Moroccan youth turn junk into income
2011-10-07 Text and photos
by Maria Tahri
At Morocco's urban street
markets, scrap vendors find a way out of unemployment and shoppers find
solutions.
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Street vendors have long been part of the economic
landscape in Morocco, but for some of those working in the "informal
economy", trash is treasure.
Other people's cast-offs and garbage provide them with an
income. These itinerant traders know that for every discarded or broken item,
there is a potential buyer.
"This is the source of my daily livelihood,"
street salesman Abdul Hadi says about the items laid out on the sidewalk. Empty
bottles once used for ketchup, mayonnaise and mustard, plastic containers used
for oils or mineral water, old clothes: this is merchandise, not garbage. And
people are willing to pay for it.
Another merchant, Mohamed Ibrahim, says he keeps
everything – from broken games to broken cups – inside his house for later
re-sale. He saves empty boxes, iron screws and other odds and ends retrieved
from the garbage.
"We do not compete with any of the merchants, not
even street vendors, because our goods are not their wares and we do not reap
huge profits," the father of three tells Magharebia.
"They are only daily pennies, enough for us to meet
our needs and not beg."
Abdullah, on the other side of the sidewalk running the
length of the famous Souk El Kouriaa market in Casablanca, sells old CD cases.
Even though many are cracked, people buy them.
Other sellers stand behind cardboard and wooden boxes
filled with rusty keys, picture frames, broken toys, and many things that
appear to have no meaning or use. These Moroccan street vendors are of a
different breed than those selling vegetables or clothes. Their customers are
looking for something that cannot be found in stores or traditional market
stalls.
Here, junk sells.
Mustafa a father is poking around among a pile of nails
and bolts. "A small screw went missing from the cover of the pressure
cooker my wife uses in the kitchen," he explains. "The pot is no good
anymore, since she can't tighten the lid, so I am looking for a small screw to
replace the lost one."
"I could buy a new cooker for thousands of dirhams,
but if I can find the right screw here, it will only cost me two or three
dirhams," he says.
Farid is under 30 but has to support his retired father,
an elderly mother and several young brothers. He worked as a porter, a
travelling salesman and a security guard at a Casablanca building but ended up
jobless. One day, a friend proposed that he accompany him to a garbage dump.
Everything has a use, his friend explained.
He took the advice and went into business. "Now I
keep everything I find until someone comes along to buy it," Shaab says.
"I pick up glass containers, and then wash and clean
them to offer in the market," he tells Magharebia. "The price is very
low but it is significant for me, because I do not want to remain idle and
complain about my condition."
"Perhaps one day I may have to resort to other means
to get money, but for now, I prefer working out here. My joy is great when
someone finds exactly what he is looking for," he says with a broad smile.
A woman haggles over an outdated juice machine without a
cover, while another holds an old alarm clock. It still has numbers and clock
hands, but she and the seller go back and forth over her demand for a reduction
in price. After all, she says, it may continue to work or break after a couple
days. There's no way to tell until she gets it home.
The scrap market is not only frequented by the poor.
Citizens from all social circles come here because they may not find what they
need anywhere else.
"Necessity is the mother of invention," says
merchant Ibrahim Guidoum. "You find young people looking for a specific
item. They may not know what it's called, but they know it as soon as they see
it."
He adds: "Those who frequent the scrap metal sellers
are trying to find wires, devices, tools – all the old home necessities they
can't find in shops, or where the spare part cost is too high."
Rabia, an employee, says she goes to the junk market
without embarrassment, to find something valuable at a low price, or a piece
suitable to fix a kitchen appliance.
"I'm obsessed with frequenting these haphazard
spaces," Rabia tells Magharebia. "They give me the pleasure of
shopping and digging and searching for what is rare."
A recent study commissioned by the Ministry of Trade
revealed that Morocco has 238,000 street vendors, 90% of whom are men. And
since some 70% of them never went beyond primary school, their employment
options are limited.
Abdul Razzaq is like many of his peers who sell goods on
the street. He was in desperate need of a job, but doors closed in his face and
he nearly lost hope in life. Then his uncle suggested he accompany him to the
market.
Within a year, he had absorbed the secrets of the
profession and become self-reliant through the collection and resale of junk
and scrap metal.
The Moroccan government is paying particular attention to
helping these itinerant merchants. Economic Affairs Minister Nizar Baraka told
Magharebia that help is on the horizon: "The main thing is to bring about
a transition from the informal to the formal sector, that's what needs to happen."
Local authorities, meanwhile, have been working to
regulate Moroccan street vendors within special areas,
Abdul Razzaq says.
"They've been showing a kind of indulgence recently,
as if they understand our situation and our unemployment," he says.
"We hope to get a permanent space," the young
scrap salesman says. "That would help us earn a livelihood without
resorting to begging or theft or falling into problems we can do without."
---------------------------------------------
MOURAD LAHLOU and Paula
Wolfert would not seem to have much in common. He is the 43-year-old chef of
Aziza in San Francisco, his arms decorated with tattoos that signify “strength”
in Arabic, a son of Casablanca, Morocco, who works wonders with spices and
preserved lemons, sous-vide and meat glue.
She is a 73-year-old
daughter of Brooklyn, an industrious ex-hippie and renowned culinary
anthropologist in Sonoma, Calif., whose favorite kitchen tool is an unglazed
clay pot.
But for more than 40 years,
both have been immersed in the flavors, aromas and techniques of the Moroccan
kitchen. And now each has written an authoritative, enticing cookbook — from
diametrically opposed perspectives.
Ms. Wolfert, the outsider,
is the stickler for authenticity and tradition.
“He has made this incredible
jump,” Ms. Wolfert said of the food at Aziza. “But his food is not the Moroccan
cooking I know. He took steps that only he could take.”
Mr. Lahlou, the native son,
is the activist for change and modernity. “We started from the same point in
time in Morocco, but she looks backward, and I look forward,” he said.
As much as he respects Ms.
Wolfert’s work, Mr. Lahlou said that her depiction of Morocco may have kept
Americans — and even Moroccans themselves — from tasting its true potential.
Ms. Wolfert’s new book, “The
Food of Morocco” (Ecco), is a magisterial rework of the book that put her on
the map in 1973, “Couscous and Other Good Food From Morocco.” After its
publication, she lived in Morocco for several more years, then moved on to
study other Mediterranean cuisines.
“I didn’t think there was
any ‘Son of Couscous’ to be done,” she said.
Mr. Lahlou’s book, “Mourad:
New Moroccan” (Artisan), is a more personal, idiosyncratic work that flows
mostly from two small rooms: his family’s kitchen in Marrakesh and his own in
San Francisco. It perfectly illustrates his mission: to use the tools of the
modern chef to rethink Moroccan food from the ground up.
“Why are we still cooking
the vegetables so much? Why does the meat have to be so dry?” he asked,
referring to the traditional slow-cooking methods that make the most of
less-than-sparkling ingredients. “Why can’t we enjoy the flavor of the meat and
use less spices? Everything starts to taste the same.”
The native food culture of
Morocco was that of the Berbers who lived there, on the northwest edge of the
Sahara; later, successive bastings in Arab, Persian, Spanish, Turkish and
French influence made the cuisine rich and complex.
