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Morocco
Morocco: A 'Democratic Moment'?
![[A protester carrying the Amazigh flag during a demonstration in front of Morocco's parliament. Image from Carlyjoy86 on Flickr.]](/content_images/3/sm_2066357120_02fc0fb1f2_z.jpg "[A protester carrying the Amazigh flag during a demonstration in front of Morocco's parliament. Image from Carlyjoy86 on Flickr.]")
During the last years of his reign, King Hassan II initiated a modest and controlled reform process intended to ease the transition of power by attempting to hand the reigns over safely to the crown prince at the time, nowadays King Mohamed VI. To buttress his legitimacy and distance himself from the authoritarian style of his late father, King Mohamed VI ushered in an era of diffident political reforms that—under popular pressure from within and the progression of Arab revolts from without—culminated in a new constitution upon which Moroccans were invited to vote upon by referendum held hastily two weeks after. It was an attempt granted to diffuse the tense ...
Keep Reading »"Violating Sacred Values" in Morocco: Free Speech with an Exception
![[The caricature shared by Walid Bahomane from a 2009 edition of Le Monde. Image via Global Voices.]](/content_images/3/sm_cartoon-Morocco-king-187x300.jpg "[The caricature shared by Walid Bahomane from a 2009 edition of Le Monde. Image via Global Voices.]")
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 monarchical institution is seen to be threatened. Morocco’s previous constitution contained many controversial articles that were either lost or split in the 2011 ...
Keep Reading »Pictures from a Camera
![[9,999 people at an uprising. Image by Rheim Alkadhi]](/content_images/3/sm_10_rheimalkadhi.jpg "[9,999 people at an uprising. Image by Rheim Alkadhi]")
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 now that we are capable of naming our past, how could we possibly reverse these hopes, these mad euphorias, so immediate, so newly free of fear, and how could we ...
Keep Reading »Having a Conversation on Other Terms: Gender and the Politics of Representation in the New Moroccan Government
![[Women of the PJD; Image from Agence France Presse]](/content_images/3/sm_WomenofPJD-Small.jpg "[Women of the PJD; Image from Agence France Presse]")
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 Minister was to form the government by appointing ministers. After much speculation and many rumors in the press and social media, Benkirane finally introduced his cabinet on ...
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 الأخرى في البلاد وخاصة في زمن الوزير القوي إدريس البصري—التي عهد إليها بتنظيم هذا الاستحقاق التشريعي. هذا الحياد الذي لم يكن إيجابيا كل الوقت في نظر البعض إلا أنه لم ...
Keep Reading »Remember, Remember, the 25th of November: Morocco's Elections and Reforms
![[Image from www.map.ma]](/content_images/3/sm_Samia.jpg "[Image from www.map.ma]")
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 was drafted. Within a time span of nine months, Morocco experienced pro-democracy protests, a referendum, and a new constitution. The 2012 elections were also ...
Keep Reading »Four Poems by Mohammed Khair-Eddin
![[Mohammed Khair-Eddin. Image from Unknown Archive]](/content_images/3/sm_MohammedKhair-Eddine.jpg "[Mohammed Khair-Eddin. Image from Unknown Archive]")
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 and a poetics of dream,” transcending the colonizer/colonized dialectics on which the previous generation of writers was fixated.[1] Hédi Abdel-Jaouad writes, “Along with ...
Keep Reading »...أيام السينما المغربية: المسكوت عنه، ولكن
تسعة أفلام شاركت في تظاهرة احتفائية بالسينما المغربية في بداية شهر أيلول/ سبتمبر في برلين. فرصة ثمينة لاكتشاف تجارب شابة لا تخلو من راديكاليّة، في طرحها لقضايا شائكة مثل حقوق المرأة والقمع السياسي والمجتمع البطريركي... رغم افتقارها أحياناً إلى العمق الفكري والنضج الفنّي. تحت شعار «التحول والتنوع»، أقيمت «أيام السينما المغربية في برلين» بين أوّل أيلول (سبتمبر) والرابع منه، في سينما «أرسنال»، بالتعاون مع «مركز الشرق المعاصر». في معرض تقديمهم للتظاهرة التي أُعدّ لها قبل اندلاع الربيع العربي، وصف المنظمون الأفلام التسعة التي اختيرت للمشاركة بأنّها أعمال مخرجين ومخرجات مغاربة أُنجزت بين عامي 2001 و2010 تخترق التابُوات الاجتماعية، وتتناول مواضيع تعكس التحولات ...
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 black numbers that evoked stock exchange tickers. I placed the phone’s receiver against my ear and the dial tone rang several times before an audible click and a Hello? ...
Keep Reading »Hope, Translated
![[A view of Spain as seen from Tangiers. Photo by Anny Gaul.]](/content_images/3/sm_view2.jpg "[A view of Spain as seen from Tangiers. Photo by Anny Gaul.]")
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 favored broader themes more familiar (and arguably more palatable) to American audiences: the triumph of social media, for example, or the abuses of dictators. This is ...
Keep Reading »Call for Submissions: Youth, Media and the Politics of Change in North Africa
![[Image from brill.nl]](/content_images/3/sm_mejcc3.jpg "[Image from brill.nl]")
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 issue is to document ways in which the Maghreb countries of North Africa (Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Libya) provide vibrant and complex settings for studying the ...
Keep Reading »نحو نهاية إزدواجية الدولة في المغرب؟
![[مظاهرة نظمتها حركة 20 فبراير. المصدر غير معروف]](/content_images/3/sm_mar.jpg "[مظاهرة نظمتها حركة 20 فبراير. المصدر غير معروف]")
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 لسلطان الدولة". هناك إذن، في مقابل الدولة الديمقراطية المنشودة، موروث سياسي يتلخص في مصطلحي السلطان والمخزن، ومطلب التحديث والدمقرطة الذي يتلخص في الانتقال من دولة ...
Keep Reading »A Year After: The February 20 Protest Movement in Morocco
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
Keep Reading »Morocco's Next Government: New Actors, Same Script
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 ...
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 ...
Keep Reading »November Culture Bouquet
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 ...
Keep Reading »الحركة الإسلامية في شمال أفريقيا: تناقضات الخطاب والممارسة
إن الحق في المشاركة السياسية مقدس ولا يسعنا إلا الوقوف مع كل من حرم من هذا الحق في أي مكان. فكل المواطنبن العرب يجب أن يتمتعوا بحقهم الطبيعي في التعبير عن رأيهم في الاختيار السياسي، بغض النظر عن الانتماء الأيديولوجي، ماداموا يؤمنون بالخيار الديمقراطي كحل لتداول السلطة وتحقيق التغيير السياسي المنشود، وما يستتبعه من تغييرات على المستويات الاقتصادية والاجتماعية والثقافية في المنطقة العربية التي ظلت متأخرة عن ركب الحداثة بسبب القرارات غير الحصيفة لمن تتابعوا على حكمها من الديكتاتوريين. لقد جاءت الثورات ...
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 ...
Keep Reading »The Never Ending Story: Protests and Constitutions in Morocco
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 ...
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 ...
Keep Reading »Youth, Media and the Art of Protest in North Africa
“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 ...
Keep Reading »A Turning Point in Morocco?
This Sunday, June 5, major demonstrations were held across Morocco as part of ongoing calls for real reform. However, both the spread and turnout of these demonstrations seem to indicate a turning point that comes in the aftermath of the police killing of Kamal Ammari, one of the leaders of the the February 20th movement. Ammari was attacked by police during the May 29th demonstration in Asfi and subsequently died of his injuries on June 2. His funeral, held on Friday June 3, was also the focal ...
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