By Abdelkader Filali

Morocco World News

Toronto, Canada, August 19, 2012

 Analyzing Lowi, Miriam (2009). Oil Wealth and the Poverty of Politics in Algeria.

Miriam Lowi puts forth a compelling argument regarding the process of state-formation and political stability in “high growth, development-oriented, oil-exporting countries” (p. 147) in Oil Wealth and the Poverty of Politics.  Lowi contends the more mainstream theoretical framework of the rentier state model, as well as structural functionalism with a qualitative study focusing on the agency of political leaders and the decisions they make at “critical junctures” in history. Lowi dismisses the resources trap argument and the rentier state model which posits that the presence of abundant resources and “rent” is what determines political outcomes (p. 30).

Instead, Lowi argues that the pre-existing structural contexts of society present political elites with a variety of choices, in which their decision is the most important factor to the reproduction of an authoritarian regime in Algeria which is “largely unchanged in its makeup and strategy” (p. 129). By studying the process of state-formation throughout Algeria’s history stretching back to French colonial rule until the protracted civil war in the early 1990’s and then comparing Algeria’s case with five similar oil-exporting states, oil is proven not to have a causal effect on the robustness of authoritarianism or the weakness of state institutions prevalent in Algeria. Lowi attributes it rather to the strategies employed by the political elites to weaken any opposition to the state, including strategies of repression, co-option and manipulation (p. 133).

In the late 1980’s, dissent against the military regime of President Chadli Bendjedid was threatening the hegemony of the military-politico oligarchy forcing Bendjedid to call multi-party elections in 1991. When it became clear that the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) party- who proposed a platform of open markets and privatization rather than having the military dominate in the economy- was going to win the elections, the security forces of Algeria staged a coup d’état against Chadli and violently repressed the FIS in order to maintain hegemony.

The military has also employed the strategy of co-option to divide and fragment the Islamist and Kabilists movements by exploiting the groups’ fractionalization, weak leadership, and cult of personality, characteristic of parties such as HAMAS and Ennahda (p. 135). Since the independence from French colonial rule in 1962, political leaders have manipulated rents to uphold the “mythology of the state” and the rhetoric of popular incorporation, while simultaneously maintaining a political and economic oligarchy (140).

I argue that agency is undoubtedly a necessary variable in the analysis of the Algerian state-formation experience, but pre-existing structural forces, both internal and external to the state such as; 130 years of colonial rule, fragmented and atomized political poles, and growing interest in Algeria from the United States can be more powerful than leaders and the decisions they make. No matter the strength of the leadership’s political will or agency, exogenous structural forces will always restrict the behavior of actors and can be more powerful in the shaping of outcomes.

Resources

Abundant resources and the rents they provide to states have generated much research and debate on the impact of oil on state-building and instability. Arguments in favor of this approach include economic explanations such as Dutch disease, volatile price fluctuations of primary products, and the factor endowment argument (p. 28). Dutch disease, Lowi argues that “governments can offset the impact of Dutch Disease, if they so desire” through industrialization programs and rural development (p. 30). The factor endowment analysis focuses on the population, arable land, natural resources, and the degree of isolation from major manufacturing nations to explain the prevalence of oil in politics (p. 33). Lowi criticizes the economic analysis of Dutch disease and factor endowment for failing to account for “deviant cases” or to “consider political and institutional processes that may shape behavior and outcomes” (p. 33).

The rentier state framework is also interested in the political implications of oil and rent. Having vast amounts of rent from oil, leaders “become less accountable to the societies they govern, and more autonomous in their decision-making and behavior” (p. 34). Lowi rejects the rentier state model as it fails to “trace casual relationships” and to account for “contradictory trajectories and outcomes” (p. 35). Instead, oil rents are instrumental to political elites as they repress, co-opt, and manipulate society with these resources to ensure they maintain their hegemony in power.

Agency

Focusing on “critical junctures”, Lowi attributes the instability of Algeria in the last two decades to the oil bust of 1986 (p. 121). This loss of rent led to the coup d’état in 1992, after which the military leaders fiercely repressed former FIS members and new Islamic fighters, even funding anti-Islamist civilian militias.

The violent repression only increased the ranks of Islamist fighters from 2-4,000 in 1993 to 27,000 by 1995 (p. 134). Changing tactics, the political elites attempted to co-opt the already fragmented and polarized factions within society. They funded and incorporated Islamist parties, as well as granting amnesty to former guerilla through a Peace and Reconciliation process, encouraging Algerians to ”forgive and forget”.

Through co-option, the opposition was divided, and prevented from mass mobilization. With a $20 billion loan from the IMF in 1994, the state was able to keep clientel networks greased and the façade of a functioning, redistributive state (p. 139). As oil prices steadily increased in the 2000’s, political leaders had more rent with which to manipulate public opinion with and mitigate opposition. Lowi concludes that the decisions made by Presidents Zeroual and subsequently Bouteflika in the critical juncture of the Algerian civil war were integral to the reemergence of the Algerian state.

Pre-Existing Structural Contexts

The agency of powerful political actors is a constant qualitative variable which is often neglected, and Lowi’s argument is a necessary but insufficient analysis of the reemergence of the Algerian state. More than anything, exogenous structural forces well beyond the agency of Algerian elites have produced fertile conditions for the reproduction of a military regime. Deep social cleavages in Algerian society have their roots in a French colonial past which lasted over 130 years.

The French institutionalized a system of legal discrimination in civil, fiscal, juridical, and political domains, favoring the Jews and Kabilists over the Arab population (p. 52). This led to the polarization and atomization of power centers among the people. “The reliance on force, the denial and diversity, and the silencing of debate” were part of political life even before the independence in 1962 and nurtured the future militarism of the state (p. 71). Institutions of colonial rule and their “historical capital” have continued to ensure the maintenance of the regime in power.

More recently, during the instability incurred from the oil bust of 1986, the Algerian leadership has benefited immensely from favorable international conditions, which has allowed the reconsolidation of power and the reemergence of Algeria’s authoritarian state. Without the $20 billion loan from the IMF in 1994, the state would have been unable to maintain clientel networks and repress opposition and could have easily lost control to Islamist guerillas (p. 139).

Rising prices for oil in the late 1990’s has allowed the government to reestablish the rhetoric of abundance and redistribution. The international interest in Algeria, particularly of the United States, has grown with the rising price of oil. The events of 9/11 triggered the “global war on terror” further solidifying bonds between the two nations, providing the Algerian regime with much needed international support and legitimacy. The agency of political leaders and the decisions they make at critical junctures in time undoubtedly influence the reemergence of an authoritarian regime in Algeria. However, pre-existing structural forces outside of the elites’ agency such as a history of colonial rule with well established institutions, increasing prices for oil, and financial and political support from international actors, has all attributed to the maintenance of the a military regime.

Conclusion

Miriam Lowi offers a qualitative approach in explaining the state-building process and authoritarianism in not just Algeria, but many oil-oriented states. Contrary to the popular framework of the resource and rentier state models, Lowi dismisses oil as a determining factor in political outcomes and regimes types. Instead it is the way in which leaders employ these rents which ensures the survival of the regime. By focusing her research on “critical junctures” in Algeria’s history, Lowi was able to isolate the agency and behavior of political elites and found that they were crucially important to the reemergence of an authoritarian regime after years of civil war in the 1990’s.

By employing tactics of brutal repression, co-option, and manipulation, the military regime of President Bouteflika has remained in power. I argue that agency of political leaders is a necessary variable to explore, but the structural variables of historical capital, the increasing price of oil, and the financial and political support received from the West, all coalesced around the same time in favor of the military regime. Beyond the influence of Algerian leaders, these factors have contributed more to the reestablishment of an authoritarian state in Algeria than the agency of political leaders. Debating the Moroccan Sahara and negotiating its perspectives turn around the walls of the Algerian Military Machine. The group of the so called polisario is nothing but just a manufactured product of the military regime in Algiers.

Resources

Lowi, Miriam (2009). Oil Wealth and the Poverty of Politics in Algeria. New York: Cambridge University Press.

By Abdelkader Filali

Morocco World News

Toronto, August 31, 2012

In 1973 Arthur Schlesinger a historian characterized Richard Nixon's administration as an "Imperial Presidency”. This term was also incorporated with later administrations. Political scientists and constitutionalists argue about the nature of Imperial Presidency. Is the formal role of the president changed drastically such that the president that we have now is fundamentally different from what is outlined in the constitution? The US presidency has developed and changed over the time.

The US presidents played different roles in different perspectives from 1800s-1930 than today’s. That is why the term Imperial Presidency is coined with the post New Deal era up until now. From this framework and due to goals of modern government, the constitutional role of the president has to change. This is what the Development Presidency theorists say as Richard A. Watson and Norman C. Thomas in their “The Politics of the Presidency” (1988) argued. They suggested that the concept of the presidency changed rapidly. On the other hand, there is another group of theorists -who analyse the presidency from an Energetic Executive- contend that Imperial Presidency was always there since George Washington issued on his own authority a proclamation of neutrality regarding the war between France and England in 1793(Nelson).

Even though a lot of changes happened, the formal characteristics of the president remain the same. The presidency has always been modern; the President's formal powers connects him to the legislative process, and therefore it isn't surprising if the President plays a role as "legislative agenda setter" and that it was just created by the constitution. This notion of Imperial Presidency is in the heart of the Energetic Executive theory, which I believe provided us with the most accurate description of how president unitary decisions has functioned both historically since 1789, and today.

Crenson and Ginsberg (2007) contended that nothing changed since President Polk war against Mexico and the annexation of California, New Mexico along with Texas. If one wishes to understand the latest modes of governance in the executive, he or she has simply to go back on a journey of how imperial presidency was always part of the dynamic white house. In order to defend this position this paper will engage in an argument of three parts: the first part offers a conceptualization of the presidential institution and demonstrates how Developmental Presidency exhibits an understanding of the structures that have governed American lives from New Deal Era, and govern them still today.

The second part will examine how through Energetic Executive, we can better comprehend some of the causes of why presidents reacted and still react in a way which seems to be somehow, dictatorial, and authoritarian. Lastly, through an understanding of Energetic Executive theory and an application in the current context, I ask why executive power cannot be constrained. This is because it is meant to deal with the unexpected and the unforeseen that does not have to do with rules, and because executive power is not formally constrained by law.

The Concept of Imperial Presidency

According to Douglass North (1990, 3) “institutions are the rules of the game in a society…the constraints that shape human interaction.” When institutions create stable structures, they reduce doubt and uncertainty. One of the common features of the stability of institutions is that they evolve and change, but not in a disconnected or discontinuous trend (Bowman, Woods &Milton.2007). External actors have enormously participated in the institutionalization of the imperial presidency. For instance, consider the notion of “Raison d’Etat” a Machiavellian doctrine which has to deal with the strategic national security threats.

The US president could and can challenge the constitutional rituals and unilaterally impose his own version of governing- the case of Reagan invading Grenada in 1982 twenty four hours after the hostage situation in Beirut is a good example of this. So the president becomes a public leader, party leader and as a legislating leader that is totally unprecedented. Clinton Rossiter defines the presidency as a term beyond any standing reproach to the dictionaries which state that the executive power is undemocratic. But on the contrary, he adds, it is a legitimate response to a dream of a giant democracy more than any other institution.

Rossiter glorifies the presidency and those who shaped it- George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Harry S Truman-.

The “Imperial Presidency” and the Developmental Presidency Theory

In a provoking article in December 1966 Aaron Wildavsky declared that the United States has one President and two presidencies; one is specialized with internal and domestic affairs, the second one is focused on defense and foreign policy. This dual behavioral attitude towards what is internal and external led Wildavsky to demonstrate basing his arguments on a chronological order of events since Franklin Roosevelt till John Kennedy where all the presidents actively succeeded in gaining the necessary support for their foreign policy field (Walles. 1991).

George Washington refused to send documents or even to request support from the House of Representatives in relation to the Jay Treaty. This was a first claim of what has become known as “The Executive Privilege” in 1958. Deputy Attorney- General William Rogers in 1971 defended the US President to withhold information and called it “ uncontrolled discretion” (Walles. 1991). The national government should take the leading role in implementing solutions, and leading initiatives for an interdependent world (Watson& Thomas. 1988). The era between 1950s and 1960s was an era of “Heroic Presidency”. In the early seventies, the term “Imperial Presidency” was coined by Arthur Schlesinger (1973).

His study gathered both an insight of Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal. His discovery mainly touched the executive powers in foreign policy. The trend of the development presidency was highly pronounced after World War II, but particularly, during Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon administration’s (Schlesinger.1973). The presidency reached its high climax when Nixon employed his unilaterally powers this time in the domestic sphere by dealing with those who opposed him, and by impounding funds adopted by the congress.

He dismantled the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) without any authorization from congress (Watson& Thomas. 1988). Schlesinger argued that the Nixon presidency was not only “imperial” but also, “plebiscitary” this concept was used by Napoleon of France and Charles de Gaulle who personified their presidency and blocked any resistance or even opposition to their decisions which were considered to be undemocratic (Schlesinger.1973).

In 1975, Senator Walter F. Mondale in his book “The accountability of Power: Toward a Responsible Presidency” blamed the imperial presidency for what he called “a whole sale decline in Americans’ belief in the viability and honesty of their government institutions” American citizens, intellectuals, writers appreciated the immense powers of the presidency which was used for good common goals( Ameliorating domestic social and economic problems and winning World War II) and could be also used for purposes of dictatorial, and imperial in nature (waging a futile, costly conflicts in Southeast Asia and launching an all- out attack on political enemies) (Watson& Thomas. 1988).

Three years after Mondale’s book in 1978, Fred Greenstein who is a Professor of Politics Emeritus at Princeton University noticed that the US presidency is rapidly shifting into an era of Post- Imperial Presidency within which the powers of the president were limited due to the impact of congress and media. Another historian by the name of Theodore J. Lowi argued that the US presidency reached its maturity under Reagan (Watson& Thomas. 1988). Malcolm Walles in his book Understanding the US Presidency 1991 showed that while the founding fathers of the constitutions did not emphasize on a specific job description of what is domestic and what is diplomatic in terms of treaties and defense, because Walles adds, they were aware of the secrecy and speed of such decisions which were not associated with the legislative brunch. The practice of the executive office has developed and was accorded freer hand in dealing with such novelties in the international arena (Walles. 1991).

When the Great Depression was hitting the United States very hard in 1929, and World War II was ignited in Europe in 1939, the U.S. public was looking and expecting a strong leadership. They found the leadership traits in Franklin Delano Roosevelt. FDR single-handedly created the imperial presidency. He implemented the New Deal programs, which greatly gave powers and reputation to the presidency by establishing a large federal bureaucracy which has given the president all the necessary powers to preside.

In the foreign policy the United States to support the Allies during WWII. The subsequent Cold War further involved the United States modern presidency in international global affairs. The great paradox of the modern American presidency is that even with humiliations in many instances of the US Presidents and low rates of support, the institution of the presidency is always triumphant “While presidents fail, the institution flourishes” (Crenson& Ginsberg. 2007). Even Bush suffered an embarrassing electoral rebuff in the 2006 for Congress control, he continued to command. The Republican Presidential nominee Warren Harding (1921) -against Wilson- pledged to use the “executive autocracy” to achieve a substantial enhancement of the president’ budgetary power (Crenson& Ginsberg. 2007). Under modern law, actual content of law changes with the president and doesn’t require legislative change.

The “Imperial Presidency” and the Energetic Executive Theory

What is actually created by the constitution is a “Constitutional Presidency”. Article 1 (deals with congress), Article 2 (deals with President). If comparing to article 1, there is a lack of detail on the President. Article 1says that legislative power is granted to congress (followed by pages of what they can do/cannot do). On the other hand, Article 2 reaffirms that the executive power shall be vested in a president of the execs, but not much detail. They did not feel any need to qualify this power. Norman Thomas from University of Cincinnati edited the work of “The Presidency in Contemporary Context” and underlined very firmly that it should not be forgotten that the modern presidency is simply the product of a continuous struggle of power which was invented at the heart of the original constitution (Thomas. 1975).

To reinforce his suggestion, Norman Thomas uses the example of Andrew Jackson reactions to various unsuccessful demands and oppositions from the Whig to cut back the veto power when in 1860 demonstrated by vetoing 15 of 21 measures against the congress. Policy authority in regards to congress is specific, but to the president it is open ended. On one hand, we have legislative process, there is less need to constrain presidency because he is subordinate to congress. Efficiency is a virtue built into legislative branch and not executive branch. A lot of governing cannot be reduced to creating a rule or enforcing a rule. This may be most important but enforcing laws is in no way an easier automatic process. Enforcing laws, is political. If it was simple, president should be elected. Why executive power cannot be constrained because it is meant to deal with unexpected and unforeseen that does not have to do with rules.

The executive power is not formally constrained by law, but Congress can control the president (e.g up to impeaching him). Elections are also constraints on executive power. Across to some scholars, the original constitution was meant to create a president that was detached from politics. Because of this, the president was supposed to be apolitical. Not entirely divorced from politics, but the way that chief justice and Supreme Court are. The original college does not make president a representative of the nation. The Electoral College means voters elect electors and electors chose who they want for who they want for president. They don’t have to give vote for who they pledge (in reality this isn’t a problem though). They are supposed to decide on their own who to select for president.

The Presidency Today

The role of president as a national leader and that president is meant to mobilize public opinion. President should have a legislative agenda and should motivate people to vote in his view. Presidents didn’t do any of that up to the 1930s. President has enormous power to shape policy and direct it especially in domestic policy. Consider what president Obama doing these days; he is marketing on his jobs proposal (for electoral purposes). He is going around the country attempting to mobilize public opinion.

Formally, the President is the boss. That energy is concentrated in one individual because legislative system is so constrained. Discretion has been part of presidential power from the very beginning. Discretion is always involved in enforcement of law. It would be impossible to enforce the law all the time. This applies at the presidential level as well. Significance of this has changed simply not enough money to enforce the law. So presidents set priority how to enforce laws and set an agenda.

Scholars have found that presidents changed overtime, but in fact, presidents have gone contrary to the law from the very beginning. Since 19th century (pre modern era) is even more severe: think about Civil War as an example which would seem as entirely dictatorial where Prerogative power is originated from. Presidential prerogative is about making a decision to violate the law for national interest. Thomas Jefferson doubled the size of the United States, but he said, “The law is not everything” he had to do it. If it was in national interest, why should they hold out legality over national interest? If he didn’t expand territory, the nation would be destroyed. Abraham Lincoln exercised power of a constitutional dictator during Civil War. People were imprisoned without access to lawyers, without due cause etc...* This was mostly in few states, not just in the south.

People were causing a ruckus and saying things he didn’t like they were arrested. In various actions, he spent money he shouldn’t have. Truman controlled steel mills to get people back to work. It is impossible to follow congress always. Instruments of how President can go beyond the law in using Executive orders which were ordered by the president that is not explicitly mentioned by law. These instances have been used to achieve policy objectives : Internment of the Japanese, seizures of private facilities during WW2 and Korean War. Land-lease program when Americans give ships and material to WW2, president just did it, it is significant as it tied them into entanglement into a war they wanted to avoid. Executive orders often relate to foreign affairs (security directives). Good way to show how much nature of policy can change depending on the president. Some presidents change it one way, others another way. George Bush First: limited abortion funding outside of the country, Clinton comes and changes that, George bush comes back changes it back, Obama comes and says he doesn’t want to pollicise the issue and changes it (Healy.2005).

One major aspect of developmental theory is that what really transformed residency is that president is setting agenda. This is the view of some scholars. Problem is this isn’t exactly true. We can see the basis for this in the constitution. President has duty to present information and recommendations to Congress. Now in the end Congress doesn’t have to accept presidential recommendations. President’s agendas were not as ambitious in the 20th century but they still played role similar in form to what we see today. We see extension of presidential leadership in political grounds. Presidents Theodore Roosevelt start to make appeals to general public to get goals achieved in their agenda. This has existed for a long time. Roosevelt was trying to get national government to have control over railroads and it was being stalled in the senate, so he went around on a tour. They called this plebiscite (trying to get people to mobilize Congress). Roosevelt was taking advantage of technological advantages to promote his views and this was different, but not alien to the constitution. Attempt to mobilize public opinion was new but was an outgrowth in president’s mandated role.

Regarding the budgetary Process, Congress in 19th century controlled every nickel and dime. Over the 20th century (1920s...) President increases his power to craft budget (bureau of budget in 1921, and then becomes office of the budget in 1970s) (Crenson& Ginsberg. 2007). But this does not involve a formal shift in president’s power. They just didn’t have budgetary systems in 19th century, but if you are spending billions, you need a coordinating function. But this does not give a new constitutional authority to the president. Congress can reject president’s budget proposal. In fact, they have a bureau for budgets. So there wasn’t a shift. No one voted for Obama’s budget in April.

Presidents succeed more when they control the other party in Congress. But they still succeed, even when the other party is in power. Part of the problem, is that parties aren’t so important. It is not which party controls representatives in Senate and House. If enough of them are conservative enough, they will vote for president’s agenda. Clinton, 83% of his proposals get accepted in first 2 year, 40% in next 6 years. The relationship between the president and the congress is taking place in the framework of the constitution of separation of powers. The purpose is to ensure conflict while requiring cooperation (Crenson& Ginsberg. 2007). The intention of the founding fathers was to prevent tyranny by establishing balance between executive and legislative powers. Strong presidents have been in the office during times of external threats (1801-1809), social change (1829-1836), territorial expansion (1845-1849), and civil war (1861-1865) (Crenson& Ginsberg. 2007). Under the presidency of very influential presidents such as the two Roosevelts, Wilson, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, the US presidency became the centralizing force in the American politics. The United States is entering its third century where the Presidency will be characterized by its stability guaranteed by the constitution.

References:

Bresiger, G. ( 2008, June). The Bricker Amendment: A Battle against the Imperial Presidency. The Future of Freedom Foundation. Retrieved from http:// www.fff.org

Bowman, Woods &Milton (2007). The Institutionalization of the Executive branch. Auston Texas.

Crenson, M. & Ginsberg, B. (2007). Presidential power: unchecked and unbalanced. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.

Healy, G. ( 2005, March). The Imperial Presidency and the War on Terror. CATO Police Report. 28(2).

Healy, G. ( 2000). Arrogance of Power Reborn: The Imperial Presidency and Foreign Policy in the Clinton Years. Policy Analysis .28(389).

M. Schlesinger, A. (1973). The Imperial Presidency. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Thomas, N. (Ed.). (1975). The presidency in contemporary context. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company.

Walles, M. (1991). Understanding the US presidency. New York: Phillip Allan.

Watson, R. & Thomas, N. (1988). The politics of the presidency. Washington D.C.: Congressional Quartely Inc.

By Anna Jacobs

Morocco World News

Rabat, February 1, 2013

The FRIDE report on freedom of association in North Africa and the Middle East published a report on Morocco entitled, “Morocco: Negotiating change with the Makhzen.” In this report, they focus on the question of dialogue between civil society and the state, as well as the challenges in this process. They highlight two main approaches to the question of human rights advocacy, embodied by the divergent strategies pursued by OMDH and AMDH.  They describe these approaches and how they actually act as a complimentary force:

Advocates of reform adopt different approaches to deal with this reality. To some, closeness to the regime necessarily entails being absorbed by it, thus turning former dissidents into lazy, regime-faithful followers that back away from making real criticisms. To others, cooperation with the regime, or at least refraining from confronting it, is a crucial precondition for any dialogue on reform. Among civil society associations that try to lobby for reform, different approaches are being pursued. Some rely on a more partnership-based approach with the government, trying to avoid direct confrontation.

Others see themselves as a watchdog taking more confrontational positions vis-à-vis the government, in order to advocate special positions and raise public awareness. According to the former, an approach based on dialogue and cautious negotiation is more promising and pragmatic. Human rights organizations pursuing this approach (eg: OMDH) praise positive government measures, but always combine them with criticism of remaining shortcomings and challenges.

