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  • : www.moroccotimes.cn.ma A Moroccan English-speaking blog in day-to-day news; media, politic, society, economy, business, art, literature and general information from Morocco. Morocco Times invites you to leave your e-mail address in “Newsletter” below so you can get a first hand reading of the recent articles published. E-mail : zakaria.rmidi@gmail.com
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  • MOROCCO TIMES www.moroccotimes.cn.ma a Moroccan English-speaking blog in day-to-day news and general information.

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Monday 28 january 1 28 /01 /Jan 21:02

by Mustapha Ezzarghani
ezzarghani@gmail.com

article2.jpgA conversation with a local United States Peace Corps volunteer, Sarah Quinn, had me asking myself what I wanted in my town. Tameslouht is a relatively quiet location, located just 20km outside of Marrakech. It already has many things— a rich cultural history, a vibrant artisan community, agricultural prowess— and ample opportunities to build upon those resources.

 

For a long time, I’ve been interested in the idea of an interfaith dialogue. Living in Tameslouht has encouraged this; growing up, I was surrounded by the ancient religious school, or zaouia. This massive and beautifully preserved 500 year old structure is a point of particular pride for our town. 

 

I am a member of the TiefaJazouliya, a religious association in Tameslouht that keeps the zaouia’s principles alive. We derive our goals of religious education, celebration of Islamic culture, and emphasis on religious coexistence from the ancient zaouia’s own philosophy. The Tiefa is a conglomerate of three smaller associations that approach these goals most notably through what we call religious parties. Members gather in private houses or public spaces and sing traditional songs about the Prophet. Most of the time, a reading from the Quran or a story about the Prophet’s life is shared and discussed as well. These religious parties are hosted for a myriad of reasons, including the celebration of religious and civic holidays, new babies, marriages, new jobs, and other personal celebrations.

 

With one foot firmly rooted in our past and one moving towards the future, we’re always looking for new ways to achieve our goals. My idea seemed like a really unique way to do this. Sarah and I sought out the support of Mr. Jacky Kadoch, the president of the Jewish communities of Marrakech and Essaouria, and Fr. YosiSolivar of the Catholic community of Marrakech. Younes El Bathaoui, the governor of the El Haouz province, and Ahmed Touizi, the President of the Marrakech Tansift El Haouz region, have also assisted us extensively in our project planning. With their financial support, as well as World Connect and Dar America, our idea is going to happen on March 7th.    

 

The forum will bring together members and leaders of the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim communities of Morocco. A panel of 6 total university professors, religious leaders representing Islam, Christianity and Judaism, along with representatives from the Islamic Affairs ministry will be present for discussion and debate. Topics addressed will include the history of these religions in Morocco, the relationships between them, and how their respective belief systems manifest in contemporary Moroccan and global society. The end of the forum will be dedicated to assembling a committee of interested attendees who will work towards the development of a permanent multi-religious association. This association will work on future projects and forums to further the goal of disseminating accurate information of these three religions in Morocco. It will function as a resource for individuals and groups wishing to develop a better understanding of the impact of religion within Morocco. Additionally, this new association will serve as Morocco’s chapter of the international World Faith organization, which promotes interfaith discourse and action worldwide.

 

This event will be marketed towards university students especially, as this demographic is poised to benefit the most from such an event; the majority will be entering the global workforce and community as representatives of Morocco, thus shaping the future of Morocco most substantially. University students will be encouraged to participate in the publicity of the event, the forum, and the subsequent development of the association. Half of the eight-member committee will be comprised of university students, as will the association board for the newly formed association.

 

Through this forum, an open dialogue about religion will be established and sustained in the community of Tameslouht, in Morocco, and potentiallyserve as a catalyst for worldwide discussion and action.Please visit and “like” our Facebook page [http://www.facebook.com/MltqyHwarAladyan?ref=hl] to receive updates and information about our event. We look forward to seeing you there!

