals, being fluent English speakers, targeted an American audience in an attempt to promote the growth of a U.S. and British homegrown radical Islamic terrorist threat.

There are clear distinctions between Obama’s measured and result-driven strategy against al-Qaeda and Bush’s disastrously unfocused approach. While George W. Bush dismantled Alec Station, a CIA unit specifically tasked to collect on al-Qaeda operations and eliminate its operatives, Obama used the full extent of his authority to mobilize resources and allocate funds to allow the CIA to effectively target the terrorist group and foil its operations. Since he became president, the CIA has achieved “significant milestones;” it has surgically eliminated al-Qaeda key leadership and facilitators and greatly handicapped its capability to project mayhem. But after the killing of al-Awlaki and Khan, there is no denying that a continuum of executive overreach and total disregard for the rule of law between the two presidents is factual. David Barron and Martin Lederman are Obama’s version of Bush’s John Yoo, the drafter of an 81-page paper known as the “torture memo” legalizing the use of torture on detainees. Ironically, during his presidential campaign, Obama advocated the prosecution of terrorists “within the constraints of our Constitution” as an effective tool against al-Qaeda. In an ABC News interview, he commented that the anti-terrorism strategy the Bush administration adopted had “destroyed our credibility when it comes to rule of law all around the world, and given a huge boost to terrorist recruitment in countries that say, ‘Look, this is how the United States treats Muslims’.”

It is incontrovertible that al-Awlaki and Khan actively sought ways to inflict grave harm on innocent civilians. The presumption of innocence in their case would be naive. I concede that global terrorism introduced conditions that fundamentally challenge our laws; it is apparent that our legal system is ill-equipped to deal with terrorists whose criminal activities have been reported by corroborated intelligence collection using sources and methods that should be kept secret in order for them to be effective. But it seems that adding U.S. citizens to a “capture, but mostly kill” list and executing them solely on the imprimatur of the Executive has thrown the nation’s institutions off-kilter. It has set a precedent and gives people the impression that at the whim of a few lawyers, operating within the same secretive grey bubble the Bush administration was so harshly criticized for, the summary execution of a U.S. citizen could be carried out. It’s a slippery slope. Some wonder why we should worry about a legal process at all; the government should drag Major Nidal Malik Hasan and his fellow terrorists, Robert Hanssen, Aldrich Ames, and other traitors out and execute them much like we did al-Awlaki and Khan. If the U.S. government is loath to grant due process to U.S. citizens in such a glancing fashion, unwilling to make an effort to provide security without taking shortcuts and compromising the values of its citizenry, then it should applaud despotic regimes that routinely execute their citizens citing threats to their national security.

The Obama administration needs to focus on reforming the judicial system and prepare it to address cases such as al-Awlaki’s in the transparent fashion we’ve grown to be accustomed to. The American people need to readjust their idea of what it means to be a U.S. citizen. It is more than an administrative status bestowed upon some by virtue of birth and granted to others at the conclusion of a lengthy immigration process. To be a U.S. citizen, to me at least, means to embody the spirit of the constitution and the principles upon which this country was founded, to nurture civic virtue and ensure that our actions are driven primarily by the well-being of our communities and the upholding of our institutions, to guarantee fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans, to dissent, but to abide by the law and respect the process. It is after all our laws and democratic processes that make us feel special. President Obama, during his address at the CIA headquarters, expressed it best: “What makes the United States special and what makes you special is precisely the fact that we are willing to uphold our values and our ideals even when it’s hard, not just when it’s easy; even when we are afraid and under threat, not just when it’s expedient to do so.” Amen!

A. T. B. © 2011

The FBI’s Minority Report

On Wednesday, the FBI arrested Rezwan Ferdaus, a 26-year-old U.S. citizen from Ashland, west of Boston, on terrorism charges. The arrest came as a result of an undercover operation conducted by FBI agents posing as al-Qaeida terrorists. They provided Ferdaus with 25 lbs. of C-4 explosives, a remote controlled Sabrejet replica, six assault rifles, and three grenades. They financed his trip to Washington, DC and directed him to case specific target sites. Prior to being entrapped by the FBI, Ferdaus was disgruntled with the U.S. government’s policies towards Moslems; he perceived those policies as being prejudicial and hostile. According to the FBI affidavit, he stated that “Americans are the enemies of Allah.” The fact that he held such an adverse opinion against the U.S. marked him as a threat and made him a target of an FBI operation conducted by agents that greatly facilitated his transition from a passive grumpy idiot with no access to lethal aid and no contact with al-Qaeida to a fully operational terrorist with the assets and skill-set to engage.

It is easy to argue that if all Ferdaus needed to act on his negative emotions were opportunity and means, he deserves his predicament. I beg to differ. The FBI is not looking for a few bad apples; it is looking for good ones to rot. The “Moroccan Initiative” and the “Monteilh” case in southern California are not unique. The FBI, in conjunction with local police, has designed programs targeting Arab and Moslem communities across the country. Unconstitutional infiltration of mosques, cultural centers, universities, and other venues frequented by members of these communities has become a standard modus operandi.

The NYPD spokesperson justified the “Moroccan Initiative” as a crime prevention measure. I think that, since the enactment of the USA PATRIOT Act in 2001 and the Homeland Security Act a year later, the Bureau has seen the scope of its law enforcement authority expanded and investigative inhibitors, such as due process, greatly abrogated. The Inspector General of the Justice Department reported in 2007 that under the PATRIOT Act, “serious abuse of authority” by the FBI is “widespread.” It has become trendy for the FBI to conduct, what I call, patsy operations to spot and assess individuals within Arab and Moslem communities who not only hold dissenting opinions, but conform to a dependent personality disorder profile. The ideal FBI candidate is a politically opinionated Arab and/or Moslem who has a pathological need for approval and affection and is easily pressured to engage in activities he/she would normally abhor. Through these same operations, federal and local law enforcement agencies recruit sources with placement and access within the communities who, by virtue of their petty criminal activity, are susceptible to collect and inform on their localities. In this austere economy, the FBI has to justify the oversized budget it is allotted to finance its innovative antiterrorism and counterintelligence programs.

