Jean Michel Jarre in the Desert of Morocco II

Water for Life is a mega concert eld in merzouga last night. these are the first few minutes.Thank you DrEsfea. enjoy.

a few fotos about an opening of an art show...

Art Show opening

shee tsawer

Invitation

Jean Michel Jarre in the Desert of Morocco

Jean Michel Jarre, French singer, sings on the dunes of Merzouga, Sahara morocco on the Dec 16. two weeks from now with a selection of Moroccan singers and musicians on in program called Water for life
Check the official web site for more info (www.concert-merzouga.com, Available in French)

Student's art shocks KSC officials, students

Keene – A surprise display of an art student's protest project portraying a bound woman hanging by a noose, intended to bring awareness to gender violence, shocked college officials and students at Keene State College yesterday morning.
read more

Art Show

Why isn’t the world a great place.

Perfect denial:

Yes it is a great place. From Vermont to all the other places. There are millions of places that we can enjoy. Seas, deserts and rain forests. Waterfalls and snow mountains. great architecture. Oops that is may be the start of less enjoyable places. But what is wrong with great big humanguetarious buildings and great human oeuvres. They did it and they could. But how? And who built the great pyramids. And the great walls of china and Palestine and the other airports.

Building is great and it reflects greatness of humans. Their ability to oppress each other and use them to allude to how big we want to be. there are walls in the southern US of A. walls to prevent any intrusion from the south. The same walls are reproduced in southers Spain, on Moroccan soil. In Seuta and Mellilia. The two Moroccan cities still colonized by Spain. What an shame that is more than just architectural. More money for the walls. Spain is adding more cement and concrete.. may be it is the great desire to be walled in and wall out the rest.

The world in not a great place any more as long as there are walls every where and as long as politics walls our and our brains.

Not much

Not much
I a have not been writing much in this blog but i think i will make it a weekly blog so i am not messing  round with anything. i will be doing the blog thing every souk day.
Thi week started with a little fund raising thing in Putney school. i was not aware if the existence of a school like this is rural Vermont. A very expensive high school. check it out.
School and all te other details. I will leave out most of the high school stories to tell my grand kids so they can blog them out to you.
Keep it up….

Ramadan that ‘does’.

It is Ramadan and it looks a little different on this side though. Moroccan Ramadan and that of other countries can get a little confusing to some head. Religion or culture. Well it is al about religion here. “All that ye humans do is for thy selves except Ramadan ye do it for me” said Allah.( my translation)

Her in Vermont. There is a small muslim community. Almost a few people from 'areas diverse'. Africa to south asia. Most of these people are students or faculty from SIT or Marlboro. Prayers of Friday take place mostly at SIT meditation room. Ramadan in just another month. I do not personally have problems with that.

In Morocco it is a real month. A culture. A do it and be proud. For sure productivity goes a little lower but we do not talk about that. There is a nuance tp that and the gray round it is we are going to start thinking islam. We will stop drinking beer 40 days before Ramadan and we would have a day for that. Shaabana. D-day. Yes. And we would get drunk during that day. We take this day more seriously in Marrakech. We try n Casablanca. Gender segregates drinking in many other areas. We segregate the two major genders anyway.

Hotels still serve our beloved tourists. Who observe us observing sidna ramadan.

Our nights are the best. Yeh. Grown ups filling there sebtis after a bowl of harira. Deep puffs of pure kif and ktamiya tobacco. A ritual that a lot of Moroccans do not bother to observe any more but it is a classic ritual. I wonder if this is all dying because of the anti-drug movement and the rage of destroying kif crops that is taking place everywhere in morocco now.

Ramadan mubarak to all those who and those who-not.

Microsoft Arrests Moroccans

August 25,
Those are called criminals and may be terrorists. Moroccans who like to go to cybercafés and catch up with tech they never study at school.
Farid Sebar arrested by Moroccan authorities, requested by FBI and Microsoft. more (FR)
…Brad Smith, senior vice president and general counsel at Microsoft, said the company’s ongoing partnerships with global law-enforcement authorities help ensure that when malicious code such as Zotob and Mytob is released, that information is shared rapidly to help law enforcement identify and hold cybercriminals accountable for their actions and help protect customers.
“We congratulate the Turkish and Moroccan authorities and the FBI for finding and apprehending the alleged authors and distributors of the Zotob and Mytob worms so quickly,” Smith said. “This arrest demonstrates the value of public-private collaboration — the first-class investigative work by the authorities and round-the-clock technical and investigative support provided by our Internet Crime Investigations Team here at Microsoft. The results show clearly that cybercriminals will be identified, apprehended and held accountable for their actions.” more (ENG)

Nude VT

This summer, a group of teenagers has disrobed near restaurants, bookstores and galleries, igniting a debate about whether this bohemian southern Vermont town should ban a practice that has been tolerated until now. more

Holding back

You can hold back from suffering of the world , you have free permission to do so, and it is in accordance with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could have voided.

