Thanks to the generosity of one of my readers, I’ve been nominated for the 2010 Best of Morocco Blog Awards in two categories, best news blog and best overall blog.

Check out the Morocco Blogs website, and vote for me or any of your favorites. At the very least, you’ll discover some great blogs, including several who’ve become my friends over the years.

Morocco Blogs periodically reviews English-language blogs about Morocco, with a sample post from each one. They reviewed my blog here.

When I started in 2006, there were just a handful of bloggers writing about Morocco in English. Now there are culture blogs, travel blogs, personal blogs, blogs about news and politics — both by Moroccans and other by lovers of Morocco.

Voting is open for a whole month, until Feburary 21, and nominations are still open for now as well. Good luck to all the nominees!

If I had to pick a single image to sum up what I’ve seen so far in Morocco, I guess it would have to be this one.

A young man rests on his bicycle, overcome by fatigue or even despair in the middle of his route. People pass by, indifferent, no doubt consumed by their own problems. The nowhere quality of the place just underlines the theme.

Fortunately no nation, culture, or people can be summed up in a single image. However, since I’ve returned to Morocco after being away for three years, I keep hearing the same message from most of my friends. Nothing has changed, and since things were dysfunctional to begin with, that means Morocco is slowly sliding into an abyss of futility and defeat.

A friend in Essaouira who was active in reformist causes, labor activism and investigative journalism has given up writing after suffering personal difficulties and the intense opposition of local authorities.

A friend in Fez who is in his third year of law school lost an entire year of studies after conflicts between students and the administration led to the cancellation of midterm exams.

Other friends have been more fortunate on a personal level, but they still see a society with no middle class, no effective system of public education, no electorate ready to defend its rights, no politicians willing to risk their privileges in the fight for reform, and a state committed to a bread and circuses strategy of keeping the youth entertained with festivals rather than investing in the long-term economic development of the people.

To be honest, I was reluctant to return to Morocco because I thought I might be saddened in this way. Coming from a nation where everything works despite having just suffered a major economic crisis, it’s difficult to undertand a society that remains stuck despite the enormous inventiveness, curiosity, motivation, and native intelligence of the Moroccan people.

When I was here in 2003–2006, there was a feeling that despite all the obstacles of an underdeveloped nation, change was in the air and the future would be brighter. It was easy then for me to explain what I loved about Morocco, a nation reaching for democracy and opportunity while holding to the best of its traditions. Today I have a harder time answering that question.

I’ll have more to say on this later, but for now I pose the question to you, dear readers. Is Morocco stuck, and why?

No more lounging around the house in a leisurely way for me! Today I hit the road, first to visit friends in New York, then on to Paris, and finally Morocco before the end of the month. Watch this space as eatbees blog “goes live” from Morocco and around the world!

Also, best wishes to the Iranian people on today’s presidential election. The current president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is running again, but there is talk that major change is coming. For one thing, women and young people are participating in unpredecented numbers. Go here for an slideshow of the colorful rallies that have taken place in recent weeks, and here for live updates from the ground in Tehran.

Check out my novel Not from Here and let me know what you think.

For the last couple of years, I’ve been spending most of my time doing rewrites to this novel and now, it’s finally finished. Of course no creative work is ever truly finished, at least not until it’s between covers in a bookstore, or behind a frame in a gallery, or the artist is dead. But now I feel that the novel is quite close to the final form in which it will appear commercially, if and when that happens. If I have to drive around the U.S. selling it out of my trunk on streetcorners, it will happen, but let’s try the more conventional routes first.

Not from Here is the story of a young musician, Anton, who escapes from his stifling small town to go to the city, where he tries to change the world with his music. It’s also the story of his unbreakable friendship with his alter-ego, Timmins, a reclusive artist whose paintings come true. And it’s the story of his discovery of shadowy forces that manipulate society on every level, through politics, the media and even our friends, who might be spying on us without even realizing it. At first Anton is helped by this conspiracy because they need him to stir up the youth, but as he comes to understand its goals, he decides he must fight it, expose it and try to destroy it. Will he succeed?

