Another Side of Marrakech

Writing for the New Zealand Herald, Graham Reid has produced an article worth reading.  He avoids all the usual cliches and finds another Marrakech worth exploring

Marrakech: Souk city by night

As anyone who has had the good fortune to go will tell you, Marrakech is a city of noise, especially in the grand central square.

By day, snake charmers and fortune tellers call for attention, motor scooters blast past, cars on the unmarked road around the perimeter sound their horns, fruit and vegetable sellers shout invitations at you to sample from their attractive displays, Berber musicians play impromptu sessions and people hold animated conversations.

At night, when the restaurant tables are set up, it happens all over again. But more of it, and louder.

Little wonder then that many retreat to rooftop cafes and restaurants to eat meals prepared in the ubiquitous tagines and sip mint tea in the quiet.

But there is another Marrakech. The silent city.

Late at night after the tourists have drifted away, when the restaurant tables have been stacked in a corner and the musicians are nodding down into low, trance-like rhythms, the lanes and blind alleys off the square - crowded by day with merchants, donkey cars and scooters - are deserted.

The wares have been stowed away and the narrow lanes now appear as wide as streets under the jaundiced glow of intermittent light bulbs and flickering fluorescent tubes. Once familiar lanes now look disorientingly different. This is a world owned by wandering cats and old men sleeping in doorways.

Photo: João Pedro

Footsteps echo off stone walls and heavy wooden doors, locals retreat to the inward-looking homes and riads. Marrakech can be eerily silent.

Like Venice in winter when the stones freeze to the touch and black canals are as still as death, Marrakech at midnight and beyond is a very different world.

Up ahead in a lane an unseen door closes with a low thud, down an alley hooded figures move into fuzzy pools of light and disappear again as they sink into deep shadow, a bundle of rags moves as an old man shifts into a more comfortable position.

The smells of the day - incense, spice and the dusty odour of old material and wood - seem to have disappeared into the black sky above the lane's webbing of sticks and tattered cloth. The world here is now still. A distant radio brings the barely audible sound of an exotic song, disembodied in the night.

For the late stayer, or early riser who gets into the alleys and lanes before merchants open their doors and unload wares onto the street and the calls to prayer started to echo above, Marrakech can reveal itself in a very different way.

Early one morning we walked as sleep rubbed itself out of the eyes of cool lanes. Unused to seeing tourists out at this time, vendors smiled and chatted with no thought to making a sale so early. And we were waved into a place we might otherwise never have seen.

We entered a huge store stacked floor to ceiling with Berber artefacts, bad knock-offs of Salvador Dali paintings, multicoloured shoes filed on a wall like abstract art, leather goods, pots and pans, jewellery, lamps, hookah pipes, mirrors in chequerboard frames and glassware. It was as if the exotic loot of the world had been stored in a warehouse. This was a living market yawning into the dawn as the owner shuffled around and women swept the floor.

No one tried to sell us anything, so we lingered undisturbed.

Later in the day, by chance, we passed the same place. It now seemed unrecognisable. Outside were stacks of doors and mirrors, people cajoling tourists to come inside (none did that we saw) and a sense of urgency which hadn't been there previously.

Marrakech seemed like that most of the time, urgent and busy. But Marrakech can be as quiet as it is noisy for those who make time to find the silence.

See the original article here: New Zealand Herald

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Official ~ Moroccan Olympic Team Exempt from fasting

As The View from Fez reported earlier, the Moroccan Olympic team have been officially exempted from fasting during the games. Hassan Benmehdi for Magharebia in Casablanca takes a closer look at the issue.

With Ramadan falling at the same time as the Olympic Games, many have been wondering whether Maghreb athletes should observe the fast.

In Morocco, the High Council of Ulemas issued a statement allowing participants in the London Olympics not to fast during the two weeks of July 27th-August 12th.

"After the matter was raised with the iftaa (legal opinions) authority, the council responded by permitting these athletes not to fast during the competitions, provided that they make up for the days when they do not fast after Ramadan is over and before the next holy month," the statement read.

The decision is the first of its kind in Morocco since the supreme religious authority has never intervened in sports affairs before.

Moroccan ulemas had to take action in advance by giving a unanimous religious opinion on the matter, sports analyst Mokhtar L'Madani told Magharebia.