When George W. Bush attained the presidency in January, 2001, he had the favorable vote of over fifty percent of Arab Americans. In his first term, his administration, using the 9/11 terrorist attacks as a launching pad to fear mongering campaigns and a chauvinistic ideology, had shown no misgivings about ravaging the Bill of Rights and extirpating the fundamental tenets of freedom and openness that so many immigrants hold as a staples of their adoptive country. Many of the discriminatory policies adopted during those first four years specifically targeted the Arab and Moslem communities which have become, in the eyes of a post 9/11 U.S. government, fertile pools of potential national security threats. When the re-authorization of the Act was discussed in the Senate this year, senators Richard Durbin, Patrick Leahy, and Ron Wyndell proposed specific amendments to some of its sections to curtail the government’s intrusive methods. Unfortunately, President Obama, a critic of the Act as a Senator, is one of its staunch proponents today. It was approved as is.

The Justice and Homeland Security departments were not the only government entities encroaching on civil liberties then; Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA), a Department of Defense entity created on February 19, 2002 by a directive from Donald Rumsfeld, initiated a data mining and intelligence collection program focused on domestic dissidence, peace groups, and activists. The program was exposed by the media and CIFA itself was dismantled in 2008 and some of its assets and missions were assumed by the Defense Intelligence Agency.

While the FBI’s operations are contemptuous toward liberty and do not dovetail with the constitution, they are not, from a judicial standpoint, considered illegal. I can see you scratching your head and getting dizzy, but consider this. The FBI, as a law enforcement tool, carries out the tasks set forth in the PATRIOT Act, Homeland Security Act, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and other legislative enactments. The PATRIOT Act and the Homeland Security acts were passed, albeit hastily, by lawmakers who, out of a misguided sense of nationalism, acceded to the administration’s wishes after 9/11, and signed by former president George W. Bush. The FBI relies on a secret national security court to interpret the statutes in these acts. While these statutes are public, the interpretations of the secret national security court are guarded from public scrutiny. Many observers and lawmakers, among them Senators Mark Udall and Ron Wyden, believe that the secret court, under the shroud of governmental classification, skews its opinions on the law, or gives a broad reading to legal provisions to allow the FBI greater latitude in the conduct of anti-terrorism and national security investigations. The secret national security court authorized the “Moroccan Initiative,” “tripwire,” “the Monteilh” case, and other such operations we common mortals neither have the clearance, nor the “need to know” to be informed about; it allows agents to foray into the lives of innocent civilians and monitor their travel, business transactions, commercial purchases, financial records, and telephone and internet communications without fulfilling due process requirements – grand jury subpoena and warrants. While numerous U.S. District Judges have previously ruled that the FBI’s secret domestic surveillance activity eviscerates First Amendment’s freedom of speech, association, and right to petition, Fourth Amendment’s freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, and Fifth and Sixth Amendments’ rights to due process and to discovery of evidence, the U.S. Supreme Court has either refused to publish its opinion on some of the statues, or upheld the constitutionality of others – Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project – because it believes they enable the Judicial Branch to act preemptively and disrupt terrorist activity against the U.S. while it is still in the planning stage.

The legality of the FBI’s operations will stand unless challenged through a motion and a court ruling against them is pronounced. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Council on American-Islamic Relations have multiple class-action lawsuits against the Bureau. But it is extremely difficult to evidence the FBI’s intrusion on privacy. Instead, the lawsuits focus on harassment charges which do not attack the root of the problem: the USA PATRIOT Act and other such authorities the FBI and local law enforcement agencies use as legal justification for their activities. In addition to legal action, the Arab and Moslem American communities need to mobilize political support to petition the Obama administration to rein in the overweening power of federal and local law enforcement agencies and reinstate limitations on the government’s extraordinary surveillance powers and unjustified intelligence collection against a U.S. person.

A. T. B. © 2011

The Lonely Death of a Moroccan Child

For an hour, in the sanctum of an apartment in El Jadida, the maid was beaten with the hose of a gas cylinder. Her screams and supplications brought her aggressor, the daughter of her employer who “borrowed” her to help around the house, to a frothing rage; she repeatedly struck her over the head and face with the heel of a shoe until she collapsed on the floor she had so thoroughly scrubbed lifeless. The maid’s name is Khadija. She was eleven years old. She hailed from Tagadirt, a small village southwest of Marrakesh. According to the police report, the killer, a thirty-one year old educated Moroccan woman, was upset Khadija ruined her dress shirt while washing it.

Khadija’s path into child labor is not unique. It is the same path taken by Zainab Shtit, Najwa Bent Bouazza, and many others. Being illiterate, their parents didn’t see the added value in sending them to school; famine and disease are daily realities and survival is a primary focus. They, like many other mostly rural parents who are economically depleted, circumvent the Malthusian constraint by putting their children to work as soon as they are physically capable. For boys, the work is often seasonal menial labor in fields and construction sites or as ambulant cigarette hawkers and shoe shiners; girls are sent off to the city to work as maids and professional panhandlers. When Khadija turned nine years old, she was sent to Marrakesh to work as a maid. Her father would show up once a month to collect her measly salary – less than fifty dollars. She was eventually fired from that job. Thanks to a “samsara,” a headhunter who provides maids to customers, she was soon relocated to Casablanca where she was recruited by the mother of her murderer.