By MOROCCO TIMES - Posted in: Culture - Community: World Wide News
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Thursday 6 september 4 06 /09 /Sep 23:15

Visite_Laayoune_Kennedy.jpg

A delegation of the    Robert F  Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights (RFK Center) in the city of Laâyoun

 

By Jazza Chazza

moorishyouth@hotmail.com

 


On Friday, August 31, 2012 an international delegation of the    Robert F  Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights (RFK Center)    concluded a visit  not to  evaluate  the  human  rights  situation  in  the Province of Sahara but to damage the efforts of regional stability in the    current  political  context  of  the  Arab  Spring.  The  delegation  finished  a  reality-TV show tour at the heart of the 21st century Slavery camps near Tindouf, Algeria. The RFK Center delegation met in Tindouf with the masters of human rights violations, a broad range  of Algerian security agencies officers and representatives of numerous mobs of international human trafficking.


For nearly 40 years, Morocco engaged in a policy of sustainable development in the provinces of Saguía el Hamra and Río de Oro. In 1976, the Polisario Front backed by regional powers formed in a moment of illusion the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) in violation of all  moral, political and international  values.  The confusion of the cold war era gave a mob of youngsters the ability to maneuver governments and international institutions to endorse the  establishment of  a clownstyle self-exiled  government with  a foreign  agenda.  The  theory  of  the separatists relied on the support of an imaginary refugee population, to be held against its will. The Polisario  conspired to  imprison thousands of people in the camps  for  bargaining  tactics  near  Tindouf,  Algeria. The RFK center delegation ignored the horrific findings  connecting human/Drugs and Arms trafficking to Polisario ranking officials.


The international court of Justice confirmed the  ties  between  the current ongoing Cherifien regime and the Sahrawis communities  in  the southern region of the Kingdom.  The  ties with Sahara tribes existed centuries before the European dishonorable colonization and taxes were collected from  other  territories. Spain does not refute  the  historical  and traditional links between the Moroccan throne and the tribes of the Sahara.


The socio-political context of the Gdeim Izeik incidents reflects the complexity of the conflict between the Moroccan Sahrawis citizens and the local administration. While the delegation of RFK Center concluded the first episode of its  up-coming  Reality Show TV, several Moroccan  citizens  in other cities  were  rushed to  hospitals  after  been  victims  of police brutality. The presence of the Moroccan police in Layoune, Smara or Dakhla is not different from  its presence  with higher numbers in Casablanca, Fes or Settat. The deployment of police and it’s positioning is  a duty of the local  Command.  To  maintain  the  stability  and the harmony of the local communities the local authority must be vigilant and precautious.


The initial report of RFK center named Mohamed Al Hasouni and Mohamed Natichi. Surely,  the relevant department  within the  local administration  in Layoune  will look  into  the  allegations.  Together, we must  encourage  the  victims  of  human  rights  violations and torture  to address and to  approach the office of the governor of layoune  or  the Ombudsman in Rabat. Victims must speak  to  the specialized personnel who have discretion powers to pursue offenders involved in human rights violations. 


The Sahrawis  communities  must have the  strong  belief  that they can influence policy making in  the province through debate and 4 negotiations and nationally through elections and media. The protests and provocations will always generate an action\reaction spiral. Therefore we must break the hate chain and we must stop playing the Algerian game. What a shame?


RFK (Center) initial report is misleading material  to the American public mainly due to the momentum of its fabrication and its unrestricted bias position. (RFK Center) delegation was meant to conduct a field visit and  to promote  the  political maturity  needed for serious  negotiations between the parties. Instead of introducing mechanisms of  community peace building RFK is promoting through its initial report an atmosphere of doubt and non-confidence. RFK Center missed its historic opportunity to  promote peace  in the  region,  it  can  be  achieved  through  several programs and projects designed for the youth of the region. I invite the delegation  next time  to refer to the  municipal  efforts  in  implementing local economic development  and  to  evaluate  the  policy  of  poverty eradication in the Province. The diversity of ethnicity was never a problem in the MENA region; a multicultural  nation was  a  characteristic  of  the  Cherifien Kingdom for centuries. RFK center must immediately call polisario mobs to stop the trade on behalf of the Tindouf populations and recommend to the Algerian government a cost effective dismantlement plan of the camps of shame.  We are blind to you Haters, because you are War instigators.  Tindouf is Mecca of contraband and terrorist activities but Layoune is not Aleppo.

