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Morocco
A Year After: The February 20 Protest Movement in Morocco
![[Image of a February 20 Movement protest in Marrakech, Morocco. Image by author.]](/content_images/3/sm_IMG_0952.JPG "[Image of a February 20 Movement protest in Marrakech, Morocco. Image by author.]")
On the one-year anniversary of the February 20 protest movement in Morocco, (henceforth referred to as Feb. 20), the kingdom boasts relatively meager political progress. Despite the much-vaunted reforms and constitutional changes, Morocco has reinvigorated its state edifice, managed to outmaneuver an inexperienced Feb. 20 protest movement, and engaged in a crackdown on freedom of the press and speech. In the last couple of weeks, the regime has arrested three Moroccans for crimes against his majesty’s person and “defaming Morocco’s sacred values.” In a country where the monarch is inviolable, the use of cartoons depicting the king is considered an outrage to a symbol of ...
Keep Reading »February Flowers
Spring is not here yet. It was a cold and bloody week. Reach out and pluck all the flowers you see—real and imagined—and make a wreath for those who died! And for those who will...for words, and what they stand for. * Rheim Alkadhi's "Pictures from a Camera." * Diyala Najjar translates an excerpt from Ibtisam Azem's The Sleep Thief: Gharib Hifawi. * Gaelle Raphael translates poems from Suzanne Alaywan's The Gazelle's Throw. * Part II of Firas Massouh's translation of Al-Zahawi's "Revolt in Hell." All previous culture posts can be accessed here. Read and forward our Call for Posts. Tell us what you ...
Keep Reading »الإخفاقات الأولى للحكومة الملتحية
كنا قد حللنا في مقال سابق الظروف التي فاز فيها حزب العدالة والتنمية بالانتخابات في المغرب بموازاة تحليلنا التاريخي لنشأة الأحزاب المشكلة للتحالف الحكومي الحالي، إذ بحثنا في الظروف التاريخية لولادتها وعرجنا على مشاربها الفكرية والإيديولوجية—إذا كان فعلا ممكنا الحديث عن إيديولوجية حزبية لدى هذه الأحزاب—في ظل نظام سياسي مؤسس الطاعة والولاء في إطار البيعة "التي تطوق أعناق المغاربة"، فتوصلنا في نهاية التحليل إلى أن المخزن المغربي لن يسمح ببروز قوة سياسية تنافسه في شرعيته السلطوية، كما أن شرعيته الدينية في مأمن لأن إمارة المؤمنين تقف سدا منيعا دون أي تغيير في هذا الإطار. بفضل إمارة المؤمنين تستطيع الملكية القضاء على كل من شق عصا الطاعة بالاستناد إلى ...
Keep Reading »Morocco's Next Government: New Actors, Same Script
![[Fouad Ali El Himma seen riding with King Mohammad VI. Image from www.lesoir-echos.com]](/content_images/3/sm_ROI-HIMMA-TETOUAN-2007-Aic-.jpg "[Fouad Ali El Himma seen riding with King Mohammad VI. Image from www.lesoir-echos.com]")
Several weeks have passed since Morocco’s most recent parliamentary elections. These yielded a victory for the Islamist Party of Justice and Development (PJD), whose leader, Abdelilah Benkirane, has been appointed as prime minister (or, as the recent constitution dictates, “Chief of Government”). Benkirane’s first task is to form a new government in conjunction with the Istiqlal Party, the Popular Movement, and the Party of Progress and Socialism, who together comprise a ruling coalition. Once this coalition drafts a list of potential ministers, it will be approved by King Mohammad VI, and then made public. However, the formation of the new Moroccan government will not ...
