Sufism: A Form of Escapism

http://www.carolradway.com/sufism/sufism.htm

By Larbi Arbaoui

Through fiction and fantasy, the human mind perpetuates and flies high to reach and embrace the clouds which draw dreams that may not be realized or require decades to become reality. Every one of us has experienced this fanciful daydreaming at a certain time in our life. We resort to this fabulous faculty every now and then in an attempt to escape harsh realities or to depict an exotic imaginary life as psychological comfort and a delusive response to the urgent desires of the deprived self.  This is the human mind, but sometimes in pertinent stark separation from the real world. Yet, when this process has become a life style, a mode of thinking and an approach towards one’s life, we start to think about extreme Sufism.

In our talk about Sufism, I don’t mean that branch which promotes individual discipline as a route to reach God through diligence in worship and self-purification of the heart of bad attitudes, avoiding forbidden things and keeping good moral character. I have to draw the dividing line between Sufism as a religious practice and as a thinking pattern that has to do more with escapism, and irrational thinking evoking defeatism and moral decadence.

In this regard, I mean specifically the people who whenever they feel discomfort or lack sufficient tools to change their conditions, resort to dreams and fantasies under the pretext of asceticism and mysticism. Those people, with their imagination that is in most cases beyond general standards of the rational and proper reflection, live in ivory towers being aloof from the real world.  They immerse into a world of their own perception and phantasms, which is subject to abstract laws that have nothing to do with common sense.

Some of these illusionists claim to have established physical contact with the divine as in the case of Sheikh Sidi Mohammed Ben Ali Elzimrani who is buried in Bab Ftouh in the city of Fez.  Through their religious journey in the pursuit of God and true practices, they believe to have had the secrets of the globe revealed to them and were foretold the keys of the unseen metaphysical world. Some of them believe to have intermingled with the “self” of God and belong to His kingdom after a long process of self-cleansing. However, their claims are much ado about nothing, since they can’t provide a practical way by which other people may undergo the same experiences. This is crystal clear evidence that those manifestations happen only in their mere dreams and are far from reality.

These attempts to transcend common sense and human understanding are explained as a total defeat and deficit to participate in the process of change and an inability to function positively in society. Here lies the crisis of intellects who fail to cope with the changes taking place in all the facets of contemporary life.  Instead of integrating into society and contributing to its progress, they prefer to turn to their dreams and myths that are a far cry from their real existence.  This chasm between the imaginary and real world is highly manifested through their thwarting of the concrete world in which they physically belong and by their mythical ideas.

Originally published in Morocco World News

Taroudant, Morocco, June 24, 2012

Sexual Freedom is Conducive to Social Disorder

By Larbi Arbaoui

The proposal to repeal the Penal Code Article 490, which prohibits sexual relations outside of marriage does not please everyone, and rather made so many gorges rise.

This proposal doesn’t provide a solution, but creates more problems and paves the way to endless social and ethical issues. Sexual freedom endorsed by few activists should not be understood as a mere political card aiming to kindle the rough of Islamist-led government. For human right activists, this provision of law is an obstacle to sexual freedom, which – they believe – is one of the freedoms that every individual has to be endowed with. But can we just stop at that level?

Sexual freedom advocated by the so-called human right activists is to be understood as an explicit sexual liberation movement aiming to increase the acceptance of sex outside social institutions, implicitly including heterosexual, lesbianism and homosexuality. These proposals, which are in stark contrast with Moroccan religion and culture, may lead other people to claim public nudity as unalienable personal rights, the normalization of homosexuality as an alternative form of legal sexuality and more likely abortion will be legalized. Before you come down on the side of a certain party, I would like to invite you to consider these facts, which are the result of sexual intercourse outside marriage.

Every year in Morocco, according to figures of the Moroccan Association of the National Institution for Solidarity with Women in Distress (Insaf), quoted by AFP, more than 80,000 children are born out of wedlock. Such alarming figures of homeless and abandoned children call into question the responsibility of everyone and the role of family.

What future is there for babies who are the result of a fleeting ephemeral pleasure? Who is to blame for children who have no chance to have a social status or to be recognized by their fathers? It is up to you to guess under what circumstances these children will be raised and educated so that they can function properly in their society.

