Virtual Magazine of Morocco on the Web
Morocco Week in Review 
June 27, 2009

Argan Oil - Exotic Oil From Morocco
Jeanne Egbosiuba Ukwendu,  BellaOnline's African Culture Editor

Argan oil (also called Argon Oil, Argane Oil) is pressed from the nuts (or kernels, like a peach pit) of the Argan tree. The Argan tree (Argania spinosa) is well adapted to the drought conditions of southwest Morocco. The Argan tree has a deep root system which helps protect against soil erosion. The tree is also very thorny and the trunks are gnarled. Argan trees grow up to 10 meters tall can live up to 200 years. The Argan tree's habitat once covered most of North Africa, but is now listed as endangered. Over the past 100 years, the area the Argan tree grows in has declined by 50%.

Goats in Argan TreeGoats love to eat the fruit of the Argan tree. Goats actually climb up into the Argan tree to get to the fruit despite the tree's thorns! The fruit is relatively small, about 2 to 4 cm long and 1.5 to 3 cm across. Inside the fruit is a nut, or pit, surround by a bitter peel and sweet smelling, yet unpleasant tasting, fleshy fruit. The nut looks something like a cross between a walnut and an almond.

The argan fruit is gathered up and the nuts are removed from the fleshy fruit. The fruit is later used as animal feed. The nuts are roast over an open fire - much like chestnuts - giving the argan oil its distinctive nutty peppery flavor. If the argan oil is meant for cosmetic use, the nuts are not roasted.

Once the nuts are roasted, Berber women crack the nuts open with sharp stones. The kernels are then ground by hand into a paste. The paste is then squeezed by hand to extract the oil from the ground kernels. The leftover paste is used to create a funnel and the argan oil is poured through the paste funnel into bottles. The paste is then sent to factories where more oil can be extracted. Hand pressed argan oil has a shelf life of roughly 3 to 6 months whereas commercially pressed argan oil has a shelf life of 1 to 2 years.

It takes the fruit from one tree, about 14.5 pounds, to make one liter of argan oil. Argan oil is used as a dressing on salads, on meat and fish dishes. Amlou, a spread for bread similar to tahini or peanut butter, is made with argan oil and almonds and sweetened with honey.

Argan oil produced for cosmetic use is very rich in Vitamin E and essential fatty acids including linoleic acid, and Omega 6. Argan oil is said to help conditions such as dry skin, acne, psoriasis, eczema, and wrinkles. Argan oil is used on skin, hair, and nails.
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art60550.asp
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Moroccan students receive bac results with mixed emotions.
By Sarah Touahri 2009-06-18

The results of the first session are in: 87,000 students passed and nearly half of the candidates will sit for a second round. More than 87,000 Moroccan students breathed a sigh of relief Wednesday (June 17th) after learning that they passed their baccalaureate examinations. The first session's results, announced in the evening, came after a stressful day for candidates and families alike.

Time hung heavy for many who were anxious to receive the final verdict on their efforts. At about 5 in the evening, students and parents converged on high schools in large numbers. But only around 27% received good news. And of those who passed, 36.7% were happy to learn they passed with merit. One female student in Rabat emerged as the biggest achiever, scoring 18.67 out of 20.

Khadija, in her forties, whooped with delight on seeing her daughter's name on the results chart. "Meriem passed with merit, and I really wasn't expecting that. I was worried she might fail. Now I can enjoy my holidays," she said. Standing next to her, a disappointed Fatima Ezzehra shed a few tears. Her mark will not be enough to get her into one of the top higher education establishments. "I didn't get a merit, even though I did everything I could to get a good average, which would have enabled me to choose something other than university."

The pass rate varied according to subject area. The scientific, mathematical and technical areas registered a 44.82% pass rate, while the rate was just 26.34% for literary subjects. Private candidates, who made up 12.62% of the candidates sitting the examinations, got the lowest scores.

According to the authorities, 5.5% more students passed this year's exams compared to the first session in 2008. The education ministry expects the number of baccalaureate holders to increase following the second session, which is planned for July 2nd-4th. More than 121,900 candidates will take the exams again, representing 48.6% of the candidates from the first round.

One teacher, Siham Slimani, said the number of candidates being called to take re-sits shows that there is a problem in Morocco's education system, because "so many of those who get through to the final year of secondary school can't get into higher education. The government needs to review the education system from primary upwards."