This novel is a coming of age story, a story of friendship and betrayal and the end of the world. In short, it has everything, an entire universe crammed into 450 pages. I spent several years working on Not from Here, so I respectfully ask you, my friends and readers, to take a few days to read it, give me your supportive and critical comments, and recommend it to friends.

Now that I’m finished with this, I’ll be traveling to New York, Paris and then Morocco, where I’ll be in time for the Gnaoua Festival at the end of the month. Readers of this blog who would like to see me while I’m in Morocco are requested to contact me at write[at]eatbees.com, or leave your contact information in the comments below.

Like many, I feel sad about what’s been happening in Gaza over the past few days.

This sadness turns to anguish when I read the one-sided coverage in the American media, which never wavers from Israel’s “right to defend itself” and blames Hamas even for civilian casualties.

For the issues and arguments, I’ll defer to Palestinian leader Mustafa Barghouthi, who knows what he’s talking about.

It seems like the war will continue for many more days and weeks. I wish Israel a similar outcome to their 2006 adventure in Lebanon.

The Qur’an emphasizes an individual’s personal responsibility for his actions. The idea is that God gave us the Qur’an as a complete understanding—well, it’s not a complete understanding, but it’s all that human beings would need to understand about God…so we are required to interpret it for ourselves…because another thing that the Qur’an emphasizes is that no one is going to stand in for us on Judgment Day. We are each going to face God alone based on our own actions. It’s like the Christian idea that all people are created equal in the eyes of God—this is the basis for the democratic system. So I don’t see any contradiction between Islamic ideas and democracy or the responsibilities of individuals within a democratic system to define right and wrong. I don’t think the imam can do it for us, and I don’t think the Qur’an has answers to every possible situation…. It’s sort of like when Christians ask “What would Jesus do?” They use that analogy, but Jesus didn’t do everything possible. He did some things, so they say, “What would he do in this other situation that we don’t have any record of him being in, based on the situations that we do know about?” It’s the same thing. The Qur’an doesn’t give instructions for every possible situation. We have to be our own judges. I think this is consistent with a democracy. I think the religious influence from the mosque about specific customs and festivals…that’s a private affair that is separate from the running of the state. When you get to the bottom of the state, each individual has his conscience based on his moral system just like a Christian, a Jew, or even a pagan would.

If you are a Moroccan blogger (or blog about Morocco) and would like to participate in Reb’s project, feel free to contact her by e-mail. You can also find more information about her project in this interview she did with Jillian York of Global Voices.

Oh, and I got an award! The real honor isn’t the award itself, but that it was offered to me by the always discerning Homeyra, who blogs about culture and politics from Tehran. Don’t miss this chance to get to know Homeyra and the other folks she considers Kick Ass Bloggers. (There are five of us.) Trust me, Homeyra’s friends should be yours as well.

I’m supposed to pass this award on, so I will tag Hicham, Reda, Mounir, Bouba and Ayoub. All of these bloggers have inspired me repeatedly with their thought-provoking posts. If some of them have been sleeping lately, it’s not my fault! And here’s the obligatory link to the originator of the Kick Ass meme.

I’ve reached the center of the war zone finally, where my dreams begin. A sacred garden in the heart of the city. A people who call themselves angels. This is the life we imagined for ourselves when we were children: now we are in France and the police are interested in who I am.

I feel like I’m living in an ant colony, in which everyone has their specialized functions and roles, defined somehow by the unanimous consent of the group. There seems to be little tension as to who will take which role. Indeed it’s pretty much up for grabs, to do with as you like: although courtesy is important, and I don’t think they want any skinhead thrashers here.

I can’t think of any squatter I don’t like, although their studied indifference is at times baffling. The fact is, you wish that people who care about something would just come out and admit it, and fight for the right to do it—in a direct way, not sullenly—and help each other in this effort.