Until she was so viciously murdered, Khadija spent her days scrubbing floors, washing dishes, and kneading laundry. Every day, she was up before everybody else to prepare breakfast for her employer’s family and would labor long into the night. By the time she was done, her fingers would be swollen, her back sore, her eyes stinging, and her mottled skin taut. Her childhood was compressed; she was more familiar with detergent soap than cartoons. she didn’t have a favorite toy, dress, or bedtime story, nor did she enjoy the caring caress of a doting mother, nor the protective hug of a loving father. No school teacher to learn from; no friends to play with. Instead, her parents and the Moroccan society turned their backs on her; she was thrown into the hands of strangers who considered her a beast of burden, dehumanized her. They desensitized their children to her plight and paved the way to a generational lack of empathy. These are the same people who ball their eyes out when the heroin of their favorite Turkish or Mexican soap opera breaks up with her boyfriend. In her tangled perception, her employer is adamant she accepted Khadija out of sheer rectitude. After all, she was providing her with a roof over her head, food to her heart’s content, clean clothes, and protection from whoring and mendicity.

Khadija’s father dropped all charges against her murderer. I am fairly certain he received monetary compensation in exchange for his condonation.  Associations “Bayti,” “Touche pas à mon enfant,” “Manal,” and “INSAF” initiated judicial action on behalf of the victim. It is demoralizing to know he was never charged of any crime. Is child labor not a crime in Morocco? Of course it is. Since 2003, the government introduced new legislation specifically targeting child labor, but it hardly ensures compliance.

The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations Populations Fund (UNFPA) estimate there are over 90000 children under the age of eighteen working as maids in Morocco today. Over 25000 are in Casablanca alone. I suspect the number to be much higher. These sobering statistics highlight the pervasiveness of underage labor in our country. Morocco’s Ministry of Social Development concedes the problem is serious and can no longer be shunted. It has, according to its website, zero tolerance for child labor and has initiated a host of commendable programs to mitigate the issue. However, the Children’s National Action Plan (PANE), INDIMAJ, a program designed to reintegrate homeless children into society, and INQAD, to eradicate child labor, fail to yield tangible results. Efforts to promote children’s rights within the Moroccan society and to raise awareness of the deleterious effects child labor has on the country’s future generations have been dismal and mostly failing. The tragic ambivalence of the Moroccan society about these household slaves causes most crimes against them such as sexual abuse and domestic violence to go unreported. Moroccans, and Moslems in general, seem to hit the panic button when an artist scribbles verses from the Koran on his naked body, but are numb to the victimization of thousands of children. This ambivalence is deeply rooted in a toxic cultural legacy that extends back to the time when owning domestics denoted social prominence. There are a few things more endearing to a married Moroccan woman, when entertaining visitors, than to call out to her maid to bring the “siniya” – literally a “tray,” but in Moroccan household parlance, it refers to an expensive tea set.

In the meanwhile, legions of children are growing up to be failing adults, wallowing in servitude, in an environment that fosters moral decay, physical and mental sickness. They have no access to education and familial stability, tools necessary to enhance their ability to flourish and be productive members of society. I don’t believe in those parables that try convincing us that these children will be prosperous if they put their minds into it once they become adults. Malcolm Gladwell conveyed that sentiment best during an interview with New York magazine: “I am explicitly turning my back on, I think, these kind of empty models that say, you know, you can be whatever you want to be. Well, actually, you can’t be whatever you want to be. The world decides what you can and can’t be.” Until we collectively, as Moroccans, denounce and proactively enforce our laws and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, we are willfully setting our nation for a multi-layered failure that will shackle our progress for generations to come.

A. T. B. © 2011

Post 9/11 Arab American

One week after 9/11, the Bush administration and a large majority of the American people developed the attitude that would later set us on the path to the ebbing of U.S. global authority and shrinking of its self-confidence. It was a week during which the national narrative on the dramatic events of the previous Tuesday had been set and upon which Bush, Cheney, Rove, Rice, and Rumsfeld, using all possible means to heighten the fear of the American  public, drafted a plan to piss on the constitution and suckered the American people into two unwarranted wars resulting in over six thousand U.S. casualties and costing tax payers close to four trillion dollars leaving our economy in tatters; hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans have also been killed and displaced.

The terrorist attacks on 9/11 have defined my generation much like the Japanese offensive on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 and the assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963 shaped the vision of those before. But I cannot help steering clear of the landfill of 9/11 commemorative radio programs and T.V. shows, the landslide of overly maudlin memorials and overdrawn exultation in the heroism of those who died as a result of this devastating tragedy. I feel that the families and friends of the victims need to reflect on their losses and renew their vows of remembrance in complete national silence and away from self-aggrandizing political slobbery. The bereaved, I am sure, mourn every day. It is hard to imagine the final living moments of those who died that day, the great trepidation as the building rocked and creaked, the utter hopelessness of options, the shuddering realization the dice had been cast and their fate had been sealed. The void left by the disappearance of fathers, mothers, sons, and daughter who left home that day to never return to attend to their outstanding plans with their families can never be filled.

But for me, as an Arab American, the atrocious event stands as a stark reminder of the paucity of courage in American politics and the cynicism and hypocrisy of a people willing to compromise on the fundamental principles of the Bill of Rights for the self-serving fantasy that the Arab and Moslem people are inherently inimical to what America stood for. I find it equally tragic that the untimely death of 2996 innocent people was so thoroughly exploited by the Bush administration for partisan political gain, that it was used as exculpation from warping the laws and causing more deaths, to general applause. As an Arab, I never felt that the cowardly terrorist action of a criminal fringe that highjacked Islam to satisfy a psychotic agenda represented me; As an American, I find it difficult to reconcile with U.S. practices that vindicate despotic Arab governments. Conducts such as the imprisonment of children and innocent civilians in Guantanamo Bay detention facility, extraordinary rendition of detainees to countries known to torture prisoners, the legalization of waterboarding and other torturous approaches in interrogation, the authorization by executive order to conduct assassination operations against individuals labeled “military targets” greatly restrict our ability to project our values abroad and should be considered unconscionable dereliction of duty and leadership.

