What’s For Dinner? Someone’s Ass!

Apparently alarmed by the crumbling global economy, incensed by the famine crisis sweeping the country, and prompted by the drastic sudden increase in basic alimentation goods such as meat, flour, sugar, and oil, an established butcher in the region of Tiznit, sixty-five miles south of Agadir, Morocco, slaughtered donkeys and, with an impish smile, sold their meat at a lower price than that of conventional meats to his unsuspecting customers who were mostly residing in remote villages.

The police got wind of his activities when a video of him dexterously and energetically slaughtering, chopping and filleting a donkey while another one fatalistically waited behind him circulated via mobile phones among citizens. Filmed standing behind a butcher’s table upon which he mounded chunks of bloody donkey meat, he boasted he had been engaged in this lucrative activity for quite a while now and that throughout Morocco donkey meat is sold in markets; wielding his butcher’s knife, he threatened that if anybody tried to stop him, he wouldn’t hesitate to slaughter them just like he did the donkeys.

As an alternative source of meat, donkeys have been savored throughout history and by different cultures. Even today, donkey meat is still consumed in a number of countries, not all of them impoverished. The famous Saucisson D’Arles is traditionally made with a mixture of pork and donkey meat. In England, on numerous occasions, the Food Standard Agency surveyed the use of donkey meat in salami, pastrami, and chorizo. In Italy, most cotto salami is made out of donkey meat and innards. Kim Jong Il, the North Korean leader who is known for his extravagant and eccentric tastes, is reportedly fond of roasted donkey meat which he reverently refers to as ”heavenly cow.” The French writer Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat once jokingly stated that because donkeys are often beaten, their meat is more tender than other conventional meats. But throughout the world and especially in the Arab countries, the police diligently crackdown on butchers who sell donkey meat and restaurateurs who serve it.

According to a friend of mine who I found out is an expert in the subject, there are three reasons why Arab and Moslem consumers have an aversion to donkey meat and why it is prohibited by their governments. firstly, religious and folkloric beliefs in Arab and Moslem societies consider the meat of the beast of burden “unclean,” thus, unsuitable for consumption. Secondly, the donkeys surreptitiously slaughtered and served up to consumers are not reared for that purpose; they are often sickly and dying. Thirdly, the composition of the donkey’s blood is much different than that of humans and is, medically speaking, unhealthy for humans. I was very much surprised by the latter.

“How so?”

“Unlike human blood, donkey blood contains Alpha-beta (αβ) T cells containing asparagine and alanine,” he explained matter-of-factly.

Trying to qualify his knowledge, I asked: “How do you know this?”

“simple,” my friend, who happens to be a medical doctor, answered. “Years ago, we used to send a nurse to remote villages in the region of Agadir to draw blood samples from villagers for analysis. One such analysis once revealed that the blood samples collected by the nurse were not only anemic, but contained Alpha-beta (αβ) T cells with abnormal levels of asparagine and alanine. The whole hospital was alarmed. The nurse was called in and queried about the location of the villages from which he collected the blood samples. He later confessed that having  been tired and unwilling to trek up the mountains to the remote villages, he decided to draw blood samples from a couple of donkeys he found on his way thinking that no one would tell the difference anyways.”

I was of course shocked.

“How does the body react, then, if one consistently eats donkey meat?”

“When you see someone acting like an ass, he may not know it, but he’s been eating a whole lotta ass meat.”

I thought that this could plausibly explain why Yakoubi shot a police officer, why Erraji was, albeit briefly, thrown in prison, why so many institutions within the Arab and Moroccan governments are dysfunctional.

A. T. B. Copyright © 2008

Erraji’s Free! Who’s Next At The Stake?

Erraji’s free, but the judge that pronounced his sentence is still presiding. The rescinding of Erraji’s sentence was an insidious esthetic rectification of a blatant judicial blunder. It was certainly meant to abate the universal outrage Erraji’s sentencing triggered. The Blogma’a contribution in stoking the debate is commendable, but the mission is far from being accomplished. The Moroccan government has yet to introduce reformative measures that would make the Moroccan judicial system consistently equitable.

