Is Señor Trumpanzee Encouraging The Anti-LGBT Crackdown In Egypt?

Mashrou' Leila, a 5 piece alt-rock band from Beirut, is almost 10 years old. The sing about the some topics indie bands everywhere sing about-- like why stuff (like politics) sucks. But in their part of the world, those topics can mean trouble, especially now that they're hugely popular and draw gigantic crowds. Lead singer Hamed Sinno is openly gay-- which is dangerous in conservative Middle East societies. They were the first Middle East band ever featured on the cover of Rolling Stone but their controversial songs-- especially about tolerance of homosexuality-- have gotten them banned in Jordan. This is from their Facebook page:

We regret to inform you that the Mashrou’ Leila concert, which was supposed to take place on the 27th of June in Amman, has been cancelled following a decision by the Jordanian ministry of interior.

The decision was reminiscent of last year’s concert, when our performance was authorized, then banned, then the ban was lifted, all of which was surrounded by shameful coverage of Jordan in international press.

Again, after being invited to perform in Amman this year, and after the concert organizers obtained all the necessary licenses and permits, the Jordanian authorities have banned our performance.

We were genuinely under the impression that the Jordanian authorities were taking a clear stand with regards to freedom of expression, and the internationally sanctioned human rights pertaining to the LGBTIQ+ community, which the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and Jordan’s former Permanent Representative to the United Nations, HRH Prince Zeid Bin Ra’ad Al Hussein has been supporting.

The inconsistency of the Jordanian authorities in this respect (inviting us, then banning, then cancelling the ban, then inviting us again, then banning us again-- all within the course of 14 months-- has culminated in a clear message, that the Jordanian authorities do not intend to separate Jordan from the fanatical conservatism that has contributed in making the region increasingly toxic over the last decade.

We are terribly disheartened and sorry for our audience that this is happening again. We were extremely excited to return and play our music to our audience, friends and families who live in Jordan, and have been our foremost advocates since the band’s conception. We are sorry for being forced to exclude Jordan from our tour in the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas, which will still go on as planned.

Since all of this directly echoes the events of last year, we will reiterate our own statement from a year ago:

"An in-depth reading of the band’s stances and our songs reveals our interest in various social struggles, questioning the nature of freedom, and addressing various issues that we cannot ostrich ourselves from, be they oppression, censorship, gun control, sexual repression, the patriarchal oppression of both men and women, or the difficulty of just being, when being is in a society that constantly extinguishes our aspirations…..Saying that the band must be banned from playing in Jordan because our songs address themes of sexuality, homosexuality or support righteous democratic protests against social or political problems, is essentially saying that any artist addressing basic human rights through their work should be banned. This is a rather hostile approach towards human rights and democratic processes.”

Furthermore, pretending that these oppressive decisions are necessary under the guise of protecting “Jordanian customs and traditions” frames said traditions in a horribly regressive light. This is a misrepresentation of the people of Jordan, who we know are progressive supporters of human rights, and who respect intellectual and cultural pluralism.

Again, “one has only to look at the reaction of the Jordanian people to the cancellation, to see that the notion of a singular, homogeneous society that shares these “customs, and traditions,” does not seem to apply to Jordanian people, much as it cannot apply to anyone and anywhere else. Most importantly, the vile and absurdly fallacious smear campaign led by the Jordanian media and somehow supported by certain members of the Jordanian government, continues to go un-reprimanded, as though publishing defamatory imputations in the media to score some sort of petty “victory” against free speech, were not “at odds with Jordanian customs and traditions.”

On a more personal note, over the last 3 years of playing in Europe and the Americas, we have repeatedly leveraged our position in the public eye to be particularly vocal about defending the Arab and Islamic community in the face of US and European aggression, misrepresentation, and stereotyping.

It is disheartening to see a few members of that community trying to pit that very same community against us. We will not stop defending the Islamic community on account of this. Nor will we stop defending the LGBTIQ community on account of this. Nor will we change anything about how we go about making and performing our music. We are not afraid of the various death threats we’ve received over the last few days. We refuse to be ashamed of supporting our queer band-mate. We are proud of our work. We are proud of our audience, as always. If anything, today we are ashamed of the decisions of the Jordanian authorities.