Advocates of the more confrontational approach (eg: AMDH) say the soft partnership-based approach leads to coopting, absorption and at times even instrumentalisation by the Makhzen (similar to the creeping co-opting that absorbed the former opposition parties, which first entered government in alternance with the objective of achieving change through cautious negotiations under the Makhzen’s umbrella). Observers say OMDH and AMDH approaches are more efficient when seen as complementary forces: one applies the necessary pressure, the other talks to the government.[1]

Concerning the process of lobbying for migrant’s right and migration policy Moroccan civil society actors normally address their concerns to the National Council for Human Rights, the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the European Commission. Furthermore, Moroccan human rights groups open up dialogue about sub-Saharan migrants within the “public sphere” through the press. For example, AMDH held a press conference after a series of violent deportations throughout the Kingdom in June. They were made aware of this through the Council of sub-Saharan migrants and other associations. Afterwards, both OMDH and AMDH condemned the violence, formally, in the francophone press. Telquel published these condemnations in the issue from June 23-29. Both of these human rights associations condemned the “racist crimes,” that occurred throughout Morocco, and especially in the areas of Tahrirt and Nador. [2] Furthermore, ABCDS typically sends its condemnations of aggressions against sub-Saharan migrants to be published in the Arab press.[3]

In terms of lobbying, some scholars argue that, however minor, some civil society actors such as AMDH, OMDH, and GADEM are involved with dialogue with the government concerning the human rights of migrants in Morocco. Giovanni Maria Semeraro argues in her master’s thesis entitled Migration effects on civil society and institutional landscape: the case of Morocco that:

These three entities represent the main means of communication of civil society and their lobbying activities represent so far the best way to foster a power shift. Smaller but still important roles are played by Cimade, which supports local CSOs and tries to promote cooperation within civil society, and organization networks, which do not operate mainly in Morocco but are the reference point of Moroccan civil society in Europe and in front of European institutions.[4]

I would also add ABCDS to this list of actors that focus on advocacy, especially for migrants in Oujda. Concerning the unofficial sub-Saharan associations, they normally lobby to, and partner with, Moroccan and European civil society actors. When sub-Saharan associations want to organize a protest, they must do this with a recognized Moroccan association. For example, on Labor Day, May 1, the Council of sub-Saharan Migrants in Morocco partnered with the labor union, Organisation democratique de travail (ODT), to organize a march about the rights of immigrant works.

Furthermore, when press conferences are held or when deportations occur, associations such as AMDH and OMDH normally work with members of both the Council and the Collective in order to access information and share their side of the story with other civil society actors, the press, and Moroccan society in general. This process of lobbying, from the sub-Saharan associations towards Moroccan associations, appears as an attempt to insert the opinions and experiences of sub-Saharan migrants into the public space. This, by itself, represents an attempt at countering negative dialogue about sub-Saharan migration in the Moroccan “public space” and thus does challenge the state’s hegemony on this issue.

By Anna Jacobs

Morocco World News

Rabat, February 11, 2013

The Press is a fair representative of “public” space in terms of demonstrating, to a certain extent, the various opinions concerning a political debate. The question of sub-Saharan immigration occurs rather frequently in both the Arab and French press in Morocco. One sees both negative and positive remarks, but I assert that the public discourse, coming from both journalists and cited opinions from state authorities, is overwhelmingly negative towards the sub-Saharan migrant population. While the press has been used by human rights associations to publicly condemn the human rights violations that sub-Saharan migrants experience, both at a social and institutional level, it also a public space where negative dialogue appears.

A study of the press and its comments about sub-Saharan migrants conducted by  Professor Houria Alami M’Chichi of AMERM, qualifies the reaction of the press to the sub-Saharan migrant population as “ambiguous.”[1] There have been articles, notably in the francophone press, about the sub-Saharan migrant community that seek to shed light on the challenges and discrimination they face.[2] However, it seems that the negative press promoting fear mongering and xenophobia not only infiltrates Moroccan society, but also the state.  The press also offers an opportunity to view the reaction of the state, which appears to be promoting xenophobia. Here are some examples of negative press, coming from state actors and journalists.

Examples

1. An article published in Al-Massae in January 2012 claimed that sub-Saharan African women were largely responsible for the spread of HIV/AIDS in Morocco.[3] The article asserts that sub-Saharan African women are fleeing war and poor conditions in sub-Saharan Africa and thus come to Morocco, turn to prostitution and affect Moroccan men with HIV/AIDS, who then infect their wives. It claimed that "Mfimba (a sex worker interviewed by al massae) and her friends (e.g. HIV positive migrants) are not greatly interested in the health of Moroccans since their time in Morocco is temporary, and they will gather enough money to continue to Europe, so they do their work (prostitution) without the slightest feeling of guilt.”

2. At the declaration of the new government, after the November 2011 elections put the Islamists Justice and Development Party into power, Prime Minister Abdel-Ilah Benkiran stated that, “le gouvernement renforcera de meme la securite des citoyens et de leurs biens par le biais de la lutte contre le crime, dans un cadre de respect des lois et sous le controle de l’autorite judiciaire, comme il continuera les efforts amorcés dans le domaine de la lutte contre des phenomenes qui representent un danger pour la societe ou qui ont un impact negative sur celle-ci, telles l’immigration clandestine et la drogue."

3. The number one issue for the new Moroccan government is to combat the high levels of unemployment, especially among Moroccan youth. This issue is especially salient among Moroccans, and recently the PJD led coalition chose to blame the “influx of sub-Saharans,” and the economic crisis for this problem: "Le responsable gouvernemental estime, comme le rapporte fidèlement la MAP, que ‘nous assistons, fait de la crise économique et financière à deux phénomènes: d’un côté, le nombre important de ressortissants marocains touchés par la crise, et de l’autre, l’afflux de Sub-sahariens et l’intérêt grandissant affiché par des ressortissants des pays du Nord, pensant y trouver des niches insuffisamment exploitées.’"

4. Furthermore, Abdelouahed Souhail, a member of the USFP opposition party, followed suit when he asserted that, « Autant de phénomènes,  ‘qui amplifient la crise de l’emploi au Maroc et peuvent aussi influer négativement sur les réalisations des politiques publiques nationales, en les rendant inefficientes et insuffisantes pour absorber l’important flux migratoire.’» Civil society actors rejected these claims and called on the Benkiran government to cease this fear mongering because these claims only put the sub-Saharan immigrant (and refugee population) in greater danger. The president of the Federal Group for Union and Democracy, Mr. Daidiaa, claimed that the Benkiran government had declared a virtual war against migrants. He demanded that the Parliament stop the promulgation of hatred and violence against migrants and show that Morocco is a hospitable, open, and tolerant country.

5. In September 2005, the weekly magazine Ashmal characterized African migrants as “black crickets” invading the country. Furthermore, they have been described as war criminals coming from Mali or Libya, according to discussions with activists.[4]

6. Finally in November 2012, the cover of Maroc Hebdo, citing the “Black Peril” that migrants posed, provoked international outrage and allegations of racism.

As one can observe from these few examples (there are sadly many more), the “public space” in Morocco seems to be victim to fear mongering among member of the press, as well as the state. While condemnations from human rights groups and discussions of racism and violence against migrants in Morocco are also present in the press, this discussion of both positive and negative discourses in the “public space,” reveals that, while civil society(including some members of the press) are indeed attempting to challenge the negative discourses surrounding sub-Saharan migrants in Morocco, and thus also state hegemony, it does not appear that the government will change its xenophobic discourse or policy, concerning irregular migration. The following chapter will examine some of the reasons as to why this is the case.

Conclusion

This section addressed the generally positive opening up of civil society in Morocco and attempts at bridging the gap between the state and civil society in terms of human rights reforms, with a specific focus on migrant rights. It described the key civil society actors that support sub-Saharan migrants in Morocco, as well as their various strategies—whether they be humanitarian, social, cultural, or advocacy related.

The aim of this was to show the allocation of responsibilities among actors and the presence of both coordination and competition among the actors in terms of funding, independence vis-à-vis the authorities or intergovernmental organizations such as IOM and the UNHCR. Finally it stressed the “public space” in Morocco, embodied best by the press, which revealed both negative and positive discourses about sub-Saharan migrants. However, the examination of the side of the state in this debate also affirmed that, both policies and discourses coming from the state are overwhelmingly negative concerning the question of sub-Saharan irregular migration in Morocco. This further solidifies the argument that while civil society is attempting to challenge state hegemony on this issue, discursive and policy changes are unlikely at the present moment.

By Samir Bennis

Morocco World News

New York, March 4, 21013

The about-face of the Moroccan nationalists and their alliance with Franco

After a short period during which the Moroccan nationalists saw their optimism and hopes dashed that the Spanish republicans would access their claims, the breakout of the military uprising of July 17, 1936 in Morocco, was marked by a spectacular about-face by the leader of the Moroccan nationalists in the Spanish Protectorate, Abdelkhalek Torres.

After expressing his neutrality on the conflict, he quickly sided with Franco. As explained in my previous article, the rebels took ruthless measures against all those who were suspected of refusing to cooperate with them.

At first, the leader of the Moroccan nationalists opposed the idea that Franco use soldiers under the authority of the Makhzen (the Moroccan authority)[1]. This defiant attitude aroused the indignation of the rebels who multiplied the means of pressure against him.

Unlike General Orgaz, who had shown a contemptuous attitude towards the Moroccan leader, Franco adopted a different attitude, considering that it was better to win him over rather than turning him into a potential enemy. The conciliatory attitude of the latter with Abdelkhalek Torres proved effective, since the Moroccan nationalist did not only rally to the Franquistas cause, he also leveled harsh criticism at the Republicans for their policy in Morocco, while highlighting that all the promises they made to Moroccans remained unfulfilled[2].

Besides the pressure brought to bear by Franco on the Moroccan nationalists, the reversal in the position of the latter was not a coincidence. It was the result of an operation of “seduction” led by the Spanish military aimed at luring them and overcoming their opposition to the military uprising and the massive dispatch of Moroccans to the Iberian Peninsula. To reach this goal, at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, the Spanish High Commissioner in Morocco, Lieutenant Colonel Beigbeder, made a statement in which he promised the Moroccan nationalists that Spain, a “true friend of Islam”[3], would grant Morocco its independence at the end of the military uprising.

This fallacious promise proved effective even among the most progressive and reformist sectors of Moroccan nationalism, as Franco became perceived as more amenable to their demands for autonomy and independence than the Republicans. This supportive attitude of the Moroccan leaders was based on the idea that, once in power, Franco would be more receptive to Moroccans’ claims, grant them more freedom and would introduce reforms likely to lift the north of its economic under-development and illiteracy.

Aware that the Moroccan nationalists were able to demonstrate their support to any of two opponents who could satisfy their claims, Franco was able to make effective use of this advantage, thus, depriving the Republicans of political legitimacy in northern Morocco.

From that moment, the leader of Moroccan nationalism in the north showed full support to Franco. This support was praised and highlighted on the radio, on newspapers and on the occasion of the Abdelkhale Torres’ trips to Spain. During these trips, he delivered speeches in which he praised the “brotherhood” links that united the peoples of Spain and Morocco, as well as the “moral qualities” of Franco and his acolytes.

Moreover, in order to win the sympathy of the people of the Rif and avoid discontent, shortly after the war started, Franco organized a group trip to Mecca whose echo spread throughout Northern Morocco.

The attack of the vessel, which was to transport Moroccan pilgrims to Mecca on the eve of the departure of the first Moroccan group, was widely used by Franco to give a boost to his propaganda campaign and lure as many Moroccans as possible to support his “cause.”

This attack carried out by the Republicans caused them more hostility from the Moroccans. Franco seized this opportunity to demonize the Republicans and further exacerbate Moroccans’ hostility towards them.

After the bombing, General Franco invested in Aranda, who was then in Morocco, with the mission of conveying his “sympathy” towards the Moroccan people, his outrage for what had happened and his determination to do away with “the Godless Republicans.”

During this trip, General Aranda gave a speech full of untruths about the “brotherhood” between the two peoples, his “esteem” for Moroccan soldiers, and the duty of both countries to stop the spread of atheism.

In the same vein, when Franco received on April 2, 1937 in Seville a Moroccan delegation composed by the grand vizier, pilgrims and dignitaries from Tetouan, he gave a pompous speech in which he emphasized the “historical ties” that united Morocco and Spain.

In addition, the franquist officials did not stop during this period. Instead they multiplied the gestures of “sympathy” and “benevolence” towards Moroccans. For example, they proceeded to build a new mosque in Ceuta, a library, houses, which they sold at low prices, a nursing home, etc[4].

With regard to education, which was one of the areas most neglected by the Spanish republican authorities throughout the Protectorate, Franco proceeded with the Arabization of education, the creation of a research center on Islamic studies in Larache in July 1937, and the House of Morocco in Cairo.

It must be said, about the center that if Franco sought at first to gain greater support from Moroccans to his “cause”, its importance during the post-Civil War and post-World War II periods would prove crucial to the legitimacy of his regime. This is reflected in the fact that Spain found in the center, in a country of great cultural and political weight in the Arab world, a platform to promote the image of Franco as a “protector” of Islam and “friend” of the Arab world.

While highlighting the supposed brotherhood ties between the Spanish and the Moroccans, Franco’s propaganda campaign aimed at manipulating the Moroccans, and preparing the rebels’ supporters to accept on their soil the massive and prolonged presence of the representatives of a country and a religion to which they devoted centuries-old hostility. However, it was less clear that it would have a positive effect on the image of the “bloody” Moroccans in Spain.

This hypothesis had no chance to materialize. The collective memory of the Spanish people, already shaped by centuries of confrontation and rivalry with Moroccans, was still traumatized by the bad memories of the War of Melilla in 1893 and the Rif War (1921-1926). These emotions were aroused further when Spaniards suddenly discovered that their soldiers were dealing with a “horde” of “primitives,” who were bent on destroying their enemies mercilessly.

Rabat, March 5, 2013

[N]on-state actors and NGOs in particular have acquired an international ‘citizen personality’ which enables them to coin new social demands and make new calls for the regulation of the world system. These social demands, which mobilize the public opinion along with the political relationships between NGOs and other actors of the system (states, large companies, as well as other non-state actors such as trade unions and professional associations) have a direct impact on global governance and on the new attempts to build international institutions.[1]

As the above quotation stipulates, non-state actors such as non-governmental organizations and other associations have acquired “an international citizen personality,” in the current era. This is especially true in the struggle for the rights of migrants, which has an inherent global character that crosses traditional nation-state borders. International immigration, along with other global phenomena such as environmental concerns, represents one of the crucial transnational political and social debates of the twenty-first century.  While beneficial support for non-state actors can come from both the domestic and international levels, there are a plethora of obstacles that these non-state actors can also encounter at both levels.

In this section, I will address some of the political obstacles that non-state actors in Morocco face. Institutional restraints from the domestic political milieu in Morocco, described as “enlightened authoritarianism” or an “authoritarian system in transition”[2] are indeed present.  Furthermore, civil society groups grapple with the effects of Europe’s “externalization” of the migration problem, which, experts argue, puts enormous pressure on Morocco to quell migration flows through the Kingdom, by all means necessary. In short, I will address the key structural dilemmas present at both the domestic and international levels, in order to demonstrate how political reform for migrants appears an especially daunting task.

ENDOGENOUS CHALLENGES 

This section will focus on the general difficulties associated with affecting public policy in Morocco, specific challenges that non-state actors come across such as limitations on the freedom of association and the freedom of expression, as well as institutional limitations such as the lack of financial support and the lack of independence in the judicial system. Overall, while there have been initiatives to strengthen the power of the Parliament and civil society and reform the state of human rights in the country, the task is far from complete, and the state still wheels the power to circumscribe civil society actors and control the political agenda.

The AMERM study on associative life in Morocco highlighted several constraints for NGO's related to human resources, inefficiency of training, financial problems, administrative problems, in terms of receiving official state recognition or organizing events, distance from the migrant population, lack of confidence between civil society actors and the migrant community, problems related to communication with Anglophone migrants, competition among civil society actors and especially mistrust of political parties and local elected officials.[3] These are problems that related to the institutional situation of associations in Morocco and to the specific domain of reaching out to the sub-Saharan migrant community.

At an institutional level, there are several endogenous challenges that make dialogue between civil society and the state rather difficult. As described in the previous chapter, many civil society actors are skeptical of the National Council of Human Rights, questioning its independence and proximity to the Palace. While the National Council has participated in and hosted many conferences on the state of migrants and refugees in Morocco,[4] there is a general skepticism among activists that this dialogue may lead to any concrete changes. While it does offer the opportunity for civil society actors to voice their concerns, which does show improvement from earlier points in Moroccan political culture, it does not appear to greatly affect policy decisions.[5]

Civil society pressure has led to some improvements, such as the decrease in deportations of refugees, pregnant women, and children. This does represent an effort at challenging state hegemony in the realm of migration policy and practice. However, for the most part, the deportations that do occur nonetheless maintain an aggressive and discriminatory character, even if these deportations are contrary to many provisions in Morocco’s national laws and international commitments.

Furthermore the question of reforming the judiciary is essential for Morocco overall, and also in maintaining the rights of migrants. GADEM has cited a systematic lack of due process for migrants, as well as other limitations such as the lack of a translator and allotting only 48 hours to organize a defense or an appeal of the decision to deportation. Additionally, my personal experience has revealed an extreme lack of lawyers with expertise on the rights of irregular migrants and refugees in Morocco, especially in areas such as Oujda and Nador, where they are arguably most needed.  The reforms stipulated in the new constitution offer some hope in terms of combatting the notorious corruption in the judicial system, as well as the authorities influence on certain legal decisions. The reform of the judicial system is apparently on the top of the priority list of the new Benkiran government, however the fact remains that the King is still the national “arbiter of justice,” in that he appoints the members of the National Supreme Court. [6] This suggests a systemic challenge in terms of ensuring the independence of the judiciary and the implementation of justice in Morocco[7].

The liberty of expression and association are also affirmed in the 2011 constitution, but one must wait and see if there will be actual progression in these two areas. Challenges associated with maintaining theses liberties are still present in Morocco and represent another endogenous challenge to civil society activism and discussing taboo topics such as racism, police violence, and aggressions against sub-Saharan migrants.

Hicham Rachidi, a leading activist and member of GADEM, discussed how the state has traditionally used administrative mechanisms to hinder the abilities of certain organizations. In the 1980s, he claims “we saw this with taboo topics such as HIV/AIDS education or questions of corruption. It took years for ALCS and Transparency Maroc to become state-recognized organizations….and now it’s happening with associations like ours (GADEM) that focus on human rights violations and racism that immigrants face.” GADEM has still yet to achieve official state recognition, though this does not appear to significantly hinder its administrative capacities.[8]

Human Rights Watch conducted a study in 2009, entitled “Morocco: Freedom to Create Associations, A Declarative Regime in Name Only,” which focused on the limits to freedom of association in several case studies. GADEM was among those investigated because it is not a state recognized organization and its leader at the time, Hicham Rachidi, was taken in by authorities and questioned about his political opinions. He was also asked to remove the reference to “racism” in the group’s name (anti-racist).[9]   The report concludes that:

In Morocco, both types of restrictions—provisions of the law that are repressive and the non -application of provisions that are progressive—constrain the right of persons to create and maintain associations. Specifically, the law on associations states that an association cannot exist legally if its objectives or aims are deemed “contrary to good morals” or “undermine” Islam, or the monarchy, or the country’s “territorial integrity,” or if it is deemed to “call for discrimination.” The restrictions on undermining Islam, the monarchy, and the country’s “territorial integrity” (understood to mean Morocco’s claim to the disputed Western Sahara) are the well-understood red lines on free discourse in the country…[10]

This report, as well as other examples of authorities intimidating groups and individuals that work with sub-Saharan immigrants[11], reveals the taboo nature of shedding light on questions of human rights violations and racism, especially when it involves police and military authorities.

Non-governmental organizations and other associations that focus specifically on exposing the abuses that immigrants face seem to be the primary actors that have come across some level of political intimidation. However, organizations such as Medicines sans Frontieres, which provides medical assistance to immigrants, have also faced intimidation by authorities. Furthermore, they were encouraged to leave Nador in 2010 by the Ministry of the Interior, even though some of the most vulnerable immigrant populations reside in this area[12].

In summary, the question of who wheels the power to control the political agenda in Morocco remains uncertain. While the dominance of the King and his shadow cabinet is certain, there have been attempts to increase the power of the Parliament, constitutional reforms were passed which reaffirmed the freedom of expression and association, and there has been increased dialogue between the civil society and the state, especially concerning human rights violations in Morocco. Much remains to be seen in terms of implementing the stipulations of the new constitution, but I remain pessimistic about any discursive and policy changes concerning the rights of irregular migrants and the sub-Saharan migrant community, in general, in Morocco. The discussion of exogenous challenges to reform and the role of the European Union will provide further evidence to the validity of this assertion.

By Karima Wakrim

Morocco World News

Agadir, Morocco, March 5, 2013

A history of oppression, imposed on many colonized countries, has led some marginalized masses to finally step up and speak for themselves. The question was all about the hegemonic systems they started to bear the pressure of and try to counter in the world of neo-colonialism.

In a world where fake, independent representatives claim the position of “free will” to maintain the freedom of their countries, truths are essentially being discovered. Thus, it becomes obvious that representatives are but poppies of the hidden colonialist authorities. Boom: colonialism is never ended. Nonetheless, awareness sprang, and intellectuals have taken the lead of resistance against the same forces, but this time resistance would be against their own government's bogus representative. At the midst of it all, a new category of the revolts emerged, one that lost a speaking voice.

The Subalterns emerged somewhere beneath the oppressed reactionary “other” in the colonial discourse. The Subaltern in that sense was oppressed and a double-colonized man, suffering from the oppression of a dominant power of the colonizer alongside a dominant society that labels them in the corner of non-existence. Yet they, in return, accept everything as they are. Moreover, they succumb to both dominant powers, mostly because they aren’t aware of dominant systems, and partly because society ignores the part of actually giving a chance for them to speak. Instead, the society or the so-called intellectual speaks on their behalf, claiming to vindicate their needs, right and justice. Therefore, Subalterns grow acceptant of current circumstances, which are barely exposed to them. Thus, having an oppressed “other” or a dominant self to speak for them, they are often evaded historically.

On the one hand, the term of Subaltern first depicted by the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci, describing a lower rank society and discriminated masses suffering from hegemonic domination of ruling class elites who prevent them the right of participating in making history. Also, the feminist, postcolonial critic Gayatri Chacravorty Spivak reconsidered the subaltern position in its attribution to historical development especially the postcolonial conditions. She talked about this category of the colonized masses in her controversial essay “Can the Subaltern speak?” in an attempt to further analyze the state of the venerable, almost dumb people who accept the ideologies running past them as authentic realities. The problem with those categories in  Spivak’s perspective is that they are always represented by the rest of the oppressed who claim to be on familiar terms with the Subaltern’s complexities; which is a false consciousness of their part.

As a matter of fact, the Subaltern for her, can’t be represented neither can he speak for himself. Moreover, any attempt to represent the Subaltern can be judged untrue. As a Deconstructionist, Spivak is all doubt about the fact that one can voice an inner, clear and authentic voice let alone one speaking for another. As such, spivak takes an opposite stand point with the Subaltern Studies Group, whom as well borrowed Gramcsi’s term for further application in the colonial and postcolonial histories. The above-mentioned group followed the pattern of Marxist division of labor and considered the Subaltern as a vital component of the resistant attempts.

The Subaltern as the marginalized lower class peasantry - claims the Subaltern studies group - is marginalized and must be spoken for. Regarding his disengagement with the intellectuals, those latter who supposedly know best, Subaltern maintain his marginalized spot through histories to come, and this is exactly what this discussion is about. In addition, this paper is a concise study of the Arab Subaltern who surprisingly took a vital part in all the uprisings of the past year; the manner of participation and the limitation of the Subaltern agency.

I take the Arab revolutions, (not “Arab Spring” since I perceive this term as a very Orientalist stereotype alongside with many Arab journalists-activists) as vicissitudes of colonial struggles; domination is no longer a characteristic of a foreign power’s attempt to explicitly exploit a subordinate country. Instead, domination embodied the post-colonial independent legacy. Sovereignty that we so blindly trust is but a mere illusion…it is the same dominate ideology playing it safer.

Therefore, the agency of the independent achievement is voiced through the same dominant power, which implicitly reemploys its exploitation modes inconsistently. All the beliefs of obtained independence from the foreign power are but far-fetched claims. Arab countries have lived for years and years believing into being sheltered by independent nation when in effect, they were hypnotized by such ideology. It is only recently that hypnotism starts losing effect, and the masses started raging against regimes.

Indeed, bold attempts to destabilize long established systems as such, are astonishingly notable. Accordingly, powers have been shaken, and people reached the fake authorities which were, for a very long time, covering for the foreign imperialist intentions. Uprisings, consequently, have achieved the goal of overthrowing the faked agencies whom for a long time have spoken on behalf of the greedy imperialists. However, Subaltern silenced the voices speaking for him, and started speaking for himself. Although in a different way, a way through which some blood has been shed and some lives have been lost. Subaltern won the challenge and uncovered the game which has been played safely before his blinded eyes.

Yet I, so hegemonised by systems of my country, still a Subaltern in essence, but by no means a revolt. I have always been “interpellated” in the Marxist sense of being a passive, unconsciously drawn for every social dominant assumptions of my beloved country. I am, as I have already confessed, a preventer of radical change by my false consciousness.

To elaborate on this point, I have as well to admit, that I have learnt the art of passiveness from my father, relatives and surroundings which all contributed to my limited thinking to accept all those people’s generated thoughts and consume them so that me, in return, generate them in other terms. They thought me nationalism, which I wholeheartedly embraced, they thought me to succumb to the King in every righteous way. And so did I, accepted the safety of believing in The Authority. “Don’t even question Him, because he is right, because they’re coming to get you if you don’t” they said. “Which of the “because” is right?” I demanded, would I believe the first, fearing the second, or, challenging the second, to discover the truth about the first? Despite all of my attempts, my questions were but mere aporias; questions no matter urgent, have no answers!

