By Jamal Elabiad
Are writers born or made? For me, only very few writers are born, but the majority are made. And made writers can be divided into two main categories. Those who have been to a writing school and those who have never been there. The latter don’t write because they want to, but because they have to. I really consider myself one of them. The following are the people lying behind my putting pen to paper:
My father who departed this life in hospital due to negligence!
My mother who toiled for more than twenty years only to provide books and food for me!
My English teacher at high school who observed, after reading my essay, that “there is a writer sleeping inside you.”!
The writers whose works I read more than twice; e.g., Mohamed Choukri, Mohamed Zafzaf, Ernest Hemingway, George Orwell, Noam Chomsky, Mahmoud Darwich, and Ahmed Matar.
The writer who claimed that “not all Muslims are terrorists but all terrorists are Muslims.”!
The opinion writer who advised me to know something about everything!
The university teachers whose students can’t take the oral exams till they bring original copies of their valueless books!
The teachers who give excellent marks to the stupid students to whom they give extra hours!
The supervisors who visit the United States more than visiting the teachers they supervise!
The teachers who annually read one book. I mean the textbook they teach with!
The Comrades who turned their coats as soon as they became VIPs of the State!
The minister who “laughted at” thirty thousand Moroccan youths, five of whom committed suicide. Regrettably, the minister in question was appointed prime minister!
The children who kiss their father’s hand instead of telling him the truth!
The thieves and killers who have never been brought to court!
Those who are more royal than the king!
The candidates who take advantage of poverty, illiteracy and unemployment so as to “buy” the maximum number of votes!
The victims of king Hassan II. Tazmamert and Tagounite detainees are two cases in point!
The “guns” king Hassan II used to hunt with!
My friend who joined the U.S. army and was killed in Iraq, for his family had no bribes to give. Otherwise, he could have easily got a job in his homeland!
The grass roots who passed away and nobody paid attention to their absence!
The prostitutes all over the forgotten Morocco, including Zagora, Agdez, Alhajab, and Khnifra!
My eighty-year-old neighbour who vowed he saw king Mohamed V in the moon!
The Muslims who think that Islam is only how to make ablution, how to pray, how to eat, and how to bath after sleeping with your wife!
The journalists who believe the sole role of journalism is shedding light on the successes, not the fiascoes!
The lovers who think love and sex are like two peas in a pod!
The fighters who lost the battle but won the war!
The woman whose love-emails I haven’t deleted from my inbox yet!
The billionaires who forget that with money you can see a doctor, but not good health!
The rich who never forget they were once poor!
The poor who managed to turn poverty into success!
Frankly, some of the above-mentioned people bring tears to my eyes whenever I remember the wonderful times I spent with them.