MER Article Sahrawi Demonstrations Within two months of the death of King Hassan II and the enthronement of his eldest son, King Mohammed VI in July 1999, a series of demonstrations erupted in the Western Sahara. This territory has been administered by the Kingdom of Morocco since 1976, though Morocco’s claim of sovereignty in the We John Damis • 9 min read
MER Article From Madrasa to Maison d'hote There’s a Moroccan expression similar to the English expression “the apple never falls far from the tree.” In Morocco, it’s phrased as a rhetorical question: “Where does wood come from? From the tree.” A year and a half after King Mohammed VI’s ascension to the throne, many Moroccans are wondering j Geoffrey D. Porter • 10 min read
MER Article Networks of Discontent in Northern Morocco What are kingdoms but gangs of criminals on a large scale? What are criminal gangs but petty kingdoms? A gang is a group of men under the command of a leader, bound by a compact of association, in which the plunder is divided according to an agreed convention. If this villainy wins so many recruits James Ketterer • 13 min read
MER Article Risking the Strait Men who had never wanted anything very much saw the flare of want in the eyes of the migrants. And the men of the towns and of the soft suburban country gathered to defend themselves; and they reassured themselves that they were good and the invaders bad, as a man Gregory White • 12 min read
MER Article Democratization Without Democracy When King Mohammed VI succeeded the late Hassan II in the summer of 1999, expectations soared. The young king’s investiture seemed to be the final step in a series of political changes that would set Morocco on the road to democracy. Along with a new bicameral legislature and an Catherine Sweet • 13 min read
MER Article A Truth Commission for Morocco The grim names Moroccans assign to the post-independence years -- in Arabic, zaman al-rusas and al-sanawat al-sawda, in French les anneés de plomb and les années noires or in English “the years of lead” and “the black years” -- evoke an era of grayness and lead bullets, fear and repression. During Susan Slyomovics • 10 min read
MER Article Political Authority in Crisis When King Mohammed VI succeeded his father Hassan II in July 1999, he instantly became a symbol of hope for a democratic Morocco. Unlike his father, whose 38-year rule was tarnished by human rights violations, corruption and a discredited political system, Mohammed VI -- lauded in the Moroccan and foreign Abdeslam Maghraoui • 17 min read
MER Article How Tunisia, Morocco, Jordan and Even Egypt Became IMF "Success Stories" in the 1990s Just as European missionaries were the spiritual handmaidens of nineteenth-century colonialism, so has the International Monetary Fund (IMF) assumed a modern-day mission in support of world trade, finance and investment. The mission aims to convert the benighted heathen in developing countries to th Karen Pfeifer • 12 min read
MER Article Room to Breathe Less than a block from the seventeenth-century walls that surround Rabat’s medina (old city) is the Association Tamaynut. Inside the three-room office one can attend meetings, listen to lectures and participate in passionate discussions. A young man, Ibrahim, is there every weekday from morning unti Daniel Burton-Rose • 9 min read
MER Article UN Impasse in the Western Sahara In his January 1996 report on the UN operation in the Western Sahara, Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali expressed the Security Council’s “frustration...at the absence of even a reasonably clear indication of when the [referendum] process might come to an end.” This was one of Boutros-Ghali’s m (Author not identified) • 10 min read
MER Article Column: Own a Piece of Moroc? For many ordinary investors, the dream of cashing in on the market revolution sweeping the globe turned sour following last year’s collapse of the Mexican peso. But if you have some capital to spare and are in search of the elusive next big boom, take a chance on Foreign and Colonial Emerging Middle Al Miskin • 3 min read
MER Article Boom Box in Ouarzazate In 1987, during one of my first visits to Morocco, I attended a series of rock concerts in Marrakesh with a group of friends who had been invited to the event to represent their youth group. The organizers of the concerts, the local Grand Atlas association, invited us to tour the medina. During one Susan Ossman • 9 min read
