Virtual Magazine of Morocco on the Web
Morocco Week in Review 
March 6, 2010

20 Years , 20 Moroccan American Events Project Takes Shape
Washington - February 28, 2010

The 20/20 celebration is about to begin in various locations throughout Washington, D.C. The mixture of academic, cultural, recreational and family events will start on March 1, 2010, and last through the end of the month. As Khalid Nahi notes, the 20 years celebration is “our celebration of unity and love for each other,” and the 20/20 events recognize “the leadership of WMC...for all of these years of service and community building.”
http://www.wmc20.org
--------------------------------------------

Peace Corps commends Colgate for volunteer spirit
By Anthony Adornato on February 11, 2010 Colgate University

In March, Ayanna Williams '08 will leave the hustle and bustle of Washington, D.C., where she works for a nonprofit organization, to embark on a mission that will take her to a small village in Morocco. As Williams begins her assignment as a Peace Corps volunteer, she follows in the footsteps of hundreds Colgate alumni who have left their mark on some of the more remote areas of the world.
"I'm both excited and nervous," she said. "I've been in contact with alumni who are on missions and they have been extremely helpful in letting me know what to expect."

With 19 alumni currently serving in the Peace Corps, Colgate is the seventh highest producer of volunteers among small colleges and universities, according to a ranking released last week by the organization."This ranking tells us that Colgate students have the courage and determination that it takes to live and work in a developing country," said B.J. Whetstine, a Peace Corps recruiter. "Colgate students truly have a volunteer spirit and a passion for helping others."

Since the Peace Corps was founded in 1961, 319 Colgate alumni have joined the Peace Corps. A mission lasts 27 months -- three months of training and two years of service -- and volunteers are placed deep within a culture, living side by side with those whom they serve.

Once on the ground in Morocco, Williams will serve as a rural community health educator, a position designed to address a range of community needs, including maternal health, sanitation issues, water quality, and early childhood development. She credits her Colgate experience -- particularly courses with a global focus as well as the emphasis on service-learning and study-abroad programs -- for laying the foundation for her Peace Corps mission."When I took Colgate trips abroad, it became clear how important public health issues were."

She was one of 12 students who spent three weeks in a remote Ugandan jungle as part of an interdisciplinary extended study course that involved research on rare mountain gorillas being conducted by Conservation Through Public Health, a grass-roots Uganda organization. Williams also studied in Australia for a semester."As I spent a short amount of time in other countries, I thought how immersing myself in other cultures would be very important to future career training," Williams said. "I also want to be an international citizen and come to appreciate and understand how privileged we are here."
http://blogs.colgate.edu/2010/02/peace-corps-commends-colgate-f.html
--------------------------------------------

From Morocco: Surprises keep coming at unexpected parties.
By (PCV) Alexandra Cash March 04, 2010

This is the story my first real Moroccan party. I didn’t know what was going on from the beginning and the picture just got less and less clear as the night went on. However, I found myself always wondering what was coming next just like a kid on Christmas morning. I was invited to go to a party at a one of my neighbors houses. Malika, my host mother, dressed me in one of her dresses and we got all dolled up to go. This house was big and beautiful. We first went into a sitting room full of only women where we ate tiny cookies and drank tea. We stayed there for about and hour and a half and I was wondering when we were going to leave because I was already so tired. But at about 9:30 pm some women began serving lots and lots of delicious food. First a gigantic plate of chicken came out for each table. We ate chicken and bread and drank Coke, and by that time I was completely full. THEN a gigantic plate of beef topped with prunes came out for each table. I should have expected this, but I was still shocked. In Morocco you should always expect lots of food to be served. Just when you think the meal is over, there is more.

After dinner was finished Malika took me upstairs and we went into the bedroom of one of the daughters of the house. I saw a girl with pale makeup on, a pretty updo, and a shiny green dress. At this moment I was convinced I was at a wedding. (I will just say now that I found out the next day that this was indeed just an engagement party.-not yet a wedding.) This beautiful girl and her sisters were chatting and primping and I got to be a part of it. The bride-to -be was such a sweet girl and kept calling me beautiful, when I kept repeating the same to her.

Finally we moved into the upstairs sitting room which was bigger and more beautiful. We sat and socialized for a while then the bride and groom-to-be came into the room hand in hand while all the women chanted. They sat down at the head of the room where people preceded to take many pictures of them. At this time the groom presented the bride with her gifts of jewelry, which is customary of all Moroccan arranged marriages. Basically the groom buys the bride with jewelry.

Even though the bride-to-be was in her own home with her own family she was still very quiet and shy. She was so sweet, excited, and talkative in her room among her sisters and friends. I could tell she was probably nervous and scared as she is only 19 years old and her groom is probably at least several years older than her. The groom seemed like a very nice and charming man from what I could understand. The tables were full of more cookies, candies and cups of tea. The bride and groom-to-be fed each other dates as some kind of ritual that I could compare to a newlywed couple shoving wedding cake in one another mouths. Then everyone in the room got a small glass of milk and the couple fed each other milk just like they did with the dates.

The couple left the room apparently to change into other clothes, for what I don’t know why. While they were gone some of the younger girls started dancing, including myself. We tied scarves around our hips to give our bodies some shape in a shapeless dress. A good portion of the people in my town are Berber, the indigenous people of Morocco, so the women were singing traditional Berber wedding songs. It was really exciting, the energy was high and everyone was having fun. Some women were playing a small hand drum and calling out chants in order to get a response. We were dancing Moroccan style which involved a lot of hip shaking and flowing arm movements. I hope I was good at it, I could tell most of the women liked me. I was glad to make a good impression on them without having to speak.