And a few days ago they were in the NY Times, but not with a review. Field Marshal Abdel Fattah Saeed el-Sisi's fascist government is doing badly and Egyptians are growing restive. Scapegoating gays in the ultra-conservative society is an effective way to get people to stop thinking about el-Sisi's short-comings as a national leader. Tuesday the Times reported that Mashrou' Leila's Cairo concert led to an anti-LGBT crackdown in which at least 34 people have been arrested on suspicion of being gay and waving rainbow flags.

The crackdown has been fueled by social media, where images of the flag-waving were widely shared, and by dating apps and other websites, which the Egyptian police have used to entrap people suspected of being gay and transgender, activists and officials say.

Photographs and video of Ahmed Alaa, a 22-year-old law student, and others waving the flag at the concert by Mashrou’ Leila, a Lebanese band with an openly gay singer, stoked public outrage and vituperative news coverage that described the flag-waving as an assault on Egypt and its morals.

Ahmed Moussa, an influential talk show host, suggested last week that Mr. Alaa and the others had been funded by unidentified enemies who wanted to “disgrace” Egypt by making it appear to accept homosexuality.

“I am warning you against calling this a matter of personal freedom!” he told viewers. “This is about religions! This is about morals!”

In a telephone interview on Saturday, Mr. Alaa seemed unconcerned about the uproar. “Everything will be fine,” he said. “They just said that they arrested gays to calm down the public.”

The next day he was arrested and charged by national security prosecutors-- who usually investigate terrorism-- with membership in “an illegal group trying to promote homosexual ideas,” according to his lawyer, Ramadan Mohamed. His trial date has not been set.

The crackdown has primarily targeted gay men and transgender women, groups that the Egyptian state and mass media do not consider distinct from each other. Hundreds of them have been arrested since 2013 as part of a broad crackdown on social freedoms by the government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, which has killed hundreds of protesters and jailed thousands of political opponents.

The latest wave of arrests has drawn a stream of criticism from rights groups and condemnation from Mashrou’ Leila, which said in a statement on Tuesday that Egypt was “hellbent on executing the most atrocious of human rights violations.”

“What is happening now is unprecedented,” said Gasser Abed El Razek, executive director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, which has been monitoring the crackdown and providing legal aid to defendants. “We think they are doing this to respond to the fuss that the Mashrou’ Leila concert created.”

At least one recent detainee has been convicted, according to state media, which did not identify the person. It said the detainee had been sentenced last week to six years in prison for “committing debauchery.”

Most of the 34 people arrested since the concert were ensnared through social media and dating apps, prosecutors said. Egyptian authorities have long used online entrapment to arrest gay people, including during a crackdown in 2001. Officers lure someone to a date, arrest them and then use the messages sent during their flirtation as evidence in court.

...Members of Mashrou’ Leila, who are currently artists in residence at New York University’s Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies, said through a spokeswoman, Hind Azennar, that they were “heartbroken that the band’s work has been used to scapegoat yet another crackdown by the government.”

“We denounce the demonization and prosecution of victimless acts between consenting adults,” the band said. “It is sickening to think that all this hysteria has been generated over a couple of kids raising a piece of cloth that stands for love.”

The band also called for the creation of an “internationalist solidarity movement” to pressure Mr. Sisi’s government “to immediately halt its ongoing witch hunt and release all detainees.”

The persecution of gay and transgender people began in earnest in the fall of 2013 when a military curfew imposed after the removal of former President Mohamed Morsi ended. That returned control of the streets to the police, who were eager to reassert the authority they had lost during the country’s 2011 revolution that toppled President Hosni Mubarak.

The final years of Mr. Mubarak’s government, the turbulent days of the 2011 revolution and Mr. Morsi’s brief tenure were a time of relative openness for gay and transgender Egyptians.

At the time, the police were more preoccupied with trying to crush dissent and then protecting themselves when Mr. Mubarak resigned. Little attention was paid to gay Egyptians, who had last been the target of a widespread crackdown in 2001. That repression gained international attention with the arrest of dozens of gay men on the Queen Boat nightclub.

