Livejournal, one of the early popular blogging/journaling sites, has returned to Morocco! I discovered this by accident today when reading through old entries over at Cat in Rabat’s blog and clicked on the blog link of someone who had left a comment, and - VOILA!
From what I understand, Livejournal was blocked on and off during 2005, then blocked permanently in Feb/March of 2006, only to return, well, very recently.
Typically speaking, I don’t let criticism get to me. I am not a political analyst, nor a PhD holder, nor an expert on, well, anything. I’m an ordinary blogger and writer, I make money writing, I’m satisfied.
What does get to me, however, is this guy. Not for his insults or rants, mind you, which are laughable at best (can you say “bloody” one more time, you bloody limey?), but for the fact that he is so immature that he disables comments (click link above) after his mediocre comeback, then has the yarbles to continue commenting on my blog (of course I would never disable nor delete comments - that would go against my principles of free speech, you know).
Global Voices is doing a great service by amplifying voices from lesser known blogospheres (or countries), and I think our readership speaks for itself.
CPJ (Committee to Protect Journalists) has released a special report entitled The Moroccan Facade, which outlines media law, court cases and harassment received by journalists in Morocco.
Despite boasting a lively print press, CPJ found, Morocco has come to rely on a stealthy system of judicial and financial controls to keep enterprising journalists in check. The record shows that press freedom conditions are far from the glowing version furnished by officials and many journalists.
The article also mentions the low literacy rate and the influence of the French-language media and press as compared to Arabic.
My favorite part of the article, however, is the exultory praise given to Aboubakr Jamai, perhaps Morocco’s best journalist and editor, who recently moved to the United States with his family after his magazine, Le Journal, was slapped with an unpayable fine.
The article even mentions the influence Kuwaitis had on the Nichane ban, something which - at the time- few people believed.
It’s quite long, but worth reading every word.
A great post by a Moro in America about how youth in Morocco are beginning to stand up againt traffic police who expect bribes (or baksheesh) rather than giving official tickets.
I am full of cheese, and thus this is my second campaigning post (most of ya’all can’t read the other one, as it’s hidden deep in the depths of…well, you just can’t). I reiterate: I am full of cheese.
/cheese.
I’m running for the governing board of Global Voices not because I have no hobbies, but because I want better ones. Seriously though, I love everything that this organization stands to and will devote myself as needed to its growth and continuation.
Go ahead, Rupert Murdoch. Buy the Wall Street Journal. It’s not like it gets any worse than this.
(I particularly like how the author repeatedly points out how “unsafe” Morocco is and cites the Casablanca suicide bombers as example, when they didn’t actually kill or injure anyone but themselves)
There is a delicious cheese from the Netherlands which you probably know as edam. In Morocco, however, it is simply called “fromage khamr” or “fromage rouge,” after the red wax in which it is packaged. I always laugh about this, particularly when I go to a nice restaurant and order something with cheese, then ask “What kind of cheese?” to which the inevitable reply is, “Fromage rouge.”
Thinking that this was just an unofficial Moroccan habit, imagine my surprise yesterday when Hamza came bounding into the apartment holding a new, strangely red package of La Vache Qui Rit (Laughing Cow, for those of you in the States).
Yes, indeedy. La Vache Qui Rit a la Creme de Fromage Rouge.
A Reuters article questions whether or not darija, Morocco’s dialect (which is called a dialect of Arabic, but having studied both I know there is little connection at times) should be the national language.
While I don’t think the article has truly gotten it right, it is certainly an interesting point to ponder. See, Morocco’s official language is Arabic. As in MSA. As in Al-Arabiyya Fus’ha. And yet few Moroccans ever have cause to speak it. It’s similar to what would happen if the official language of the United States were Middle English.
Darija, on the other hand, is somewhat of an Arabic bastardization. While it’s certainly in the Arabic language group, uses (most of) the Arabic alphabet (exception “th,” additions “g” and “p”), listen for five minutes to 2M and five to Al Jazeera and you will see how utterly and entirely different the two languages are.
Now, add to the mix the fact that Morocco was a French colony, parts of it were a Spanish colony, and the native Moroccans (the Berbers or Amazigh) have three of their own languages, and you’ve got one confused country. Other African nations with many tribal languages have found the solution to be instituting a national non-native language (such as Senegal with French), sometimes alongside a popular native one. Morocco doesn’t really have that as a realistic option - school is mostly taught in Fus’ha, with administrative issues handled in darija, and economics taught in French from the start (with a smattering of English words, of course). French rolls off the tongue more easily than Arabic for most.
So what can Moroccans do? Last fall, Nichane, a sister magazine to French-language TelQuel, was released and immediately shut down (on unrelated charges), though it is now back and running - it was the first magazine to be published in darija. Singers, rappers, those of the spoken word - all produce their material in darija. Radio is often in darija, 2M is often in darija, and as the Reuters article states, there is now a book of poetry in darija. Darija is the language of the Moroccan heart.
But Morocco is in a bit of a pickle - it wants to be tight with both the Western nations and the Gulf - and obviously, the latter would certainly prefer if Morocco were to use Modern Standard Arabic for everything (a Kuwaiti web forum started the controversy over Nichane which lead to its journalists being arrested and fined, and I have no doubt language played a part). Additionally, Morocco is a country with a shockingly low literacy rate - in order to get people to read, darija must either be put onto paper, or Arabic or French used.
A pickle, indeed.
I was recently interviewed for a site aptly called Expat Interviews. I shouted out to a couple of your blogs (they only allowed me 5 links including my own blog, otherwise I would have hit up many, many more of you!)