The couple came back in with different clothes on and I’m not sure why they changed or what the changed represented. We danced some more and I enjoyed hanging out with the bride-to-be’s three younger sisters, who are all very sweet. When we were in her room the bride spoke to me a little bit in English so I already felt we had a bond. At certain times in the night I caught eye contact with her and tried to give her a supportive and reassuring smile to try to help her get though this night. At times I wished I could have held her hand to tell her that everything would be alright.

We did not leave until 2:30am and I had to get up in four hours. I will say I was tired the following day but it was incredibly worth it in order to be a part of a family celebration in Morocco.
http://www.mlive.com/living/jackson/index.ssf/2010/03/from_morocco_surprises_keep_co.html
-------------------------------------------

Freedom House highlights Morocco's achievements in women's rights.
Washington

The Washington-based organization Freedom House highlighted, on Wednesday, Morocco's achievements in terms of women's rights, particularly the increase of political representation and the 2004 Family Code reform. Moroccan women "continue to make gains politically, and a 12 percent quota was implemented for the June 2009 local elections, substantially increasing female political representation on this level", Freedom House said in a study on women's rights in the Middle East and North Africa region.

The American NGO also shed light on the "sweeping changes" engrained in the 2004 family law and the new nationality law which enables Moroccan women married to noncitizen men to pass their nationality to their children. Women in Morocco made progress in other fields, Freedom House said, noting that they may "travel without a guardian's approval, lead their business ventures and advance to higher levels of education in greater numbers, in addition to negotiate their marriage rights."

The Washington-based NGO added that Morocco has made progress in protecting women from domestic violence through consolidating support networks for victims.
http://www.map.ma/eng/sections/home/freedom_house_highli/view
---------------------------------------

Morocco, USA sign environment cooperation action plan.
Rabat

Morocco and the United States signed on Tuesday a joint cooperation action plan in the fields of environment protection and sustained development. This action plan, signed by Moroccan secretary of state in charge of Water and Environment Abdelkebir Zahoud and US ambassador in Rabat Samuel Kaplan in presence of US deputy Assistant Secretary for Environment Daniel Reifsnyder, seeks to foster institutional cooperation between the countries in the fields of environment policies, the preservation of biodiversity, management of protected zones and other important eco-system sites.

Sealed on the occasion of the Morocco-US environment cooperation forum held in Rabat, this ambitious action plan is also destined to improve the private sector environment actions and enhance the public participation in the process of decision-making and promotion of environment protection culture.

Speaking on this occasion, Zahoud stressed the importance Morocco grants to the issues of environment and sustained development, recalling in this regard the national charter drawn for the environment and sustained development. For his part, US Ambassor to Morocco said the signing of this joint action plan shows the solid partnership between Rabat and Washington, underlining the need to protect the environment, while Reifsnyder hailed Morocco's environment-friendly actions and initiatives.
http://www.map.ma/eng/sections/social/morocco_usa_sign_en/view
--------------------------------------------

Between growth and development
05/03/2010

Morocco has been undergoing much economic hustle for the last decade. The central objective of this is to make up for the economic delay, narrow the enormous social disparities and give rise to a true middle class, which is the motor of development in any country.
Hence, the country has implemented a number of macro-economic, sectoral and infrastructural reforms.

It was thought at the beginning that this would help Morocco find the virtuous path of a just, stable, durable and above all fair growth, whose impact is felt at all the levels of the population, especially amongst the most disadvantaged. It was thought that this growth would be fairly distributed between the regions of the kingdom, in order to curb the disparities between rural and urban areas. It was thought would be more human because it is more social. In a nutshell, growth at the service of sustainable development.

But has this really taken place? Ten years after the implementation of this vision, a progress report should be drawn up. In fact, if we rely solely on the figures available, we can say that the results, from an accounting point of view, though encouraging, remain modest. Of course, the effects of the crisis on the Moroccan economy, which are quite severe in some sectors, should be taken into consideration, but some major trends can still be identified.

Firstly, at the level of our economic fundamentals, as Morocco has been presented as a model student in this regard, the results are mixed. Growth was very inadequate in the year 2009, a modest recovery is projected for 2010. We then should wait till 2011 at best to see a full recovery. For its part, the trade balance is terrible, due to the lack of a real vision in our export policy and, more importantly, it is no longer offset by tourism revenues and transfers of Moroccans living abroad. Likewise, the flow of foreign investments, steadily rising in recent years, reached their nadir in 2008 and 2009.

More over, Morocco's rating in terms of business climate has extremely deteriorated between 2008 and 2009. As it was expected, Morocco's rating among risk countries has also worsened. The only positive aspect in these fundamentals is the control of inflation and the achievement of a budget surplus for the first time in its history, thanks to the tax reform undertaken in recent years.

But here again, caution is needed since the state revenues under the 2010 budget is promising many surprises. A number of promises related to the improvement of Moroccans purchasing power will not be delivered. And the impasse blocking the Social Dialogue is already a result.

Naturally, optimists could always console themselves by saying that Morocco has a number of ambitious and proactive sectoral plans. But what about its practical applicability on the ground, what about the fact that these plans have not been designed by the ones primarily concerned, that is Moroccans, but by research agencies from foreign countries. We can legitimately wonder about the knowledge that the experts of these agencies really have about Morocco, about how these experts carried out their work, and finally about the overall adequacy of these plans adopted with great fanfare.

