Tag: morocco

RAM bans praying

While feeling a little bad about it, I am secretly pleased about Royal Air Maroc’s decision — as reported by the BBC — to ban its employees from praying on company time. On the one hand, it’s obviously rather insensitive to people’s religious beliefs and stigmatizes religion as something suspicious and preferable to avoid. It’s also very much at odds with the trend towards conservatism in the country, both socially and politically (the moderate Islamist PJD looks set to win next year’s parliamentary elections with a margin of about 30%). On the other hand, I am constantly irritated by people praying in offices, especially when they do it in public. I find ostentatious piety (of the kind that is grotesquely abundant in Egypt among both Muslims and Christians) distasteful, especially when it’s shoved in your face constantly and people suddenly start rolling out carpets in the middle of an office, interrupting their (and others’) work and contributing to the already very palpable social pressure to become more outwardly religious. I know many people who pray but do it in prayer rooms or mosques and avoid making a display of themselves while doing it — which seems to me to be the socially and religiously correct way to do things.

All this being said, this kind of action (rather than, say, imposing strict guidelines on when and where people can pray in public offices) will play straight into the hands of Moroccan’s populist Islamists who love to campaign on the secularist conspiracy that’s everywhere. And it creates this false dichotomy between Islamists, who want to wear their religion on their sleeves and think invasive forms of public piety are a type of dawa, and perhaps equally religious Muslims who think that their faith is a private thing and have the good taste not be ostentatious about it.

This episode reminds me a bit of Tunisia’s recent statement that it would ban the niqab. In principle, I find the niqab abhorrent. But do you really want to have a state that legislates what people can and can’t wear, or for that matter endorse the Tunisian regime, one of the vilest in the region?

Bakchich

If you read French, go immediately check out Bakchich, an excellent webzine/blog about sub-Saharan Africa, the Maghreb and the Middle East (but it’s especially good on the Maghreb and Muslim Africa.) They have a handsomely designed PDF magazine (a kind of Canard Enchainé or Private Eye for the region) as well as a blog, and some interesting articles on the security shake-up recently carried by King Muhammad VI in Morocco, Tunisia’s latest attacks on press freedom, and more. Very nice cartoons too, including this one on Tunisia:

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The caption says: “19 years of happiness: corruption, lockdown on civil liberties, poverty… the happy results on Ben-Alism.”

The other migration

A neat story:

TENERIFE, Canary Islands — It rains little on this island. There are no natural rivers, and the air is full of the dry heat of the nearby Sahara.

But in a ravine on the island’s northern tip, tree limbs drip with water and a tropical forest flourishes, sustained almost entirely by condensation from the low-lying clouds that are regularly pinned against the mountainside.

The area, called Cruz del Carmen, is only one example of the unusual evolutionary habitats on the Canary Islands that fascinated Charles Darwin more than 100 years ago, and that today reveal a new species or subspecies to scientists an average of once every six days.

But the unique plant and animal life here is being steadily overtaken by an invasion of foreign species, which have been entering these Spanish islands in increasing numbers since border checkpoints within the European Union were abolished under the Schengen Agreement a decade ago, according to government officials and scientists here.

Usually you hear about the Canary Islands’ human migration problems. Over the last 2-3 years, hundreds of sub-Saharan African migrants have crossed over from southern Morocco to the Islands, were they are usually caught and then released onto the Spanish mainland if their country of origin cannot be identified (they destroy all ID before they get there.) Not only is the trip dangerous and kills many migrants each year, but Spanish and European authorities are naturally concerned about how to stop the migration.

Ironically, animal and plant migrants are potentially much more dangerous to a country’s economy than people are. After all people tend to be productive, and migrants provide much-needed cheap labor. But imagine if a type of sub-Saharan African insect is introduced that turns out to be deadly to Spanish olive trees…

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Paulin Kuanzambi

A day or two before we left Morocco, I went to say goodbye to Paulin Kuanzambi, an Angolan refugee in Morocco who now works with AFVIC (Amis et Familles des Victimes de l’Immigration Clandestine, “Friends and Families of Victims of Clandestine Migration”). Paulin had been great help to me in some stories I did for The World on migration in Morocco.

Paulin was out and I didn’t get to say goodbye. As I just found out, he had been entrapped into a meeting with members of the Moroccan secret service, who posed as journalists, then kidnapped him and another activist and drove them to the border with Algeria. You can a letter from AFVIC (in French) about it it after the jump.

This will be the fourth time that Paulin–who’s been officially recognized as a refugee by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees–is illegally kicked out of Morocco. The secret service agents took his money, hit him and his companion, and then showed them pictures of recent refugee sit-ins in front of the Moroccan office of UNHCR (see previous post on Arabist) and asked questions about the people involved.

I find it incredibly disturbing that the agents posed as journalists–then we wonder why refugees are often leery of the press!

I don’t understand why the Moroccan government–while hosting international conferences on migrants and their “rights”–treats a few thousand refugees on its soil like seditious criminals.