Sexual freedom under the pretext of securing individual rights is in collision with the requirements of international human rights, which emphasize the respect of the specificities of a certain nation. These claims are very dangerous to the natural balance and stability of the society. Family is not only a social pretext, under which sexual rapport is practiced legally, but a social institution that affords protection and care for the babies and also a cultural unit which teaches human values and beliefs to the next generations.

Susan L. Brown from Bowling Green State University found that children born to married couples, on average, “experience better education, social, cognitive and behavioral outcomes.” Any violation of family as a social and cultural unit is a knockdown to the history and human values.

People who have no respect for the family, social values and cultural considerations that characterize a certain people are likely to be driven by their uncontrolled sexual desires. I do believe, that sexual desires if not suppressed and controlled outside a social pretext, that will protect both partners, will naturally lead the whole population to chaos and will bring the society to a moral decadence. At the absence of regulations and explicit penal codes, such people, who advocate sexual freedom, will be immersed in an extreme indulgence in sensual pleasures that may be the cause of so many health complications and social disorder.

Originally published in Morocco World News
Taroudant, Morocco, June 27, 2012

Morocco: Power Outages in Remote Areas, Major Concern during summer

By Larbi Arbaoui

This morning I woke up with extra energy and enthusiasm to do my work and keep my commitments, so I had my breakfast early and hurried to my desk. After turning on my computer and placing a cup of coffee at the reach of my hand– a habit of mine, that of drinking either tea or coffee while doing some work– I started writing a report of last week’s extra-curricular activities that were done in my school.  l needed to do this now, so as to get it in on time.  But when the power suddenly went out,  I went off the deep end and was left totally helpless.  A frightening calm prevailed in my room, opposite of what I felt inside.

We learn to value the importance of things once we miss them, and this was a case in point. Even the buzz produced by my fridge, which I previously consider a nuisance, in its absence I remembered as somehow friendly. I discovered then that going back to those early days, when only limited facilities were at the disposal of our ancestors, must surely be a painful experience for the modern man.

This is not the first time to be interrupted by having the electricity cut off. What’s more irritating is that this happens without people receiving any warning from the electricity companies.  This happens most frequently during summer time. The increased use of electrical devices such as fans, fridges and air conditioners–to name but a few–are the likely reason behind such annoying outages. However, this should not be an excuse to bar the electricity companies from providing good services, when their customers are paying an arm and a leg.

In some remote regions of Morocco when the electricity goes off, one’s life goes next. In few minutes following the cutoff of electricity, your mobile phone as well as your computer can no longer meet your needs because the network connection, which is needed in order for your devices to be useful, depends on electricity as well. One hour’s time after the cut is enough to finish off the water from the tap. And if you are not already familiar with this “local rule” you will be forced to go fetching water from far springs. So just a matter of a few hours is all you need to feel exiled and helpless.

People are cheesed off how the constant cuts of power come without any prior notice. This is especially true when one gets up early in the morning and heads to the bank to learn that, unfortunately, s/he can’t receive service because the power went off. The elderly and children have it even worse, since they are less able to stand the high degree of temperature, and life becomes hellish since they depend on the electronic devices that air-condition their homes, which now become as useless as a fifth wheel from the absence of electricity.

As everybody knows, summer is the best and preferred season for celebrating weddings in Morocco. Among the necessities that the wedding organisers have to consider is that of keeping an electrical generator ready for use at any time. People may risk losing significant amounts of meat and other precious food they’d once preserved in their fridges if electricity were to go off the whole day. Last summer, I was invited to the wedding of a friend. They had us sit in an open space since the weather was very hot inside. People liked the place and everybody was engaged in conversation with one another. To our hard luck, when food was served the power went off. The host was very embarrassed, even though he was free of blame, and he apologised to the invitees every now and then while the other family members were busy looking for an alternative way to help people see their plates well enough to allow them to eat. Some guys enjoyed their exceptional dinner thanks to the help of cell-phone flashlights!

The regular cuts of electricity are a source of discomfort for everybody. Who is responsible for the numerous damages and delays of services that have resulted from the abrupt cuts of electricity? People should start to consider seriously these unacceptable acts and also think of measures to force the electricity companies to back off from allowing so many of these sudden cuts of power.