Are you afraid I'm going to tell you there's a Trump connection? Your fears are well-founded... His regime has been sending signals, very disturbing and dangerous signals.



First the good news: the UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution condemning the use of the death penalty as punishment for consensual gay relations. All the countries of Western Europe and Latin America (except Cuba, which abstained) voted for the resolution but the Trumpist Regime voted with several other barbaric fascist governments against it: Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Egypt, China, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia...

We're Still In Afghanistan To Save The Ladies?

And what happens if we stay?

I'm sure it's just a coincidence that the same week the CIA reassured Hamid Karzai that nothing-- including the Sequester here-- would slow down the cascade of bribes for him and his circle, he assured the Pentagon they could keep 9 bases in Afghanistan after the occupation officially "ends."

The C.I.A.’s station chief here met with President Hamid Karzai on Saturday, and the Afghan leader said he had been assured that the agency would continue dropping off stacks of cash at his office despite a storm of criticism that has erupted since the payments were disclosed.

The C.I.A. money, Mr. Karzai told reporters, was “an easy source of petty cash,” and some of it was used to pay off members of the political elite, a group dominated by warlords.

The use of the C.I.A. cash for payoffs has prompted criticism from many Afghans and some American and European officials, who complain that the agency, in its quest to maintain access and influence at the presidential palace, financed what is essentially a presidential slush fund. The practice, the officials say, effectively undercut a pillar of the American war strategy: the building of a clean and credible Afghan government to wean popular support from the Taliban.

Instead, corruption at the highest levels seems to have only worsened. The International Monetary Fund recently warned diplomats in Kabul that the Afghan government faced a potentially severe budget shortfall partly because of the increasing theft of customs duties and officially abetted tax evasion.

Fancy that! Well, "we" get the 9 bases (if Karzai isn't hung by his heels the day the U.S. flies out of Kabul-- if he isn't on that last helicopter or already living comfortably in Dubai or New York).

The U.S. wants to keep nine bases in Afghanistan after American combat troops withdraw in 2014 and the Afghan government will let them as long as it gets "security and economic guarantees," President Hamid Karzai said Thursday in his first public offer in talks about the future relationship between the two uneasy allies.

Not long ago, I got into a friendly argument with a couple of progressive congresswomen who are unambiguously antiwar. And they both vote that way. But they had mixed feelings about withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan "yet." Their concern, an understandable-- if wrongheaded-- one, was that "we" needed to help liberate Afghan women. Don't get me started. I lived in Afghanistan twice-- in 1969 and, for a briefer time in 1972-- and not just in Kabul, but in smaller towns and in the countryside in a settlement with two family compounds. Afghan women need help, all right-- but it's not coming at the end of a bayonet... or a drone strike.

I arrived in Delhi last year on the day of the horrific gang rape that shut the city down for a week. On local TV I noticed that everyone was angry about the rape-- very angry. But eventually I figured out that there were two distinct camps with anger pointed in very different directions. At first all the man-in-the-street interviews were with folks in Delhi, men and women, and they were outraged that their society was still so primitive and backward and conservative that gang rapes like this happen frequently. Eventually the man-in-the-street interviews started including unpaved streets. In the villages the anger was directed towards the victims of these sexual assaults. "How dare these women dress like that or go out without a brother or father accompanying them?" These women were ruining India. 

India is at least a century ahead of Afghanistan by any measure. So are longtime American allies Morocco and Jordan. Right now I'm in the middle of Rana Husseini's heartbreaking book, about "honor" killings in Jordan, Murder in the Name of Honor. I'll be talking at greater length about Husseini's book in the future but I was started today when I read the reaction to her activism on behalf of women by a Member of Parliament who is the former Justice Minister, Abdul Karim Dughmi: "All women killed in cases of honor are prostitutes. I believe prostitutes deserve to die." Believe me, if relatively modern, westernized countries like India, Morocco and Jordan have this kind of mindset-- watch the video below-- the U.S. doesn't have the attention span or the will to help the women in far more backward, xenophobic and conservative Afghanistan.