“Lamb with honey and prunes,
chicken with olives, couscous,” said Mr. Mourad, who came to the United States
as a college student in 1986. “The first time I went back, I was stoked to
eat,” he said. “It was amazing the first day, but then it became apparent to me
that there was not going to be anything else.”
The food of Morocco, Mr.
Lahlou said, is extraordinary but has become stuck in a few narrow ruts.
“Changing the herb garnish
on a tagine is still considered daring,” he said. “Cooks are afraid to change
the way things have always been done.”
And, he said, the old-school
dishes do not reflect modern Moroccan reality; now there are high-quality
ingredients, ample refrigeration and skilled cooks with access to food media,
the Internet and foreign travel.
“The Morocco I was born into
was very poor and very rural,” he said. At that time, Ms. Wolfert said, about
80 percent of the population lived outside major cities; electricity, running
water and cooking stoves were rare. Today, that proportion has been reversed,
and Moroccans, many of whom speak French and English fluently along with
Arabic, have become sophisticated food consumers.
Mr. Lahlou’s book is a
persuasive attempt to engage cooks with this modern Morocco. The first seven
chapters are devoted to tradition (one is called “Dude, Preserved Lemons”); the
rest, to the recipes that he has served at Aziza, like artichokes and
saffron-braised onions in cumin broth, or beef cheeks with carrot jam and
harissa emulsion.
(Ms. Wolfert, the purist,
does not even consider harissa to be Moroccan — it is Tunisian, she said —
although it is now ubiquitous on Moroccan tables, like ketchup.)
The sweet earthy spices,
velvety textures, complex braises and tangy flavor sparks of Morocco are only
the starting point for Mr. Lahlou’s cuisine.
“I came from that culture,
so what is intriguing to me is what else is out there,” he said.
That is just what Ms.
Wolfert was looking for in the late 1950s, when she left the United States to
live abroad as a 19-year-old literary-feminist beatnik.
“I was young, and excited
about words, and Jack Kerouac told me I had great legs,” she said. She was
drawn to Morocco, along with many young Europeans and Americans, by the
country’s enlightened reputation and cheap cost of living after it won
independence from France in 1956.
In 1968, when Mr. Lahlou was
born in Casablanca, Ms. Wolfert was living outside Tangier, around the corner
from the American writer Paul Bowles, and was a suddenly single mother of two
small children (her husband having left her for a Swedish painter he met during
the student strikes in Paris). She sated her restlessness in the kitchen, where
the cook, Fatima, taught her to grind spices, preserve lemons in salt and strip
the stalks of freshly cut wheat to prepare the berries for the mill.
“The work of feeding one
family was all-consuming,” Ms. Wolfert said.
Eventually, her interest led
to the childhood home of the Moroccan consul general to the United States,
where she was tutored by his mother and her brigade of cooks, and where she
began the revolutionary act of writing down how the traditional dishes were
made.
“There was no tradition of
sharing recipes in Morocco,” said Mr. Lahlou, describing the significance of
Ms. Wolfert’s work. “Cooking jobs were very valuable, literally handed down
from generation to generation, and they were not about to give their secrets
away.”
In 1973, she published the
book that introduced a generation of food-loving bohemians to Moroccan cuisine.
The fragrant recipes and evocative photograph of Ms. Wolfert in a soft green
caftan, with vendors in a dusty marketplace, put a thousand tagines onto
American tables.
At the time, Mr. Lahlou was
5, the constant companion of his family’s chief food supplier: his grandfather,
who did the daily shopping. (Mr. Lahlou’s father had also left his wife and
children, a situation that was considered so tragic that others spoiled the
young Mr. Lahlou with food and attention to make up for it, he said.) He, his
brother and his mother, Aziza, lived with her extended family in a compound
that encompassed grandparents, cousins and aunts — but only one kitchen.
Like most Moroccan boys, he
was never taught to cook. But, he said, he was immersed in food as the family
spent an hour at breakfast debating what to have for lunch, and another hour at
lunch debating the relative merits of eggplant, okra and peppers with dinner.
As a college student in San
Francisco, he began cooking as a way to manage homesickness, and followed his
older brother into a job as a waiter at Mamounia in the Richmond district, one
of the first upscale Moroccan restaurants in the United States.
When the brothers decided to
open a restaurant instead of proceeding to graduate school, he said, backers
assumed that belly dancers and waiters with pointy-toed slippers would be
prominently featured. He refused.
“I wasn’t going to open a
Moroccan Disneyland, and I wasn’t going to make Moroccan ’70s hotel food,” he
said.
From there, he said, he
developed a style on his own that, in the book, reads like a very hyphenated,
modern cuisine, as much American as Moroccan.
In their new books, both
authors push beyond what Americans think they know about Moroccan food. For
example, bread, not couscous, is the everyday and much-loved staple of Moroccan
tables. (Mr. Lahlou said that his family went through eight loaves a day.)
Tagines are never spooned over couscous, but scooped up with bread: in cities,
with bits pulled from yeast-risen loaves, but among the Berbers, with round
flatbreads baked on griddles.
The Berbers use an unusual
leavening method that gives a warm, earthy aroma to the loaves: a mix of
semolina flour, water and garlic cloves that quickly ferments into a pungent
starter. The recipe provided by Ms. Wolfert requires three kinds of flour and
takes two days, but is richly rewarding in flavor.
Mr. Lahlou, on the other
hand, has invented entirely new breads like harissa-spiked rolls, grilled
semolina flatbreads and delicate lacy pancakes (beghrir) made with almond
flour. In Mr. Lahlou’s family, only his mother is considered expert at making
beghrir, and as a traditional Moroccan cook, she did not share her recipe even
with her son. So he worked for years to develop a foolproof method for Aziza’s
pastry chef, the pancakes dripping with melted butter and honey.
Many of the skills of the
traditional kitchen — how to roll couscous, how to slow-preserve meat in the
desert, how to make the paper-thin pastry dough called warqa — are disappearing
fast, the authors agree.
They also agree that the
daily lives of Moroccan cooks are better without such labor-intensive
practices. But there is a fundamental conflict between them: the traditions
that Ms. Wolfert has gone to such pains to record are the very ones that Mr.
Lahlou is trying to change.
“Moroccan women now are the
equivalent of American housewives in the 1950s: they want to use the pressure
cooker to make tagines, they want to go to the supermarket,” Ms. Wolfert said.
“I don’t want to tell them they have to go back into the kitchen, but something
is being lost. I’m out to preserve what I can still find.”
---------------------------------------------
One of the signature photos people always take home with
them from Morocco is of heaping piles of spices in a variety of enticing
colorful displays. These setups aspire to overwhelm visitors with the
enchantment of a new and undiscovered place – and to encourage wide-eyed
tourists to part with their dollars.
Diane Rice of
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, captured a singular image of one of those remarkably
shaped groupings of spice cones, a monument to Morocco's exotic qualities.
Spice shops are located all over the place, inviting
visitors to try a sniff. Ras el hanout, or "top of the shop," is the
country's signature spice blend. There may be dozens of ingredients involved,
including nutmeg, pepper, cinnamon and cardamom - and everyone has their own
variation. It is these same spices that lend Moroccan foods a special flavor.
