After eight years of writing this blog, I have finally come to the conclusion that I need to require people to sign in before they can make comments. While I generally prefer to allow people to comment freely and anonymously, the tidal wave of comment spam has finally overwhelmed all other preventative measures. My apologies to anyone who is inconvenienced or discouraged from commenting.
Disempowerment
The Moorish Wanderer has a trenchant analysis of the disempowerment of the Moroccan people and particularly of Moroccan women.
The first part of his post analyzes the powerlessness of the organized political powers and the consequent alienation of the country's youth from the political process.
The second part of the post addresses the self-immolation of Fadoua Laroui in protest of the treatment she received as a young, unwed mother. Wanderer's sarcastic expression of outrage is painful to read, but it bears remembering that he is talking about a young woman who burned herself to death. In my own time in Morocco, I saw the consequences for children born out of wedlock who were cast aside in a Moroccan orphanage with very little hope of escape. And prostitution was commonplace, even in the conservative countryside where I initially least expected it. Women who did not strictly conform to traditional sexual mores paid a steep price in social ostracism, and prostitution was often the sole means of support available for women who had been branded unchaste.
I don't wish to shortchange the strides that Morocco has taken toward women's rights, or the deficiencies in my own culture's treatment of women. However, I think that Wanderer is right to identify the extreme actions taken by the late Ms. Laroui as the result of extreme disempowerment. Ms. Laroui, it seems, had no one to turn to. As I have written before, there is still an opportunity for H.M. the King to embrace and empower his people. I pray he avails himself of it before it is too late.
U.S. of Hate
One might think that a country whose longest standing treaty of friendship is with the Kingdom of Morocco would be free of the most virulent forms of anti-Muslim prejudice. If so, one would be mistaken, as recent events in Orange County, California, demonstrate. At a Muslim fundraiser for a homeless shelter, people flaunting American flags viciously taunted, berated, and intimidated men, women, and children attempting to enter the community center where the fundraiser was taking place. In attendance and addressing members of this hate rally against the fundraiser were Congressmen Ed Royce and Gary Miller.
Royce has since attempted to deflect criticism of his attendance and encouragement of the protesters by questioning the character of the speakers at the event, Sirraj Wahhaj and Amir Abdel Malik Ali. On the basis of a quick search, Wahhaj appears to be a respected Muslim cleric who has even given a prayer before the United States House of Representatives, although Royce insinuates that he was implicated by association in the first, failed attempt to bomb the World Trade Center. The second, Amir Abdel Malik Ali, is clearly a bit more controversial, and has been cited by the Southern Poverty Law Center for blatantly anti-Semitic fabrications about Jews. It is quite possible that Mr. Wahhaj and particularly Mr. Ali, as public figures who have expressed controversial views, are legitimate targets of protests. I find Mr. Ali's alleged statements about Jews particularly troubling. But I fail to see how a principled objection to the views of Mr. Wahhaj and Mr. Ali provides any justification for mobbing the people who came to hear them speak. Moreover, the language of the protesters had very little to do with the speakers and a great deal to do with the religious and ethnic identity of the attendees. This is shameful, and it ought not to be tolerated.
Clearly, especially in light of Snyder v. Phelps, the law will permit even the most hateful protests. It does not prevent other Americans from drawing conclusions about the characters of the protesters. It does not limit criticism, obloquy, and ostracism of the "protesters" and especially of the two Congressmen who egged them on. We may have to hear these heirs of the Westboro Baptist Church, but we are not prevented from answering them.
In the event anyone wishes to make their displeasure known to the Congressmen involved, the Capitol switchboard is (202) 225-3121.
Is there a future for Mohammed VI?
Amidst shocking carnage in Libya and Bahrain, the peaceful protests in Morocco for constitutional change, human rights, and economic reform (barring a few incidents of vandalism) have been somewhat overlooked. As one leader after another in the Arab world falls, the longterm survival of the Alouite dynasty also seems open to question.
Image via Wikipedia
Mohammed VI may still have an opportunity to be Morocco's greatest monarch, the one who let his people go and guided them to a true democracy, even if in the guise of a constitutional monarchy. But to keep his position, he must give up his power. This would be a great gift to the Moroccan people. The only question is whether Mohammed VI is wiser than Louis XVI.
Vive la Revolution!
Along with much of the world, I am both excited and hopeful about the possibilities for Tunisia following the ouster of the Ben Ali dictatorship. My excitement is tempered by the fact that the seed of freedom has just been planted, and not every flower blooms.