Students entitled to a second attempt try to be optimistic. Abdelfettah was hoping to get his precious pass the first time round, but wasn't successful. "This isn't the time to worry about what might have been," he said, looking resigned. "I was half-expecting this result because the exams were really hard."

The posting of results on notice-boards, despite being a very traditional method, is still the most trusted system as far as students are concerned. Many headed off to their high schools to consult the boards even after learning their results by SMS.
http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/features/2009/06/18/feature-02
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Social work and sports benefit hundreds in Morocco.
By Naoufel Cherkaoui 2009-06-25

Thousands of rural area residents in Morocco have benefited from collaborative work between the Classic Rally of Morocco and the Happy Hour Association. The partnership helped many children return to school. The partnership between the Classic Rally of Morocco and the Happy Hour association has benefited thousands of people, notably children, and has helped with the development of rural areas around the country, according to rally and association officials.

Over the last 10 years, the Happy Hour association received about five million dirhams in donations from the "rally of the heart". The money was collected through auctions and and other donors. "This partnership contributes substantially to development programmes," said President of the association Leila Cherif. "It also helps us develop our work, since we would not be able to organize all these programmes without the funds."

On Friday (June 12th), Happy Hour received nearly 700,000 dirhams from the Classic Rally of Morocco. The funds will be allocated to financing two projects, said Cherif. The first project will renovate two schools in Casablanca, and the second one will build a water tower and drill a well in the region of Azilal. This will give many girls in remote areas the chance to go to school, as they will not have to spend the time looking for water instead.

What is left of the money will be spent on programmes to train youth and integrate them into society. Some of the money will also go to programmes to raise awareness about various issues, and reduce mortality among children and provide them with food and medication.

The Happy Hour association was established in 1954. Twenty-seven employees and more than 30 volunteers work together to fight exclusion and improve the social and professional integration of disadvantaged individuals in Casablanca and its neighbouring regions, according to the association.

So far, over 5,000 people benefited from the illiteracy-elimination classes offered, which in turn helped them gain access to professional training and eventually get jobs. The Association also distributes school bags to children in remote villages annually.

Annually, the association trains 30 girls to work as household help, and raises the awareness of this workforce on the potential conditions of this field.

Kamil Al Khalti, a social work coordinator at the Classic Rally of Morocco, said that the partnership with Happy Hour came as a result of Moroccan and foreign participants in the rally asking for ways to thank the residents of the areas they passed through during the rally.

According to Al Khalti, 70% of the funds given to Happy Hour go to developing rural areas, including encouraging schooling, restoring of schools, providing villages with potable water, as well as launching income-generating projects. The remaining 30% is used to finance urban development projects, such as reproductive health care and assistance to youth in critical situations.

Classic Rally of Morocco was kicked off in 1993."Sports have many ways of engaging in social work, whether through laying down conditions for poorer children to access a certain game, or launching some initiative, the returns of which to finance special projects," Al Khalti noted. http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/features/2009/06/25/feature-02
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Traveling and Haggling in Morocco
06/25/09

Do you avoid cutthroat department-store sales even in a recession? Are flea markets your idea of a bad day in the park? Does the only auction you're interested in come with a paddle and Christie's Specialist that does most of your bidding legwork? You may avoid haggling in everyday life, but while on summer vacation, going shopping often means going to the much-dreaded bargaining table........
http://www.thestreet.com/story/10524825/1/traveling-and-haggling-in-morocco.html?puc=_tscrss
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60-million-year old rabbit-sized elephant ancestor found in Morocco
Washington, June 24

Scientists have found the fossil of a 60-million-year-old creature in Morocco, which is the rabbit sized ancestor of the modern day elephant. According to a report in National Geographic News, Paleontologist Emmanuel Gheerbrant discovered the rabbit-size proto-elephant’s skull fragments in a basin 60 miles (100 kilometers) east of Casablanca, Morocco. The creature, called Eritherium azzouzorum, bolsters the case that whole new orders of mammals were already around less than 6 million years after global catastrophe ended the age of reptiles some 65.5 million years ago.

Elephant ancestors now join the likes of rodents and early primates as some of the first known mammals to walk the Earth during the Paleocene era, 65.5 to 55 million years ago (prehistoric time line), according to Gheerbrant. “Much of the story of the newly discovered creature can be found in its teeth,” said Gheerbrant, of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris.