"I've traveled extensively in Europe, but nowhere
than can match this experience," Rice said. "Whatever exotic dream I
had of Morocco before I went was more than confirmed. It was way better
than I ever expected, and by far the farthest thing from our life in the U.S.
that I have ever visited."
Rice was visiting her son-in-law's family in Morocco and
wasn't sure what to expect during her May 2011 trip, but any fears were quickly
dissipated by the hospitality - and tastes - she encountered.
Two popular meals are the tajine (or tagine) and the pastilla.
The former is a style of slow-cooked stew often filled with meat and
vegetables, and is named for the special pot in which it is cooked. The latter
is a Moroccan meat pie often made with pigeon or chicken.
"My experience with the food was amazing, but
different because I was eating in private homes, prepared by real, traditional
Moroccans," she wrote. "I had every conceivable tajine recipe and
loved all of them. I had some clean, lemony salads and some creamy, delicious
couscous that I remember vividly."
Jessie Faller-Parrett of
Carlisle, Pennsylvania, shared a photo of the colorful array of vegetable
foodstuffs one might find in just one course of a Moroccan meal. Multiple
courses with many different components and local breads are common when eating
in Morocco.
Like Rice, Faller-Parrett spent time eating with Moroccan
locals during her travels, so she also got the non-touristy perspective on
food.
"I was fascinated during one of our first breakfasts,
as the hosts at our riad served us three different kinds of bread, hard boiled
eggs, cheese, jam, cocoa, honey, butter, olives, orange juice, coffee and mint
tea."
She enjoyed immersing herself via the varied foods
available in Morocco, including the tajine and pastilla. She also made sure to
try a sheep's head and brain straight from a stall in Marrakech's Jamaa el Fna,
the country's most famous market.
"Meals are a wondeful experience, with many
different courses and new tastes," Faller-Parrette said. "Be
adventurous and try everything from the many delicious types of bread and
vegetables to pigeon pastillas and boiled sheep's head."
If you go to Morocco, you'll also find that tea is
steeped into the culture. Swishing a paper tea bag in a steaming coffee
mug can be heavenly on a cold day, but it's a far cry from the elaborate
rituals of the East. Residents drink a special green tea several times a day.
It's a part of daily life, and a component of hospitality shown to guests.
"The ubiquitous mint tea was ever-present,"
wrote Rice. "Every shop, hotel, restaurant and home."
The tea is prepared with mint added to it, and then
sweetened to varying degrees by regional preference.
Visual presentation is a big part of the ritual, and the
preparer typically uses a tray with glasses and pots. There may be an elaborate
preparation technique designed to affect the taste and consistency of the
drink. Pouring is done from a distance to ensure a certain foaminess, which is
a practice that can be found in many other countries around the world.
Vivienne Chapleo and Jill Hoelting , who run WAVEjourney.com,
visited Morocco and participated in a tea ceremony with a Berber family just
outside Marrakech in the Ourika Valley. The Bend, Oregon, bloggers said the tea
ceremony was a treasured experience featuring more than just tea, and plenty of
attention from their hosts.
"They also served warm, fresh bread from flour they
had stone ground themselves. Accompanying the bread was honey from their own
bees, butter from their cow and olive oil from their olive trees."
The traveling pair made sure to
record a video of the elaborate preparations for the tea.
"The mint tea was served with copious amounts of
sugar and was an absolute treat to see being prepared."
Faller-Parrett says she also enjoyed tasting the tea with
meals or just to relax wherever she went.
"Mint tea is such a huge part of Moroccan culture,
and I enjoyed taking a moment after meals to drink it and talk about all of the
delicious foods we ate or to take a break from a day of exploring to sit for a
moment at a café, soak in my surrounds and drink tea."
Have you ever been to Morocco, or are you a fan of the
country's cuisine? We'd love to hear from you. We're curious what you would
recommend and what you've enjoyed. Share what you think a traveler should eat,
and any food-related adventures you've had in the comments area below.
CNN's Destination Adventure series
takes a look at great places for eager explorers. Each week, we'll feature
favorite regional foods, secrets from the locals and the best photos and
stories from readers. Have you been to Morocco? Share your story with CNN iReport. And next
week, we'll journey to Nepal.
---------------------------------------------
Sahara Solar Project to Present First Plant Design in 2012
October 05, 2011
By Stefan Nicola
(Adds Dii strategy, quote from analyst in last three paragraphs.)
Oct. 5 (Bloomberg) -- The Sahara solar initiative backed
by German turbine maker Siemens AG and Deutsche Bank AG will sketch out plans
in 2012 for its first power plant, a 600 million-euro ($800 million) station in
Morocco, its project manager said.
Desertec, the venture aiming to generate power across the
North African desert for Mediterranean-area consumers, needs a few more months
of planning for its initial 150-megawatt pilot plant, Paul van Son, chief
executive officer of Dii GmbH, the project management company, said in an
interview in Munich.
Dii’s talks with European and North African governments
to back the initiative are advancing “step by step,” even as upheavals during
the Arab Spring ousted leaders in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya this year, van Son said.
“I’m very confident that we will see concrete steps in 2012.”
The project founded in 2009 envisions an Egypt-to-Morocco
network of solar-thermal plants, in which mirrors concentrate sunlight to heat
liquids for powering turbines, as well as photovoltaic panels and wind farms.
Electricity would be sold to the region and the excess exported to Europe,
providing as much as 15 percent of the continent’s demand by 2050.
Overall investments may total as much as 400 billion
euros, Dii has said. So far, no facilities have been built, which has Logan
Goldie-Scot, an analyst with Bloomberg New Energy Finance, concerned that the
project may not be realized.
North African countries are moving ahead with their own
projects more quickly than Desertec, Goldie-Scot said. Morocco targets 2
gigawatts of solar capacity by 2020, with bidding for the construction of a
125-megawatt solar-thermal plant in Ouarzazate “in the final stages,”
Goldie-Scot said by phone.
‘Nice Ambition’
“Until Desertec actually puts a project on the ground and
provides details on financing and the different stakeholders, it’s nothing more
than nice ambition and a series of public announcements,” he said.
Dii shareholders including Deutsche Bank, Italy’s
UniCredit SpA and Abengoa SA of Spain, are working to carry out the project
while access to financing is becoming increasingly difficult amid the European
debt crisis.
About 1.9 billion euros in investment are needed to
develop the first 500-megawatt phase of Desertec, Dii says. Shareholders,
including insurer Munich Re, may help provide financing or equity to build the
first plant, van Son said.
The pilot plant should supply Morocco and Spain by 2014
if photovoltaic panels are used, and about two years later if it relies on
solar-thermal technology, he said.
Solar-Thermal Timing
Dii chose Morocco to host the first plant as the country
is stable, has a government that backs renewable-energy expansion and is linked
to Europe via two undersea cables stretching about 25 kilometers (15.5 miles)
across the Strait of Gibraltar, van Son said. The cables have free capacity of
400 megawatts to 1,000 megawatts, he said.
“Morocco is especially cash-strapped, and that’s why
they’re eager to attract foreign investments and more willing to meet
Desertec’s terms than some of the other North African countries,” said Samuel
Ciszuk, an energy analyst for the region at Colorado-based IHS Global Insight
Ltd. He spoke by telephone from London.
