Rabat – Two weeks ago, some warlike behavior in Marrakech, simply because the traffic increased as a result of the 25th edition of the marathon, pushed me to ask myself a thousand of questions about what we have become, what is the image and feeling that our society reflects to us.
I must say that I was leaving a good seminar about philosophy where a very large audience was peacefully there to think about the brave lesson provided. What a paradox compared to what I was going to experience the next day when I left the city.
Horns that ruin your eardrums, insults that make you look down, shouting that reveals to you the primary reality of some people, eyebrows frowning that exasperate you, closed faces.
Where is our century-old joviality, our joy to live in community of respect, tolerance and acceptance for each other? Why have we become so angry, so quarrelsome, so aggressive and so violent?
Being so mean, is it a fate that we cannot avoid anymore or a common genetic background? Something immutable? And here is a minister who is insulted inside the parliament. The Prime Minister is blocked, mishandled, the interior minister heckled… that makes me dizzy.
Citizens are assaulted, robbed mercilessly and are scarred for life because of the cruelty of others. Reckless drivers kill on any street corner and everywhere on the roads from the more dangerous to the more sophisticated, from the more eccentric to the more urbanized.
Young man handle their teachers, break their schools, vandalize public properties without indulgence for what is supposed to have been designed to benefit them: stadiums, youth centers, public areas, buses, etc.
Are we still able to control ourselves, to manage ordinary situations, without shouting, without arguments, without offensive remarks? Are we able to stay patient a few seconds without honking, just waiting as normally as possible once the traffic light goes to green?
Can we no longer drive over the emergency lanes around highways that are meant for emergency vehicles and the police? Do we lack that much of education that we are not able to manage our conflicts without using violence, threats, or aggression?
Are we still able to just let a girl or a lady go to her business without harassment, inappropriate words or demonstrating bestial behavior? Where is our exemplary education, our veneration of respect, our taste for beauty, our genius for aesthetics, our nice and pleasant nature?
What happened to our traditional values? Are we just crazy?
Some of us have already given up, others are feeling nostalgic without any hope for the future. Others are outraged and are looking far from this changing society, this society that has forgotten the basic rules of living in community.
What happened to our ideals, our taste for progress, our aspiration for a bright future? Have we been absorbed by hate and intolerance? The selfishness and foolishness, the anger and stupidity?
And what if our politicians decide to talk without insults? What if our school comes back to the colors, its beautiful colors, those of yesterday?
And if our children of this school were received properly and learn in joy, in their mother tongue? If our pupils began to master the required standards in the sciences, technologies, languages, and history of their cities, their icons, their past in colleges and high schools and used them to look for a better future?
If our universities were no more fiefs of obscurantism and criminality?
If our mosques spoke to us?
If parents found the respect and recognition of their offspring?
If officials rediscovered the public service as well as citizenship?
If nurses, doctors, teachers rediscovered their true humanist and generous mission?
If our media became more objective?
If our justice became more fair?
If our streets became clean?
If our cities became peaceful?
If our neighborhoods turn into excellent living spaces?
If we all together get to love our forests, our rivers, our mountains, our sun, our beaches, and our country?
If the rich and the powerful started to respect the rules of the road and the rest of the laws?
If no more child, girl, woman was raped?
If no more bag, jewel, or phone was robbed?
If we get a little less ripped off or hosed all the time?
If our prisons became schools of life and reintegration?
If we finally, each of us, took the responsibility to be Moroccan and belong to this blessed land?
Then, and only then, could we and would we be the most beautiful country in the world. And maybe the sport would recover again, too.
But that is another story.
Translated by Nahla Landolsi. Edited by Matthew Osborn
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Morocco World News’ editorial policy
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