Summer Ordeal Noureddine Boutahar

As we count down to summer vacation, my adrenaline gets pumping up. The mere thought of summer makes me shudder. It reminds me of the sleepless, horrible, all-night parties ahead when I will be spending the nights watching the clock ticking the seconds away. These parties, be they wedding ceremonies, birthdays, male circumcisions or whatever, are a systematic torture and a nightmarish moment for Moroccan poor and middle-class neighborhoods.
The parties begin at 00ish and finish after dawn. The music played over the loudspeakers, swells and swells progressively until it reaches its unnecessary maximum intensity and loudness, shaking the whole neighborhood. The so-called singers keep belting out their amplified soit-disant songs that pierce people's ears and hearts. They turn people's homes into harsh prisons and torture chambers. They deprive everyone - babies, old people, sick people - of sleep, keep their hearts quivering and make them suffer ear ringing the whole following day or tinnitus all their life.
It is a 'compulsory insomnia', in Abdellah Damouns words, that almost everyone in this country has gone through. I say 'almost' because our Makhzen (ruling elite) is well-known for its selective application of the law. The elite districts are often safe, peaceful and so calm that you could hear a pin drop at night. When it comes to the plebs, the authorities adopt the "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" policy.
Disturbing the peace is a crime in every jurisdiction. However, like many rules in this country, this one is also drawn but not followed. Morocco does not lack laws but the rule of law. Many things here are preached but not practiced or they are practiced selectively.
I have been a little bit around the world, but I have never come across a case where one parties until dawn and the rest of the district stays up writhing in agony in their beds. I have never witnessed a situation when people have to listen, unwillingly in the dead of night, to drums that damage their ear drums. I have never heard cars honk their horns anywhere else in the streets at dawn except in this country where rules are made to be broken.
This situation compromises the future of younger people who are growing up in this lawlessness. Their version of right and wrong will certainly be not only completely different but dangerous too. Adding this lawlessness to the deliberate chaos that is given free rein in our streets after the Arab Spring is adding fuel to the fire. Our future generation is being taught to flout the law, to scoff the rules, and to grow up careless and indifferent of their responsibilities and duties. That's ultra danger.
There is no better way to end this post than pray to God − in the absence of law enforcement − and ask Him to grant us all patience this summer and help us keep strong through the usual summery ordeal. Amen.

I Will not Vote Tomorrow Noureddine Boutahar

I have no connections with the leftists or Islamists. I am just a simple and lawful Moroccan citizen who dreams of a real and sustainable democracy in this country. However, I will not go to the polls tomorrow for the following reasons.
First, I have washed my hands of the Moroccan political parties, from extreme left to extreme right and all points in between. Many of them have had the opportunity to ‘rule’ but gave poor account of themselves. They only served as a mouth for the Makhzen (Ruling Elite) to eat garlic with. For decades now, Moroccan people have been sending clear messages to this Makhzen and to these political parties by refusing to go to the polls, by taking to the streets, and by other means of protest. However, no one wanted to read the silent majority's messages. They, instead, have always thrown caution to the wind and chosen the salmon’s attitude and have swum upstream against the current.
Second, elections or no elections Morocco will not advance one iota as long as the same mentality which has led us here continues adamantly in our politics. Ask any Moroccan citizen about the motivation of our political parties and the odds are that they will answer: “self-interest rather than public interest.” This self-interest runs the gamut from immunity, to power to money, and positions. It’s also all about pushing small group and/or family agenda. So, for me, going to the election polls at the moment is a waste of everything; a waste of time, a waste of money, and a waste of energy, and only serves the Makhzen agenda of keeping the status quo intact.
Third, the murky old electoral practices of the past still persist and most of its practitioners refuse to admit that they have expired or outlived their times. Such methods include gerrymandering, disenfranchisement, turning a blind eye and a deaf ear, and other unfair and undemocratic electoral practices that we see, read about and hear people utter sotto voce and fortissimo all around. These practices favor certain individuals and parties.
Fourth, the rhetoric and the soi-disant programs have remained almost the same over the decades. Every electoral campaign is an opportunity for the ‘runners’ to condemn previous elections as rigged, unfair, and unjust though they ate the proverbial fat tail with the wolf. Every electoral campaign is the time to promise ‘jam tomorrow’ and a bunch of other promises they know they can’t keep. Every electoral campaign is the time for Moroccan people to get lost, baffled and confused by the number of political parties all looking the same like the eggs of one hen and Xeroxed programs with tissue-thin differences.
Fifth, there are opinion and pen prisoners and persecutees in this country. I do not agree with most of them one hundred per cent, but as Voltaire, the great French philosopher said, “I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” That has to be the motto of the democracy that I and many Moroccans aspire to build and hold to their hearts. There can be no real democracy without respect for free speech, acceptance of different opinions, and protection of minority right.
Sixth, the Makhzen, which holds the whip hand, is not serious about change and reform. The ruling elite and its think-tank have thrown people’s demands for real democracy into the trashcan and have satisfied themselves with cosmetic make-up. They have resorted to the wooden rhetoric of the past that tells people what they wish to hear - words and no deeds. They support the old political party dinosaurs and drumbeaters, while the youth who are behind all this movement and premature elections are totally ignored, intimidated, persecuted, vilified, and demonized.
I love my country with every fiber of my heart and being. I am a pacifist and I don’t recommend violence as a solution. However, I will not go to the election booths so as to have the right to complain when things don’t work out right. I am certain all the campaign promises being thrown right and left today will end up forgotten between elections as it has always been the case.