Dear Rachid,
As is my usual habit for years when I wake up early, I skimmed Almassae newspaper this morning waiting for my car to heat up. I looked at your op-ed column first, and there it was, all clad in black except for a short reminder message in white bold letters that you were behind bars to defend press freedom. I felt conscience-stricken because I hadn’t written about your detention, except for short comments here and there.
I also felt sad this morning because I remembered your informative, persuasive, and also inflammatory articles and I missed them. I really missed them and still miss them because they are engaging writings full of sharp comments, insightful criticism, and witty sarcasm all denouncing and decrying corruption, abuse of power, poor wages, exorbitant salaries that shear taxpayers, income divide, sky-high unemployment, lack of freedom of speech, the weakening of the public's purchasing power through successive price rises, bribery, embezzlement, kickbacks, cronyism, nepotism, red tape bureaucracy, lack of transparency, lack of accountability and punitive measures and so on.
I felt sad because after heavy fines, threats and attacks, they now resorted to the severest and worst punishment a journalist can suffer from: deprive you from pen and paper. They wanted to distance you from your readers who, like me, consider your Shouf Tshouf column their daily first dose of caffeine that brings them to life, as I once told a security guard at an embassy who wanted to ‘separate’ me from my copy of Almassae paper.
Yes, I miss your daily column, superior in both quality and quantity. I miss your style and approach. It is a lucid and clear style enjoyed by both the layman and the scholar as it mixes both high standard and colloquial Arabic, all wrapped up in Amazigh sarcasm and obstinacy, and swaddled in intense patriotism. It also “combines the simplicity of Glenn Beck, the combativeness of Bill O’Reilly, and the humor of Dennis Miller” [1]. The approach you keep is usually national but sometimes international when a situation presents itself.
Your knowledge of the Moroccan political system and landscape is so impressive which is the major reason behind your detention. They have shut you up at a time when the country needs you most to illuminate your readers about the present political turmoil and the forces shaking it up. So, instead of investigating the fraudulent practices you exposed and the corruption charges against those powerful guys you wrote about, they opted to swim against the tide and sanction the victim fighting for transparency and better governance. They deliberately behaved like the fool who looked at the finger when the wise man pointed at the moon.
They jailed you, dear Rachid, to deprive those who don’t have a say to express the injustices they face from their spokesman. But who are these guys who want to bring you to heel? They are a whole mafia that runs the gamut from the tax-evader tycoons to the 10 dirhames bribe-taker. They are the corrupt who are used to fishing (overfishing) in troubled waters and come up smelling like roses. Those who put you behind the bars are the ones who belong in prison for life, but they run scot-free because they have “moms in the kitchen” or because they are born with golden spoons in their mouths and rule and oppress those with wooden spoons (or no spoons at all).
They put you away because they knew you were and always are a brave journalist and a valorous opponent of the rampant corruption. They jailed you because you exposed them and they wanted to use you as a warning to those who dare approach their territory. They shut you up because you were doing your job to the utmost of your ability informing, illuminating, and educating the readers. Those “who made mischief in the land, and would not reform” [2] put you behind bars out of fear you would hunt them down from house to house and from alley to alley. They are afraid your voice would give additional strength to the pro-democracy protesters who take to the streets every Sunday to decry what you regularly condemned in your daily column. They are afraid your column would give a solid platform to reform advocates and democracy seekers.
I know whatever I say or write cannot do justice to a journalist of your caliber who devoted all his writings and risked his life to be the spokesperson of the man (and woman) in the street. So, all I can do now is pray for you to walk out of jail soon and go back home. Part of the message on your “detained” column says your “return is inevitable”. I strongly believe it because “every dark night has to come to an end”, because “the crazy kids have grown up”, in Benshemssi’s words, and will not accept anything less than democracy, freedom, and dignity before the winds calm down, and because your jailors don’t want you to be a free-speech martyr, a title you have already so worthily won.
Let me, in the end, shout out loud in the face of your jailors with Mostapha Khalal in today’s issue of Almassae, “Free Nini and free yourselves from the yoke of the past you still cherish and consider the golden age” [3].
[3] Khalal, Mosatapha. “The Case of Rachid Nini..Strange Paradoxes.” Almassae, 14th July, 2011, P.1-2