Two of the creature’s lower front teeth jut a fraction of an inch out from its jaw. No other fossils of the time have teeth like this. “This is some kind of precursor of the tusk of the more modern (elephant),” Gheerbrant said.

Based on the skull fragments, Gheerbrant guessed that the proto-elephant was probably no more than 20 inches (50 centimeters), tip to tail —“ something like a very large rabbit,” size wise. Because the find consists of skull and jaw fragments only, Gheerbrant said there’s not enough evidence to know what it looked like — or whether it had anything resembling a trunk or elephantine ears.

Sixty million years ago, Africa was lush with vegetation and disconnected from the Eurasian continent to the north. The continent was an evolutionary hotbed, Gheerbrant said. “The rise of elephant-like mammals hot on dinosaurs’ heels suggests there are many more mammals from the period to be found,” he said. “More fossil hunts are needed to uncover how evolution put mammals center stage once the reptilian resource hogs had gone,” he added.
http://www.newkerala.com/nkfullnews-1-61155.html
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Moroccan Tradition:  A Pilgrimage to the Tomb of a ‘Righteous Man’
By Alison Klayman  Published June 17, 2009

As our rundown Mercedes puttered past the olive groves and wheat fields of Morocco’s Atlas Mountains, our taxi driver, Mohammed, pulled off the dirt road to ask a shepherd for directions. “Do you know how to find David Dra’a?” I was skeptical that the Arab shepherd would be able to lead us to the tomb of an obscure kabbalist rabbi, but he knowingly pointed us forward, higher into the peaks.

Rabbi David Halevy, from the Dra’a area 60 miles northeast of Marrakech, is one of more than 600 tzadikim (righteous men) buried in Morocco who are recognized by local Jews as saints. My brother and I were looking for Halevy’s grave because this June weekend was his hiloula, when Moroccan Jews visit a tzadik’s grave to light candles and pray for health and prosperity, usually on the anniversary of his death.

Morocco lost more than 95% of its Jewish population to immigration in the past half-century. But many who have moved abroad return for hiloulas, like 32-year-old David Ruimy, a meat seller from Jerusalem who visits Morocco once a year to pray at Halevy’s tomb.

“The tzadik can perform miracles,” Ruimy told us when we arrived. Ruimy had an encyclopedic knowledge of the wonders Halevy had performed from beyond the grave. He said that the tzadik once visited a man’s dream to tell him to look in his cupboard. In the morning, the man found $200 there, exactly the amount needed to open his business. Another story was about a baby who was accidentally smothered under a pile of blankets. Her family rested her lifeless body on the tzadik’s grave, shut the door to the tomb and prayed. Minutes later, they heard her cries. “That baby was my Aunt Bida,” Ruimy said.

Ruimy’s entire extended family was in attendance at this hiloula, continuing a 65-year-old tradition that began with his grandmother, who lived in Marrakech. His parents’ generation, the 14 brothers and sisters of the Sebbag clan who still live in Morocco, have been coming their whole lives.

“Many Jews have left Morocco, but my family stayed,” Ruimy said. “Now we probably make up around 90% of the people at this hiloula, but in the past we were just a small fraction. Twenty-five, 30 years ago, there would be almost five or six hundred people.”

The Sebbags’ success in Morocco is evident in the way they are investing in the hiloula site, turning the crumbling shacks into newly renovated vacation homes with fresh pink paint, flower planters and, most important, indoor plumbing. Unlike the Arab homes in the adjacent village, the rooftops here are crowned with Moroccan flags, an extra display of loyalty to the kingdom. The Moroccan Jewish community owns this land, which used to be occupied year-round by Jewish families and by a yeshiva just a few decades ago.

In the hours before the hiloula began, it felt like we were crashing a family reunion. Cousins ran in bathing suits down the path to the river, parents played cards and instructed Arab employees brought from Casablanca to help prepare the food. Hired local policeman watched over the group.

After the sunset, the air was electric with anticipation. People disappeared into the houses to change clothes. Ruimy returned, dressed in a brown djellaba, a traditional Moroccan loose robe with full sleeves and an oversized pointed hood. Many of his aunts and uncles were dressed similarly.

