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Just as Moroccans were jubilantly celebrating their Football team’s unprecedented performance at the World Cup, an imposter with poor writing skills and no formal journalism training decided to urinate on their parade.
The era of yellow journalism has officially been kicked into turbo gear. Anyone with a lousy internet connection and a subpar website can now call himself a Journalist. In these mediocre times, journalists can run their mouths with complete disregard to the ethics of the profession. These are not members of the fourth estate whose primary mission is to keep power in check. Nor are they the supposed purveyors of facts and truth. These are plume pimps and keyboard prostitutes.
We should all be comforted by the fact that the gratuitous false allegations about Zakaria Aboukhlal were stoked from someone whose credibility is that of a cannibal lecturing on the benefits of organic veggies. He’s known to subsist on the leftovers of shady politicians and the crumbs of questionable public figures.. He is the proverbial glass house dweller who wouldn’t hesitate throwing rocks when the financial rewards are too lucrative to pass up. This time, however, he missed miserably. His shots had a boomerang effect and further stained his already dented reputation. The attacks were flagrantly virulent; the kind of virulence that can only come from a hired pen.
Undoubtedly, an on demand article that he was commissioned to produce.
He is a Bonafide grifter. He jumps ship to line up with the highest bidder. He’s got no allegiance to anyone or anything other than those lining up his pockets. He’s guided by zero principles. His opinions waver and shift in acquiescence to the whims of his masters. His moral compass is guided by the direction the winds happen to be blowing. He’s an unrepenting coward. In extreme cases, he issues halfhearted apologies. He never feels any remorse or regrets. He repositions himself just to weathers the storm. He is never willing to meet truth halfway.
Most defamatory charges come from a place of ignorance. Some of them are intentionally incendiary and provocative. Those of us living in the West are all too familiar with Islamophobic allegations that call our collective character in question. Allegations that violently rattle our standing as individuals desperately trying to gain a foothold in our new countries. These attacks tend to push us even further to the fringes of society where our attempt to belong is forever hindered. When the Islamophobe is in-house and homegrown, these charges are likely to pack a stronger punch. Aboukhlal’s character assassination felt personal to those of us who were at some point or another made to feel guilty by association. The narratives of antagonism, defamation, and alienation are nothing new, but not ones that we come to expect from one of our own. It’s a much bitter pill to swallow when the person dishing out these accusations shares our roots and collective identity. The beautiful verse of Tarafa Ibn Al Abd comes to mind reminding us that the transgression of relatives is much harsher than that inflicted by a galvanized sword
وَظُلمُ ذَوي القُربى أَشَدُّ مَضاضَةً
عَلى المَرءِ مِن وَقعِ الحُسامِ المُهَنَّدِ
Aboukhlal’s football team put out a statement vouching for their player’s good character and denouncing the slander that he was subjected to. Moroccans from across the ideological spectrum showed exceptional support to Mr. Aboukhlal. Some have rallied hard and demanded that this vile grifter is held accountable and has his day in court.
What’s unbelievably ironic in this situation is that Mr. Zakaria’s integration within the country of his birth is quite seamless. No one within the Dutch society sounded the alarm or raised any concern about his religiosity. No one within that non-Muslim society saw Zakaria‘s way of life or method of worship as a threat. It was rather one of us who peddled these inflammatory accusations. This so called journalist must’ve known the dangerous ramifications of his unfounded claims but didn’t care to carefully vet and thoroughly scrutinize them. Anyone with a modicum of integrity would’ve thought twice before publishing these damaging allegations
It’s only because of the massive backlash and pushback that he decided to bill his scathing article as an opinion piece. Thankfully, no one bought this lame justification. An opinion was never tantamount to blather talk? Opinions are not built from thin air. In the famous words of the late former New York senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan “You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.” Opinions, where one makes multiple dangerous assertions, should be buttressed with corroborating evidence. These keyboard mercenaries ought to be named, shamed and held accountable. They should be subject to a zero-tolerance policy. Their disingenuous apologies should be thrown back in their face for the paste is already out of the tube and the damage is irreversible.
