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In 2006, at the Renaissance café in Rabat which is a closed cinema theatre now, I and Razak ,an engaged writer,Mustapha Hairane,journalist and photographer ;El Khammar Essafi; talked about our digital age in relation to movies and electronic writings called Blogosphere. We have talked about successful digital films like Abbas Kiarostami‘sTen, and Michael Mann’s Collateral .we have also mentioned mediocre and good movies produced by CCM or SNRT because these governmental institutions have now sophisticated digital tools to produce movies such as Avid softwares, Kinescoping machines, and recent HD Cameras.
We mentioned the inspiration of the red city Marrakech to some renowned creators and the fact that Marrakech was once visited by Bill Gates, this mysterious city inspires this genius engineer by its beautiful sights and icy mountains. Bill Gates,therefore ,is called proudly in Morocco Al Haj Belghit;a close name to a honorable intelligence domestically ,may be,during his touristic visit to this city, he was inspired so much that he invented intelligent tools for the personal computer revolutions .This big event breaths softly into the souls of intellectuals, writers because it succeeds to further governments from intervening the businesses of simple people besides it imposes its heavy weight of secretive surveillance that is usually practiced by non-democratic states such as our country .This Big Brother policy is unfortunately used in the states itself. Here, I wonder why can not Arab Intelligentsia help to spread its culture either via media ads or hacking ? I know that Arab Encyclopedia is now on the market, but many people can not have it.
It is obvious that the Internet becomes a Greek agora instead of souk de Okad in the Arab world namely in my country. Too many web sites and blogs are created and taste of getting more informed is undefinable.Indeed this powerful instrument becomes relevant to many such as exilers, journalists, writers and freedom of information seekers. Maroc Telecom,a powerful media source at home, asks too much money to provide help for users or web new comers. I presume Bill Gates will laugh on this deal because it exploits his tool for financial reasons. However, that time, Digital culture invades our behavior as much as our values, and modifies our relation to reality.” We were really amazed by the use of mobile cells, emails, PCs,, video games, YouTube and our fidel researcher “Google” is always answering our questions that we displace on its engine .In fact;Google was and is our cultural modern culture, although we sometimes are skeptic whether its information is true or false because of the infiltrating the American intelligence agencies .
Culture of constipated mentalities begin to be more narrowed by the explosion of information and cultural blockaders, linguistical agents and authorities in general become worried by this new age of free information .The west is still compromising to liberate it to the world, even though UN wanted to intervene to govern the internet but The United States of America and Europe refuse this thinking because apparently they are scared that authoritarian regimes take over .
I think it is time for the Arabs mainly ,Grand Maghreb to take actions which means that people have to get up and cry for their rights as once it is sung by The unforgettable Rasta man, Bob Marley. We are pleased to know that some Algerians cry out either from Algiers,Rome (Abdelkader Remoun) or from Paris in order to have a democratic state without being governed by mafia-like people. The Battle for democracy becomes a must for these countries named above, although its governments spread culture of fear and oppression.
In Morocco, We are happy to see journalists and bloggers supporting democratic associations and free pen writers like Mohammed Erraji,Chakib El Khayari, Hassan Barhoun and more others… It is obvious now USFP, the Social Union of popular forces, have lost that honorable position among its people of pretending to be democratic after its long faked “battle” for democracy. Instead this political party of the third world activist Ben Barka has sent its people to interior exiles and indifferences. .Therefore, we will not be surprised if this party is totally abandoned by the people that badly scorn this political party due to its unconvincing programs, and its very old fashioned leadership. Even now its charismatic leader, Ben Barka is getting less unfortunately loved because of that political system called "out of order policy " that USFP has shown during its alternance prior to the death of king Hassan the second.
In Grand Maghreb, freedom of speech is not yet happened and many fans just like journalists and writers would love to see this beautiful thing becoming real even though some countries like France and U S A is not giving any help nor publishing truthful reports of what is really going on. Thanks to the net which becomes wildly utilized,blogs and sites will be multiplied just to protest against coercion of Maghreb governments.
There must come a time when we sit down and talk otherwise the gap between the state and people becomes wilder and who knows when the reunion might be again. On this occasion ;we feel deeply sorry for that Tunisian Zouhair Yahyaoui who will always be remembered among Tunisian and Maghreb activists as someone who had sacrificed his life for the struggle for freedom of speech.
I understand that young people born after the nineties of the last century; have greater advantages to speak computer languages rather than us; take for example my little baby Rania who keeps calling me Mama and Papa to her mother at the age 7 months . Now being 13 months, incidently, she has mixed all the two names and calls me O Bapa,is if Rania has been influenced by the headaches of Obama elections,by the way Obama answers emails which is a thing that even one little responsible in Morocco would not be pleased to do if he already knows how to run computer systems.
Phonetics instead has nothing to do with HTM, CSS or IPaper languages that the net is basically relied on now.Languistics are different in tones and intonations than the computer ones .Who knows one day we see computers speak their own language derived of course from mother language of today’s and consequently they put men into slavery just like the story of Planet of the Apes. Computers might then give orders to cyborgs to destroy humanity from earth.Then,the game of digital age will be over.
Allal El Alaoui