I don’t think that what solely prevented Moroccan Subalterns from speaking is coercion or force by the dominant powers that suppressed the attempts to revolt on the 20^th February 2012. On the contrary, what actually stand in the way of revolution is mass hypnothised “still” person who utterly defended the regimes partly because of the fear to mislay the safety that was so long provided by the system. On the other hand, most of what I am personally a part, have grown up believing every imposed notion to be right. Thus, I, among those, took the dominant ideologies for granted in a slumber of which I recently woke up. Nonetheless, it isn’t other revolts that woke me, neither is a sadden knowledge of systematic approaches I lately studied. As a matter of fact, it is another aporia that troubled my mind; “what happens after the overthrowing?” as I observe the entire Arab uprisings taken place, all the fighting against the systems, and eventually all the overthrowing of the Presidents, I come to be in a position of wanting more.

More of what? You may ask. Well, more action, more agency, I shall replay. For me, it is after the overthrowing that matters most. What you do with agency, what you achieve with a speaking voice of a Subaltern. The Subaltern spoke, acted, fought, overthrew, but what now? Shall he rule? Shall he elect who would rule? Elect a speaking voice on his behalf, hence repeating that same problem over again? I pretty much believe it to be the case in Egypt, who still struggles to find a voice, a true voice that shall perfectly speak on behalf of all races, of all differences of an Arab society that is in a dire need to be reunited again. But wait, is that even possible? Can a Muslim Subaltern speak for an atheist one or vice versa?

If we even assume a subaltern to speak, revolt and achieve the positive consequences of his agency perfectly enough, is there any possibility for him to be promoted to represent his entire society. More implicitly, would he be elected? Does he have a chance to further sustain his agency?

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Morocco World News’ editorial policy

© Morocco World News. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, rewritten or redistributed

By Anna Jacobs

Morocco World News

Rabat, March 14, 2013

EXOGENOUS CHALLENGES

Those who discuss Europe’s attempt to « externalize the migration problem » in the region of the Maghreb underline the signing of the Schengen agreements in June 1990, which increased the regional unity of European Union states, but greatly increased border control and enacted rigorous restrictions on legal immigration into Europe. These political initiatives increased the regionalization of the European states, and spearheaded a certain “logic of ostracism” vis-à-vis migrant flows from other regions, including the Maghreb and sub-Saharan Africa.[1]

Furthermore, nation-states in the Maghreb have been characterized as strategically essential in the fight against “illegal migration,” because of its status as a region of emigration, transit, and immigration. Morocco is a country that is very conscious of its international image and advanced status vis-à-vis its key trading partner. It has consequently been an extremely important partner in this regional struggle against illegal transnational activity. The EU, through its border security mechanism FRONTEX, and especially Spain, through the SIVE system, has offered millions of euros, security training, and personnel to Morocco in order to cultivate this partnership.

This pressure from the European Union puts more political capital in stopping the flow of migrants, than making sure their human rights are respects. In other words, the ubiquity of the security-border control approach has trickled down to Morocco, and as one can see in many contexts, authorities are sacrificing human liberties in the name of public security. The security-border control strategy is a slippery slope, and due to the light shed on the human rights abuses that immigrants face, especially women and children, the European Union has funded certain initiatives in Morocco to help the most vulnerable immigrants. Project “Tamkine,” supports pregnant women and children through reproductive health education and support sessions. The project also facilitates access to public hospitals for pregnant women and public education for children. Unfortunately these initiatives seem to be overshadowed by the regional politics of “securing the border” in order to keep them out of the European Union, and countries of transit like Morocco. This does nothing but further stigmatize them, both politically and socially.

The correlation between European Union pressures and Morocco reactions on the ground can arguably be witnessed whenever an E.U official visits the Kingdom. Activist Fabien Yene Didier of The Collective, pointed out to me that “every time an EU official comes to Morocco, there are raids everywhere to show that they are working hard on the problem…you know, it’s a very colonial discourse…cleanse the streets of Africans before the European monitors show up to inspect our work.”[2]  I witnessed this correlation this winter, after Spanish officials visited Morocco in December and the Interior Minister arrived in Morocco in late February. After these appearances, there were raids throughout the country, with a particular emphasis on the border regions near Oujda. The Moroccan ngo, ABCDS, and MSF, both key actors in Oujda, claimed they had never seen raids on such a massive scale, happening every day for a couple months.[3]

Additionally, associations such as AMDH, the Council of sub-Saharan Migrants, and ABCDS affirm that the numbers cited by the Ministry of the Interior and the Moroccan police concerning deportations is greatly inflated. This is because the police typically deport the same migrants over and over because when they are deported, many walk back across the border into Morocco. Activists typically assert that the authorities are only interested in showing the high number of official deportations to the European Union to demonstrate that they are working hard on the “problem” and to encourage more financial and technical support. The inefficiency of these deportations and the security-police approach to quelling migration is clear to most actors involved, but the aim is nonetheless to show that the Moroccan authorities are deporting hundreds of sub-Saharan migrants a month, even if it very seldom deters them from coming right back to Morocco or attempting the dangerous crossing into European territory.[4]

The European Union’s policy of putting pressure on neighboring states like Morocco to curb clandestine migration acts as an exogenous structural pressure and adds another great obstacle to pursuing the reforms necessary to ensure that the human rights of migrants are respected. Historically international pressure from governments in the European Union could be a force for positive change, especially in the later years of the reign of King Hassan II. Layachi describes how, “It is clear, however, that the human rights situation in Morocco has improved since the early 1990s as a result of the combined pressure of domestic and international organizations and foreign governments.”[5] However the discursive dichotomy between migrant rights and human rights utilized by nation-states today, and in particular power houses such as the European Union and the United States, coupled with the geopolitical pressure that the EU applies to countries of transit around the Mediterranean, plays a crucial role in discouraging political reform and accountability for human rights abuses against immigrants in Morocco.

THE UNLIKLIHOOD FOR REFORM

In conclusion, my original hypothesis proved relatively correct, but as my research questions expanded, it must be qualified. I maintain that civil society actors have had little success in significantly altering the state’s hegemony in terms of discursive and policy changes concerning sub-Saharan migration. However, my original hypothesis argued that these actors focused more so on humanitarian support for sub-Saharan migrants, which is not true. As I have demonstrated, the plethora of civil society associations focuses on humanitarian, social, and political support. There have been positive improvements in terms of increasing migrant’s access to health care, intensified support for women and children, and a significant decrease in the deportation of recognized refugees.

Additionally civil society does attempt to challenge popular discourses of xenophobia and shed light on human rights violations that sub-Saharan migrants experience. These improvements and efforts do reveal an attempt to challenge state hegemony—both discursively and through lobbying for political reform.  However, my research demonstrates that discursive and policy related reforms remain unlikely. It is important to note that this does not imply that civil society is not attempting to lobby and alter discourses and actual policy, rather it reveals how endogenous and exogenous political obstacles are aligning in such a way as to make this struggle for migrant’s rights an extremely difficult fight.

I argue that the unlikely prospects for reform relates to the overall difficulty with touching the political power houses in Morocco, at a domestic level, as well as the negative role that the European Union plays in this debate.  In other words, pushing for political reform in Morocco appears a daunting task with any issue due to institutional power restrictions. The straw that breaks the camel’s back comes from the negative role that EU pressure is playing. While some authors have argued that international pressure from the European Union has been a stimulus for positive political change in Morocco, I assert that, in the case of political reforms for irregular immigrants, it acts more so as a catalyst for political stagnation and disregard for the human rights of these individuals.

Using a notion of civil society that stresses “public space” and “communicative power” in evaluating the ability for civil society to influence the power of the state reveals that while there are both positive and negative discourses surrounding the question of sub-Saharan migration in the “public space,” embodied by the press, this does not point towards greater reforms for the rights of migrants because the state maintains much of the negative discourses. In other words, the negative discourse coming from the state as well as the lack of concrete policy changes leads me to conclude that both policy and positive discursive changes are not on the horizon.

However, any discussion of reform must articulate what these political reforms must look like. First, it is essential to ameliorate the gap between legal theory and practice. Morocco has signed many of the key international human rights conventions on the rights of refugees and migrants, and they need to show a better domestic level commitment to the conventions that they have signed. Secondly, within law 02/03 “relative to the entry and residency of foreigners in the Kingdom of Morocco and irregular emigration and immigration,” there are progressive conventions that protect the rights of irregular immigrants, such as the interdiction to deport pregnant women or minors.[6]

While authorities have begun to better respect this stipulation in the law, they tend to ignore the fact that “no foreigner can be sent to a country where his life or liberties are threatened or where he is exposed to inhuman, cruel, or degrading treatment.”[7]   On a regular basis authorities deport immigrants to the “no-man’s land” between the borders of Morocco and Algeria, where they is no certainty of their security.[8] When they are deported to Algeria and then caught by authorities, they are then sent back to the Moroccan border. In other words, authorities play pin-pong with these individuals, at the expense of their human dignity and safety, and this strategy specifically counters the rights of foreigners stipulated in Moroccan law.[9]

In terms of changing the political domestic situation in Morocco, efforts related to the struggle for democratization and human rights reform directly relates to the struggle for the rights of migrants.  Additionally, reforming institutional limitations to the freedom of association and expression will help create a more transparent political and social environment where human rights violations and critical opinions are not hushed up because of their “taboo” nature. There have been vast improvements in this area in Morocco, without a doubt. However there is still much work to be done.

In terms of international reforms, this effort must interact with some sort of “discourse-intervention,”[10] in terms of elevating the rights of regular and irregular migrants, or the foreign “other,” to match those of a nation’s citizens. In other words, irrespective of one’s legal status or nationality, a human being is a human being and his or her human rights must not be deemed inferior because of differences in origin, or for lack of legal documentation. This process has an inherently global nature to it, and thus requires the conscious effort of nation-states throughout the world to change the overwhelming negative and discriminatory social and political discourse that plagues the immigration debate. Groups such as the Council of sub-Saharan Migrants in Morocco are fearlessly taking on this challenge every day. They remind us that:

Un sans-papier est un homme, un homme est un homme, quelles que soient son origine, sa nationalité, ou la teneur de l’éventuel document qui enregistre des droits aujourd’hui trop fragiles et trop souvent bafoué. Nous voulons leur dire notre satisfaction de pouvoir combattre à leurs côtés, malgré les difficultés, les contradictions inhérentes à toute entreprise humaine difficile, parce que nous avons une conviction profonde sur ce combat : il est l’un des lieux fondamentaux d’humanité et de résistance contre les logiques économiques et d’Etat inhumaines dans le monde aujourd’hui, que ce soit le long des côtes d’Europe, dans les camps de refugies, immenses et délaisses, d’Afrique, ou aux pieds de mur de barbelés érigé entre le Mexique et les États-Unis.[11]

By Majid Dardour

Morocco World News

Kenitra, Morocco, March 23, 2013

Grammar is the backbone of any language. It is the womb that gives birth to sentences. These sentences are fertilized using grammar to form correct and appropriate speech. Teaching grammar requires numerous skills and different activities. Grammar teaching can either consist of the presentation and practice of grammatical items or might consist of presentation by itself without any practice. Further, grammar teaching can be conducted simply by exposing learners to input contrived to provide multiple exemplars of the target structure. Additionally, grammar teaching can be conducted by means of feedback on learners’ errors when these arise in the context of performing some communicative tasks. Let’s say that grammar teaching involves instructions, techniques, skills and activities that can help learners to understand process and produce grammatical sentences and utterances. So, should grammar be taught? If so, what grammar, how and when?

Teaching grammar has provoked  heated debates concerning educational pedagogy. Some points of view claim that teaching grammar is useless and has no role. They claim that learners appear to follow a natural order and sequence of acquisition. Better phrased, learners master different grammatical structures in a universal order and they follow a sequence of stages of acquisition. In the same vein, Krashen (1981) argues that grammar instruction played no role in acquisition as long as learners will naturally and automatically acquire grammatical structures. .

Grammar instruction can contribute to learning but this is of limited value because communicative ability is dependent upon acquisition. On the other hand, some studies show that teaching grammar is useful. They base their claim on comparing the order of acquisition of instructed and naturalistic learners (Pica, 1983). As a result, the order of acquisition was the same for both types of learners, but instructed learners generally achieved higher level of grammatical competence. In other words, instructed learners progressed more rapidly and achieved higher level of proficiency. Some researchers concluded that teaching grammar is beneficial, but to be effective, grammar has to be taught in a way compatible with the natural processes of acquisition. That is, the earliest to teach grammar the better result will be.

. Different teachers use different models. They might either use structural, generative, or functional grammar. Structural grammar focuses on form. Functional grammar gives more attention to functions performed by grammatical forms. However, syllabus designers and teachers prefer to rely on modern descriptive grammar such as Celce-Murcia and Larson-Freeman’s (1999) grammar book. This resource is of great value because it provides both comprehensive and clear descriptions of English grammar. It also identifies the kinds of errors that L2 learners are known to make with different grammatical structures.

The focus is on both form and meaning. However, the choice of grammatical structure poses two different views. Krashen (1982), on the one hand, argues that grammar teaching should be limited to a few simple rules such as third person-s and past tense-ed that can be used to monitor output from the acquired system. On the other hand, we have comprehensive position, which argues that grammar of the target language should be taught as a whole. More importantly, before a teacher selects his choice he/she has to bear in mind the learning difficulty; the difficulty learners have in understanding grammatical feature. To avoid this, two approaches are helpful. The first one has to do with teaching grammatical features that differ from the first language. The second one has to do with defining whether a grammatical feature is in some sense frequent, unnatural from a regular patter.  Next, the question of timing will be addressed

 The debate on when to teach grammar can be separated into two primary schools of thought. The first view claims that grammar should be taught in the early stages of L2 acquisition. The second view claims that it is better to start with meaning focused instruction and to introduce introduces  grammar later, when learners have already begun to form their inter-language. According to  the first view, a form focused approach is needed initially to construct a basis of knowledge that learners can use and extend in meaning and message creation as in task based language teaching. Some teachers believe that beginning level learners can not engage in meaning centered activities because they lack the necessity knowledge of the L2 to perform tasks. That is why form focused is needed initially to construct a basis of knowledge that learners can then use and extend in meaning focused situations. Further, we can find connectionist theories of L2 learning that give priority to implicit learning processes based on massive exposure to the target language.

Grammar teaching can either be massed or distributed, and intensive or extensive. First, we need to consider whether it should be concentrated into a short period of time or spread over a longer period. Some researchers have shown that the massed grammar teaching offers fruitful results. For example, Collins, Halter, Lightbown, and Spada (1999) reported their study of three intensive ESL programs in Canada. They found that the massed students outperformed the distributed program students on most of the measures of learning, including some measures of grammatical ability. However, this study needs further research either challenge or confirm these results

Second, Intensive grammar teaching refers to teaching a single grammatical structure or, perhaps, a pair of contrasted structures over a sustained period of time. Extensive grammar teaching, on the other hand, refers to instruction concerning a whole range of structures within a short period of time. Grammar teaching is typically viewed as entailing intensive instruction.

The Present-Practice-Produce (PPP) model of grammar teaching, assumes an intensive focus on specific grammatical structures. Extensive grammar instruction has always had a place in grammar teaching. It can also occur within a learning activity, it affords the opportunity to attend to large numbers of grammatical structures. Intensive instruction is time consuming. Arguably, grammar teaching needs to be conceived of in terms of both intensive and extensive instruction.

Grammatical knowledge can be held implicitly or explicitly

Explicit grammatical knowledge consists of the facts that speakers of a language have learned. Explicit knowledge is held consciously, is learnable and can be verbalized, and is typically accessed through controlled processing when learners experience some kind of linguistic difficulty in using the L2. Implicit knowledge on the other hand is procedural and held unconsciously. It is accessed rapidly and easily and this is available for use in rapid, fluent communication.

Most of SLA researchers agree that competence in L2 is primarily a matter of implicit knowledge. Some researchers disagree over learners’ ability to learn explicit knowledge. Krashen (1982) sees this as very limited. He argues that learners can only use explicit knowledge when they monitor, which requires that they are focused on form and have sufficient time to access the knowledge. Yet, explicit knowledge assists language development by facilitating the development of implicit knowledge.

Interface hypothesis addresses the role explicit knowledge plays in L2 acquisition. Three positions can be identified: non interface position, the interface position and the weak interface position.

Non interface position (1981) claims that explicit and implicit knowledge are entirely distinct with the result that explicit knowledge cannot be converted into implicit knowledge. Explicit and implicit knowledge are neurologically separate (Paradis, 1994).

On the contrary, the interfere position argues that explicit knowledge becomes implicit if learners have the opportunity for plentiful communicative practice while the weak interface position (Ellis, 1993) claims that explicit knowledge can convert into implicit knowledge if the learner is ready to acquire the targeted feature.  Furthermore, explicit knowledge can either be taught deductively or inductively. In inductive teaching, learners are first exposed to exemplars of the grammatical structure and are asked to arrive at a metalinguistic generalization on their own.

In deductive teaching, on the other hand, a grammatical structure is presented initially and then practiced in one way or another. The use of the two approaches mentioned above  depends on the situations and the kind of rules being taught, and it also depends on the knowledge the learners have.

Teaching grammar explicitly can be done through drills and activities. The teacher, in turn, reacts through giving corrective feedback either implicitly or explicitly. In other words, a teacher can correct errors directly or indirectly (the feedback is masked). Variety is really the key. There's nothing wrong with mechanical exercises – gap-filling, sentence transformation and so forth. These can help learners to grasp the form of a complex structure at the outset without having to think too much about the meaning.

But it's important to move on to activities where the structure is used in more interesting and realistic ways. Long (1988,1991) and Doughty (2002) have argued strongly that focus on form is best equipped to promote interlanguage development because the acquisition of implicit knowledge occurs as a result of learners attending to linguistic form at the same time they are engaged with understanding and producing meaningful messages. Then, the grammar instruction should take the form of separate grammar lessons and should be integrated into communicative activities.

To conclude, I can say that grammar teaching should be taught through focus on both form and meaning. Also, grammar is best taught to those who have already acquired the ability to use the language. Further, explicit instruction can help implicit knowledge to be developed into producing meaningful sentences in communicative situations. Generally speaking, variety in approaches and activities is very important in teaching grammar because, due to this variety, we can meet the needs of different learners and profiles we have in the classroom. Subsequently, learners can integrate what they learn in real life situations.

Majid Dardour is a master student in the faculty of Letters and Human sciences in Kinetra, Morocco.

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Recently, the concepts of learner autonomy and independence have become important concepts in the field of education. The former has become a ‘buzz-word’ within the context of language learning (Little, 1991:2). Autonomous learning is a technical jargon in education that means assuming responsibility and taking charge of one’s own learning. In this article, the focal interest is on defining learners’ autonomy, stating and explaining learning strategies and the factors that contribute to the achievement of learners’ independence as well as its implications.

Learning autonomy is differently referred to as Sinclair (2001) argues:  “independent learning, lifelong learning, learning to learn, and thinking skills.” Learners’ autonomy is defined by Holec (1981) as: “The ability to take charge of one’s own learning […] this ability is not in- born but must be acquired either by ‘natural’ means or by formal learning […]. To take charge of one’s learning is to have […] the responsibility for all the decisions concerning all aspects of this learning” (Holec, 1981: 103). It is clear from this definition that autonomy is acquired not only in formal settings but also in mere exposure to informal context, streets, house, and cyber coffees for instance. According to Holec, taking charge of one’s learning requires having the ability to take decisions regarding learning. It is safe to say that learners’ autonomy is the ability and the partial responsibility to take charge of one’s own learning and to have the ability to independently make decisions and to critically reflect on different issues.

In order for autonomy in the learning process to be achieved, there are conditions to be considered. Attaining independence in learning is not arbitrary; hence it necessitates respecting some measures. The conditions mentioned earlier include a set of strategies for autonomous learning. There are two types of strategies: language use strategies and language learning strategies. Cohen and Dornyei (2002) have defined the former as: “strategies for using the language that has been learned;” whereas the latter is considered to be the “conscious and semi-conscious thoughts and behaviors used by learners with the explicit goal of improving their knowledge and understanding of a target language” (Cohen & Dornyei, 2002: 178). Regarding this type of strategies Cohen and Dornyei (2002) have distinguished four main learning strategies: communication strategies, cognitive/ meta-cognitive and social strategies, skill area strategies, and self motivation strategies.

Communication strategies are aiding devices used to help learners overcome any communicative obstacle. Henceforth, Communication strategies have been considered as “the verbal (or non verbal) first aid devices which may be used to deal with problems or break-downs in communication,” (Cohen &Dornyei, 2002: 179). These “devices” are helping tools for students to be active participants in a given communicative situation.

As far as the cognitive, meta-cognitive, affective and social strategies, they are seen as an approach to categorizing strategies. They categorize the learners into four groups: cognitive, Meta-cognitive, affective or social (Chamot, 1987, Oxford, 1990).

O’Malley and Chamot (1990) have defined Cognitive strategies as strategies that “operate directly on incoming information, manipulating it in ways that enhance learning” (O’Malley & Chamot, 1990:44). In other words, this category covers the process through which students go in their learning of the target language as well as the process of its use.

Whereas meta-cognitive strategies are defined by Cook (1993) as: “strategies about learning rather than learning strategies themselves” (Cook, 1993: 114). The learners who belong to this category are known for the self identification of their objectives and goals; they also determine how to achieve these goals. Meta-cognitive strategies are concerned to be “processes that allow learners to control their own cognition by planning what they will do, checking how it is going and then evaluating how it went,” (Cohen & Dornyei, 2002:.181).

The last strategies in this category are: affective and social strategies. Affective strategies “serve to regulate emotions, motivation and attitudes” (ibid: 181); whereas social categories are “actions which learners choose to take in order to interact with other learners and with native speakers” (ibid: 181). Moreover, some learning strategies are classified according to skill areas which include not only receptive and productive skills, but also vocabulary learning and translation which cross-cut the four skills.

Still, the students’ learning process is influenced by certain “social and psychological factors” as indicated by Shumann (1987); these factors provide an adequate description for the learners’ personal reaction to the learning process. There are many factors that help the students to be able to overcome their learning impediments; among which we can name: self-esteem and the learning desire, attitudes and motivation.

Attitude is frequently used in the context of education. It has been defined by Wenden (1998) as: “learned motivations, valued beliefs, evaluations, what one believes is acceptable, or responses oriented towards approaching or avoiding” (Wenden, 1998: 52). She argues that there are two distinguished types of attitudes:  attitudes that the learners hold about their role in the learning process and attitudes about the students’ capability as learners (ibid: 53).  Differently explained, students believe that learners have different cognitive capacities, in the sense that some of them can acquire a language easily while others cannot. If a learner has a positive attitude to learn a language his/her motivation is increased unconsciously and vice versa.

As far as motivation is concerned, it is agreed upon the fact that it is one of the key factors that influences the learners’ rate of success in learning a second or a foreign language. In different ways and degrees, people are highly motivated to learn languages in general. Motivation is of two types: instrumental and integrative. Instrumental motivation as explained by Gardner & Maclntyre (1993) is “when the target language performs as a “monetary incentive”” (Gardner & Maclmtyre, 1993: 3). In other words, when the learners consider the foreign language as a way to find a job; whereas, integrative motivation is the fact of being interested in knowing the culture of the target language and becoming integral parts of that culture. Scarcella & Oxford (1992) have defined integrative motivation as: “the desire to learn a language so as to integrate oneself with the target culture” (Scarcella & Oxford, 1992: 52).

The concept of self esteem is related to both attitude and motivation. Generally, it is a judgment that the learner himself or herself makes with regard to the learning of a second language or learning in general. According to Scarcella & Oxford (1992), self esteem is defined as “a self judgment of worth or value, based on feelings of efficacy” (ibid: 57). Teachers are supposed to help their student feel good about themselves in order to help them increase their self esteem. There are two types of students: students with high self esteem and students with low self esteem, and these two categories of students are different in terms of language learning. The former category shows high qualities and abilities in the process of language learning unlike the latter.

There are many ways to make students lifelong learners and autonomous. In higher education, normally teachers give in the exam choices; they ask the students questions like: write about one topic from a number of choices. This is the case again in high schools, teachers provide their students with choices especially in the follow up; hence, they, for example, ask them to do activity number one or two. This gives the student the right to choose and reflect on their own interest and preferences. It is important to give the students opportunities to work in pairs and in groups. Working in groups makes the learners feel independent and active actors free from the teacher’s control and learn from one another. The students can positively contribute to classroom activities and make the learning process meaningful through sharing thoughts, experiences, and ideas.

