This week's pick comes from the Western Sahara blog, writing about the new Sahrawi satellite TV station, R.A.S.D. TV (Democratic Sahrawi Arab Republic Television):

لا أخفيكم سرا كم انتظرت شخصيا كما الكثيرين بالمناطق المحتلة خروج هذا المولود الجديد الى النور بعد طول انتظار، نعم أخيرا لنا تلفزاتنا الفضائية

I have to tell you how much I've personally waited, like many others in the occupied areas, for this newborn baby to see light. And after a long wait, yes, we now have our own satellite television station.

The blogger says that the most important mission for the station should be to advance the Sahrawi case among other Arab countries:

لعل أهم دور لها آن تعرف بالقضية الوطنية لأخوتنا العرب في ظل صمت الجامعة العربية والذي نتمنى أن تتمكن القناة من كسر جدار الصمت هذا وان تجعل منها منتدى للنقاش البناء وللتفاعل مع الأشقاء العرب ، وهو اكبر تحدي للتلفزة نظرا لامتناع المسؤوليين عن الأقمار الصناعية العربية عن إعطاء تردد لها.

The most important role [for the station] is to shed light on our national cause to our Arab brothers. As the Arab League has remained silent over the issue, we hope the station will be able to break this silence barrier and to be a forum for constructive and interactive discussion with our Arab brothers, which will be the biggest challenge facing the channel, considering that the officials at the Arab TV Satellites have refused to host the channel on their frequencies.

He adds:

وأخيرا نتمنى أن تميط القناة اللثام عن واقع المناطق المحتلة من خلال بث أشرطة متلفزة تظهر فيها الصحراء الغربية من الداخل وان تؤرخ هذه الحقبة والمنعطف الهام في مسيرة قضيتنا الوطنية العادلة،

And finally, we hope the channel will also uncover the realities in the occupied areas by airing footage showing the Sahara from the inside, and to document this era and this important juncture in the history of our just national cause.

Last August, Global Voices published a two-part introduction to Morocco's Peace Corps bloggers, also a lively and vibrant group. As Peace Corps is a two-year assignment, several volunteers have left and many more have started their service; therefore, I've caught up with both new and old to see what they're up to now.

Connie in Morocco, who is about to complete her service, is reflecting on her time in Morocco:

People ask if I think I will have changed from this experience. I hope one thing that doesn't change is how much less I will use non-renewable resources. It's amazing how one can get by without paper towels or napkins…even less TP! I recall how Mom used to save string on a ball and other means of conserving things. Maybe we are progressive if we regress to our childhood ways? I believe I will be less materialistic than before; not totally, but less. And I know that I will need to continue practicing tolerance…in reverse from here!

27MonthsWithoutBaseball reflects on the difficulty of leaving Morocco behind (literally!):

Will I be able to let more go and live more clutter-free? I hope so! In the meantime, though, I keep buying Moroccan things for my imaginary next home. As I buy things, I do try to picture how they will fit in the imaginary home. Or at least fit into this home… Joy said that when she was in Tunisia doing research she knew a lot of Peace Corps Volunteers and when they got their things home they didn’t fit. I’ll be starting more or less from scratch, so I can build around things. And what doesn’t fit will make a lovely gift!

Cory of 32n5w, who finished his service and left Morocco in the fall, recently remarked in his blog:

whenever people ask what peace corps was like, from now on, i'm going to say it was kind of like this. but not in english. and with a lot more walking.

Jenny in Morocco is also reflective, focusing on the things she's learned so far:

If there's one thing I have learned during my time in the Peace Corps, it is that there are contradictions everywhere, but this is a part of life. Once you accept these contradictions, you can see and appreciate the human experience of life. Life can be so varied and diverse on earth and I am thankful I was given this opportunity to open my eyes to the rich diversity of life.