Days after the towers fell, posses roaming New York City streets hunting for Arabs and Moslems became patriots; railing about Islam became fashionable even among those moderates who deplore the suppression of liberties of other ethnic and religious groups. racial-profiling a consensus, the steamrolling of rights and liberties of a single group within our society a patriotic endeavor. Arabs, Moslems, even Sikhs looked suspicious. Rudolph Giuliani, then Mayor of NYC, recognized the precariousness of the situation and pleaded with New Yorkers not to attack Middle Easters. Unfortunately, George W. Bush did not share Mr. Giuliani’s level-headedness when on September 16, 2001, during a press conference at the South Lawn of the White House, he referred to his war on terrorism as a protracted “crusade.” It wasn’t long after that, according to Bob Woodward’s book “Bush At War,” that Rumsfeld raised the possibility ”that they could take advantage of the opportunity offered by the terrorist attacks to go after Saddam immediately.”

Since then, the U.S. intelligence community had been tasked to spin intelligence to link Iraq to the 9/11 attacks and the targeting of Arab Americans and immigrants has been systematic. Law enforcement agencies took shortcuts with the law. Thousands have been summarily deported while others were extrajudicially detained indefinitely as material witnesses. Thousands more were erroneously put on no-fly lists. Private citizens had their homes searched, cars TTLed (Tag, Target, Locate), and phones bugged for no reason other than holding an opinion critical of the Bush administration and being of Arab descent or Moslem faith. The chipping away of the rights and liberties of Arab Americans was mandated by new laws such as the Patriot Act, thousands of Executive Orders, and amendments to existing laws. It was encouraged by groups such as Freedom Defense Initiative and Stop Islamization of America and the politicians that cater to them.

The blatant infringements are still being carried out during Obama’s watch. In October 2010, Yasir Afifi, a 20-year-old U.S. born Arab from Santa Clara, California, took his car for a routine oil change. The mechanic discovered underneath the car a device he did not recognize. The posted a picture of it on the internet. Two days later, the FBI paid him a visit to retrieve their GPS tracking device. He was never arrested, nor was he provided an explanation as to why he was being surveilled. Consider the case of Khalid Lyaacoubi and Yassine Bahammou, two Moroccans who immigrated to the U.S. after 9/11; they joined the Army as 09 L linguists to support the war on terrorism, and of course to benefit from the immigration process expediency offered by the Department of Defense as an incentive to non-citizen recruits. They were investigated within the framework of Threat Awareness and Reporting Program (TARP) formerly known as Subversion and Espionage Directed Against the U.S. Army (SAEDA) based on an unfounded allegation that they and three other Moroccans were plotting to poison other soldiers. They were attacked by their fellow soldiers and their belongings were ransacked. As counterintelligence threats, they were removed from their regular assignments, restricted to barracks, forbidden to contact family and friends unless monitored by a guard.

To borrow Henry James’ observation, it has indeed been a complex fate – for Arabs and Moslems in the U.S.  – to be an American.

A. T. B. © 2011

Moroccan Hospitals: Poor People Unwanted

Dismayed by the lack of official responsiveness to the humanitarian tragedy in southern Somalia, a group of Moroccan activists launched a campaign on facebook to sensitize the population, mobilize support, and solicit donations. They called on the Moroccan government to deploy an emergency contingent to deliver much needed medical supplies and food to the region.

The magnitude of the worst famine Southern Somalia has experienced in the past sixty years is unfathomable; Tens of thousands of people have died and millions are on the verge of starvation. Harakat al-Shabab al Mujahideen has a tight control over the region where they’ve imposed a strict Islamic rule. Because they forbade anything they deemed of Western origin including immunizations, thousands of emaciated children have been dying from measles and cholera. The few fortunate refugees that were able to flee reported that al-Shabab fighters have been diverting river waters from impoverished villagers and selling it to commercial farmers. They have been interdicting people attempting to reach aid camps in neighboring Kenya and Ethiopia and forcing them into crowded and filthy internment camps where sustainment is scarce. The dearth of food airlifted into the region was stolen and sold in local markets at exorbitant prices. The lawlessness and lack of infrastructure make the region inaccessible to international aid organizations whose workers are reluctant to venture into al-Shabab territory.

Layla Aarirjat

The initiative of my fellow Moroccan activists is commendable and should be encouraged. But I think our attention is much needed at home where Moroccans are still dying from lack of medical due care. Just a few days ago, Al-Massae reported on Layla Aarirjat, a thirty-year-old mother of two, hailing from Shqaqfa village, who was denied medical attention in the regional community hospital of Kenitra despite the precariousness of her condition. She was promptly thrown out into the street. Ms. Aarirjat’s ailment greatly eroded her mobility. She lingered by the hospital’s main gate bearing a resigned expression, the glint of life slowly fading from her eyes as time waned. A group of passers-by, appalled by the unconscionable actions of the hospital staff, intervened. They laid Ms. Aarirjat on a gurney and challenged the forcefully objections of hospital security and administrators while rolling her into the emergency. Hospital staff still refused to attend to the patient. As far as I know, Ms. Aarirjat’s frail body remains on that gurney in the emergency hall, drenched in her defecation and urination. The hospital refuses to feed her and she subsists on the alms of other patients and their visitors. Myopic nurses and doctors, with deadpan mien, saunter past her paying her as much attention as Ron Paul gets from Fox News.

A delivery at Sidi Benour hospital

Saturday, a pregnant woman delivered her baby daughter in a main thoroughfare not far from Fez regional community hospital. She was rejected from the maternity ward earlier. And in the village of Tamri, north of Agadir, another pregnant woman delivered her baby outside the health center because the whole maternity staff was attending a meet and greet function with the mayor. Less than a month ago, another unattended delivery outside the gate of the same health center resulted in the death of the baby. According to local rights organizations, The Tameri health center has had an unsettling track record of negligence and incompetence.