What was it about Erraji’s predicament that drew the ire of the Moroccan blogging community and compelled the involvement of international and national human rights advocacy groups?

It was not that Erraji was sentenced to two years of prison and fined 5,000 Moroccan Dirhams. The quiddity of our outrage and the drive behind our unflinching response was that Erraji’s plight was caused by a contrived mindset framed by servitude and profiteering. That faulty mindset is still in effect within our lethargic government. In the absence of a serious effort to reform the system, this outrageous injustice is bound to happen again. By then, Erraji will be consigned to anonymity; his nightmarish passage through the crucible of the Moroccan judiciary will be expunged from the annals. There will be no precedent to learn from.

Erraji’s indeed free! But who’s next? 

Ahmed T. B. Copyright © 2008   

The Blogma’s Whims

Unlike many of my fellow bloggers, I don’t see the blogma as an integrated force of opinion. The value of the blogma lies in its ability to alert international and national organizations to transgressions that would otherwise go unnoticed. Without the support and the active involvement of these organizations, the blogma would be impotent. Let’s face it; it is not because a few blogs went on strike that Erraji was provisionally freed and subsequently acquitted. He was granted due process because international and national human rights advocacy groups intervened. The blogma’s virtual involvement alone could have never achieved it; most certainly not in Morocco.

I don’t think that the blogma was ever designed to be a unified front. I am not aware that it has a mission statement. The subjects the bloggers expose and the causes they take on are so diverse that I consider each and every blog a front in and by itself. We pick and choose our battles. We all have different interests, in the case of some of us, I would say agendas. And each has a target audience. Our delimitations are the language we use (English, French, Spanish, Italian, Arabic, Amazigh…) and the subjects we tackle. Not all of us are militant bloggers. Within the militant bloggers’ group, the definitions of democracy, justice, freedom of expression and other such concepts differ widely. But, we tend to all converge on the broad titles of certain issues. For instance, almost all of us agreed that Mourtada’s use of Facebook was irresponsible, but also agreed that his sentencing was unfair.

The “Erraji” affair unified the blogma, albeit for a few days. We unambiguously took a stand against the arbitrary judgment pronounced against him. Unlike other issues such as the casablanca factory fire, this affair touches the very act of blogging. The sentence Erraji was slapped with sent shockwaves through the Moroccan blogging community. It was a loud and clear message from the government: there are red lines not to cross even within the internet. Most of us who find refuge in blogging because there are so many red lines outside of it could not stand still while the activity of blogging is being paralyzed by the same archaic norms the other media are victims of. There were numerous occasions when a newspaper or a magazine journalist was dragged into a courtroom to answer to the government’s convoluted reading of a given article without arousing much of an interest in the blogma. We did not then offer the unequivocal support we so lavished Erraji with. Just recently, a few blogs mentioned Tariq Mouhib’s plight. Despite the deep political and judicial implications of the incident - the equality of all Moroccan citizens before the law, the reform of the Moroccan justice system, the servitude instinct ingrained in the psyche of officials preventing them from recognizing right from wrong, etc …, it is no longer the topic du jour in the blogma today.

The blogma does have the potential to affect the political, economic, social, and cultural scenes. Elections could be decided on the blogma, boycotts could be called on it, cultural trends could be set on it. If organized into a cohesive element, the blogma could be a force to reckon with. The government knows it. It fears it. It is also a force that could easily be manipulated by intelligence services – foreign or local, political parties, business groups, and rogue organizations. We should all be aware of that and fear it. We are unified then in our responsibility to remain vigilant against it and to prevent it.

Unlike Citoyenhmida, I only see two categories in the blogma: the leaders and the followers. And we all are both.