Finally, Duncan Goes to Morocco, a new PCV just beginning his service, remarks upon the first few weeks:

It’s been two weeks since I swore in and came to live in my site. People here are getting used to me being around and ask where I was if I’m missing for a day. I spend a good amount of my time just hanging out in the center of town where people sit around when there’s nothing to do. My language is improving, but I still don’t understand a lot of what is going on, especially when people are talking to one another, and not to me. Fortunately, I found a tutor in Tounfite (my souq, or market town). I’ll be going in there once or twice a week to get tutored, check email and mail, and hang out. There are two other volunteers there, a married couple, and they are generous to me and I like them a lot, which is fortunate since I’ll be spending a lot of the next year (when they finish PC) with them.
I have been trying to meet people in other douars (communities) as well. Basically what I do is hike along the road for a while until I come to a clump of houses. Then I walk around, greeting everyone I see, hoping to get invited in for tea or food. I kind of feel like a charity case, but my method hasn’t failed me yet. I’m meeting people and establishing contacts in other communities. I feel like this work is especially important because these other douars that I’m visiting are poorer and have greater need than my douar, which is a little more centrally located. One of the people that I met said to me, “help us, we are very poor.” It’s hard to hear that because there are no big changes with Peace Corps. I think the most important and effective thing I can communicate to the people in my commune is “wash your hands after you use the bathroom and before you eat.” But that’s not really what a guy who eats bread for three meals a day wants to hear when he asks for help.

Unfortunately, few news sources and few bloggers have spoken up about the issue. Notably, North Africa Notes, an expatriate blogger based in Morocco, had this to say:

I think it represents a larger issue than just being able to “say what you want to say,” and goes towards the ability of the average Moroccan to honestly evaluate their life and their government, and ask questions about accountability.

And ofcourse, Al-Jazeera is an easy scapegoat. They are the news agency every country who is doing things they would rather not want us to know about villifies.

Keep Hope Alive

Christine Benlafqih of Arabisto.com was displeased:

Perhaps all of this wouldn’t seem so spectacular except for the fact that last month, the Moroccan government blocked Al Jazeera from continuing its daily news broadcasts on the Maghreb countries. The program had been airing for well over a year, and the withdrawal of its broadcast frequency over “technical and legal problems” was unexpected and without clear explanation.

No wonder Reporters Without Borders jumped in last month to say something about it. Perhaps they’ll speak up again.

The Batha Museum was the venue for what we had picked as one of the outstanding concerts for the entire Fez Sacred Music Festival - and we were not disappointed. Mari Boine is an amazing performer and the selection of Sami chants and songs was pure magic.

Equally outstanding were the arrangements and performance by her band. The guitar of Georg Buljo wove beautifully through the songs along with Svein Schultz on bass, Ole Jorn Mykelbust on trumpet and Gunnar Augland on percussion. Departing from her published programme, Boine gave us a taste of her earlier work with Gula Gula and exhibited her traditional joik throat singing to amazing effect. For those used to seeing a singer open their mouth wide to reach for a high note, it was extraordinary the volume and pure tones achieved by Boine with almost closed lips. Her drumming added a wonderful touch, but as she said - “My drum is used to cold weather.” So she wet the skin with a bottle of Sidi Ali!

As the festival wrapped, The View from Fez summed it up in a few words:

Nine days of afternoon and evening concerts, Sufi nights, art exhibitions, children's events, free concerts in the medina and the new city, Rencontres debates on the sacred, more talks at Palais Jamai, fringe events at Dar Batha … all in all a very busy time. How was it for you?

They also had a few criticisms of this year's festival…

2008 was not a vintage festival and one is left with the impression that the programme was assembled on a very tight budget. The feeling is that the Fes Festival needs more money pumped into the artistic director's function of booking artists. In years past we've seen luminaries like Youssou N'Dour and Ravi Shankar, but such stars seem to be sadly missing these days.

…But in general were pleased with the work that went into it:

It's a huge job putting on such a big Festival, and The View from Fez congratulates the whole team.