Aside from commercial and shareholder financing, the
Munich-based initiative is in negotiations with governments in North Africa and
Europe to secure state-backed grants and loan guarantees, van Son said. Dii
then hopes for governments to buy the electricity via a power-purchase
agreement, he said.
The company is preparing a study that simulates power
network conditions in Morocco to find out more about the ideal technology for
the first plants, van Son said. The study will run until the end of the year
and its results may help convince potential investors, he said.
Wider Goal
Dii aims to expand installations in North Africa and the
Middle East with a wider goal to transfer clean technology, create jobs and
meet the region’s entire electricity demand from renewable sources by 2050, van
Son said.
The initiative is working on a feasibility study for
possible projects in Tunisia and has talked to officials in Algeria, Egypt and
Libya, countries that have seen upheavals during the Arab Spring uprisings.
“We’re seeing the start of a period of change in North
Africa, and some countries may look very different in a few years,” Ciszuk
said. “If Desertec can get things under way in Morocco, why shouldn’t there be
more opportunities in Tunisia and Egypt in the mid-term?”
--Editors: Todd White, Randall Hackley
To contact the reporter on this story: Stefan Nicola in
Berlin at snicola2@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Reed
Landberg at landberg@bloomberg.net
---------------------------------------------
Moroccan student entrepreneurs compete for Arab prize
2011-10-05
Morocco will participate in the annual INJAZ al-Arab
Young Arab Entrepreneurs Competition, which opens in Amman on October 18th.
After six months of preparation, student teams from across the region will vie
for the "Best Company of the Year Award" before their peers and a
panel of judges.
"The world economic crisis has stimulated a record
increase in youth unemployment in the MENA region, making it one of the biggest
challenges facing governments and society," judge Ahmad Shuqairi said. The
event organisers work to "combat this problem by recognising the
importance of self-employment as a career option", he added.
Operating in 12 countries across the Middle East and
North Africa region, INJAZ al-Arab says it works with Ministries of Education
to equip Arab students with practical business-related skills, as part of the
regular educational curriculum, to enable their success in the global economy.
---------------------------------------------
You never
saw just one of them: Los Ifninos, the surfers of Sidi Ifni. They always
walked together, two or three, and drove around together, four or five, in a
dusty Renault, blasting the Sublime song that goes:
Early in the
morning, rising to the street,
Light me up
that cigarette and I strap shoes on my feet
Got to find
the reason, reason things went wrong,
Got to find
a reason why the money's all gone.
The Renault
would stop in front of the old hotel that held the Ifni surf shop and you would
hear four sets of feet go inside and up the six flights of stairs to the
rooftop terrace where they could check the surf out front and yell down at
their friends on the street. If three of four surfers run around together in
America they are friends. In Morocco, four surfers feels like a political
movement. Everywhere they go becomes their place. When they paddle out to the
break at Legzira they turn it into their performance space, yelling and cursing
each other, dropping into the hollow waves there, getting swallowed whole by
tubes and racing against each other for the best waves.
Our first
conversation. I introduced myself: a surfer from California.
"California!
You are a great surfer then!"
"Not
exactly."
"We are
going to Legzira. You must come."
"The
waves are better there?"
"Yes.
Yes. Much better at Legzira. It is beautiful there. Long beach. Big
arches."
What about
the waves here? I pointed out at the break in front of my hotel, a nicely
shaped A-frame breaking outside.
"No,
no. Too far out. Too much paddle."
They were a
crew, a band of brothers. They wanted ride fast waves close in where their
friends on shore could see how good they were.
"Come
with us to Legzira! First we get the beers! Then we get the waves!"
"Okay."'
We piled
into the Renault and everyone put on sunglasses and began singing, "Early
in the morning, rising to the street..."
On the road
to Legzira, a few miles up the coast, we talked about waves and women, which in
Sidi Ifni are the two eternal subjects, one chasing the tail of the other.
Waves and women: you can talk about them forever and never repeat yourself.
They are the same because every single one of them is different: each wave,
each woman arises from different conditions, products of storms and pressures,
born of the longings and fevers not only of their individual origins but of the
whole ocean. Each has its own personality, each must be addressed differently
and to catch it you must look directly into it and read its heart before it can
be caught.
Nabil, the
Ifnino seated next to me, told me about his trips into the dance clubs of
Agadir, a city of a half million up the coast.
“Every night
I go and dance and meet women." Talking to Nabil is like talking to your
id in knock off Ray Bans. He is a wave-riding Casanova, a Moroccan Borat,
describing impossible conquests. The only difference is that he knows the joke
is on him.
At Legzira,
we roll to Oscar's house, a pink three storey built into the side of a blood
red cliff. There are people setting up outside with boards and wetsuits. Inside
a gloriously fat woman works in the kitchen. Upstairs a dozen locals sit around
about drinking Especial, a lager brewed in Casablanca. A beach house like this
is everything you could want: a clubhouse, a promenade, a dive, a school, a
restaurant and a theater to watch your friends ride the fat swells the Atlantic
unfurls at you.
After a few
drinks, we pull on our wetsuits and paddle out. It does not look good. The
waves, while big, are crossing each other at bad angles, canceling each other
out and making a mess of the water. Where there should be clean lines of waves
passing through the water, there is instead a storm-tossed anarchy that the eye
can barely make sense of, like an endlessly rumpled bedspread. I catch a couple
waves but after an hour of battling the chop my arms are exhausted. Paddling
in, one of the crew tells me that Nabil dropped in on a big wave and snapped
his board in half.
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Casablanca / Morocco Board News -- My kids were born in the US and did
not have time, nor the desire to take the trip into the city to deal with the
Moroccan Embassy in Washington.
So I had the
bright idea to register my kids in Morocco. So I started my Quest.
The first step
is to create what is called a "hala madania"/ or family Civil
Record book. You get this in the "Moukataa" / or the local government
Office where your father or you were born. If you were not born in Morocco, you
go to the "Moukataa" / Local government Office where your
father registered you. Once you do this, they give you the "extrait"
or copy from your father's "hala madania" / family Civil Record
- you then take this with your marriage contract (notarized of course) and the
Hala Madania location of your wife and put in your request for the "Hala
Madania" (family Civil Record) book.
Once you get
the "hala madania"/ family Civil Record, you then have to go to the
"Moukataa" / Local government Office where you live in Morocco
and visit the "Hala madania" section, once there, you give the women
there a copy of your kids birth certificate and a copy of your name page from
your "Hala Madania" book and your wife's page from her "hala
madania" book - they will then give you a paper that says that your
child is NOT registered. This then allows you to begin the process of
registering your child in Morocco...
The Next step
is the court house. You go to the Court house "Sandoq" (box area) -
at the "Sandoq" they will expect you to NOT have all of the paperwork
you need, but you will see the expression of surprise on their face if you come
prepared! You need to bring your kids original birth certificate, and a copy of
it (no need to translate it, it seems) You also need to bring another notarized
copy of your marriage certificate, your father's "hala madania" /
family Civil Record book, and two of those green "akd alziad"/
Birth Certificates , one for yourself and the other for your wife. You then
start what amounts to a full day project and one picture of yourself and a
letter from the equivalent of the law office across the street - very cheap for
them to write the letter for you, they know what to put in it, you just have to
make sure they don't make any spelling mistakes. Remember, EVERYTHING in Moroccan
courts is done in Arabic.