Fostering learners’ autonomy is a desired goal. It is significant to help the learners becoming independent. Of course, there are many ways that can lead to students’ learning independence. Promoting autonomous learning abilities is not a matter of letting the students work alone, it is in fact a teacher’s responsibility to develop skills that can help learners step towards autonomy and become responsible for their learning and gain the ability to put into practice the acquired skills in different learning situations. Learners’ autonomy cannot be achieved easily, but, it is a long road that needs patience; teachers are supposed to be aware that it is hard for them to have autonomous learners. It is a long process that needs fortitude, time, energy and motivation.

References:

Brown, H.D. (1987), Principles of Language Learning and Teaching, New Jersey

Chamot, A. U. (1987) The Learning Strategies of ESL Students.  Learner Strategies in Language learning.  Prentice- Hall, 71-84

Cohen, D. A.& Dornyei, Z. (2002), Focus on the Language Learner: Motivation, Styles and Strategies: An Introduction to Applied linguistics, Oxford University Press

Cook, V. (1993) Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition. London: Macmillian

Holec, H. (1981). Autonomy and Foreign Language Learning. Oxford: Pergamo

O’Malley, J. M. & Chamot, A. V. (1990). Learning Strategies in Second Language Acquisition

Scarcella, R. C. & Oxford, L. R. (1992) The Tapestry of Language Learning, Oxford: Oxford University Press

Schumann, J. H. (1978). Social and Psychological Factors in Second Language Acquisition: Understanding Second and Foreign Language Learning, P. 163-178, Newburg House.

Wenden, A. 1998. Learners Strategies for Learnerns’ Autonomy. Great Britain: Prentice Hall

http: // itselj.org/ Articles/thomasoulas- Autonomy. htm

http: //ilearn. 20m/research/zuinde.htm

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By Hajar Laalaj

Morocco World News

New York, April 17, 2013

Human rights in Saudi Arabia, birthplace and heartland of Islam, are based on Islamic law, or the Sharia, under the rule of the Saudi Royal Family. It has been widely accepted that the application of these rights, more specifically women’s rights, is emblematic of Islamic dogma. It must be underlined, however, that the highly contentious theocratic ideology of Wahhabism, the monarchy’s official interpretation of Islam, plays an instrumental role in the formulation of many of these rights. It, therefore, follows that a substantial number of women’s civic rights in Saudi Arabia, or lack thereof, are only validated by the opinions of a chauvinistic male-dominated Wahhabi society, devoid of any coherent Islamic rationale.

Despite the growing attractiveness of this Wahhabi discourse, it is important to recognize that is does not represent the entire gamut of intellectual space in the Muslim world. In effect, although the inferior status of women is a fairly consistent theme in many Muslim countries, its correlation with Islam, though not arbitrary, is not absolute.

There exists endless controversy in both Islamic and Western literature over the Muslim position on women. In their war against Islamic law, women’s rights organizations expose abuses committed by the Saudi regime against women; inherent in their message, therefore, is that Islam is incompatible with the human rights of women.

To terminate this debate, it is crucial to discount all stereotypes attributed to Muslim women and to understand the actual teachings of this faith, and second, understand the Wahhabi interpretation of Islam. This comparative analysis reveals that an examination of women’s rights as outlined in the Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet, highlights Islam’s highly revered notion of egalitarianism. Wahhabi regulations for women, on the other hand, are only traced back to the legal codes based on fiqh texts selected and interpreted by a modern patriarchal order.

The Quran and the Hadith, as opposed to the whole of sharia, will be used in the course of this paper to provide authentication for any position or view associated with Islam as much of what is now considered divine and immutable sharia is, in fact, the result of a long, male-dominated intellectual process. This essay seeks to demonstrate how the very nature of Wahhabism diverges from the peaceful premise of Islam. However, the Wahhabi attitude with respect to women is akin with Najdi tribal culture that is dominant in Saudi Arabia, perhaps explaining why this radical ideology is so deeply imbedded within Saudi society.

The issue of the claimed superiority or inferiority of any human, male or female, is unambiguously addressed in the Quran. The sole basis for superiority over another person, according to traditional Islamic belief, is piety and righteousness, not gender, color, or nationality. One of the most remarkable features of the Quran, particularly in comparison with the scriptures of other monotheistic religions, is that women are explicitly addressed as being equals to men (Ahmed 64).

In consonance with the spirit of equality in the Quran, the Prophet is reported to have said, “All people are equal, as equal as the teeth of a comb. There is no claim of merit of an Arab over a non-Arab, or of a white over a black person, or of a male over a female” (Heyneman 51).  The wives of the Prophet Muhammad were vibrant and outspoken women. The Prophet’s first wife, Khadija, perhaps best defies the popular perception of Muslim woman. A prominent businesswoman, she was neither oppressed, nor submissive, or subjugated.

On the contrary, she was a source of immense affection, strength, and comfort for Prophet Muhammad. Aisha, the Prophet's favorite, served at various times a judge, a political activist and a warrior. An eminent traditionalist, she transmitted Hadith to several of the foremost early Muslim traditionalists. Some 2,210 Hadith are attributed to her: “...women’s contribution to this important literature indicates that at least the first generation of Muslims—the generation closest to Jahilia days and Jahilia attitudes had no difficulty in accepting women as authorities” (Ahmed 47). Among Muhammad's eleven other wives and concubines were a leatherworker, an imam and an advocate of the impoverished (Altorki 22). Because the prophet’s wives assumed such distinguished positions in society, it, therefore, follows that any emphasis on Muslim women’s domestic confinement did not emerge from Prophetic teachings.

Moreover, Islam decreed women entitlement to independent ownership, a right which a woman was deprived of both before Islam and even as late as the 20^th century. Islamic Law recognizes a woman’s right to buy, sell, or lease any or all of her properties at will.  For this reason, Muslim women have traditionally kept their maiden names after marriage, an indication of their independent property rights as legal entities. Islam also restored to woman the right of inheritance at a time when a female was an object of inheritance in many cultures (AlMunajjed 65).

Her share in most cases is one-half a man's share, with no implication that she is valued at only half a man’s worth. This variation in inheritance rights is only consistent with the disparity in the spending duties of man and woman according to Islamic Law. Man in Islam is fully responsible for the maintenance of his wife, his children, and in some cases, his disadvantaged relatives. This obligation is not waived because of his companion’s fortune or her access to any personal income gained from work, rent, profit, or any other means. A woman, on the other hand, is not burdened by such financial responsibility as she is free to use her accumulated wealth as she pleases (Doumato 19).

Polygamy is legally recognized in most Muslim countries, in accordance with the Quran. Islam did not outlaw polygamy, as did many peoples and religious communities; rather, it regulated and restricted it. The scripture highlights the importance of treating all wives fairly and equally—a difficult requisite, even for a wealthy man.

However, it should be remembered that the practice is permissible, though not necessarily ordained by the Quran. The permission to practice polygamy is not associated with mere satisfaction of passion; the Quran permitted polygamy at a time when Muslims were killed in the wars against Mecca, and women were left without protectors (Armstrong 16).

Contrary to prevailing Western beliefs, Islam gives a woman the right to refuse polygamy for her husband by setting it as a condition during the marriage procedures. As long as the condition is set prior to the wedding, the woman is granted divorce if her husband decides to marry another woman while he is still married to her. In fact Prophet Muhammad stipulated that his favorite daughter’s marriage to Ali be strictly monogamous.

If women were given their God given rights, as set out in the religion of Islam, any prosecution of Islamic treatment of women would be trampled into oblivion. Although the spirit of Islam, as Humphrey likes to insist upon, is patriarchal, in the words of Leila Ahmed:

Even as Islam instituted, in the initiatory society, a hierarchal structure as the basis for the relations between men and women, it also preached in its ethical voice the moral and spiritual equality of all human beings. Arguably, therefore, even as it instituted a sexual hierarchy, it laid the ground, in its ethical voice, for the subversion of the hierarchy (238).

Furthermore, Humphrey presents Islamic feminism as if it were an oxymoron, contending that in societies where customs and constraints are governed by Islam, it is difficult to imagine an outlet for feminism to thrive (Humphrey 224). But the essence of the feminist movement that are becoming increasingly popular is not to stray from Islamic scripture, but rather to expose and eradicate male chauvinistic ideals that are glossed as Islamic, and in this manner, recapture Islam’s core idea of gender equality.

To fully agree with this notion, it is crucial to dismiss the liberal western definitions of equality. Western values linked to social conduct, modesty, and decorum that emerged following the sexual revolution cannot be set as universal standards as every culture is unique in its own way. Likewise, the beliefs and practices of a particular and minor sect of Islam should not be taken as being representative of the totality of Islam.

In order to fully understand how Wahhabism has survived the test of time, a brief history of this movement is necessary. Wahhabism is a term commonly given to a strict Sunni sect of Islam. The movement emerged approximately 250 years ago under the guidance of Muhammad Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab, the first modern Islamic fundamentalist. Muhammad bin Saud, the founder of the modern-day Al Saud dynasty, aligned with Abd al Wahhab to begin the process of bringing together different tribes in the Arabian Peninsula.

The theological and political partnership resulted in the fall of Mecca for the second and final time in 1924, cementing their governance in the region (Delong-Bas 14). Following the conquest of the holy city, the tremendous oil wealth of the kingdom was exploited to export the radical Wahhabist ideology across the globe. To this day, these families share control over the kingdom, with the descendants of Wahhab, known as ahl al-Shaykh, in charge of religious life, and the Saudi royal family, or ahl al-Saud, operating the state. The two families also continue to marry their descendants to one another (Altorki 67).

It is the rigidity that defines this extremist movement that has separated its precepts from traditional Islam. Adherents of Wahhabism do not refer to their religion as “Wahhabi”. Many prefer to call themselves “Muslim,” for according to their beliefs, they are the only true Muslims. Some Wahhabists refer to themselves and their religion as “al-Muwahhidun,” or "Unitarians.”’ Following the legal school of Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Wahhabi ulama allegedly only accept the authority of the Quran and the Hadith, and accordingly, reject reinterpretation of these divine sources with regards to issues settled by the early jurists.

By rebuffing the validity of reinterpretation, Wahhabi doctrine adamantly disagrees with Muslim reformation movement of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The latter movement sought to reinterpret parts of the Quran and sunna to conform with standards set by the West, most notably standards relating to gender relations, family law, and participatory democracy (Delong-Bas 27).

Though the Wahhabis and Salafis claim to be returning to the ‘Golden Age’ of Islam, they have only revived particular aspects of this history. In the words of Ibn Battuta, “they are practicing selective revision, relying on narrow cultural interpretations that reinforce their patriarchic and misogynist views, redefining Islam in a manner that is un-Islamic” (AlMunajjed 87).

Traditional Islam views religion as a bond between man and God and, therefore, the realm of piety. In this belief, there can be no coercion or force used in religion. Contrary to this, the Wahhabi ideology is constructed upon the pillar of political enforcement of religious beliefs, thus negating any variations in faith (Hunter 76). Under this modern ideological extremism, Islam's essential principle of tolerance has been abolished. The contents of the textbooks taught in Saudi schools help propagate this extremism:

The concept of jihad (struggle or holy war) features prominently in the religious textbooks, which distinguish three aspects of jihad: the spiritual or personal jihad, the striving against sin and sinful inclinations; the jihad against the enemy, which should be fought with weapons; and the jihad with the tongue, through speeches etc. The same paragraph of the textbook that lists these definitions talks about Islam as a religion of love and peace, high-lighting the often contradictory messages disseminated to Saudi students (Prokop 5).

Given the movement’s deviation from traditional Islam, it is only fair to argue that the selection of Saudi women’s rights that are derived from Wahhabi beliefs, are in fact not Islamic.

Saudi women don’t represent every Muslim woman

Western media have inaccurately portrayed the cloaked Saudi woman as the classic symbol of every Muslim woman. Saudi Arabia's requirement that women wear the full black abaya, the all-enveloping black attire, under the scorching Arabian sun, stems from Wahhabi decrees, not Quranic ones. This ideology claims that all of a woman’s body is awrah, implying that the totality of her body is sexually provocative and should, therefore, not be seen by unrelated men (Dounato 223).

Adherents believe that paradise awaits those who abide by the rigid dress code, while eternal damnation lies ahead of those who don’t. The religious police, known as the mutawwa, particularly active in Riyadh, Buraydah and Tabuk, can arrest those who deviate from the black uniformity. The Mutawwa, known formally as the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, have invoked widespread fury for their reprehensible application of the law.  During one such incident in March 2002, Mutawwa forces prevented fifteen girls from escaping a burning school because they were not dressed in accordance with Islamic code (Prokop 3).

Amongst Islamic countries, the varied views on women's dress derive from different interpretations of Koranic verses and the Hadith. The Quran prescribes a degree of segregation and veiling for the Prophet’s wives. However, there is no verse that requires the veiling of all women (Armstrong 16).

Throughout Muhammad’s lifetime, veiling, like seclusion, was only observed by his wives. It is not known how the customs spread to the rest of the community. According to Leila Ahmed, perhaps the “conquests of areas in which veiling was commonplace among the upper classes, the influx of wealth, the resultant raised status of Arabs, and Muhammad’s wives being taken as modems probably combined to bring about their general adoption” (Ahmed 56). Although there is no unanimous consensus among Muslims regarding what constitutes proper dress, most agree that God simply ordered women to dress modestly.

Most recently, Yusuf Al-Ahmed, a professor of Sharia law at Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud Islamic University in Riyadh, demanded a radical change in Islamic tradition. He champions the belief that women should be forbidden from joining men during the ritual of tawaf, which consists of walking around the Kaaba during the hajj pilgrimage. Instead, he maintains that a separate area should be reserved for women’s use. Yet in the 1400 years of Islam’s history, women have never been isolated from men during the pilgrimages to the Grand mosque:

The opinion of professor Al-Ahmed follows on a series of similar efforts by Wahhabi reactionaries, including a demand that women wear niqab during pilgrimages – another previously unknown burden on women. The hajj and umrah pilgrimages embody liberation from sin in Islam, which is why women have never been required to cover their faces or occupy separate spaces in the Grand Mosque (Al-Alawi).

The segregation of men and women during the religious pilgrimage exemplifies how in spite of Wahhabi’s alleged emphasis on returning to the pure form of Islam, they’re in fact directly departing from it.

Ironically, the leading country in the export of petroleum, a country whose economy is based primarily on the consumption of oil, denies women the right to drive. The basis of this law is not the Quran or the Hadith as no cars existed in Muhammad's time. Reasons for the ban are allegedly the spread of corruption, women uncovering their hair and faces, mingling between the sexes, culminating into the ultimate destruction of familial values and society as a whole.

In 1990, a small group of Saudi women defied the ban by driving cars down a boulevard in Riyadh. Several of the women were jailed, while others lost their positions in schools and universities. This law is incomprehensible to many Saudi women seeing as prior to the 1957 driving ban, women were able to move freely on camel and horseback.

Wajeeha al-Huwaidar, an outspoken advocate for the removal of the anti-driving law explains, “Our parents had the right of movement; our grandparents had it too. But we, ladies of the cities, lost the old ways and got nothing in their place” (Al-Alawi). This segregation is also extended to public means of transportation. Women are restricted in the use of public transportation when in the presence of men as they must enter the buses by a separate entrance in the back and occupy designated seating. Nor are they permitted to travel between different parts of the country or abroad without written permission from their closest male relative (Altorki 65).

Segregation in the high education system

The gender-segregated higher educational system in Saudi Arabia is yet another feature of Saudi society that cannot be verified with Quranic teachings. Indisputably, the Quran warns that the intermingling of the sexes can lead to “seduction and the 'evil consequences' that might follow” (AlMunajjed 76). Wahhabism, in its strict orthodoxy, interprets the Quran’s cautioning by tightly restricting any type of interaction among unmarried and unrelated men and women. Accordingly, the Saudi education system limits women's access to labor markets and participation in the global economy:

This remains the case in spite of the consistently higher achievement of women over men in secondary and higher education, in spite of women university graduates flooding into the job market by the tens of thousands, and in spite of an economy vastly overburdened with foreign workers whose positions could be filled by Saudi women (Doumato 22).

Women are excluded from studying engineering, journalism, pharmacy, and architecture. They’re studying dentistry, education, medicine, nursing, and public administration among a few other professions. The rationale for this tracking appears to be that these occupations are an extension of women's domestic roles as they entail the use of the stereotypical women's qualities of caring and nurturing (AlMunajjed 128).

The limitations on women’s rights to obtain commercial licenses further displays the measures put in place to ensure the women’s isolation from the workforce. Previously, commercial licenses were issued to women on the condition that they hired male managers; now such licenses are not to be issued at all if the type of business necessitates contact with foreign workers or government agencies (Doumato 23).

According to the Quran, a woman’s role in society is first and foremost as a mother and a wife. However, there is no verse which forbids woman from seeking employment whenever there is a necessity for it, nor is there any restriction on benefiting from a woman's talent in any discipline. Even for the position of a judge, where there is tendency to question a woman's aptness for the post due to her more emotional disposition, we find early Muslim scholars such as Abu-Hanifa and Al-Tabary holding that there is nothing wrong with it (Al-Hariri 3).

There appear, therefore, to be two separate voices within this religion, and two contending understandings of gender.  One is manifested in the pragmatic patriarchal regulations for society, the other in the articulation of an ethical vision:

While the first voice has been extensively elaborated into a body of political and legal thought, which constitutes the technical understanding of Islam, the second—the voice to which ordinary believing Muslims, who are essentially ignorant of the details of Islam’s technical legacy, give their assent—has left little trace on the political and legal heritage of Islam (Ahmed 66).

The encoders of the earlier Islamic period, dismayed by societies in which misogyny and infanticide were the unchallenged norms, strove to turn Islamic precepts into laws that expressed justice according to the available measures of their times. In contrast, their descendants unwaveringly eschew modern understandings of the meanings of justice and human rights effectively reinstituting the laws devised in other ages and other societies.

The tribal explanation for the persistence of sex segregation is pertinent in Saudi Arabia. The importance of tribalism within the nation cannot be understated. Contemporary restrictions on women and the gender ideologies that validate them are fully congruent with the tribal Najdi culture that pervades throughout Saudi Arabia (Doumato 227).

History books ignore the history of non-Najdi Saudi Arabia, the history of the Hejaz, the Asir and the Shi'a. They essentially glorify the role of Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud in unifying the tribes and regions and establishing order and security. (Prokop 5) Because tribal groups are politically dominant in Saudi Arabia and tribal culture is an important referent for Saudi society, the notion of tribal honor plays a critical role in the continuing appeal of the laws containing women.

The pride and reputation of a Saudi family is directly linked to a woman’s chastity, known as ird. In this kinship culture, family ties are so strong that all members bear the consequences from the disreputable behavior of any one of them: “Her indiscretion is their dishonor. It is as if a man’s honor is buried in the vaginas of his women, for a women’s violation of her chastity is a violation of the honor of her men” (Mackey 124).

Hence, Saudi society is structured to keep a woman within narrowly defined limits that make it virtually impossible for her to lose her sexual virtue. Even before the onset of puberty, a Saudi woman is engulfed with societal regulations dictated and policed by men. Wahhabi Islam conveniently reinforces these tribal values of family, honor, and patriarchy. Inherent in these values is that in a tribal family, it is expected that the individual aspirations of members of the group must be subordinated to the best interests of the tribe because the reputation and economic welfare of the two are inseparable. This tribal explanation, however, falters when taking into account Kuwait and Bahrain, two states politically dominated by tribal groups, but with reduced levels of gender segregation. This discrepancy perhaps highlights the significance of Wahhabi ideology in framing Saudi social structure.

In effect, the misperception that Islam oppresses women is the product of the magnification of some unfortunate tendencies in certain regions of the Muslim world, namely Saudi Arabia. It is, thus, a gross misconception to reduce the Islamic treatment of women to Wahhabi misogynist discourse. The overwhelming restrictions on Saudi women’s freedoms of movement, dress, rights to travel and to work, are the laws of the state, not of a religion. The culture of female separation persists in Saudi Arabia to a level unmatched in the Arab world and the wider Muslim world until the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan in the 1990s.

The very fact that such elevated segregation is unique to Saudi and more recently to the Wahhabi Taliban, is evidence of the weight that this theological ideology plays in shaping attitudes against women. As shown, Islam must be acquitted in the prosecution of Muslim countries treatment of women, in view of the transparent truth that the legal rights of women are clearly enshrined in Islamic law.

Works-cited:

Ahmed, Leila. Women and Gender in Islam. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992.

Al-Alawi, Irfan. “Saudi Arabia: Wahhabis vs. Women”. Hudson New York  <http://www.hudsonny.org/2010/04/saudi-arabia-wahhabis-vs-women.php> Apr    152010.

Al-Hariri, Rafeda. “Islam's Point of View on Women's Education in Saudi Arabia” Comparative  Education. 23 (1987): 51-57.

AlMunajjed, Mona. Women in Saudi Arabia Today. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1995.

Altorki, Soraya. Women in Saudi Arabia Today. New York: Columbia University Press, 1986.

Doepke, Matthias. “Women’s rights: What’s in it for men?”Vox <http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/1171> Apr 15 2010

Doumato, Eleanor Abdella. Getting God’s Ear: Women, Islam, and Healing in Saudi Arabia and

the Gulf. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000.

Delong-Bas, Natana J. Wahhabi Islam.  Oxford: University Press, 2004.

Fargues, Philippe. “Women in Arab Countries: Challenging the Patriarchal System? Reproductive Health Matters 13 (2005): 43-48.

Heyneman, Stephen P. Islam and Social Policy. Tennessee: Vanderbilt University, 2004.

Humphrey, Stephen. Between Memory and Desire:

Hunter, Shireen T. Mediating Islam and Modernity.  New York: M.E. Sharpe Inc., 2009.

Mackey, Sandra. The Saudis: Inside the Desert Kingdom. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987.

Prokop, Michael. “Saudi Arabia: The Politics of Education”. International Affairs . 79 (2003):

© Morocco World News. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, rewritten or redistributed

By Mohamed Chtatou

Morocco World News

Rabat, May 20, 2013

Globalization and Education:

It goes without saying that one of the major all-encompassing events of the last part of the second millennium was undoubtedly the advent of globalization, as a clear political expression of the triumphing capitalism and market economy theories, following the end of the Cold War and the bi-polarization of the world. The concept of globalization, itself, was not something new to mankind, it was a dream nurtured over the centuries, by various thinkers and statesmen who failed to see it materialize in such a magnitude as is the case today. However, this hope was rekindled in modern times by a thought crafted, that the rapid technological advances achieved by humanity will ultimately result in the world becoming a “planetary village”.

After the short-lived euphoria that followed the birth of the globalization, soon fear and mistrust ensued and many a nation saw in it Trojan horse for hegemony and control carefully and intelligently mounted with the intention to impose a McWorld¹ on humanity at large. The diplomatic denunciation of this concept came from France that saw in this act an Anglo-Saxon drive to control the world and consequently destroy progressively all other cultures, languages and civilizations. To thwart this veiled aggression on cultural values of humanity; the French called on the world to respect the “other” and his culture² and to defend it from the onslaught of the global uniformization.

Nowadays, however, the rejection of globalization has taken an unfortunate turn, for each international conference attended by the world main powers or G8 meetings is marred by bouts of violent clashes between the security forces of the host country and anti-globalization militants who congregate to the site of the meeting from all over the world. The last of these saw the death of the young Italian protester Carlo Giuliani (23 years) in the city of Genoa where G8 leaders were meeting lately in July 2001. According to political analysts and observers, these international events are tuning more into occasions for the celebration of anti-globalization than what they were meant for in the first place.

The legitimate fear expressed by the rejectionists of globalization worldwide, whether peaceful or violent, means that if this phenomenon is left unchecked it will destroy everything around it in a flash, and especially vulnerable cultures with no economic strength. This may not be the ultimate reason for which globalization was set up for in the first place, but it is an outcome that has to be taken into consideration.

Globalization would not be seen today as an overwhelming danger to humanity by many, if it were not for its ability to stifle the local cultural expression for the sake of uniformity at the global level.

Education, more than ever before, is solicited today by everyone to prepare the individual to face the challenges of the future and the uncertainties of tomorrow with determination, responsibility and faith. To achieve this, education is called upon to display, in no doubtful terms, openness and flexibility towards what is different and unknown, with a view to achieving fully the overall objective of learning to live together.

Learning to live together is an integral part of the ongoing life exercise of constructing meaning, for there is no such a thing as absolute truth and it should be emphasized that expressing the wish to live together involves much affectivity and a great deal of emotions.

Education, to be relevant, has to help the individual construct his own “structure of meaning” by helping him and providing him with the necessary tools for building painstakingly his values, ethics, attitudes and behaviour as well as his own personal code of morality, obviously in tune with that of his society, which will constitute his own natural baggage in life. As such, the individual is required to learn self-esteem and self-respect which are the basis for accepting the “other” in his “otherness” and showing solidarity, respect and empathy for him. Self-respect and self-esteem are the basic qualities that make coexistence, cooperation, mutual understanding, and conflict resolution something achievable and possible.