In sum, we have moved from the dictatorship of international institutions, with all that this has cost Morocco in social terms, to the dictatorship of consulting agencies, as if Morocco does not have adequate resources to reflect on its own future. How can such Plans work under these conditions?

Finally, as we said earlier, a growth that does not serve the social and human purposes is incomplete. What about the social balance in Morocco? It appears that the neo-liberal economic policy inspired by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank has created no better social balance. We have not yet achieved a significant reduction of unemployment. And the same thing can be said about social and territorial disparities.

The development of unemployment rate in Morocco reflects this failure, as it does not fall to sufficient levels, mainly for the urban youth and graduates. Even worse, the inequality in educational supply creates long term mass unemployment in popular neighborhoods, which constitute a fertile ground for illegal immigration or terrorism.

These social disparities are more conspicuous in urban areas, between residential and suburban neighborhoods. This latter, marked by lawlessness and uncontrolled growth, could eventually lead to social instability problems for the state. Not to mention the negative impact of inequality in the countryside, and the growth of the informal sector from which many families win their bread.

What is then the way out? For a true and inclusive youth integration policy, there needs to be a general overhaul of our educational and training system, an integrated development vision based on regional development, and finally the participation of citizens in the development process of their country. This is the path to follow if Morocco wants to reconcile with development.
http://www.moroccobusinessnews.com/Content/Article.asp?idr=18&id=1415
---------------------------------------------------

World Bank to double loans to Morocco to $2.4 bln.
Tue Feb 16, 2010 RABAT (Reuters)

The World Bank plans to double loans to Morocco to $2.4 billion through 2013 to support the country's efforts to reduce mass poverty and spur growth, Moroccan government and bank officials said on Tuesday. "The World Bank will increase its loans to Morocco to $600 million per year for the 2010-2013 period from $300 million annually in the previous years as a signal of the credibility of its development programme and reforms," Economic Affairs Minister Nizar Baraka said.

In a presentation of government strategy to reporters, Baraka and World Bank officials said the government aimed in the next few years to improve governance, expand access to basic services like drinking water, implement financial reforms and boost the competitiveness of small businesses in cities and rural areas. "Improving democracy and good governance are the key for a balanced and sustainable development," Baraka said.

Morocco has averaged 5 percent economic growth annually over the past five years but the government says that is not fast enough to reduce poverty, which affects more than five million people, or improve living conditions for the mostly farming population in remote areas. The government aims to increase spending on social development programmes. They include building roads and schools in remote villages, providing food subsidies, and offering cash incentives to encourage poor families to ensure their children keep going to school.
The World Bank said it would finance in the next few years a rural transport scheme worth 500 million euros, as well as microfinance schemes and projects to allow poor people and small firms to access banking services. It would also support upgrading of small farming businesses.

Farming accounts for up to 17 percent of the economy and about 40 percent of Morocco's population of more than 30 million depends on the sector for its livelihood. Most of the country's farmers tend small areas of less than five hectares and have little access to traditional banking services.
http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE61F0GU20100216
--------------------------------------------

Morocco's organic farming is growin: Community supported agriculture is sprouting in Morocco.
By Erik German - GlobalPost Published: February 16, 2010 SHOUL, Morocco

On a 50-acre farmstead outside the country’s capital, the scene did little to evoke agriculture on the cutting edge: Two lanky men in mud boots labored across a loamy field. Slowly and by hand, they dropped seeds into rows of furrowed dirt. Behind them, a third man guided a horse-drawn harrow that looked as old as farming itself, covering each kernel with a layer of coffee-brown earth.

As this trio of laborers planted winter peas, they were practicing a form of agriculture that counts as innovative even in Europe or the United States. The operation is completely organic and its owner, Mustapha Belhacha, 31, has struck a deal with a group of urban families to buy his produce half a year before it comes out of the ground. “We take the money in advance, with checks, in a way that’s truly new,” Belhacha said. “This system is more consistent, it gives us time to think about what we need to plant, what the customers want.”

Belhacha has joined what may be Morocco’s first association dedicated to Community-Supported Agriculture, or CSA. The group’s founders aim to change the way farming is done in this North African nation. The surging popularity of organic food in the United States and Europe has been matched by a steady rise in organic farming in the developing world. The amount of land under organic cultivation worldwide has more than doubled since 2000, according to the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements, a non-profit trade group based in Bonn, Germany. According to the group’s latest survey, more than one third of the world’s 79 million acres or organic farmland are in Latin America, Asia or Africa.

Operations like Belhacha’s — in which small, organic farmers contract with local customers to deliver weekly baskets of in-season produce — make up a still-smaller subset of this number. But experts on this kind of localized, personalized farming say the model is well-suited to take off in countries where agriculture has not yet been completely overtaken by heavy industry.

“I think CSA has tremendous potential in the developing world,” said Steven McFadden, author of “Farms of Tomorrow,” and several other books on community-supported agriculture. “It doesn’t necessarily require the kinds of inputs that industrial agriculture relies on.”
The forerunners to the modern CSA model first appeared in Japan and Switzerland during the 1960s and 1970s. The movement then spread to America in the mid 1980s, starting with just two farms in rural New Hampshire and Massachusetts and growing to include more than 12,000 operations today, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department.

Now similar partnerships between consumers and growers are taking root on the temperate, cactus-lined farms of Morocco.
The founders of Belhacha’s CSA group, called Sala Almoustaqbal, began with little more than enthusiasm, a garden and a friend’s garage. Touriya Atarhouch was a biologist by profession but three years ago she decided to indulge and expand her passion for gardening. She and her husband, Najib Bendahman, with the support of several friends hungry for organic produce, started their own farm and convinced two other growers to retool their operations.

