Virtual Magazine of Morocco on the Web
Morocco Week in Review 
July 3, 2010

Morocco's drinking water facility invested over $ 422 mln in 2009
Rabat

Morocco's drinking water facility (ONEP) had invested in 2009 over 422 million dollars (3.7 billion dirhams), bringing its coverage rate to 89% in the rural area. The program of generalizing access to drinking water in the rural area succeeded in 2009 in supplying an additional population of 246,000 inhabitants, besides 120,000 people in 24 centers, according to figures released, Friday in Rabat, by ONEP's board of directors.

As for the urban area, the 2009 newly-implemented projects required building 6 treatment plants, including a desalination plant and two demineralization plants. This enabled reaching an additional rate of flow of 1,706 l/s.
The state-owned facility carried out 240 km of supply mains, built 23 new water tanks with a capacity of 14,200 m3 and extended the supply network by 400 km. It had also operated a 308 km-wastewater collection system and three wastewater plants treating 11,026 m3 per day. Energy Minister Amina Benkhadra, who was presiding over the board of directors' meeting, lauded ONEP's 2009 achievements.
http://www.map.ma/eng/sections/economy/morocco_s_drinking_w/view
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Moroccan media distorts women's image, study says.
By Siham Ali 2010-07-06

In a recent survey, women in Morocco say the media portrays them in an inaccurate and distorted fashion. Moroccan media distorts the image of women, according to a recent survey undertaken by the communication ministry. Overall, Moroccan females believe that their image is so misrepresented and manipulated that it does not mirror the reality of Moroccan women, the survey said.

Advertising and drama are the farthest from reality in terms of perception of everyday women's lives, said women whose opinions were recorded in the final report released on June 30th. According to survey participants, advertising focussed more on household chores and presented women as traditional, unskilled and submissive to men. In drama, women felt they were portrayed as more manipulative, promiscuous and dumb.

On the other hand, women are presented as educated, elegant, experienced, independent, responsible and highly regarded in the news. According to the report, the news presents the reality of a minority of women elites, while the picture reflected in drama and advertising is that of extreme cases of a minority of Moroccan women.

Television does not present how women are capable of reconciling different functions of their professional, private and personal lives, survey participants said. Television does not alter the image of men, and continues to promote male dominance. Participants said television never showed situations where a husband and wife help each other with chores, and gave the impression that women could gain respect in the workplace but were still inferior and oppressed in their homes.

Both print and audiovisual media play a major role in shaping public opinion, Communication Minister Khalid Naciri said on June 30th. In his view, it promotes certain principles and values and propagates thoughts."This kind of media, controlled by people who have their own agenda, can also spread stereotypes," he said. "These images and stereotypes have more impact than when they are communicated through television, because the picture, without a doubt, has an effect on public behaviour. Indeed, these stereotypes and prejudice do not reflect all the developments benefiting women's rights and do not follow all the progress made in this field."
The survey recommends that television should better reflect the social developments of women and attempt to correct the current problems of representation. The report also recommends that television should present a more diverse picture of women, and highlight their different professional and marital statuses.

In short, the report said, reality should be covered without being generalising or demeaning. For instance, when a drama shows young students engaging in prostitution for money or designer clothes, it can have a significant impact on rural parents who are already reluctant to send their daughters to boarding high schools in a neighbouring city.

In order to change stereotypes, monitoring committees must be created to make recommendations and raise awareness, sociologist Houda Smirni told Magharebia."Media, especially the audiovisual, must be involved in the equality of both genders through awareness programmes and through its other broadcasted programmes, because the messages they communicate have a major influence on viewers," she said.

Sanae Yaacoubi, a student, stressed that it is time to recognise what women really are worth, and to rise above the images of the past that confine them to a secondary role. "Morocco has evolved and so has the status of women, even if there is still a long way to go to change some attitudes in order to achieve the desired freedom," she told Magharebia."Media must be a mirror reflecting the reality as is, all to raise awareness on the benefits of gender equality," she said.
http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/features/2010/07/06/feature-01
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Mullahs and music in Morocco.
By Fawzia Afzal-Khan July 05, 2010

On my recent trip to Morocco, I did more than just sing. I was swept along on a tidal wave of song and music that has been swelling to gargantuan proportions, thanks to the royal decrees of King Hasan V. This perspicacious young ruler — and I am no fan of monarchies or monarchs — has been fanning the flames of musical madness as an antidote to extremist Islam in
his country.