Intolerance, hatred and rejection of the “other” by means of violence and/or ostracism are generally the end result of ignorance and stereotyping. So, expressing the wish and the willingness to learn to live together entails unequivocally knowledge.

Armed wit knowledge, the individual pushes further daily the limits of fear and broadens the field of mutual understanding and acceptance. And, likewise, investigates one’s strengths and weaknesses and learns to discover other people’s passions, fears, customs, beliefs, expectations, motivations, suffering as well as needs and aspirations.

The learning process is a matter of faith in humanity as a whole and faith in the individual, and the desire to work together towards carrying out joint projects and ultimately fulfilling common dreams and aspirations for a better future for everyone.

To achieve these lofty ideals and to give the education a new meaning and a new lease of life, the learning process has to reach out to common values and cultural diversity to overcome ethnocentric tendencies.

For the sake of an education that mirrors cultural diversity:

In the last century, ignorance and its corollary that is fear have been at the origin of much distrust and violence between individuals, communities and nations. This tendency cannot for the moment, unfortunately, be scratched out from the human psyche, but it can certainly be contained, by encouraging human beings through education to construct a common meaning, common objectives and aspirations and work together towards achieving them.

Likewise, tremendous progress has been gladly achieved in our perception of education³: in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it was written in gold, for the first time, that education is an undeniable right of every human being. In 1990, at the World Conference on Education for All at Jomtien in Thailand, this concept was further clarified and enriched, in the sense that every person ought to benefit from a basic education which meets his basic needs. Last but not least, at the World Forum on Education in Dakar, Senegal (2000), emphasis was put on the objective of providing quality education for all human beings, by taking better stock of its complexity and this was stated clearly in the Final Report of the World Forum on Education⁴:

“The movement toward more open and democratic societies has created a need for learning that goes beyond the academic curriculum and factual knowledge to emphasize problem-solving and open-ended enquiry. The expansion of communication and information technologies necessitates more interactive and explanatory forms of learning, and the increased pace of change has put a premium on the need to engage in continuous learning over a lifetime. There is also a new urgency to ensure that education at all levels and in all places reinforces a culture of peace, tolerance and respect for human rights”.

Education is not an isolated phenomenon within society and within the lives, passions and experiences of human beings. It is constantly in confrontation with the hard realities of its environment at the local, national and global levels. So, it is duly expected to overcome numerous tensions, these have been identified by the report of the International Commission on Education for the Twenty First Century5, three of which are of capital interest to workshop 3 on the topic of : “Common Values, Cultural Diversity and Education: What and How to reach?”. These are as follows:

-  “The tension between the global and the local: people need gradually to become world citizens without loosing their roots and while continuing to play an active part in the life of their nation and their local community”;

-  “The tension between the universal and the individual: culture is steadily being globalized, but as yet only partially. We cannot ignore the promises of globalization nor its risks, not the least of which is the risk of forgetting the unique character of human beings, it is for them to choose their own future and achieve their full potential within the carefully tended wealth of their traditions and their own cultures which unless we are careful, can be endangered by contemporary developments”;

-  “The tension between tradition and modernity: how is it to adapt to change without turning one’s back on the past, how can autonomy be acquired in complementarity with the free development of others and how can scientific progress be assimilated? This is the spirit in which the challenges of the new information technologies must be met.”

The tensions stated here above sum up the state of humanity today, it is confronted to the reality of learning to live together in the face of the unbearable pressure between belonging to a “world culture” and supporting cultural diversity.

It is an established fact that the dissemination of cultural expressions, forms and experiences is as vital and important as social, political and economic manifestations and processes⁶.

If today, globalization is raising fears within societies worldwide, it is simply because it is seen as a destructive world phenomenon that is one way only and exclusively in the service of one language (English)⁷, one culture (Anglo-Saxon) and one market (America), which leads to the imposition of the McWorld syndrome. And with this in place, cultural uniformization will become the norm and diversity the unacceptable exception or the world social taboo.

Essentially, the man of the present century has to have deep roots in his own culture and civilization and show, at the same time, a tremendous degree of receptiveness of the “others”.

To achieve this, he has to drop off his misconceptions and fallacies about the “other” and his “otherness” and accept to understand his culture in its environment with its own rationale and salient features tracing their origin in beliefs and various aspects of material culture.

It is, also, a known fact among educators and anthropologists that slipping into a stereotype is as simple as breathing, but finding one’s way out of it is quite a task. It is likewise true that stereotyping is a prominent manifestation of our human weakness, but it is also and most importantly, a blatant and an unacceptable expression of our ignorance, presumption and self-indulgence that verges on racism and egocentrism.

There is no such a thing as a good and/or superior culture or stupid and/or culture, for these unfortunate qualifiers are the reflection of self-adoration and self-love and infatuation.

Human beings of the twenty first century have to learn to accept what is different or alien with humility and that all cultures share in grandeur as well as failings. What is important, though, is working together with the “other” towards forging a “multicultural common identity” on a bedwork of diversity and common values and ethics.

To reach this noble objective in education and move on with it to an all-inclusive new reality, several questions, all important and vital, impose themselves at his juncture:

- What philosophy and approach to adopt in order to improve educational output in the light of cultural diversity and the development of new shared values?

- How can the community be implicated in an educational effort aiming at establishing complementarity and interculturality in order to make plurality a value enabling mankind “to learn to live together”?

Philosophy and Approach:

To achieve cultural diversity in education, it is important to adopt an attitude based on the idea of reshaping vision. The new vision ought to be broad and creative or rather an “expanded vision” as stated in article 2 of the World Declaration on Education for All⁸:

To serve the basic learning needs of all requires more than a recommitment to basic education as it now exists. What is needed is an “expanded vision” that surpasses present resource levels, institutional structures, curricula, and conventional delivery systems while building on the best in current practices.

This entails broadening the scope and most importantly enhancing the environment for learning and increasing the potential of partnership. This is further highlighted in the above-mentioned Declaration in the following words⁹:

The realization of an enormous potential for human progress and empowerment is contingent upon whether people can be enabled to acquire the education and the start needed to tap into the ever-expanding pool of relevant knowledge and the new means for sharing this knowledge.

Tapping into the pool of “relevant knowledge” presupposes that this knowledge has been identified, researched, studied and “digested”, or to be able to undertake this daunting and ambitious task properly, people have to fulfill the following conditions:

- Be receptive to other opinions, realities, experiences and approaches;

- Be open to other truths and philosophies;

- Conceive of plurality and diversity and life and in learning practices;

- Overcome ethnocentric inclinations and social arbitrariness;

- Adopt an intercultural attitude to the realities of the world;

- Seek complementarity and commonality between visions that are opposed and contradictory;

- Instil curiosity and respect for “otherness” and difference in future positive and responsible society;

- Help build a world based on common concerns and shared values;

- Shape our dormant and boring diversity into an active and electrifying experience enabling individuals “to learn to live together.”

A curriculum for creative diversity:

In 1989, Jean Marie Domenach, a French philosopher and political and social scientist, published an insightful book entitled: Ce qu’il faut enseigner (What should be taught)¹⁰, which he devoted exclusively to educational matters.

Domenach’s opinion is that societies today undergo incredible changes at great speed and so do educational systems, but because they are moving at different speeds in different directions, the gap between the two is widening alarmingly to the extent that there is a profound malaise among teachers and anxiety among pupils who question the validity of the curriculum taught.

Domenach’s advice is crystal clear, today’s schools must impart today’s knowledge, which is synonymous to sayingthat curriculum has to be in tune with the expectations of society, on the one hand, and the world, on the other. In other words, societies around the world are gradually getting rid of their monolithic legacy of the past to become plural and multicultural. So if Domenach’s view is adopted, their curricula ought to become multicultural to avoid incongruity.

According to Giovanni Gozzer, an Italian renowned educator¹¹, the world because of migrations and population movements, has changed so much and with it education which is gladly taking a multicultural coloring:

There is now an irreversible trend towards transcending national frontiers, in both the economic and the cultural fields (an to a certain extent as regards political, ethnic, linguistic, scientific and technological exchanges). Large community groupings are now taking place in Europe, as well as emerging in other continents, breaking down not only the barriers of politically homogeneous states, but also those of countries aligned in other blocs with opposing ideological and military policies. The fact that this situation has come to stay had an enormous impact on “teaching structures” (which seems a more appropriate term than the increasingly ambiguous word “education”). Until recent times the theory that the content of school curricula was a kind of automatic adjunct to the idea of the nation-state, similar to nationality, possession of a passport, a national language and a constitution, was admitted readily and without reservation. Today, this comparison seems less evident, not only as a result of the existence of the communities and groupings already mentioned, but also because of the reciprocal influences which economies, culture, and trade exert on individual national groups.

Because of this new reality created by migration and population movement all over the world and especially in the West, many countries adapted their educational policies gradually to this new situation, by taking measures to bring in new players into the fold, such as international organizations, NGOs and community leaders. Curriculum must not, anymore, be centrally-imposed, as it is the case unfortunately in many developing countries, it has to be the result of a consensus , so that every ethnic or cultural group can identify with it. It has to be a sort of educational melting-pot that erases emotional borders, but takes in all cultural ingredients as a form of recognition of the cultural diversity of a given society.

And given, also, that societies are not anymore what they were in the past: monolithic in their composition and their aspirations, curriculum has to follow suit and attempt to reflect, as faithfully as possible, the needs of the people taking into consideration their language, their origin, their culture and most of all their legitimate aspirations.

It is important, first and foremost, to identify the potential players needed today to take part in curriculum design, in its diverse and all-encompassing version:

Traditional approach:

• government officials (curriculum departments of ministries of education);
• educators;
• planners;
• Ideologues (partly officials in one-party system countries (Communist bloc);

This curriculum often had catastrophic results on the learners, the educational system and development in general. It is so rigid and so uneducational that it fails miserably, in the end, because of the following mishaps:

- No field-testing undertaken prior to using the curriculum, to determine its educational validity, if any;

- No attempt to encourage feed-back from educators, teachers, pupils and parents on the material and its educational content;

- This curriculum does not reflect the cultural diversity of the learner and, as a result, it does not enhance his spirit of creativity;

- This curriculum encourages school failure and the drop-out syndrome;

- This curriculum develops authoritarianism in society and non-democratic values.

• no government officials,
• educators;
• community leaders;
• religious leaders;
• NGOs;
• International Organizations;

This final output can in no way be considered as a “sacred” output, it is constantly open to new ideas and new input. Therefore, its life expectancy ought to be as short as possible to allow introduction of new ideas and concepts.

Another important feature of the modern approach is that is does not work towards transmitting information to the learner. It strives to build his skills and to prepare him for action by exposing him to tried data, in mock situations, and allowing him to review and discuss, in his own manner, every aspect of it.

Now, to make curriculum a fruitful investment, it is important to implicate the parents, from the very beginning, because their input is of vital importance for the future success of their offspring.

Aware of the importance of this issue, the Islamic Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization –ISESCO- has published in the year 2000 a book entitled Parental Education12 in its working languages Arabic, English and French, which it is in the process of distributing to the Member States. This publication deals with the different aspects of parental supervision of the education of their children and suggestions to improve its impact and results.

All in all, parental education has to be taken more seriously than what there is now, especially if there is interest in devising a relevant and quality-motivated curriculum, that takes into consideration the multicultural concerns of the society at large.

Educational content and methodology:

Educators and teachers worldwide are always asking the same relevant question, to which obviously there is no easy answer:

What to teach and how to teach it?

Obviously, if the traditional curriculum is changed in favour of a new curriculum aiming at positive diversity, new material has to be introduced, as well as, new players and a new approach.

Curricular Education:

In addition to the traditional subjects that have showed their relevance and effectiveness, in economic terms among the learners. The following subjects ought to be introduced in the new curriculum, if they had not been taught yet;

-  Specific studies:

• Civic education;
• Health education;
• Environmental education;
• Population education;
• Human rights subjects;
• Nutrition education;
• Women’s studies;
• Ethnic studies;
• Community Development studies;
• Anti-racist education.

- Cultural studies;

- Urban anthropology / Cultural anthropology;

- Comparative religion / religious studies;

- Mother tongues;

- Area studies;

- International education13.

Extra-curricular education:

There is to be, also, interest given to extra-curricular learning as a vital supplement for “building the skills” of the learner rather than “stuffing his head with information.”

The objective of extra-curricular education is to put the skills acquired in school to use through personal experience acquired in vivo.

The Americans, aware of the importance of extra-curricular knowledge, have, decades ago, introduced such courses in their educational system. Some of these are:

- Volunteer work abroad: students go abroad to do volunteer work for the benefit of native populations in developing countries, where they provide help with development projects and learn the language and the customs of the local population in return;

- Semester abroad: students go to a foreign country to study a given number of subjects for a semester and write papers on their experience to their schools;

- Gap-filling experience: before embarking on university studies, students go abroad to teach a subject of their choice and learn other skills in return. This experience helps them broaden their horizons and see the world afterwards from a different perspective.

- Exchange programmes: students from different countries exchange their families for a cultural experience;

- Semester at sea: students travel on a “floating university” around the world for a semester to improve their educational skills, polish their knowledge and discover the world.

If the content is modernized to take into consideration cultural diversity, then the methodology has also to undergo a similar operation. As such, teaching methods have to be reviewed to adapt to the new reality.

The new methodology has to meet the following procedural requirement:

- Be relevant;

- Be effective;

- Be quality-oriented;

- Be community-minded;

- Be multiculturally-oriented;

- Be skills-motivated.

And make use constantly of such tools as the following:

- Evaluation techniques;

- Feed-back;

- One on one situations;

- Field-testing;

Likewise, teachers and administrators have to undergo frequently in-service training, during which they will be exposed to the multicultural curriculum in different areas and to methods to approach it in the classroom, highlighting the educational fact that the student is not anymore a passive element but an active player who can have an important input in the educational game.

Conclusion:

To the highly important question: “Can we conceive of diversity in school and in curriculum in terms of complementarity rather than opposition?”

The answer is “yes”: this is possible and feasible provided all the concerned players: government officials, teachers, pupils, parents, NGOs and international organizations do engage seriously in a cultural dialogue on the best way to make multicultural education a reality in our schools and an enjoyable experience, too.

The fact is that the idea of a “global village” is attractive to the majority of the inhabitants of this only inhabitable planet in the know universe, as of today. But, it is, also, an established truth that without cultural diversity this village will be a boring place and our life a tedious experience imposed on us.

There is an urgent need for human beings “to learn to live together” by accepting the “other” in his difference and “otherness” and overcoming our ethnocentric tendencies, jingoistic madness, racist foolishness and cultural selfishness in favour of a true multicultural society.

To achieve this noble ideal, the starting point is undoubtedly education. Through education, human beings can easily overcome their societies’ arbitrariness and lack of values and build a world based on shared values, one such value being the diversity that has always characterized humankind.

NOTES:

1. A world dominated and regulated, at will, by US multinationals such as McDonald’s, that is denounced vehemently in Europe for marketing junk food and junk culture, by such vociferous opponents of globalization as José Bové, the head of the French Trade Union of Farmers.

2. This French worldwide campaign was conceived and articulated around the concept of l’exception culturelle (cultural difference) which defends the notion of spécificité culturelle. The indirect outcome of this campaign was the creation of a political organization to defend francophone culture and interests.

3. Cf. UNESCO, World Education Report 2000. The right to education: towards education for all throughout life, Paris, UNESCO Publications, 2000.

4. Cf. World Forum on Education, Final Report, Dakar, UNESCO, 2000, p.20.

5. Cf. J. Delors et al., Learning : the Treasure Within, Paris, UNESCO Publications and Odile Jacob, 1996, p.12 onwards.

The tensions identified by the commission are as follows:

a) The tension between the global and the local;

b) The tension between the universal and the individual;

c) The tension between tradition and modernity;

d) The tension between long-term and short-term consideration;

e) The tension between, on the one hand, the need for competition, and on the other, the concern for equality of opportunity;

f) The tension between the extraordinary expansion of knowledge and human beings’ capacity to assimilate it;

g) The tension between the spiritual and the material;

h) The tension between the market economy and the market society.

6. Cf. Javier Pérez de Cuéllar et al., Our Creative Diversity, Paris, UNESCO Publications, 1996. (Report on the World Commission on Culture and Development).

7. A proof of this is the supremacy of the English language in the material found on the net. It was estimated in the year 2000 at about 60%.

8. Cf. WCEFA Inter-Agency Commission, Final Report of the World Conference on Education for All: Meeting Basic Learning Needs. New York, UNICEF Publications, 1990. p. 44..

9. Ibid, p. 44.

10. Cf. Jean-Marie Domenach, Ce qu’il faut enseigner, Paris, 1989.

11. Cf. G. Gozzer, « School curricula and social problems » in Prospects 73: vol XX, n°1, 1990:9-19, Paris, UNESCO. P.

12. Cf. ISESCO, Parental Education, Rabat, ISESCO Publications, 2000.

13.ISESCO has published in the year 2000 a book for this purpose entitled “Islamic Perspective of International Education”. (Cf. Hassan Mohammed Hassan, Islamic Perspective of International Education, Rabat, ISESCO Publications, 2000).

Dr. Mohamed Chtatou is a Professor at the University of Mohammed V in Rabat.

By Saad Boutayeb

Morocco World News

Rabat, May 28, 2013

Political culture is defined by the International Encyclopedia of social sciences as “the set of attitudes, beliefs and sentiments which give order and meaning to a political process.” In other words, political culture is how people think about politics. People’s political culture can be divided into three main categories. First, there is the “parochial citizen,” a citizen who does not wish to participate in political affairs and represents a typically apathetic individual. Second, there is the “subject” citizen, a person who wishes to obey and not necessarily participate in political affairs. Finally, there’s the “participatory” citizen, one who is keen to participate in political affairs, because he or she has political aspirations, which can include civic engagement and activism or simply an interest in the political process.

Participatory citizens believe in political change, sometimes to their disappointment, whereas the two previous types of citizens (parochial and subject) either have a reactionary vision of their political systems, or just don’t have enough knowledge and skills to be truly engaged. In fact, education plays a great role in how people think about politics. Undoubtedly, an illiterate worker who never had the opportunity to go to school could be in a zone of “political illiteracy” therefore being parochial. On the other hand, there are much higher chances for an unemployed graduate to participate and dive into the world of political activism, its complications, and its inherent divisiveness.  It will be argued here that political culture is directly linked to the stability of a political power, and that political power can effectively shape political culture. Several historical and current political examples and situation will be used to support this claim: Germany during Nazism, Hitler’s Charismatic domination and the change of political culture which happened as a result of the fall of Nazism. Then, we will also address Sarkozy’s charismatic victory in 2007. Finally we will take a look at the current state of Moroccan politics.

To start with, ‘There are no such things as immutable national characteristics’. National characteristics are “mutable’ and change over time, under various circumstances. In my view, political culture works the same way. It changes overtime.  For instance, if they conducted a poll during the Third Reich in Germany, and asked if Hitler’s position was legitimate in the sense that he had the consent of the people to rule, we probably would have the majority of Germans who would have said “yes” to the poll. Many of whom would have said “yes” out of political conviction, whereas others would have given a positive answer out of fear of persecution of the regime.

People do lie during polls, out of fear. The legitimation of power during Nazi Germany is what is called in Max Weber’s Politics as a Vocation “Charismatic legitimacy.” Charismatic legitimacy or domination arises out of the talent of the great demagogue, a monster of political demagogy who eventually succeeds in having the consent of the citizens. In other words, the great demagogue shapes political culture just as the painter paints a masterpiece. Finally, German political culture radically changed after the end of the Second World War, and Nazism was gradually seen as a tragic anomaly of the past.

In Moroccan society, there is a sort of dualism concerning people’s perception of political power. A category of people sees political power as legitimate, by accepting  tradition or (the eternal yesterday) (Weber). That is, that monarchy is a several centuries old dynasty which has a right to rule by what Jean Bodin calls ‘Divine Right’. King Mohamed VI is the prince of the believers, or “Commander of the Faithful.” This type of legitimacy is what Max Weber calls “Traditional legitimacy”.

Another category of Moroccans have a mixed perception of power, they too accept the ‘traditional,” while also acknowledging the legal aspect of Moroccan power. ‘Legal Legitimacy,” which rests on the belief that a particular exercise of power is legal in the sense that it rests on rules, constitution, political institutions, elections, referenda and so forth. The victory of the PJD and Abdelilah Benkirane as Prime Minister newly reinforced this “legal” aspect of the legitimation of Moroccan political power. On the other hand, in Tunisia, Egypt and Lybia, the state of mind has been changing, from servitude and silent suffering, to revolution, political ideals, chaos, and radical change. These two respective examples show that the former political culture reinforces political power, while the latter weakens power or overthrows it.

Sarkozy’s victory in the 2007 French elections could be seen as a mixture of legal and charismatic elements; legal in the sense that he was elected democratically through universal suffrage. Charismatic in the sense that Sarkozy is well known for being a great demagogue in the sense that he succeeded in  manipulating the political opposition (he succeeded in convincing many member of the Socialist Party to join his conservative UMP party (such as Eric Besson) and convinced many National Front voters to vote for him, (with the help of mass media). Hence, we witnessed a decisive victory in 2007.

Sarkozy succeeded in shaping a worldview where he assured the French that with him “Tout est possible” (UMP Party slogan, “Anything is possible”). French citizens who voted for Sarkozy switched from pessimism to optimism but, only for a moment. His convincing mandate was ephemeral, given the events which occurred later. This is to say that political culture does affect political power, and political power can shape political culture through the skills of the demagogue and via mass media. After all, if the French viewed Pétain as their protector during World War II, it proves that the political culture of a given society can change in the blink of an eye according to the given circumstances.

Again, how people think about politics is a matter of education and maturity. How political power is practiced depends on the institutional basis of the particular political system, as well as the people and groups in power. The current tumult in world politics promises radical changes in both political cultures and political systems.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Morocco World News’ editorial policy

By Mohamed Chtatou

Morocco World News

Rabat, June 13, 2013

Introduction

The long spell of colonial rule in Africa, might have, temporarily, solved the problem of communication between African countries themselves, on the one hand, and these countries and the rest of the world, on the other. However, this created a complex linguistic situation on the ground that African governments have, since, been unable to solve. And as a result, national educational systems are constantly on the limp and need urgently to be revamped, but the burning question is: how?

Africa is home to thousands of languages and idioms. These numerous languages can, tentatively, be classified in the following manner:

Tribal language: an autochthonous idiom spoken by the members of a given tribe only. Unfortunately such languages are in imminent danger of extinction.

Community language: a native language used by several tribes in a given geographical area.

National language: a native language or languages used within a given country for communication and cultural purposes.

Trans-national language: a native language or languages used in more than one country, such as Pular, Swahili, Wolof, etc.

Official language: a foreign language or languages imposed by colonial powers as a lingua-franca for use in administration, business circles, trade and schools: such as French, English, Portuguese, etc.

It is a known fact that the issue of mother tongue in education in Africa is saddled with pitfalls and drawbacks, even if many African countries have, seemingly, devised waterproof strategies to promote the use of such native languages in school curriculum. And as if the actual situation of mother tongues is not complex and intricate enough, globalisation is adding more salt to injury by insidiously pressuring people, through the magic of ICT, to drop altogether their  “useless” native languages as well as some colonial languages for the English language.

The present paper will attempt to shed light on and discuss the situation of mother tongues in the African educational systems from such angles as:

Establishment of true national curricula;

Textbooks;

Teacher training;

Language policy;

Literacy, etc.

and aim at painting the true picture of the situation both in some North African and Sub-Saharan countries that were colonised by France the last century, given, somewhat, that the colonial educational legacy is similar.

Omnipotence of colonial legacy

The worst thing about French colonialism is not so much its pronounced paternalism in Africa but its linguistic carbon print on African national identities which acted as an umbilical cord difficult to sever and led to an era of disguised linguistic and cultural imperialism legitimated by the so-called world francophone movement.

Initially, this movement was purely cultural with the primary objective to perpetuate French presence in Africa, but in the early 80s, as English language, emboldened by the digital revolution moved ahead to become the universal language, the French attempted to check its ineluctable advance by calling the world to adopt cultural specificity “specificité culturelle” and multiculturalism. But this cultural specificity was only good for the defense of French culture from English hegemony, not the other way around for other small countries, because French officials continued to defend bitterly their linguistic imperialism especially through their own autochthonous pressure groups present in key political spheres and in trade and business.

Indeed, when the French first set foot in Africa in early 19^th century (Algeria 1830), they engaged into a massive cultural colonisation making French the official language of education, administration and business, and discouraged the autochthonous people from using their national languages and scripts.

This dislike of local idioms springs from the fact that Islamic religious lodges in North, Central and West Africa resisted this foreign occupation and rallied large swaths of population under the banner of Holy War jihad against the Christian occupiers.  So, it took the French quite a while to “pacify” their colonies, alienating in the process large sections of the population that became many decades later political and armed decolonisation movements.

In Algeria, though the religious leader Emir Abdelkader failed to oust the French, yet his bravery and memory lasted long enough o ignite the national movement of FLN that led this country in 1963 to independence from French colonialism.