By MOROCCO TIMES - Posted in: Politics - Community: World Wide News
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Thursday 29 march 4 29 /03 /Mar 20:49

By Mustapha Azayi

 

It is interestingly incredible to see how issues related to Moroccan bureaucratic and political vice often make quick lead news stories only to vanish with the same promptness they first came into sight with. Unless someone endeavors to resuscitate them and make us aware that they still remain suspended in the shadow, the fear that the core of their ills would not be tackled is likely to be seriously considered.

One of these uncontrolled issues that suffered from this ailing course lately was the Lagreamas issue.

 

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Mane Ghachana laissa Mina (Whoever cheated us is not one of us):

 

Browsing through a sophisticated flow of Moroccan online news-media sites it was hard not to miss the thorny issue of transportation, fishing and mining permits known as Lagreamas.  Before it hurried away the thing hit me in the eyes in a variety of forms: Criticizing news articles and their feedbacks, excerpts of heated interviews about the issue, without of course comprising the unfavorable social gossip about this whole matter in places like cafes, homes and streets.

 

And ever since the freshly appointed minister of Transportation, Mr. Azziz Rabah, determined upon revealing the list of names of the Greamers (that’s what I prefer calling individuals benefiting from an infinite amount of illegally issued Lagreamas, which they plundered with cold-blooded drive) this Lagreama ownership has suddenly turned from a possession stimulating vanity into an uprubt burden causing a rapid unpleasantness in the hearts of its holders and hoarders. 

 

In the realm of this overwhelming, startling, Lagreamas’scandal revelation, a pristine stage of throat clearing when it comes to the struggle of fighting dishonesty and sleaze in our bled most of the concentration was on a chunk of a benefiters’entity ranging from an assortment of sportsmen elements, singers of songs while a serious portion from those fishing in high seas as well as mining in low earth remain buried in the dark. There is a claim that the list is so long and the names are so familiar to the populace that the fact of publishing the entire list of the crooks has become a subject of a mad controversy.

But some of the most frightening aspects of this revelation is that some of the people who are supposed to be fighting this unethical malfeasance are themselves part of the scoundrels’ ring.  For this reason I imagine that one might have easily downplayed the seriousness of the Lagreamas situation if only the issue were not relevant to heavy-weight scoundrels who indulged in the act of hoarding not two Lagreamas or three but up to seven or eight for some of them.

 

 Fkih li ntadarna barakto dkhal jamaa ba blaghtou (The Fkih whose baraka we yearned for entered the mosque with his slippers on):

 

The most called upon attention till now is around a so-called Fkih who was a member of the parliament and who goes with the name of Abd Bari Zemzemi.  I really tried many times to make sense of this man’s common sense but to no avail. So when it comes to this person I am quiet certain that when the field of politics brought no public eye to his stupid aspirations I suppose that he sought another way of reaching it.  So through the claim of his connoisseurship in the prescription of what I term Downers in the dark area of a branch of Fikh, called Nawazil (Calamities), in times when the bugger appears as though hooked on Uppers, like hell he managed, as if through wish-fulfillment, to stir a storm in form of a row of controversial religious Fatwas.  So it was not surprising that most of his jurist rulings ranged from authorizing marriage to underage girls, to advising women to fuck carrots, bottles and Pestles with the aim to avoid Adultery, all the way to recommending the extreme yanking of one’s penis as a remedy to sexual striving for unmarried young men (a thing which explains his crooked spine as he sits warpingly like a true Masturbationalist himself), all the way to fucking one’s wife even when she is a dead corpse, an act which is not acceptable even by the Geneva Convention standards. 