A bas le francais?
I am a francophile. There, I admitted it. I spent ten years studying French in school, by choice. I could have taken Spanish in Junior High; I could have taken Spanish, German, or Latin in High School, and almost any language in college. But I chose French. To this day, I love the sound of French. I love French literature. In fact, I know I am hopeless because I even like a lot of French popular music (Charles Trenet, Jacques Brel (yes, I know he's Belgian), Annie Villeneuve, Isabelle Boulay (both Quebecoise)). France is one of the garden spots of the world, and French food . . . well, it is French food. And it was arguably my love of French that led me to a French-speaking country — Morocco — as a Peace Corps Volunteer, one of the more fortunate events in my life.
None of which is to say that I do not love Morocco on its own terms, or that I do not think English has a major role to play in Morocco's future. After all, the justification for my being in Morocco as a Peace Corps Volunteer was to assist with the country's already quite competent program of English language instruction. Still, I have a little hesitancy about the push to supplant French in Morocco, as described in a recent article by well-known writer and blogger Hisham G.. Quite apart from my sentimental francophilia, I think that revolutionizing a culture is not a task to be undertaken lightly. Morocco does have a rich francophone tradition, and I would argue for supplementing it with English rather than seeking to banish French.
I also suspect that English is not the panacea that some of its proponents imagine. As the article hints, English may well be relegated tomorrow to the place of French today if the Chinese ascendancy continues. (My five-year-old is learning Mandarin in school.) Quite apart from the fact that English is not really widely spoken in Morocco, it seems to me there are other glaring deficiencies in the Moroccan educational system — particularly in the scientific and technical sector — that need to be addressed if the country is going to be an effective global competitor. Allowing for differences in scale, Morocco might be the "next India," but it is not going to happen by itself.
In addition, I think the arguments quoted in the Morocco Board article from the Pittsburgh Gazette are slightly misleading. According to year 2000 census data quoted by Wikipedia, the top second languages spoken in the United States are Spanish, American Sign Language, Chinese, French, and German. (Arabic is number 13 on the list, and Hindi is number 18.) Most Americans, of course, speak only English; to my mind a competitive disadvantage vis-a-vis Moroccans, who often speak anywhere from two to five languages. According to one study, seventy percent of college students taking a foreign language in America were taking either Spanish or, to a lesser degree, French. So while the Pittsburgh Gazette may be correct that little studied languages in America are gaining adherents at a rapid rate, it is clear that the primary emphasis on language learning in the United States is still on Spanish and, yes, French, at least to the extent that Americans bother to learn any other language at all. To the extent that Americans are likely to be able to communicate directly with Moroccans who do not speak English, they are likely to be speaking French or possibly Spanish. (The number of Americans who learn Arabic is, sadly, minuscule.) Maybe French should not be counted out completely just yet. After all, it is still a first language to 70 million people and an official language for 220 million, according to the Cambridge Factfinder.
Because Americans are fortunate enough to have the currently dominant world language as their mother tongue, America may not be the best model for charting Morocco's linguistic course. It might actually make sense to take a closer look at what the European approach is. Of course, one may well find that they are all learning English too, but it might also be useful to examine what other factors play into their economic success or lack thereof.
Finally, it seems to me that the difficulty of trying to determine the value of French to Moroccan economic life is increased by the complex intertwining of colonial oppression and class snobbery with economic progress, technical assistance, and post-colonial economic progress. The French language, culture, and people just strike too many raw nerves too often in Morocco, a situation not ameliorated by current French attitudes toward immigrants or indeed the country's legendary arrogance. My thought however is that it is probably possible to cultivate English without uprooting French. Morocco is a country of rich cultural diversity, a diversity I would prefer to see augmented rather than diminished.
Big Brother Watches Still: Torture in the Modern Maghrib
Laila Lalami has a chilling piece on the persistence of torture in modern Morocco. Because the victims are not celebrities, they suffer and die unnoticed by the Western media — out of sight, out of mind. While the Kingdom has broken very publicly with the "Years of Lead," during which there was widespread torture of political dissidents under King Hassan II, incidents such as those reported by Lalami are a chilling counterpoint to the current regime's bright face of prosperity, particularly when coupled with ongoing suppression of any kind of free press.
Periodic reports on Morocco's Human Rights Record are available at Human Rights Watch.
