Why Did Moroccans Boycott Their TV Channels During Ramadan?

For decades, waves of frustrated Moroccans have been immigrating on perilous boats to never land, fleeing the whips of poverty and all colors of marginalisation. The same story is being repeated during these blessed days of Ramadan with a slight substitution of boats by satellite dishes; Moroccans from all walks of life are boycotting their local television channels and immigrating to the other Arab and Gulf ones, this time fleeing the dullness, and the denseness of the pathetic programs being aired before breakfast, that instead of stimulating the fasters’ appetite, nauseate them. If only I had a vaccine against stupidity.

Watching only a few moments of these so-called comedy programs is real psychological torture for viewers. You may even feel the need to throw-up due to the filth and the bitterness of the content of these distasteful and frivolous sitcoms. Personally, the pain that I feel when watching that rubbish is no less than when watching the atrocities in Libya and Syria. All what I watch is just actors and clowns’ shouting, bounding and quivering non-stop and with no clear message. They think such childish behaviour and boring scenarios may produce laughter. Instead they arouse fury and ire among viewers, of course if they bother watching until the end.

The reprehensible programs such as «machi lkhatri», «zin f tlatin», «tkbr wtanssa», «lfhaymia»… unveils the reality that there is a very deep crisis of creativity and imagination among those who were confided with the mission of entertaining and educating television viewers. These so called comedians are unable to come up with stories, contexts, scenarios and situations that can elicit even a smile. Instead they resort in each scene to shrieking, convulsing their bodies, mispronouncing words or using vulgar expressions and borrowing rural accents in an attempt to make us laugh. Those clowns should bear in mind that they are addressing people who enjoy critical thinking skills and a great sense of humour.

Moroccans, in the midst of deplorable circumstances and deepening social depression, have developed in their disposition, traits of sarcasm, irony and humour because without these traits they would, long ago, have committed suicide. I believe that a life without humor is like a wagon without springs, jolted jerkily by every pebble in the road. Therefore, any tv product should respect Moroccans’ intelligence and abide by their cultural and moral values. The kind of humour that we want is the one that makes us laugh for a minute and think for five minutes, not like these disgusting derisory puppet-like shows.

But I wonder how, in light of these ridiculous programs, that are actually plots to stupefy the Moroccan mind, block its intellectual development and downgrade our artistic awareness and appreciation of our surroundings, Moroccans have proven immune to appeals to ignorance and resistant to senselessness and backwardness. The proof is in the indefinite number of satellite dishes on Moroccan houses and slums, revealing that Moroccans are fed up with their local TV programming and have obtained for themselves visas to be entertained, to explore and to learn.

Speculation on My Death

« Happy birthday Mahmoud » I received this phrase from myriads of cousins and friends on the 25th of july. Of course I was in raptures and extremely impressed by their overawing gesture, but this year my feeling of delightness was a wee bit imbued with a gust of anxiety and fear especially after being exposed to a bereavement of less than one day-cousin. I recognized that my life slips away second by second. Every day brings me closer to death or that death is as close to me as it is to other people even if they are less than one day of age.

In the rapid flow of daily events, I usually occupies myself with totally different and minor subjects: how to behave, where to go, what  my future wife may look like, how to please my parents, what clothes to wear next morning, what to cook for supper, how to solve some trivial problems, what the results of the football matches are, where to spend the summer, how much money to put aside; these are few examples of the routine process of major issues that concerns me. Honestly, I have never thought of the subject of death as deeply as I am doing these days. I should have kept in mind the fact that living for even one further hour is never guaranteed. Sometimes,  I witness, on a daily basis, the deaths of people around me, but I think little, very little about the day when others will witness my own death. I have never supposed that such an ineviatble end is awaiting me! 

      While burying the corpse of the little kid, I was thinking of everything that I was able to do and still I enjoy: I can blink my eyes, move my hands, speak, laugh; All these are the blessings that I possess but, with a motionless corpse being buried, I got assured that this status quo is temporary. Immediately, I thought about the state and the shape my body will assume after my death. 

     Once I will breathe my last, my soul will leave the body, announcing my new identity: "a heap of flesh and bones" no more no less. I, rather my body, will be still, inert, and fixed while being washed for the last time. Wrapped in a shroud, I will be carried in a coffin to the graveyard. Once I am in the grave, soil will cover me. This is the end of my story. I will be in the heart of darkness. From now on, my whole life represented in an epitaph written in a marble stone. 

      Outside, in the wake of the first days, my grave will be visited frequently. As time passes, fewer people will come. Decades later, there will be no-one even those whom I would have been the  dearest to their heart. Time plays its role too.  Simultaneously, my close family members will experience varying degrees of sorrow and grief that sooner will fade away. At home, my room and bed will be empty or occupied. Most of my clothes, shoes, and the likes will be given to those who need them. My books and papers in the cupboard will be replaced and my files in the computer will be deleted. And my legacy, if I had one, will be subsidized and inherited. During the first years, some will mourn for me. Yet, time will work against the memories I left behind. A dacade later, there will remain only a few who remember me. Three dacdes after, new generations will come and none of mine will exist any longer on earth. Whether I am remembered or not will be of no value to me. . 

     i have long had possessed a solid belief that it is too early to die and that there are always years ahead to live. Yet ,most probably, people who died on the way to work or while playing a football match, or  while sipping a cup of coffee shared the same thought. They probably never thought that the next day « Jnaza » prayer will be on them. It is entirely possible that, as you read these lines, you are expected to die after you finish them.  So, do thank the Almighty God, you have finished them. 