Algeria, after independence, disheartened by the atrocities of French occupation and then cultural colonialism made Arabic the official language of the nation and, somewhat attempted, to no avail, to make English the first foreign language in school.  This politically-motivated move had dire consequences on the country.  On the one hand by adopting Arabic, Tamazight-speaking Algerians were discriminated against and their culture disregarded. On the other, the arabisation of the educational system created a militant and vociferous Islamic elite Front Islamique du Salut -FIS- that vowed to reislamise the society.  This political movement, first acclaimed by the have-nots of the military regime made the FIS win the parliamentary elections of 1988.  Threatened, by this energetic and flamboyant political movement, the army-controlled government annulled the results of the elections.  This led to a bloody civil war that claimed the lives of 900,000 people over a decade of turmoil.

In Morocco and Tunisia, independence did not mean the end of French linguistic imperialism, but on the contrary French language flourished even more in all spheres of life in spite of the arabisation process started in the 70s in the educational system but never reached administration and business.

A somewhat similar situation is witnessed in Western and Central African nations.  The French left decades ago but their language and cultural influence remained vivid.  In Senegal, a French-educated intellectual, Leopold Seda Senghor, a nationalist with a mild stance on colonialism encouraged a return-to-the-source movement glorifying African identities.  This cultural movement that called itself negritude was in no way a negation of the French linguistic supremacy, because right after independence most Western and Central African nations adopted French as the official language in education, politics and business.  This is the state of affairs in Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad, Central Africa, Gabon, Congo, etc.

The change in attitude towards mother tongues came, not through the concerned countries but through an African intellectual, Ahmadou Tahar M’bow, who was elected Secretary General of UNESCO, and immediately launched a series of field programmes aimed at the rehabilitation of African languages in the following areas:

African languages and idioms as vehicles of daily communication between intra-national and trans-national communities, often separated by colonial artificial borders;

Full rehabilitation of national languages and the subsequent recognition of oral literature and music; and

Use of national languages in educational curriculum and literacy programmes

These “revolutionary measures” had as an immediate outcome:

Recomposition of the national identity around the local languages;

Recognition of the African identity; and

Review of the national curriculum

As a matter of fact, since, the French language, though it kept its quality of official language, lost its cultural and educational supremacy in favour of African languages that were in the past belittled by the French colonial power.  In fact, during the colonial period the French encouraged the locals to write in the language of Molière because it was the language of fine literature and even set aside money to publish their work and make it known worldwide.

Actual status of mother tongues

The rehabilitation of national languages in Africa started in early 1980 at the university level by serious research undertaken by linguists on different idioms spoken in a given country or area.  Students motivated by the writings of their professors joined in the fray and went into the field investigating local languages in their different aspects: phonetics, phonology, syntax, semantics and language use.

However, the need for the recognition of national languages as full vehicles of communications and means of durable development made itself felt around 1982 when many countries launched massive programmes of literacy in the countryside with the aim to help population to become financially independent and take care of their own lives rather than wait for governments, that, all in all, lack financial means, to come to their rescue.

As such, local associations for durable development were founded in black African countries with the help of international organizations such as UNESCO, UNICEF, UNDP, etc.  These associations with little means and much determination launched their first literacy programmes “dans la brousse” (in the bush), with in mind, the following noble objectives:

Alphabétisation des populations rurales;

Aider la femme et la jeune fille à sortir de l’anonymat ;

Combattre certaines pratiques ancestrales néfastes: pratique de la magie, mutilation génitale féminine, etc.;

Inculquer les règles de l’hygiène et les bases de la santé reproductive et l’économie sociale ;

Aider la population rurale a sortir de la précarité ;

Permettre a la gente féminine de devenir financièrement indépendante ; and

Permettre aux familles pauvres de sortir du besoin.

The salient feature of this venture was that it offered a community-based programme which guaranteed its continuity and success in the long run.  The external intervention is limited to technical help and financial support.  By making such a programme, a homespun product, the target population would identify with it and strive to keep it going for the benefit of everyone.

These community-based literacy programmes scored quite a substantial success in Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Benin and various other sub-Saharan countries because people realised that not only they could become literate in their own mother tongue but they could also learn a trade or a business and become financially independent.

As matter of fact these literacy mother tongue programmes allowed many communities to become known nationally and to improve the economic lot of their members and their social status. This unexpected change defeated gradually long-established and long-entertained fatalism and managed to give hope to people who believed deep down that they are “done damned” and they are born to be poor and die poor.

These literacy programmes gave people faith in their mother tongues and contrary to the pre-conceived idea of the colonial times that these idioms are good for religion only, they realised, to their astonishment, that they could be of much use in their economic pursuit.

But Mother tongues cannot only be means for economic improvement of the local population, they can, also, be of much use in such important areas as:

1- Raising awareness as to what concerns health issues;

2- Improving political education concerning participation in elections both as voters and candidates;

3- Highlighting the benefits of good governance; and

4-Encouraging people to undertake literacy pursuits in their mother tongues.

In his paper entitled “Complacency and Oversight in the use of Mother Tongues in HIV/AIDS Sensitization Campaigns: the case of Rural Areas in North Eastern Nigeria,” Baba Mai Bello, argues for the use of mother tongues in awareness-raising campaigns in rural areas:

“By analyzing and evaluating the present state of sensitization campaign vis-à-vis the linguistic compositions and needs of the communities in this region, we argue that the campaigns against HIV/AIDS in rural areas of this region may be fighting a loosing battle since they do very little, owing to language limitations, to reach their target audience.  With the aid of a research-administered questionnaire in select parts of some rural areas, we aim to demonstrate how the low awareness of HIV/AIDS as compared to urban areas may be directly linked to the absence of mother tongues in these campaigns, suggesting once more the importance of mother tongues in public awareness campaigns.”

Realising the importance of mother-tongues in both human development and nation-building, UNESCO and other international organizations convened an international forum in Dakar, Senegal, 26-28 April 2000, during which 150 countries pledged to provide universal basic education:

…ensuring that by 2015 all children, particularly girls, children in difficult circumstances and those belonging to ethnic minorities, have access to and complete free and compulsory primary education of good quality.

Nadine Dutcher, a researcher affiliated with the Center for Applied Linguistics, based in Washington, DC, discusses in her paper (Dutcher, 2003) discusses amply in a paper entitled: ”Promise and perils of mother tongue education” through the child’s first language or mother tongue, drawing from the speaker’s experiences with three national programs, each in different phases:

“those that are in the preparatory phase, such as the mother tongue education program in Vanuatu;

relatively new programs, such as the mother tongue primary education program in Eritrea, and;

well-established programs, such as the intercultural and bilingual education program in Guatemala.”

The paper goes on to discusses internal support of mother tongue-first education programs—the decision to begin, language planning and development, materials preparation, teacher selection and training, research and evaluation—and external support such as the role of national and local government, community involvement, the difficulties of taking a pilot program to a national scale, and the role of outside agencies:

“We know that most children who begin their education in their mother tongue make a better start, demonstrate increased self-confidence and continue to perform better than those who start school in a new language. The outlook for successful education is brighter when the school builds on the foundation of the mother tongue in teaching a second and third language. Such is the promise of mother tongue education. But there are perils as well. They include the possibility of ineffective teaching for a number of reasons and lack of support for mother tongue education on the part of teachers, parents and government.”

National curriculum: reality or fiction?

In the euphoria of national independence from colonial powers, African national governments used a populist slogan: create an educational system to replace the colonial one.  The populations responded favourably to this idea whereas specialists shivered at the thought pointing out, at no avail that such a daunting task might take decades to achieve and enormous funds, which both were difficult to come by.

Realising that they cannot stand by their promises, the African governments proceeded to apply some cosmetic changes on the form leaving the content in its colonial shape.  As such, all important topics were taught in the colonial language, as in the past, only few insignificant subjects were done in national languages and none in tribal languages or local idioms.  As a result, there were a lot of levels of alienation for the African learner.

In the colonial period, the African learner had to first acquire the colonial language in the primary level of education before he could have access to the other levels of education.  Because of this linguistic hurdle, only the lucky few, the offspring of notables and military and political elites made it to the top, in the long run.

So, in the first decade of independence no serious changes were brought to the curriculum in content and philosophy, it remained pretty much as it were during the colonial times.

However, African countries encouraged and emboldened by the stand taken by UNESCO as to what concern African native languages, under the aegis of Mokhtar M’bow, started taking a more positive attitude towards their national languages and viewing them as tools for durable development rather than obstacles.  This first started in the field of literacy, after scoring several successes and getting a positive response from the focal population, African educational authorities started thinking of using mother tongues in school curriculum with the introduction of Arabic in Chad, Wolof in Senegal, and Pular in Mali.

Both R. Wildsmith-Crismarty and M. Gordon from the University of Bayreuth in Germany argue quite convincingly in a paper entitled “Can the use of the Mother Tongue Aid the Development of Concept Literacy in Maths and Science”:

The use of non-indigenous languages as media of instruction in the educational domain has been perceived as the reason for the failure of modern science and technology to take root in Africa.  In South Africa, low national pass rates at matriculation level bear testimony to the failure of students to grasp scientific and mathematical concepts that are explained in English.  If scientific terminology was to be created in the African languages, students might be able to construct correct conceptions.

The writers of the above-mentioned paper report on a study that attempted to come up and conceive a multilingual resource book as a supplement for mathematics and science teachers:

Core concepts in mathematics, geography, physics, chemistry and biology were identified from senior school curriculum and translated into two African languages, besides Afrikaans and English.  The initiative aimed to encourage teachers to use the Resource book to introduce the concepts in the mother tongue in order to aid understanding in contexts where the language of instruction is English.

The use of African mother tongues in educational curricula has been for quite some time the focus of interest of the African Union (AU) with in mind the full rehabilitation of African languages in education, literature, media and everyday life.  The AU has entrusted the Academy of African Languages (ACALAN) with the mission to fully promote mother tongues in the African continent “Mother Tongues across border.”  This project focuses on the East African region involving 13 countries: Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Sudan, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Eritrea, Somalia, The Seychelles, Madagascar, Comoros and Mauritius.

For Naomi L. Shitomi from the School of Arts and Social Sciences of Moi University in Kenya, the above long-awaited initiative responds to an urgent need.  She states, quite unambiguously, that mother tongues are fragilised by globalisation:

With the advances of English at the international level and various national levels; and the official standard languages at the local levels, e.g. Kiswahili in the Eastern Africa region; and the colonial legacies pertaining to the language issue, mother tongues continue to be subjected to marginalization and pressure that often relegates them to non-prestigious and depreciated positions.  The non articulation of the position and role of mother tongues in various national constitutions and insensitive language policies; socio-economic deprivations; ethnicity and negative politics that demonize indigenous identities and expressions and further marginalizes them.

This interesting statement echoes an earlier call of emergency to attend to African mother tongues expressed in realistic manner by the preamble of UNESCO’s “Language Vitality and Endangerment document:

The extinction of each language results in the irrevocable loss of unique cultural, historical, historical and, ecological knowledge.  Each language is a unique expression of the human experience of the world.  Thus, the knowledge of any single language maybe the key to answering fundamental questions of the future.  Every time a language dies, we have less evidence for understanding patterns in the structure and function of human language, human prehistory, and the maintenance of the world’s diverse ecosystems. Above all, speakers of these languages may experience the loss of their language as a loss of their original ethnic and cultural identity.

Mother tongue in education: how to go about it?

Bearing in mind that Africa is the home of thousands of languages, some of which are spoken, maybe, by less than one hundred people, the question is: which languages to use in education,  and what criteria to use to make such a decision?

The eligible languages are undoubtedly those that are the most used by speakers in a given country or geographical area.  The criteria that have been used in several African countries are as follows:

Most used language in a given region;

Most used language in a given country; and

Trans-national languages.

These three criteria have helped many African countries determine which languages to use in education.  The fact is that even if these languages are not mother tongues, to the majority of the people, yet they use them as a lingua-franca in various fields of communication.

Pular and Hausa are trans-national languages that are used by millions of people in West Africa and even those for whom they are not true mother tongues, they still consider them to be their national idioms and do use them extensively in their daily business more than foreign official languages simply because they vehicle an African culture close to the heart of the population and not an alien way of thinking and reasoning.

The success in the use of mother tongues in sub-Saharan Africa can be attributed to diverse factors, some of which are as follows:

Cultural relatedness;

Linguistic applicability;

Social readiness;

Popular adherence; and

Official receptiveness,

The first five years were field testing years for the whole package and the results were truly beyond expectations in most countries of the region and mainly in: Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad and Senegal.

In the face of these encouraging results in Africa and also in other parts of the world, UNESCO proclaimed in 1999 the International mother Language Day with the intention to promote linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism. According to UNESCO, many studies show that instruction in mother tongue is more effective for achievement not only for the first language but also for other subject areas and for second language learning.

It is a known and accepted fact that the use of mother tongue as a medium of instruction in early days of schooling contributes to improved classroom learning and related academic achievement.

But, unfortunately despite all this, mother tongue in education is still far from being a widely-accepted model, often due to social, economic, political and even technological challenges.

So, the question is: why is mother tongue an issue in education in Africa? What does mother tongue education look like in practice? Is it truly worthwhile in terms of real costs and benefits?

Actually education in mother tongue is a world-wide issue and it exists also in developed countries in the form of the issue of education in standard or nonstandard language as reported by Cheshire (2005: 2342):

It might be thought that the main issue for the classroom would be how best to teach the standard to speakers of nonstandard varieties, but the situation is complicated by social attitudes towards standard and nonstandard language. Stereotypes about “incorrect”, “careless” and “ugly” speech persist, despite of 40 years of sociolinguistic work demonstrating that dialects and creoles are well-formed language systems. Ignorance and prejudice still exist among teachers – they have been found, for example, in recent studies carried out in Britain, Canada, New York City, the Caribbean, and Australia (Siegell1999). Furthermore speakers of the nonstandard languages themselves often hold the view that their language is “broken” and “poor”…

Fortunately these “biased” ideas are not held by educations experts who believe like UENSCO (1968), whose specialists stated quite unambiguously as early as in 1951, that early education as well as literacy are best dispensed in mother tongue, at a time when colonial languages had the upper hand in education as well as everyday life and vernacular languages were seen as folklore more than anything else, as Romaine (1995: 242) has rightly pointed out,

The traditional policy, either implicitly assumed or explicitly stated, which most nations have pursued with regard to various minority groups, who speak a different language, has been eradication of the native language/culture and assimilation into the majority one.

In Turkey where Kurdish is a minority language whose existence is not recognized, the situation was even worse. Thus one Kurdish woman who attended a special boarding school provided for Kurdish children described her heartbreaking experience vividly (Clason and Baksi 1979: 79, 86-7, translated by Skutnabb-Kangas 1984: 311-12):

I was seven when I started the first grade in 1962. My sister, who was a year older, started school at the same time. We didn't know a word of Turkish when we started, so we felt totally mute during the first few years. We were not allowed to speak Kurdish during the breaks, either, but had to play silent games with stones and things like that. Anyone who spoke Kurdish was punished. The teachers hit us on the fingertips or on our heads with a ruler. It hurt terribly. That is why we were always frightened at school and didn't want to go.

The case of Diembering School in Senegal

Linguists, education experts and teachers all agree that today that the way out of the educational quagmire in Africa, Asia and many parts of the world, where the language of the colonizer became the official language and as a result the sole vehicle of education, is by rethinking the language or languages of instruction (Dutcher, 2003:2) and reassessing totally the sacrosanct foundations of education philosophy inherited from European nations, that have never faced the problems and perils of alienating their learners by teaching them in languages other than their mother tongues.

The benefits of learning in one's mother tongue are no longer disputed. But is it affordable to implement mother tongue as the first language of learning and teaching for all learners? And if it is, where can one find the necessary expertise and ideas to make it happen? Here below, Rudy Klaas shares the story of a mother tongue project in the small village of Diembering, south-west Senegal, which may begin to answer these questions:

In 1998, school teachers in Diembering attended a mother tongue literacy teacher training event run by SIL International. The teachers then convinced their headteacher to try out the methodology in their school. This first initiative was a success, and convinced parents that their children would learn better in their mother tongue. The mother tongue programme that followed sought to reduce the high failure rates in schools that resulted from students' poor development of basic literacy skills in their first few years of education. In 2002, the government launched a separate experimental multi-lingual education programme in five locations, including Diembering.

This revolutionary approach, for conservative education officials in Senegal, bore fruit immediately and shed the light and attracted attention to mother tongue education. Obviously, the changes witnessed within this school are not accidental, in anyway, but the result of the change of the language of instruction.

Klaas reports two kinds of changes basically categorized within the area of students’ success in exams and students’ increased confidence:

11 out of 18 students who were using mother tongue in all lessons passed their exams. In the two classes using French for instruction, only two and four students respectively out of 20 passed, and;

Mother tongue classes are more student-centred, with more use of interactive teaching methods. On-going monitoring shows that students are more confident and enthusiastic.

Klaas goes on to say with much strength that detailed figures are not available yet on how much the experimental mother tongue classes cost per student. However, these classes in Diembering produced almost four times the level of exam passes than the traditional classes - but certainly didn't cost four times as much to run. So the mother tongue class approach is clearly worthwhile. The cost of producing traditional class books is not that different from producing the same book translated into a mother tongue. Translation costs don't have to be high either; some work can be done voluntarily, if time is taken to find motivated translators. Students from mother tongue classes often complete their learning goals faster than those in traditional classes. This can reduce overall education system costs, especially if it reduces the number of students who repeat years.

And concludes quite convincingly that:

If a country spends less money on education that doesn't work, it costs them more in the long term than if they spend more money on education that does work!

While the Senegal attempted with much courage an important and beneficial change of direction in language policy and its aggregate, language use in education, a heated debate is taking place to no avail both in North Africa (Chtatou, 1994: 43-62) and in South Africa, two different geographical regions having different cultures and using different colonial languages as vehicles of education.

For Mamphele Ramphele, a South African academic, businesswoman and medical doctor, the post-apartheid South African government is failing to recognize the importance of national cultures and national languages, one of the means to assert sovereignty as a nation that is proud of its heritage. She states quite convincingly that learning through the first language or mother tongue allows greatly to anchor knowledge and education in the child’s immediate environment made of his family, his community and society at large as well as daily interactions and dealings. She goes on to emphasise that pupils who are taught in the first years of their schooling in their mother tongue and taught foreign languages as languages and not vehicles of instruction tend to pass all their exams with flying colours and to go on further in their education. Other than that, pupils become alienated:

Our current approaches alienate children from their cultural roots and make parents' participation in the education of their children difficult. How can they participate in a process in which their primary medium of communication is rendered irrelevant? How can they help their own children learn when the language of instruction becomes a barrier to communication from the first day of school? An even more profound impact of this language policy is the undermining of the parental authority so essential to shaping the values and world-view of children at this stage of their development. Why should children respect parents who only speak a devalued language? South Africa is not alone in undermining indigenous African languages. Professor Pai Obanya, a retired Nigerian education strategist, suggests that education in Africa tends to alienate elites from their roots and undermine their capacity to be effective agents of change to promote sustainable development. "Education is mainly about acculturation, to be learned is to be cultured. Starting off an acculturation process with non-first language tends to lead to a situation in which the person could become knowledgeable but not cultured, and developing a feeling of belonging nowhere." Elites in Africa are contributing to this trend by educating their children in private schools, where the teaching of indigenous African languages is minimal. Many see the inability of their children to communicate in their mother tongue as a badge of honour.

Mother tongue literacy In Mali

It is a known fact that all African countries are multilingual and multicultural, if not multiracial; this wide variety did not create disunity in the past, on the contrary it contributed to cement good relations and fruitful economic ties between different nations and ethnic groups. However, when colonialism disembarked on the African soil on the 18 th century, to control the rich land of this virgin continent, employed the old but efficient tactic of “divide to rule” and thus nations stirred by colonial agents went on the war path and started exterminating each other and playing in the hands of the colonisers. Encouraged by this course of events, the colonial powers, in the name of progress, imposed their language and culture and sought to downgrade or even destroy local cultures and languages. They downgraded these local idioms and pushed them over the years to total extinction, imposing instead their language on the educational system, administration and daily business.

On the education scene this had a negative impact on learners, children felt dislocated from their families and cultural background at first and later totally alienated. Many of them dropped out of school as a result and went to swell the ranks of the already existing armies of the unemployed putting much unwanted strain on the weak economic fabric of their poor countries. On the literacy front, things got worse because people shied from learning in European languages. Realising that such an approach would not lead to any results, whatsoever, UNESCO changed its approach and called upon many African countries to adopt local languages. The response was immediate; many countries in Black Africa recognized their local idioms and transcribed this political change in their constitutions and went on to create ministries devoted to literacy and national languages.

In Mali, the National Directorate of Literacy and Applied linguistics (La Direction nationale de l'alphabétisation fonctionnelle et de la linguistique appliquée (DNAFLA))  was created in the 70s to promote national languages and use them as a tool in the local development. Since its creation this highly active institution has overseen dutifully literacy programmes nationwide and it is credited for much success in the area of informal education. As a result of this the Malian government has issued Order No. 89-0341/MEN-DNAFLA of 15 February 1989 setting forth the composition and functions of regional and local commissions for the elimination of illiteracy. This Order created in each regional and local administrative unit a commission for the elimination of illiteracy under the authority of the Party and Administration. The duties of the commissions are as follows:

 To conceive, coordinate, and manage literacy activities;

To support and control facilities involved in literacy activities with a view to adapting them to local circumstances;

To promote and increase the use of national languages; and

To inform and sensitise the population and mobilise human, material, and financial resources. Further provisions of the Order set forth the members of various commissions, among other things.

Today Mali is cited as one of the prominent successes in literacy in mother tongues in Africa. Indeed DNAFLA, very much field-oriented, started mother tongue literacy programmes in the most remote bush areas that did not even had a road let alone a school or other basic amenities such as running water and electricity. Initially, people were very suspicious of the programme, they thought maybe the government wanted to spy on them to tax them or something. Men refused to join in and preferred to sit under their village tree, known in francophone Africa by the sobriquet: arbre à palabres (chat tree), and sip tea, while women decided to join in these functional literacy programmes. During the first year of the experiment women learned the three Rs and the programme to help them become financially independent set up a honey- producing co-operative. At the end of the second year the women became income earners and saw their status move up within the society. Men realising the social importance of the exercise decided to join in.

The success of this important programme had a domino effect in the country, today DNAFLA strong with this experience is moving forward with more assurance and credibility to implant functional literacy nationwide and call upon international organization to join in the effort.

The situation In the Maghreb

While the situation of mother-tongue education is progressing satisfactorily in sub-Saharan countries and vernacular languages are used more and more in literacy programmes and early education curriculum with good outcome, in North Africa the situations is very fuzzy as what concerns national languages. The pan-Arab ideology, though outdated and vanquished, is still alive in the mind of Arab leaders who see recognition of national languages as a threat to the supremacy of Arabic language and culture and their shaky dictatorships based on tribal allegiances and conservative religious positions.

Both in Morocco and Algeria, the governments recognised under pressure the Amazigh movement and set up for the purpose government bodies to manage the Amazigh population cultural needs and requests or make believe so.

In Algeria, on The 27 th of May 1995, after months of unrest in the streets, schools and universities of Tizi Ouzzou and various other Algerian provinces, The State Presidency (présidence de l’Etat) signed an official decree creating the High Commission for Berber Culture (Haut Commissariat de l’Amazighité(HCA)).

This institution was created hurriedly to stifle the Berber movement known among the militants as: Tifsa Imazighen ( the Spring of Berber Culture); However, this decision fell short of the expectations of the Berber militants, who wanted to see their language recognised as an official language alongside Arabic since the constitution of 1996 did not make this wish a reality. For Abrous, from the University of Bejaia, there was never an intention to recognize the Berber language fully. For him creating HCA was just a means of triggering a carefully-planned phagocytosis. 

In Morocco, the Royal Institute of Amazigh Culture (Institut Royal de la Culture Amazigh (IRCAM)) was created by a royal decree of king Mohammed VI in Ajdir, Khenifra, a historical site of the Berber Middle Atlas on the 17 th of October 2001, after noticeable pressure of the vociferous Berber civil society. The creation of this academic institution and placing it directly under the authority of the palace had two main objectives both serving the authority of the king: checking the inexorable popularity of the Islamists and using it as an umbrella against Berber extremism. And since, this institution has served the agenda of the conservative monarchy beyond expectations.

After the official recognition of Tamazight by the Algerian establishment, the Berbers were faced with very hard choices concerning the outright implementation of this highly symbolic political decision in the field, especially in such sensitive areas as: the script, the introduction of the language in schools, curriculum, training of would-be teachers of the language, etc.

The Berbers of Algeria had to struggle, from the word go, with the difficult and highly emotional issue of the standardisation of the language that was hitherto oral. Finding an acceptable script and writing up a grammar was not an easy task, given the multitude of dialects available and the diversity of attitudes and opinions on how to make a national unified language out of them.

