KISSING THE YOUNG PRINCE'S HAND in Morocco

In Egypt and Sudan female circumcision is still practiced, in Tibet, we are told, one can be cut in pieces and have the pieces thrown to birds, in East Africa some tribes slice their phallus, in India there are still instances of widows burning, and in Kuwait men shake noses instead of shaking hands…

 Yet, to be politically correct, some people say ‘’it’s cultural!’’! But when it comes to a Moroccan overly solicitous general kissing the hand of the young crown prince, no one thinks it’s cultural and many Arabs get to criticizing Moroccan affairs! If I meet the crown prince Moulay El Hassan or his father King Mohamed VI, I don’t think I will kiss their hands, but no one will cut my head or put me in prison for that! What other Arabs don’t understand or refuse to admit is that we are different and we have different traditions and histories, even if they cross often. Therefore, it’s no one’s business what we do with our 12 centuries monarchy, and if some traditional or old-school-servants to the throne still want to show their allegiance to the royal family by kissing their hands to show respect, it’s up to us to judge them.

 We have a proverb in Morocco that says "wait until you have crossed the river and dried your feet to give advice". I will bring up the same proverb for my Arab readers, who just got out of their revolution and who have still their wet feet in the mud of years of oppression, but who have already become specialists in Arab affairs and have started giving advice and want to export their experience to countries which live in an entirely different context. Some of these people come from countries that didn’t exist on the map 50 years ago, others from places where my father is older than their monarchies, and most from countries to which Nasser exported his military socialist model 60 years ago. No need to say that it’s Nasser’s legacy that the people are revolting against today in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Tunisia because apparently the citizens of these countries realized that they prefer a civilian liberal rule rather than a pan-Arabist military one.

 Now let’s take the Moroccan example. While Nasser and his clan were mocking our monarchy 60 years ago, we chose another path, a path of gradual democratic transitions, a liberal economy, structural adjustments, strategic partnerships with the West, and a reconciliation process which started long enough to start giving its fruits. Yes Hassan II was a hard father on us.

Yes you can call him a dictator in regards to certain decisions he took. But, that clever king saved us from 60 years of ‘’ideological adolescence’’ if we had taken the Nasser path like everyone else in the region. And now in less than 15 years we had voted for a leftist government, a right wing government and now we are trying the Islamist model, all without any complex and in a mature transitional democratic process that we are internally very critical about! I don’t pretend my country is perfect. I know better than anyone that it has its weaknesses.

We have a young movement which is calling for constitutional and economic reforms called the Feb-20th Movement , which recently made things advance for the better and created a fresh dynamism in the relations between the palace and the people. However, I can't stand lesson givers

@Moroccoboard.com

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