Unfortunately, these cases are not exceptions. Pregnant women deliver outside hospitals not only in rural areas, but major cities as well. On a daily basis, Moroccans die from what was initially benign medical conditions that become malignant as a result of a lack of due care. Moroccan government hospitals are exclusive clubs and only those who can afford the cover charge are granted access. The gate security demands money before they let you in; the nurse expects a payment to provide care; the doctor sells you unnecessary medication and overcharge you for unperformed procedures; the hospital billing department duns patients, even emergency ones, prior to any care be given and shows no compunction denying service to those who are too impoverished to pay.

Let’s not go too far; there is a large segment of the Moroccan society living in conditions not far off from that of Somalia. What the Moroccan poor has going for him is that the trash of Morocco’s rich upon which he subsists is far better than Somalia’s.

A. T. B. © 2011

Morocco’s Constitutional Sleight of Hand

The Moroccan Association for Human Rights – Association Marocaine des Droits Humains (AMDH) made public today, Tuesday July 12th, a pointed report on the July 1st constitutional referendum. It noted the government orchestrated grave transgressions that undermined the electoral process and influenced the electorate leading to a 98.5% in favor of the new constitution. The report decried the extensive use of television, radio, and newspapers, as well as taxpayers’ money, public property, and apolitical venues such as mosques by governmental entities to saturate the opinion pool with a discourse favorable to the agenda of a few and mute the undogmatic grassroots opposition whose public support has grown exponentially since the 20^th of February. The government’s partisanship is contrary to the democratic principles boded by the new constitution. As to human rights, the association conveyed its skepticism of the government’s willingness to uphold its obligation to foster a state of law and condemned its disingenuous efforts to curtail abuses against those who oppose the status quo.

Justice Monitor of Morocco, another watchdog, leveled harsher criticism against the government in a statement to the media. They denounced the unethical and sometimes unlawful campaign the government launched to mobilized the population in favor of the new constitution. Their investigation and analysis indicated the number of voters and the tally of favorable votes the government blared out were grossly inflated and should not be considered seriously. The watchdog argues that the Moroccan electorate is estimated at twenty-four million; of those and according to voters registrar, less than thirteen million hold a voter’s card. It assesses that the July 1^st referendum turnout could not have surpassed 20% and by no means expresses the will of the majority of Moroccans. Additionally, the watchdog raised serious misgivings about the electoral process and uncovered irregularities in the way voters lists have been compiled and maintained and voters cards have been handled.

Many Moroccan journalists, political analysts, and bloggers, myself included, have reported on the flagrant perversion of democracy the government has been trying to impose on the people. Just recently, Taieb Fassi Fihri, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Khalid Naciri, Minister of Communication and the government’s official spokesman, in interviews with international and national media, carried on their bovine insistence that the post-July 1^st Morocco is more democratic and nationally cohesive. Moroccans understand that the situation will not improve so long as the same nepotistic and avaricious potentates with total disregard for the law and the will of the nation. They have made the prospect of democracy in Morocco walk the plank.   

 A. T. B. © 2011       

A Change You Can’t Believe In

It seems to me the Moroccan people have overwhelmingly democratically chosen an undemocratic constitution. According to Interior Minister Taieb Cherkaoui, over 70% of Moroccans went to polling stations and 98% of voters resoundingly approved the new charter as proposed by the king. The “nihilists,” as the acrimonious Khalid Naciri, Morocco’s Communication Minister and spokesman, is fond of calling advocates of the country’s reformist movement, doubted the results; they see the whole process as contrived and accused the government of organizing a charade; for weeks leading up to voting day, they had mounted a campaign calling for the boycott of the referendum. Government backers criticized such a strategy as undemocratic. But how can one participate in an election that is rigged in favor of the country’s king and his plutocratic entourage?

Some of my friends, subscribers to the theory of incrementalism, voted for the new constitution convinced that it is a necessary evolutional step to a democratic Morocco. However, they conceded to the fact that for the majority of Moroccans, the referendum was not on the passing of a new set of fundamental egalitarian laws, but on the king himself. The majority of “yes” voters did so in genuflection to the king rather than in approbation for the constitution. In essence, Morocco has today, as it did pre-referendum, a king who is the constitution. A change anyone with a modicum of common sense can’t believe in.

It is true that the new constitution offers more freedoms, but democracy is not simply about allowing people certain freedoms. The Moroccan government declared that the majority of Moroccans, by overwhelmingly voting “yes,” expressed a general will that bespeaks the common good. If I understand Rousseau’s The Social Contract, that, indeed, is democracy.  Not so fast! In a country where political inscience is prevalent, I doubt collective rationality in identifying the common good. I am more inclined to consider how Machiavelli interprets “common good” in Discourses, namely, a shared will to avoid domination. German sociologist Max Weber defines “domination” as “the probability that a command with a specific content will be obeyed by a given group of persons,” adding that “the existence of domination turns only on the actual presence of one person successfully issuing orders to others.” Ian Shapiro expounds that definition and states that ”domination can result from a person’s, or a group’s, shaping agendas, constraining options, and, in the limiting case, influencing people’s preferences and desires. Domination can also occur without the need for explicit commands when one person or group secures the compliance of another as a by-product of their control of resources that are essential for the second person or group, or, in the terminology I will deploy, is in a position to threaten their basic interests.” Considering the oligopolistic nature of Morocco’s politics, economy, religious affairs, and media, the “yes” vote was compelled in large segments of the society. What the plutocrats wanted had come to pass. They threw astounding sums of money into economic, political, and media programs that would constrict the public’s range of alternatives to a “yes” vote, to make Moroccans ready, willing, and even eager to blindly follow the lead of the king. There is no denying that the government was actively engaged to tilt the vote. It wooed the people by subsidizing commodities; it granted over nine million dollars to eight of the largest political parties to lead exhaustive mobilization campaigns targeting impoverished neighborhoods and rural areas. It deployed its officers to rally crowds promising benefits at times and using crude identity and chauvinistic politics to rouse populist support at others. Government controlled airwaves and television networks run marathons of programs painting the constitution in a positive light; between each program, Moroccans were exposed to commercials urging them to vote “yes.” In Mosques, Friday preachers and imams recited verbatim a communiqué of the Ministry of Hobous and Islamic Affairs praising the constitution and advising worshipers that to obey the command of the king – meaning to vote “yes” – is a religious duty; they adduced Koranic verses to back up their statements. Free “yes” concerts hosting popular Moroccan singers were organized. Paid detractors saturated Moroccan Internet forums with casuistry to prevent them from reaching a broader audience. “Yes” banners were flown in every street and glued to the side of every bus and on every wall. I don’t believe the votes were miscounted. The democratic electoral process – in principle, competing for the majority’s vote – was observed. But I am convinced the Moroccan citizen was the target of a well-planned and precisely executed psychological operation against which he was defenseless.