Now here is
the key to getting this done in ONE day, you have to follow your own file from
one place to another. It is actually almost comical, as you go to one room
where they stamp the paper, then you go to the room next door to get it signed,
then you go upstairs to have another guy sign it, and then to another room to
get it stamped, I am NOT kidding, in all you end up going to 6 different rooms
- TWICE!! Essentially, you visit 6 offices in order to get the paper ready for
the Judge to sign it and you have to visit each of those same rooms to have
them notate that the Judge has signed it before giving you the one piece of
paper. But if you start at 9 am, you can get the letter - equivalent of order
to register your kids on your hala madania by the end of the day.
Once you get
the piece of paper, you make a photo copy of it, and you take the original and
leave photo copies of your kids birth certificates and an "extrait"
or copy from your "hala madania" /family Civil Record and come
back about a week later to pick up the "hala madania"/ family
Civil Record a with your kids inside of it.
Once you get
this "hala madania"/ family Civil Record with your kids names
inside of it, you take it to the CNSS office and you can have your kids
registered in your CNSS (moroccan Social Security) This will allow you to
collect 200 DH per month for each of your first two kids from the Govt -
additionally this entitles you to include them in your government sponsored
Health Insurance - for example a visit to the doctor for the kids check up
costs 200 DH - you will get back 140 DH - the good part is that you also get
back 70% spent on all prescription drugs/immunizations.
I suggest that
you be patient, smile when you feel like yelling and maintain a pleasant
disposition. There are some very good people who work within the court system,
and some very good people at all points along the process - but there are a few
angry people too... bottom line, it is like anywhere, you have good and bad.
The big downside, is that there is no real place where your complaints will be
taken seriously - but the same is true if you ever decide to file a complaint
against a police officer in NYC... they can attack you with a baton for no good
reason, you can take pictures of the bruises, have video and the Civilian
complaint review board will still come back with a standard, "not enough
evidence to proceed" letter - that is unless you are white and rich and
get media attention for your incident prior to beginning the process.
Money and power in the US go hand in hand.
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Morocco announces pay hikes for imams.By Hassan Benmehdi 2011-10-07
A salary increase for imams aims to curb the spread of
fundamentalist ideas in Moroccan mosques.
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Forty-six thousand imams across Morocco will receive a
pay boost starting the beginning of next year, the Ministry of Habous and
Islamic Affairs announced last week.
An estimated 541 million dirhams will be allocated to
benefit imams. In addition, the monthly supplement paid to religious preachers
will be up by 300 dirhams.
The government will continue to work to improve the
financial, professional and social standing of imams to reflect their important
role in society and the work they do in the mosques, the religious affairs
ministry said in a statement.
The reactions to the announcement ranged from applause to
scepticism to outright criticism.
The decision will motivate imams to "become more
involved in reforming religious life, and fighting the wave of extremist
ideologies flooding in from abroad and undermining Morocco’s spiritual and
religious unity", a member of the Religious Council of Ulema in Casablanca
said on the condition of anonymity.
According to journalist Hassan Mennani, it is important
to understand that extremism lingers in the background of the Moroccan
religious scene. The state always demonstrates that succumbing to
fundamentalist disorder is not an option, he added.
"The announcement of the pay review for imams, who
are the main actors in religious reforms and the guarantors of spiritual
stability, fits perfectly into that context," said Mennani, who
specialises in religious affairs.
Some preachers think that the measure is long overdue.
"They should have started off with this, or restored
the mosques which are falling down, rather than providing televisions for the
mosques, for example," said preacher Si Hassan, whose monthly salary is
4,000 dirhams (360 euros). Si Hassan went on to say that most imams ran a small
business alongside their religious activities to provide for their needs and
relied on patronage.
"We are going to continue campaigning for a real
re-structuring of our profession," vowed Si Abdellah, an imam in the old
medina of Casablanca. "We also want to see the Ministry of Habous become a
democratic department. We are determined to keep up our efforts until that
happens, but in the meantime we hope the Ministry of Habous will manage to
engage in a responsible dialogue with the imams."
The harshest reaction came from the League of Imams of
Amir Al Mouminine. The body, which represents Moroccan imams, on Monday
(October 3rd) released a statement, describing the move as pointless and
ridiculous. The increase will do nothing to improve imams' daily lives, they
said.
The league criticised what they described as the
unilateral way in which the ministry deals with the imams' demands and
suggested that imams be integrated into civil service on a minimum monthly wage
of 3,000 dirhams.
Nevertheless, they insisted a dialogue should take place
between the religious affairs ministry and imams, and that their grievances and
demands be dealt with through a modern and democratic institutional framework.
Imams in the mosques run by the ministry receive a
minimum monthly allowance of 1,100 dirhams, in addition to a supplementary
allowance of 500 dirhams for any imam who also works as a khatib.
In their first-ever protest, imams last June staged a
sit-in in Rabat to air their discontent and complain about a lack of respect
towards them.
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Global Arab
Network - As rail passenger numbers continue to multiply, the construction of
Morocco’s planned high-speed rail network, set to enter service in 2015, is
picking up speed. The project, which is being developed along with plans to
upgrade and increase the capacity of the standard-gauge rail network, is
attracting major institutional financing, Global Arab Network reports according
to OBG.
The number
of Moroccan rail passengers increased to 31m in 2010, up by 4.7% on 2009
figures. Passenger numbers have risen every year since 2004, increasing at a
compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of approximately 9%. The distance passengers
are traveling has been growing even faster, rising by 5% to 4.4bn km in 2010,
with a CAGR of approximately 10% since 2004.
Rail freight
has had a tougher ride, with both tonnes transported and freight tonne
kilometres (FTK) having fallen during the global downturn in 2008 and 2009.
However, both rebounded strongly in 2010, with tonnes transported growing by
44% on 2009 figures to 36m tonnes in 2010, while FTK jumped by 36% in the same
period.
The upward
trajectory looks poised to continue through 2011, with rail passenger numbers
in the first half of the year growing by 13% on the same period in 2010 to 17m.
An additional 3.6m people used the train network in July for a total average of
120,000 customers per day, compared with an average of around 84,000 in 2010.
In line with
this growth in demand, the Moroccan government is investing heavily in both
rolling stock and track. The largest investment project by far is the country’s
planned high-speed rail line, which will run between the economic capital
Casablanca and the major north-eastern port city of Tangier. The project will
cost an estimated Dh20bn (€1.78bn) and is set to begin service in December
2015. It is expected to reduce the travel time between the two cities from five
hours, 45 minutes to two hours, 10 minutes, with a maximum speed of 320 km per
hour along a 200-km stretch of the line. The authorities predict that 6m
passengers will travel on the high-speed network annually.
In late July
Mohamed Smouni, the director of development for the National Office for
Railways of Morocco (Office National des Chemins de Fer du Maroc, ONCF), told
press that the project was proceeding on schedule, assuring that the ONCF and
its partners were in the process of wrapping up preparatory works and were
moving towards commencing work on the civil engineering phase of the project.
French
President Nicolas Sarkozy in early September indicated that he would travel to
Tangier at the end of month to attend the beginning of construction works on
the line, a reflection of the fact that French companies are heavily involved
in the project. French national railway company SNCF will be in charge of
designing, building and operating the rolling stock and maintaining the track.