The Death of Journalism and the Rise of Social Media
In the same week as we heard the death rattle of serious journalism when Nichane announced it was shutting down under State pressure, the United States Army's website on North Africa, Magharebia, ran a puff piece on teaching Moroccan youth how to use social media to effect change. This would seem to be a little bit like conducting a course on teaching fish to swim, but a number of the participants seem to have enjoyed the course, at least. Mind you, I have nothing against social media: my face is on Facebook, I tweet on Twitter, and I link on LinkedIn. But I do have a few reservations about its efficacy as a medium of social change.
As I see it, the real reason that social media, including most blogs, is not likely to be taken seriously is that it is not backed by the power and resources to conduct serious investigations. Although the press has a spotty record on the use of its investigative powers, the best publications, at least, were willing and able to pay a few people to work days, sometimes weeks, on investigating important stories with the potential to uncover genuine wrongdoing even if it meant offending powerful interests. The paradigm for thirty years, of course, has been the Watergate coverage of Woodward and Bernstein, widely credited with the toppling of a crooked American president. It is an open question whether that kind of investigation could be successfully undertaken in America today, much less in Morocco, but even as it becomes a conservative shell of its former self, the Post is still willing to take on major interests such as the American national security apparatus. And when senior bureaucrats at a major government agency spend eight hours a day downloading pornography on the taxpayer's dollar, at least it gets reported. And most of the time, it is the relics of the Old Media that break the story, not "social media," which by and large provides thoughtful commentary at its best and idle chatter at its worst. This is a natural result of the fact that most bloggers have neither the training, the budget, or the institutional backing to conduct serious independent investigations, although there are a few courageous bloggers who find themselves in dangerous circumstances that allow them to provide breaking news.
I have admittedly a rather shallow understanding of the Moroccan press, but I have a much better, albeit dated, understanding of the Moroccan educational system. If I had a chance to provide educational opportunities for Moroccan youth in order to promote the better dissemination of information, I would be teaching investigative techniques -- cultivating sources and obtaining documents while (hopefully) staying out of jail -- rather than "social media." With a more expansive opportunity, I would try to provide the students with analytical tools by increasing their knowledge of history, economics, and statistics. Any fool can write, but to really understand what one is talking about requires some serious education.
Paying the Piper
The Moorish Wanderer has an interesting analysis of Morocco's recent borrowing of 1 billion euros from the capital markets. To those, like me, who are not particularly versed in finance or economics, it may be a little opaque. However, the gist seems to be that it is a potentially risky move in light of a declining ratio of exports to imports, but that we should regard the situation with cautious skepticism pending further developments.
Blogs and Black Sites
Some of the most interesting news about Morocco comes from the many blogs written by Peace Corps volunteers currently working in country. When I was in Morocco, the word "blog" had not yet been coined, laptops were largely an expensive proof of concept, and a cell phone the size of a brick cost $2,500. On the rare occasions when I wanted to make a phone call from Outat El Haj, I went to the post office and asked the operator to crank the phone and connect me in a scene reminiscent of American movies from the 1930's. Nowadays, however, Peace Corps blogs pour in with news from across the country, written by Americans who nevertheless are solidly ensconced in local communities.
On a recent perusal of one of these blogs, Amber Shiel's The Life and Times of Moroccan Amber, I came across an offhand comment that was both tantalizing and shocking. Ms. Shiel reports:
But Moroccans are not the only ones to have created and used secret prisons. There is a CIA blackout site in the middle of nowhere in eastern Morocco near the Algerian border between Outat el Haj and Guercif that was used to harbor suspected terrorists until 2006. Because it was conveniently located off US soil, many human rights laws were ignored. The site has been closed down, but it is scary reminder that the days of secret prisons are not as distant as history might make you think. Having an old secret prison in our own site is an even more insistent reminder of the past.
Now, for some people, Outat El Haj may be the "middle of nowhere." For me, it was home for two years. So I do find it shocking to hear of a CIA secret prison in my former back yard. While I lived in Outat, I used to laugh at the rumors that I was a CIA agent. What was I going to do, call in missile strikes on the desert? Somehow, the idea does not seem quite so laughable anymore, and the thought that our government might have planted an outpost of hell near my friendly little village, where I was so warmly welcomed, makes me grieve.
View from Fez Turns Five
As I mentioned in a comment to Sandy McCutcheon, founder of one of the premier English-language blogs about Morocco, the View from Fez, it seems as though the View from Fez has been around forever. In fact, this rich and colorful blog is celebrating its fifth anniversary this October. The celebration is under way with a dazzling photo spread, which readers are invited to judge.