UPDATE: Not Much Progress

Onta Abadi brought Ms redaers up to date with all the progress we're making on behalf of women in Afghanistan.

Afghan lawmakers on Saturday rejected the Law on Elimination of Violence Against Women, which would criminalize child marriage, forced marriage, domestic violence and the exchange of girls and women to settle arguments, among other things. The law would also make it illegal for women to face criminal charges for adultery for being raped. (You heard that right.)

Conservative religious lawmakers argue that the law encourages “disobedience,” and says the law goes against Islamic principles (the familiar blame-God-for-the-freedoms-we-take-from-you argument). Mandavi Abdul Rahmani, one of the conservative lawmakers who opposes the law, said the Koran makes it clear that a man can beat his wife if she does not obey him, as long as she isn’t permanently harmed. (Hey, bruises go away! Even broken bones heal!) He added, “Adultery itself is a crime in Islam, whether it is by force or not.”

What Will Happen To Paul Ryan If The GOP Really Does Provoke A Revolution?

I never thought the OccupyWallStreet/99% Movement could actually lead to revolution... until this morning when I watched the sickening video above. Those are our kids, the best of our kids, being pepper sprayed like roaches by that slob with the mustache. Combine it with the self-entitled and willfully ignorant attitude from this grotesquely corrupt-- but never arrested or punished-- congressman at a public hearing and the response from the American citizen... and you see the breaking point is getting closer and closer.

When Alaska crook Don Young attacked distinguished history professor Dr. Douglas Brinkley's work as "garbage" and called him "Dr. Rice," Brinkley reminded him that he works at Rice University and that his name is Brinkley. Young, who is clearly senile, flipped out. "I can call you whatever I want to if you sit in that chair. You be quiet," he hissed. Professor Brinkley wasn't intimidated by the foolish old congressman. "You don’t own me. I pay your salary. You work for me."

The good professor's statement clashes with the divine right attitude-- fueled more by raw cash this time around than anything else-- that is now 100% prevalent among conservatives. The cop in Davis doesn't work for us anymore than does Don Young. They work for the 1% and their job is the same: holding down the 99%.

That's why Krugman was right the other day when he said the SuperCommittee would fail-- and that we're lucky it will fail. The 1% want it all-- everything-- and they believe that that is their right. The institutions of the state are in their hands-- whether the pepper-spraying cop in Davis, the corrupt, reactionary congressman from Alaska, the SuperCommittee or, for that matter, the entire Inside the Beltway set up and that of most of the states. It's now just a matter of time before people won't take it any more.

A House Democratic leader said a U.S. deficit-cutting agreement can’t include the extension of Bush-era tax cuts, while an influential Republican said his House colleagues won’t back a deal calling for new tax revenue.

The disagreement underscores the crux of the problem facing a congressional panel seeking to meet a Nov. 23 deadline to trim at least $1.2 trillion from the deficit over the next decade.

Representative Jim Jordan, head of the Republican Study Committee, which pushes for deeper spending cuts, said any deficit-cutting proposal that includes a tax increase is unlikely to clear a majority of the House’s Republicans.

Representative James Clyburn, a Democratic member of the supercommittee, said if Republicans demand an extension of the tax cuts won by President George W. Bush in 2001 and 2003 the chances of an agreement are dim.

“It would be difficult” to win passage of a supercommittee plan that includes more taxes, said Jordan, of Ohio, on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt,” airing this weekend.

“If it’s a net tax increase, this is the most fundamental principle within the Republican Party,” Jordan said. “This is a sacred trust I think we as Republicans have with voters.”

Sacred? Really? Sacred? Can you even be a Republican these days without absolutely loathing the message of Jesus Christ? I can't see how it would be possible to embrace Jesus and the GOP message. Their actual object of worship-- Ayn Rand and her adolescent philosophy of selfishness and greed-- is the basis of the religion of Republicanism and... Christianity it's not. Paul Ryan, more than most, has been willing it publicly embrace it-- and it's reflected in his hate-the-poor legislative agenda.