In exchange for doing so, the farmers were promised a steady salary of about $1,200 each month.“Plenty of farmers came to us at first, saying this is super interesting, 10,000 dirhams a month is good. But what does that entail? It entails working every day, from morning to night, and all year long,” Atarhouch said. “It’s a continuous, diversified production. You’re always learning. There are always problems, so it’s not easy. That’s why we don’t have that many new farmers joining the project.”

They have graduated from handing out produce in a co-founder’s garage to doing so at an upscale school in Rabat, Morocco’s capital city. She estimates the 100 customers in their network pay about 20 percent more for their vegetables than they would at neighborhood markets. As a result, the group’s clientele — about half of whom are foreigners, half Moroccan — tend to be educated and affluent. As the program grows, Atarhouch said she hopes to be able to offer weekly vegetable packages priced within reach of working-class Moroccans. “Honestly we cannot help both growers and consumers at this point,” she said. “There’s less support converting to organic in Morocco than there is the U.S. and France. We have to take care of ourselves. So that means for the moment, we can only help the growers.” Besides the steady pay, the project’s farmers cite other benefits of going organic. “Chemical fertilizers are expensive,” said Radouane Elkhallouki, who runs a farm a few miles south of Belhacha’s. “We cut costs by using plant and animal waste — which also help the land stay productive.”

The slightly higher cost hasn’t seemed to diminish enthusiasm for the project’s produce in Rabat. The waiting list to join the group is 100 families long, with friends of departing expats jostling for rare open spots. “I have a little boy and it’s much better to give him organic than chemical vegetables,” said Saloua Mnissar, 37, who joined the group six months ago. But what does she think is the biggest advantage organic produce? “The taste,” she said, “the taste.”
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/morocco/100213/moroccos-organic-farming-growing
--------------------------------------------
Amazigh rights issue pits Moroccan Berbers against Islamists.
By Anouar Hamama – 26/02/10

Many Moroccans want greater respect for the country's Amazigh heritage, but not everyone agrees there is a problem. Lahoucine Amouzay, like many Berbers, wants greater rights and respect for Morocco's Amazigh citizens. His activism puts him at odds with those who want an exclusively Arab and Islamic identity for Morocco."We live in the margins," Amouzay told Magharebia. "All we get are promises. If we don't fight, we'll always be seen as a backward people."

The Amazigh, commonly known as Berbers, were Morocco's first inhabitants and still account for about 60 percent of the country's nearly 32 million citizens. But Amazigh activists say they are treated like a minority by members of the dominant Arab culture.
Even in Agadir, where Berbers are comparatively affluent and powerful, every day is a struggle, according to Amouzay. Like much of Morocco, Agadir has a huge gap between the poor and the wealthy. Islamists usually blame this inequality on Western influences and capitalism, while Amazigh activists often blame the Arab community and Islamist sway.

Amouzay studies Amazigh culture at Ibn Zohr University of Agadir, one of only three schools in the country with such a programme. Even the lush university courtyard is starkly divided. Posters about Amazigh political prisoners and protests line one side, while fliers about Islamist prayer groups dot the other. Most Amazigh activists wear T-shirts and Western clothing, in contrast to the Islamists' more traditional dress.

"We fight all the time ... [t]hey tear our posters down", Amouzay said. "They say we should be good Muslims, speak Arabic, and join the Arab world. They say we invent our problems, create our heritage."

One focal point for that heritage is the Royal Institute of the Amazigh Culture (IRCAM) outside of Rabat. The institute was set up in October 2001 by royal decree, as part of a series of reforms intended to meet domestic Amazigh demands. Other changes followed, including adding Amazigh language classes in schools across Morocco and the official adoption of an Amazigh script.

According to IRCAM member Amina Ibnou-Cheikh, the reforms begun by King Mohammed VI, while well-intentioned, are weak in comparison with ongoing injustices. For instance, only Arabic names can be registered for Moroccan children. And although the majority of the people speak Amazigh languages, these tongues do not share Arabic's official standing.

At the government-run Institute of Studies and Research for Arabicisation (IERA) not far from IRCAM, an administrator who requested anonymity said Amazigh identity had become a "minefield" that most officials avoid discussing. He claimed that the IERA aims only to Arabicise the government, not the people. After Morocco gained independence from the French in 1956, he said, the government was run using a muddled mix of French and Arabic. Therefore, the IERA aims to standardise the terminology of modern science and "civilisation" as used in the Arab world.

However, he was clear about the prospects for Amazigh languages gaining national status. "Arabic signifies who we are. It is the language of the Qur'an. I don't see that changing any time soon." The rivalry between Arab-Islamic and Amazigh identities also has political currents. Since parties based on ethnicity or religion are banned in Morocco, the Amazigh Moroccan Democratic Party (PDAM) was outlawed in 2008. However, PDAM continues to function in a quasi-political manner.

"One of the best examples of the way things are going is the racist banning of PDAM," said party secretary-general Ahmed Adghirni. "They say we can't have 'Amazigh' in our title, because it's an ethnicity, but the government doesn't treat the names of the Agence Maghreb Arabe Presse, the Park of the Arab League [in Casablanca] or countless institutions the same way."