Jacky Kadoch, the usually severe-looking president of the Marrakech Jewish community, grabbed the microphone at the end of a 30-foot chord and transformed into the evening’s jaunty master of ceremonies. The hiloula head count grew to around 75 people, and latecomers who drove more than three hours from Casablanca filed into the plastic chairs in the front.

The hiloula began with an auction, first for the honor of opening the tomb and then for decorative candles to burn. The money goes toward the upkeep of the tomb, and a blessing was recited for the winner of each item. One at a time, Kadoch auctioned off 30 candles in French. “La première bougie! La deuxième bougie!” Each started with an opening bid of no less than 1,000 dirham ($125).

Wallets loosened with the nonstop flow of whiskey, and interludes of synthesized music in Hebrew and Arabic were broadcast over the mini public address system. Not surprisingly, most of the top bids came from members of the Sebbag family.

At one point, Daniel Sebbag, another of Ruimy’s uncles, created a ruckus on the sidelines when he whipped out his cell phone and all the children crowded around to look at the screen. He recently came on a private visit to the tomb and said the tzadik showed him an image, in the ashes of the fireplace, of an old man holding a baby. He took a photograph of the vision with his cell phone. His sister Bida, the woman revived by the tzadik as a baby, was particularly interested in seeing the picture.

“La dernière bougie,” the last candle, was finally sold after 1 a.m. The mood was a bit muted after everyone sat through the tiresome auction, but the gathering began to stir as people moved toward the reverberating sounds of singing, clapping and rhythmic drumming coming from those already inside the tomb.

The tzadik’s grave is at the top of the tomb stairs, covered by a dark-green marble slab. Behind that, a palm tree grows into a skylight. To the left is a small square fireplace carved into the wall. Young and old seemed practiced in the proper tomb-worshipping etiquette. The people all kneeled and pressed their foreheads to the marble, taking turns to solemnly toss their candles into the fireplace’s blaze. Many took pictures of the flames with cameras and cell phones.

Bida was one of the most enthusiastic participants. She whirled around in a shiny djellaba, banging on tables with henna-covered hands, and led the crowd in song.

“To your health,” she wished me in French. “May you be married, and have lots of babies, and have everything good come to you!”

Armed with simple white Sabbath candles, my brother and I took our turns at the fireplace to feed the flames. I came to the hiloula more out of curiosity than out of faith in the tzadik, but my gaze lingered for just a moment longer on the glowing fireplace, just in case he wanted to send me a message.

Alison Klayman is a freelance journalist and documentary filmmaker in Beijing.
http://www.forward.com/articles/107975/
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A Jewish Oasis in the Arab World
2009-06-11
 
Despite a series of terrorist bombings in Casablanca in 2003, including one directed against a Jewish club (where there was extensive damage but no casualties), Morocco's Jews are staying put – at least for now, says Walter Ruby.

Essaouira, Morocco - The Moroccan idyll I shared with my fiancée Tatyana began with a Passover evening service at the ornate Neveh Shalom Synagogue in the heart of Casablanca's Jewish Quarter – an upscale French-flavoured district in this mostly modern city where 3,500 Jews live among a much larger number of Muslims – and a sumptuous Seder (traditional Passover dinner) at the well-appointed apartment of prominent community member Sammy Ifergan, his wife Natalie and their two charming teenage daughters.

The elegant century-old synagogue was packed with about 200 worshippers, many of them members of the worldwide Moroccan Jewish diaspora of up to one million, stretching from Jerusalem to Paris, Montreal and Caracas. Then Tatyana and I experienced our very first Sephardic Seder, with Ifergan performing fascinating rituals like holding a platter of matzah (unleavened bread) over the heads of family members and guests, while intoning, "You were once slaves in Egypt, but now you are free."

We learned that among Moroccan Jews, the bitter herbs we traditionally eat in the Seder are not bitter at all, but rather a celery-like plant ("Maybe because our 2,000-year exile in Morocco hasn't been as bitter as some others", Ifergan said), and then enjoyed a scintillating Pesach dinner.

Ifergan explained that he and Natalie emigrated to Montreal as a young couple and lived there for more than a decade. But 15 years ago when the Moroccan government offered him a position in the business administration of the National Electric Company, he signed a two-year contract, and has been back here ever since. "Morocco is simply a very comfortable place to live as Jews", he said.