Franz Kafka

peace is not a game

Lebanon and Israel Facts that the Media Isn't Telling You

Here are some background the facts about Lebanon, Israel, Gaza Hezbollah and the Palestinians Noam Chomsky reveals facts like the abduction of the two Gaza civilians June 24, BEFORE the Israeli soldiers were captured. Learn the background that the mainstream media doesn't report. Help get the word out http://www.representativepress.org/ Tags: Lebanon Israel Gaza Hamas Hezbollah Chomsky

Hot and yellow in Merzouga

the situation in Merzouga Morocco is still yellow and hot.
Yellow: tents where more than 300 families live. in the upper part of the town
Hot: who does not know how it feels under a yellow plastic tent in summer in the desert. in numbers it means: 50 C or more than 130 F.
People are listening to what is going on in Lebanon with the arrogant Israeli invasion

Diversity at SIT, a school in VT.

War is stupid

The war is happening again in Lebanon. And the world is watching all the families and all the kids being killed with “illegal weapons” and burnt alive with fire. And their homes bombed. The big G8 is watching. Well the news in the US of A is considering talking about it. maybe one day they will may be not. But this is a conflict between Hezbollah and Israel. As is. And al the massacres will be there again just like in Rwanda and Kosovo and earlier in time in old Germany.
The UN has no hands no power to say anything. Mr. Anan is trying to advise that war is bad for you. Poor UN person. On the mean wile children and civilians are being slaughtered by the war machine of Israel.
I do not understand how ruthless can this be. it is not politics anymore it is the blood and the slaughter that needs to stop. Fuck the politics i do not give a shit to politics, i cre about the children and the old folks being burnt to death wile every one else is doing their week end shopping in Wal-Marts and Targets and seeping their hot cafes in Paris and Rome.
After all this ends they will of course try to work on issues of trauma and conflict resolution and conflict transformation. Who gives a shot to all the rotten psychologies when people loose their families and their land if not their lives.
Israel and Hezbollah and all the others should really shut it up and let people alone. People are tired of all these massacres. We are tired of all this politics of death and stupidity.

Lebanon: this time Kids

This child and more than ten others were on a truck.
an Israeli pilot on his plain hits them all with a missil. they did not just die... they were burnt alive and they were all kids...
this is not right.

quote in bottom of photo was taken from this blog (here, Read more)

LE COUPABLE EST CELUI QUI PROVOQUE

LE COUPABLE EST CELUI QUI PROVOQUE"
Il a affirmé avoir été insulté avec "des mots très durs". Interrogé sur la teneur exacte des propos de Materazzi, Zidane a indiqué que "c'étaient des choses très personnelles, cela touche à la maman, à la sœur. Il dit des mots et il les répète plusieurs fois. Vous les écoutez une fois, vous essayez de partir. C'est ce que je fais parce que je m'en vais en fait. Vous écoutez deux fois, et puis la troisième fois..." 
Michel Denisot lui a demandé si la réalité "recoupait" ce qu'avaient rapporté les tabloïds anglais qui, s'appuyant sur des spécialistes de la lecture labiale, ont accusé l'Italien d'avoir dit : "On sait tous que tu es le fils d'une pute terroriste."  Zidane a juste répondu : "Ben oui".
Le joueur, qui a pris sa retraite à l'issue du Mondial 2006, a toutefois indiqué "ne pas regretter" le coup de tête qui a provoqué son expulsion à la 110e minute de la rencontre. "Je ne peux pas regretter mon geste car cela voudrait dire qu'il avait raison de dire tout cela", a-t-il expliqué.
Au sujet de l'enquête disciplinaire diligentée contre lui par la Fifa, Zidane a répondu que, selon lui, "le coupable est celui qui provoque". "Mon geste n'est pas pardonnable mais il faut sanctionner celui qui a provoqué", a-t-il lancé.
Le Monde.fr Avec AFP

Nina Kunimoto explores food and land issues

Nina Kunimoto explores food access for low income people.
issues of food, land and social justice is a discussion over dinner with SIT graduates and activists.
Read more: here
Nina says:

Over dinner at Susan Peters' house, Phyu-phyu, Susan and I had a discussion about access to organic produce for people who earn a low income, and concluded that it falls back on structural problems of society, or as Phyu-phyu said "it is all inclusive." Meaning, structural problems, politics, class, race, etc are all part of "access to organic produce."

listen to the discussion.

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that desert

that desert is our country.... says it all.
please read moha arehal.