"We are constantly being Arabicised in this country," he added. "You can even see it in the Family Code, which Moroccans are so proud of, because it supposedly gives women more equality, but still not as much as Amazigh tradition gave them." The Party for Justice and Development (PJD), which many view as Islamist, sees things differently. A political front-runner, the PJD won the second-most seats in Parliament in the 2007 election. Its former leader, Saadeddine Othmani, is Amazigh. Othmani said his party is still "undecided" about Amazigh languages gaining official status. "We are a Muslim country, and the greatest resource of our government is Islam," he told Magharebia. "To raise Amazigh languages to the status of the language of God [Arabic], that is a difficult idea."

Othmani pushed for Amazigh languages to be written in Arabic script, rather than an Amazigh script adopted in 2003. "For me, it makes sense. There is no difference between Arabs and the Amazigh. To use a different script would imply one." He added that Berbers who feel battered by Islamists are falling for Western neo-colonialism. "Islam is a great political mobilisation tool in this country. Moroccans are more sensitive to democratic values that come from Islamic history than Montesquieu or Rousseau. Muslim identity and Arab identity unite us. Why is that a bad thing?"

But Ahmed Adghirni said that "religious parties", in which he includes the PJD, try to blindside them. "They talk about religion in order to make us feel un-Islamic if we have a strong Amazigh identity," he says. "What these parties are ignorant about is that religious rhetoric does not resonate much among ordinary Amazigh people." Mohamed Bataoui, an Amazigh university student in Fez, finds the political situation of the Amazigh appalling, but told Magharebia that both sides often overstate their cases. Originally from Guelmim, he says he has experienced discrimination due to his background, but has developed the ability to educate his detractors.

An Amazigh "in culture and origin, but not in ideology," Bataoui says that the Amazigh political situation remains as it always has, "characterised by unfairness and lack of real desire for a political solution to the Amazigh plight." He says that Morocco is often rewriting its past, ignoring the country's history before Arabs arrived centuries ago. But despite the rancour, he says, Moroccans must remain a united people, even when such issues divide them. "Arabs and Amazigh are equal and will always remain equal," he said. "Our Islamic religion insists on tolerance and mutual love."
http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/features/2010/02/26/feature-01
--------------------------------------------

Germany donates Morocco 15 million euros to fund environment projects.
Rabat

Germany granted on Wednesday Morocco 15 million euros to fund several environment projects. The grant agreement, which was signed in Rabat by Economy minister Salaheddine Mezouar and Germany's ambassador to Morocco, Ulf-Dieter Klemm, will enable Morocco launch some pilot projects in environment management, renewable energies development, environment conservation and the fight against desertification.

The EU financial assistance is also destined for small-medium enterprises, professional training and research studies.
http://www.map.ma/eng/sections/social/germany_grants_moroc/view
--------------------------------------------

NASA Scientist Bridges Universe between Morocco and U.S.
Carrie Loewenthal Massey 3 March 2010

My story is somewhat unusual because since a very early age I was always mesmerized by the stars and the vastness of the universe," Kamal Oudrhiri reminisced. Perhaps more unusual than Oudrhiri's fascination with outer space, however, is his gumption to follow his dreams: to work with the United States' National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and now, to help other children realize their dreams, as well as to build in his community an understanding of Moroccan and American cultural commonalities…………
More below:
http://allafrica.com/stories/201003031066.html
--------------------------------------------

TIMELINE-Morocco in the last 10 years
26 Jan 2010 Source: Reuters Jan 26 (Reuters)

Here is a timeline on Morocco since King Mohammed came to the throne:
July 23, 1999 - King Hassan II dies from a heart attack and his son Mohammed VI ascends the throne.
Nov. 30, 2001 - The king leads Friday prayers in Smara, the spiritual capital of Western Sahara, to help cement ties to the disputed desert territory. Morocco has controlled the former Spanish colony since 1976 despite opposition from the Algerian-backed pro-independence Polisario Front.
May 16, 2003 - Suicide bombers set off at least five blasts in Casablanca. Forty-five people are killed including 13 of the bombers and about 60 are wounded.
October 2003 - King Mohammed says he will reform women's rights, raising the minimum age to marry to 18 from 15, giving women property rights in marriage and allowing them to divorce their husbands.
July 2004 - Free trade agreement with the United States comes into effect.
April 2005 - A judge bans Moroccan satirist Ali Lmrabet from journalism for 10 years. Lmrabet, a critic of the monarchy, questioned the government's line on the status of refugees in Western Sahara.
Oct. 2005 - Hundreds of migrants attempt to surge across razor-wire fences around the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, the only European Union territories in mainland Africa. At least 11 migrants die trying to scale the fences.
Dec. 16, 2005 - The Arab world's first truth commission says about 592 Moroccans were killed at the hands of the government between the 1960s and 1990s, a period known as "the years of lead". Victims and their families are compensated but none of the killers is named or punished.
March, April 2007 - Islamist radical Abdelfattah Raydi blows himself up in a Casablanca internet cafe to avoid arrest. A month later, police raid a safe house in a neighbourhood of Morocco's largest city. Three men, including one of Raydi's brothers, detonate explosive belts, killing themselves and a police officer and wounding more than 20.
Sept. 7, 2007 - In parliamentary elections, Abbas El Fassi's conservative Istiqlal party wins the most seats and he is named prime minister on Sept. 19, replacing Driss Jettou.
Nov. 6, 2007 - King Mohammed criticises Spanish King Juan Carlos's visit to the disputed enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, saying it hurt the feelings of the Moroccan people and might imperil bilateral ties.
Sept. 6, 2008 - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrives in Morocco as part of a North African tour. Discusses anti-terrorism measures, political reform and urges a resolution to the Western Sahara dispute.
March 6, 2009 - Morocco says it has cut diplomatic links with Iran, after an outcry in the Sunni Muslim world over a statement by an Iranian official questioning Sunni-ruled Bahrain's sovereignty.
June 13, 2009 - A new Moroccan political party grouping King Mohammed's staunchest supporters wins most seats in local elections after pushing opposition Islamists to the sidelines.
Nov. 6, 2009 - King Mohammed calls for action against traitors who threaten the country's "territorial integrity", a direct warning to Western Sahara independence campaigners in a speech marking 34 years since Morocco took control of the desert territory.
Jan. 3, 2010 - He announces a new consultative body to study a shift towards more regional government including the disputed Western Sahara and help modernise state institutions. (For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: http://africa.reuters.com/ ) (Writing by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit;)
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LDE60J15W.htm
--------------------------------------------

