25 June 2006

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

24 June 2006

… 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 .


22 June 2006

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.

20 June 2006

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.

15 June 2006

MERZOUGA FLOODS PICTURES


MERZOUGA_0001
Video sent by madabina
floods of merzouga...
these are photos Lahcen Ougnir provided. thank you lahcen.
no comment

12 June 2006

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...