And it all sinks

And it all sinks into the grounds of forgetting.
I am not used to really post things about myself. I always thought i would be the guy of everyone and do the postings that matter for everyone. Now i am a little depressed and i am not finding inspiration. This country is making me really tires and more and more i feel i should not really be here.
I like this town a lot, Brattleboro, a cool town where people still pass you and say “ ha’r you ddowin?” and it all sounds cool.
But …
I am feeling i like to be somewhere else. I would like to be in Merzouga right now heping with what ever i can to get my people out of the merde that nature has put them in after the horrible floorings of last month. My people live under tents right now in the heat of a Saharan desert sun. they say temperature now reaches 45’C. i am sure it is more than that.
I am sitting here in this country doing nothing. Well i am donating paintings to jura-Merzouga, Suisse organization that helps with the reconstruction. But how do i really feel about this being from there is a totally different thing.
I can not go to Morocco this summer. I can not go back for pocket reasons. Only because i can’t afford the costs. mierrda.
I am lucky i have all the friends you need…

Morocco hack Izgharel

Major Israeli websites hacked

More than 750 Israeli websites hacked in recent hours. Among them: Soldier’s Treasury Bank, Rambam Hospital, and Globus Group ticket center. Hackers: You’re killing Palestinians, we’re killing servers
Gal Mor, Ehud Kinan

“we are a group of Moroccan hackers that hack into sites as part of the resistance in the war with Israel. We attack Israeli sites every day. This is our duty…hacking is not a crime.” Says spokesperson of Moroccan Team Evil,

Unprecedented number of Israeli websites hacked: Hundreds of websites were damaged by hackers in recent hours, following IDF activity in the Gaza Strip. The hackers are members of the Moroccan “Team Evil” group, responsible for most of the website damage in Israel in the past year. This is the largest, most concentrated attack on Israeli websites in recent years.
Read more

Yanamar....

Yana-mar…
It seems like the situation on Merzouga is the same. All the refugees in the tents are going to suffer the heat. 45`C the two days ago. Now it is real summer. Most people who work on the summer in sand baths providing visitors with shelter and skills of sand therapy have lost their jobs. This is a horrible year for every one. Farmers, hostel owners, sand workers, tourism workers, every one.
Now the government thinks ( when the government thinks, it is always bad decisions) .. people should not build homes where their original homes were. Well how the hell are they going to accept that. This is a new displacement and it is horrible emotionally and socially to ask people to build homes in other areas just for the sake of selling new elections or to please a new regional walee, governor.
Merzouga is never going to look the same any more. the disaster arrivists, like war lords are already jumping on peoples pains to build up for their own benefits.
People have been displaced thousand times in the past. Give them a break.

Merzouga floods and solidarity

Association JURA-MERZOUGA:
Many groups of people in France and Switzerland (la Suisse) and everywhere are gathering efforts to support people of Merzouga, moroccan desert, living in Plastic tents under the heat of summer after the rains and floods of May 26 + 27.
interested in getting more info: please visit. JURA-MERZOUGA:http://gepetto.ch/18892.html

More Photos.

http://ammrnoughou.blogspot.com/
Video:
http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/search/merzouga/video/253709
http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/search/merzouga/video/238963

… and there is an Amazigh association there under construction to look after the Amazigh Jewish heritage. according to Jeune Afrique this assiciation has as a goal «l’amitié entre les Amazighs et les Juifs ». this is a group of "militants” from civil society who are willing to bridge the gap between moroccan Amazigh and Amazigh Jews living in Israel on one hand and fight against anti-Semitism on the other.

this is a good project, congratulations. But lets get the semantics right. Imazighen are Imazighen. They adopted different religions through out history. Then Jews are indigenous to morocco. i hope it is not anti-Semitic to say that Judaism is the most prevalent religion in north Africa for a long time. before Islam.

“When the Jews left morocco”, many of them stayed in morocco. “the Amazigh Jewish” relations do not need any restablishment, unless Arabism and Harvardism are more important to our self-conscience as we learn how to see ourselves with “Other” eyes.

According to Harvard Knowledge factory, Imazighen are the Berbers of Morocco, Arabs of some sort. Jewish people have to be an ethnicity to massage the heads ad pockets of our friends from Europe: les juifs blancs .

Tiharyin

Tiharyin
After the desasterous floods of Merzouga, let’s not forget:

I have to write this down… a story of a lost village.
Tiharyin, the name of a village in the south east of Morocco, about 160 Kilometers from the town Errachidia , is not a Moroccan village anymore. It has been invaded and vandalized by the Algerian army in Fall 1976. during the rule of Boumedian and Hassan II. This village is not on any Moroccan map. It is not on Michelin either.
The displacement of hundreds of families stayed a secret among the caids and secret agents of Rabat .
The government has, of course, built houses of some sort for these families in the area near the sand dunes of Merzouga
These people were farmers and had lived in an Eden-like oasis in the sahara. To bring them to two room adobe houses was a real shame. This was a hard displacement.
Now Tiharyin is occupied y the Algerians and it is used as a military base. People who tried to “sneek in” to get things back from their village have been jailed by Moroccans and Algerians. Traumatized by displacement and unfair treatment of the Moroccan government, many people were advised to thank God they were still living. .Hadj Ouatou said “if there is a god any where, he would not let this happen to us, we do not our have homes any more”. He was silenced by the Moroccan Gendarmerie. Others were silenced too, that was a time when Western Sahara issue was on every table and people did not talk about anything.
How many people in morocco know there was a village invaded and taken over by the Algerian army in 1976?
How many of us think this is old information. We should have gotten over it. uhu / no , we can’t get over it because ten of the families who flew and lived every where in rooms and garages of neighboring towns though they were well off when they found they could farm again in Talghumt. Now there is no water and they had to move again.
Children of the families who worked in tourism business as camel men of drivers or dish washers are now forgetting they are Berbers. Their children in Rissani and Erfoud do not know there was something called Tiharyin an area and a village. these are the same people who are forced to forget their culture: food patterns, diets, waters, herbs…etc. they are living in places where they can not chose to eat there foods. Their children get diabetes, hear strokes, anemia,…
This is not about people finding a place to live, it is about how displacement of villagers and nomads and their fixation is a blatant genocide.