As we visited other Jewish families in Casablanca, the capital city of Rabat and Marrakech, we found everywhere the sense of watchful serenity manifested by the Ifergans. Despite a series of terrorist bombings in Casablanca in 2003, including one directed against a Jewish club (where there was extensive damage but no casualties), Morocco's Jews are staying put – at least for now.

According to Serge Berdugo, 72, a genial business executive who has served as general secretary of the Council of Jewish Communities of Morocco since 1986, "No one can say with complete confidence what will happen tomorrow. But we were strengthened in our resolve to stay here when the king came to the bombed Jewish Center and said, 'The Jews are citizens. I am here to protect their persons, belongings and sacred values.' Members of Muslim associations came also and held a candlelight vigil together with the Jewish community. It was very moving."

Moroccan Jews trace their history back more than 2,000 years, well before the Arab armies arrived here in the eighth century. Indeed, some of the Berber tribes who are the original inhabitants of Morocco, and remain the largest chunk of the population today, converted to Judaism centuries ago. And shrines to Jewish-Berber holy men like the 14th century Shlomo Bel-Hench, whose elaborate tomb we visited in the lush Ourika Valley amid the snow-capped Atlas Mountains, can be found around the country. Present-day Moroccan Jews are a mix of inhabitants who trace their roots to the earliest Jewish settlers and descendants of Spanish Jews who were expelled and resettled in Morocco at the time of the Inquisition.

The warmth and continuing vitality of Moroccan Jewry reflects the unique flavours of the country they inhabit. In a world of ever-increasing sameness, Morocco is a thousand-year-old civilisation that moves very much according to its own rhythms, at once exotic and other-worldly, yet accessible and welcoming. Moroccans are a people with a talent for the creation of beautiful objects that fill the country's enticing souks (markets); beauty that mirrors in miniature the majesty of the ancient cities and picture book landscapes of mountains, desert and ocean.

In Rabat, we were the guests of two headscarf-clad sisters, Hanane and Kadija, who guided us around a city replete with ancient casbahs (fortresses) and hidden gardens, while speaking proudly of the country's spirit of tolerance, which as Hanane put it, "allows each person to decide whether or not to pray."

The sprawling souk within the walled city of Marrakesh is a vast, pulsating marketplace where every product ever conjured by humankind seems to be on sale; including carpets, metalwork, pottery, jewellery and exotic herbs and spices. Visitors can watch robed and turbaned tradesmen plying timeless crafts including leather working, cloth dying and slipper making.

Tatyana and I especially fell in love with Essaouira, a much smaller, oh-so-mellow walled seaside town, where one can browse the souk in leisurely fashion; sit atop 18th century Spanish cannons on a stone parapet overlooking the pounding Atlantic, and ride camels down a long beachfront and over adjoining dunes.

Essaouira's most illustrious citizen, Andre Azoulay, a Jewish adviser to the king on Foreign Affairs, told us that his hometown, "the only place in the Arab world that had a Jewish majority until the 1930s, can today serve as the flagship for worldwide dialogue between Judaism and Islam." Certainly, it is hard to imagine a more propitious place for Jews and Muslims to search for common ground than in this enchanting, wind-tossed town in the heart of a land where adherents of the two faiths mingled for so many centuries to such positive effect.

Walter Ruby is a Muslim-Jewish relations programme officer at the New York-based Foundation for Ethnic Understanding. This abridged article is distributed by the Common Ground and can be accessed at GCNews. It first appeared in the Jewish Week
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=32679
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Moroccan association fights extremism, violence
Interview by Imane Belhaj 2009-06-23

The president of NGO Bayt Al Hikma speaks to Magharebia about her group's mission and the most important issues facing Moroccan society. Bayt Al Hikma is a non-governmental organisation founded in 2007 by a group of activists and progressive intellectuals to defend human rights and promote the core values essential to building a just, tolerant and democratic society.

Association President Khadija Rouissi spoke to Magharebia about how Morocco is at a crossroads between the reactionary path and one which respects individual freedoms. The most important audience for her group's message: the country's youth.

Magharebia: What message do you aim to communicate to the public?
Rouissi: Our main message is the rejection of violence, especially violence targeting children. For this purpose, Bayt Al Hikma aspires to start a national debate on the issue of values…

Our choice of this issue stems from our enthusiasm and fear for the country, which was placed at a crossroads in the 50th Anniversary Report on Human Development. [The country] is in a historical position with multiple choices, which revolve around two main and conflicting options: the option of renewal and development and the option of regression.

