Martin Rose

A good editorial in TelQuel this week, an issue otherwise devoted to analysis of Benky 2 (laborant montes … ). Fahd Iraqi writes in his editorial about the now famous Baiser de Nador, the Nador Kiss, which has outraged and titillated Morocco this last fortnight. To recap, two teenagers kissed at the school gates in … More Kiss kiss

An evening at the splendidly refurbished Cinema Renaissance in Avenue Mohamed V, to see Nabil Ayouch’s new documentary, My Land. As anyone who has not slept like Rip Van Winkle for the last few months knows, it is a film exploring the attachment to the same land, in northern Israel, of the Palestinians who were … More Deux récits des mêmes événements

Last weekend 500 demonstrators fought it out with police at Bab el-Rouah, outside the Ministry of Education. That matters got violent is a measure of the desperation of the chomeurs diplomés who find themselves part of Morocco’s structural unemployment problem. Today, October 6th, there was another, slightly larger, demo in the centre of Rabat, also … More Risk-adjustment and jobbery

When I was a child I loved a book called The Phantom Tollbooth, about a boy named Milo who travelled in his toy car to the Kingdom of Wisdom. Once there, he picked up a faithful companion called Tick-Tock (Tock to his friends): Tock was a watchdog, in a rather literal sense. He had a … More ‘Take an hour and change the fate of the world,’ sang Tock

Most journalists and commentators digest and regurgitate each other. We know this, but we read them because we don’t have much choice, and it’s not at all easy to break free of the apparently authoritative recycling of constantly repurposed opinion. Much, perhaps most, of what has been written about the Arab Spring in general, and … More When the Beating of Your Heart Echoes the Beating of the Drum

A line or two to note the excellent Chellah Jazz Festival which finishes tonight. The EC Delegation has owned it for many years, and has run it alone for the last two – and the results are very good. I’m not really a jazz enthusiast, and only attended one night, the second, having been obliged … More Rock the Chellah

Before the summer the British Council presented a lecture by Prof Nabil Matar, on Morocco in the War of the Spanish Succession. Nabil was (see Naval Warfare and Mannequins) particularly interesting on the way in which Moulay Ismail used his leverage to play off one side against the other – and on the role which … More Gibraltar, Ceuta and King Boabdil V

Britons have many geographical misconceptions about North Africa. The first is the ‘horizontal fallacy,’ the blithe assumption that North Africa is an east-west line of states stretching from the Atlantic to the Red Sea, along the Mediterranean coast. Most journalistic commentators on what they would probably call ‘the Middle East’ or ‘the Arab World’ could … More No three foot high giraffe