By Ahmed Jalali
If you don’t smell the atmosphere of February 20 these days, and a few
breezes of 2011, then you should see a doctor immediately. You must have a cold
that has blocked your sense of smell, preventing your nose from detecting what “GenZ
212” is cooking.
Morocco , the land of the Arab-Amazigh people is snging (Z) melody
these days; no voice is louder than the voice of the youth of “Generation
Z”.
The streets are buzzing with popular demands, while the government and
its president “Aziz“, whose name amazingly contains two “Z”,
have cowardly disappeared. .
The Latin alphabet mostly starts with ‘A’ and ends with ‘Z’, this Moroccan
generation, which cuts a long story short, has chosen the last
letter of the alphabet and associated itself with it. The silent message of
their actions to those in power is: We don’t want talk; give us our tangible
material rights: work, health, and education.
As clear as this generation is in its demands, they can’t be blamed for the
absence of any political or ideological romance in their discourse and
lifestyle. This is because they are a pure product of an era in which politics,
poetry, art, and everything that would make them resemble the generations of
their parents and grandparents have disappeared.
If this youth displeases the state, the Makhzen (establishment), the
authorities, and all centers of power in the country, they should only blame
themselves. They should ask themselves what they were doing and what they were
preoccupied with when this generation was being shaped.
Do you remember what thousands of children chanted a few years ago in front
of Parliament, protesting the “cursed bastard” extra hour of daylight
saving time? They shouted from outside the Parliament in Mohammed V Avenue,
cursing the legislators, calling them sons of ‘…’ and used other derogatory terms, secretly as
well.
Some Moroccans, perhaps many, look at these young people as if they were
meteorite fragments that suddenly fell on their heads this “weekend.”
Similarly, some “smart ones” rushed to investigate the nature of the
“server” from which they are issuing their discourse and coordinating
their movements.
The situation is simple: the oldest of these people, who are frightening the
anti-riot forces today, was not yet in elementary school in 2011, during the
Arab Spring days. They are the grandchildren of Moroccans who are in their
fifth or sixth decade.
They are the clear and scandalous expression of the transformed, just, and
simple popular demands that the Left, Right, and Center have repeated for
decades, and no one listened.
The embarrassing parts in what is happening today are the stark indicators
coming directly from an angry street, stripped of any veneer of waving
ridingo or opportunism, including:
·
This mouvement who
seeks state guarantees for a secure does not need parties or unions to show them
the way. They come from a world that knows neither “Moukhaarik” nor
Akhannouch, nor Benkirane, nor El Othmani, nor Ouzzine, nor Benabdellah… They
are from the people, and the people are instinctively “walking and know
their way. They are burying rusty and poisoned structures named trade unions
and political parties that abandoned their role and voluntarily committed
suicide.
·
Young in age, mature in
movement and behaviour, they are peaceful. Their awareness and good conduct
have embarrassed everyone who would wishe for them to lose control, to serve his
own agenda or to seek a role that events and facts have surpassed.
·
Just as Morocco continued
its path for more than half a year during the “blockage” experience
(governmental deadlock) without the slightest need for the government or its
representatives, Generation Z is
proceeding on its path, raising the banners of its demands without the need for
the eloquence of the politicians or the bombast of the Labour unions clowns.
The beautiful thing in all this is that the erosion of the political and
union entities has canceled out the intermediaries and brokers between the
people and those who truly govern them, despite the advantages of having a
genuine national “bumper” that absorbs shocks and maintains a thin
barrier of respect between the peak and the base. But this is the unvarnished
truth these days.
Upon contemplating this escalating, smooth movement, despite the arrests and
detentions, every Moroccan has the right to read Yā-Sīn chapter of the holy Quran over the upcoming elections.
This political league no longer has teams to compete in for the promised cup
of democracy (given that we agreed above on the death of politics and the
burial of partisanship).Game over.