The French
firm Alstom in December last year signed a €400m deal with the ONCF to provide
14 high-speed double-decker trains that are to be assembled in Morocco, each
able to carry at least 533 passengers. In June Alstom also signed an agreement
with French cable manufacturer Nexans to create a joint venture firm that will
produce cables and other equipment to be used in this project, as well as in
the Casablanca urban tram network project, in which Alstom is also involved.
France,
along with a number of other European countries, is also channelling loans and
grants to the Moroccan project, worth some Dh2bn (€177m). Financing has come
from further abroad as well, and in July the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic
Development agreed to provide a loan of Dh712m (€63m) towards the high-speed
network.
Other
segments of the country’s rail system are also attracting financing. In March
the African Development Bank finalised an agreement to lend Morocco €300m
towards a planned Dh5.1bn (€453m) project to increase the capacity of the
Marrakech-Tangier line as a whole. The line accounted for 16m passengers in
2010, just over half of all Moroccan rail traffic. The capacity expansion
project is part of a wider Dh12.8bn (€1.14bn) railway investment programme to
be carried out between 2010 and 2015. (OBG)
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Moroccan health sector criticised in corruption probe
By Siham Ali for Magharebia
2011-10-04
Corruption may be a
persistent problem in Moroccan hospitals, but the agency charged with fighting
it says many people fail to report instances of fraud.
The Moroccan health sector has a bad case of corruption.
Yet few members of the public are prepared to speak out. A recently published
study by the Central Authority for the Prevention of Corruption (ICPC) found that few incidents were reported
by citizens.
Less than 1% of the population said that they had spoken
out against a corrupt activity, according to the study, the results of which
were presented September 26th in Rabat.
Where people have spoken out against corruption, it most
frequently involved private clinics. None of the reported cases of corruption
involved public health centres, even though the problem remains significant.
Three out of every ten people said they had resorted to bribery to receive
healthcare, according to the report.
Members of the public remain sceptical that reporting
corruption will result in convictions. Sixty-three per cent of those surveyed
said that reporting corrupt activities was pointless or that officials would
not be prosecuted. The remaining 37% said they simply hope they don't run into
problems.
In order to address the issue and change public
attitudes, the ICPC signed an agreement with the health ministry September
27th. Health Minister Yasmina Baddou admitted that the problem exists, but she
said it should not be overstated.
Baddou said that raising awareness was essential to
prevent the public from falling victim to corrupt activities in public
hospitals, where a number of measures have been introduced.
"The public need to know their rights. For example,
a list of drugs to be supplied to patients has been put on display. Patients
must not pay for them," the minister said.
ICPC President Abdesselam Aboudrar called for a targeted
approach, dealing first with the corruption hot spots. In particular, he said
there should be an effort to establish good citizenship values, a restoration
of confidence in health services, improvements in how equipment and supplies
are managed, and greater controls, with better regulation and monitoring.
Health professionals interviewed for the study blamed
corruption on members of the public. According to an account from a nurse at a
provincial hospital in Casablanca, "patients and those accompanying them
now arrive planning bribery to receive favourable treatment, or simply to
receive the services to which they are entitled."
Users say that corruption in health services has become
an everyday occurrence. For more than half of those interviewed, it has become
normal, widespread behaviour.
Meanwhile, members of the public interviewed by
Magharebia said that no one wants to throw away their money and that it was the
healthcare professionals who extorted patients.
Mehdi, a 27-year-old man, told Magharebia that he went to
the University Hospital in Rabat two months ago after falling down the stairs
at home. The doctor refused to treat him, claiming he should go to the centre
in Sale, where he lives. In the end the doctor examined him, after his brother
slipped him 300 dirhams.
Mehdi did not report the incident. Instead he took the
doctor's number so that he could seek his help on future occasions.
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New York /
Morocco Board News-- The next government will have to sort out a
swelling Compensation Fund, an unfair taxation system, a galloping bureaucracy,
with the implications that unpopular policies will have to be implemented.
Another reason why the Democratic/Radical left engaged in boycotting next
elections:
The idea is,
the next government is very likely to collapse before us, partly because the
crisis -upcoming or current- will force its disintegration, and force the
regime to resort the the last card on the table, a genuine democratic reform. I
wish that was possible (but without the crisis bit, obviously) but the thing
is, we need a strong, homogeneous government to carry out these policies,
because otherwise it is going to be the same set of targets: Belkhayate,
Baddou and Abbas El Fassi, for all their perceived weaknesses and
corruption, are not really answerable to the people, first off because they
need not to account for before parliament, and second because government
coalition is too stretched on the ideological spectrum to afford a United We
Stand, genuine collective responsibility. Amazing though it may be, El
Fassi Government, originally predicted to fall within months or few years, held
forth and completed a 4-years tenure with minor adjustments.
The economic
policies I was referring to are not those bombastic lines displayed on makassib.ma I
am referring to the disturbing Article IV presented before IMF in September,
and the willingness displayed by finance minister Mezouar to carry on a 10%
budget cut. I am trying to figure out how: if indeed the 10% cuts are aimed at
unnecessary expenditures, then all the talks about good government ever since
DVD have been idle, and bureaucracy, rather than dying away, is back and well
and alive. That’s almost MAD 30Bn off the book…
The 2010 Bank
Al Maghrib annual report has been released a week ago: as usual, a great deal
of effort has been put in assessing the “Mood of the Nation’s Economy”.
Governor Jouahri has been quick to point out that government debt has grown to
alarming levels:
“Cette
évolution s’est traduite, malgré le léger redressement des recettes fiscales,
par un creusement du déficit hors privatisation, passé de 2,2% à 4,6% du PIB
ainsi que par une rupture de la tendance baissière du ratio de la dette
publique directe qui s’est établi à 50,3% au lieu de 47,1% du PIB. [...]
L’exercice
budgétaire de l’année 2010 a été essentiellement caractérisé par une
accélération du rythme de progression des dépenses, accompagnée d’une
modification notable de leur structure. En effet, les dépenses de compensation
ont plus que doublé d’une année à l’autre, sous l’effet du renchérissement des
matières premières, portant à 7% le taux de progression des dépenses
ordinaires, contre une baisse de 3,5% en 2009. En revanche, dans un contexte de
consolidation de la croissance non agricole, les dépenses d’investissement du
Trésor ont marqué une quasi-stabilité après quatre années de hausse rapide.” (pages 5 & 87)
Not that we
are back to the dark years of 1980s, but he has worried that compensation
expenses and the increase in public sector manpower might further the strain on
public finances, and subsequently, the economy as a whole. More interesting
though, the report introduces a new tool in its motley of charts, a tool I
believe might give us good indications on what we might not know. (I
recommend a great read on the model, as delineated in the 2007 annual Monetary
Report, pages 27-29)
The fan-chart
computes expected levels of inflation over a pre-specified time frame. Because
these projections are not fixed, the modernised variables are randomized such
that expected inflation has such and such confidence probability to be within
the boundaries of specific levels. Now, I trust BAM economists to be highly
competent and dedicated to their tasks, but I would very much like to know the
effective impact of government debt on their computations; it is a given to
consider government debt -especially domestic debt market- to push inflation
upwards. The intuitive argument being,the Moroccan government has to pay back
its debt with some nominal (face-value) interest rate. But, they can get away
with it by “printing money”, or even if they don’t, the expenditure would take
care of it, for instance by increasing public service payroll at a rate higher
than, say, GDP Growth, the famous “Too Much Money Chasing Too Few Goods”
line. But expected inflation remains very stable around 2%. I would argue that
no inflation rate at such (low) level can be achieved without a drastic halving
of public deficits (as Debt-to-GDP ratio remains within acceptable limits)
A left-wing
government would go “tax & spend”: close tax loopholes, re-institute -if
they can- the agricultural tax and the 42% marginal income tax, institute a
wealth tax on millionaires, cut VAT and Corporate tax deductions for
real-estate developers, etc. all of which can expand considerably
government receipts for 2-3years, enough to payback debt and bring it within
acceptable limits, while avoiding unnecessary social unrest. A right-wing
government would go “slash & burn”: keep the tax loopholes or go further in
alleviating the tax burden on corporates and individuals, while cutting public
expenditure, compensation fund or other. Government pay-check could also be
balanced, but to the risk of social unrest, food riots, and social resentment
going berserk. The next finance minister will have to be a bold wizard to
conciliate seemingly contradictory economics.