Keep Reading »New Texts Out Now: Zakia Salime, Between Feminism and Islam: Human Rights and Sharia Law in Morocco
Zakia Salime, Between Feminism and Islam: Human Rights and Sharia Law in Morocco. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011. Jadaliyya: What made you write this book? Zakia Salime: In this critical time of sweeping revolts and political changes in the Middle East, it is very useful to revisit the spaces of contentions that have been opened by women’s rights groups. My book shows how two decades of struggles over broadening the spheres of expression and rights have led to dramatic changes in both Moroccan feminism and Moroccan Islamism. My interest in documenting these shifts began with my own involvement in the feminist movement during the 1990s. I wanted to ...
Keep Reading »November Culture Bouquet
![[Pre-Islamic Arabian Rock Art, display in National Museum, Riyadh, image from Elliott Colla]](/content_images/3/sm_bigrock.jpg "[Pre-Islamic Arabian Rock Art, display in National Museum, Riyadh, image from Elliott Colla]")
Flowers in November? Yes! After a long, hot summer’s break Jadaliyya Culture returns with another bouquet, as bright as any we have given you before, but this time a bit heavier. Maybe as heavy as a pagan rock sitting on display in the national museum of a theocratic state. Highlights include: — Hamdy El-Gazzar's "Love", translated by Nancy Linthicum. — Anne-Marie McManus introduces Mustafa Khalifa's prison novel, al-Qawqa`a. — Mansoura Ez-Eldin's essay, "The Callous Father who Refuses to Die," translated by Emily Drumsta. — Four poems by Mohamed Khair-Eddin, translated by Gaelle Raphael. — An excerpt ...
Keep Reading »New Texts Out Now: Mohamed Daadaoui, "Moroccan Monarchy and the Islamist Challenge"
Mohamed Daadaoui, Moroccan Monarchy and the Islamist Challenge: Maintaining Makhzen Power. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Jadaliyya: What made you write this book? Mohamed Daadaoui: I wrote the book because of a long-standing interest in my own country’s political system and the remarkable longevity of monarchical rule in Morocco. Looking at the literature in general, the book attempts to fill the literature gap in Maghreb studies in the English language, and sheds light on the idiosyncrasies of the Moroccan special case of regime sustainability. For a sizeable number of Moroccans, the monarchy is almost a sacrosanct topic, and one not without consequences for ...
Keep Reading »The Never Ending Story: Protests and Constitutions in Morocco
![[King Mohammed IV casting his vote in the constitution referendum. Image from wn.com]](/content_images/3/sm_constrefmor.jpg "[King Mohammed IV casting his vote in the constitution referendum. Image from wn.com]")
On 1 July 2011, Moroccans went to the polls in a referendum promoted by King Mohammed VI to approve a new constitution to replace that of 1996. A vote of over ninety-eight percent, in an official turnout of over seventy-two percent, unsurprisingly approved the new text. The new constitution supposedly represents a further step in the direction of establishing a liberal-democratic system and does indeed contain provisions to that effect. For instance there is now the explicit recognition that Morocco is a ”parliamentary constitutional monarchy,“ that national identity is pluralistic and not simply Arab and Muslim, and that, crucially, the figure of the King is no longer ...
Keep Reading »100 Days of the 2011 Moroccan Constitution
The February 20th Movement is the public and youthful face of the Arab spring in Morocco, emerging on that date into the streets as part of a series of coordinated Sunday demonstrations throughout the country. One of its rallying slogans is dastarat tawsi’at hay’at al-insaf wa-al-musalaha, or “’constitutionalize” the recommendations of the Equity and Reconciliation Commission (ERC).” The ERC, more commonly known by its French initials IER, “Instance Equité et Reconciliation,” is a state-mandated body to investigate cases of torture, forcible disappearances, political prison, locations of mass graves, and to make judgments about individual and communal reparations. ...