Ahmed T. B. Copyright © 2008

Mabrouk Agent Tariq Mouhib

A traffic police officer routinely pulled over a vehicle that ran a traffic light. The driver got out of the car, verbally attacked him, drew a handgun out and shot him, then walked up to him and kicked him in the gut before he jumped back into his car to wait for the police. Upon arriving, the police drove the perp away more concerned for his safety and comfort than for the wounded police officer. The shooter was connected to the Moroccan royal family. A shrif. A master. And we thought slavery was abolished.

Agent Mouhib, congratulations! You are now a prime candidate for a “GRIMA,” possibly a hefty bonus, and a promotion. Do not be surprised if you are handed your Permanent Change of Station orders as soon as you’re back on your feet; you are no longer wanted where people know you. High ranking officials,  your commanding officer, Charqi Idraiss included, pursuing to protocol doctrines in our country, are going to pamper you, and if that does not work, threaten you, to coerce you to keep your mouth shut. Didn’t you see how they posted guards by your hospital room to prevent anyone from talking to you; how fast they segued into explanations and proclaimed your assailant, Hassan Al Ya’koubi, the in-law of the king of Morocco and a successful businessman, suffering from a mental illness; “ma diroush fih ‘akalkoum, rah hbeel meskin (don’t mind him, the poor man is crazy),” they’re saying. didn’t you hear how fast they are trying to cover this up? It is disturbing in no small measure.

In a democratic country, Al Ya’koubi would have been pulled out of the car and handcuffed at the scene; he would be sitting in jail waiting to appear before a judge to be charged with assault and battery on, and attempted murder of a uniformed police officer during the course of official duties. But here in Morocco, the sentence had already been cast the moment he shot and kicked you like a piece of trash, then calmly, remorselessly sat in his car making phone calls and waiting for your colleagues. You would think an insane man would turn his weapon against the crowd.

In a democratic country, even cops are not authorized fragmentary rounds because their use is inhumane and causes devastating internal injury. They are however used by criminals. 

In a democratic country, even if, in the goodness of your heart, you decided to forgive your attacker, the government, as a true representative of the people, out of concern for their safety, would not concede its right to unleash the full wrath of the law on a psychopathic criminal who represents a serious danger to people. But here in Morocco, the safety and comfort of your high ranking attacker supersedes that of the common people; he is above the law. From a distorted perspective, you could say that the government is his representative against you. 

Does the uniform you so proudly wear make you a representative of the law? A protector of the people? Does it command respect? Not by all it seems. Is there a law that punishes those who disrespect a uniformed officer (let alone shooting and then kicking him)? Of course there is. Will it apply to Al Ya’koubi? Let’s use Erraji as a standard for this one.

Are we all equal before the law, or are some more equal than others? 

But I was told that the king does not stand for such overbearing, criminal attitudes as that displayed by Al Ya’koubi, nor does he stand for the actions of the officials who, by their toadyism, deride his efforts to drive Morocco into the 21st century.

This is an epochal moment. Let us hope.

Ahmed T. B. Copyright © 2008

No Thanks To The Moroccan Justice System

For Erraji’s provisional freedom. It usually takes weeks if not months for such procedures to be processed through the Moroccan Justice bureaucracy. This unanticipated release bears all the symptoms of a surreptitious intervention by the king. I am sure the king’s intervention, seeking to correct this serious slippage of justice, will not stop here; Erraji, who was wheedled to submit to a speedy trial without the luxury of a defense, will now stand, on 16 September, before a court of justice that will adhere to “due process” (we use the term rather loosely in Morocco.) If found guilty, he will be slapped with nothing more than a fine. I will not be surprised if Erraji is exonerated altogether. 

Why such an underhanded intervention? considering the international response to the convulsive judgment Erraji was a victim of, the stealthy intervention seeks to depict the Moroccan justice as a functional system, the Moroccan governance as democratic and stable; these characteristics are catnips to foreign investors. Domestically, such an intervention will avert a greater erosion of confidence in the justice system.  

But why did such a travesty happen in the first place? Are the officials who orchestrated it so blatantly incompetent? They are not. Is the judge who sent Erraji to rot in jail so ignorant of judicial procedures? He is not. They are simply following a deeply ingrained political and social tradition in Morocco: ingratiating themselves with the Palace hoping for a “GRIMA.” 

