Let’s All Have a Happier New Year

Rabat – Had it been only for the habit, I would have done it, but I have a sincere need to wish you a better new year, the best you have had. Because I care, I must tell you we should all dare.

Because I know how sad you have been every time you saw or heard of a piece of nature destroyed, polluted and decayed by the action of your kin, the humans, I feel I must sympathize and wish you a year with less abuse of the environment, of animals and of dreams of a clean, healthy and joyful world suppressed.

Because I know how much you have abhorred those who aggress, burn and kill innocent humans and steal their lands and occupy their homes and turn to the world crying as if they were the victims, I must tell you this will not last for ever and the day will come, sooner than you can imagine, that you will wake up and find none of it around.

Because I know how frustrated you have felt every time you saw a person denied the right to their choices and humiliated because of who they are or want to be, I must tell you you are not the only one, there will be at least another individual who will march with you, by your side the day you decide to stand against it until every single person has recovered their dignity. Say the word, and find out!

Because I know how helpless you have felt every time you saw the dust, the smoke and the blood which tanks, fighter jets, armored vehicles and missiles launched from submarines and aircraft carriers splatter, raise and spread in lands you have cherished all your life, I must tell you of empires, kingdoms and republics that once were and are no more.

Because I know how angered you are by talks and discourses making of you who the loathe some person they want the world to believe you are, lying, fabricating histories and manipulating minds, so that you are hated, feared, discriminated against, excluded and become the target to all kinds of weapons, I must tell you as long as you let anger conquer you, you will neither understand nor be able to explain, build counter arguments or beat your adversaries on their own battlefields because weak they are, weak their justifications will remain and unstable the grounds on which they stand.

Because I know how much you want to protect your sovereignty and make your decisions for yourself, I must tell you that repayment of a debt is not the problem but the consequence of one, unless your address the cause, the same effects will be regenerated over and over again.

Because I know how sorry you are when you see a few reap what the many have sown oblivious of their needs, wants and rights, I must tell you while justice, generosity, compassion, solidarity and kindness to others may have never been of the core of the essential nature of Man, there have always been men and women who have, despite the odds of nature, made of them all their nature.

Because I know how broken-hearted you are when you see a little girl picked up from a playground to be given to an old man into marriage, how disgusted you are when you hear of an adolescent woman made pregnant by a neighbor, a close relative in an incestuous crime or by a supervisor in her work or a boss only to be discarded from society, I must tell you that change does not come on its own, has never been easy to take roots and that actions that result in facts supersede values, principles and laws and not the contrary.

Because I know how disappointed you are with the inadmissible huge proportions of men and women who are still denied schooling, quality education, the enjoyment of culture and the wellbeing, satisfactions and various statuses they give access to, I must tell you that not only will their predicament not change but the plight of their learned and educated congeners will go worsening until they understand that they will never be happy, never be satiated and never be at peace as long as illiteracy survives and reading and writing are prohibited to a single countryman or countrywomen.

Because I know how much you hurt at the sight of a little girl, hundreds of miles away from her mom, running errands early in the morning hardly protected from the cold, while the kids, older than she is, she is serving are still fast asleep in the warmth of their comfortable beds, and how true your pain is at the sight of little boy smeared with grease and dirt hitting all day on red hot pieces of iron, I must tell you, school will not fulfill any of its missions, nor will research and development have any meaning nor will the whole country become a nation as long as the childhood of these kids is ransacked.

Because I know how staggered you are when you see horror winning prizes and peace traded in so cheaply, relegated to the most insignificant values and punished, I must tell you that no matter how mighty predators can be, they have always ended up eating up each other and preys surviving.

Because I know how scared you are when they cancel concerts, parties and conferences and when they order restaurants, playgrounds and bars to close, I must tell you that the failures are not yours and that, contrarily to what they would want to make you believe, you cannot fight terrorism by hiding, closing your doors and giving up streets nor will you reduce risks by planting whole armies in the corner of each of them nor by turning your back to fun or to others.

Because I know how bad you long for a world that was, or you think has been, I must tell you, you only have the one you will make and that once broken against the shore or the wall of a cliff, a rolling wave cannot be rebuilt, it can only withdraw, shattered all her power lost.

Because I know the sorrow that tears you apart at the sight of whom you thought were the intellectuals you expected to lead the way jumping around, shaking, drooling and chanting psalms they went to pains to recover from forgotten pasts in collective hysterical happenings making believe they are engaged in a sacred ritual, I must tell you that history has only one and single direction and that it can only go forward.

Because I know you are fed up, please excuse my French, with the privileges and benefits that make some above the law and you pay for them, I must tell you that equality is not a word written in a constitutions nor that being equal is a value to be discussed in auditoriums and TV shows but facts of everyday life and relationships among real people in the real world which real people make or fail to make.

Because I know how dear your privacy is to you, I must tell you that no right is wasted nor is it lost as long as it is claimed and pursued.

My wish to you for this new year is that you listen to your heart and follow it, ponder what your mind tells you and take heed, look at the beauty of nature around you and enjoy it and never lose touch with those who love you and you love, speak to them, let them speak to you and be happy together.

I must tell you how happy I am you listen to me and how happier I will be listening to you.