And so, the
need for a strong government coalition is not only in the interest of Haves,
but the Have-nots would also benefit from clear-cut decisions: either
their last safety net will fall and they shall stand up to a fairer income
distribution (a message the Feb20 movement can carry on pretty well) or benefit
from a change from within designed to bridge income and wealth gaps. In any
case, a weak coalition will just keep on postponing the inevitable: on minimum
wage, on income inequality, on healthcare coverage, on employment, pussyfooting
is not in the interest of anyone. I would welcome a homogeneous right-wing
government coalition -very similar to that of the Mâati Bouabid
government in 1979- as long as they have a free hand to implement their
policies, because we will then engage in a policy debate. With a weak
coalition, disharmonious voices within a fragile ship would deflect public
awareness from what the government does, to what petty politics goes inside it.
Grown up politics, and genuine care for those who will bear the brunt of any
economic crisis do dictate embracing the idea of strong government, so as to
level up both the playing field and civic awareness.
More than
ever, “it’s the
Economy, Stupid” rules all, and parties with convincing messages across the
economic topics can carry sympathy and votes with the electorate.
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Arab Art as an Early Indicator of
Revolution. By AIDA ALAMI Published: October 5, 2011
MARRAKESH, MOROCCO — Newly
deposed Arab dictators might have been well advised to have paid attention to
the works of their home-grown artists more closely: Many visualized the
revolutions in their countries long before they happened.
Take the photograph by the
Moroccan Hicham Benohoud, one of the pieces by dozens of artists shown at this
year’s Marrakech Art Fair, which was held from Sept. 30 to Oct. 3: It shows a
child physically tied to his environment, and it speaks with contempt for the
country’s social inequalities.
For the fair’s organizers,
there could not be a better moment to display these works as the world is
watching the region, and showing a particular interest in the art being created
here.
According to Brahim Alaoui,
who curated one of the fair’s shows, “Images Affranchies” (Liberated Images),
current events caught up with the works of the 18 artists shown in the
photography and video exhibition. While freeing themselves from traditional
formats, the artists have managed to break taboos to show the simmering discontent
that led to explosion, while at the same time expressing a craving for personal
freedom.
“Many of these artists have
tried to convey messages, ideas that converge toward the demands of people
across the Arab world: freedom of speech, social justice and emancipation,”
said Mr. Alaoui. “The general context eventually proved them right.”
The works on show reflect
the adamant demands by protesters across the region that led to the toppling of
leaders in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, showing the discontent and desperation in
countries crippled by corruption and injustice. They also position these
artists, whose desire for freedom was strongly reflected in their works, as
visionaries of the changes these countries were to undergo.
The Moroccan artist Mohammed
El Baz, whose complex installations combine sculpture, video, light and
photography, said his works were an attempt “to build a space of possibilities
to heal the incurable.”
Viewing them, they represent
an endless search for a solution to a grim fate. In his previous works, he also
imagined bodies caught on fire long before the Tunisian street vendor Mohamed
Bouazizi immolated himself.
The Egyptian photographer
Moataz Nasr tells the story of his country’s people through a series of
poignant pictures, among them, photos of “Eish,” the flat bread that is so
vital to the Egyptian people.
The Tunisian artist Faten
Chouba Skhiri says that even the arts were politicized under former President
Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali: For years, the state regulated the arts and decided
what artists should produce. Now, the revolution has energized artists, while
also giving them hope and newly acquired freedom that they are still learning
to work with.
“The revolution is not over
yet,” she said. “The real fear is that the revolution fails. We are in a
transitional period and we are still digesting extremely intense changes. There
is a very strong need for structures to encourage artists. We don’t even have
an art museum to see the evolution of our art.”
Giving visibility to the artists
was one of the main accomplishments of the Marrakech Art Fair, being held for
the second time. About 48 galleries were invited, attracting buyers, such as
the prestigious Pompidou Center in Paris, interested in this new generation of
contemporary artists.
The French heiress Elisabeth
Bauchet-Bouhlal, who inherited the Es Saadi Palace that hosted the fair and
considers the country her home, has also helped to finance it. She says she is
a lifelong believer in the promotion of artists and insists that collectors
should fully realize how much they could help local artists by buying their
pieces instead of shopping for art abroad.
People in the Arab world
“are starting to understand that interesting things are happening in their own
countries,” she said. “They are realizing that they can find fine pieces of art
here without having to go abroad. It is great to start having a Tunisian
presence in art fairs. And since the revolution, slowly more collectors are
starting to pay attention to what our artists are producing.”
Some say that while the
artists are getting more exposure, the Arab Spring is only the bud waiting to
bloom.
“Before expecting foreign
art collectors to buy the works of our artists, it’s extremely important that
we encourage them locally,” said Lilia Ben Salah, owner of the gallery Al Marsa
in Tunis, standing in front of a photograph of street graffiti of scrawled
messages of freedom taken by Rym Karoui during the Tunisian revolution.
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10/06/11
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Irit
Neidhardt
Although
many of the films shot in Morocco ostensibly deal with the country's social
problems, they tend to ignore the real social and political ills...
At the
beginning of September, the Zentrum Moderner Orient and the Arsenal
– Institute for Film and Video Art in Berlin, Germany, organized a film
festival entitled "Upheaval and Diversity – The Moroccan Film
Days".
The nine
films screened during the event were produced between 2001 and 2010. During
this period, a total of 120 film productions were completed in Morocco.
According to
co-organizer Sonja Hegasy, the selection criteria for the Berlin program was
to present work that broke the silence on controversial issues in Moroccan
society and to show that the country has been undergoing a gradual change over
the course of many years.
Diversity
of life experiences in Morocco
The Moroccan
Film Days opened with a showing of Narjiss Nejjar's Les Yeux Secs (al-Ouyoun
al-Jafa, France/Morocco 2003), a recipient of numerous prizes, which
deals with the issue of prostitution in Morocco. Director Mohamed Cherif
Tribak's first feature length film, Le Temps des Camarades (Zaman
al-Rufaq, Morocco 2008), focuses on the conflicts between Marxist and
Islamic student groups in the early 1990s.