Modern ways amid old customs in Marrakech.
Article published January 24, 2010 By DAVID BEAR BLOCK NEWS ALLIANCE MARRAKECH, Morocco

The same exhortations to prayer have been called from this city's minarets five times each day for a millennium before Graham Nash's lilting lyrics etched this rose-walled medina into the imagination of a generation of baby boomers.
Except of course that these days, the chants of "Allah hu Akbar " are amplified……….
Read more here:
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100124/ART16/1230317
--------------------------------------------

About 5 million Moroccans benefited from anti-poverty initiative in 2009.
Rabat

A total of 4.86 million Moroccan people have benefited from the National Initiative for Human Development (INDH), launched by HM King Mohammed VI in mid-2005, the Initiative’s national coordinator said. The 19,800 INDH projects enabled to "improve the living conditions of the population and boost local economy as part of a participatory, partnership-based approach," Nadira El Guermaï told the daily "Al Bayane". More than four years after its launch, the INDH resulted in a tangible improvement in living conditions, with poverty rate declining from 14% to 9% at national level, and from 36% to 21% in rural areas targeted by the initiative.
http://www.map.ma/eng/sections/social/about_5_million_moro5611/view
--------------------------------------------

Destination romance: Imilchil, Morocco.

A mountain village steeped in myth, and its miraculous wedding ceremony, teach Tahir Shah the secret of love. If Morocco is a land of romance, then its heart is surely the remote Berber village of Imilchil – without doubt the most romantic place I have ever been. Nestled in the Atlas, it lies beyond the Gorge of Ziz, in a wild and unforgiving frontier of narrow passes and sweeping mountain vistas. Once each year, in September, a festival is held in which the young are permitted to choose a spouse for themselves. In a realm usually confined by tribal tradition, the would-be brides and grooms are free to pick whoever they wish to marry. Dressed in roughly woven black robes, jangling silver amulets and amber beads heavy around their necks, the girls stream down from their villages. There's a sense of frivolity, but one tempered with solemn apprehension as they approach the doorway to a new life.

Reaching the village square, they catch first sight of the grooms. All of them are dressed in white woollen robes, their heads bound tight with woven red turbans, their eyes darkened with antimony.

The betrothal festival owes its existence to a legend, itself a blend of love and tragedy – a kind of Moroccan Romeo and Juliet. The story goes that, forbidden to marry, a couple who hailed from feuding tribes drowned themselves in a pair of crystal-clear lakes called Isli and Tislit. (One version of the tale says the lakes in which they drowned were made from their tears.) So horrified were the local people at the loss that they commenced the annual festival. No one is quite sure when the tradition began, but everyone will tell you that the marriages which follow betrothal there are blessed in an almost magical way.

The first time I visited Imilchil, almost 20 years ago, I met a young couple, Hicham and Hasna. They had met, fallen in love and been betrothed all on the same morning. They were glowing, their cheeks flushed with expectation and new love. Last year, when I visited Imilchil again, I tracked down the pair. They look a little older now. Hicham's hair has thinned and his face is lined from a life outdoors tending his goats; and Hasna looks fatigued. But then she has given birth to six children, four of them boys. As we sat in the darkness of their home, a wooden shack clinging like a limpet to the mountainside, I asked them how the years had been.

Hicham looked across at Hasna, and smiled. "On that day all those years ago," he said, "I became the happiest man in all the world. And each day since has been conjured from sheer joy." He glanced at the floor. "Do you want to know our secret?" he asked me bashfully. I nodded. Hicham touched a hand to his heart. "To always remember the love of the first moment, the tingling feeling, the first time it touches you, and the first moment your hands touched."

A few days after leaving Hicham and Hasna at their home in Imilchil, I reached my own home overlooking the Atlantic, in Casablanca. As I stepped in the door, my two little children, Ariane and Timur, ran up and threw their arms around my neck. They asked where I'd been. I told them about the winding mountain roads, the Berber villages, and the Gorge of Ziz. "And what did you bring?" they asked both at once, straining to look sheepishly at the ground. "I brought you a secret," I said. "What is it, Baba?" "Always to remember the feeling of tingling love," I said.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2010/feb/14/destination-romance-tahir-shah-imilchil-morocco
--------------------------------------------

Best for getting lost: Fez.
By Michael Bywater / Saturday, 6 February 2010

Every great city is entirely itself and nowhere else. At the same time, they're all like ... somewhere. Somewhere that doesn't exist. A Platonic copy, perhaps; an embodiment of the idea of the city, whatever that may be. Morocco has several versions – all different – but in the end Tangier, Rabat and Marrakesh seem to me just rehearsals for the world's great masterpiece, Fez. In particular, the Bali Medina, the walled Old City, of Fez. The traditional Great City – traditional now, in our post-Enlightenment eyes – is a place of visual harmony, of vistas and prospects, squares, spires and domes. Old Fez is the exact opposite. The alleyways of the medina are so sinuous, straitened and overbuilt that there is, quite literally, no view. You never know what is around the next corner as it tilts down towards the river. You barely know where the next corner is. There is no angle that can lead the eye upwards more than 30ft. The rooflines are a mystery. The medina from the air reveals nothing about the medina on the ground. The eye is made useless.

