Current Analysis Western Sahara Poser for UN Morocco serves as the backdrop for such Hollywood blockbusters as Gladiator, Black Hawk Down and Body of Lies. The country’s breathtaking landscapes and gritty urban neighbourhoods are the perfect setting for Hollywood’s imagination. Unbeknown to most filmgoers, however, is that Morocco is embroile Jacob Mundy • 3 min read
MER Article Morocco's Imperfect Remedy for Gender Inequality "And now no one wants to get married,” says Muhammad, describing the reaction among men at his mosque to Morocco’s 2004 reform of personal status law. “Everyone is afraid to.” Camilo Gomez-Rivas • 11 min read
Current Analysis Western Sahara Between Autonomy and Intifada In late February 2007, Western Saharan nationalists celebrated the thirty-first anniversary of their government, the Saharan Arab Democratic Republic. The official ceremonies did not take place in Laayoune, the declared capital of Western Sahara, but in the small outpost of Tifariti near the Algeria Jacob Mundy • 12 min read
MER Article Storming the Fences "'Black locusts' are taking over Morocco!" So ran the September 12, 2005 headline of al-Shamal, an Arabic-language Tangier newspaper, describing the forays of masses of in-transit sub-Saharan Africans trying to scale the security fences separating Morocco from the Spanish-ruled enclaves of Ceuta and Elie Goldschmidt • 17 min read
Current Analysis Morocco’s Justice and Reconciliation Commission From independence in 1956 through the 1990s, the Moroccan state sent thousands of dissidents and political opponents to prison. During these decades, known to Moroccans as the “black years,” the act of expressing an “unauthorized opinion” could earn years of arbitrary detention. Political opponents of King Hassan II’s regime, Susan Slyomovics • 10 min read
MER Article Amazigh Activism and the Moroccan State When primary school students in the major Berber-speaking regions of Morocco returned to class in September 2004, for the first time ever they were required to study Berber (Tamazight) language. The mandatory language classes in the Rif, the Middle Atlas, the High Atlas and the Sous Valley represent David Crawford, Paul Silverstein • 13 min read
Current Analysis Stubborn Stalemate in Western Sahara On June 11, 2004, the United Nations announced that former Secretary of State James Baker had resigned his position as the secretary-general's personal envoy to the Western Sahara. Despite his personal prestige and the explicit backing of the US government, Baker failed to bring the Moroccan government around Jacob Mundy • 7 min read
MER Article No Buying Off the Past Since King Mohammed VI ascended the throne in 1999, Morocco has created various bodies to pay cash awards to Moroccans "disappeared," imprisoned or tortured for their political beliefs under the reign of his king father. But there have been no trials of the jailers and torturers. Former prisoners co Susan Slyomovics • 11 min read
Current Analysis Behind the Baker Plan for Western Sahara On July 31, 2003, the UN Security Council voted to "support strongly" former Secretary of State James Baker's proposals for resolving the Western Sahara dispute, the last Africa file remaining open at the UN Decolonization Committee. Baker has been the personal envoy of UN Secretary-General Kofi Ann Toby Shelley • 9 min read
MER Article Western Saharan Deadlock The Moroccan occupation since 1975 of Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony, is in violation of UN Security Council resolutions on the right of the Sahrawi people to self-determination. The conflict remains unresolved despite the existence of a UN Settlement Plan (1991) and the Houston Accords of 1997, brokered by Karima Benabdallah-Gambier, Yahia Zoubir • 11 min read
MER Article How "Berber" Matters in the Middle of Nowhere In the High Atlas valley of the Agoundis, less than 100 kilometers from Marrakesh’s international airport, the lives of Berber-speaking farmers move in what seems a timeless rhythm. Men manipulate intricate stone canals, drawing water to steeply terraced plots of barley. Women in bangles and bright scarves lash huge David Crawford • 14 min read
MER Article "This Time I Choose When to Leave" Fatna El Bouih was born July 10, 1955, in Benahmed, a village in Settat province. In 1971, she received a boarder's scholarship to Casablanca's prestigious girls' high school, Lycée Chawqi, and became active in the national union of high school students (Syndicat National des Elèves). Arrested the f Susan Slyomovics • 4 min read