Peace Corps Morocco Vols. Look Back on 20 years
Peace Corps Morocco Stage 1988 held its 20th reunion.
Last Jewel of a Lost World
I was looking for music by Marcel Khalife and came across this video, which I found charming even if the video quality is a little uneven.
Why don't we profile Muslims?
For some reason, I found myself today reading a column by a Washington Times columnist who was furious that former CIA Director James Woolsey had suggested that profiling Muslims might not be the answer to airline security. Granted, I am not an expert on security or counterterrorism, although in light of the fact that our experts do things like posting their security procedures manual on the Internet, perhaps anyone is qualified to bring a little common sense to the issue. For the sake of argument, let's leave aside the quaint notion that Muslims are fellow human beings who deserve the same dignity and respect as anyone else, and focus purely pragmatic reasons why a policy of profiling might not be a good idea:
- Bigotry does not equal security. Stereotyping all Muslims because a tiny fraction have been involved in acts of terror against the United States is both a lazy and ignorant way to cope with the problem of terrorism. Lazy because it relieves one of the necessity for analyzing the problem. Ignorant because it makes an assumption that in the vast majority of cases is untrue and unwarranted. We've been here before: we made the same mistake with the Nisei in World War II.
- Humiliating people does not make us safer. Treating Muslims like cattle, particularly in countries like Iraq that we are trying to "help," has been proven to undermine our counter-terrorism efforts. There is nothing like an Abu Ghraib to recruit people to Al Qaeda. So why should we adopt a policy that humiliates and discriminates against Muslims generally?
- Profiling all Muslims is radically overinclusive. When approximately one in six people on earth is a Muslim, and a de minimis number of them pose a threat, then it is highly inefficient to try to screen all Muslims in order to uncover the few who may be terrorists.
- Profiling all Muslims is radically underinclusive. Two words: Oklahoma City. Profiling Muslims does nothing to catch the Timothy McVeigh's of the world. There are lots of people who hate us who are not Muslims.
- It's impractical and inefficient. Much as we like to think we have infinite resources in the United States, in point of fact there is no way we are going to be able to keep track of a billion people.
- It misjudges the threat. If Flight 93 had reached its destination, I might well have died in my office a couple of blocks from the White House on September 11, 2001. As it was, I left the office shortly after Flight 77 smashed into the Pentagon across the river. My brother in law watched the twin towers fall in New York. Despite the unprecedented carnage and the shocking effect of an assault on American soil, however, there was never an existential threat to the United States. Unlike Japan or Germany in the Second World War, Al Qaeda had no ability to follow up. Before we turned the tide in the Pacific, Japan had not only bombed our main naval base but asserted control over a good part of the Pacific and invaded China. Germany, meanwhile, reigned supreme over the rubble of Europe, where England was a beleaguered holdout. While I agree we should treat the threat from Al Qaeda seriously and pursue it relentlessly, lest it develop the capability to do us greater harm, I do not think that our values, our liberty, and our privacy should all be mindlessly sacrificed in pursuit of the terrorist menace. Frankly, at present the average American is far more likely to die in an automobile accident than to be a victim of airline terrorism. And yet our cynical and cowardly public officials harp on our irrational fears and prejudices to the benefit of their own power and position.
- It's not the most effective use of our resources. Where is Osama bin Laden and why is he at large? A more effective pursuit of Al Qaeda (rather than the sideshows in Iraq and Afghanistan, and now Yemen?) and a reexamination of the brutal Realpolitik that drives American foreign policy would, in my opinion, do more to reduce the terrorists threat than profiling every last Muslim could ever accomplish.
My Pick for the 2010 Weblog Awards
In every endeavor, there are certain people who achieve a level of excellence that clearly separates them from the ordinary participant. Such people need not be a world champion -- a Lance Armstrong, Mohammed Ali, or Michael Phelps -- but nevertheless they demonstrate a grace and proficiency that sets them apart.
For me, a handful of blogs that I read integrate words, pictures and presentation in such a skilful manner that they are truly set apart -- and, of those, one is written by an acclaimed Moroccan-American novelist. Among the rest, My Marrakesh stands out for elegant design, exquisite taste, gorgeous photography, and crisp, whimsical prose.
Part of what makes My Marrakesh so attractive is its thematic unity. The author, an expatriate American building an elegant guesthouse in cosmopolitan Marrakesh, couples a deep love of Moroccan artistry with an engaging sense of humor over the incessant minor obstacles that repeatedly arise to frustrate her would-be avocation as a hotelier. Occasionally, as in her recent photo montage of Afghan men, she permits a glimpse of the grittier life she leads professionally as an international consultant.
