Mustapha Ajbaili: ‘Welcome home,’ said the gendarme in my native Morocco

MUSTAPHA AJBAILI

Driving on a curvy and dangerous road along one side of a deep gorge carving of a mountain range toward the south of Morocco, I was pulled over by a Royal Gendarmerie officer forming a security checkpoint in the entrance of the city of Bouizakarne. The officer saluted me and asked me to step out of the car and join him inside the gendarmerie office built on the roadside.

It was my first time ever to be pulled over by a police officer while driving in Morocco. Inside the building, the young officer asked if I knew why I was pulled over. The only reason I could think of was that I overtook a truck while driving on a section of the road now left behind. But my reason seemed to lack some logical sense because I was the fourth in a series of drivers who all overtook the truck when the road appeared to be sufficiently clear ahead; yet no other one of those drivers was stopped at the checkpoint. I told the officer the reason I had in mind, anyway.

“Yes, that is why I stopped you,” he said.

“But excuse me, officer, are you being selective in implementing justice?” I replied.

He stretched his right hand and grabbed my papers I had placed on his table. After examining my papers, he said, “Welcome home, this is how it goes here.”

He proceeded with the question, “What do you do in Dubai?”

“I am a journalist,” I replied and handed him my journalist ID card.

“Ahhh, you are a shadow soldier,” he said.

[silence]
“And how much do you get paid over there?” he asked.

“I will tell you, if you promise not to fine me,” I said.

He smiled, handed back the papers to me and wished me safe trip.

I stood up, walked a few steps and stopped. I turned my head toward him and asked, “By the way, how do you people know if someone does a traffic violation in those mountains…any hidden cameras?”

“We have a man sitting on that cliff and watching cars driving through that curvy road. He calls us if he sees someone does something wrong,” the officer said.

I laughed and walked out.

“I told you welcome home,” the officer shouted.

Mustapha Ajbaili: What to do about Morocco’s youth movement? Rebranding needed, of course

MUSTAPHA AJBAILI
 
When Morocco’s pro-democracy movement first took to the streets on February 20, the government was fighting a war behind the scenes to destroy it, while in the meantime it was embracing it in public.

On the one hand, security services and their servants tried to sow divisions within the group and launched a smear online media campaign against it. On the other hand, they were embracing it in public. During a visit to Washington, Foreign Minister Taieb Fassi Fihri said, referring to the group, “We are proud of them.” The government initially did not expect a movement born in the sphere of virtual communication to gain momentum and reach a level where it would threaten its political agenda and the interests of those in power.

In the recent weeks, when the movement grew in power and became seriously challenging to the status quo, authorities started to brand it as a collective mass of extremists made up mainly of the outlawed Islamist Justice and Charity Group and the Marxist Democratic Path.

These groups are perceived as threats to the democratic process, and because they are part of the February 20 movement the latter is also lately portrayed as an obstacle to stability and to the alleged democratic course taken by the government. By the government I mean the ruling establishment not the cabinet, which is made up of ministers who come and go.

Following last Friday’s speech by King Mohammed VI in which he unveiled a daft constitution and called upon political parties to mobilize the people to vote “yes” for the project in a referendum scheduled for July 1, there was speculation that the protest movement would disintegrate as the demands of some of its components, mainly the Amazigh cultural movement, were allegedly answered in recognizing Amaizgh as an official language of Morocco.

The speculation proved inaccurate as thousands of people took to the streets in different cities to denounce the constitutional reforms and to demand a genuine democratic change in the country.

Almost all the components of the February 20 movement criticized the draft constitution and called the changes cosmetic. The giant masses of people who marched peacefully in the cities of Casablanca, Tangiers, Fes and even Marrakesh, which is still recovering from the shock of a terrorist attack, are a proof that the conflict between the establishment and the opposition is still alive. Even more, the protests and the recent government reaction to them signaled that Morocco is going down a dangerous slope.

The establishment will rely on the elites revolving in its orbit and on the majority illiterate and low-educated masses to support the constitutional reforms. But the educated people from student unions and opposition groups, who tend to be conduits of political change, are unlikely to be tamed.

Before the draft constitution is passed, I see that there is a door of opportunity to revise things and engage in an honest dialogue with the only real opposition group we currently have in Morocco, the February 20 movement. After the constitution is passed, the chances to diffuse tension will be less.

(Published in english.alarabiya.net on June 20)

Morocco’s opposition youth group beaten in Rabat, protests in other cities

 For the first time in Morocco, protesters call for regime change

MUSTAPHA AJBAILI

Activists of a Moroccan pro-democracy youth group were broken up in the capital Rabat on Sunday as they prepared to hold a protest march against a draft constitution unveiled by King Mohammad VI two days ago, two members of the group from Rabat said in a telephone interview with Al Arabiya.

The security forces and dozens of “recruited thugs” attacked members of the February 20 movement who had gathered in Taqaddom neighborhood in Rabat to protest against the draft constitution in which the King seemed to have relinquished some of his executive and legislative powers, Najib Shawki said.

Mr. Shawki added that after 40 members of the group were wounded, the activists decided to withdraw in order to avoid more casualties.

Another activist, Jalal Al Makhfi, said the security forces have used “thugs” for the first time to clamp down on demonstrations organized by the youth group. “Agents and servants of the interior ministry have recruited thugs and paid them money for the first time to attack our demonstrations throughout the country,” he said.
But a security source who refused to be named denied the government recruited people to attack protesters or to demonstrate in support of the draft constitution. He added that “ordinary residents may have chased away those who want to cause unrest in their neighborhood.”

Mr. Makhfi said protesters in the cities of Casablanca, Fes, Asfi and Tangier were also subject to similar harassment but that in those cities the youth activists were able to hold on and continue their rallies.

The groups said in Facebook page that about 25,000 people had joined the protest in the country’s biggest city, Casablanca.

All government officials—including senior ministers—and virtually political parties of this country of about 32 million people have voiced support for the new draft constitution, which will be put to referendum on July 1. (Morocco’s GDP is about $154 billion, and the per capita income is about $5,000.)

Under the new draft constitution, the king would remain head of state and the military and still appoint ambassadors and diplomats, while retaining the right to name top officials of unspecified “strategic” administrations.

The prime minister, now to be called the “president of the government,” will have the power to dissolve parliament, hitherto the monarch’s prerogative.
Mohammed VI also pledged an independent judiciary.

The 47-year-old monarch, who took over the Arab world’s longest-serving dynasty in 1999, currently holds virtually all power in the Muslim North African country, and he is also its top religious authority as the Commander of the Faithful.

(Published in English.alarabiya.net on June 19)