Everything Morocco was also in Fez for the festival, and shared this tidbit:

Overall, this week at the Fez Festival has been a series of pleasant surprises, particularly Fahdel Jaziri's production of Hadhra and Abdelwahab Doukkali's special performance Thursday night at Bab Makina. We have seen Touaregs on the electric guitar, R&B saxophone in an Arab orchestra and all sorts of traditional instruments from every region of the globe. And there is no better place than Fez for all of this to come together at one time.

the art of the drum, who was just traveling through at the time, had much to say about the festival's commercialism:

In the most basic sense, sacred music seeks to create a spiritual connection with the Divine. Religious (sacred) music often is performed in the confines of a holy institution, like a church or temple, to eliminate worldly distractions. In the moments of a sacred music performance, is the stage not the temple? It is a doctrine of all religions to disavow any sort of commerce within the physical space of the institution? (Yes, yes, I have been to plenty of Hindu temples that sell souvenirs, and the Vatican does have a gift shop). Surely John 2:16 is not just a Christian prospect – materialism has no place inside of a mosque or synagogue or any sort of holy sanctuary, for that matter. How can proper devotion to the Divine be made when a vender is hawking Hagaan Daz a hundred feet from the stage? At what point do we distinguish between reverence and exploitation?

He also took issue with the sense of “orientalism” about the event:

Another reservation for me to endorse the festival is the immense sense of Orientalism that surrounds the festival. The concept of Orientalism, as written about by the great scholar Edward Said, essentially states that in the West, we have a very skewed view of the Eastern cultures. Strictly in terms of “religious studies,” some Westerners perceive Eastern religions as more “mystical” than Western traditions, and thus they are “better.”(You see this practice quite frequently in India, Westerns that “adopt” Hinduism because of the esoteric essence of an Eastern religion)

The blogger also added:

Clearly, I have very strong feelings about the essence of the Fes Festival of World Sacred Music. Believe it or not, as you will read in future posts specifically about my experiences at the performances, I genuinely enjoyed the festival – despite my many, many reservations about it. Take what I wrote with a grain of salt: as Man Ray once said, “All critics should be assassinated.”

The Batha Museum was the venue for what we had picked as one of the outstanding concerts for the entire Fez Sacred Music Festival - and we were not disappointed. Mari Boine is an amazing performer and the selection of Sami chants and songs was pure magic.

Equally outstanding were the arrangements and performance by her band. The guitar of Georg Buljo wove beautifully through the songs along with Svein Schultz on bass, Ole Jorn Mykelbust on trumpet and Gunnar Augland on percussion. Departing from her published programme, Boine gave us a taste of her earlier work with Gula Gula and exhibited her traditional joik throat singing to amazing effect. For those used to seeing a singer open their mouth wide to reach for a high note, it was extraordinary the volume and pure tones achieved by Boine with almost closed lips. Her drumming added a wonderful touch, but as she said - “My drum is used to cold weather.” So she wet the skin with a bottle of Sidi Ali!

As the festival wrapped, The View from Fez summed it up in a few words:

Nine days of afternoon and evening concerts, Sufi nights, art exhibitions, children's events, free concerts in the medina and the new city, Rencontres debates on the sacred, more talks at Palais Jamai, fringe events at Dar Batha … all in all a very busy time. How was it for you?

They also had a few criticisms of this year's event…

2008 was not a vintage festival and one is left with the impression that the programme was assembled on a very tight budget. The feeling is that the Fes Festival needs more money pumped into the artistic director's function of booking artists. In years past we've seen luminaries like Youssou N'Dour and Ravi Shankar, but such stars seem to be sadly missing these days.

…But in general were pleased with the work that went into it:

It's a huge job putting on such a big Festival, and The View from Fez congratulates the whole team.