who dries the eyes of merzouga???

Merzouga4
Video sent by hakimami

after all the rain.. all the desasters. and the big loss... now it is drying out.
this is a video made a few weeks ago.
Hakimami thank you for the video. it is really sad to see all the homes and places all gone.
>> first time video watched makes a few stops for buffereing. normal.

MERZOUGA FLOODS PICTURES

MERZOUGA_0001
Video sent by madabina

floods of merzouga...
these are photos Lahcen Ougnir provided. thank you lahcen.
no comment

Press amazigh learns how to write staff

hem...
this is a traininng for the Amazigh Jormalists starting today in rabat. royal institute for tamazight involved. somtimes drives the mule up the lader of moroccan red tape. in the cafes, some of us are sceptical about teaching Imazighen how to write especially in the presence of these big guys who we call experts. ie those who know more than anybody else how things happen and how o think about how they do it.

The aim of the programme is to provide participating journalists with basic press writing techniques. The training, which will combine both theoretical and practical sessions, will be followed by another series of training next September. says Morocco times

i hop our journalists will learn how not to start their articles with: Une délégation ministérielle...

Merzouga floods.

Merzouga. Morocco. floods. Who talks.

This is te updates from Mrezouga.
Youssef was there last night and he is editing some video footage to put in dailymotion.com. but for those of us who now Merzouga, it is almost no more there. The old village has all gone. It all melted under the heavy rains this past week. Youssef says it is really hard for anyone to see the village becoming just piles and piles of adobe and bricks. Merzouga has gone.
Every summer there are thousands of people who visit Merzouga for therapy. They take sand baths. Villagers rent rooms and provide shelter and service for these people. Their houses are their only source of revenue. Now all gone.
People are lost and nobody really knows what to do now. What direction to take. Said youssef. The village is no-more the village.
It is really a serious situation out there. Families that have been there have never seen this before. Even in the floods of 1965.
(photo cortesey of i-cias.com)

3 days of rain. 100 mm in 4 hours. 6 dead.

Result: 6 people died. 600 families out in the camps.

In the Merzouga region. Errachidia. South east Morocco.

Six people at least died in the flooding . 600 families lost their homes. according to the Moroccan Press agency MAP.

335 building fell down under the heavy rains and more than 114 homes were totally demolished.

The Moroccan government is sending government people to “fly over” the area and see how it looks like. this is not really a time to look at what the gov is doing. people need shelter and food before all sorts of diseases start again in an area that has been isolated for a long time.

Video. Errachidia.org

who owns tamazight

Well fin Global Voices gets interested in Tamazight (known as Berber) (an inerest signed Foula) in her weekly updates about morocco.

here is a little more staff...

I gave a presentation last week about Amazigh Cyber activism in my school and i was amazed at how little the tribe of blogers know about Imazighen, a people that shaped the history of north Africa and the Mediterranean region as a whole for more than 40 centuries. well accademicians, the craftsmen of common knowledge have never cared...

Imazighen suffered from persecution every where even in the academic sphere, tall the way. Now Who cares about the Berbers/ Amazigh people?.

In the cyber space, an area where google tries to create a “to-go” sort of knowledge (savoire a emporte); well packaged to fit the needs of a buzy consumer. If you "google" the word Berber, which stands for amazigh, you will get websites about carpets and if you search Touareg, imazighen of the great sahara, you will probably get about 40 entries about cars and SUVs. What kind of knowledge is this.

They have patented indigenous knowledge and they are patenting our names. Patentscope website has all the information about patents. Who “owns” names like: Berber, Amazigh, Touareg, morocco (there are 67 records of morocco patents. ie they own the name morocco). sahara is owned by 86 people or firms or i do not know what.

It is very ironical that the Moroccan government does not allow people to give Amazigh names. At the same time others are patenting Amazigh names, peoples’ manes, areas, countries ….etc

Chikha Rimiti dies ....