In yesterday's Washington Post moderate Ezra Klein examined Ryan's latest thrust against ordinary working families on behalf of those who have financed his political career and have promised to make him president. Klein views Ryan's "Inequality Report" charitably and treats it as a serious policy statement-- even finds some worthwhile points.

But more broadly, Ryan’s paper tries to create a false choice between reducing income inequality, encouraging economic mobility and accelerating growth. Toward the end, Ryan actually says the debate over inequality breaks down into two groups:

1. Is the problem simply that some households make more than others, in which case policymakers should be focused on closing this income gap by any means at their disposal, indifferent as to whether government policies aimed to close relative inequality result in lower absolute levels of income?

2. Or is the problem that incomes for households in the middle- and lower-quintiles are not rising fast enough, in which case policymakers should focus first and foremost on creating the conditions for income growth and job creation?

If there actually is anyone out there who believes we should be focused on closing the income gap no matter the cost to growth, I’ve never met them. Conversely, there actually are people who focus on what they think to be pro-growth policies without heed to the income gap. People like, say, Paul Ryan.

In 2010, the Tax Policy Center released a detailed analysis of the tax provisions in Ryan’s Roadmap for America. If you were in the top 1 percent, they found, Ryan’s plan would save you $350,000 a year. If you were in the middle of the income distribution, it would cost you $152 a year. And if you were in the bottom 20 percent, it would cost you $393 a year. That would undoubtedly increase inequality.

And there’s good evidence that increasing inequality is, ultimately, bad for growth. Over at the International Monetary Fund, Andrew Berg and Jonathan Ostry recently published a paper looking at the relationship between inequality and growth across the world. In a sense, they were testing Ryan’s proposition exactly. “Some dismiss inequality and focus instead on overall growth-- arguing, in effect, that a rising tide lifts all boats,” they write.

Berg and Ostry found that “high ‘growth spells’ were much more likely to end in countries with less equal income distributions.” Moreover, “the effect is large .?.?. closing, say, half the inequality gap between Latin America and emerging Asia would more than double the expected duration of a ‘growth spell.’?” And it was robust: “Inequality seemed to make a big difference almost no matter what other variables were in the model or exactly how we defined a ‘growth spell.’?”

Ryan also plumps for his Medicare reforms as a solution to inequality. As you’ll remember, his budget proposes converting Medicare into a voucher system where seniors would be given a check and sent into a regulated private market to purchase insurance. The plan saves money because the check would grow at the rate of inflation, while health-care costs often increase three times faster than inflation, so, quite quickly, the check would cover only a small portion of an individual senior’s costs.

For rich seniors, this wouldn’t much matter. They could easily afford the cost of private insurance. For middle-income seniors, or lower-income seniors, it would be a disaster. Ryan offers them some subsidies, but not nearly enough. The cost of coverage would quickly outpace the resources many of them have to pay for it.

I mention this because Ryan’s paper emphasizes the difference between “absolute” and “relative” inequality. “A century ago,” Ryan writes, “the average American lived a life that was dramatically different, in terms of what he or she could experience and obtain, from an elite like Rockefeller. In many important respects, the difference between ultra-elites and average Americans is less pronounced today.”

But that difference is less pronounced in large part because of programs like Medicare, which ensure that poor and middle-class seniors have access to health care of similar quality to that of richer seniors. So where Ryan’s analysis suggests the need to means-test Medicare and control health-care costs to ease inequality, the core of his health-care plan, the very plan he touts in the conclusion to his paper, would dramatically increase absolute health-care inequality for seniors.

So it’s good that Ryan has started thinking hard about inequality. But it would be better if he thought harder about what policy could do to address it, or at least to avoid making it dramatically worse.

Will Morocco Be The Next Domino To Fall? Or The One After That?

