My (very) late response to Doga

People who know me irl, know that I can be very, very lazy.
Now it’s time that you know that as well!

I promised to respond to this post at eatbees’ blog and to the question in general of why I’m afraid of the PJD coming to power.
I made that promise a long while ago. Sorry!
Anyhow, better late than never. Right?

First of all, I have a firm believe that religion and politics should be separated. That no religion or religious community should gather and form a political party. Hence my allergic reactions when somebody mentions the CDA, CU or SGP or confesses to be a member of it. (CDA, CU and SGP are the Christian parties in the Netherlands. Combined they have 49 parliamentary seats out of 150)
Those parties have an ideology based on the Bible. They strife to implement their ideology and policies on a national level. Thereby, indirectly, enforcing a (moderate) religious lifestyle on the rest of the population.
And I don’t digg that. I want abortion, condoms, prostitution, blasphemy, homosexuality, premarital sex, divorce and euthanasia for all.
If you have moral objections to it, fine, but as a mature individual you are perfectly able to follow your religious lifestyle without needing laws to help you with it.
Of course, a religious party isn’t per se repressive on all those subjects. The CDA has homosexual MP’s, showing that there are gradations in religiosity between religious parties. And not all non-religious parties are in favor of a free lifestyle.

Now, let me get back to the PJD. In my opinion the PJD is a party that is heavily and totally influenced by religion. It’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
The party really tries to give itself a moderate image. Some members even try to compare the party to the Turkish PJD and claim that we shouldn’t be afraid.

But are they really that moderate? I don’t think so.
Let me give you some examples of some radical, xenophobic, homophobic and fanatic rants of the PJD. And then you can decide if you want to call them “moderate”

• 2000: Abdellilah Benkiran verbally abuses a female journalist who dared to wear a t-shirt with short sleeves in parliament.
• Editor-in-chief Lhassan Sarrat of the Attajdid newspaper, close to the PJD and considered as a mouhtpiece of that same party, sees the Asian tsunami as Gods punishment for homosexuality, sex tourism and child trafficking
• In 2005, MP’s of the PJD claim that a music festival held in Marrakech is used as a pretext to convert people to Christianity
• March 2003, the PJD, its mouthpieces and other islamist nutjobs launch a witch-hunt against everyone who wears heavy-metal shirts and listen to heavy metal music. They are considered to be devil-worshippers
• 2006: PJD asks the government to ban the movie Marock because of obscenity (Marock depicts the on-the-ground reality of upperclass Moroccan youth)
• 2003: The PJD wants the government to control foreign cultural centres so that they can not spread “immoral values” (later this statement is changed into: “we want the cultural centres to implement islamic principles”.)
• In 2004 PJD hotshot Ahmed Raissouni claims that music festivals are “sites of debauch and homosexuality”

And we can go on and on and on…..
But still, they call themselves moderate. I wonder what moderate means to them? Does it mean to enforce their lifestyle on the rest of the population? Does it mean that everyone who doesn’t want to wear a headscarf or wishes to listen to Slipknot is a homosexual, immoral, unislamic, convert and an outlaw free to be prosecuted by them?

PJD prides itself on the fact that it believes in democracy. That it wants to participate in a democracy. Well, we have to applaud that.
But I’m afraid that the PJD doesn’t fully understand the concept of democracy and all what comes with it.
Democracy rests on 2 pillars: majority rule and minority rights
Democracy doesn’t mean that one can oppress others, simply because they gained a majority or they believe they represent a majority. Democracy doesn’t mean that 1 victorious party should enforce its principles on the country’s minorities.
No, democracy means that a majority can rule a country but that it has to respect and protect the civil liberties of the different minorities.
The PJD seems to forget that in its campaigning and image-editing.

I fear that once the PJD wins the upcoming elections, they will ignore those parts of democracy that aren’t suitable for them (even if they are in a coalition government)
They showed us that they really don’t care that much about the civil liberties of others. They showed us that when they weren’t “in charge”. How will they act when they are “in charge”?

I also fear the reaction of the king and his royal cabinet when the PJD comes to power and starts to implement their ridiculous policies.
The king, who wishes to create an image of Morocco that is liberal/open/tolerant, will surely react in a non-democratic way. Of course, the king’s reaction won’t be something new. Moroccan kings have always reacted strangely and pushed the “democratic” government to the sideline, to implement their own policies. Couscous-democracy, is what I like to call it.
But until now, this happened with (nominal) secular parties in power.
Surely, the reaction of the king will be different when it comes to having an Islamist party in power?