But despite the controversies of his Fatwas the Fkih has proved to his critics that he would stand his ground even if it would take him to masturbate deafly to the beats of his own drum.       

 

When I first took notice of this phlegmatic bastard I actually needed nobody to tell me that I was watching a sleazy rascal.  However as I kept my eyes on him I realized that some essential time is sure to be needed if I wanted to make certain that what I was fixing my eyes on at the computer was unquestionably not a fkih or a true religious savant but rather some sort of antediluvian creature taking the physical shape of a Moroccan man.  So the least assumption I came up with in trying to define this organism called Zemzemi was that of a triple fusion-mix of a fat Boa Constrictor, a Cane Toad with stuffed testicular eyes, and a Spectral Tarsier all at once. Besides this unique combination it is genuinely hard to imagine anything else to identify him with. And with the Cane Toad’s features very well-established in the mix there is then hardly any shock if you find in his cynical Fatwas some ache for necrophilian taste, for the Cane Toad species are necrophiliacs of the prestigious type. 

 

Still just when one thought that the odd tale of this bogus fkih has stopped at the limits of religious blabber-mouthing it was quite unpleasing and strange to discover that this weird creature also received a Lagreama. I mean for what really?

And even stranger than all of this is when you hear him moan and groan about how the Moroccan populace has picked on him solely and used him as a punching bag to vent their unbendable frustrations.  The last time I heard him whimpering was when he stated that the whole hullabaloo about Lagreamas’ permits was but a big fancy funeral that has a mouse as the deceased.  What a nice weeping from this boob called Zemzemi as he tried to distract people by generating the notion that most of us who are reproachful of him and his like are nothing but a bunch of gullible dogs barking up the wrong tree!

 

However it is normal for a reader to request and wonder why all this lampooning for this oddball, but to the requester I would be pleased to offer my trouble-free answer, “ The last man I would have imagined to get involved in this type of grimy Lagreamas game is a religious individual, a Fakih if one wills to say.” But no sooner had this chilling realization hit me I started to think, as naive as I am, that my judgments from now on have got to be revisited not once but twice before I go with the flow.  And this is what forced me to recall one of Bernard Shaw’s quotes, which pours in the exact vein of the topic related to religious-freakassing,  “ If you want to find the man who is weak in conduct, go to a clergyman.”

 

The last time I caught a glimpse of this old fart, freakass, Zemzmi, was when someone cleverly put one of his photographs, in which he appeared lost in a visible stupor of absentmindedness in what seemed to be a parliamentarian soft seat, he was wearing his notorious rockn’roll shady red glasses as if to hide some of the Downers effects on his testicular eyes.  And what made this colored contemporary photograph incredibly thought-provoking wasn’t the freakish Fkih himself, his crazy glasses, or his white djllebah but its arrangement in a juxtaposed way by the photograph of one of the iconic symbols of the fight against unfairness, treachery and evil in all its forms, the notorious Dr. Martin Luther King. 

However this comparison seemed quite offending if the aim behind it wasn’t the mere satire represented in the written words above each of the contradicting photographs.

So the far cry of I HAVE A Dream in comparison with I Have A GREAM, placed at the head of each photograph was certainly the coup de grace that explained the senselessness of this charlatan, and the message behind its unreserved contrast speaks volumes in all frankness. The message simply shows how the ideals of certain men tend to be utterly low and pompous while other’s pretty superior and humble.

 

However by now I know that some of the readers may believe that I tended to be harsh in my criticism of this useless fkih for he might be considered blameless in their eyes, but in order to be fair I also extend my hand of reproach to other men and women who are not Fekha, that is to say to some of the folks who are outside the religious virtuous circle as well.