The skeptics, myself included, have no confidence that the application of the new constitution will herald a democratic epoch in Morocco’s history. Its articles pertaining to the monarchy put an insuperable crimp in its functionality. The factor of domination is still palpable in its articles. The levers of powers are still commandeered by the king; he still controls the military, the judiciary, and religious affairs; the prime minister will be vested with executive powers over the government and will be elected from the party leading the election, the king will still be supreme executor over all political institutions to include the prime minister’s office. If the king calls the tune, the political parties and their representatives in parliament, the judicial, the ministers, and the civil society will dance. Although the voted constitution gives him immeasurable executive control over the levers of governance, it fails to decree his incumbency to popular accountability as if alluding to his infallibility. He remains unchallenged to dictate policies and measures as he sees fit and a king that dictates in such a fashion is a dictator.

The document, I am convinced, was not designed to set the stage for a stable democratic polity, nor is it equipped to curtail abuse of power by putatively elected and non-elected officials – appointed by the king. It was rather cobbled together by an unelected committee at the behest of the king and the elite to diffuse long-simmering social discontent with an entrenched power structure that benefits from the status quo. I have mentioned in a previous article titled “Betting on the King” that the new strategy of Morocco’s plutocracy is to huddle within the king’s vast sphere of influence and be shielded from popular wrath by the emotional sway he holds over Moroccans. By virtue of their association with the Monarchy’s guild, elite colluding families, whose members make the bulk of high profile politicians and businessmen in Morocco today, enjoy an extraordinary status and will never be held to account for their lack of ethics and the criminal schemes in which they engage under the umbrella of their governmental authority. The new constitution will not change that reality.

A. T. B. © 2011

 

Because the King Says “Yes”

Before King Mohammed VI concluded his historic speech announcing the greatly anticipated new constitution that he alleged would make Morocco into a viable democracy, thousands of jubilant Moroccans – some unsubstantiated reports described intoxicated crack heads enlisted by government handlers – flooded the streets of Casablanca and Rabat waving flags, enskying pictures of the king, and voicing their unconditional approval of the new document.

Some argue that it accords unique rights and freedoms to individuals, it confers on Moroccans all the rights contained in international agreements the government has signed, it limits the King’s political nomination prerogatives since the president of the government will be appointed from the party leading the election and therefore chosen by the people, it grants the appointed president executive political authority. These are great concessions Moroccan fought hard for, but such arguments make the ignis fatuus even more persuasive.

I read the new constitution twice; I felt as though I was gazing at a Mauritus Cornelis Escher’s Klimmen en dalen. I immediately thought of a Kohler Escale dual-flush toilet; I wondered if its efficient 1.6 gallons flush would swallow such a heavy load of fatuity. I can not wrap my mind around the fact that for a country that has thirty four political parties, such a document, meant as a judicial backbone, but that many believe makes a mockery of Morocco’s men of law, politicians, and the simple citizen, was finalized in a mere three months without as much as a contentious political peep. One needs not be a legal scholar to perceive amidst the legalese formulas that the document hardly strives to warrant power-sharing. At its core, the new constitution is an infinitely ductile tool of monarchic powers. It allows for, in fact encourages, royal overreach on political, security, economic, social, and religious affairs. It provides the king with the constitutional authority to override the executive political decisions of the president of the government. It allows him, if he so chooses, to act contrary to the advisory of the constitutional counsels. Its articles, specifically article III dealing with the monarchy, contains fundamental divides Morocco’s legislature, if for a nanosecond it stopped lavishing cowardly deference on the king, would find impossible to bridge were it to adhere to the most rudimentary democratic template. The judicial processes it outlines are flimsy at best and will not sustain the rule of law. Above the people’s voice, that of the King remains authoritative. The leash is not being broken; it is just being reeled out.

To understand the complexity of the King’s power, one should consider how Morocco’s layman defines it. “The King is everything,” he would say. Indeed, he is the deus ex machina whose powers by far exceed that of all political parties and civil institutions combined. He is above the constitution and has no obligation to the law or the people. People’s vote is inconsequential. Morocco’s older generation, the one that survived French colonization and saw the face of Mohammed V, the current king’s grandfather, on a full moon, believes Mohammed VI to have “baraka,” divine blessing, and to govern by an edict from Allah. Such Moroccans and younger ones who were inculcated with such ludicrous beliefs will vote in favor of the new constitution simply because the King tasked them to do so. Such power is unfathomable to Western minds who hold the sanctity of the law above that of mere mortals.   