You can easily tell a real revolution from a staged one

Dictators like Mubarak, Ben Ali or Yemen's Ali Abdullah Saleh (who has just promised not to pass the presidency along to his son) can pack up their Swiss bank account safety deposit bank combinations-- maybe dropping in on the national bank and stealing whatever's left of the country's gold deposits-- and take off for France or Saudi Arabia. But it's harder for a king. Some of them actually believe all the divine-right crap and the dynastic stuff. This week King Abdullah of Jordan, like all of them a self-proclaimed descendent of the Prophet Mohammed, replaced the billionaire crook running his cabinet for him with a military crook and promised cheaper food prices, in the hopes of staving off the inevitable. Syria, ostensibly a republic of sorts, seems to have a hereditary dictatorship and looks to me like the next country to blow, although I suspect the dictator there, Bashar Assad, will feel less constrained than Mubarak has been about just slaughtering everyone who gets wild. After all, his father pretty much leveled the city of Hama in 1982 when the Muslim Brotherhood got feisty, killing 30-40,000 people.

Syrians are organising campaigns on Facebook and Twitter that call for a "day of rage" in Damascus this week, taking inspiration from Egypt and Tunisia in using social networking sites to rally their followers for sweeping political reforms.

Like Egypt and Tunisia, Syria suffers from corruption, poverty and unemployment. All three nations have seen subsidy cuts on staples like bread and oil. Syria's authoritarian President Bashar al-Assad has resisted calls for political freedoms and jailed critics of his regime.

On Sunday a group of 39 activists and opposition figures issued a statement hailing Egypt and Tunisia's protesters, but Mr Assad has shown no signs of flinching.

The case of Morocco is different. Next-door neighbor Algeria's stability will probably have more impact there than will monarchical Jordan's or thuggish Syria's.

President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who has ruled the country since 1999, was elected on the promise to end the violence that had plagued the country for much of its history since independence from France in 1962.

To a certain extent he has succeeded, and after years of political upheaval the country is beginning to emerge as a centre of enterprise, heavily assisted by the country's huge oil and gas reserves. It has estimated oil reserves of nearly 12 billion barrels, attracting strong interest from foreign oil firms.

However, poverty remains a serious problem and unemployment high, particularly among Algeria's youth. Almost 50 per cent of Algeria's 34.6 million people are under 25, and the youthful population coupled with a lack of jobs has made Algeria something of a simmering cauldron. Endemic government corruption and poor standards in public services are also chronic sources of popular dissatisfaction.

Mounting grievances over spiralling costs and unemployment triggered the riots earlier this month, encouraged by public protests in Tunisia that forced its president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to flee.

I hope I'm not boring everybody with all the talk about Morocco, which I realize most Americans haven't been terribly aware of since it became the very first country in the world-- yes, even before France-- to recognize our revolution and our independence from the tyranical British superpower, in December 1777. I first went there in 1969, when I was just a kid, and I've been writing about it ever since-- mostly at my travel blog. I lost count of how many times I've been there after a dozen, and I've yet to meet a Moroccan who's been to as many places in Morocco as I have. (I can always pull Sidi Ifni or the Erg Chigaga dunes south of M'hamid out of my hat.) 

I just spent most of December in Marrakech, where I rented a riad next to King Mohammed VI's palace in the medina. Most of the traffic that comes to the travel blog comes from people on search engines who find the post Is Morocco A Safe Place To Visit?. And believe me, I usually try to keep the two blogs separate. I sometimes have to restrain Ken from posting the travel pieces on DWT when I'm travel-blogging from the road. The short answer to the question about Morocco being safe is YES. But in light of the revolutionary spirit coursing through the Arab world, especially in North Africa, we need to take a look again. 

Can tranquil, scenic, touristic, ever more cosmopolitan Morocco go the way of Tunisia and Egypt? Short answer is the same: YES!

I didn't want to be rude to my Marrakech neighbor, but like I wrote, Mohammed VI-- when you strip away the 21st=century P.R. veneer-- is an authoritarian despot, not all that much different from any king or Emperor or sultan or tsar. In fact, one thing I noticed a lot, and eventually started questioning people about, is that many Moroccans sounded exactly like pre-Revolutionary Russians believing that if only their Little Tsar knew what evil the terrible men around him were perpetrating against his people, he would take care of it! 

Mohammed calls all the shots in the family business, a business that owns at least a piece of almost everything in the country, from the big hotels to the drug-trafficking bonanza that a WikiLeaks cable from a U.S. diplomat asserts is the only bigger source of income in the kingdom than the tourist industry. And remember, it was the release of WikiLeaks cables that opened the floodgates against the dictators in Tunisia and Egypt as well.


