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Articles & columns
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| Tangier, the free zone in a country of all muddles | |
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| Nadia Yassine,March 08,2006 |
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| Who is the lout who dares say Morocco isn’t advancing! It is running and running …catch it if you can. But most of all catch the imbroglio!Who can overbid in terms of innovation? |
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| The MAP (Maghreb Arabe Presse) which, by the way, is a press organ has become from now on, thanks to a typically Moroccan juridical revolution, habilitated to inform citizens about their rights, their trials and acquittals. If God forbids the idea of frequenting a less “revolutionary” agency crosses your mind, well you run the risk of missing your encounter with History. |
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| Therefore, me, who haven’t received any official convocation for my trial, have been informed about that latter by means of this marvelous organ. The organ that presses and compresses all norms known to this day in any State of law. |
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| Imagine all the wrongs we could be subjected to if there wasn’t any MAP. Not only would we be misinformed but also mis-formated. The late king Hassan II granted (oh yeah, everything around here is granted) to that agency a motto that has never been that much respected: “information is sacred, commentary is free”. Ever since, the agency made it a point of honor to inform and very freely comment on the information. |
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| Thanks to its fidelity to this motto, I got wind of my authorization to leave the territory. A certain prosecutor swore by all that he held dear that he never interdicted me to leave in the first place. But no one accuses him of it anyway, for if we only have one king, please-God , his prosecutors are very numerous. And since the MAP seems to conceal the identity of its informers (deontology obliges!…must I remind you that information is free …even of its sources). Moreover, we take our magistrates word for whatever they say, even though it depends who they give it to. I‘d say if this whole story happens at the level of official press, it means that it is way beyond judicial instances. Aren’t the official press and media beyond all suspicions? |
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| On the other hand, I strongly suspect the MAP to hold the key to this whole story. To think that I made that sit-in inside the border police offices to identify my mysterious harassers, the day they interdicted me to leave the country. Turns out they didn’t have a clue, poor things!!! They don’t work in a press organ, for all that…When the MAP informed me of my right to leave the territory, I rushed to put it into effect at once. I decided to go sightseeing a bit in Algaziras and announced it (to whom it may concern) on the net at the time of my weekly meeting “akhawat al akhirah”(sisters for eternity). |
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| Surprise! |
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| Thursday March 2nd, 2006 on the quay; all of those whom it concerned were present! And let’s be honest, the new concept of authority clearly showed through the pleasant smiling faces. The sinister miens are but a disagreeable reminiscence (lhamdulilah [thank God]), I must say that for the people of Tangier [a Moroccan city], it is a real accomplishment to be sympathetic at 8:00 am. Seems like they were victims of the soporific winds of Ktama [opium poppies plantations near the city].But when in addition, you are a secret (very secret indeed!) agent, smiling in such an early hour it is a pure democratic miracle!!! |
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| Thus, the welcome committee was polite, assorted also. One of them certified to me that never ever was I forbidden to leave the territory. I thought to myself right away: I better get some psychiatric counseling while I’m in Spain, to make sure I don’t have signs of Alzheimer or something. Why Spain? Well you never know if the Moroccan practitioner is really independent; again...the “new concept of authority” obliges. |
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| The chief-head (a mere figure of speech, since there are only executants, as the border police certified) told me then without blinking that may be, wait till you hear the next bit… it was because I chose the wrong place to embark from. He stated that Tangier’s authorities are always happy to let me leave the territory from their jurisdiction …I took the ship but seen nothing of Algaziras for I was absorbed in my own imbroglio-political thoughts about the Makhzen and its wiles. |
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| Why…? |
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| The easy answer would be that if they prohibited me from leaving to Germany it was because the meeting was an academic one while they allowed me this time because I was out for touring and no more…I quickly brushed it aside because I’m so pessimistic concerning the intellectual capacities of the Makhzen that I don’t think they can really distinguish between the two. It’s too subtle a correlation for that “thingamajig” to make it out by itself. |
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| After wandering around aimlessly in the streets of Spain thinking about the muddles of my own country; a question torpedoed me and pitched my return boat: “what if Morocco has no decision center anymore!?” Not wanting to rush to hasty and demoralizing conclusions, I tried to reason and proceeded by elimination: think! I said to myself, think well! |
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| I want to leave from the center of Morocco, by airplane, they refuse!I want to leave from north Morocco, by boat, they authorize it!Before deducing the ultimate sentence and in a spirit of“equity and resignation but of integrity also”, I said in all conscience: “let’s try from south Morocco… by camel…!” |
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