The government, whose cast of unsavory characters remains in place, already conveyed its confidence the new constitution will be voted into law in the nationwide referendum scheduled for the 1st of July. I suspect it will overwhelmingly pass muster, not so much because its proponents have determined, after close scrutiny, it enshrines the principles of democracy and the fundamentals of equality of all Moroccans before the law, but because the king sanctioned it and urged the political parties to mobilize the population to vote favorably. In so doing, Mohammed VI transgressed article III, section 42 of the new constitution describing him as a “supreme arbiter that transcends political partisanship, upholds the nation’s democratic choices, and guarantees the adequacy of constitutional institutions.” He, of course, cannot be probed for such unethical action; section 46 of the constitution protects him from accountability. This is an instance among many that illustrates how the new constitution is inconsistent with the most basic tenets of democracy – no one is above the law, not even a king.

A. T. B. © 2011

Morocco’s New Constitution

 

Read why here: http://cabalamuse.wordpress.com/2011/06/24/because-the-king-says-yes/

Betting on the King

The confident and fantastically positive promulgations of the government’s official spokesperson, Khalid Naciri, who seems to have forgotten his moment of ignominy, that the revolution of the people AND the king – as he termed it – is on the eve of a historical attainment, that Morocco is a democracy, but the upcoming constitutional reforms will render it a greater one, that the press is free, but the King’s newly designed policy prescriptions will make it freer, are nothing but a guileful mesh of lies, falsehoods, deceits, and perjuries from a government whose credibility is now more worthless than chaff. Rachid Nini’s recent judicial quandary, the wrathful security elements standardized use of deadly force against peaceful demonstrators, and a myriad of other indicators highlight how the government’s actions and the populist democratization aspirations fail to cohere into a single national agenda.

Since 20 Feb., when throngs of young Moroccans, no longer willing to be politically introverted, sprouted out across the country to decry a solipsistic political structure and demand transparent and egalitarian governance, the response of the Moroccan government and political parties gradually shifted from the cold shoulder treatment to containment attempts within the existing servile, unctuous, and antiquated political structure, and finally the unwarranted use of excessive force. The political parties rationalized their lack of responsiveness to the legitimate demands raised by the demonstrators by claiming they were apprehensive about the organizers’ possible affiliation with hostile foreign and/or local entities. While he recognized that the “Arab Spring” prodded Morocco’s democratic process, Khalid Naciri, a socialist who must have missed the glasnost train of the late 1980’s, justified the use of deadly force by the security elements citing the involvement in the demonstrations of the banned Justice and Charity, Salafia Jihadia, and elements from the extreme right. He insisted that the 20 Feb. reformist movement is being manipulated by these factions and denied them credit for the upcoming constitutional changes by insisting that the beating heart of Morocco’s democracy will always be the King, that the country’s revolution started in 1999 and that today’s planned reforms are in compliance with an already established progressist royal vision.

The strategy du jour of Morocco’s plutocracy, operating within the government or the opposition political parties, is to piggyback on the Monarchy while ensuring the latter remains beyond popular probing. “Don’t touch the King,” they tell us. Unfortunately, as thousands take to the street to bespeak the grave shortcomings of Morocco’s political structure, the majority of Moroccans buy into the government’s fabulations. At a time when the last thing needed is self-restraint, millions of Moroccans are made to believe that sounding a countervailing voice against the government and the King is unpatriotic. It is not that Moroccans are gullible; everybody can relate a surfeit of anecdotes on  how the highest ranking officials are corrupt; a country which had Tazmamert has Tmara and scores of other undisclosed detention centers; a government that serves as a front to an entreuprenerial plutocracy whose ranks are protected from comeuppance for their profligacy should not preach about the rule of law, ethics, and democracy. But the majority of Moroccans seem, at this delving junction of our history, willing to cast aside the quest for transparency, oversight, freedoms, and democracy as long as our national soccer team extends its winning streak and the price of commodoties – subsadized by the government – remains low. This cognitive dissonance is symptomatic of a nation whose character is so erroded that it confuses a lack of abuse as magnanimity.

A. T. B. © 2011

Silencing Rachid Nini

Rachid Nini, the executive editor of Al-Massae newspaper, was sentenced by a lower court in Ain Sbaa, Casablanca to one year in prison and fined one thousand Moroccan dirhams. He was charged with “grave contempt” to Morocco’s judicial system and “unsubstantiated reporting on alleged crimes.” Through his editorials, Mr. Nini has targeted high ranking governmental officials and political figures informing his readers of their unethical business and political dealings. The government failed to credibly investigate any of the fraudulent practices he – and other independent journalists – exposed. 

The arrest and sentencing of Mr. Nini was fraught with inconsistencies. Initially, the King’s lead prosecutor was unable to present a sustainable charge against him; he then opted to have him tried under penal code statutes instead of the press law which prohibits the arrest and imprisonment of journalists on account of their published writings. 

Many believe that his arrest and sentencing was politically motivated. Observers are convinced that the judge’s decision was not guided by the voice of justice and fairness, not even by the voice of law, but rather by the voice that comes through a telephone receiver dictating the sentence. Proponents of Morocco’s independent media point the finger at Fouad Ali El Himma, a close friend of King Mohammed VI and the founder of the highly dubious Authenticity and Modernity party.

A. T. B. © 2011

Moroccan Democratic Reform: Between the Baton and the King’s Speech

There is a consensus among Moroccans that the brutal clampdown of demonstrators was ordered by Moroccan Interior Minister Taieb Cherkaoui who in turn received his guidance from his King. Many believed that after Mohammed VI’s bulleted speech outlining his schedule for an attempted constitutional reform, the situation would show improvement. The wave of demonstrations rumbling through the main streets of many Moroccan cities today indicates that the woes of Moroccans are deep and intractable and the government and the political parties are dispassionate and guileful; now that the stone wall of fear has tumbled down, grievances that have long been stifled are bubbling at the surface. Resentment against a government no longer trusted, nor feared by the people, runs high. Most see the King ‘speech and government officials’ promises for the soon-to-be-implemented reforms as nothing more than temporizing. At a time of economic austerity and political upheaval, Moroccans are galled by a butt-shaking Shakira who pockets a million dollars for a fifteen minutes appearance on Mawazin; it may not be true, but that is the word in the street – hada ‘ar, hada ‘ar, Shakira dat melyar (this is a shame, this is a shame, shakira was paid a million) people chanted in shar’e eshjar (officially know as Driss Elharti street) in Casablanca. Moroccan are no longer duped by the government’s diversionary methods; in comparison to previous years, Mawazin 2011 was largely boycotted; Argana restaurant bombing in Marrakesh failed to rally the people behind the government; the Algeria vs. Morocco soccer game this coming weekend will not succeed in besotting the population.