Keep Reading »Youth, Media and the Art of Protest in North Africa
![[Transculturelles des Abattoirs, Casablanca. Image from transculturellesdesabattoirs]](/content_images/3/sm_CasaPic-1.jpg "[Transculturelles des Abattoirs, Casablanca. Image from transculturellesdesabattoirs]")
“Everyone has his own way of fighting, and my weapon is art!” says Milad Faraway, a 20 year-old Libyan who created the rap group Music Masters with another young friend in 2010. Their song “Youth of the Revolution” urges “Moammar [to] get out” and end the violation of Libyans’ rights. “Qadhafi, open your eyes wide” sings another rap group Revolution Beat: “you will see that the Libyan people just broke through the fear barrier.” In neighboring Tunisia, twenty-one year old Hamada Ben Amor, known as El General, circulated on the internet his video song “President: Your people are dying” in an open address to Ben Ali during his last days as a dictator. For singing about ...
Keep Reading »"Violating Sacred Values" in Morocco: Free Speech with an Exception
A simple caricature by a cartoonist and a four-minute video featuring an activist expressing his dissent are arguably some of today’s most common mediums for political expression. In post-constitutional reform and post–parliamentary-election Morocco, sharing a political cartoon and criticizing the monarchy in a video is a crime, met with jail time. While reforms have been implemented for months, vague language has allowed Mohammed VI’s regime to selectively interpret and enforce its reforms whenever the ...
Keep Reading »Pictures from a Camera
Here in this region, amid the initial, proven, lasting fervor that sends our bodies into perpetual (welcome) disturbance; from these variously perplexing, disappointing, exhilarating, terrible, or inspired moments—from these moments on, we see ourselves on display, and we shed our museums of obsolescence, and in the truest effort to stand up, we are uniquely reshaped. How to compensate for so many lost hours, years, decades of looking at our lives through the lens of wretchedness? And ...
Keep Reading »Having a Conversation on Other Terms: Gender and the Politics of Representation in the New Moroccan Government
The recent parliamentary elections in Morocco have led to the creation of the first ever elected Islamist government in Morocco’s history. After winning more than forty percent of the votes in the November 25th elections, the Party of Justice and Development (PJD) led by Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane formed a coalition government with the socialist Parti du Progrès et du Socialisme (PPS), the nationalist Istiqlal party and the royalist Mouvement Populaire (MP). Benkirane’s first task as Prime ...
Keep Reading »آفاق «الحكومة الملتحية» وإكراهات مشهد سياسي مغربي مبلقن
الآن وقد مر بعض الوقت على الانتخابات البرلمانية السابقة لأوانها التي جرت في المغرب في الخامس والعشرين من شهر نوفمبر/تشرين ثاني والتي، كما يعرف الجميع، فاز الإسلاميون خلالها ب 25 بالمئة من المقاعد 395 المشكلة للبرلمان المغربي. فوز اعتبره الكثير من المتتبعين للشأن المغربي والمغاربي والعربي تاريخيا على اعتبار الظروف العامة التي جرت فيها الانتخابات التي وصفت بالشفافية، والحياد شبه المطلق "لأم الوزارات"—الاسم الذي يطلقه المغاربة على وزارة الداخلية نظرا لتشعبها وتداخلها مع كثير من القطاعات الحيوية ...
Keep Reading »Remember, Remember, the 25th of November: Morocco's Elections and Reforms
On 1 July 2011, Moroccans took part in a constitutional referendum, resulting in what is now Morocco's sixth constitution since 1962. Similar to previous constitutions, direction was taken solely from the pinnacle of Moroccan society, leaving the majority voiceless. Members of the February 20th Movement, inspired by pro-democracy movements in neighboring countries, immediately announced their decision to boycott the referendum, citing the undemocratic nature of the process through which the constitution ...
Keep Reading »Four Poems by Mohammed Khair-Eddin
Mohammed Khair-Eddine (1941-1995) is considered one of the most compelling Moroccan writers of the twentieth century. Born and raised in the southern Berber Moroccan town of Tafraout, Khair-Eddine moved to France in 1965. In 1979 he returned to Morocco where he lived until his death in Rabat in 1995. Mohammed Khair-Eddine, along with Abdellatif Laabi and other Moroccan poets, founded the review Souffles in which they articulated “a new Maghrebian aesthetics that would include both a philosophy of action ...
