Do our National TV channels represent Moroccans?

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Chefchaouen- When TV channels demolish the bridge that links our present to our past, can they be called national? When we lose sight of our tradition, will we remain Moroccans?

I still remember those unforgettably precious moments with my grandmother. I was a child, and her stories were a great source of amusement and delight—a world of fantasy and imagination where even the animals and plants were kings and lovers. I often dozed off during the conflict of these stories, but the protagonists usually traveled with me to my childish dreams. Putting the hero in complex situations where his or her cleverness gets them off the hook (in a manner which I least expected) was the prominent technique of her narratives. Now that I am acquainted with the art of fiction to some extent, I can perceive how proficient my grandmother was in plotting stories, even though she had never attended school. It is an art that has deeply rooted origins in our culture, a tradition that tends to bridge the gap not only between the young generations and the old, but also between the present and the past.

This tradition, unfortunately, has been lost inside our Moroccan houses. With the overwhelming presence of Mexican, Indian, and Turkish soap operas translated into our mother tongue on our national TVs, our grandmothers ceased their tales and succumbed to the nearest seats in front of that box of wonders. This is not to say that they should not watch television. On the contrary, what I want to say is that national TV channels should respect our elder generation, their personality, their expectations, and above all, the traditions they stand for—especially if they want to be called national. Since after all, those like my grandmother are the only audience that these channels could keep.

I might appear very conservative and traditional so far, but this is justified when one takes into consideration the shocking number of foreign soap operas contrasted with the rarity of Moroccan ones. It is a worldwide custom that any given nation should have television stations that are owned, controlled, or strictly regulated by its respective government, which uses them to promote a national cultural agenda. But Morocco, in this regard, is another exception. Instead of urging the national soap opera production industry to develop, to reflect the people’s concerns, and more importantly to preserve and publicize those great social and cultural markings for which Moroccans are well known, those who manage the public TV channels remain indifferent. They only care about making money as easy as possible, even at the expense of jeopardizing Moroccans’ identity. Here, one might question these people’s patriotism.

Oftentimes, one’s public TV channels play an important role in the enrichment of national culture. Thus, the performance of those who are in charge of the Moroccan public TVs is shameful, since one can only distinguish our TV channels from Turkish ones when it’s time for news programs. How can we give a voice to our culture, then, since there is a clear and unjustifiable absence of Moroccan soap operas? One might easily presume indifference to the Moroccan cultural and historical body, and in time, a visual frame’s effect can be more devastating than that of a chemical weapon.

So it’s no wonder that national TV channels have lost almost the entire young Moroccan generations. The absence of programs that might attract juvenile Moroccans who roam in the maze of the new media is another dilemma that I will address somewhere else. But I believe that there must be a strategic approach to preserve and protect the Moroccan body from cultural imperialism—the signs of which become crystal clear in Moroccan society.

I would like to sum up with a very important statement by Bernard Shaw, “If you can’t justify your existence, if you’re not pulling your weight, and since you won’t, if you’re not producing as much as you consume or perhaps a little more, then, clearly, we cannot use the organizations of our society for the purpose of keeping you alive, because your life does not benefit us and it can’t be of very much use to yourself.” The same can be said to my fellow Moroccans. In a world characterized by the survival of the fittest, if we continue to consume other cultures’ products more than we produce for ourselves, we will not be able to justify ourselves as Moroccan.

Edited by Katrina Bushko

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Morocco World News’ editorial policy