Even members of the royal family believe Morocco's monarchy can't go unscathed by what is sweeping the rest of North Africa right now. The King's cousin, Prince Moulay Hicham, third in line to the throne and popularly known as the "Red Prince" because of his criticisms of the monarchy, is reported as having said that "the political liberalisation launched in the 1990s after Mohammed succeeded his authoritarian father Hassan II had virtually come to an end, and reviving it while still avoiding radical pressures would be 'a major challenge.'" 

Everyone is counting on the spiritual bond between the King and the people, a bond, they hope, makes him different from a grubby usurper like Ben Ali or Mubarak or Algeria's Abdelaziz Bouteflika. On the other hand, dissident journalist Aboubakr Jamai wrote in France's Nouvel Observateur, "If Morocco goes up, the disparities in wealth are such that the rebellion will be much bloodier than in Tunisia."

Afrol News appears to be as anti-monarchical and down with tyranny as we are here. This week, with Egypt exploding, they seemed to try stirring things up a little for Mohammed, who they reported was off in one of his fabulous palaces... in France, plotting, no doubt, contingencies in case any radicals decide it's time to follow the example of Tunisia and Egypt and throw off the chains of oppression and kleptocracy.

Discontent is ample in Morocco, the poorest, least developed North African nation, and many are inspired by developments in Egypt. Meanwhile, Morocco's King Mohammed VI rests in his French luxury chalet.

Morocco so far has been spared from larger protesting groups as those in Tunisia and Egypt, much thanks to the King's quick reversal of boosting prices for basic foods. The same move proved a good assurance for authorities in neighboring Algeria.

But discontent is very widespread in Morocco. Despite an economic boom over the last years and some careful reforms ordered by King Mohammed VI-- most prominently regarding gender equality and education-- Morocco remains the poorest country in North Africa, with the least employment opportunities and the lowest literacy rate.

The King, claiming to descend from the Prophet Mohammed, has an almost divine role in Morocco. Very few dare to criticise him, even in the mildest form.

Among the Arab majority, loyalty to the King is great, while the government-- appointed by the King-- and age-old ruling "Makhzen" class-- controlling the administration, police, army and much of business-- are the popular focus of hatred. In the streets of Casablanca, it is often said that the King is honest and wants to rule the country well, but the Makhzen is corrupting everything.

Minorities, however, to a wider degree dare to blame the King for their mischief. This includes large parts of the indigenous and disadvantaged Berber people. Estimates of the Berber population wary from 20 to 60 percent of the Moroccan total, with official estimates being the lowest. Unemployment is highest among Berber youths, of which many view the Arab King as a foreign imposer.

...As the tourist market in all North Africa now is crumbling-- many travellers fear Morocco could be next-- the kingdom's greatest growth and employment sector could soon be strongly impacted. A sudden growth in unemployment due to falling tourist arrivals could spark revolt.

Blogging from Fes, Matt Schumann is a Fulbright scholar and English teacher at the S.M. Ben-Abdellah University, a graduate of Rice University and an incredibly well-informed and very perceptive observer of the Moroccan street, far more so than anyone you're ever going to hear on the utterly clueless CNN or the ideologically sociopathic Fox News. Last week he wrote about being in Morocco and watching the Moroccans watch the developments unfolding in Egypt. His conclusion, though, is that Morocco is immune to the upheavals sweeping the Arab world. I disagree, but I want to offer his arguments, since they make a great deal of sense and include important information we'll need to look at when the revolution does, inevitably, come to Morocco.

It's been strange to be in Morocco during all of this. There's no lack of information. When you walk into a cafe, people are watching coverage of Egyptian protesters burning police vehicles or tearing down posters of Hosni Mubarak. But these images and ideas don't seem to be penetrating. A glance through two of the biggest newspapers, As-Sabah and Al-Masa', lead you to believe that the protests are only tangentially relevant to Moroccans. There are no attempts to apply Tunisians' and Egyptians' grievances to a Moroccan context. On Facebook, my students have posted pictures of the Egyptian protesters along with words of support and solidarity, and then proclaim their love for Morocco's King Muhammad VI. How can you identify with the protesters of two revolutions against authoritarian governments and still do that?

