Well, my goodness!  In the past couple of days, two (count ‘em) bloggers have praised Meknes, setting what is probably some sort of record.   Can this really be happening?

Cat in Rabat and The View from Fez both wrote fabulous posts in praise of my adopted city which, as you know, I shall soon take my leave of.  Now, Meknes is not the typical tourist town, as I’m sure you know.  In fact, as Cat in Rabat puts it, it’s the Alcohol & Murder Capital of Morocco.

Believe it or not, there’s sort of truth in that statement.  Meknes seems to have more bars per capita than any other city I’ve been to in this country, including Casa and Rabat.  Hell, it has even more than Marrakech.  The only explanation I’ve ever heard for this is Meknes’ long time position as a military base, but even that doesn’t explain how drunk everyone is on Saturday nights.

And as for murder, well…did I ever tell you about the incident with the kefta machine?  No?

Last summer, Hamza and I were sitting in the Cafe L’Alhambra, one of our favorites, when suddenly a man saunters in, shouting, and selling photocopies of a newspaper page for 1dh each.  Hamza of course bought one.

We were absolutely not prepared for the story inside.

In the medina, near the gold souq, was a kefta shop owned by a couple of men.  Above them lived a lawyer and his wife.  For years, the lawyer had been filing complaints against the shop - for selling drugs, for making too much noise, etc etc.  Some are hearsay, others true.

Anyhow, the lawyer was finally successful in his complaints, and the shop was given some sort of notice - an eviction perhaps?  This angered the butchers, who slaughtered the lawyer and his wife (one of them allowed his girlfriend to pose with the woman’s jewelry for photos, which surfaced afterward), grinding them up in the kefta machine and paying a taxi driver to dispose of their bones in the Jnane Maamora (outside of Rabat, about an hour’s drive from here).

So the moral?  I suppose one might say that when Meknassis do it, they…oh, forget it.

Despite my title, I think I’m entitled to occasionally just post articles I find interesting (like the one yesterday). Here’s one by a 17 year old high school student defending hijab that I found on an “Islamic” (they said it, not me) website that I found, although I can’t say I agree with it 100%.

And here’s a post from Cat in Rabat that struck me. And not just because it showed up in my linkbacks.

I’m saddened and disappointed today. #1, by how many comments I’ve read, mostly in other blogs, in support of censorship; and #2, by the fact that it seems that Maroc Telecom/Itissalat Maghreb, owned by Vivendi Universal, has blocked YouTube on its own, and that it is, perhaps, not a directive of the Moroccan government (thanks Youssef for the info)

I should first clarify that most of the people I’ve found to be, seemingly, pro-censorship, support it in this case because the likely cause of the ban on certain websites was related to the rise of fundamentalist materials. That sounds fair.

But, the problem with censorship is that once it starts, it seems to pick up speed. First, they censor fundamentalist sites, then what? Soon, nothing is off-limits.

In Europe, hate speech has been criminalized. It is illegal in most countries to deny the Holocaust. Now, I will state that personally, I believe that the Holocaust happened, that it was one of history’s biggest tragedies, that the persecution of Jews, homosexuals, and other minorities occurred on the largest scale ever during that time. But what if I didn’t? Shouldn’t I have the right to express my opinion?

The U.S. Constitution allows for free speech in any form, excepting libel, slander, and speech which poses a direct threat to one’s person. The founders of the United States, tired of religious intolerance in Europe, created the First Amendment to protect against censorship.

Of course, I am the first to acknowledge that the American ideals have, in many ways, fallen apart - recent examples being the firing of Don Imus and possibly Rosie O’Donnell, the Senate bill introduced in 2005 that could have barred certain topics from university classroom discussions. My country is by no means, nowhere even close to perfect.

But I raise it in discussion because I believe in First Amendment ideals.

Morocco is not blocking YouTube simply because some fundamentalists may have posted videos there. If that were the case, they would not have censored Aboubakr Jamai, Ali Lmrabet, Sanaa Al-Aji and Driss Ksikes, none of whom support fundamentalism.

Although citizen media has not yet hit it big, look to Global Voices Online, MidEast Youth and all of the other sites that we have begun to look to for news - and look at the recent case of Bangladeshi blogger Tasneem Khalil if you don’t believe it’s possible for us to have influence.  Get your story picked up by RSF or HRW and you never know…

So props to The View From Fez, Youssef (here and here), Agora, Hchica, El Hafa, Larbi, Sami ben Gharbia at GVO, A Moroccan in Washington D.C. and anyone else who is making an effort to open a dialogue on this subject.

