Imagine a room of your countrymen, be they American, Dutch, French, Canadian, whatever. Imagine them discussing social problems in the country - sexual harassment, corruption, government inadequacies, press freedom. Imagine them, in all their vast and diverse intelligence, analyzing the problems and coming up with their own innovative solutions. Imagine them getting so excited when they realize their solutions could work.

And then, watch their crestfallen faces as they say, “It’s the government’s responsibility.”

And worse, when they tell you, “But I refuse to vote.”

This is the very case in Morocco. You fill a room with innovators, incredible people, intellectuals - give them a handful of important issues, and they will discuss them - no one can accuse Moroccans of being too quiet. And their ideas are good. But inevitably, someone comes up with the “it’s not our responsibility” spiel, and then it’s over.

Why? Take these results from a L’Economiste survey - of 776 young people from all backgrounds surveyed in fall 2005:

- 95% do not belong to any political party
- 68% do not trust politics
- 73% find that their representatives represent them badly

Interesting - and yet, with the voting age lowered to 18 a couple of years ago, one might think that Morocco’s youth would try to take matters into their own hands regarding politics.

However, as Magharebia.com reported last June, “The majority of Moroccans continue to criticise political parties, the government and the parliament. This same majority thinks democracy does not exist in Morocco and subsequently refuse to ‘politicise themselves.’ Young people say this, intellectuals repeat it and as a result only 50 per cent of Moroccan people vote. This is not normal.”

Now, of course there are barriers - much of the political process is Francophone, those living in the bled aren’t being reached, but that first group I mentioned? Urban elite. So, why don’t they vote? But more importantly, if they do believe that the government won’t change (just as many young Americans do), then why not start their own grassroots organizations to fix these simple problems they complain about (lack of trash cans in Meknes, too many street kids sniffing glue). I suppose that’s a question for another time.