Chikha Rimiti has gone for ever.
She died of a heart attack in a Paris Hospital after 83. a very strong woman who struggled in many ways in an Islam-inspired patriarchal society. she sang and made her voice heard all over the world.
two days before she died, a big crwd of people wer enjoying her sound in Zineth, Paris. Di scribed as the God-mother of modern rai music, she never stopped giving these young artists the energy and inspiration to go on and say their word.
visit her web site. rimitti.com and listen to her latest albom Nta Gessami.
click play for a sample... a taste of this beautiful voice we just lost >>>

Blogers in Prison

Allaa Egyptian social change activist arrested in a peaceful demonstration. Blogs from prison today.

“oday it hit me, I am really in prison. I'm not sure how I feel. I thought I was OK but I took forever to wake up. The way fellow prisoners look at me tells me I do not feel well but I can't really feel it.” he says and more.

All the community of cyber activist round the world are supporting Alaa and all the others who fight for freedom of speech. It is really urgent that the Egyptian government frees Alaa NOW.

( some time ago in RSF)

Good times and poetry ....

Things are going well the ones high up there. They spend time, good times deigning and strategizing for good times. Wars, famine, AIDS, and global warning. Global cozy staff. this earth has been very cold. The cold planet as they call it in Iraq.
They have their nose every where they are building some prisons in Morocco. they do it secretly. Like Moroccan generosity. How culturally sensitive. If you give sadaqa with your right hand, your left hand should not know about it. it is all for allah. sadaqa for allah.
Another nose of the people high up got stuck in the dunes of the western sahara. Deep in the sand. Too much for comfortable high up good times people. But they can do it and they will do it for us. Bringing peace and lining us up. Ready for whatever a bright future might bring.
We will wait but on the way there, we are being patient. We do not kill each other, we do not “hunt” people. we read poetry poetry,
poetry Rumsfeld has filled space wih great wisdom.

The Unknown
As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.
Read more poetry?

tamazight on moroccan tv ?

royal institute for tamazight (ircam) and the moroccan gov get together to decide what to do about introducing Tamazight in the morocan media. they are talking about “consolidation de tamazight" reported le matin(fr). more programs may be on the second moroccan chanel. Let’s see how that goes.
For a very long time, morocco has two tvs. achievements of our government. now we are opening up for more. we want our air to be free. well we are trying. we good in going round things in morocco. many peope bought satellite dishes and never watched moroccan tv. but we still pay for it in with our electricity bills. we pay for tv with electricity!!.. i always wondered who came up with this idea.
In 1994 late king hassan ii announced the obligation to introduce Tamazight in the tv. Happy were all moroccans, i dare say. expectations were high. achievements 5 ( five) minutes of Tamazight on tv every day for 12 yeas. reactions to this decision. amazigh artists caricatures a woman who said: “oh.. o did not know palistine is accupied by israel” she was caught off for a log time from any news. Not her language. i wonder what she would say now about the war in iraq, darfur, western sahara issues, nuclear eapons, bush admin, free zone, human rights…

Idir back home

Idir- Entre scènes et terres-3
Video sent by algeriemusique

it always feels good to see tham back... Idid back home where he really belongs.
enjoy.

I dont care

“I don’t care how much you know till i know how much you care”
English wise verbiage.

autonomie du sahara occidental

lazy blogers like myself have been navigating to see what is out there on te blog sphere.
In Morocco at least 48 political prisoners will be free today according to Alarabiya tv. the prisons of Kalaa Magouna and Agdez have more than 48 saharaoui prisoners. what is going to happen to them? who decides on the lists and how? where are the others?
a few weeks go the king visits the western sahara hich was a major verb in the moroccan blog community. Mohamed VI announced the "birth" of the 'royal council for wetern sahara affairs' and one of its major tasks is to provide route for autonomy fo WS. Khalihenna oudl rachid, a former minister of sahara affairs, nominated the head of this council. this is one of the most dangerous issues in the modern history of morocco.
i wonder what the moroccan soldiers in the front would think about this. and what would others who lost their family members in this conflict would say? '
in the 1970s and 80s people got jailed and tortured for mentioning autonomy. now it is the whole regime that talks about it.
things change and regimes do as well.

some updates here.

Berber Spring

Spring can be a good thing at times..
flowers and trees blossoming all over the place but it can also be a bloody thing like what happened in 1980 in Algeria when the political regimes censured professor Mouloud Maari from giving a lecture on the Amazigh ancient and poetry. Of course they allow any other things to take place. Maamri was not allowed to speak.
Imazighen were already sick and tired of he oppressions of the algerian regime. More than 200 students started the protests to which La Police reacted violently and there were many people killed and many others injured or arrested.
Now it is a day to remember all those who gave their lives to the case.
Tafsut/ Berber Spring. read more

welcome moroccan government web site

Moroccan government has a website now. Yeh !
before that they were busy looking at what people are posting but now they seem to want to do it . maroc dot ma.. opened yestersay with a big ceremony where the prime minister and other dignitaries. they went to push the start button.
interesting accademic staff about the contry !! for instance:

"Amazighe is the most ancient language of the Maghreb. The coming of Amazighs to Morocco goes back to the Neolithic era. For historians, their origin remains a subject of controversy"(read more)

congratulation madame government.
link: www.maroc.ma

free zone or die

Matqish bladi
"do not touch my country" is always relavent and as time goes by it is evenmore relevent tan before. it is not just terrorism that toutches our beautiful bled. it is also globalization that is oding as much havoc as suicide bombings.
The free zone of tangier and an the maqquilladoras on the borders of usa and mexico. let's see what will happen with the 'moroccan' free zone. when we allow the beast of globalization to settle at home while we keep ourelves busy chasing small scale drug dealers and bearded guys.