Everything Morocco was also in Fez for the festival, and shared this tidbit:

Overall, this week at the Fez Festival has been a series of pleasant surprises, particularly Fahdel Jaziri's production of Hadhra and Abdelwahab Doukkali's special performance Thursday night at Bab Makina. We have seen Touaregs on the electric guitar, R&B saxophone in an Arab orchestra and all sorts of traditional instruments from every region of the globe. And there is no better place than Fez for all of this to come together at one time.

the art of the drum, who was just traveling through at the time, had much to say about the festival's commercialism:

In the most basic sense, sacred music seeks to create a spiritual connection with the Divine. Religious (sacred) music often is performed in the confines of a holy institution, like a church or temple, to eliminate worldly distractions. In the moments of a sacred music performance, is the stage not the temple? It is a doctrine of all religions to disavow any sort of commerce within the physical space of the institution? (Yes, yes, I have been to plenty of Hindu temples that sell souvenirs, and the Vatican does have a gift shop). Surely John 2:16 is not just a Christian prospect – materialism has no place inside of a mosque or synagogue or any sort of holy sanctuary, for that matter. How can proper devotion to the Divine be made when a vender is hawking Hagaan Daz a hundred feet from the stage? At what point do we distinguish between reverence and exploitation?

He also took issue with the sense of “orientalism” about the event:

Another reservation for me to endorse the festival is the immense sense of Orientalism that surrounds the festival. The concept of Orientalism, as written about by the great scholar Edward Said, essentially states that in the West, we have a very skewed view of the Eastern cultures. Strictly in terms of “religious studies,” some Westerners perceive Eastern religions as more “mystical” than Western traditions, and thus they are “better.”(You see this practice quite frequently in India, Westerns that “adopt” Hinduism because of the esoteric essence of an Eastern religion)

The blogger also added:

Clearly, I have very strong feelings about the essence of the Fes Festival of World Sacred Music. Believe it or not, as you will read in future posts specifically about my experiences at the performances, I genuinely enjoyed the festival – despite my many, many reservations about it. Take what I wrote with a grain of salt: as Man Ray once said, “All critics should be assassinated.”

Photograph of Ismael Lo and the Hamadcha Brotherhood by The View from Fez

He says:

لو أردت أن أتحدث عن الإنترنت المغربي فلن أنتهي أبدًا، وأنتم تعرفون ولعي بالتركيز على أنصاف الأكواب الفارغة. سأكتفي هذه المرة بفقرة واحدة:

طيلة ساعات وأنا أحاول الوصول إلى موقع جريدة المساء المغربية التي تعتبر الأكثر شعبية على الإطلاق في المغرب. لكن بدون فائدة. الموقع كأنه مقبرة سيارة أو مزبلة خردة. قد نقبل أن تكون مواقع الجرائد الأخرى التي لا يقرأها حتى صحفيوها سيئة ورديئة وغير قابلة للوصول. لكن أن يكون موقع الجريدة الأكثر مبيعا، والأكثر دخلا، كوجه إمرأة مصاب بالجذام، وفوق ذلك تتواصل الأعطاب التقنية بشكل شبه دائم فإن الأمر لا يطاق. وفي الأخير تنشر الجريدة بكل فخر أن عدد زوار موقعها يحطم الأرقام القياسية! طبعا هو يحطم الأرقام القياسية لأنه المستخدم يواصل تحديث الصفحة مئة مرة حتى يظهر له نص المقال كاملا

If I wanted to discuss the Moroccan internet scene, we would never hear the end of it. You know my fascination with focusing on half-empty cups. I will be content this time with one paragraph:

For hours I have been trying to access Al Massa's newspaper website. The paper is considered the most popular ever in Morocco. I had no luck. The site looked like a scrapyard. We can accept the fact that the sites of other newspapers whose journalists don't even read them to be bad and inaccessible - but it is unacceptable for the paper with the largest circulation and income to have a website which consistently suffers from technical problems. At the end, the paper announces that the number of people who visit its website has broken previous records! The number of visitors will of course hit new records as readers have to refresh their pages 100 times for them to be able to read half an article.

Margot the Marrakesh Mystic explains the situation:

By advancing clocks one hour, the government feels the additional daylight will help tourism. Additionally, business and banking times will be more closely aligned with European trading and business partners, particularly France.

Some Moroccans (98.7% Muslim) are now talking about how Daylight Savings Time will extend the hour of the Ramadan breakfast by one hour.

