By Larbi Arbaoui
Taroudant, Morocco, May 30, 2012
After the release of Rachid Nini, the
prisoner of conscience, who has been behind bars for one full year, most
of his avid fans and readers were yearning to read again his famous
column “Shuf Tshuf”. Most people were expecting the famous Moroccan
columnist to re-conciliate with his pen and resume his press career.
But, to everybody’s dismay, Rachid Nini declared in a column entitled
“Istirahat Muharib” the rest of a warrior, on the front page of Almassae
(May28,2012), the Moroccan daily newspaper that he founded five years
ago, that he gave up writing.
In his article entitled the rest of a
warrior, Nini argues that such type of writings in Morocco leads the
author to three ends, either silence, self-exile or prison. In the
absence of a law protecting the right of the journalist to get the news
and the right to protect their sources, Nini has inclined to the virtue
of silence believing that “silence is gold” without any explicit and
specific reason that led him to favor silence.
Rachid Nini doesn’t want his silence to
be understood as that of cowards, hypocrites and wage earners, but as
the silence of the wounded warrior who takes his breath up the hill
waiting for the coming of his own horse. The metaphor that the
journalist used is open to so many interpretations. The readers are to
form their own. But, whatever the reasons are, the readers who used to
find solace in what he writes won’t excuse his secession. “Once you made
the first path, you lost your freedom” a very insightful idea I still
recall from an African novel “Season of Migration to the North” by Tayeb
Salih. People have to study the expected consequences before making
the first step, and I am sure that Rachid Nini is totally cognizant of
the secretes of the fourth estate before engaging in such writings.
Now that Nini is set free, he personally
announced the prison sentence for his words and come to a full stop by
declaring separation with the column “Shuf Tshuf”, which set him behind
bars. I was wrong to believe that Nini would come out of jail at full
strength and an absolute zeal for his cause and freedom of press. Philip
Emeagwali says that “adversities such as being homeless and going to
prison have made many people stronger.” But, it seems that the prison is
much stronger than some people! Though, it cannot all the time silence
many mouths, or conquer all the minds. I cannot put it differently
better than Thomas Hobbes’ when he says: “he that is taken and put into
prison or chains is not conquered, though overcome; for he is still an
enemy.”
Originally published in Morocco World News