It's our backwardness that holds us back

    Manifestations of backwardness in the Arab world and the mediaeval circumstances that we can see all around us exhort us to ask whether the problem with the Arab world is external or internal. Is it foreign interference, aggression and occupation that are holding us back? Or are we hostages to the backwardness of our own ramshackle sociopolitical and economic structures? 

       I admit that both causes are taking their heavy toll on the MENA region. We have shaken off colonial rule quiet a long time ago; though, we are still lagging behind while countries such as China, Brazil, Korea, and India that underwent all kind of exploitation on a much larger scale than we did, managed to catch up with the rest of the world and shoulder their way to the top. We should feel a shame to attribute our backwardness to US and the West aggression when knowing that Mexicans, who are suffering the malaise of living next door to an international giant, are envying us for our geographical location insomuch that a Mexican writer once wrote "How sad are you Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States."

       Let's us acknowledge that it's our retardation that made us easy prey for avaricious outsiders to take advantage of us. The Tunisian political upheaval unveiled the truth that the West manipulates us through their loyal tyrants in return for blessings and approvals for the fraud operations, rigged elections and many other bloody businesses.  

      When musing over the supremacy of the US and the helpless state of the Arab world, I usually provoke the scene of a strong starving lion along with its cubs only few meters far from a silly fleshy gazelle and you know the rest of the story. In the world of human, the end can be the same, but the manner sometimes can be violent, other times diplomatic.

     The West relations with he rest of the world are governed by interest and nothing but the interest of its giant companies and its people and the way the French President Sarkozy turned down the overthrown Zero Ben Ali's request to accept him in France reinforces the reality that it is interest that count and the west has no more interest with Ben Ali.

       

Morocco s Achilles Heels

Moroccans are keeping abreast of the recent uprising that toppled Tunisia's president-for-life Ben Ali. Several factors that have triggered Tunisians' rebellion are also present in Morocco: Soaring unemployment among educated youth, sweeping corruption, nepotism and monopolization of the country's wealth by a minority.

In Morocco too, if your family name is not of significance it is very difficult to ascend the social and the political ladder. It will hinder you from gaining, among other things, an academic degrees or acquiring a professional skill. Many past and current politicians, militants and businessmen reached their rank by taking advantage of a member of their extended family. They benefited as sons, grandsons, sons-in-law, brothers-in-law, nephews of a well placed kin. Some seized the  chance and obtained valuable jobs, others boosted their businesses and some wielded their political power. 

The Fasi families, the Benise(s), the Benani(s), the Benchakroun(s), the Elmarnisi(s), the Bensouda(s), the Iraqi(s), the Skali(s), the Tazi(s) … are all of Fez origins and most of them were/are members of the ruling Independence party (Istiklal) and they made their fortunes thanks to the privileges offered by French colonial authorities during the colonization and extended them under the independence. 

The case of the "fasi" family is a vivid example of how crucial familial ties are to social and political ascension in contemporary Morocco. The current government consists of three ministers from the Fasi family: Abbas Elfasi, the Prime Minister; who is [former head of Istiklal Party] Alal Elfasi's son-in-law. Tayb Elfasi Alfihri, the minister of Foreign Affairs, who is also Abass Elfasi's nephew and Yassmina Baddou, the minister of Health, whose father Abd Rahmane Badou, was a minister in the 70s. The other Fasis occupy no less sensitive positions. Yassmina Badou's husband, Ali Elfasi Elfihri, is both the General Director of the “Office National de l'Eau Potable“, "Office Nationale de l'Electricité" and the President of the “Fédération Royale Marocaine de Football“; he is also the brother of Tayb Elfasi Elfihri and Othman Fasi Elfihri, the General Director of the “Société Nationale des Autoroutes du Maroc“. And all the three lucky men are current prime minister Abass Elfasi's nephews. The Fasi family tree is intricately interwoven through marriages whose aims is to secure continuity, inheritance and fortune.

 Morocco's economy will not attain competitiveness unless productive, qualified and talented citizens are given fair chance and allowed to serve their country and give Morocco a chance to catch up with the rest of the world. However, nowadays, if a competent candidate does not have a "prominent" Family name, they are likely to have their hopes dashed and end up protesting in front of the parliament with ever larger hordes of fellow unemployed graduates.

The Moroccans who are lucky to immigrate overseas and get an education are currently running some of the most prosperous companies and organizations in US and Europe, where their capacities are valued and their dignity is respected.

Luckily, Moroccans have not lived under a tunisian style tyranny and dictatorship, However the high unemployment among the educated and inequitably of how opportunities are provided, and unless credible reforms are implement in a timely manner, Moroccan disenfranchised youth may, one day, rise up against the 'fassi' the same way the Tunisians have done it against the "trabelsi"