Ahmed T. B. Copyright © 2008

Cette Vieille Ne Va Pas Nous Laisser Passer

I walked into Marjane. It was just after Iftar. The place was almost deserted. Only a few shoppers walked around carrying red baskets or pushing carts from aisle to aisle looking for this or that. The employees strut in their uniforms looked bored. They followed people with their eyes as they walked by them; one talked on her portable phone hiding behind a plasma television; I presume employees are not authorized to talk on their phones while on duty.

I needed tortilla chips, a couple of avocados, an onion, a tomato, a couple of lemons, and a bunch of cilantro; I had been craving some guacamole all day. I got everything rather quickly and headed for the cashier. Since there was only one for the WHOLE store at that time, the line of shoppers waiting to pay was rather long and stretched well into an aisle. After about fifteen minutes or so, the store manager finally decided to open another cash register. All hell broke loose after that. People swarmed to the freshly opened cash register like disgruntled bees.

I too made it to that newly operational cash register. I stood behind a Moroccan couple that spoke only French, probably on vacation from France. Before the French speaking couple, an old Moroccan woman dressed in a white djelaba and a white foulard. She was walking by the cash register when it had opened and would have beaten everyone to it if she were a few years younger. Finally a line started forming when an old man who looked tired and was unshaven, dressed in a trench coat the kind you would see “moul hanout” wearing and a balgha a size or two smaller cut into the very beginning of the line. He was carrying nothing more than a bottle of water. Everyone backed gingerly off. The old man put his bottle of water on the floor; he looked up and down the line, then at the bottle and hustled into an aisle. His look, in the universal sign language world, I guessed, meant the bottle was holding his spot in the line. He must have forgotten something and would surely reappear with it in his hand before the line moved forward. Suddenly, he reappeared pushing a shopping cart laden with bottles of different brands of mineral water, Sidi Ali, Ciel, Sidi Hrazem. His cart looked like one of those haystack lopsidedly overloaded Berlier trucks you see often wending their way through the narrow, potholed roads the government is so proud of. The jaws of the people standing in line dropped to the floor from shock. A camaraderie of the wretched started forming up. People talked to each other pointing to the man. 

“Si Mohamed, the line starts there.” someone said pointing out the obvious.

“I was here first. Look!” he said pointing at the lone bottle of water on the floor. “That’s mine.”

“We let you cut in because we thought you only had a bottle of water,” someone else ruefully lamented. “But you’re shopping for the whole dowar (village).”

“I was here before you all. My bottle right here proves it,” shamelessly and irascibly the man declared.

At that point, everyone figured this guy would not budge unless physically forced to. A couple of customers from the back of the line left to the only other open cash register. Surprisingly, the old man left too. Where his bottle stood there was a whole cart of bottled water now. A couple of minutes later, he turned from an aisle pushing yet another cart as loaded with bottles of mineral water as the first one. He obdurately pushed it against the first one as people, incredulous, started laughing.

The Moroccan couple in front of me was exasperated. They kept looking at their watches, rolling their eyes. The lady, nodding towards the old woman standing in line before them, said to her companion: “Cette vieille ne va pas nous laisser passer – this old hag won’t let us go before her.”  

The cashier called for help. Three other employees finally dropped by. They pulled the old man’s carts out of the line and started counting the bottles of mineral water. They passed the information on to the cashier who rang it in. The whole line was paying close attention to what was going on. Everyone smiled and started breathing easier. At last, the line would move faster. The old man moved to the cash register to pay as two employees pushed his carts outside for him. He dipped his hands into a pocket of the trench coat and pulled a plastic bag full of small change; he dipped his other hand into another pocket and pulled it out with another plastic bag of small change. The cashier had tears in her eyes. Someone in the back of the line started laughing hysterically. I started looking around in search of a hidden camera convinced that this was one of those candid camera episodes. 