Basta Ta3rabt

Basta Ta3rabt

Moroccan Bloging community is doing well and it is all going on the right direction. Now we are talking about an alternative discourse to official corporate globalized media that feeds information to the  Moroccan press agency “la map”. Well it is a good thing that all those of us who live in urban areas and have the means to craft words, blogs and podcasts  to make a change. But i think we are still digging tunnels with coffee spoons we borrowed long ago from the  Almashreq al3arabi: Our beloved Orient. The middle east. Otherwise we would not be preaching affiliation to the Arabic totems.
Anyone can use the language they like to express their views the way they want but please do not force “Al Fus’ha” on anyone if they do not want it. the bottom line is we are not arabs on morocco is the question of identity is to be raised again. Amazigh activists are sick and tired of a discourse where anything  written has to be in Arabic. Anything said has to be in Arabic. The Maghreb is not really Arab.
This is not really about language or anything it is about an cyber-urban sphere that says nothing about our brothers and sisters out there in the mountains who rely on USAID , Peacecorps, and CRS to watch their needs and feed them doses of globalization is impoverishment b-shwiyya. In the big cities we feed the same people the same doses by deciding in their place who they are.
Culture is not just language and ahwash, it is also ways of living and enjoying these ways and appreciating them in a space where knowledge about culture means a little more than just living it.
Blogers of Morocco, invite people to say what they see, and share their knowledge. Please do not force us to swallow “al-3uruba” again. We had enough.

Unlearning Moroccan Arabism

Finally there are people who start to question some of the “general academic comforts” about Moroccan identities. Is Morocco an Arab country? ( oui bien sure )
For many decades the Moroccan visitors, guests, students, scholars, anthropologists bought into the old story of the Moorish world successfully sculptures to fit the needs of an “Orient” full of dreams, harem, and desert camels.
Moroccans helped.
The foreign language craftsmen like T.Benjelloun, Berrada, Chraibi … and crafts women like Lalla Fatima Mernissi recreated the image of the Harem and sold it to the west. A return policy based on dexterity and the craft of verbiage.
When students of Morocco are given these stories as required readings, they have to read and reproduced the stories. They recreated the narrative patterns. But as they still travel round the country and usually run head into the question and find it hard to go round it. Michelle Medina in her article publishe at Glimps dotcom had the courage to ask the question. She concludes:

Moroccan identities confuse our desire to simplify culture and fixate on color. Ultimately for me, the beauty of this country is its fluidity, its seamless ability to be many things at once.

Some ignore it and keep going through the tunnel of denial others stop and ask for directions. Is Morocco an Arab country?
Why do you care, it is Morocco and we are an Muslim and Arab country. This has been decided long ago and it has been written on the books. Go to any University in the UK, France or the US of A. look at the book shelves. Look at the nice achievements and awards these skilful craftsmen had harvested from others like them in appreciation of the hard work they do.
Now what’s new?
“Ait debrouille” , "Les Sindbads marocains"? a move towards civil society the fashion of development and women empowerment strategies a white burden a la marocaine. This is where the Moroccans lost contact of their “literates”. How asks what question? When did Fatima go to Ait Iktel to find answers for what sells best the Harem or “l'intelligence de miser”? it is easy to schedule the move now that the world of letters calls it “Development”
Now is a good time to start thinking the Berbers of Morocco might sell better. they might be a good material for crafting without abandoning the old “academic comfort” established by old pan-arabs, old second-hand-pan-arab friends from the west.
Some of the Moroccans of the blog sphere are still behind… “witness”(n arabic)

Voice again

how much staff has to happen before we really do anything about it.
Read etat des lieu of RSF (english)
how much of real freedom of speech can we talk about.

Me, her and my mother

Literature:

Moh and his amazigh mother at the famous offices entering the country of Uncle Tom. issues of language and intelegibility that created an absurd reality that is very real. Is Tamazight a language? is it in the lists?... Moh's mother is a person everyone should read about.
Moi Elle at Ma Mere

enjoy.

the right to information

What is really happening all over the world is intimidating.

We know about it when it happens, do we? We don’t hear everything. The big 5 media corporations in the US of A do the work and monopolize everything not caring about our rights to information. Well it is not the right to access infos anymore, it is the right to access accurate, true.. the right information. freedom of expression i sa differetn story

When they chose the verbiage that works for them, they all set references for frames of though and build successfully mentalities of submission and dependence. We will depend on them to get informed.