As to what concerns the script, while researchers, linguists and experts favoured the use of phonetically-modified Latin alphabet, to give the language, according to them, an international status and make it accessible to ICT, the students in Arabic-speaking areas preferred by far Arabic script that they already know and feel comfortable with. Indeed, in Batna 4000 students ceased taking their Tamazight classes dispensed in Latin alphabet, unless it is replaced by the Arabic one, as stated by Mrs Bilek, deputy director in charge of Teaching and Training at HCA (haut Commissariat à l’Amazighité.)

Teaching Tamazight was from the start riddled and handicapped by a government decision to make it optional for students and local education authorities. Thus, though the teaching started right after the official recognition of the language in 1995, yet not much success has been achieved in the field, on the contrary large number of students dropped out of the courses for reasons still unknown today.

The courses after duly starting in the Wilayas of Al-Bayadh, Tipaza, Oran and Illiz, ceased unexpectedly. As for the courses continuing in Biskra (209 students in 2005) and in Tamnrasset (321 students), they are exclusively taken by students coming from other Wilayas mainly Boumerdes,, Tizi-Ouzou, Béjaia, and Bouira. Today, onlt 11 Wilayas are still offering tuition in Tamazight language from the 16 initially selected for this. So rather than get generalised, as it would be expected, the teaching of this language is shrinking dangerously.

So, tough the government has created a national centre for the teaching of Tamazight (Centre national pédagogique et linguistique pour l’enseignement de Tamazight (CNPLET)) by decree in 2003 and recognized the tongue as a national language and inscribed it in the constitution of 2003, and likewise has taken upon itself to offer the course in the exams of baccalaureate starting from 2008, yet the militants and Berber nationalists feel total disenchantment with the inexorable regression in interest for Tamazight among the population. Is it due to the lack of national interest, government hidden hurdles or the outright speedy rise of Islamism among the Algerian rank and file, who see the recognition of Tamazight and the interest shown for it as an attempt of the omnipresent enemies of Islam to sap the Arabic language, the language of the holy Koran.

All that can be said is that the teaching of Tamazight in Algeria is not a successful experience and this is corroborated quite clearly by Youssef Merahi, the head of HCA (haut Commissariat à l’Amazighité) in the following terms:

Treize ans après son entrée à l’école algérienne, en1995, l’enseignement public de la langue amazighe est encore « au stade de l’expérimentation »

On the air of the Algerian national radio, channel II (Chaine II), in 2008.

He goes on to say that though the language has been granted the status of “national language” in the article 3 of the Algerian constitution, yet unfortunately its teaching cannot be obligatory in schools. According to the statistics of HCA, the number of students registered in Berber language classes is 160 in Algiers and 66 000 in Tizi Ouzou, which is one of the Berber Wilayas. As such, because of the optional status of the Berber language, 96% of learners are in Berber-speaking Wilayas of Tizi Ouzou, Bouira and Bejaia the remaining 4% are located in the rest of 7 Wilayas of the country. This disparity is also due to the fact that besides Kabyle, Chaoui and Toureg, the other Berber dialects are not taught i.e. Chleuh, Chenaoui and Mozabit.

Thus, the Secretary General of HCA has called upon the government, in general, and the Ministry of National Education, in particular, to change the official attitude towards this national language and give it a much-needed boost by undertaking teachers training at the university level and helping create a daily newspaper.

In Morocco, teaching in Tamazight various subjects in school is still a wishful thinking because even teaching the language has not been able to take off the ground, let alone using it as a language of tuition alongside Arabic and French. The Moroccan educational system is definitely schizophrenic in outlook and content. Moroccans are taught subjects in Classical Arabic or Standard Arabic for some, while speaking at home and in the streets various regional variants of Moroccan Arabic, commonly known as Darija, or Tamazight. At the high school level and the university, they find themselves using some of the same subjects in French and wonder why they had to spend all these years wasting their time learning a language that cannot be marketed. No official wants to recognize that actually Morocco is not an Arabic-speaking member of the Arab League but rather a die-hard francophone country.

For the two Berber researchers Hassan Banhakeia et El-Hossein Farhad, the introduction of Tamazight in the Moroccan educational system is itself unheard of democratic revolution in the ultra conservative Moroccan scene:

Bien que la seule et véritable révolution «démocratique» à retenir par l’histoire moderne du Maroc soit l’introduction de l’amazigh dans l’institution scolaire, l’état des lieux de cette langue demeure une question difficile à décrire. Cette difficulté émane essentiellement de la nature du sujet où sentiments et raison fusent dans un même corps, le dit et le fait prennent deux voies nettement discordantes. N’y a-t-il pas alors impossibilité réelle de réconciliation entre langues, entre cultures, entre visions collectives au sein de la société? En fait, il n’y a pas d’institution meilleure ou plus efficace pour développer l’amazigh et pour lui rendre sa véritable considération au sein de la communauté que l’école (enseignement, apprentissage, formation, information, idéalisation, symbolisation…), et pour nous de jauger l’authenticité ou non de cette réconciliation (qui pourrait mener vers la réelle démocratie). L’on parle alors d’ouverture sur l’amazigh. Néanmoins, une question reste posée: l’école marocaine «déjà bilingue», c’est-à-dire au fond doublement ségrégationniste, peut-elle vraiment recevoir le «corps amazigh» comme étant un élément propre, légitime et vivant?

For the two researchers, the total failure of the Moroccan educational system, after half century of independence, can be attributed undeniably to the outrageous all out arabisation of the system. Pupils find themselves face to face learning first a language they are not familiar with and later taking specialised subjects in this same language, they can hardly understand let alone master. In self-defense they reject both the language and the subjects and end-up as hardened dropouts totally alienated from their culture and even their society.

Until now, the Moroccans have miserably failed to resolve the enigma of their linguistic identity and as a result the public school continues to pay the price: And according to the above-mentioned researchers, the main reason for the bankruptcy of the Moroccan educational system is undoubtedly the absence of both mother-tongue and culture from the system. This educational system is out of contact with the reality of the learner because it is panarab, oriental, islamist and wahhabi, in other words it is beyond the cultural reality of the receiver and therefore he rejects it with all his might and moves on to something else, instead

Il demeure évident que la principale raison de l’échec au sein de l’enseignement marocain est l’absence de la langue maternelle et de la culture propre: l’amazighité. L’enfant ne se découvre pas, et l’école va le dépayser davantage. Comment se présente-t-elle l’éducation sans l’essence du citoyen placé dans l’Histoire? Sans l’attache à la terre? Sans l’attache au Temps? Sans l’attache à ses spécificités d’être humain? Le système d’enseignement qui est de nature spécifiquement panarabiste, orientaliste, islamiste, wahhabite… s’en passe complètement: il est alors un programme de ruptures. Aussi les politiques d’enseignements sont-elles faites par des ministres arabistes et / ou wahhabites qui opèrent des ruptures «historiques» au lieu de ramender les parties de ce corps millénaire.

Since the creation of the IRCAM in 2001, this institution took upon itself to introduce Tamazight in school, but like in Algeria this proved to be a difficult task given that most of the decision-makers in the government are people who see Tamazight as a personal threat to their political career. So after many meetings with different ministries and government bodies, Tamazight was officially introduced to the Moroccan educational system hurriedly by the authorities as if to prove that it is not a viable vehicle of education.

Introducing a new language within a given educational system without prior field study of the pedagogic needs; training of trainers (TOT); training of teachers; setting up a curriculum; and devising of textbooks: for both teacher and student and field-testing them, is condemning it to programmed failure, and that is exactly what happened. IRCAM continues to maintain verbally afloat the idea, but in principle it is dead for the reasons stated above and most of all for the fact that learning Tamazight is optional and this means for many education officials not even bothering trying to teach it, let alone work towards making the concept work. For Ali khadaoui, a Berber studies expert, Tamazight has no constitutional status and as such no future:

La langue amazighe n'a pas de statut légal inscrit dans la Constitution. Ce qui rend son enseignement public facultatif et dérisoire, comme le stipule la Charte Nationale de d’Education et de la Formation, seul document légal servant de cadre de référence à tous les acteurs de l’Education et de la Formation au Maroc.

-cette langue n’est enseignée que dans une dizaine d’établissements dans l’ensemble du pays;

Cette absence de statut officiel fixé le pouvoir politique et inscrit dans la constitution rend aussi difficile la  construction des curricula valables pour cette langue pourtant parlé quotidiennement par les trois quarts au moins de la population.

- une formation au rabais de quelques jours, dispensée par des personnes non qualifiées à des personnes qui, souvent, ne connaissent même pas la langue qu’elles sont appelées à enseigner.

Not only mother tongue is in on the limp in North Africa in school curriculum, but there is not even a thought about introducing it in literacy programmes. Though governments have recognized the existence of Tamazight, this recognition remains basically a political move not meant to be fully implemented in the field. Otherwise, before introducing Tamazight in schools, they should have taken into consideration sub-Saharan countries experience and started with literacy, bearing in mind that the most disadvantaged people both in Morocco and Algeria are Berber women and girls, who live in total seclusion in high and inaccessible mountains. This female illiteracy has negative effects on the education of children, family hygiene, and reproductive health, to say the least.

These areas remain badly in need of community-based literacy programmes in Tamazight, the very same programmes that have had astounding success and still do in such counties as Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad, Senegal, etc. because they have not only allowed females to become literate but also to start small businesses or co-operatives, and thus doing become financially-independent and contribute to the development of their home village and area.

All in all, mother-tongue education in North Africa has long way to go before it becomes a profitable venture for the poor population.

Conclusion

After decades of education in foreign languages inherited from the colonial period and deeply ingrained in the psyche of some politicians, decision makers and educators, sub-Saharan Africa is waking up to a new reality: durable development can only be achieved genuinely by returning to the roots and rehabilitating fully and irrevocably national languages and cultures and accepting cultural diversity as a symbol of grandeur and not decrepitude.

With this reality in mind, many African countries have revamped their language and education policies and reassessed their development priorities in the light of this change. Fully recognizing national languages is tantamount not only to developing education and giving it a new direction but also to revive the oral cultures and preserve them from extinction especially at a time of threatening globalisation blown out of proportion by digital revolution.

In North Africa, a lot has still to be done in this area, starting urgently with the full recognition of national languages and cultures and using them in schools and all walks of life.

REFERENCES

Abrous,D. 1995. Le haut commissariat à l’Amazighité, ou les meanders d’une phagocytose. Annuaire de l’Afrique du Nord 34 : 583-590.

Brenzinger, M. 2005. The Endangerment of Language Diversity: Responsibilities for Speech Communities and Linguists.  Al-Maghrib al-Ifrecpa: 6: 63-80.

Chtatou, M. 1994.Language Policy in Morocco. Morocco: Occasional Papers  1:43-62.

Clason, E. and Baksi, M. 1979. Kurdistan Om Fortryek Och Befrielse kamp, Stockholm: Arbetarkultur.

Cheshire, J. 2005. Sociolinguistics and mother-tongue education. In Ammon, U., Dittmar, N., Mattheier, K., and Trudgill, P. (eds.): Sociolinguistics: an introductory handbook of the science of language and society. 2^nd edition. Pp. 2341-2350. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Dutcher, N. 2003. Promise and perils of mother tongue education. Ms.

Expanding Educational Opportunity in Linguistically Diverse Societies.Revised edition. Washington, DC,: Center for Applied Linguistics.

Romaine, S, 1995. Bilingualism (sec. ed.). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Blackwell.

Siegell, J. 1999. Creoles and minority dialects in education: An overview. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 20 (6): 508-31.

Skutnabb-kangas, T. 1984. Bilingualism or not: The Education of Minorities. Clevdon, Avon: Multi-lingual Matters.

UNESCO, 1968. The use of vernacular language in education: the report of the UNESCO meeting of specialists, 1951. In: Fishman, Joshua A. (ed.): Readings in the Sociology of Language. Pp.  688-716. The Hague: Mouton de Gruyter.

UNESCO, 2000. The Dakar Framework  for Action, Education for All:Meeting our Collective Commitmenst,adopted by the World Education Forum, Dakar, Sénégal, 26-28 April 2000.

UNESCO, 2003. Ad Hoc Expert Group on Endangered Languages: Language Vitality and Endangerment. Document submitted on UNESCO Programme “Safeguarding of Endangered Languages,” Paris, 10-12 March 2003.

UNESCO, 2005.First Language First: community based literacy programmes for minority for minority language contexts in Asia. Available online at: (http://www2.unescobkk.org/elib/publications/first_language/first_language.pdf)

Mother tongue is the language that one learns from parents and relatives. A baby starts becoming familiar with mother tongue while in the womb. After birth, when crying if a mother special language is used, the baby will stop crying and start listening. As time progresses, a child learns mother tongue by hearing the words again and again and gradually starts using them. Using its mother tongue a baby expresses its feelings to those around it.

Paper read at the conference on “Globalization and Mother Tongues in Africa,” held at the Faculty of Letters and Humanities of Mohamed V University-Agdal, in Rabat on 19-20 June 2009.

Cf. UNESCO 2000. Para. 7.

Cf. Dutcher, 2003:1

Ibid.

Paper read at the conference on “Globalization and Mother Tongues in Africa,” held at the Faculty of Letters and Humanities at Mohammed V University-Agdal, in Rabat on 19-20 June 2009.

Ibid.

“Mother Tongues across Borders:  the Case of Eastern African Region,” paper read at the conference on: “Globalization and Mother Tongues in Africa, held at the Faculty of Letters and Humanities at Mohammed V University-Agdal, in Rabat on 19-20 June 2009.

Cf. UNESCO 2003: 2

Cf. UNESCO (1968) « The use of vernacular language in Education: the report of the UNESCO meeting of specialists in 1951.

"http://www.eenet.org.uk/resources/eenet_newsletter/news12/page10.php"http://www.eenet.org.uk/resources/eenet_newsletter/news12/page10.php

Ibid.

"http://www.africanvoices.co.za/" http://www.africanvoices.co.za/

In his speech, during the ceremony of the creation of the Royal institute of the Amazigh culture in Ajdir, the king Mohammed VI set up the limits of this institution that he would oversee himself to avoid any cultural or political problems, whatsoever :

"La promotion de l’amazighe est une responsabilité nationale, car aucune culture nationale ne peut renier ses racines historiques. Elle se doit, en outre, de s’ouvrir et de récuser tout cloisonnement, afin qu’elle puisse réaliser le développement indispensable à la pérennité et au progrès de toute civilisation. Ainsi, en s’acquittant de ses missions de sauvegarde, de promotion et de renforcement de la place de la culture amazighe dans l’espace éducatif, socioculturel et médiatique national, l’Institut Royal de la culture amazighe lui donnera une nouvelle impulsion en tant que richesse nationale et source de fierté pour tous les Marocains."

Cf.  http://www.algerie-dz.com/article7301.html

Ibid.

Cf. http://www.musikamazigh.com/actualité/140/makepdf

Cf.  Chtatou, 1994. Language policy in Morocco and the sticky linguistic situation of this country.

Cf.  http://tawiza.ifrance.com/Tawiza106/banhakeia.htm

Ibid.

http://ageddim.jeeran.com/archive/2008/2/471641.html

Cf. UNESCO 2005

By Mourad El Hanafi

Morocco World News

Oujda, Morocco, June 18, 2013

In essence, observation can be conceived as one of the effective tools whereby we can maintain different spheres. That is, when we stand to observe and scrutinize something, it means that we are interested in it, and then we assess it to present new views or refine what is already available. Hence, the pursuit for new effective paradigms and curricula, or rescuing reforms wallowing in constant fiasco, always necessitates proceeding from constructive observations to detect what is missing and what is valid as well. Likewise, observing our classrooms and re-visiting what is being carried out may render our education system of some remarkable promotion.

The ‘merit’ of observation is such a prominent pillar on which we build good classrooms inside our schools. But this cannot come into existence until we really know and understand the parameters surrounding this merit. Let’s put it differently, not every observer can be ‘fair’ and draw rewarding feedbacks and recommendations albeit claims of a high degree in wisdom or intelligence. This wisdom does not emanate from randomness, but from training and a systematic approach. For example, when we were committed to unstructured observance of classrooms and the process of learning in the first practicum in our training, we used to gulp every pill as a candy! We still did not develop the ability to taste as we didn’t maintain the ability to evaluate. We may even begin to accept or like everything done by our mentor in the classroom. However, it is quite normal to act that way since we did not have ample background that would trigger us to respond differently.

It is true that a great deal of research has been conducted on classroom patterns of interaction, but they did not cover Moroccan context. So, this study, that is modeled after previous studies, comes to somewhat fill this chasm in the Moroccan context. Most importantly, we took this opportunity to resurrect the good habit of peer coaching and team work to build ideal classrooms and develop professionally. That’s really what Terri S. Dudley, M.S. Ed. hinted at when she wrote a reflective essay on Classroom Observations and put it, “Teacher observation nurtures a culture in which we can work in partnership and learn from one another. By working together, we have a greater knowledge base and this fact strengthens our pedagogical beliefs. Teacher observation builds community and a sense of caring in our schools. Teacher observation increases common shared beliefs and gives teachers an understanding of what effective instructional practice looks like.[1]

In this present study, our targeted sampling group was six Moroccan middle school English teachers in Oujda, Morocco. There was only one male teacher and five female teachers. The selection of this sampling was based on their availability. It is worth mentioning that in each teacher’s class we attended and observed two sessions (one hour for each session) or two consecutive hours according to each school’s system. Our sample teachers’ years of experience in teaching range from 8 to 21 years.

The focal objective of this small-scale study aims at examining and investigating patterns of interaction within Moroccan EFL middle school classes, using Oujda as a case study. Since patterns of interaction are considered as a prerequisite means whereby language is learned, the findings and conclusions of this study may stimulate teachers to change their bad tendencies and attitudes in this regard, and to maximize students’ learning through varying patterns of interactions and catering for them in different classroom activities.

We compiled and documented our data through an observation grid. The latter comprised of various areas of concern: teacher’s questions, students’ response, and teacher’s feedback and intervention to fully understand the correlation between these areas in the teaching and learning process.

The different data that we analyzed revealed overlapping blatant findings and facts about Moroccan EFL middle school teachers. The teachers we observed have many tendencies and practices in common.

The first bold fact that proved to be true within those classes was the dominance of T-SS (Teacher-Students) pattern of interaction. It seemed to be a rule within the observed EFL classes, as it cropped up in almost all phases of the lesson. Here, we realized that what gave a rise to this pattern were three main elements: the teachers confined themselves to the PPP (Presentation-Practice-Production) paradigm, over use of low questions, and relegated SS-SS (Students-Students) pattern of interaction to the sidelines. To start with, the PPP paradigm gives wide room for teachers to lecture more and more, from the presentation to the practice, and even sometimes to the production phase. At the presentation level, the teachers tended to present new materials with much redundancy, and yet sometimes, there was no guarantee that students absorbed the newly presented language aspects. In the practice stage, the teacher’s guide is still at students’ disposal. S/he would intervene whenever necessary or when students fail to manipulate the new materials. Similarly, we noticed that some teachers tended to lecture in the production stage in case the former stages were not done well, especially the first stage.

On the other hand, the overuse of low-order questions accounts for the great occurrence of T-SS pattern of interaction. Low-order questions generate limited response on the part of students. As a result, whenever a low-order question is answered, the teacher goes on to pose another one, and consequently this causes TTT (Teacher Talking Time) to be high. Low-order questions also usually generate clear-cut answers. Consequently, they left no room for students to take long turns and voice their attitudes according to their perceptions and beliefs.

As a matter of fact, low-order and medium questions can be asked for warm up, and most of the teachers we observed did this. But in post stages of teaching skills and follow up, high-order questions can be raised, but the teachers did not care for this. What proved this was that the teachers tended to restrict to the evaluation of students’ performance and mastery of the new presented material rather than following up. That is, asking low-order questions at the end level of the evaluation. In the same vein, Barnes (1992) proved that the overuse of IRE (Initiation, Response, and Evaluation) pattern does not cater for challenging ways of communication between the teacher and his/her students[2]. Moreover, Gutierrez (1994) concluded that classrooms in which most of the activities were based only on IRE pattern of interaction, the teacher tended to do most of the talking, whereas, students tended to respond in short answers to teacher’s questions. Thus, it was not surprising that the students answered most of the time either in telegrams or segmented words.[3]

High-order questions are the premise for follow up in which students can communicate meaningfully and generate language. In the observed classes, high-order questions were completely neglected; only one out of six teachers asked one single high-order question. Since there were no high-order and probing questions, meaningful communication, which necessitates information gap, was missing. All in all, the teachers’ tendencies in this regard depict them as all knowing. Still, the teachers seemed not to be interested in students’ experiences. As Brown (2001: 171) asserted, referential questions or “thinking questions” rouse learners to voice their long insightful answers through their thinking and convictions[4].

In the same line, the teachers did not vary the patterns of interaction during their lessons. SS-SS (students-students) and S-T (student-teacher) patterns of interaction rarely appeared. In other words, sessions were teeming with just T-SS pattern of interaction which happens at the expense of the aforementioned patterns of interaction. Though S-S (student-student) pattern of interaction was resorted to in a form of close and open pairs, it was ignored at the review level. The teachers seemed unaware of the advantages of these patterns. Therefore, teachers are likely to be reluctant to assign group work (SS-SS) tasks through which students can freely interact and benefit from their peers. Group work creates healthy competition between learners. As proved by previous studies, learners working in small groups generate better varied higher-quality discourse than learners working individually (Long & Porter, 1985 Long, Adams, McLean, and Castanos, 1976).[5] For example, in a writing session, one of the teachers assigned a writing task and had students work individually. Depending on the advantages and the recommendations we mentioned earlier about group work, the teacher might have received masterpieces of writing from a great average of students if she had had students work in groups. Not this only, but she might have also saved time by monitoring groups instead of individuals.

Given the fact that males and females are mingled with each other in Moroccan middle school classes, we found out that the teachers, being males or females, did not show any bias against any sex. Further, the teacher pointed to some female or male learners to pave way for other students to take part. We noticed also that females were keen to contribute more in classroom interaction more than their male counterparts.

Despite its limitations, this study came as an attempt to explore the extent to which patterns of interaction are varied in Moroccan EFL middle school classes. By and large, it came to give an overview about the mutual influence between patterns of interaction, teacher’s questions, students’ responses, and teacher’s feedback and intervention. As a summary, it proved some persistent habits in teachers’ performances, as was the case with focusing on T-SS pattern of interaction and relegating SS-SS and S-T ones. Moreover, it stressed the decisive role questions play in the lessons procedures. Put clearly, the students’ short responses reflected the teachers’ reluctance to pose high-order questions on a regular basis. Hence, for communicative EFL classes, both teachers and students are in dire need to be trained to get used to those fruitful aspects: SS-SS pattern of interaction, different working modes, and high-order questions. Especially, the latter should move to the mainstream instead of being put in the margin.

To envisage effective Moroccan communicative EFL classes, it is necessary to conduct studies with an aim to develop the right tendency while dealing with patterns of interaction and questions, and to deemphasize practices that are detrimental to classroom interaction at large.

For more details about the whole study, I will be at your disposal at: elhanafimourad@gmail.com

Edited by Allison Kraemer

By Zakaria Bziker

Morocco World News

Kenitra, Morocco, June 19, 2013

Is there an ideal language? Descartes would say ‘yes’ if one follows his line of thinking. His argument for God’s existence is the presence of the perfect-being in our mind; it follows that a perfect or ideal language must also exist or else it would not exist in an imperfect being’s mind. Because we are finite beings, we can’t conceive of the idea of an infinite being unless the latter causes that idea to twinkle in our mind. Going back to language, why do we have the idea of an ‘ideal language’? Is there proof that an ideal language does ‘not’ exist? If there was no proof, then, what would be the criteria for this ideal language?

Before proceeding into the criteria of an ideal language, a definition of the latter is in order: an ideal language is “a language that is precise, free of ambiguity, and clear in structure, on the model of symbolic logic, as contrasted with ordinary language, which is vague, misleading, and sometimes contradictory” (Britanica.com). Otto Jespersen summarizes the criteria of an ideal language in his quote:

…that language ranks highest in the art of accomplishing much with little means, or, in other words, which is able to express the greatest amount of meaning with the simplest mechanism. (Jespersen 1993:13).

From this quote one would immediately understand that to say much with little is an indispensable criterion for an ideal language. This economy criterion should be noticed not only at the sentence structure level but also at the fundamental level of language, and thus satisfying the as-above-so-below principle of harmony, agreement and correspondence. Another criterion that goes hand in hand with brevity is simplicity. If it is complicated it is not qualified to be an ideal language.

