The Death of a Magazine

By Jamal Elabiad

It’s regrettable that Nichane, a Moroccan Darija magazine, will no longer be on display in Moroccan kiosks. Ahmed Benshemsi, publisher of Moroccan magazines TelQuel and Nichane, attributed the death of Nichane to a sustained advertising boycott launched in August 2009 by pro-government companies. That means he blamed “the highest circles of power” in Morocco for the closure of his magazine.

But Benshemsi has not presented till now any evidence to support his allegation and convince us of the idea that it's the Makhzen that lies behind Nichane bankruptcy. The question we should ask while waiting for Benshemsi's evidence is what really forced Nichane to go bankrupt? By the way, waiting for Benshemsi's evidence is like waiting for Godot!

As far as I am concerned, what led to the closure of Nichane (which means "straighforward" or "direct") is the fact that readers got tired of the trivial topics the magazine usually shed light on such as homosexuality, gay rights, sex, and witchcraft. Advertisers, therefore, couldn't place their ads in a magazine whose readership was in decline. It's common-knowledge that it's readers, not ads that guarantee the continuity and success of a newspaper or magazine. Benshemsi no doubt thinks otherwise. And this is why Nichane had no other choice, but to go bankrupt.

It's true that Nichane did shine light on the royalty, but the conclusion one comes to after reading the cover stories Nichane devoted to the royal family is the fact that the magazine just turned to "copy and paste" from other magazines and new Web sites that, before Nichane, discussed issues related to the monarchy. In other terms, Nichane came with almost nothing new when it comes to its cover stories about the royal family.

When a Moroccan journalist asked on Facebook a few days ago what I thought of Nichane, I told him that I boycotted reading the magazine for several reasons. For instance, Nichane is amongst the Moroccan magazines aiming at tarnishing the image of Morocco and Moroccans around the world, and also serving the interests of France in Morocco. It's Nichane's cover stories on prostitution and sex that led the Saudi authorities to ban young Moroccan women from travelling to Mecca to perform the Umrah on the grounds that they "may have something else in mind." I am sorry to say that "something else" refers to prostitution and pimping.

Nobody can deny the existence of prostitution in Morocco, but for Nichane, prostitution in Morocco is a norm, not an exception. That means most Moroccan women are prostitutes or on their way to become so. What's more, I agreed100% with a famous Hespress columnist when he wrote that it's some Moroccan magazines and newspapers to blame for the shameful way Moroccan women were depicted in Bu Qatada and Bu Nabeel, a popular Kuwaiti comedy series. Nichane, no doubt, is an example in point. How Nichane serves the interests of France in Morocco is a topic for another time!

Finally, my advice to Ahmed Benshemsi is that it's readers, not advertisers that lie behind the survival of a newspaper or magazine. Think of Alamassae.

What Moroccan and Djiboutian Education Have in Common?

By Jamal Elabiad

There are several reasons why there is no difference between Morocco and Djibouti as far as education is concerned. One is that the Moroccan ministry of education, like the Djiboutian one, deprives Moroccan teachers of many rights. For me, as for others, disregarding the teachers’ rights while preparing to reform the education system means one of the most serious problems Moroccan teachers suffer from has not been fixed yet.

It’s common-knowledge that teachers are a basic component of all education systems. That’s why it’s highly recommended to consult them while thinking of updating an education system. I can say with confidence that the failure of almost all reforms Moroccan education system has undergone so far is due to the fact that the Moroccan ministry of education did not ask teachers for comments and observations before starting to implement those reforms. For instance, Moroccan teachers were not asked for feedback on the Education Emergency Plan till the ministry put it into effect. As a Moroccan teacher, I still have not understood why the ministry did not ask teachers for feedback before the application of the Emergency Plan. Possibly, the teachers’ opinions, for the ministry of education, are of minor importance when it comes to reforming the Moroccan education system.

The ministry of education not only ignores the teachers’ feedback when introducing a new education reform, but it also does not organize training-sessions to make them familiar with the new reform. In other words, most teachers can’t use new teaching approaches and methods unless they were trained to employ them in class. This is the reason why most Moroccan teachers are still using outdated teaching methodologies. One day, I was invited by a middle school teacher of English to observe one of his teaching sessions, and provide him with some feedback. I was shocked to observe that the teaching method the teacher used had nothing to do with Competency-Based Approach (CBA). When I asked him why, he said that he heard of the approach, but had never been trained to apply it in class. I provided the teacher with a number of English language teaching (ELT) Web sites from which he could download videos and documents on CBA, and also advised him to try to attend some ELT conferences and seminars in order to update his teaching skills and techniques.

The teacher, to my surprise, did not live in the village he worked in. The village is about 40 kilometers far from the centre of the city. He decided to live in the city and every day commute to and from work, for the apartments the ministry built near the school were not sufficient for the big number of teachers who came from far-away places, and who were appointed to work in the village. It every day cost the teacher almost forty dirhams to commute between the city and the workplace. That means half of his salary was spent on commuting to and from work. Therefore, it’s impossible for such a teacher and many others to pay so as to attend seminars and conferences whose main purpose is providing teachers of different subjects with up-to-date teaching methods and approaches. As far as I know, commuting to and from work has deprived a large number of teachers of English of attending some ELT conferences such as the one organized each year by the Moroccan Association for Teachers of English (MATE). It’s too expensive for teachers who spend half of their salaries on commuting between home and work to pay 1000 dirhams to attend the MATE conference.

After two months, I received an e-mail from the teacher I observed saying he was among the teachers at his school who were selected to attend a three-day training organized by the delegation of the ministry of education. I was not surprised to learn later on from the teacher that they boycotted the training due to the poor food and accommodation the delegation provided for the teachers who came from the suburbs to attend the training. I was not surprised simply because middle school teachers of English at the city where I am working boycotted in 2008 a three-day training for the same reason.