"If the council does nothing, you can expect that interpretations will often be radical, and that could have a negative impact on the performance and morale of our athletes, who are supposed to be at the peak of their form so that they can achieve convincing results," he said.

It is important to ensure that Moroccan athletes are not subject to radical fatwas which are often unscientific, L'Madani added.

"Fasting for a limited number of days. So whoever among you is ill or on a journey [during them] - then an equal number of days [are to be made up].  - Qur'anic verse Suraat al-Baqarah (2:184)"

In 1999, Tangier preacher Abdelbarii Zemzemi issued a religious opinion that authorised Raja Casablanca players not to fast during the Champions Cup final on the grounds that they were travelling.

The Mufti of Egypt, Ali Jomaa, shared the view. He issued a similar fatwa for Egyptian Olympic athletes, though he added that the exemption could not have been granted had the event been held in Egypt.

He argued that it is the travel aspect that justifies the interruption of fasting, not the sporting aspect or the physical effort.

Nutritionists say that an undernourished body making strenuous physical effort will become distressed after about 40 minutes.

Sara El Bekri, the Moroccan swimmer who won African championships in the 50m and 100m breaststroke and has qualified for the 2012 Olympics, is among those who decided not to fast. In a press statement, she underlined that athletes may be allowed to eat during competitions and make up for the missed fast days later in the year.

Others think it is possible to compete while fasting and insist on strict observance of Ramadan. Some 3,000 participants, who make up a quarter of the competitors, will be affected during the London Olympics.

The Islamic Human Rights Commission contested the dates chosen for the 2012 Olympics back in 2006. Several countries, including Turkey, Egypt and Morocco, requested that the games be rescheduled so that Muslim athletes would not be disadvantaged.

In its reply, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) stressed the secular nature of the Olympics, which bring together people from virtually all religions, civilisations and faiths.

And in breaking news...

According to the French Daily L'Equipe, the 2012 world leader in the women's 1,500 Mariem Alaoui Selsouli of Morocco has tested positive for the diuretic furosemide. Selsouli, who was the 1,500 favorite for the Olympics and apparently was also going to run the 5,000, will now not compete in London and faces a possible lifetime ban from the sport, having just last year returned from a two-year doping ban for an EPO positive.

Mariem Alaoui Selsouli celebrates winning the women's 1,500 at the Stade de France Stadium July 6, 2012

The Nike-sponsored Selsouli was the world leader in both the 3,000 (8:34.47 at Pre) and 1,500 (3:56.15 at Paris). Her positive test came from a July 6th test in Paris.

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More Comment on Olympic Fasting in Ramadan

Should top-level athletes fast or not during Ramadan? The Islamic month of fasting falls at the same time as the Olympic games, and a quarter of the participants in the London Games are struggling with this question. If they fast, they might diminish their chances of winning an Olympic medal. Radio Netherlands had this to say...

Moroccan swimmer Sara El Bekri and rower Mohamed Sbihi

Fasting athletes have caused controversy during a number of European football championships. A few years ago, Moroccan football player Oulaid Mokhtari clashed with his German club when he wanted to observe Islamic religious customs and not eat or drink from sunrise to sunset. His club alleged that this could have negative consequences on his sporting achievements. Besides, they said, his contract barred him from following a specific diet.

To prevent similar problems in the future, the club contacted the German Central Muslim Council which in turn got in touch with the Al Azhar Mosque. It issued a fatwa that permitted professional football players to eat and drink during Ramadan. It was a practical solution, but it came too late for Mokhtari. The following season he transferred to another club.

With the Olympic Games about to kick off in the middle of Ramadan, the issue is being widely discussed again. It’s estimated that a quarter of the participants in the London Games are of Muslim origin. The question arises: is fasting an individual choice or do national interests prevail over athletes’ personal interests? The issue is causing considerable discussion in the Muslim world.

Oarsman Mohamed Sbihi, who has an English mother and a Moroccan father, is Muslim and will be representing the United Kingdom at the Games. A few weeks ago, he revealed that he would not fast during the Olympics. “I’m convinced that I can perform well if I fast,” Sbihi said, “but I don’t want my teammates to have any doubts about that. It could have a negative impact on our performance.”After consulting with Islamic clerics, Sbihi decided to observe the obligations of Muslims who are unable to fast during Ramadan. He will provide food for 60 poor Moroccans during the holy month.