I only hope that when the PJD wins the elections (and this is likely to happen), the king and other parties will react in a normal, civilized way.
It’s not likely that the PJD will govern alone, they have to seek a coalition. I hope that the other major parties will have some sense and guts to confront the PJD when it comes to their “social policies”

An electoral PJD-victory makes the future of Morocco look a bit darker. A bit of courage, opposition and vigilance is all we need to make that future look bright again.

The most naive article on Morocco

Morocco and the Maghreb in general are a bit in the spotlights now since the attacks of last week.
Which of course, results in lots of articles in the printed media and on the web.
Some of those articles are good, some are bad. Today I’m going to highlight a bad one.
Not that I’m a nagger, its just that the post on the good ones is going to take a long time.

But anyhow, let’s highlight a bad one. The next article is written by Marc S. Ellenbogen, columnist for UPI and chairman of the Global Panel Foundation.
The article can be found here.
The article is about the supposed crucial role of Morocco for Europe and the USA and actually just gives a short resume of Morocco’s recent history.
And that’s the main problem of this article. Ellenbogen’s history of Morocco seems to be a little bit out of touch with reality.
People reading the article will, most likely, come to the conclusion that Morocco is a kind of economic and democratic miracle.

Ellenbogen pays solely attention to the little bit of progress made by the king and government. The (reforms, the FTA (although some will not consider that as progress), the life expectancy (!) and the co-existence of Muslims, Jews and Christians. (I never understood why people include Christianity since Morocco never had a substantial, indigenous Christian community)
So far the progress of the country. But he fails to mention that Morocco isn’t really progressing but more or less stagnating.

Democratic reforms are just a façade, the king still overruns and diminishes the power of the government.
Economic progress has still to be proven. Poverty and unemployment are still rampant. Implementing reforms is one thing, seeing those reforms actually wórk is another.

But the most bizarre view he has, is about the upcoming election and the PJD’s role. Ellenbogen mentions the 30% of the votes in the past, but he lets the readers know what would happen if the PJD would fall under 20%. That would be a sign that reforms are actually working!
It’s a mystery to me, why he even draws the line of 20% and why that line actually shows that the reforms are working. (I see no relation between those two, do you?)
And besides that, why does he even mention a situation where the PJD would loose? The chances are far more bigger that the PJD will gain more votes than in the previous elections. Even with the recent attacks. (the last PJD-victory was achieved after the 2003 attacks in Casablanca)

The whole article is actually one big shenanigan. The man has a distorted view of the reality in Morocco.
The weirdest thing, and maybe also a bit scary, is the fact that this man’s organization (The Global Panel Foundation) heads the Morocco Strategic Initiative. An initiative to promote good governance and investment in Morocco.

Interview with Moroccan students

The lovely Esra’a of Mideast Youth has just posted a very interesting podcast where she interviews Moroccan students from the slightly elitist Al Akhawayn University.
The interview is about the recent terror attacks in Casablanca.

Knowing Esra’a of her other interviews & the podcasts of Mideast Youth I’m sure this will be an interesting listen.
You can download it here or, if you’re like me and at work with a stupid boss and a pc with no sound, just visit Mideast Youth for other interesting articles/podcasts/interviews

And again: 2 suicide bombers in Casa

They’re like cockroaches.

2 suicide-bombers have sent themselves to hell today after exploding in the center of Casablanca.
According to the police there were no other casualties.

I have to say that I’m happy that Moroccans are such amateurs in suicide-attacks.
Lets keep them that way.

Update: According to Aljazeera, the bombers blew themselves up to hell close to the American Cultural Center.

(Photo)-account of a moussem

Head over to “The View from Fez” for a superb photo-diary of the Sidi Ali ben Hamdush moussem (festival held in honour of a saint)

The photos show a part of Morocco which you usually don’t see in non-moroccan newspapers or holiday-brochures.
I kept on watching and stuyding the pictures during worktime. They’re really amazing.

Thank you View from Fez!

Part 1 and Part 2 of the photo-account

Copyright Photo: Suzanna Clarke

Two dead in Morocco terror raid

And another eruption of violence.

And again, one of the terrorist bastards blew himself up when he figured out that he failed miserably.
Why won’t they just combust spontaneously during one of their beard-trimming secret meetings?

No seriously, its getting a bit out of hand. Don’t you think as well?
And according to some, it will only get worse as Morocco is slowly becoming fertile ground for sophisticated militant groups.
(which kind of says that the ones we experienced until recently were just amateurs)

Gay-marriage in Meknes

Well according to As-Sabah that is.