“I’ll count these for you,” a Merjane supervisor, drawn to the scene by the commotion the old man caused, said to the cashier. “Take care of the others.”

People applauded the hero; the line started moving again. Soon it was the old Moroccan lady’s turn. She didn’t have much. After she paid and before leaving, she turned to face the young Moroccan couple and said in an impeccable French: “Cette vieille femme aurait pu vous laisser passer, si seulement vous avez demander gentillement – this old hag could have let you go before her if you just asked politely.” Then, in an equally flawless Moroccan she adds: “bel hak, ma mrabyensh – but you have no manners.” And limped away carrying her groceries.

The young couple’s faces turned as red as a beet. They did not say one word. They quickly paid for their groceries and left as the cashier and people still standing in line snickered at them too.

The guacamole turned out great.

Ahmed T. B. Copyright © 2008

Erraji’s Idea

 

When Mohamed Erraji was detained by the Moroccan police in Agadir last Thursday, he was questioned for seven hours and let go. He told friends and family he was asked for the password to his email account. He undauntingly cooperated to show that he was not as dangerous as the government thought he was. But Mohamed Erraji was lethal. Against his lethality, the government had no recourse, but to ruthlessly suppress it. The expediency that characterized his trial was a botched attempt by the government to do damage control; officials recognized that Mohamed Erraji needed to immediately be removed from the general populace; what the sycophant judge so swiftly put behind bar is not Erraji, but the forward-thinking idea of change that he so altruistically advocated. Such is the mark of an undemocratic government, the fear of an idea that upgrades the system to international standards and shudders the established feudal-like tradition, especially if that idea germinates in the mind of a financially crushed, disenchanted youth (oueld esha’ab) between the age of fifteen and thirty-five (which constitutes seventy-five percent of the Moroccan society).

It is true that progressive ideas are expressed daily and weekly in nationally and internationally circulated autonomous media such as Tel Qel, Nishane, Maroc-Hebdo, Le Journal Hebdomadaire, Al Masae, and others. Individual Moroccans such as Nadia Yassine, the daughter of the founder of Al Adl Wal Ihsane, Sheikh Abdessalam Yassine, often boisterously convey their reformist ideas. These are nothing more than props on a stage upon which the Moroccan government parades its illusionary democracy and stability before the international money dispensers. They are not read by, nor do they represent the majority in the Moroccan society. There are times when an independent media would deprecate the policies of the government and thus touch on a politically taboo subjects. The government’s new defense strategy to squash such nonconformity is to financially ruin the “perpetrator.” On 16 February 2006, when Le Journal published articles on religion and the Sahara issue, it was fined $350,000.00. Rachid Nini was fined $800,000.00 for an article his newspaper, Al Masae, published.

Mohamed Erraji was only fined $627.00 because, to him as a simple Moroccan oueld asha’ab, that is financially ruinous. The government estimated two years is enough time for that “subversive” idea to evaporate from his mind and for him to be the subdued, bowing subject he ought to be. 

Ahmed T. B. Copyright © 2008    

Behind Erraji’s Arrest

Mohamed Erraji, a blogger from Agadir, was arrested this past Friday for an article he published on the Moroccan e-zine Hespress.com. News of his arrest was reported by Hespress and echoed by a number of fellow bloggers, but has yet to be corroborated. Mohamed’s article (translated to English by Amira Al Hussaini), written in Arabic and titled “The King Indulges His Subjects’ dependency,” dealt with the concept of what Moroccans colloquially call “GRIMA”, from the French word “agrément” meaning “an administrative authorization.” Giving ”administrative authorizations” has been a long standing royal tradition in Morocco. Needless to say, such authorizations allow the beneficiary to bypass all set administrative procedures; they strip all laws and regulations designed to regulate such procedures of their integrity. But the concept is so ingrained in the Moroccan psyche that you often here Moroccans from all walks of life pray: “May Allah give us a “GRIMA” from Sidna.” So much so that when the king visits, most of his subjects waiting to greet him become undignified beggars hoping for a “GRIMA.”