The news about Sbihi’s decision not to fast sparked off a heated debate among readers on the Moroccan news site, Hespress. “Is he taking part in a sports competition,” asked some readers, “or is he going to free Palestine? Only people engaged in a holy war are exempted from fasting.”Some people even called him a kafir, a nonbeliever or apostate. One reader thought the condemnation and insults went too far. “The only thing I regret about Sbihi is that he made his decision public,” wrote the reader. “It’s a personal issue between God and himself which has nothing to do with anyone else.”

Since the Olympics are so prestigious, everyone is getting involved in the religious and sporting dilemma facing the Muslim participants: Sports Ministry officials, coaches, Islamic scholars and popular imams. A few months ago, Moroccan sheikh Zemzmi issued a fatwa exempting the Olympic football team from fasting during the Olympic Games. Zemzmi is well known for his controversial fatwas, and they’re not taken seriously by everyone. That’s why the Moroccan Sports Ministry has urged the Ministry of Religious Affairs to issue an official fatwa. A week before the Games, and two days before Ramadan began, the Council issued its ruling: the Moroccan participants don’t have to fast during the Olympic Games. The Islamic scholars issued the fatwa based on a verse in the Koran that exempts travellers from fasting.

Even before the official fatwa was announced, Moroccan swimmer Sara El Bekri disclosed that she would not fast during the Games. Unlike oarsman Sbihi, she thinks that fasting would have a negative impact on her performance. “Your physical capacities are irrefutably affected by fasting. Muslim athletes are being torn between respecting the basic principles of Islam and their desire to achieve top-level performances during the Games.

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Morocco's Maternal Health Revolution

WOMENSENEWS has a fascinating article by WeNews Managing Editor, Juhie Bhatia, about the maternal health revolution in Morocco. The country is on target to be one of the few to meet the U.N.'s goal of lowering maternal mortality by 2015, in part thanks to a strong Peace Corps program and smaller families. A woman waiting at a clinic dramatizes how things are changing. 

Photo: Juhie Bhatia

Sookaina Boudraa had been waiting for three hours at the Alwaha health clinic in Sidi Moumen, an area in northeastern Casablanca known for its slums.

Seven months pregnant, she sat patiently, wearing a brown djellaba, a long robe with a hood, embroidered in orange and a matching orange hijab to cover her hair. About 10 other women sat alongside Boudraa in the blue and white waiting area outside the nurse's examination room. She was expecting the birth of her first child.

Boudraa was at the clinic to get a vaccine, although she couldn't say for what. All she knew was that it was supposed to keep her healthy for her pregnancy, during which time she'd regularly visited a doctor. She hoped a nurse would see her in 30 minutes.

Seventeen-year-old Boudraa is among the fortunate women benefiting from her nation's commitment to lowering the number of women who die in childbirth.

By 2010 Morocco had decreased its maternal mortality ratio by over 60 percent since 1990, according to the Ministry of Health, with much of that drop in recent years. And between 1990 and 2008 it achieved an annualized decline of 6.3 percent, the fastest in the region with the exception for Iran's 8.9 percent, according to a 2011 report by the Ministry of Health and the United Nations Population Fund.

This progress means Morocco might meet U.N. Millennium Development Goal No. 5, which calls on nations to reduce maternal mortality by three-fourths between 1990 and 2015. With three years left to go, Morocco is one of a small group on track, a September 2011 study found. Other hopefuls are countries such as China, Egypt and Turkey, the study published in The Lancet reported.

Credit: latigi on Flickr, under Creative Commons

For all its progress, however, the country is still far behind industrialized nations. In Morocco, 112 women die per 100,000 live births, according to the 2009-2010 national population survey. The U.S. maternal mortality rate is 24 per 100,000 live births. Ireland has one of the lowest, at 3 deaths per 100,000 live births.

Fatima Moukaby, one of the four nurses at the 5-year-old Alwaha clinic, has been working in the field for 21 years and said she's seen a big shift in line with Boudraa's decisions.

"When I started my job we received few pregnant women because women were giving birth at home, but now we receive too many pregnant women," said Moukaby. The clinic's three doctors each see at least 80 patients a day, she added.

Jean-Benoît Manhes, UNICEF's deputy representative in Rabat, gives much of the credit for this shift to the government. Public health professionals here insisted that reducing the maternal death rate further remains a priority, despite the region's political turmoil and even with the new government that took power late last year.