Some feel the time change is a problem for Ramadan, while others feel it’s not a problem at all. In any case, people will be getting up one hour earlier by the sun to go to work, and since Ramadan ends each day with the sunset time, the hours of awake fasting will seem extended by one hour. Ramadan is now beginning to move into the summer season (September this year, August next year), so the change will be noticed.

In the face of soaring fuel prices, Morocco is trying to maintain fuel subsides to the general population, in terms of gasoline and cooking fuel. The time change is partly an effort to save on energy consumption.

North Africa Notes tells us the word on the street:

Every person with whom I have spoken with today and almost every conversation I overheard walking down the street, in the old city, or in the taxi was about the time change. Most of the conversations either started out with ” So - what do you think of this time change thing?” Or you heard people saying, ” So- what time is it now?” Most people just seemed to be in bewilderment as to why exactly we were moving the clock forward. It just seemed to be inconveniencing everyone and throwing off peoples rhythms. Especially with regards to prayer times around which a good number of people here still manage their lives, ALhamdulilah. So now sunset prayer will not be until around 8:35pm at night and the night prayer will begin at around 10:15 pm.
People are already trying to figure out how this is going to effect their fasting in the month of Ramadan which is about 3 months away.( This Daylight Savings is supposed to stay in effect until Sept 27th)

Although the change is country-wide, not all Moroccans are quick to accept the time change. Jenny in Morocco, a Peace Corps volunteer, shares how things are in her neck of the woods:

Twenty years is a long time and I can understand how people might find this change complicated or unnatural. Imagine if you were 25 years old and the last time you experienced Daylight Savings Time, you were five years old. But, excluding young people, you'd think the older folks would remember and try to adopt the time change.

Instead, what's happened here is slightly insane and very very confusing. I call it the “new time” “old time” paradox. Official places like schools, government buildings, the airport, and cities have changed over to the “new time.” Everyone else, including my town, have stayed with the “old time.” Well, everyone except for me and the mayor's office, the post office, and the schools. And the schools are closed now, so I'm pretty sure the kids are functioning on “old time.”

Another member of the Peace Corps, Duncan Goes To Morocco is having a similar experience:

One other thing is that last week, for the first time ever, Morocco moved its clocks forward in a daylight savings sort of thing. The only thing is that no one in my community (and I’m assuming many other rural communities) understands or follows it. The school, health clinic, and government building all follow the new time, but no one else does. They all know that the change has happened, but there’s no reason for them to do it. I changed the clock in my house, hoping to have my family be the trendsetters in the village. But their daily schedule is just like it was before the change – it follows the sun, not the clock. And now, whenever my mom says a time, she says the old time, followed by the word for old. For example, she’ll say, “the transport is coming at seven tomorrow – the old seven.” Then she always laughs because she thinks it’s hilarious I changed the clock.

Yet another PCV, Connie in Morocco, puts it simply:

Morocco went on Daylight Savings Time on June 1. Do you think my village and the surrounding douars (settlements) did?

Today's Blogger of the Week celebrates the work of Jillian C York, our Morocco author, and a regular contributor to Voices without Votes. A freelance writer, blogger, and author of a guidebook to Morocco, Jillian currently lives in Boston, US, after spending two memorable years in Meknes, Morocco, and continues to blog here. Her interests include writing, politics, music, and activism - as well as giving a voice to what citizen journalists are writing about. Here's our interview with Jillian, in which we hope to learn more about her:

What is your educational background?

I have a BA in Sociology from Binghamton University, US, where I also minored in theatre. I focused much of my studies on the sociology of the Middle East and North Africa, writing a thesis for my major on the perception of Arabs in American media. More than anything, I am grateful to my education because it's what brought me to Morocco in the first place. I took a summer Arabic program at Al Akhawayn University, then after returning to the US, spent the next year trying to figure out how to get back.

Your profession?

I am currently working toward my ultimate goal of being able to write full time. Shortly after moving to Morocco, I wrote Culture Smart! Morocco (Random House, 2006) and have published several articles since. Most recently, though, I had the pleasure of teaching English in Morocco for two years, which certainly tops the list in terms of jobs I've had!