Originally published in  Morocco World News

Taroudant, May17, 2012

Moroccan women we don’t know

By Larbi Arbaoui

In a small village in the southeast of Morocco, some girls and women are working together in full swing under associations and cooperatives. Some of them have academic degrees while others have dropped out from school at early ages. Yet, their devotion to handicrafts and their desire to help themselves as well as their families are the main factors that have brought them to work collaboratively.

A few years ago, nature no longer provided bountiful crops enough for all the hungry stomachs and did not endow the villagers with spacious green pastures for raising their herds like before. Tourism, which was once a good source of significant revenue, remarkably decreased and the shops designed for tourists were forced to lower prices in order to conform to the purchasing power of the local market. These unexpected changes in the socioeconomic status of the village have paved the way to different social, cultural and economic practices.

This shift at the socio-cultural level of the village has cleared the way for women to work actively from within civil associations and cooperatives that were previously exclusive to men. These women are committed to the activities organized by their associations. They never miss any event to carve out a niche for their products among regional and national exhibitions, held occasionally for such commercial activities. Their happiness for having presented their products in public shows and exhibitions somehow over-dominate the lucrative purpose.

I have personally had the privilege to attend some workshops and witnessed the accomplished work of some of these distinguished women. At the core of their work place, some of them are working individually while others are working collaboratively like bees.

I sat by the weavers. They were three young girls in traditional clothes. For a while, I was captured by the harmonious movements of their fingers and hands while placing threads of different colors crossed the web. The only sounds you can hear were the beats of an iron comb-like utensil hitting the threads to stick them firmly to the web. From then on, the girls sang chorally uplifting local songs accompanied by the rhythm produced by hitting the web. Even talented artists and mathematicians will stay enthralled by the neat equal spaces left between those symbols decorating the rag without using neither rulers nor measuring devices.

I had a short conversation with one of the active member of the association who told me that making handicrafts is time consuming, very laborious and not very lucrative. But in spite of the hard work, she prefers working with her friends in associations rather than setting up a personal project because, she believes, the society is not yet ready to accept a woman running a shop for producing handicrafts or fixing things.

Traveling to work in big city, which may be more rewarded, is worse she added for a girl working far from her own family is not safe. Working within women associations with limited resources is a challenge and finding markets to commercialize their products is the biggest challenge.

Originally published in Morocco World News  Taroudant, May13, 2012

Beggars in Morocco: Reflection on a Growing Social Phenomenon

By Larbi Arbaoui

Taroudant, May 22, 2012

The drought that has befallen the country the past several years successively has further impoverished an already poor social strata. The people from rural regions who live mainly on agriculture are the hardest hit by the implications of this aridity. Having no resources, some of them left their little villages and settled in slums, bus stations and in public squares. They prefer begging than starving to death.

People with special needs are not guaranteed social protection in our country. Both family and society consider them a heavy burden they have to support reluctantly. They do not receive adequate training which can enable them to be integrated in the society and incorporate in the workforce positively. Thus they are forced to beg.  But they are not the only ones begging:  some seem to do it because it pays better than the jobs available to them.

“The best job I ever had was panhandling” is a line from a comedian that contains a seed of truth. Wherever you go, you’re harassed by beggars of all ages and sexes. Boys and girls, young and old advance towards you with outstretched hands. It evokes lachrymose feelings and sympathetic emotions to see such skinny children, sometimes accompanied by their mothers, all in rags, importuning every passerby for alms. They haunt the cafes, mosques, buses and busy streets. Begging has become an annoying social phenomenon. What explains the increasing numbers of beggars in our country is still an enigmatic puzzle.

Being a beggar in Morocco is one of the simplest things. Outstretching a hand miserably in any public space is just enough to start receiving coins from people. But to be a successful mendicant, a professional beggar – a beggar entrepreneur- one must accrue experience and develop some tricks including cunning, market savvy and learning by heart certain Qur’anic verses that help awaken the religious compassionate feelings among people. Professed beggars have memorised special prayers and know to use them for their favour in particular moments, places and for different kinds of people. In some regions begging is well-organised. For each area, there is an owner to whom other beggars must pay the right of occupancy. Foreign beggars are strictly denied access to such “private” places. Any attempts to violate this invisible code may lead to serious complications.