"There's a general will to improve maternal health from the government which does not exist in other countries I've worked in," said Manhes. "It's an issue of public health and pride."

The effort has included about $157 million (1.4 billion dirham) in government spending for 2008-2012 on a three-prong strategy of improved access to care, improving the quality of care and program governance. That has encompassed disseminating and publicizing pregnancy-related care information, training midwives and other health workers and expanding and improving health care facilities and vehicles.

"The most important [thing] is making [obstetric care] free, including transfusions, C-sections, transportation, all the tests, the delivery, etc., as it has allowed women to come into the hospital, especially the poor," said Dr. Abdelghani Drhimeur, head of communications at the Ministry of Health in Rabat.

Peace Corps Contributions

The country's campaign has also benefited from the longstanding presence of Peace Corps volunteers, who have been supporting maternal-related health care here since 1992, said Mostafa Lamqaddam, the Corps' health program manager in Rabat.

Volunteers organize trainings for traditional birth attendants and educate local women about such things as vaccinations, family planning and healthy pregnancies. They target understaffed, underequipped and hard to access parts of the country.

The Peace Corps recently shifted its focus in Morocco to youth development, however, so the health program, which is the organization's largest, is expected to phase out in May 2013. The group's number of health care volunteers dropped in May from around 70 to 40.

"Definitely volunteers feel it will leave a void," said Lamqaddam. "Some associations and Moroccan nongovernmental organizations have started work in this area, but it's not the exact same thing. Nobody is doing this work at the grassroots level. But the need is still out there."

The government has also trained and deployed health workers. The proportion of births attended by skilled personnel rose to 83 percent in 2009 from 61 percent in 2004, according to the Ministry of Health/U.N. report.

Menana Boukalouch is a midwife of 30 years who heads the nursing department at Maternité Des Orangers, a university hospital in Rabat that performs around 7,000 deliveries a year. She said more midwives are crucial.

"Midwives do 80 percent of the deliveries. Doctors don't get involved in normal deliveries, unless there are complications," she said. "There are doctors, but they don't go into the rural areas. Midwives can go to rural areas or cities. It's better to have a big number [of midwives] as they take better care of women from the beginning to end."

Smaller Families Desired


Down the hall from Boukalouch's office, Naima Abit sat calmly on a hospital bed waiting for her turn in the delivery room. The 29-year-old wore a brown and yellow housedress and solid red henna adorned her hands and feet; it was for good luck with her delivery, she said. Her water had broken, but she didn't yet feel any labor pains. Across the room another expectant mother, Hayat, walked around and winced regularly with contractions.

Abit said none of her friends or family had given birth at home. Many gave birth in private hospitals, which often have a better reputation than public facilities, just to be safe. This was her first baby, a boy. She wanted two or three children at most; most of her friends had one or two.

Her desire for smaller families reflects a trend in many parts of Morocco, a country now at the forefront of Arab countries' transition to lower fertility rates, which contributes to better maternal health. In 2009 the average number of births per woman was 2.2, according to the Ministry of Health/U.N. report, down from 4 in 1992. The urban fertility rate here is now at a historic low of 1.84.

"Morocco is one of the countries that adopted family planning and family size decreased rapidly," said Lamqaddam. He added that strong vaccination programs and later marriage have also contributed to smaller families.

To continue to encourage safe motherhood, Ministry of Health spokesperson Drhimeur said, the government is creating new maternal health programs. And while Morocco's 2012-2016 health plan is not yet released, he added that the government hopes to achieve a maternal mortality ratio of 50 deaths per 100,000 births for 2016, even lower than what's needed to meet the U.N. goal

"The Moroccan experience is unique; what we've done in three years regarding maternal health efforts was not done in the 30 years before. It's a big effort, a revolution. But a lot has to be done still," Drhimeur said.

This is an edited version: read the full article on WOMENSENEWS

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Ramadan Weather Outlook ~ Slightly Cooler

Much has been written about the length of the days in Ramadan due to it falling in summer (see our article Not All Ramadans are Equal) but relief from the heat may be in sight. Here in Fez a 16 hour fast is a long time especially if some water is not consumed. However, looking ahead, the weather should cool off - if only marginally.