A well-established fact in linguistics is that languages are dynamic and subject to change through time. All languages have undergone radical change before reaching their modern state. This makes change an aspect of all languages. However, should this aspect also be a feature of an ideal language? A language that changes over time is more likely to lose features that can make the language more communicative. For example, in Old Hebrew there existed a dual noun case which seems to be fading away nowadays. This case is not so unimportant to just get rid of with time since it is vital to communication and here is why: If one uses this dual noun case, one is being more precise than when only using the singular or plural noun case when referring to two pairs of something. The second case may create confusion. This dual case in Modern Hebrew is limited to nouns that come in pairs (yadaym: two hands; misparayim: pairs of scissors) only, whereas in Arabic, for instance, the language has a full-fledged dual case applicable to all nouns which was also the case in Old Hebrew.

When the language loses such features, people tend to look for a new word to refer to the dual, like ‘both’ in the English language. The word ‘both’ in English solves the problem at the expense of violating the brevity criterion. One single word that communicates the noun and its case number is better than two words (both+noun). Relying on the above, changes in language should not be an aspect of an ideal language. However, one may think that since change causes a language to lose important features, it can equally cause a language to gain features that would make communication precise and brief. Thus, a legitimate question one may ask is: Are old languages equal to modern language in terms of their communicative fluidity?

The older a language is, the more sophisticated it is. This statement may go against the current worldview about the human race that is evolving, that humans are smarter than before; and presumably whatever lies behind is primitive, including language. Languages paradoxically are heading toward more deficiency as time passes. As we dive deep into history, we find that languages used to be more perfect than now. Sanskrit, for example, at some point in the 19th century, used to be thought of being the mother of all Indo-European languages by philologists, but shortly afterward they discovered that Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit are rather sisters from which a portion of Indo-European languages sprung. The reason why they thought so is because they were bewildered by the beauty and elegance of its structure. They saw it was more perfect than the existing languages. Sanskrit is in fact a rich and beautiful language, and philologists were not mistaken after all. Latin, Sanskrit, Arabic, Hebrew, Greek, and Tamil are among the oldest and most sophisticated languages on earth.

…the history of any given language, rather than representing an increasingly complex structure as the structure of its users supposedly evolved into higher levels of complexity, seems, instead, to record an inevitable decline in complexity. (Henry Madison Morris,1996:96)

To conclude, an ideal language has to be ancient, unchanged, economical, and simple. Complexity does not necessarily mean un-simple. Simplicity is a feature that can be manifested in complexity.

The Arabic Language

Arabic is a very special language for it has features that may not be present in other languages. These special features seem to make Arabic the closest to coming to an ideal language. If this is so, does Arabic satisfy the above-mentioned criteria? The rest of this paper is about answering this question.

The building blocks of Arabic are structured elegantly. This elegance is manifested for example in its word-roots. All verbs in Arabic have roots. These roots constitute the base upon which other words are constructed or derived. If one knows the root of a word, one knows all other derivations of the root simply by applying a rule (e.g: adding diacritics or vowels) to these roots, thus having different shades of meanings from one single root. This is an aspect of simplicity. One does not have to memorize all the words in the language. Once the roots and the derivation rules are memorized, myriads of words are at one’s disposition.

Arabic words are derived using three concepts: root, pattern and form. Generally, each pattern carries a meaning which, when combined with the meaning inherent in the root, gives the sought-after meaning of the inflected form. (Philip M. McCarthy et al. 2011:385)

Other Semitic-languages share this aspect of simplicity with Arabic since they belong to the same language family. In contrast to Arabic, other languages have less simple structure. They rely on compound words (adding affixes) instead of derivations, and this may imply a sort of lengthiness or redundancy in a language.

The Arabic roots are not constructed randomly, for they tend to follow a mathematical pattern. Arabic is made up of twenty-eight letters. Any possible combination of two letters is likely to give an already-existing word in the language; mostly grammatical words. Any possible combination of three letters also has the potential to giving a word-root. The surprising thing is that 90% of the Arabic roots are composed of three letters (J. Frawley.2003:122, Ahmad Mazhar.1967:23). There are of course word-roots made up of four or five letters but they only constitute the remaining 10% of word-roots, including the two words combinations. In other words, all word-roots composed of less than or above three letters are the exceptions. This has great significance because the aspect of brevity necessitates the aggregation of word-roots in the row of three letters. This row is the most optimum for it contains a great deal of combinations. This would ultimately generate abundant word-roots with the least possible letters, namely three letters. This is called a ‘triliteral formula’ and it is the optimum formula for a language to be economical. This fundamental pattern is reflected on the macrostructure of the language as well.

The Sumerian cuneiform scripts are held to be the oldest forms of writing on earth. They are 5,000 to 6,000 years old whereas the oldest Arabic form of writing is only 2,800 years old. Arabic seems to have developed later than many languages such as Egyptian, Akkadian, Elamite, Hurrian, Hittite, Greek, Old Chinese, Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew and Phrygian. Arabic thus is very young compared to these ancient languages. However, do we really have knowledge about a language’s age? Unfortunately we do not. We only know when a language was ‘codified’. To put it differently, we only know when a certain nation learnt the art of writing before another. Inscriptions, manuscripts, hieroglyphs, or cuneiform tablets are not a decisive factor to fixing a language’s age.

The fact that all languages are primarily spoken and only secondarily written down, that the real life of language is in the mouth and ear and not in the pen and eye, was overlooked (Jespersen 1922:23)

Therefore, when one says, for example, that the Sumerian language is the oldest in recorded history, it does not necessarily imply that Arabic was not spoken back then in the ancient Sumerian times. Arabic, although it is believed to be a relatively recent language, seems to capture a great deal of features that may partially exist in older Semitic languages which may point to the Arabic language’s seniority over other languages.

In spite of its late appearance in history, literary Arabic displays certain features which have helped Semiticists to gain greater insight into the older Semitic languages. (Anwar G. Chejne,1969:36)

In the Islamic tradition, Arabic is believed to have existed in the times of the Great Flood. It was among eight languages that were spoken by the people that were saved in Noah’s Ark. (Tafsir ibn Kathir, 1370:Noah’s story). Cataclysmists [1], unlike evolutionists, agree that the earth experienced a spectacular and cataclysmic event between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago. Add to that, the collective memory of old myths all over the world seem to share the same story of a global flood. So if there really existed a flood, and if the Islamic tradition is right, then Arabic is at least 6,000 years old.

The source of the Arabic Language lies far beyond historic proof. (John Richardson,1777:04)

Some philologists went to the extent of claiming that the unique structure of Arabic roots shows that it could ‘not’ have been derived from any other language, thus maybe it is the ‘oldest’. (Muhammad Mazhar,1963:50)

Assuming that Arabic is a bit older than what most archaeologists, anthropologists and linguists assume, should it not have undergone a massive change throughout its journey? As said earlier, an ideal language should resist change in order to preserve its richness and perfectness.  Arabic surprisingly seems to be a language that has least likely changed over time. Because any possible combination of three letters has the potential of giving word-roots, changing the combination of three letters means falling into an already existing word-root in the language. Therefore, speakers are more likely to avoid changing the combination of word-roots to avoid confusion of meanings.  One has to stick to each combination’s meaning because the transposition of letters, known as metathesis, is very restricted. Thus, all combinations are occupied with distinctive meanings. This means that there is no space for change. The leeway for Arabic roots to change is so narrowed to tolerate sound shift, and this is only one aspect among others that make Arabic resist change and it is not within the scope of this short paper to discuss other aspects.

…this aspect of Arabic roots completely insures them against metathesis. Like the number and order of letters the accent of a letter is also perfectly fixed in that the slightest change of accent will yield a different root… (Mazhar Mohammad,1963:41) …The spelling of Arabic is unchangeable and permanent for all time. This is in a marked contrast with other languages which have been reforming their spelling from time to time. (Ibid:42)

Arabic seems to have built-in mechanisms that make it last longer without transforming into a new language. An external factor that could also have preserved the Arabic language is the seclusion of its people in the Arabian Peninsula from the outside world in the past, which means the language was not exposed to other foreign languages’ influence.

There are, of-course, different dialects of Arabic, but the focal question is: To what extent do they differ from Old Arabic? Individuals speaking English are unable to understand Old English that existed 1,500 years ago. Moreover, individuals speaking French, Spanish, or Italian are unable to understand Latin. These two examples show that these people are unable to understand the ancestor of their native language. This signifies that their languages have been undergoing a fast and massive change. European languages seem to not only be undergoing rapid change but also to be widely diversified. The concrete example is that French, Spanish, and Italian people are unable to understand each other although their languages sprung from one common ancestor (Latin).

Now, let us compare these cases to the Arabic language. The people speaking Moroccan Arabic may understand Old Arabic although it is old. The same thing goes with Egyptians, Algerians, Tunisians and other Arabic dialects. Add to that, Arabic has not branched out into other new languages. Moroccans for example can understand Algerians, Libyans, Tunisians, and even Egyptians although they are geographically distant from one another. In contrast, Indo-European languages differ greatly from each other although they are geographically condensed into a relatively small area. This seems to suggest that the Arabic dialect continuum is wide and the language seems to maintain its mutual intelligibility. It seems it is branching out less dramatically. This could only suggest that Arabic is undergoing a slow pace of change.

Linguistics throughout the past century has established the idea that all languages are alike. This idea is well established among linguists with certain evidences presented by theoretical linguistics. For example, all languages are acquired, in relatively, the same amount of time, or that most languages abide the same syntactic rules advanced by Chomsky in his X-bar theory, for Chomsky points to the universal and eternal unchanging aspects of Language. This makes languages equal. However, can’t we give an evaluation on how communicative a language is in the light of what has been discussed above?

References

- Chejne, Anwar G. The Arabic language, its role in history. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1969. Print.

- Frawley, William. International encyclopedia of linguistics. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Print.

- Goldziher, Ignaz, and Kinga Dévényi. On the History of Grammar among the Arabs. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Pub. Co., 1994. Print.

- "Ideal language -- Encyclopedia Britannica." Encyclopedia Britannica. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 June 2013. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/281782/ideal-language>.

- Jespersen, Otto. Language: its nature, development and origin. London: G. Allen & Unwin ;, 1922. Print.

- Jespersen, Otto, and James D. McCawley. Progress in Language With special reference to English. New edition. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Pub. Co., 1993. Print.

- Jespersen, Otto, and James D. McCawley. Progress in Language With special reference to English. New edition. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Pub. Co., 1993. Print.

- Justice, David . The Semantics of Rorm Arabic: In the Minor of European Languages. Nethderlands: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1987. Print.

- Kathi?r, Isma??i?l ibn ?Umar, and Muh?ammad Nasi?b Rifa??i?. Tafsi?r ibn Kat?hi?r. London: Al-Firdous, 19982000. Print.

- Keyes, Thomas. "Is Arabic Older Than Hebrew?." Useless Knowledge Magazine. N.p., 18 Jan. 2005. Web. 18 May 2013. <http://www.useless-knowledge.com/1234/jan/article308.html>

- Mazhar, Mohammad Ahmad. Arabic, the source of all the languages. Lahore: A Review of Religions Publication, 1963. Print.

- Mazhar, Mohammad Ahmad. English traced to Arabic. Lahore: Sunrise Art Printers, 1967. Print.

- McCarthy, Philip M. Applied natural language processing identification, investigation, and resolution. Hershey, Pa.: IGI Global (701 E. Chocolate Avenue, Hershey, Pennsylvania, 17033, USA), 2011. Print.

- Morris, Henry M., and John David Morris. The modern creation trilogy. Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 1996. Print.

- Richardson, John. A dissertation on the languages, literature, and manners of Eastern nations. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1777. Print.

Bziker Zakaria, a master student at Ibn Tofail University, Kenitra, Morocco. Email: Zakaria.bziker@hotmail.fr

However, once the military gained too much political control, the leaders would often adopt strategies to suppress its power. Some of these strategies included reasserting control over the military budget, a move performed by the former Egyptian President Mubarak. Another method was to repeatedly change the ministers of defense and chief of staff so as to not allow one army leader stay long enough in power to gain a large following and support. The switching of generals and high ranking officers from one geographical command into another one is key dynamic of overseeing their maneuvers. Even if the origins of some regimes lie at the militarization of some army officers, the military has presently retreated from active politics. However, the heads of the states remain closely tied to the military, which therefore continued to have great weight in Egypt, Syria, Algeria, Iraq, and Libya’ politics.

The army emerged as a key player in the region: the corrective revolution of Al Assad the father in Syria 1970, and Kaddafi a coup in Libya 1970. Boumadyane seized power from his friend Ben Bella in Algeria in 1965. Nasser and Saddam had their military coups against two strong monarchs.  The ultimate sequence of the events is that these regimes are being personified into an extreme personalistic dictatorship where the family members of the head of the state, and army are taking over the economic, social, and cultural life (Ben Ali’s family, Mubarak’s...) like the Sicilian family mafia.

What explain political behavior of these military regimes is not the institutional rules of the game, it is rather the informal rules of the game. Clientelism is key element in imposing control. A relationship emerged between patron with power and client without networks. It is an exchange between people who have access to political power and wealth and those who don’t. It is an exchange between two unequal entities. The military reproduced its own class, military aristocracy, which embedded a military human nature.

The Egyptians army is the strongest institution of the state. They are entrepreneurs, they manufacture consumable products, and they are intertwined in the society which made it hard for any coup or overthrown. They are the engineers who build the infrastructure of the country. Education of the military officers is a crucial point. During their training, they should be taught that the political power must be in the hands of civilians. President Bouteflika has continuously tried to demilitarize the state. Some of his tactics involve seeking control of the cabinet as well as using foreign support to strengthen his power. The ex Egyptian president, Mubarak, used balancing, cooptation, and neo-patrimonial networks to keep the military under control. In Turkey, the army is kept under the government’s control by the government’s establishment to control over appointments, having greater scrutiny over military budgets, and by passing certain constitutional revisions to lessen the army’s power.

Demilitarization in the Middle East has been particularly hard to achieve due to the history of strong army involvement in the politics of the state from the time of independence. The military plays a dominant role in many of the revolutions to gain independence from the colonial powers, such as the Algerian, and the Turkish. Thus post-independence, the military remained in a leadership role. Therefore demilitarization within many Middle Eastern states, in this case referring to the removal of army from politics, has been difficult due to the army’s infusion with the governing bodies and influential power within the state. 

The Algerian formal political monopoly of the Party of the FLN (Front de Libération Nationale) thought to have a say over the political agenda.  However, that assessment ignored the fact that FLN was not the source of power in the Algerian state and that the problem of authoritarianism was not a function of its formal monopoly, but rather of the power of the executive branch of the state over the legislative branch and the judiciary and the fact that the executive branch as a whole has been subject throughout to the hegemony of the military.

Demilitarizing   the Egyptian politics is a precondition in this preliminary building of democracy. The quiet coup in Tunisia has taught Tunisians that the army is a friend of democracy. The same prescription was prescribed in Egypt.  But in fact it is another form of Praetorianism as Huntington put it, when political and social institutions have failed, military rule is often perceived as a solution to this crisis and can often temporarily command high levels of popular support

Egypt with a history of military dominance is likely to intervene at the political scene. The future civil personalities need to work on their sides towards building a transitional phase where the state will be demilitarized , by consolidating the political institutions. Mubarak was the state, was the regime, and he was definitely the government. The collapse of Mubarak does not mean a collapse of the man. The transitional phase is the thin line, any false move can lead to a slippery slope. Wise politicians has to be prudent with the blind dismantle of the former institutions. Paul Bremer mal- grasping of real politics pushed Iraq into a bloodshed scenario. He thought that dismantling of “El Baath” party would help rebuilding Iraq under the prescription of the Western formula of democracy in the Middle East.  Dismantling the army, the police, and the former regime party are thought to cure the epidemic. The Bush administrations and new Iraqis political figures pretended accomplishing the mission of establishing a strong state.

At this crucial phase, Egyptian, Tunisian , Libyan , Yemeni , and Syrian politicians should  “empty” the dominant or ruling party from its personalized and regime connotation and pour it into a civilian party which can lead a strong opposition in future. The error which has been committed by Paul Bremer should not be repeated. Rebuilding Middle Eastern social and political capitals is a long process, which requires will and patience. Iran is a key player in the region. Iranians pretend that the “Arab Spring” is simply a reflection of the spread of Islamic awakening in reference to the Iranian revolution 1979. There is only one bridge between Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. Bahraini Shiite are loyal to their holy man in Tehran Temple. Iran is supporting AlHuthiyeen in Yemen and infiltrating in Egypt after the stepping down of Mubarak.

The current state of militarism in MENA remains dominated by an ideology, by a corpus of domination and manipulation. We must be careful not to engage in a voyeuristic program which tames the minds. We must keep in mind that when we engage in understanding the mystic relation between civilians and military in MENA, we find ourselves surrounded by muddy waters at the same time we realize that we are not equipped with the right tools and necessary footwear. To even speak of demilitarizing post “Arab Spring” countries is like pouring a glass of water in the desert.

Washington- Morocco’s path to reform and achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015 requires a comprehensive strategy that addresses development in all aspects of political life, society, and the economy.The objective of the MDGs is to prepare developing countries, like Morocco, for a prosperous and sustainable future by encouraging them to identify and measure progress based on indicators of human development.

As per the MDGs’ objectives for universal education, Morocco has placed special attention upon improving access to education for young Moroccans—rural as well as urban.

As King Mohammed VI remarked in an address on August 20, in the past, education reform did not benefit a wide margin of the growing youth population in Morocco; now, however, “Morocco has seen increases in access to schooling at all levels of the system and enrollment in primary education is now near-universal,” according to World Bank Education Specialist Jeffrey Waite in a World Bank press release on Morocco’s education reform process.

“Although much has been achieved in expanding access to schooling, further reforms are needed to improve the outcomes of education, notably its quality and the overall performance of the sector.” Since 1999, the Moroccan Government has put in place programs to address problems in the education sector, starting with the National Education and Training Charter 1999-2008, continuing with the Education Emergency Program 2009-2012, and most recently launching the Education Action Plan (EAP) 2013-2016.As the deadline for the MDGs nears, Morocco’s literacy rate is making progress (up from 55% to 62% this decade), and primary school enrollment rates have also increased (net enrollment up from 93% to 97% for girls and 95% to 96% for boys).  The question now is how to sustain growth and bolster future development.

In Morocco, much like elsewhere, three major factors affect educational development: 1) Rural economic development, particularly concerning women; 2) the relationship between poverty, schooling, and work opportunities; and 3) international assistance in educational development.

Rural Economic Development

Morocco’s education initiatives have been making major advances in providing a more comprehensive, inclusive educational system—particularly to boost enrollment and graduation rates for young girls in rural areas. Limited funding, as well as shortages in qualified teachers, adequate materials, and jobs outside agricultural and manual labor markets give rural families little economic incentive to send girls to school. Nevertheless, Morocco’s national efforts are working towards the institutionalization of gender equality in the education system, despite the limited available resources.

In crafting a more inclusive education plan that provides opportunities for young women, greater consideration must be made to linking rural economic development, government assistance efforts, and vocational education tied to the local economy, as these efforts should be mutually reinforcing.

For example, job opportunities in rural industries created via co-ops operated by women, such as the increasingly popular Argan oil industry and other artisanal trades, will show families the concrete benefits of educating their daughters. Also, there are opportunities for IT-based training in rural areas that would raise literacy rates, enable the acquisition of relevant technical skills, and create more sophisticated, knowledge-based business development opportunities in rural areas. Civil service opportunities for women in the local/regional governments would also be an incentive for young women to finish school.

The Relationship between Poverty, Schooling, and Work Opportunities

Over time, the effects of the Education Action Plan will shed light on how education, economic status, and access to skilled work opportunities are correlated. Since the EAP will increase funding and create a mutual relationship between teacher’s incentives to teach and student’s incentive to remain in school, the quality of education will improve and results should be achieved.

With the growth of educational opportunities, a larger skilled workforce in rural areas may incentivize communities to upgrade vocational training for jobs that require a certain level of education, which in turn would encourage students to complete schooling and move the better-trained rural workforce towards higher-paid employment opportunities.

This causal chain of improved quality of education paired with increased employment opportunities for a skilled labor force will eventually decrease the “brain drain” from rural to urban areas and encourage young people to finish school and work locally.

International Involvement in Educational Development

International support is a major factor in the path to education reform in Morocco. The World Bank’s first Education Development Policy Loan to Morocco supported measures that the Moroccan government put in place to encourage poor rural families to send their children to school, such as increasing boarding scholarships and improving incentives for quality teaching, and by publishing the results of the national learning assessment program, for example.

As a result, since 2010 enrollment rates in rural areas have seen landmark increases. Due to the promising outlook on improvements to education in Morocco, the United States has contributed a $100 million loan to continue support to reforms that aim to further improve access to quality education for all children. And the World Bank Board approved the Development Policy Loan, the second in a series, in May 2013.

The United Nations MDGs list education as second in importance only to eradicating poverty because of the positive and long-lasting effects that an educated population can have on the economy, human development, and social awareness. Morocco is on the right path, but there is room for growth and innovation, and the Education Action Plan provides the potential for that to be achieved. The generation of young people being educated right now is Morocco’s future generation of leaders. Fortunately, as indicated in the King’s August 20th speech, education is a national priority.

Casablanca- Morocco was no exception to the Orientalist fever that sprawled Europe in the 19 century. Europe’s legacy of the romanticized East is replete with mystic representations of the “mysterious” other, the East. Since Morocco was part of the monolithic “Orient,” it wasn’t immune from those European literary and artistic depictions of it. These representations subsequently served colonial ends, thus melting within Europe’s uncompromising colonial interests in that period.

Europe saw in the East the ideal nest for its colonial and expansionary aspirations. Yet, the East in general, and Morocco in particular, was still a puzzling enigma for Europe. The latter thus found itself compelled to come up with means of knowing the unknown other. Such thirst for knowledge of the other was inseparable from the thirst for colonial expansion.

European scholars, men of letters and explorers all rushed to producing “knowledge” about the Orient. This knowledge only reflected Europe’s acute enchantment by the East. Most of the knowledge generated about Morocco, for instance, radiated an obvious concern with all that is unfamiliar to Europeans. Even Europeans who landed feet in the Orient did not faithfully nor soberly record the life of “Orientals.” The knowledge scholars generated about the East was a far cry from being scientific, as it reflected in turn the thirst for exoticism that characterized earlier representations of the East.

Morocco was considered nothing more than a fragment of the monolithic East, a land with no distinctive cultural traits that distinguish it from its neighboring “Oriental” entities. Europe essentialized the East in an array of characteristics based on the “knowledge” that Orientalists had generated about it. Morocco was thus equated to any other fragment of the East since Europe stranderdized the Oriental unfamiliarity and mysticism to everywhere in the East.

Europe attempted to comprehend the East via ethnocentric lenses. Everything that was not European was mysterious, and thus worthy of study and exploration. France fed its Orientalist hunger in Morocco, on which it had very mediocre knowledge. Romantic artists find in this land a generous fountain of inspiration. They lavishly painted, carpentered, designed and concreticized their fantasies about Morocco.

France, like most European countries with colonial aspiration at that time, was attracted by primitiveness, the opposite of civilization and advancement, a state that invoked in Europeans a nostalgic sense of purity and truthfulness. The French traveled to Morocco not only to explore the “new,” but also the “old;” the “primitive,” the “simple” and the “natural”. Having read about enchanting adventures produced on the East before any European had set feet there, Europeans developed an almost scary urge to be part of the wild, to embrace humans’ early and true nature.

The lack or even absence of visual representations of Morocco were another impetus behind the abundance of paintings that the French produced on it. Being a conservative Muslim country at that time, Morocco held to the religious belief that any visual depiction of a person is a blasphemous challenge to God’s divine creations. Hence, the French could not help releasing their fantasies towards Morocco by producing romantic representations of its features. These romantic, luring depictions of Morocco subsequently served political purposes.

French General Lyautey deployed Orientalist materials to seduce the French new colonizers into cherishing Morocco. By doing so, Lyautey sought to sew tides of enchantment between the French people and Morocco. The French thus developed an acute desire to taste all the free exotic sensations that Morocco had to offer them. Famous French painter Jacques Majorelle contributed to this process of Orientalist seduction by his bewitching painting of Marrakech, all enwrapped in magic and sorcery.

This aspect of French Orientalism is what still shocks Moroccans up to nowadays. Some Moroccans, who have chosen Orientalist French paintings as the main artistic decorations in their homes, cannot stand the idea that these very paintings had a share in the process of colonizing Morocco. Paintings of naked “Harem” (women) one of most recurrent Orientalist fantasies in French paintings of an exotic Morocco, can be found in many Moroccan houses. Their owners ignore the link between Orientalist art and the French colonization of Morocco.

The passionate masculine dimension of colonialism was easily triggered by the Orientalist paintings of naked, perfervid women in the Oriental Morocco. The sexual, muscular passions that characterized colonialism were part of the enchantment process that induced the colonization of Morocco, or the land of fantasies, just like any other Oriental land. This might sound too romantic and simplistic for someone who is engrossed in historical discourse on the colonization of Morocco, a discourse that tends to overlook the very strategic role that Orientalist discourse had played in rendering Morocco a target to European colonial aspirations.

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