Morocco’s Constitutional Referendum for Dummies

Here’s a text – « Morocco’s Constitutional Referendum for Dummies » – I just contributed to the collective Arab-American blog Kabobfest (I recommend by the way two of their recent articles, one – « FIFA: Control, Women’s Bodies & The Soccer Field » – on the world’s obsession with Muslim women’s headgear, and another on that lowliest of all lowly characters, « 7 Arabs Wary of Palestinians« ). In brief, my take on the constitutional referendum, and the revised constitution it adopted, is this: whatever limited improvements the revised constitution may have brought are nullified by the methods the makhzen has used to repress the February 20 movement and all other political forces calling for a boycott. What on earth the régime is expecting to come out of the use of beltagiya (paid thugs on the Egyptian model) is totally beyond me, and what good can come out of a basriesque or benaliesque referendum result such as the one we witnessed (98,5% voted yes, if the notoriously unreliable official voting tally is to be trusted) is outside the reach of human reason, I fear.

You may also remember that Kabobfest published my earlier take on the February 20 movement, « What You Need to Know About Morocco’s Popular Protests« .