There are times when we get corrections for all the junk information we are fed. However how many of us are ready to check back and correct these information. For instance events happening on France, the civil war in Iraq, the war in Iraq, Iran and the USA. the Western Sahara, Palestine, Darfur.

Who sets the hot spots and the breaking news and why? Who sets the rules of forgetting issues of war and disasters, Afghanistan, Serbia, Rwanda, etc.

Sam Graham-Felsen revisits france. Please read.

Matkhemmem-sh / Think Not

when it hurts to think...

‘Depressing , gone crazy’ is the reaction of many of us who try hard to catch up with what is commonly called top news. The world seems to have lost its mnd . And is going somewhere not known to anyone.

In politics the US is leading (hurding) the world and people isworried about anti-anything sentiments growing all over the place and who initiates that and...

I am thinking about all the possible ways of understanding but it is not right when understanding means nothing but finding out how ‘wrong’ justifies itself. It hurts to think.. and i know how painful it is to think outside ones head. it does not matter if any one gets it or not..
i feel for those who make a living out of "planning" to explain to their students how things happen in politics..

Some will say: ‘but all the thinkers and big heads of the past have done that and thought about all the possible ways for humanity to progress and seek progress. I agree.. except that we can categorize them now and have them packaged in books and anthologies. we can show parts of them and hide others. How many of us know Ibn Khaldoune and why would not they know Ali Azayku or Sidati Ould Abba. How and why would we care about Max Weber and not Sidi Ahmed Belmadani.

How many people think 'reframing organizations' is diametrically opposite to any social change when the frames have been prefabricated to fit forcefull anywhere. And whydo frames imply square-ness.

I learned like in a dream that history unfolds slowly and all the things we think we learn are going to be worthless a few days later. Actions that we think are past still go on in a world governed by war-lords and all those thirsty for money and power. There is no immediate answer to the questions that start with a “why” at a time where the WH-question has maybe as an answer.

I am worried about knowledge and the right to information. We are packaging more and more our thought in frames of emptiness. How fast can political science go to catch up with politics and how much can sociology can go before society changes face. How are the anthropology students doing with a depressed discipline where native anthropologists are no more welcome in a field where all the findings tell them how their favorite professors have all conspired with corporations to forge stories and publish them in English and German. This is the authority of science that people pay loans to learn. People put themselves in a life time debt enslavement to learn what makes them more depressed. all the interest goes to the same pockets.

Wars and power are the currency of the age. Enlightenment that gave some people hope in the future no-more counts. There are bumps everywhere. Chomsky abandons his generative linguistics and all the sentence trees to focus on real trees we log everyday and people we hunt in every corner.

Globalization is a genocide backed up by classrooms, prisons, garrisons and chicken souks and lesson plans.

Death in Morocco

who kills Moroccans ?


Death in morocco seems to be everywhere, like other places in the world but there are deaths that happen because of anger and politics. People who killed themselves in the suicide bombings of Casablanca in May 16th have left more than 43 other people killed. The killings continue to other areas like the gendarmeries and police stations. Killing happen at night in the dark in neighborhoods where police think are out of the circles they are responsible for.
When asked to provide security for the villagers, the Moroccan government ignored people in Ait Ourir. Now after demonstrations and arrests and the assassination of Hamid. After the loss of lives police took the initial action of bringing some police men to arrest the gangs that brought insecurity and assassinations to the village.
Now unemployed university graduates organize collective suicide ceremonies to take their lives and this is happening on the street in front of parliament buildings.
This is not just a phenomenon, and it is not a thing psychologists could ever understand. It is beyond what they think is a social trend . It is the absence of valuable meaning of life, Moroccas cal it Hogra. It is not as simple as “jobs or death” which these unemployed university graduates write on the banners. It is the meaning of life that is lost with dignity and self pride that can not be explained by scholars or news papers, it has to e experienced.
This is very different from the debate in Switzerland round the right to die and whether it is ethical to assist people who want to put an end to their lives. [Read more]. In many areas in Japan this is called a trend. As reported by the ABC website. “Total strangers making meticulous arrangements online to kill themselves en masse. The group suicides usually take place inside sealed cars, where people burn charcoal so that they will die of carbon monoxide poisoning.” (abcnews.go.com).
In Morocco it is still the case but the government is not taking measures to stop it. Knowing it can be stopped. However unemployment is only the apparent surface cause of what is happening. If we look at the list of people who attempted to take their lives in Rabat, most of them have children and some of them were getting married this means that these people have lives that they value. The thing is weather their life is valued by a political regime that imposes a culture of submission and enslavement. Many other people commit suicide for other reasons when they feel they are so damaged that any kind of fixing is impossible but to hold slogans like “work or death” is more powerful than the job and more powerful than death. Seeking death as a form of liberation is a thing that has nor been addressed by any of the Moroccan thinkers or politicians.
Now it is high time we looked at the reasons beyond slogans. If “Al-Hogra” can be translated into other languages, then the world would understand what it is to be Moroccan and what it means to seek freedom in death.
Moroccans love life.