2 men held a traditional marriage-ceremony at the tomb(?) of Sidi Ali bin Hamdoush. Complete with henna-ritual, dades and ululation (that has to be the funniest word ever btw).
I bet you 2 takshitas that the story isn’t true or that its exaggerated.

The article is in pdf-format and there is no direct link to it.
But I did manage to make a screencapture of the first part of the article.
I love the main picture btw. A feminine gay ( I assume) in a market. Nothing to do with the actual marriage but good enough to enforce the stereotype. Long live Moroccan journalism

Update: I think I’m a bit sloooooooow today. There is of course a direct link to the 1st page of the newspaper (otherwise I couldn’t make the screencapture, duh!)
Here it is: Link (PDF!)

Moroccan women get all the attention

Well, they deserve it. Right?

Anyhow, first this little piece of women-news. The Moroccan government is going to create a council (the 637438th one) to discuss the situation of Moroccan women abroad.
According to Magharebia.com “Moroccan officials want to learn about the real needs of migrant women in order to help improve their day-to-day lives. Although their situation has improved over the years, the reality of life in their host countries can still sometimes fall short of their expectations.”
I mean now the position of the Moroccan women in Morocco is 100% super and ok, its now time for the Moroccan women abroad……
Another goal of the council was the creation of the, already mythical, Council of Moroccans Living Abroad.
This is going to be council number 637439. The 14759th and the 548976th council share the same goal and are also working on the creation of council 637439.
I predict that the three councils are going to merge and form the 174th supercouncil that will preside over the creation of the 637439th council. But we need another council for that, to see who’s going to be a member of the supercouncil.

The other news article is about the value of Moroccan female labour in the eyes of the European governments. The value tends to rise when the Moroccan women have children.
The Spanish are recruiting Moroccan mothers to work as temporarily labourers in Spain. They get a contract for a couple of months, earn money in Spain and go back to Morocco. (because they will miss their children and stuff)
This is a new kind of migration, called “ethical migration”. The term is coined by Socialist mayor Millán, who says “Immigration is the foundation of development, when they return they will take not only money but a lot of education.”

Moroccan Hezbollah in Germany

Ok, this has to be the weirdest news-item I have read in a very long time.

According to the MEMRI-blog, an Algerian parliamentarian revealed the existence of a Moroccan “Hizbullah Party” in Germany.
He revealed it to the London-based Al-Sharq Al-Awsat. I checked the site of the latter but couldn’t find anything, but that’s mainly because the site is only being updated once a day or so.

But it still seems strange that an Algerian parliamentarian reveals this, don’t you think?
I hope to read the article sooner or later. I’ll harass the Arab newsagent tomorrow (he always keeps old copies of the last few days somewhere in his shop), otherwise I’ll just read it online when the site is finally updated.

Blanco voting and the next elections

Through this post of Xoussef and this post of Moonlight , I stumbled upon this editorial of Ahmed Benchemsi of Telquel.

Benchemsi advises people to vote blanco during the next elections. According to him it’s the only relevant choice during the elections. He predicts that the “blanco vote”-party would be one of the biggest winners.
It would wake up the political elite of the country and cause a change in the Moroccan politics.

I kind of understand his point of view. Blanco voting is usually a very good way of showing your disillusion with the current political state.
But I’m wary of the consequences this may have in the upcoming elections.
It’s almost certain that the PJD, the islamist party, will be the only winner during the next elections.
Other mainstream, (nominally) secular parties are facing a major defeat.

And for some reason, I don’t believe that the blanco-voter is the same as the PJD-voter. A blanco-voter is usually not a member of a grass-root movement like the PJD. Otherwise they wouldn’t vote blanco (correct me if I’m wrong)
The people who would vote blanco are usually the people who used to vote for traditional parties (in this case the (nominally) secular parties of Morocco)
In other words, a blanco vote equals a vote for the PJD. The electoral victory of the PJD will seem even bigger.

I wonder if Benchemsi knows what the full impact is of a blanco vote.
The main reasons why he advises a blanco vote are political and democratic change. Are these changes possible if only 1 party wins the elections with a very large majority?
Is it possible to achieve democratic changes if the ruling elite is shellshocked by its loss and introduces undemocratic measures to do some damage-control (something that is bound to happen)
Benchemsi really must see the PJD as a political party that wants to achieve democratic and political change for áll the Moroccans. Instead, the PJD is a party that wants to turn Morocco into a more conservative, religious, closed country.

I actually doubt it that Benchemsi really wants to see the PJD as the only victorious party during the next elections. I also doubt it that he believes that the PJD is the only motor behind political and democratic changes.
Instead, I think that he just made a remark without really understanding what the true impact of it is.