Who is Jillian York? What excites you and what annoys you?

I am definitely a type A personality, constantly busy, always looking for more things to do. I get excited about blogging and new media, certainly - I was one of the first to blog in English about Morocco, and during the time that I lived in the country, it was so exciting to see the blogoma (Moroccan blogosphere) constantly growing and blossoming. Blogging is such an incredible outlet; not only because it allows ordinary people to talk about whatever is on their minds, but also because it gives the rest of us insight into another culture (even if that culture isn't so foreign!). As for what annoys me? I could in a number of different directions with this one, but a major one right now is the bias of the American media. Any American who has spent more than a few weeks abroad knows how I feel; Morocco isn't exactly a bastion of free speech, but the access to global news is somehow far better than in the US.

How long have you been blogging and why?

I started in 2005 when I first moved to Morocco and have continued blogging about my adopted country despite having moved back to the US this past August.

How long have you been a member of GVO and why?

Since April 2006 - I was dying to get more involved in the emerging Moroccan blogoma, and so I contacted GVO Regional Middle East and North Africa Editor Amira Al Hussaini and the rest is history.

What are the main issues effecting your blogosphere?

Morocco's blogoma is fortunate in that its writers have relative freedom in the subjects they choose to blog. Unfortunately, Morocco has also experienced some internet censorship, most notably the censure of YouTube (which is now back), Google Earth and Livejournal (a major blogging platform). Another issue facing the blogosphere is the censure of blogs about Western Sahara issues - blocked to silence opposing viewpoints.

What is your most memorable blogging experience?

When Britney Spears considered converting to Islam? Just kidding! My most memorable blogging experience is being at the forefront of Moroccan news when I lived there, particularly when sites like YouTube were being censored - it was great to be able to break news before major news sites did, basing my posts on the bloggers in my region.

How do you spend your free time?

Whenever I have it (and lately, that's not very often), I read. I also (obviously) spend a lot of time online, although it's usually while I'm working, in some capacity.

What is the latest book you have read? Can you share something from it with us?

I'm currently reading Dave Eggers' You Shall Know Our Velocity! which is very different from his memoir (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius). I've only just started the book, but what I will say is that Eggers is a writer who amazes me on so many levels, particularly in his passion (and compassion) for passing writing on to the next generation.

What do you blog about mostly?

For the past three years, I have blogged about Morocco (at The Morocco Report). Although a lot of what I wrote there was based on my observations and opinions, I also reported and re-reported the news, as well as what other bloggers were talking about. My new blog has a different theme. After blogging about Morocco for nearly three years, I felt that it was time to move on. Although I'll continue to blog at The Morocco Report, my life is now in Boston, and I needed my writing to reflect that.

What are your hopes for Morocco and its blogosphere?

Morocco is an incredible country - in 50 years, it has seen technological developments that took a hundred years elsewhere. What really amazes me is Moroccans' ability to adapt to that - in eight or so years, the internet has become a huge force there. The past three have seen hundreds of new blogs and forums. While I think that all blogs - and especially those of the blogoma - are valuable, I would love to see more Moroccans using that platform to talk about important issues. Unfortunately, I think that there's a certain fear of using blogs as political (or other) platforms (and rightly so, given the recent case against Fouad Mourtada).

In February, you joined a 10-member GV contingent to WeMedia. Can you tell us about the highlights of your stay at the GVO House and meeting GVers face to face for the first time? How was your experience? Are you looking forward to meeting more GVers soon?

I had a blast at WeMedia! Meeting other GVers for the first time was really surreal…you spend so much time with people virtually that you feel as if you know them. And there were others that I'd never even spoken to online who have become friends. I'm really looking forward to the GV Summit in Budapest this June.

Final thoughts?

I am really grateful to be a part of Global Voices. I had no idea what a huge project I was getting into when I started writing for GV over a year ago, but I am so glad that I did!