Instead, you navigate by sound and smell. The clangour of hammers on metal leads you into a narrow defile, where brass-beaters and tinsmiths bang their trade. Here a vegetable steam announces the dyers, the streets robed in scarlet cloth hung to dry. A haunting, literally faecal, fleshy, fatty, ammoniacal smell declares that the great and terrifying Chouara Tannery is nearby – but where? Through what doorway, along which grease-skittered cobbles, up which narrow stairs?

Stay in one of the many riyads in Fez – built for extended families, now often converted into guest-houses where you can dine under the open sky, rooms opening on to balconies overlooking the central courtyards – and ignore the threats of getting irretrievably lost if you venture into the medina. Hire an official guide if you want; go alone if you don't mind your sleeve being plucked every few yards by boys eager for dirhams. Be prepared to be cheated; the oud-wood oil the perfumer offers you will be Firmenich Oud Synthetic 10760E or Black Agar Givco from Roure if you're lucky, a frantically dodgy concocted base (smelling of santalone, maple syrup and old gas-pipes) if you're not. It doesn't matter; you don't know what real oud smells like anyway and nor do your friends. The soft wool djellaba, naturally dyed, will be spun rayon, unnaturally dyed, and anyway you'll never learn to keep the hood pointed up, like a Klansman or a wizard. Bear with it. The medina is not about you.
http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/africa/best-for-getting-lost-fez-1888469.html
--------------------------------------------

Abdou Lachgar: Chemistry.
Posted on February 4, 2010 by Meenu Krishnan, Staff writer

Abdou Lachgar jovially peers into a lab, offering his graduate students coffee and kindly asking about their drives to campus on that icy morning. For the warm and friendly chemistry professor, the corridors of Salem Hall are far from his home country of Morocco. At 17 years old, he left Morocco for France, where he received his bachelors and doctoral degrees at the Institute of Materials Jean Rouxel at the University of Nantes. Lachgar, who initially planned on attending medical school, found that Moroccan universities didn’t provide him with the education he desired.

“At that time, Morocco’s few universities were very crowded. I used to go to class at 6 a.m. to save seats for my friends,” Lachgar said. “I left for France to discover new cultures and educational possibilities.”

While in France, Lachgar, who speaks French, Arabic, German and English, met his future wife, one of “the most beautiful gifts France has given me,” Lachgar said. In 1988, he left for America, at that time without a firm grasp of English, where he became a Postdoctoral Fellow at the DOA Ames Laboratory at Iowa State University. “I learned a lot about the United States in the heartland of America, Lachgar said. “There’s a freedom of choice here.”

While in Seattle, as a research associate and instructor at the University of Washington, one of Lachgar’s advisers urged him to apply for a proper teaching position at a university. “I had a reaction of disbelief when he suggested this,” he said. “I was very nervous about teaching college classes without a strong command of the English language.”

In reality, however, Lachgar’s path to teaching had begun years previously. As the oldest child in his household, he helped his brother and sister to succeed in school. His father had attended Qur’anic school (Islamic studies), and his mother’s highest degree equivalent was fifth grade.“It seems difficult to believe, but fifth grade was considered a very high degree of education,” Lachgar said. “You would have government officials with less education than that. But I developed my love for teaching at this young age.”

Lachgar’s path to the university began in February 1991, when he visited the campus for an interview in the chemistry department. Lachgar vividly recalls the visit, which convinced him to accept the faculty position. In addition to the warm faculty reception and the proximity of the campus to the East Coast, Lachgar was amazed by a Wake Forest-Duke basketball game that he just happened to attend. “I walked out of my hotel, which was across from the Coliseum, and found $20 tickets just like that,” Lachgar said. “I was amazed by the atmosphere — the students, the excitement, Wake Forest’s win.”

Over the years, he has witnessed an expansion in the chemistry department, the faculty’s excitement upon acquiring a single crystal diffractometer and increased cooperation among students, faculty, administration, and the community. “I’m a materials chemist, so I like to think of the four-cornered collaboration as a tetrahedron,” Lachgar said. “There’s this sense of three-dimensionality in our relationship.”

Lachgar teaches a variety of classes at the university, ranging from freshman College Chemistry to Advanced Inorganic Chemistry and Solid States Materials. His interests further expanded when he taught a class called Chemistry and Physics of the Environment. The class called upon students to design their own projects, one of which presented the idea of biodiesel. “I think this is a classic example of how teaching can have a superb and interesting impact on research,” he said.

Interestingly, at the time, Lachgar and his students were less concerned about the cost of energy than the environmental impact of fossil fuels. “When I taught this class, the price of oil was $10 a barrel, and it cost less than a dollar for a gallon of gas,” Lachgar said.
Biodiesel production has its challenges, as Lachgar well knows. Not only is it expensive to produce but there are also technical complications, as free fatty acids (FFA), an ingredient in the process, tend to make soap rather than biodiesel. He and his colleagues began looking for a catalyst for the process, and after discovering a Japanese paper on the topic, were able to develop it.
“First and foremost, we are researchers,” he said. “We do science because we like to benefit our communities.”