June 1st has been designated the day to blog for the Maghreb Union by Tunisian Big Trap Boy in his blog. Samsoum from Global Voices Online summarized and translated the original post (which was in Arabic) here. An excerpt:

الحرب العالمية الثانية قتلت 50 مليون بشرأوروبا بعد 50 سنة توحّدت ونسات الحرب والأحقاد القديمة بين الدول الأعداء

و نحنا في المغرب العربي عندنا 50 مليون سنة ونحنا وخيّان وأحباب

عندنا 50 ألف سنة من التاريخ والحضارة والثقافة المشتركة

عندنا 50 مليار سبب باش نكونو متوحدين

واليوم، وبعد حوالي 50 سنة من الإستقلال لبلداننا الشقيقة والصديقة

ما عندناش شبكة قطارات مشتركة

ما عندناش طريق سيارة مشتركة

ما عندناش سياسة طاقة مشتركة

ما عندناش حتى مسابقة متاع عدو ريفي مشتركة

علاه؟ بالله فهمونا علاه؟

WWII killed 50 million.
Europe after 50 years united and forgot about the war and the old hatred between enemy states.
And we in the Maghreb, have been friend and brothers for 50 million years
We have 50,000 years of shared history, civilization and culture.
We have 50 billion reasons to be united
And today after almost 50 years of the independence for our friendly countries
We don’t have a shared rail network
We don’t have a shared freeway network
We don’t have a shared energy policy
We don’t even have a shared track race event
Why? Why, For God’s sake?

 

So Maghreb bloggers, mark June 1st as a day to blog for the unity of the Maghreb!

Every morning (okay, I’m not that pathetic - nearly every morning) I get out of bed, eat breakfast, then go read as much as I can about the day’s news, here and elsewhere. I avoid turning on the television until something worth watching is on, because I know that if I flick that switch, I’ll be inundated with useless information and mindless banter.

Before I go out for the day, I check up on Morocco in particular. I read your blogs, I scan the news. Once a week I flip through TelQuel and Hamza recounts what’s going on in Nichane.

I love to write; you could say it’s my passion. Penning words onto paper, typing in any interface, writing is what I dig. I am not as prolific as I used to be, probably because I have a life that I quite enjoy, but at any opportunity, I’ll scribble things down. I am especially task-oriented, so when I can focus on one subject, be it a collection of short stories or a blog about Morocco - I am in, I’m engaged.

Whether I’m writing here in my own blog or elsewhere, or doing roundups for GV, I struggle with the idea of authenticity as well as my own internal biases. I know that there are certain things that I, as a woman, as an American, tend to lean toward. Injustice against women is one, free speech another. I like stories about heroes, and I always back up the underdog. On the other hand, religion is not a top priority for me and politics sometimes go over my head. Mostly, I just like to talk a lot. Er, on the computer.
And all of that explains why I blog. I’ve been doing it for seven years, and to make my experience in Morocco a continuation of that just made sense.

There are few blogs about Morocco in the English language. Most of them are linked from this site. Most are written by expats who live or have lived in Morocco and Moroccans who live abroad. I fall into the first category, of course, which means that any view I present is a Morocco report (not the, as my blog’s title implies - something which I doubt any person could claim) - Liosliath put it well the other day when she said:

“One of the top search phrases for my blog is “What’s it like to live in Morocco?” People, don’t ask me. In fact, don’t ask any Westerner who lives there. We’re all going to have different experiences, and therefore wildly different opinions.”

It is absolutely true that any person, Westerner or not, even Moroccan - will have a different perspective; Morocco is an extremely interesting place, and I say that without qualification.  Blogging is an extremely interesting medium…Therefore, the more blogs, the merrier!

New to the scene:

Fes: The Fake Blurry View - As Everything Morocco puts it, “This writer has an irreverant sense of humor and a straightforward, no bs way of stating opinions. So slip off those sepia-tinted specs for a minute and take a look at 21st century Morocco through the eyes of someone who lives there.”

Amazigh Roots - written a friend of mine who makes his home in Casa (and occasionally Meknes), the first entry is entitled “Our Ancient Cousins the Berbers” and espouses on a Celtic-Amazigh connection.