Keep Reading »Reimagining Foreclosure as a World-Making Project
Foreclosed: Between Crisis and Possibility. Curated by Jennifer Burris, Sofía Olascoaga, Sadia Shirazi, and Gaia Tedone, Helena Rubinstein Curatorial Fellows of the Whitney Independent Study Program, 2010-2011. May 20 - June 11, 2011 The Kitchen, 512 West 19th Street, New York, NY One sticky summer afternoon, I walked into The Kitchen and encountered a distinctly alienating experience. A red rotary phone—sans rotary dial—rested on a reception desk and was set against a static backdrop of repetitious ...
Keep Reading »Hope, Translated
Laila Lalami, Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits. Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin, 2005. Tahar Ben Jelloun, A Palace in the Old Village. Translated by Linda Coverdale. New York: Penguin, 2011. Already, the narratives of the Arab Spring dominating the American media have a nebulous relationship with the human stories behind the events. The deaths of Mohammed Bouazizi and Khaled Said usually mark the beginning of the story, to be sure. But beyond a handful of famous and visceral anecdotes, most coverage has ...
Keep Reading »Call for Submissions: Youth, Media and the Politics of Change in North Africa
Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication Special Issue Call for Papers Youth, Media and the Politics of Change in North Africa: Negotiating Identities, Spaces and Power Guest Editor: Loubna H. Skalli (American University, Washington D.C.) This special issue of the Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication solicits theoretical and empirical papers on “Youth, Media and the Politics of Change in North Africa: Negotiating Identities, Spaces and Power.” The purpose of this special ...
Keep Reading »نحو نهاية إزدواجية الدولة في المغرب؟
يعيش المغرب حاليا دينامية تغيير تتعدد تجلياتها. هناك حركة احتجاج، وحركة تفاوض، ونقاش عمومي ينتشر عبر فضاءات متعددة. والواقع أننا أمام مستويات لا ينفصل بعضها عن بعض، إذ أن الاحتجاج هو في حد ذاته عملية تفاوضية، والتفاوض يمر عبر تطوير وتعميق أشكال النقاش العمومي. وتوجد مسألة بنية الدولة وطبيعتها في صلب كل هذا الحراك الذي لم يسبق له مثيل منذ حصول المغرب على استقلاله. رفعت حركة 20 فبراير شعارات تحمل أكثر من دلالة، مثل "كرامة، حرية، لا مخزن لا رعية"، و"لا لدولة السلطان، نعم ...
Keep Reading »Jadaliyya Launches Syria Page
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Latest Entries
View All Entries »- It Is What It Is
- New Texts Out Now: Betty S. Anderson, The American University of Beirut: Arab Nationalism and Liberal Education
- Plundering the Past: Scholarly Treasures
- A Year After: The February 20 Protest Movement in Morocco
- حين يكون الكوكب بأسره ضد الثورة
- The Real Me and the Hypothetical Syrian Revolution - Part 1
- Searching for the Arab Spring in Ramallah
- Remembering Anthony Shadid
- Saving Khader Adnan's Life Saves Our Own Soul
- نداء الأسير خضـر عدنـان إلى العالم
- الإخوان في البرلمان؛ محاولة للفهم
- "Violating Sacred Values" in Morocco: Free Speech with an Exception
- Our Friend Anthony Shadid's Stories
- Statement on Hunger Strike of Khader Adnan by Palestinian Human Rights Organizations
- Struggles That Fueled a Revolution
- Immunity, Accountability, and the Arab Uprisings: Jadaliyya Co-Editor Noura Erakat Discusses the Role of the Human Rights Community
- Anthony Shadid Is No Longer with Us
- Patent for an Invented People
- The Insha'at Exodus
- New Texts Out Now: Lila Abu-Lughod and Anupama Rao, Women's Rights, Muslim Family Law, and the Politics of Consent
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