Mostly, however, My Marrakesh is a celebration of simple pleasure and daily beauty -- snapshots of family life, interviews with both Marrakeshis and visitors, accounts of shopping trips in Marrakesh's rich and varied markets. It presents a picture of a life varied and fulfilled, in which one can escape, though not forget, the world's troubles through an appreciation of beauty as seen by the eye of a connoisseur.
For all these reasons, it is easy to see why My Marrakesh again has my vote for Best African Blog in the 2010 Weblog Awards, and I urge anyone who visits the 2010 "Bloggies" to cast a vote for My Marrakesh.
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Moroccan Blogs Feed
I used Yahoo Pipes to create a mash up of English language blogs about Morocco listed on Morocco Blogs. Subscriptions are available either though the page or the RSS feed.
Live from the War Zone
Marrakesh hotelier and aesthete blogs live from the turmoil in Afghanistan at My Marrakesh. (Twitter feed @mymarrakesh)
Joining Peace Corps on a Hunch.com
Should I join the Peace Corps? - make thousands more decisions on Hunch.com
One Way or Another
I started playing with websites from the moment my (now defunct) dial up provider offered me 5 megabytes of web space, and I dived into blogging at about the time that Dave Winer first decided Frontier 5 could be more than an alternative script for Apple Computers and positioned it as a blog publishing tool. (I moved to Movable Type in 2003 and have never looked back). I have consistently, if intermittently, written a blog (or two) ever since, but the thing that nearly killed off my blogging habit was Facebook.
Facebook has a number of inherent advantages over a blog. First of all, it is designed primarily as a means to keep in touch with people one already knows and likes, so it have an important function apart from the kind of exchange of information for which a blog exists. Secondly, people actually read and comment upon and sometimes care about what you write on Facebook, and because they are already your friends, they are generally supportive. The blogosphere, by contrast, unless one is on the so-called "A-list" or even on the "D-list", can be kind of a cold and lonely place, one in which one is essentially shouting in the vacuum with no one to hear. This is not all a bad thing, and can actually be quite therapeutic, but it is a different experience from Facebook.
Another thing that Facebook does well is it pulls people together, at least superficially, into groups of common interest. One of the most encouraging Facebook groups I have joined is entitled "On est Juifs et on est Musulmans et on s'aime. (OJMA)." 
In one sense, such a group may reflect no more than a naive one-worldism that overlooks the serious rifts that exist among adherents of the three Abrahamic religions. I prefer, however, to think of the group as an expression of hope that hatred can be overcome, particular in a region -- the so-called Holy Land -- that is rife with hatred even as it purports to be a center of peace and love. This group, to which I was referred by Tunisian blogger Massir Destin, appears to be comprised largely of francophone North Africans, who have a remarkable tradition of religious tolerance stretching back even before the establishment of the legendary kingdoms of El Andalus in what is now southern Spain. This not to say that the region is without bigotry, but it has a remarkable historical record of largely not eviscerating people over religious differences. So-called Christian Europe, with its shameful record of persecution, pogroms, and ultimately the Holocaust, should take note. Suffice it to say that with number of close Muslim friends and a Jewish family, this cause comes close to home.
Finally, however, I come full circle. Because for all the virtues that have led to its explosive growth, there are a number of areas where Facebook falls short of the blogosphere. First, Facebook may be liberal, but it is not free. In the benevolent dictatorship of Facebook, the company can always shut you down. Breastfeeding mothers found that out in a hurry. True, the various companies that host blogs are also able to impose some restrictions, but one can always move, and, even, in a pinch host one's blog onself, so long as one has a computer and a high speed connection. Facebook, in contrast, has far more control over both content and its distribution than anyone has over a blog. Second, Facebook is geared toward people one knows already, functioning more sometimes as an echo chamber than a true exchange of information. Third, Facebook takes only limited advantage of the possibilities for linking information offered by the full web and the blogosphere. Finally, Facebook has an audience limited to one's "friends"; the audience in the blogosphere is potentially limited only by the number of users on the web and the efficiency of Google.
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Congratulations to the Washington Moroccan Club
Congratulations to the Washington Moroccan Club on the coming celebration of their 20th anniversary in November. (Washingtonians may be slightly dismayed that the party is in Las Vegas.). See View from Fez.