My Thoughts about Access Program (Noureddine Boutahar)

I am writing these thoughts at the request of Khemisset Access program students.
MATE ACCESS program is almost over and I am sad, but I am actually profoundly grateful for the opportunity given to me to teach these students because I learnt a lot from the students and from the program itself. It is my utmost delight to see these young people grow, in less than two years, from students struggling to communicate with English to students who can hold a long conversation and write long essays in English using a wider variety of vocabulary and grammatical structures.
The program allowed me to meet and make new friends (teachers, students, guest speakers, parents and others)
The program allowed me to use my ICT skills and put to practice things I learnt by my own and during my stay in the USA.
The program allowed me to improve and hone some of my teaching skills because this is a special group.
The program allowed me to widen my knowledge of American culture via the books (MEGA), the CDS, and the American guest speakers.
I learned that working with a small group is much better than working with a large group because you can tend to the needs of each individual student.
I learned that introducing Internet services in the classroom like youtube, google, blogs, and so on enhances learning, and makes teaching fun and enjoyable.
I learned that good students – like this group -- make a good teacher. It’s the serious, smart, interested, curious students who push teacher to do better and work harder.
I learned to budget my time even more efficiently. I had to juggle my school work, my Access work, my TV work, and my family chores and responsibilities.
Also, my students have repeatedly been teachers to me.For example, time and again, I prepared and planed topics for discussion, read enough about them, then I got surprised at the richness and variety of my students ideas in the classroom.
I'm sad, though, that the program is almost over because I had so much fun with these students. I hope to meet with them sometime later, to see them grow, develop, begin a career, and actively participate in and contribute to the development, welfare, and betterment of this nation.

Congrats to Egypt (Noureddine Boutahar)

Dear Egyptian friends,
Congratulations on your victory and success. You deserve your liberation and freedom. Your courage and perseverance have paid off. For Eighteen days you have been protesting peacefully, enduring weather conditions, standing thugs’ provocations, and bearing the regime’s hopeless prevarications. Now that you have pulled the regime out like a cat across the rug,enjoy your well-deserved victory.
There is a joke making the rounds here in Morocco that Husni Mubarak came out on the balcony one morning and saw the crowds shouting and screaming. He asked one of his advisers, “Who are these people? What do they want?” The guy responded, “They’ve come to say good bye, your Excellency.” “Why? Where are they going?” said Mubarak.
It is a joke reminiscent of France’s Marie Antoinette joke: “let them eat the cake”. A good joke does more than make you laugh. A good joke like this one tells a lot about the mentality of those tyrannical rulers in their ivory towers, wearing blinkers, and clinging on to their beloved chairs of leadership to the last shred of imaginary hope.
They never look back, they never make any self-criticism, and they never listen to the voice of the people. All they are interested in is how much filthy lucre they and their cohorts make. They listen only to those beating the drums for them in their tacky, hypocritical speeches, and in the media. They do the possible and the impossible to dig their heels in and their heads in the sand so as not to see the truth: poverty, sufferings, injustice, corruption, despotism and the list is dozens of problems long.
As I always say, the rulers at the top are not the only ones to blame. They are just the tip of the iceberg. There are other hands on the steering wheel who benefit (more) from the situation that you feel these rulers are helpless and dependent on those vultures feeding on their fellow citizens. These vultures are powerful individuals and families, companies, and corrupt army generals who take and never give anything to the nation.
Congratulations once again to all the Egyptians and May God help and guide you along the path to true democracy. Special congrats to my Egyptian friends: those I made in Boston, Washington, Kent State (Mohammed, Ashraf, Wael, and Ahmed); those I met in Spain; and those I know in Italy.

The chickens have come home to roost. (Noureddine Boutahar)

I am taking some time out of my busy schedule to write down my thoughts about what is taking place in the Arab World these days because it is really the Arab World's watershed moment.
There are frustrated people everywhere in the world, but the Arab World has the worst-ever kind of frustration. The people in these rich countries have been put in “a boiling pot with a tight lid” for so long. The pot, however, has blown up the kitchens of Tunisian and Egyptian leaders and it is shaking that of a few others. These poor people were put there by their rulers and the West and shadow governments have been blowing on the fire, and the result is what you see today in some of these countries.
The Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions’ message is clear and they are asking for something exclusively human, I guess: freedom, democracy and a better life. That’s what people are standing up for there in Egypt right now. They want their economic rights, their dignity, and the right to rule themselves. They want real reform because they’ve had enough of fake reforms and make-up. They’ve had enough of make-believe elections and parody institutions. They’ve had enough of committees “where investigations go to die”. They’ve had enough of unkept promises and eternal waiting-rooms (country) where their dreams fade and die.
People there are fed up to the back teeth with the fallacy that they are not ready for democracy yet. They are fed up of being considered under age, unsophisticated, and not mature enough for democracy.
The wind of change is blowing through the oil-rich Arab world because people are sick and tired of seeing the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Poverty, unemployment, corruption, embezzlement, inequalities and huge disparities in wages and salaries are all themes rumbling across countries awash with wealth and enormous potential. Unfortunately, the embezzlers, the corrupt, the money launderers and other criminals have no fear of the law because they are the law. You really have a lump in your throat to see these perpetrators run scot-free and go unpunished, and unquestioned.
The lull before the storm is over, and the dictators are getting only their come-uppance for ignoring the needs of the poor and allowing corruption and official abuse to run rampant. They are reaping what they have sown. Even their patrons in the West are abandoning them and are asking them to leave. These rulers have missed out on many opportunities to make peace with their people. Now, here emerges a can-do generation which will not be satisfied with piecemeal, cosmetic reforms. Burnishing an image which has been tarnished by decades of autocracy and authoritarianism will not do the job this time. Rather, bold and far-reaching reforms are needed at all levels: political, economic, social, and judicial.
I have been talking about the tyrant rulers, but this does not mean the rulers at the top and their government officials only. There are those who aid and abet them in greedily exploiting the people and the natural resources of their countries. Sometimes you feel those rulers are helpless and are just carrying out agendas set by shadow governments, or the invisible government which in actual fact has the political and economic power. These are greedy, powerful individuals and companies both local and foreign working out plans behind the scenes to rob the people and to milk the country dry like leeches on a cow.
All freedom, peace, and democracy-loving people, let’s pray and hope that real democracy and peace come to the Arab World. Sooner the better, because chaos, anarchy, destruction, and all forms of violence are not in anyone’s interest and will not solve problems.
I also hope that life gets back to normal very soon in Egypt, that its cultural heritage will not suffer the same fate as that of Iraq, and that all my friends there (in Egypt) are safe and sound.