I also don’t understand why UNHCR seems so utterly incapable of fulfilling its mandate and protecting the people it has recognized as refugees. Unless the UNHCR office in Rabat–as the one in Cairo–has little sympathy for refugees who advocate for their rights (I was told that during a recent refugee sit-in, it was the UNHCR office itself that called the Moroccan police).
Continue reading Paulin Kuanzambi

Once Moroccan, always Moroccan

A group of Moroccan lawyers have filed a lawsuit against Israeli Minister of Defense Amir Peretz, who was born on Morocco, accusing him of war crimes and arguing Moroccan courts have jurisdiction over him since one is always considered Moroccan if one was born there. Not that Morocco’s courts should really be taken seriously, but it could potentially prevent him from visiting the country, although one assumes the palace would extend protection in that case. Israelis of Moroccan origin who hold high-level posts in the Israeli army or administration frequently visit Morocco to carry out pilgrimages to Jewish saints’ tombs in places like Ouezzane in the Rif.

While I don’t think Peretz has much to be concerned about, I do wonder about how other efforts to bring Israeli war criminals to justice in other countries (notably Belgium or the United States) now that major human rights organizations have leveled charges of war crimes against Israel.

Castro and the Middle East

Since Fidel Castro may be on his last throes, it might be worth wondering what impact his death could have on the Middle East. For instance, Castro was a major supporter of Sahrawi independence and many Polisario Front members have trained there (and continue to do so.) Like the Western Sahara conflict itself, it’s partly a holdover of the Cold War whereby Soviet proxy Cuba would back the Polisario against the Moroccan monarchy, a US client with very, very close ties to the CIA. (Read about the Safari Club if you ever get the chance — it was a French-US–Israeli-Saudi-Egyptian-Moroccan-Iranian (pre-1979) outfit that fought communism in Africa through special ops; a lot of the muscle used was Moroccan, much like in Al Qaeda today.)

I can’t claim to offer any particular insight here, but a more pro-US bent to Cuban foreign policy post-Castro could signal a change in a lot of other policies, including towards the Polisario. Currently the pro-Morocco lobby in the US Congress essentially consists of anti-Castro Republicans and pro-Israel Democrats. Post-Castro, would the former really care anymore about Morocco’s forgotten conflict?

Also, there might be other Castro-Middle East links I’m forgetting about. Can anyone think of any?

Documentary on Moroccan women on PBS

There was a documentary on PBS about Moroccan women on last night (sorry to be only telling you now, but it might repeat.) It looks interesting, if generally buying into Moroccan govt. PR.

I have a long article coming out soon about Adl wa Ihsan, the largest Moroccan Islamist movement. (It might be delayed a bit considering there’s other priorities in the region right now.) When it comes out I’ll publish a transcript of a long interview I did with Nadia Yassine, who is featured in the documentary. She makes for a very interesting Islamist.

Arab democracy in The Economist

There’s a good overview of the backtracking on democracy by Arab regimes in this week’s Economist. Read it while it’s free.

One issue I have with the article is regarding Morocco, which I would argue is an exception to the rule described in the article. The “announcement” that the country would move towards democracy was made in the 1990s, partially carried out and given new impetus with the accession of Muhammad VI. It did not particularly stem from US pressure and the general pretense of democratization that has come about in the last four years. And it had already become clear by 2003 or 2004 that despite the talk, there was actually little concrete democratizing (constitutional reform, judicial reform, security reform) being done. While the achievements of the new moudawana and the Equity and Reconciliation Commission should be recognized, there is a distinct sense of disappointment that things have not changed as much as many once believed they would. So while Morocco remains a comparatively better model than many Arab states, in terms of actual reform accomplished (especially on political issues) it has stagnated for the past few years, or, some would even argue, backtracked.

More generally, I do think there are two standards to which Arab countries (or any others) have to be held to. One is a universal one of democracy, not necessarily on any particular model but as enshrined in common sense, political rights and principles such as those found in the UN Declaration of Human Rights and other international legal documents (many of which have been signed by Arab countries) that define a bare minimum for human dignity. The other is an individual one, where improvements are measured in terms of domestic expectations, promises by governments, the pace of change and its evolution over time. Morocco cannot be held up to the same standard as Tunisia, since in that case it will always appear like it’s doing a lot better. It has to be held up to its own past. Likewise, political expectations of change in Egypt are quite different than those in Libya, etc. A regional comparison is actually not that helpful, except as a political tool to promote change by example — such as the (for now) failed neo-con policy with regards to Iraq.

Egypt vs. Lebanon vs. Morocco

Elijah wonders about Lebanon and Egypt, a comparison I’ve often made myself:

Coming from Egypt, all this Lebanese success actually annoyed me. If Lebanon—a few years after a 15-year civil war, and with no natural resources to speak of—can do so well, why is Egypt so screwed up? OK, there are only something like 4 million people in all of Lebanon, or about the population of Shobra and Bulaq. But is population all there is to it? Egypt borders two seas, it has the Suez Canal, natural gas reserves, unparalleled tourist destinations, and it hasn’t just emerged from a long civil war. You’d think that’d be enough to outweigh the population differences. So why is Lebanon so nice?

Indeed, it’s sometimes mind-boggling.

Continue reading Egypt vs. Lebanon vs. Morocco