By Omar Bihmidine
By Omar Bihmidine
Morocco World News
Sidi Ifni, August 29, 2012
No sooner had the fuel prices risen in Morocco than Abdelilah Benkirane, Morocco’s head of government, appeared, making use of his usually maudlin speeches to convince the poor Moroccan masses that the rise will sooner or later be for their benefit. As a rule, Mr. Benkirane has a set of excuses at hand to exonerate the defects of his government’s so-called bold steps.
What the decision of increasing the fuel prices clearly hints at is that every time Moroccans attempt to procure their dignified, inalienable livelihood, they – according to Mr. Benkirane’s ‘bold step’ – have to depend on their fellow Moroccans, not on the government. It is mainly because the latter hasn’t resorted to its general capital to dedicate a sum of money to widows and the female divorced as the revenues of the increase in fuel prices was actually meant for.
Put another way, Moroccans, consciously or unconsciously, ‘feed’ one another and help each other through their hard times. Who is, for instance, going to pay for the livelihood of the divorced and the widow? Simply put, Moroccans themselves, not the government. It is not necessarily because they all own a sense of cooperation, but because they have lost faith in their government.
Whenever a Moroccan falls seriously ill, his or her family first hastens to consult neighbors for help. At other times, Moroccans have recourse to private doctors whom they pay for treatment. Seldom do they go to public hospitals, for they are already tired of the increasingly shoddy services provided there. Nowadays, only Moroccans who have no neighbors and no money to pay for their treatment usually go to public hospitals. It is sad that Moroccans are disappointed in the health service and therefore cannot help but stop depending on their government.
” Many pregnant women have faced the challenge of giving birth to their babies outside the public hospital, ” said several enraged women.
This can also be true of our education. While the rich Moroccans have sent their children to private schools in quest of a better education, poor Moroccans have no choice but to depend on their government. Yet, they are met with a deplorable education in all respects. It is at this point where Moroccans no longer wait for their government to provide them with good education for the reason that their long expectations have petered out and their hopes have been dashed.
” We have sent our children to school, but we are afraid this shoddy education will be of no use to them nowadays, ” some Moroccan families have said.
“The livelihood of Moroccans is in the hands of Allah, not in the hands of the government,” Abdelilah Benkirane once declared.
Even though religiously mistaken, Mr. Benkirane simply confirmed what has been the case with most Moroccan families. No Moroccan family has received its livelihood from the government for God’s sake. It is through their toil and daily struggle with life expenses that they earn their living.
In nearly all Moroccan families we find out that the breadwinner usually takes charge of the household expenses. Moroccan families do not depend on their government; they rather depend on and live on what they receive from their closest relatives, the only breadwinners in the home. If Moroccan families had depended on the government, the latter would already have disappeared.
Millions of Moroccans do not knock the doors of the Ministry of Health for their health, the Ministry of Education for their education, the Ministry of Justice for their justice, the Ministry of Sport for their sporting events, the Ministry of Communication for communicating their daily life troubles to the world, and the Ministry of Money for earning their living.
Very little has been given to Moroccans by these ministries. I am certain they have already begun to depend on God by helping one another with the life necessities and forget about their government, which seldom lives up to their needs and expectations.