In her
documentary film Nos Lieux Interdits (Amakinouna al-Mamnouaa,
France/Morocco 2008), Leila Kilani portrays the work of the truth commission
set up to address human rights abuses under King Hassan II. Yasmine Kassari's
film L'Enfant Endormi (Arraguad, Morocco/Belgium 2004) examines the
lives of women left behind when their husbands go to seek work in Europe. Mirages
(Ayam al-Wahm, Morocco 2010) by Talal Selhami combines elements of
horror, thriller, and fantasy films to reveal the abyss of the contemporary
work environment in the country. The program was not only prolific in terms
of topics, but also cinematic styles.
Tellingly
aloof
Almost all
of the films, however, seem aloof towards their characters and unfamiliar
with the country or the topic of the film. What could be the reason for this?
In part, the phenomenon can be explained by the fact that many of the
directors do not live in Morocco and, in some cases, were born abroad.
These
filmmakers have been especially targeted to make their films in Morocco, as
the state has been investing in cinema production for the past few years.
Morocco has long been a popular film location for historical Hollywood
dramas. A whole industry has been built up in the oasis city of Ouarzazate
with the goal of attracting foreign investment. Now, domestic film production
is also meant to profit from this infrastructure.
There
haven't been enough interested filmmakers in Morocco to spend the allotted funds
exclusively within the country, which is why cineastes with a Moroccan
immigrant background from abroad have been welcomed to apply for the film
subsidies. At the same time, hardly any film can be completed solely on the
basis of Arab financing. Co-productions with European parties are therefore
necessary to ensure production costs.
Definitory
power of history and politics
The
dissonant aspects of the films might also be explained in social or political
terms. In developing and emerging countries, access to financing for film
production, an extremely expensive proposition, is in most cases limited a
very narrow group of upper and middle class individuals with good connections
to Europe. Accordingly, they make films that attract financing, usually on themes
dealing with backwardness and poverty in the widest possible sense.
The films
rarely provide an insider's view of any given situation, but, instead,
social, economic, political, and ethnic conflicts find themselves written
into the subtext of the film, making use of the definitory power of
historical and political values.
The
difficulty with breaching taboos is that although this can often be
pertinent, there is the simultaneous tendency to simplify, sometimes falsify,
and only rarely to analyse.
Les
Yeux Secs, for
example, is set in a remote Amazigh (Berber) village in the Atlas Mountains.
For generations, only women have lived in the village. Men can only set foot
here under a full moon and exclusively for money.
The three
main characters, Hala, Mina and Fahd, are played by professional actors
considered to be among Morocco's celebrities. The TV star and singer Siham
Assif plays Hala, while Khalil Benchegra, who portrays Fahd, has played in
main or major supporting roles in Hollywood films that have been shot in
Ouarzazate. Raouia, who plays Mina, was last seen in European cinemas in
Xavier Beauvois' Of Gods and Men.
All of the
other performers were cast from three villages in the region. In the film,
they only speak Amazigh, whereas the professional actors communicate in
Arabic. During casting for the well-paid jobs as extras, the women were told
that the film would deal with the issue of prostitution. Details were not
discussed.
After the
extras had viewed Les Yeux Secs in the cinema in the city, they realized
that the completed film reduced the problem of prostitution to the Atlas
Mountain region and thereby attributed the problem solely to Berber women.
Thirty-five women, supported by eight men, attempted to have further
screenings of the film banned.
Trafficking
of women who are then sexually exploited is a massive problem in Morocco,
although Moroccan women are primarily trafficked abroad in other Arab
countries and in Europe. For years, the UNHCR has criticized the government
for remaining inactive on the issue.
The
Berber women had no real chance of success with their suit, as the director
had concluded written contracts with the illiterate extras before the start
of production and was thereby legally protected.
The region
around Tizi Nisly, where the film is set, is primarily known in Morocco for
the bloodiest uprising by Berber tribes against the French colonial powers.
The region was subsequently punished with a 24 year long embargo, which was
upheld after independence by the Moroccan Arab royalty. To this day, the
Berber population is still fighting to obtain basic infrastructure such as
roads, running water, and electricity.
Wilfully
ignoring facts
In her
documentary film Nos Lieux Interdits, Leila Kilani focuses on four
families of former political prisoners and victims of torture under the reign
of King Hassan II. The current king, Mohammed VI, wants to examine the political
injustices that took place under his father and has set up a truth
commission. The commission is controversial in that perpetrators are not
allowed to be named in statements by witnesses.
The
documentary, financed by the Moroccan truth commission and various French
film subsidy organisations, opens with historical information for the viewer.
Among other things, it states that "in 1956, the Kingdom of Morocco
achieved its independence. Since the early 1960s and increasingly in the
1970s and 1980s, Moroccan authorities have employed torture and kidnapping in
order to silence opposition."
There is no
mention of the fact that previously, under French colonial rule, and later,
under the current monarch, political imprisonment, violence, and torture in
prisons took place and takes place now. This is a clear political stance,
which raises many questions about the film.
Film
programs about foreign cultures by their very nature present small, often
distorted excerpts of life that should be accompanied by critical material.
When a film is given a proper context and setting, then even isolated
examples can offer a deeper glimpse into the complexities of a country.
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Great photos of Morocco:
Morocco’s ancient wonders
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We arrived in
Tissa in the early morning. Festivities and competition was not due to start
until around 9.30 am, so we spent time chatting with locals and checking out
the magnificent horses as they were prepared for the big event - the Fantasia.
In the hours before the competition began, the contestants and their mounts
were extremely busy. Every last detail of equipment was checked, saddles made
ready and the rifles, that play such a dramatic part in the event, were loaded
and discharged.
There was also
a fair bit of horse-trading, with good horses selling for between 4000 and 9000
Euro. The Tissa Horse Festival re-lives Morocco's rich and often war-like
history. It's still extremely daunting to see a line of warriors dressed in
white charging straight towards you on their spirited Arab stallions. Stopping
within centimetres of the wooden fence at the finish, they fire muzzle loaded
rifles in a deafening volley. On occasion a horse can't be restrained and
breaks through.
While the
Tissa Horse Festival is held in honour of a local patron saint, a fifteenth
century Holy man, called Sidi Muhammad ben Lahcen, the displays of skilled
horsemanship are primarily about speed, team work, discipline and
manoeuvrability.
Teams are
judged by officials who watch from in front and on both sides. The criteria
involved includes the neatness of the formation as it charges, the ability to
charge right up to the fence at the end of the field and the discharging of the
rifles in unison. It was an extraordinary event that thrilled the more
than four thousand spectators. There is no doubting the skills involved in this
"sport" - and no way of avoiding the fact that is also dangerous.
There were several minor spills, cuts and bruises during the morning events,
but, thankfully, only one serious incident in which a horse fell and crushed
the rider beneath him.
What was so
impressive was the speed in which first aid was available. It was no more than
five seconds after the accident before the ambulance officer sprinted assist. The
injured man was transported to hospital and his condition was not serious. By
the middle of the day, the competition was over and the teams paraded in front
of the official tents. It was good news for the local team, who took out the
first prize, closely followed by the horsemen of Fez.
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