Why have the events in Tunisia and Egypt failed to generate the same reaction in Morocco as they have elsewhere in the Arab world?

Reading reports from the past weeks has made it clear to me that life for the average Moroccan is very different than that of a Tunisian or an Egyptian. Yes, Morocco is a poor country with high unemployment. The GDP per capita is significantly lower than Egypt's and nearly half that of Tunisia. Yet, the poverty is not oppressive. Life necessities are cheap in Morocco. People are poor but do not starve. The Moroccan government also tolerates "underground economic activities" which provide money and support for many young, uneducated Moroccans. The most notable of these is the drug trade, which according to WikiLeaks, generates more money than tourism, the largest sector of the Moroccan economy.

A second, key difference, concerns education. As one commentator pointed out, Tunisia is an exception in the Arab world in that it has a large, educated middle class. The middle class' dissatisfaction with the country's economic prospects fueled the protests that eventually led to Ben Ali's downfall. Egyptians, while not nearly as wealthy as Tunisians, are similarly educated. Both countries post literacy rates in the 70s and both protests movements have utilized social (especially Tunisia) and print media (especially Egypt) for organizational purposes. Morocco is a completely different story.

At best, 50% of Moroccans are literate and many well-educated Moroccans are ex-pats living in Europe or North America. While this may seem insignificant, I think it's a huge factor. Moroccans' illiteracy hampers the spread of information in general, and would definitely impede the organization of any type of protest movement. Additionally, the Moroccans who identify the most with Tunisia and Egypt don't live in Morocco. They've already exercised their discontent by leaving the country... [T]here is no credible opposition to the King [inside Morocco].

Morocco is a parliamentary monarchy that has a prime minister, political parties and elections. But in reality, it's something else. Parliament and the lesser bodies of government are where corrupt officials take bribes and appoint their sons- and daughters-in-law to influential posts. This corruption is obvious and derided by the Moroccan people. It's not uncommon for a Moroccan to say that the best way to make money in the country is to get into politics, but that you can only do that if you know the right people.

The King is seen as the only credible member of government despite his overwhelming and unquestionable political powers. And there's good reason for this. Royal initiatives, like infrastructure development and some social reforms, are completed on time and relatively efficiently. In other words, he gets things done when other Moroccan politicians don't. Combine that with the legacy of the Alaouite Dynasty, which has ruled Morocco for nearly four hundred years, and Muhammad VI is seen less as a despot and more as a benevolent and beloved monarch.

Now it's true that the King has the power to end the corruption that plagues parliament, the police and the military. Allowing his political opponents to profit in their subordinate positions decreases their desire for change. Additionally, their corruption draws the ire and attention of the people. So while his policies may leave something to be desired in the eyes of some Moroccans, the alternatives are much much worse.

The commentator who describes Tunisia as an exception in the Middle East may be eating his words in the next few days depending on Egypt's outcome. This doesn't mean Moroccans are happy with the state of affairs in their country. Poverty, unemployment, education, and political freedom are just a few issues that Moroccans feel must be addressed. But for now, the situation does not seem dire.

More than anything, Moroccans love stability. This is why they love the King. They tolerate the political and social status quo because it still meets their needs and because they don't have to worry about what tomorrow will bring. Because of this mindset, I don't think radical change is anything many Moroccans feel is necessary. Speaking to a Moroccan friend he said that while things here are not good, they are getting better. "Maybe five or ten years from now, but not now," he added. As long as this attitude persists, Morocco will stay stable.

Everybody loves stability. But it costs Morocco an awful lot to keep the King-- much more than he's worth, not just in my estimation but in the estimation of more and more people. When Egypt falls and things get ramped up in another country, Mohammed VI is going to be very happy that his family's corporation has all the billions of dollars they've stolen from the people of Morocco separate from the state's funds. Like the rest of the kleptocrats, they and their spawn will be living on it for generations-- in other countries.