Another Ali Passed Away

Ali farka Toure

We are loosing many Alis in the Berber land and sahara deserts. Those who shaped our understanding of what art has always meant.
Ali farka toure dies at the age of 66 this past week. He was an outstanding figure in musics of the desert. He survived cancer and lived to rinse all the ears of his people and others with beautiful music. He was the hero of tones and rhythms. He played and sang for love, for the desert for more than thirty yeas.
He is seen by many music ‘specialists’ in the US as the best blues player and singer in Africa. He always responded to that is a very Ali way “ Americans play good Malian music” but they do not really understand much of it
Crowds of musicians like Ray Cooder, Taj Mahal and others made the ‘pilgrimage to Mali to meet Ali and learn from his talents. they discovred him Ali played his ancestral music that spirits tell him about. He played a music that echoed tones from the desert. He knew what it all meant. Was he discovered like all the other things the west likes to call “great discoveries”
In his visit to Essaouira Morocco. 1999 he played for the Moroccan crowds and all the internationals who came to the concert. He played with the Moroccan Grawa who had the same background as he had. The music that cleanses the souls and brings hope to people who are looking at there homes being more and more invaded and devastated by the gurus who want everything even sacred sounds.
Ali refuses to record anywhere else he made a crew come o record in his home village.
listen more
( from National Public Radio, USA)

Difandi Ssouq / forbiden to souk.

Baraka / enough:
Hamid Bounhilat, a 30 years old, a seller of fruit and veggies at the weekly Souq of Ait Ourir (about 20 miles south east of Marrakech) gets killed by gang early in the morning last week . Hamid is from Hellet Belhadj one of a thousands of forgotten villages.
After the burial, Inhabitants of the village rose and walked to the HQ of the local government to protest against lack of security in the area. earlier incidents showed that the government does not give a hoot about whatever is related to the peoples safety and security.
It is ironic that the Moroccan government has all the arsenal to stop the protests. People were asking for more security in the area. they were asking their government to do what it is supposed to do.
Protesters were faced with a regiment of policemen and Gendarmes armed with guns and tear bombs. Four helicopters were roaming above them. the governor and his band of suites and ties came out surprised about what is happening.
60 people were arrested according to a local news paper many were injured.
This is not the kind of security people want.
People want to go safely the weekly market when ever they want. A government that provides regiments of FIR and gendarmes helicopters and hundreds of cars and trucks can use some of this to provide some security.
When it is protests and demonstrations the gov is super present but when it is peoples lives, forget it.
Read amazighworld.com

Graduates and cartoons

Let’s create safe space for dialogue

Everything will fall under the freedom of speech and the right to write and say.

In a diversity convocation in a Vermont graduate school, Muslim students were invited this week to talk about the Danish cartoons question. Others were encouraged to listen and later to dialogue as peacefully as they could.

Te meeting managers reminded the crowd about the rules of listening and dialogue. You should listen to “them”.

A professor leading the meeting started out with a familiar question: let’s all try to make sense of why we are here. He invited people to say what brought tem there. Learning about the misconceptions they have about Islam and the Muslim world.

Muslim students were listened to for a while in their expressions about what they felt about the incidents and the cartoons of prophet. An apology was pronounced by two Danish SIT students. The discussion continued to raise some questions round the causes of the incidents and the fingers media has in the issue. Home grown tensions, freedom of speech, monopolization of information. Who talks about the cartoons now that streets are filed with protestors and violence is all over the place. Violence. Etc.

People had different reactions to the session.( i mean graduate people had reactions.)

“it helped me understand things i had not thought about before” said a graduate.

“ I wish it was deeper than that” said a student about the session.

“ well I think the session was framed in a “compassionate listening / conflict transformation kind of frame . we want real discussions about the political implications of all that. We are in grad school, man. Enough of touchy feely staff. I don’ t learn that way”

“ people reacted to a company that published the cartoons.. it was not the Danish government or the people of Denmark who did it”

“in this country (USA) freedom of speech was to express views against the government not to denigrate each other” said one professor at the school.

Mhee and eid Elkebir

Not Just for the sake of bla-bloging, but out of honest emotions that Mohee in Blognehg reflects on his experience going home for Ed Elkebir. The abrahamaic muslim tradition of sacrifice.

The myth explains Mohee as told b everyone tells the story of Ismael how was about to be slaughtered by his father when the arch angel Jibreel brings him a sheep to sacrifice. Ismael was saved once and for good.

Mohee stated that over 200 million sheep are killed or rather slaughtered in the all the muslim countries.

Millions of people go visiting their families every year to celebrate this holiday.

This year more than SIX million heads were sacrificed for the honor of god and to save Ismael’s head. In most cities the killings are done in the homes but in the country side, Mohee, this has to happen in public and people slaughter in the streets.

People can sacrifice as they want but they should not do it infrond of young kids. “this i can not tolerate” says Mohee, “ an animal also has right like all living beings”

The images of blood Mohee has seen were not good.