The Moroccan judiciary will never concede that Erraji was arrested for his views on the concept of the “GRIMA.” After all, how could anybody be chastised for his/her views in a country the government is telling us is democratic and in which freedom of speech is guaranteed. But after reading Erraji’s article, I could see how he touches two rather sensitive nerves in the Moroccan judiciary and political spheres. Firstly, Erraji is being detained for calumnious statements against the person of the king (commonly known as “biting the hand that feeds you”), an offense punishable under article 41 of the Press Law. Secondly, his comparison of the Moroccan king to the Algerian president Boutaflika and his urging that the Moroccan government should heed to Boutaflika’s advice on the subject and follow his suit is the kind of opposition the Moroccan government equates with treason, especially in these politically turbulent times when the Moroccan/Algerian relations are less than cordial.

It would not be excessively imaginative to think that Erraji is currently not being investigated by the judiciary police, but by elements of the counterintelligence bureau trying to determine his alleged connection to the Algerian intelligence apparatus. 

It would be ironic of course if Erraji, after being politically sentenced by a puppet judge, is granted a royal pardon.

UPDATE: In an expedited trial today in Agadir, Erraji was sentenced to two years imprisonment and 5000 DH ($627.00) fine for libel on the person of the King.

To express your solidarity with Erraji, please send an email to: helperraji@gmail.com.  

Ahmed T. B. Copyright © 2008

The Ailing Moroccan Security

 

The dismantlement by the Moroccan authorities of a homegrown terrorist group flauntingly calling itself “Fath Al Andalus” (Conquest of Andalusia) is laudable. Fifteen members of the group were arrested with chemicals, explosives, and a plan to conduct attacks in various cities in Morocco in the near future. According to reports from the Moroccan Territorial Security Department (TSD) and the National Security General Directorate (NSGD), the group is linked to Al Qaeda which according to the same sources provided financial and logistical support to the group’s operations. The Moroccan security elements, both at the strategic and tactical levels, are deft at following up on leads once they emerge;  their human and technical capabilities are impressive.  But the existence of such a group is one of many alarming indicators that disprove the government’s claim as echoed through its sanctioned and covert media outlets that the security situation in Morocco is secure.

The stark reality of national security is that it requires a consortium of all governmental and private constituents of the country; it is not a responsibility to be harnessed solely on the TSD and the NSGD whose gargantuan efforts are frequently felled by a myriad of stubborn national and local issues that demand protracted government policies and a resilient execution. One such issue is the porous Moroccan/Algerian border. An article in the daily newspaper Al Sabah reported that a recent Moroccan Ministry of Defense Inspector General visit to outposts along the security belt in the southern zone found that many of the inspected outposts were either undermanned or totally deserted. The inspection also determined that the soldiers assigned to those positions were complacent and poorly equipped. Numerous national newspapers and magazines described a sprawling black market offering everything from candy, biscuits, and cigarettes to clothing, electronic equipment, and fuel. Along with consumer goods locally and internationally produced drugs find their way to Moroccan, Algerian, and European users. Smugglers have been operating along the Algerian/Moroccan border for decades, but it’s only recently that they extended their services to support terrorist organizations such as “Fath Al Andalus.”Government officials from the low ranking border patrol guard to high ranking commanders and judges are complicit in the smuggling operations. In Moroccan cities and villages, local officials sell to high bidders residency certificates and other official documents necessary to obtain a Moroccan identification card; This week, a passport official in Mohamedia was arrested for selling a number of blank Moroccan passports. It is a known terrorist modus operandi to strive on such activity to establish operations support bases in different regions; one such cell was recently dismantled in the Souss region. Such lapses of government officials in different administrations, although they acutely impact the efforts of the thinly stretched TSD and NSGD, are never perpetrated to undermine an already floundering national security. They are driven by a frail national economy in which the poverty base exponentially increases by the day and the cost of living has grown unaffordable for the majority of the population.

Ahmed T. B. Copyright © 2008