The act of touching people for money is, probably for all nations, a despised deed putting down people engaged in such a debased occupation. Some people exercise mendacity as a habit that they can’t stop because they have been grown up with it. Be it an easy task –they believe- they can’t think of an alternative way that will afford them a decent living away from the humiliating act of outstretching hands before people. Another category found is those begging for a meal ticket yet have a prosperous life. They have no charges because everything is begged: food, clothes, transport and money. However, there are people who are obliged to pray for their living. Being even reluctant to beg, at the absence of the familial bond and social care this category of beggars can’t be choosers.

Recorded figures can only indicate the uncertainty of this increasingly threatening social anomaly. The lack of an integrated strategy against begging through a comprehensive approach based on prevention and social reintegration of persons engaged in begging explains the increase of this social problem. It is up to the government to seriously approach the issue. But, If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride.

Originally published in Morocco World News

Africa, the shackled continent

By Larbi Arbaoui

Taroudant, May 29, 2012

The Shackled Continent: Power, Corruption, and African Lives, by Robert Guest – former Africa editor for the Economist – is an exhaustive and lively book that tries to explain the reasons behind Africa’s poverty.

 It accounts for the hard economic situation in African and how to make it better «Africa- is in a bad way and this book is my attempt to explain why.» R. Guest. The author makes it clear from the beginning of the book that he means by “Africa” the sub-Saharan Africa, excluding the Arab countries of North Africa. Africa is a mineral-rich continent, with tourism potential and a fertile ground advantageous for agricultural. However, despite these strengths, it is growing poorer. Guest notes that so many factors are the stumbling block to the development of African nations: geography, the legacy of slavery and colonialism, AIDS and bad governance, to name but a few.

Most of the African countries are tropical. Such weather is convenient for many deadly diseases to flourish. “Africa has the worst of them: Malaria, Yellow Fever, rare but deadly viruses such as Ebola, and a host of energy sapping parasites.”

Another factor to blame for Africa’s misfortune is slavery. Although Guest doesn’t consider slavery a serious element contributing to Africa’s poverty for the reason that « the Trans Atlantic slave trade ended in the 19th Century,” so that can hardly explain 21 st Century problems, but, in fact, it has tremendous negative aspects on the history of most of African countries.

Guest admits that it is « easy to find colonial roots for modern problems ». South Africa, for instance, was one of the first African countries to gain independence; however, it remained under the control of a white minority through a biased and unfair system of racial segregation known as apartheid until 1994. African countries have gained their independence, but the colonialists have left most countries under ethnic conflicts and disputes over borders that were intentionally left ambiguous with neighboring countries. Guest claims that the colonialists « left deep scars.» but he adds « they also left behind some helpful things such as roads, clinics and laws.» Despite all these problems handed down from the colonialists, Guest still doesn’t consider all these unfortunate defects as excuses for the modern problems believing that «If colonialism was what held Africa back, you would expect the continent to have boomed when the settlers left. »

AIDS in Africa is the most threatening disease, regardless of all the advances achieved in modern medicine. Guest points out that not only do soldiers and migration help the virus to cross borders, but prostitution, witchcraft, and some cultural beliefs worsen the problem «some young African women believe that without regular infusions of sperm, they will not grow up to be beautiful » these myths must be « rebutted » he adds.

Guest, with powerful arguments and an exceptional lively style, is able to convince the reader that the misery of Africa is caused by African themselves. To solidify his statements, he quotes from the great African Novelist, Chinua Achebe: “The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership. There is nothing basically wrong with the Nigerian character. There is nothing wrong with the Nigerian land or climate or water or air or anything else. The Nigerian problem is the unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to the responsibility, of the challenge of personal example which are the hallmarks of true leadership. » In fact, all the external factors mentioned so far can be successfully overcome if the people in power were not corrupt. African countries would have progressed, he added, if their leaders believed in democracy and engaged seriously in promising projects.

In conclusion, Robert Guest in his amazing book has shed light on the major problems hindering Africa’s improvement. He clearly believes that African countries can improve. It is through access to primary education, reducing bureaucracy, privatization and fundamentally embracing the free market that these countries will prosper.

Previously published in Morocco World News