 

One of the most concerning people outside the religious circle whom this Lagreama epidemic has soaked up entirely was the khoyi-Amelni-Manhbabek singer, Latifa Raafat.  In her reaction to the reproach of illicitly having owned a Lagreama, she has said that she got it as a gift for the sole reason that her future as a singer didn’t guarantee stability for her.  However considering the fact that this profession depends greatly on the healthy state of lungs and their sensible functioning she might be right on that point but only if she is poor and broke.  On the other hand she might be utterly wrong if her pecuniary situation is well off.  Therefore her kind of response seems to be unconvincing if one looks at the number of great artists who worked like dogs all their lives but ended dying almost impoverished.  One has only to mention the names of the two Moroccan literary giants who didn’t get their fair price or reward though they were internationally known and their works were being studied in Universities worldwide, Mohammed Zafzaf and Mohammed Shoukri are two names among the few. But never mind that for life is short and art is long. 

 

And then there is another type of Lagreama benefitter who belongs to the Sportive category. The principal issue with this area is that some of these gentlemen keep those Lagreamas even when they get prosperous.  And while I exclude the case of the Boxer Atik and his like who really need that kind of lagreama due to the fine fame he acquired from flattening some internationally acclaimed noses as well as raising the Moroccan flag high despite the infinite jabs his chin witnessed once upon a time. Nevertheless I would completely agree with taking away those Lagreamas from the privileged and rich sportspeople without any hesitation.

 

So what makes things worse in this kind of wrong recompense is when the recompensed claim that the common people decry them out of plain jealousy and detestation, but to those I would insist that they are wrong. For what is at play here is not jealousy or hatred but instead the sense of justice pursuit, a perfect process which can put a limit to one of the nastiest widespread vices that can immerse the most stable of societies into trouble if not tackled reasonably, and yes that vice is called Malicious Envy.

The feeling of envy if overlooked can lead to a horrible inferiority complex for those who deserve Lagreamas but could not get them (think about common social feeling and its impact on human nature!). I insist on envy for the fact that this human nature tends to be worse than jealousy in terms of its awful unconstructive impact: The affect that stimulates Jealousy is not necessarily the same affect that stirs Envy.  Envy, especially the Malicious one, emanates from the resentment of the fact that some folks in society have more of what they acquired illegally while others got nothing of what they deserve.

.

Thus far when it comes to the decadent deals such as offering Lagreamas to people who ought not to have them in the first place there remains only one key solution and it is to stop them utterly and immediately. This ignoble act of Lagreama stealing should end and the disrobing of the robbers should be acted upon swiftly, because the stopping of these unproductive anti-social, hyena-smiling predators, who profit unlawfully from these sort of secret arrangements would definitely help at halting the denigrating of the common Moroccan citizen in all his wholeness and the preserving of his integrity which is very vital for the present and the future of this wonderful country.

 

For the homogeneous Morocco of Tangier to Lagouira, which is socially now on thebrink of a progressing reasonable path, I don’t think there should be the slightest room left for this kind of mischief, for at least in my point of view it is already becoming archaic to start witnessing this degrading sort of monkey-business still taking place around in a society so politically-conscious as the Moroccan one.  I believe that no Moroccan should appear, from now on, to be allowed to feel that he is more patriotic than another Moroccan. 

 

However when I tried to look around for a lively example from which I believed our Moroccan government back home could seriously learn a lesson from, I couldn’t find a better case than that of the New York Subway Hero, Wesley Autrey. It is he who jumped in front of a speeding train to save a stranger from being run over and getting smashed.  The story of this man was not only humanistic and heroic in essence but also patriotic in my point of view.  And while his rise to prominence overnight was deservedly proper and not surprising, one of the remarkable things that caught my attention was that the Subway Hero didn’t receive his recompense from the Government’s coffer, instead he obtained all his gifts from private sources and private citizens:  Donald Trump offered him a check of $10 000 immediately, Chrysler offered him a fancy Jeep, His two daughters were offered a college scholarship and so on.  And there was even a private citizen on the street that offered him a 10 Dollar bill just to show his appreciation. But in the end there was no hint of Lagreama or something matching it as an income source given to this man, not even a small Lagreama from New York to New Jersey, absolutely Nada. 