Stay cool during Ramadan Photo Stan Honda/AFP/GettyImages

10-Day Forecast for Fes, Morocco


Date High & Low Celsius (Fahrenheit)
Monday
Jul 23 Sunny 34°/16° (94°/61°)
Tuesday
Jul 24 Mostly Sunny 33°/16° (91°/61°)
Wednesday
Jul 25 Sunny 33°/17° (91°/62°)
Thursday
Jul 26 Sunny 32°/16° (89°/60°)
Friday
Jul 27 Sunny 30°/14° (86°/58°)
Saturday
Jul 28 Sunny 31°/14° (87°/58°)
Sunday
Jul 29 Sunny 31°/15° (87°/59°)
Monday
Jul 30 Sunny 36°/16° (96°/60°)
Tuesday
Jul 31 Sunny 36°/17° (97°/63°)
Wednesday
Aug 01 Sunny 36°/17° (96°/63°)


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Moroccan Authorities Clean Up Islamist Beach Invasion

According to the online site Magharebia.com, a battle is brewing on Moroccan beaches between religious hardliners and the kingdom’s authorities. The trouble began when more than 60 students belonging to the banned Islamist group Al Adl Wal Ihsane (Justice and Charity) attempted to create a camp on Terga beach, 40km from the city of Tetouan

This is not the first time the group has caused trouble. Al Adl Wal Ihsane has been prevented from establishing camps since 2000. The previous year the group had attracted more than 40,000 summer visitors. At that time, Al Adl Wal Ihsane caused offence to locals and visitors alike by dividing Sidi Bou Alnaim Beach into two parts; one for men and another for women, keeping them from seeing each other. Its tight organization overwhelmed authorities, who decided that enough was enough and that they would prevent future camps.

The authorities move in - photo Mohamed Saadouni

This year the Moroccan authorities intervened early to stop the beaches being taken over. The leaders of the ruling Justice and Development party (PJD) said the aim of the Al Adl Wal Ihsane camps was to provoke the government, rather than recreation.

“I do not favor summer camping of a sectarian and group nature, because this type of camping may be considered a provocative step more than simply summer vacationing and entertainment,” PJD leader El Ali Hami El Din said.

Addressing the banned group, Hami El Din added: “I am against camps that only comprise followers of a cult or a particular group, because camping then becomes factional. But in return I ask the authorities to push for clean beaches consistent with the wishes of conservative families.”

Responding to Hami El Din, Hassan Bennajeh, a member of the General Secretariat of the Political Department of Al Adl Wal Ihsane, told Magharebia he hoped the remarks were “a slip of the tongue”. Bennajeh continued, “I rebuke his use of the term sectarian.”

Bennajeh explained to Magharebia that “the authorities intervened violently and forbid a faction of Al Adl Wal Ihsane students who were preparing to camp in the Terga area from doing so”.

“The intervention resulted in a range of injuries among the students and created an atmosphere of terror after the doors of the dwellings they had rented were broken down and the students were taken out by force, and they were forced to leave in the direction of their cities,” he claimed.

The official spokesman for the banned group, Fathallah Arsalan, has defended the right of his group to organize their own closed camps.

“We still stand by our right to camp the way we like it, as guaranteed to us by law under the right of association and movement,” he said.

Morocco's beaches belong to everyone - Photo Manuel Di Luna, used under Creative Commons License

Salé resident Hamid Buras, who attended the last Al Adl Wal Ihsane camp, told Magharebia that he did “not know why the state is fighting the camps of the group, which seeks to create an environment for summer vacationing respectful of conservative families”.

“The group’s camps respect our conservative Islamic society, and we and our children have the right to enjoy the beach away from views of nudity, debauchery and immorality that characterize nowadays our Moroccan beaches,” Buras added.

In contrast, Khalid Amar, an employee, contended that the conservative group had no right to control Moroccan beaches and make them exclusive for its followers and supporters.

“Whoever wants recreation, let him take his family to the beach and no one will stop him, but to monopolize the beach and wear beards to display their strength, I am firmly with the intervention of the state,” he added.

For his part, Islamic scholar Abdel Bari Zamzami said: “It is not the right of members and supporters of the group to monopolise areas of the beaches for themselves to the exclusion of the rest of God’s creation”.

“And if the group decides to organize its summer camps by descending on public beaches by force in the same way in which it succeeded for years, the authorities will prevent it—then it will be legally prohibited without dispute,” he added.

The government action to stop ultra-conservatives monopolising Morocco's beaches has received wide support from the general community


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