This was my first visit to the Maghrebian kingdom. I was bowled over by the country that has seduced many before me, including the writer John Bowles. His Orientalist novel, The Sheltering Sky, popularised further by Bertolucci’s filmic version, certainly has done its bit to pique the desires of many westerners for the exotic “Moslem” Arab world. But of course, this is now part of a fast-receding past, however imaginary, to be replaced by the very real present of a world increasingly under the sway of religious revivalism, including a virulently fanatical, pleasure-hating puritanical strain we are witnessing particularly (though not exclusively) in the Muslim world.
Music, with its magical propensities to touch the human soul and soften even the hardest of hearts and open the most closed-off of minds — represents a particular threat to the forces of obscurantism, whose aim is precisely the opposite: the shutting down of thought. Bodies and minds swaying to the rhythms of the universe, in sync with the spirituality which resides in all of us and which wants to celebrate the life-source, the beating heart — these bodies, these hearts, these souls, participating in the exchange of musical breath — these are anathema to the killjoys who want to snuff out life itself.

King Hasan of Morocco seems to have realised that we are indeed in the midst of an epic battle between the forces of light and darkness, pleasure and pain, music and fanaticism, music and militarism. Thus, a few years ago, he decided to create public venues for the promotion of music all over the country, and the result today is a cornucopia of festivals dedicated to many local and international genres of music. The most well-known of these is perhaps the Festival of Sacred Music which this year marked its 16th anniversary. It takes place in the month of June in the ancient city of Fez, which also boasts the oldest, continuously-functioning university in the world, the Keraouine, which I had the pleasure to visit, although, sadly, I missed the festival. I did, however, make it in time for the Mewazine Festival which is on its way to becoming a huge world music festival, held in the imperial city of Rabat.

My friend and I careened around one night, taking cabs, two women alone, no problem, from place to place all over the city, attending free concerts in “plein air” as they say in French. Huge open-air stages with high-quality sound systems, offering free music in various neighbourhoods from the lower-class to the well-heeled, attracted audiences in the thousands representing all classes and age groups. I saw old women with heads covered, young girls in jeans and t-shirts, and men and boys of all ages, including young ones kicking soccer balls around while music blared and performers gyrated on stage and on giant screens. We heard a new group called Outlandish from Germany and then raced off to catch the latter half of Sir Elton John’s concert.

Despite angry protests against inviting a homosexual singer to perform, voiced by members of the religious right, the king and the festival organisers stood firm in their resolve. It’s the music that matters. That was their message — one, all Muslim governments and people need to heed. Singing my own mixture of Sufi-pop in the 14th century Kasbah Palace of Tangiers, I felt spiritually cleansed by the moon bath of my Moroccan musical journey. A journey which is already opening my heart and mind in unexpected ways.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 6th, 2010.
http://tribune.com.pk/story/25868/mullahs-and-music-in-morocco/
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A sampling of Moroccan culture, lore.
By Mary-Liz Shaw of the Journal Sentinel July 3, 2010

The Anglo-Afghan writer Tahir Shah began traveling when he was a teenager, and he soon recognized it as his life's calling.
Within a few years Shah had assumed the habits of the veteran traveler, writing travel articles for newspapers and magazines to pay for his wanderlust. He turned to writing books soon after that, including the entertaining "In Search of King Solomon's Mines," about his attempts to trace the ancient king's treasure through Egypt.

Although most of Shah's work has elements of the personal, his later works are chronicles of his experiences settling down with his family in Morocco, the country he used to visit with his family when he was a boy. "The Caliph's House: A Year in Casablanca" (2006) tells the story of his purchase and painstaking renovation of a derelict palace once owned by a caliph. This story, like so many others of its sort, owes a debt to Peter Mayle's "A Year in Provence." But Shah's tale rises above the clichés of quirky neighbors and tasty food with its sober observations of the fantastic. The caliph's house is possessed by a jinn - a spirit - and three men called "guardians" hang out at the palace, claiming to be somehow connected to the jinn. They do no work but won't leave. Later, a woman Shah hires to manage renovations at the caliph's house tells him she has a 300-meter jinn residing on her shoulder.

Shah handles these revelations with a mixture of wry humor and restrained shock. And a shrug - the house still must be fixed, after all, jinn or no."In Arabian Nights" (Bantam, 2008), which was released in paperback last year, continues the story, this time with Shah traveling across his adopted country to know it after one of the guardians tells him, "Morocco may have passed under your feet but you haven't seen it."

Shah's writing can be uneven, with odd turns of phrase. After the guardian's admonition, for example, Shah writes that "a jab of disbelief pricked my stomach." And more than once Shah will have people saying lines that seem too fabulous, even in a place where giant jinn live on women's shoulders. A barber cutting Shah's hair says of a well-known storyteller, "Murad will hypnotize you with the stories that stream from his lips, in a waterfall of words." That is one poetic barber. But at his best, Shah is a sympathetic and energetic observer of Morocco's diverse culture, where the ancient tales of "A Thousand and One Nights" are alive and well and told many times over in cafes from Agadir on the southern Atlantic coast to Fes, Shah's boyhood city, in the High Atlas mountains.
And the food! Fragrant tagines (stews) prepared in conical clay pots, spicy couscous eaten at lunch on Fridays, stinging hot mint tea - Morocco is delicious in more than its lore.