 

Therefore in the same parallel that the Wesley Autrey accomplishment was rewarded, our dear Moroccan government, to which we wish only the best, should follow the same kind of example in rewarding its accomplishers. So there should be no special rules applied for some while alienating others from them.  And since this occasion offered itself to me I would like to go far back in history and borrow an excerpt from the work of Seneca [5BC-AD65] in which he elaborated on questions relevant to inequality and prejudice against servants of the same state.  So In one passage on page 78 of his great work On The Shortness Of Life, Seneca wrote the following under the title On Tranquility Of Life:

 

Service to the state is not restricted to the man who produces candidates for office, defends people in court, and votes for peace and war:  the man who teaches the young, who instills virtue into their minds (and we have a great shortage of good teachers), who grips and restrains those who are rushing madly after wealth and luxury, and if nothing more at least delays them- he too is doing a public service, though in private life.

 

Conclusion:

 

Now that is what I would call impressive patriotism.  As for the gross-fatwas-issuing- fkih Zemzemi, I think it would be compelling and also helpful if someone puts him in a metallic cage and sets him up for a serious Masturbathon against the masturbating addict) Bonobo. Only when this gloomy bastard wins over the ape in this Masturbathon could he demonstrate to us all that he is really up to what he claims to know best, the JURISPRUDENCE known as NAWAZIL(Calamities).

 

By MOROCCO TIMES - Posted in: Opinions - Community: World Wide News
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Thursday 23 february 4 23 /02 /Feb 16:21

February 22, 2012

 

 

H.M. King Mohamed VI


c/o Embassy of the Kingdom of Morocco


1601 Twenty First Street, NW‎


Washington, DC 20009‎‎


Fax: (202) 265.0161

 

Your Majesty:

 

Over the last several years, you have punished journalists for writing about your health and in one case, publishing an offending cartoon about the wedding of a relative.  So perhaps, we at the Overseas Press Club of America, along with journalistic organizations around the world, should not be entirely surprised that your government sent an 18-year-old juvenile to jail for a Facebook post that offended you.

 

Maybe, we should not be surprised either that you have sentenced to jail a 25-year-old for uploading a satire of you to You Tube.  But while there is precedent for your sensitivity to criticism in print; until recently, Morocco has had a reputation for fairly free exchanges on the Internet, the mark of an enlightened leader.

 

According to international media and Internet freedom groups, Walid Bahomane, 18, is being held for "defaming Morocco's sacred values" with a satirical Facebook post.  We understand also that 25-year-old Abdelsamad Haydour has been jailed in the city of Taza for a You Tube video that gave you offense.  These actions are depressing and reactionary.

 

Your government seems to be reviving the bad old days of 2009 when you prosecuted three journalists for "criminal defamation" for writing about your health.  Since then, it has seemed that Morocco had modernized.  You permitted those three journalists to be released after brief incarcerations.  In one case, a year-long sentence was suspended.

 

Then, after massive national protests last year coinciding with the Arab Spring uprisings, your government amended your Constitution to guarantee significantly more freedom of speech. Defaming the monarchy can still be a criminal offense, but in practice, is a You Tube satire of you so damaging as to be criminal?  If so, that suggests your leadership may be more fragile than the world realizes.

 

We urge you to halt this descent down the road to repression and suggest that instead, you re-affirm your constitutional values. That includes dropping the charges against the juvenile Bahomane, freeing Haydour and recognizing that prosecuting journalists will in no way seal off your regime from the openness of the Internet.  All it will do is call world-wide attention to weakness.

Respectfully yours,

 


Robert Dowling                                                                                   Larry Martz

                                    Freedom of the Press Committee


By MOROCCO TIMES - Posted in: Politics - Community: World Wide News
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