The political parties failed to take the initiative; they are reeled by the sudden change and waited too long to align themselves with the popular reformist movement. It is clear that they have never had a vision. The appearance of their representatives before Abdellatif Menouni and the eighteen members the Consultative Commission for the Review of the Constitution to present their proposals was a contest in political impotency; their vision was unambitious and unimaginative. The little credibility they had shriveled like a penis in frigid water.

Against such mounting, sullen defiance, the Moroccan authorities responded in the feral fashion that has always been integral to the pathology of dictatorship. It unleashed its baton-wielding philistines to club the demonstrators into obsequiousness; it deployed its basij style security force to kick defenseless women and bash the heads of their teenage kids with the heels of their government issued boots. They cordon the peaceful crowd in a well practiced maneuver and run them through a gauntlet of raining sticks, fists, and kicks as if they were a herd of cows that had run amok. These so called security forces, shielded from accountability, are capable of the most criminal acts to terrorize the people; they are the ones that, much like it happened in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, and Yemen, will shed their uniforms and mingle with the populace to snipe demonstrators, kidnap and rape women, and burglarize institutions if directed to do so by their commanders. They do not question orders and, much like the ruthless usurpers that command them, they dehumanize the population to better mortify it. You can hear it in the insults they indiscriminately bark out. It was reported that in a Ramadan day in 2008, before he shot and then kicked Tariq Mouhib, a uniformed police officer who pulled him over for a mundane traffic violation, Hassan Yacoubi, the husband of the aunt of king Mohammed VI, Lalla Aicha, had said to him:” you and your lot are nothing by flies. How dare you pull me over?” (Hassan Yacoubi was never presented to justice for his crime.) Indeed, that is how Morocco’s government intent on denying the Moroccan people a breakthrough to dignified living sees the country’s young reformists. These potentates orchestrating the defenestration of democracy are the ones we are awaiting on to implement reforms.

The more the government uses violence to suppress demonstrations, the more the people will take to the streets to voice their dissatisfaction. We are not far from the day when young demonstrators will stop running, and instead clench their fists on the throats of those uniformed brutes and their walkie-talkie totting commanders. The odds for a peaceful transition are slim. I fear the worst is yet to come.

A. T. B. © 2011

Deciphering Morocco’s Military Procurement Strategy

On May 17, 2011, the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) advised congress on a possible foreign military sale (FMS) estimated at about 50 million U.S. dollars to Morocco. In a continuous effort to revamp its air force inventory, Morocco had submitted a military procurement order to the U.S. government for 20 AIM-9X-2 Sidewinder Block II Missiles; in addition to the Sidewinders, the package will include 10 CATM-9X-2 block II missiles, 8 CATM-9X-2 Block II Missile Guidance Units, eight AIM-9X-2 Block II Tactical Guidance Units, two Dummy Air Training Missiles, containers, missile support and test equipment. The missiles will be delivered All-Up-Round (AUR) by Raytheon’s Missile Systems branch in Tucson, AZ.

The AIM-9 missile is a supersonic, launch and leave air-to-air missile that uses passive infrared energy (heat) for the acquisition and tracking of targets. It will be mounted on the 24 F-16 Block 52+ fighter jets Morocco purchased from Lockheed Martin for 2.4 billion U.S. dollars. This missile is used for self-defense purposes in dogfights – close range air combat situation not exceeding 20 kilometers. It features an imaging infrared focal plane array (FPA) seeker with claimed 90° off-boresight capability and a new three-dimensional thrust-vectoring control (TVC) system providing increased turn capability over traditional control surfaces. Combined with the Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing System, AIM-9X-2 delivers combined kill ratios exceeding 50:1 against nonhigh-off-boresight equipped fighters; the pilot can lock-on a target by having eyes on it giving him first shot first kill dominance. The missile is highly popular and the U.S. congress authorized its sale to over forty countries.

In conjunction with Morocco’s previous defense procurements such as the 24 F-16 Block 52+ fighter jets, and the DB-110 airborne reconnaissance system from Goodrich Corporation, the AIM-9X-2 Sidewinder Block II missiles will enhance the high-impact capability of Morocco’s Royal Air Force and improve the country’s interoperability with U.S. and NATO militaries.

The DSCA, in its report to congress, indicated that the sale will not affect the balance of power in the region and justified it as “supporting Morocco’s legitimate need for its own self-defense.” From what, or whom? Might you ask. Certainly not Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) which government officials consider to be the biggest threat facing Morocco today. Analysts agree that Morocco and Algeria will not engage in open conventional warfare; Neither NATO nor the U.S. will allow two of their key partners in the war against terrorism to offset regional stability allowing AQIM to gain a strategic advantage.

Morocco has many enemies, but none against whom it will engage in a declared and conventionally weaponized skirmish. The Royal Armed Forces participation in joint and combined war games such as Phoenix Express and African Lion with European and U.S. militries, its billions of dollars in military procurements, at a time when the national budget deficit rose by more than 20 percent to 6.3 billion dirhams and the state is struggling to keep its 2011 budget deficit at its targeted 3.5 percent, aims at keeping NATO and the U.S. commited to supporting its regime. More than any military hardware, Morocco’s military engagement is its strongest defense. It didn’t work quite well for Hosni Mubarak, but the Moroccan government is hoping for the best.

A. T. B. © 2011