If the matter was restricted to renewal and development as a single option, the situation would be completely different. However, the reactionary path puts the entire nation, chief among which are the free thinkers and intellectuals, civil society and the political class, before an important issue: what values should be adopted to confront the bad choice?

The Fiftieth Anniversary Report said the reactionary trend may take over if [Morocco's] ongoing reforms are not supported, and if the elements of tension remain. The primary characteristics of this tension are the rise of "two-track Moroccan development", unequal access to economic and social services, the country's subjection to natural and technological risks, and questionable efficiency in governance.

Similarly, what is taking place in our country is not disconnected from what's happening in the world, especially in its southern part, and at the crossroads of its geo-strategic regions that are full of conflicts and disputes; something that makes adherence to peace and co-existence one of the highest ideals humanity can conceive. Add to this the fact that Morocco has an important geo-strategic location that makes it threatened with regional disputes.

This issue of values is not new to our country. A number of Moroccan pioneers, men and women alike, have previously contributed to planting the seeds of ideas on values and ideas related to human rights and democratic culture which put Morocco on the correct democratic path.

When we decided in Bayt Al Hikma to focus on the issue [of values], we knew how delicate and difficult it was. However, we said that we have to act, especially as there wasn't a significant body of knowledge on which to build a discussion.

I shouldn't forget to note that the final report of the Equity and Reconciliation Commission has, in its turn, laid the basis for the dialogue of values in the democratic society through its strong proposed reform system which presented ideas against all reactionary and condemnable values, of which the physical abuse of human rights was only a prominent title.

Magharebia: What are your capabilities in reaching out to young people, to counter extremist ideas with tolerance and acceptance?

Rouissi: Bayt Al Hikma does not have large capabilities. However, we give young people special attention. Most of the members of Bayt Al Hikma are under 28 years old. We are also about to write and release a pamphlet on the life and thought of Ibn Roshd as a man of religion and science and as creator of the "free thinking" school and author of the "Utopia" theory that the state is based on the relations of tolerance and peace. The pamphlet will target 11,700 students and 95 philosophy teachers. We also operate in partnership with the Ministry of Youth and Sports in order to provide protection and promote human rights inside centres that give shelter to children in legal disputes or children in critical situations.

Magharebia: Last year, you released a statement for the defence of individual freedoms. What impact did it have?
Rouissi: Together with other friends, we issued a statement for the defence of individual freedoms because some groups were trying to mobilise and incite citizens against other citizens accused of homosexuality and "perversion". These groups called for violence against those citizens. There were actually some who did resort to violence.

At Bayt Al Hikma, we considered that groups claiming to have the authority to defend the "correct religion" constitute a danger to democracy and human rights. Therefore, we released the statement in which we denounced these hostile, unjustified behaviours and called on the state to shoulder its responsibility in disseminating human rights culture and punishing any resort to the call of violence and hatred.

Magharebia: Do you think that some positions and ideas infringing upon individual freedom are actually destructive?
Rouissi: The individual has maximum importance in society. I mean the free, responsible individual who can take decisions. Any restriction or reduction of the individual's role through curbing his freedom represents encroachment against democracy and modernity.

Magharebia: You're defending individual freedoms, so would you defend, for example, the woman or girl who wears the veil and finds herself denied employment in a number of enterprises as a result?

Rouissi: Of course, we would stand beside any woman or girl whose rights to wear the veil were infringed, if she was denied employment as a result.

Magharebia: Do you think that Morocco has become immune to extremist ideas? Does it still need time?
Rouissi: I think that any society, regardless of the level of its development, is not one 100% immune to extremist ideas. However, I think that education and training have an essential role to play in spreading human rights and enlightened thinking. All generations will have wage battles in order to preserve human rights and to continuously defend them.

Magharebia: Finally, what is Bayt Al Hikma doing to spread religious tolerance and rejection of violence?
Rouissi: We have conducted a study on the values of the democratic society. We have also held two national meetings on values. We are about to prepare for three roundtables on freedom, violence and equality. We will also hold a meeting in July to discuss the project of establishing a national values observatory. http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/features/2009/06/23/feature-01
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