While Lachgar acknowledges that the project still faces challenges — namely, the catalyst’s recyclability, its turnover possibilities, and a lack of funds — he still looks forward to his job every day. “I haven’t stopped loving this place since I joined,” Lachgar said.
http://oldgoldandblack.com/?p=5897
--------------------------------------------

The Educated Prostitute
SARAH ZAAIMI 01/30/10 (Morocco Board News Service)

On that morning, I was heading to the newspaper with no new stories or article projects in mind when my editor-in-chief called me to ask whether I’ll be interested in interviewing a very special person, and to publish her memories on a daily basis in the newspaper. This very special person was a young student who became a professional prostitute. The editor-in-chief of course was only interested in raising the sales, because the golden rule in journalism is that “When there is no news, you should create the news”. And what’s better than dealing with one of the society’s prime taboos to make the news. I only had one answer to give: I’ll do it!

Morocco has the reputation of having a significant number of young prostitutes. Maybe this stereotype other Middle Eastern countries have about us is a bit exaggerated, but still, Morocco has very well structured prostitution webs, which transform innocent girls to mighty night creatures, and even export them to work outside the country. What most people ignore is that prostitution was a very prosperous activity in pre-Islamic Morocco. Native Berber tribes used to set tents on the roads after the harvest season to offer “entertainment” to peasants after a year of hard work. Prostitution then, was a social service which allowed money circulation among all the tribe’s members. Islam couldn’t change much in the anthropological habits of local people. In my opinion, the high prostitution rates among young Moroccan girls can be explained by the extreme openness to the west and the cultural predisposition to this kind of activities.

For me it was very difficult to write about the subject. Should I feel pity or contempt, compassion or disgust towards this young girl with a university degree who decided to sell her body to make a living? I’ve just decided to play the role of the objective pen, which describes what it hears and sees without the interference of any subjective feelings. Though, it was hard not to make a comparison between me and her. We were both Moroccan girls, born in the same year, listening to the same music, and with university degrees. Yet, each of us chose a different path, or maybe that path chose her.

Her name was Aïcha. She was very blond, very tall, and very beautiful, the kind of the 1960s American films’ beauty. Aïcha had to move after high school from her small town called Lhajeb to study English Literature in Meknes’ college. “My parents didn’t prepare me to live alone in the city. I come from a poor background where talking about sex is a taboo”, she told me while gazing at the horizon. In the girls’ dorms, Aïcha learned how to dress, to put on make-up, and to talk like a woman. It is also in the university dorms that she was tempted to make some pocket money to pay for the pretty clothes which can make her look like city girls. The first step to the abyss was going out incognito with older men who invited her to good restaurants, and make her discover her charms and feminity. The deadly stab was when she discovered that she had to pay with her body for the few bills to realize her late adolescence fantasies.

Once Aïcha graduated, it was difficult to leave her well-paid night life for miserable desk work or to abandon the lights of the big city for a small house in Lhajeb. She told me with a bitter voice “When I was studying it was just to make pocket money. I didn’t realize that I am a prostitute until it became my full-time job after graduating”. Aïcha is still now living in the city and working as a prostitute to send money to her family and pay for her charges. Her education and beauty make very rich and well-known men from over the world pay for her services. After filling four, 120-minute tapes and finishing the interview, the young girl looked straight into my eyes and said “I fast every Ramadan and pray five times a day for Allah to forgive me, but when the night comes I realize that I have to go work for the money.”

Today, whenever I drive across the girls’ dorms of the university, I wonder how many Aïchas are there waiting to be tempted by the big city’s illusive and misleading lights? How many would resist and how many would fall?
http://www.moroccoboard.com/viewpoint/119-sarah-zaaimi-/872-the-educated-prostitute-
--------------------------------------------

Africa can take a leaf from Morocco 18 February 2010
POLITICAL NOTEBOOK - Ido lekota

TWO weeks ago I met an old friend, who heads one of the government agencies, on a flight to Paris. On hearing that I was to catch a connecting flight to Casablanca, Morocco, the friend asked me what I was going to do “in a country that has turned its back on Africa and given its smiling face to Europe”……...
More here:
http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=1114991
--------------------------------------------

Moroccan chicken tagine chases away winter blues.
MELISSA KRONENTHAL Saturday, February 27, 2010

When the last weeks of winter get you down, cook up a classic Moroccan dish of chicken tagine with tomatoes, honey and saffron. Rich with spices, a warm bowl full will offer comfort and flavor galore. You don't need a special pot to make Chicken Tagine with Tomatoes, Honey and Saffron. The classic Moroccan comfort food goes fine with bread, rice or couscous.

IF I WERE to put my feelings about winter into a pie chart, it would look something like this: a 20 percent wedge for the things I love (roaring fires, steaming mugs of hot chocolate, rib-sticking meals and snowfalls), and an 80 percent wedge for the things I don't (just about everything else). What this means in practice is that however cozy those extra blankets on the bed feel at first, by February I've had enough. Unfortunately, that's when the calendar says there are still weeks to go before we can get into spring.
More below:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/pacificnw/2011110338_pacificptaste28.html ##########################################################

These postings are provided without permission of the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship, and research under the "Fair Use" provisions of U.S. Government copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of the identified copyright owner.  The poster does not vouch for the accuracy of the content of the message, which is the sole responsibility of the copyright holder.

Return to Friends of Morocco Home Page