Everything here is impressive and pitiful at the same time. I don’t know how to explain it: a series of pathetic gestures which are nevertheless beautiful, and it is their choreography that makes them beautiful. Meanwhile everyone is going around on an empty stomach, looking like ghosts and smoking hashish.

—September 1991

It is anger that feeds our existence now. It is our shared anger that draws us closer together as a family. It is very hard to be a chronicler of an event like this, because everything that is happening is real.

Our community is suffering a great deal from the fire, which happened in the middle of the night and left us no time to prepare. About a hundred people were part of the Château, and all records of our existence—the work itself, our tools and personal belongings, clothes, journals and so on—were lost, either burned in the fire or confiscated afterwards. Now we have no place to live, and must face the day in plain view of an indifferent public, without the chance to resume our work any time soon. As a community it will take us several months to rebuild what we have lost. Do you, the public, want us to simply disappear? Or would you like us to resurrect ourselves, and the spark of life we bring to this otherwise dead city?

How to accomplish a long-term struggle? Either we are in it for the long haul, or we are not in it. That is what each of us must decide for himself or herself. Myself, I hope that the best of us will remain in it. How could it be otherwise? There is no way to go back to before the fire, to erase this incident from our memory. Now we will see who our real friends are.

—February 1992

VOLUNTEERISM: A SHORT MANIFESTO

The idea that I would like to present for your consideration is that we are volunteers.

All poetry aside, we are simply a group of people who have chosen to do something in the public interest without being paid.

In a society such as ours, one assumes that work has value only if it is paid. When one works without being paid, it is said that one works for nothing.

The inherent value of our work is a direct attack on the notion that money is the source of all value.

The other interesting thing about us is that we work without waiting to be asked. We see where we can be useful and we begin to work.

It strikes people as strange that we offer a solution where they did not realize there was a problem!

—March 1992

I went to see the new squat that opened last week. Some people were working downstairs to clean up debris and secure the door, which was a large sheet of glass. Sara met us and led us upstairs, through the large painting-studios-to-be and around the central courtyard to the kitchen on the top floor, where people began to play the guitar and paint. Later she gave us a tour of the whole building. There are five floors in all, the top two floors being made up of small rooms ideal for living in, and the next two consisting of very large rooms perfect for painting, sculpture or other activities. In one spot a small attic of two or three rooms forms an additional story inhabited only by pigeons. There is also an extensive cellar of stone vaults.

Back on the ground floor, the clean-up work was proceeding with ingenious speed because everyone spontaneously found something to do. In about twenty minutes a large hole in the floor was filled in, all the debris was arranged in stacks along the walls, and the floor was swept. Besides this, the electricity was already restored throughout the building. Some people went home to their respective squats to sleep, and others decided from that moment to stay and share the life of the new squat. Sara exulted: “At last we’ve found a building with the right kind of space for all or us to live together and have a place to work.”

—March 1992

What is this community where I’m living now? We are a group of creators who work in each others’ presence, who share a daily life in which creation plays a vital role. We have relations among ourselves that are almost too intimate and honest, so to protect ourselves we throw up barricades that make us difficult to know, especially to outsiders, but also to each other. We live surrounded by the evidence of our creation, and also by the refuse of our daily life which is never effectively removed: dirty dishes, the smell of piss in the bathroom, discarded magazines. In fact, the two blend into each other, so that the art we make becomes dirty and sad, without our garbage becoming more artistic.

I think the reason for the insecurity that is obvious among us—the perpetual challenges we make to one another, the disappearance of small objects such as lighters or pens, the fact that our projects rarely reach a conclusion—is that we haven’t succeeded in persuading the society around us of the necessity of our presence. We know among ourselves that we are creating something important, yet each morning we wake up to a gruesome reality: persecuted, chased from one location to another every few months, too poor to participate in the life outside our doors, barely tolerated by our neighbors and the shopowners of the district…all this is in stark contrast to the talent and goodwill that are perpetually trying to surface among us. I’m convinced that despite our continual talk of rejecting society and “the system,” our deepest wish is simply to be accepted for what we are.

—August 1992