Recipes
This appetizer is adapted from a recipe by Lahcen Beqqi, a Moroccan chef who posts his recipes at http://fescooking.com. Beqqi lives in Fes, the city of Tahir Shah's youth.

Carrots with Cumin Seed and Feta
Makes 4 to 6 servings
1 pound carrots
¼ cup of olive oil
½ teaspoon of salt
½ tablespoon cumin seeds
½ cup feta cheese
¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro
Pita triangles
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Wash and peel carrots. Cut into rounds. Put into a casserole with olive oil and salt. Cover with tight-fitting lid or aluminum foil and cook in preheated oven 20 minutes. Uncover and cook 15 more minutes. Remove from oven. Grind cumin seeds and add to carrots. Puree in a food processor until smooth. Cool.
Sprinkle with feta and cilantro before serving with pita triangles.
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This recipe is adapted from one by Lahcen Beqqi at http://fescooking.com. He writes that vegetarian tagines are not common in Morocco, but they can still be found among Berber communities. The Berbers are among the earliest settlers in Morocco. This recipe can be made in a traditional clay tagine pot or in a covered pot.
Vegetable Tagine
Makes 4 servings
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large potato, peeled and sliced into thin rounds
2 sliced onions
6 to 8 cloves garlic, crushed
2 carrots, peeled and sliced into thin rounds
2 tomatoes, sliced into rounds
1 cup peas
1 tablespoon diced poblano pepper
½ cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon paprika
1 cup water
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In ovenproof pot (with a lid) or tagine, heat olive oil. Add onions and cook until onion turns translucent, about 5 minutes. Add remaining ingredients to pot, stir, cover and place in preheated oven. Cook 30 to 40 minutes, until vegetables are tender.
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Shah tells us that couscous is usually eaten at the noonday meal on Fridays in Morocco. The traditional version is steamed. This recipe is adapted from one by Alton Brown at the Food Network.
Couscous
Makes 4 servings
1 cup couscous (see note)
Pinch salt
¼ cup cold water
Olive oil, for spraying hands
Place couscous in a fine strainer and rinse under cold running water. Dump couscous onto a rimmed baking sheet, sprinkle with salt, and let stand until grains swell, about 10 minutes. Break up lumps with your fingers.
Partially fill a large steamer pot or stockpot with 1 inch of water. Bring water to a simmer. Place damp tea towel in steamer or colander and add couscous. Fold towel over couscous. Steam, covered, over simmering water 15 minutes.
Pour couscous onto large, rimmed baking sheet and sprinkle with ½ cup cold water. Toss with slotted spatula until cool and water is absorbed. Spritz hands with olive oil and spread out couscous, breaking up any lumps as you go. Set aside for 5 minutes.
Refill pot with enough water to make 1 inch again. Return couscous to colander or steamer and steam, covered, for 10 minutes.
Note: Use whole-grain couscous (not instant), usually sold in bulk in specialty stores such as Outpost Natural Foods and Whole Foods Market.
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This recipe is adapted from www.moroccan-recipes.com.
Coconut Candy
Makes 2 1/2 dozen
2 cups grated fresh coconut
¾ cup evaporated milk
2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon butter
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
Line an 8-by-8 inch cake pan with wax paper.
In a saucepan, combine coconut, evaporated milk and sugar and simmer gently until mixture reaches 238 degrees (soft-ball stage). Add butter and lemon zest and let cool to room temperature. Beat vigorously until thick and glossy. Pour into prepared pan and chill. Cut into 1-inch squares.
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This recipe is from Lahcen Beqqi at http://fescooking.com.
Moroccan Mint Tea
Makes 4 servings
4 ½ cups water (divided)
2 teaspoons gunpowder tea
1 cup mint
2 tablespoons sugar
Put 4½ cups water on to boil. Put tea in a teapot. Pour ½ cup boiled water over tea. Swirl the mixture for a minute or so, then pour out the water. Add remaining boiling water. Stir in mint and sugar. Let steep 3 minutes and serve.
Literal Links
•Veteran travel writer Rolf Potts (; click on "Writers," then "Travel Writer Profiles") interviews Tahir Shah about living in Morocco and about the business of travel writing. Among the revelations: Shah can bang out a 100,000-word book in about 50 days.
•Tahir Shah's website (www.tahirshah.com) has information about his books and his documentary films. There is a page detailing his 10-day stint in a Pakistani prison where he and his film crew were taken as suspected spies after they had traveled into disputed territory. "In Arabian Nights" opens with Shah in prison; he is thinking about Morocco as a means of escape - to drown out the cries of other prisoners being tortured.
Mary-Liz Shaw is a Journal Sentinel writer and copy editor. Her Literal Feasts feature suggests a different book-themed menu each month.
http://www.jsonline.com/features/food/97332569.htm ##########################################################

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