1001 Inventions and The Library of Secrets - starring Sir Ben Kingsley a...

Interesting film about the foundations of modern inventions.

Just two weeks away...

Ibn Battouta

Just a few days after going to Oujda, I had to pack up my things again and go to Rabat. I was growing homesick when I took the train back home. Rabat is a great place to be, but home is always best as the saying goes, anyway. A 10 hours trip could only be managed when you have a good book in your backpack, something you could enjoy while the snaky train swallows up the way every few kilometers. An old bestseller by Ken Follet was not a bad idea actually. Not my favorite genre, but I enjoyed reading the story though. The first night in Rabat was awful. Had a bad night at the hotel, but Sabah was such a great company. We got along very naturally, and we quickly became the favorite of the group. We've also learned plenty of useful tips from two amazing professors. One of them, Dr. Mohamed Ettajani is about to publish his book about NLP in The Holy Quran...I thought: something interesting to read, hopefully! I can't wait to read it.

We had some spare time after the meetings every afternoon, so I managed to see a few places in Rabat too. Loudaya beach was such a beautiful place at sunset, the old Medina with its Andalusi architecture, and the members of the different associations that came from all over Morocco were the best. It was a good experience to meet with members of The Advisory Council on Human Rights. It's been a very productive journey...on every level.
Now, back to where I belong, I am taking up my running program again...It's been great to run together with Nissreen, and the 10km run we made last time was such a refreshing experience. I realized after that that we could always do much better with a great company, than with an iPod in our ears!In a week or so, we might be joined by Crista, and our after-work-evenings will begin to have a different taste again, God Willing!

I wanted us to remember the wonderful days during which we collaborated and worked together, so I made this video using the best photos we have taken at the center.

De Vuelta, Despues de Tanto Tiempo...

No me lo puedo creer aún que he estado lejos de mi blog todo este tiempo... más de un mes! Woah...

Esta semana, tambien he vuelto a mi trabajo. Fue muy agradable ver a todos aquellos niños en el centro de mi vida, El Centro de Vida: The Center Of Life. Tantos planes para el futuro de este centro, y el futuro de aquellos niños que lo van a necesitar ...

Ah! Y queria decir tambien que el centro sin su gente maravillosa, ya no es lo mismo... os echamos de menos chicos... :-)

Fez Festival Of Sufi Culture

Could it be the right place to be in this weekend? I would love to have a few hours' hike around the prodigious walls of the old city of Fez tomorrow and have glimpses of, or maybe enjoy for hours, the 4th Fez Festival Of Sufi Culture that will be held, here in Fez, from April 17th to 24th. This year's theme is: "Mysticism and poetry”, and there will be interesting discussions about interesting themes such as Globalization and dialogue among cultures. A number of intelectuals and actors of civil society will give soul to this fascinating encounter. I will - hopefully -  have the opportunity to meet again some people I know!

Steps forward!

Nearly finished my first chapter! Just a few more pages and I am done! I have actually tried to compress all the ideas that have inspired me so far to choose this amazing topic, from feminism and language use in the Moroccan context to the power of the narrative in the construction of the nation. I owe so much to the three Fatimas: Fatema Mernissi, Fatima Sadiqi, and my supervior Fatima Mouaid... they have of so much assistance to me on every level.

I have also found an outstanding book by Wjdan Al-Saigh about narration in women's writing. I have skimmed it over and was caught by the depth of its analysis and the relevance of the topic. It's such an interesting book...Can't wait to sit back and enjoy the reading!

He visto a un polluelo morir esta manana. Pasó toda la noche gorjeando, buscando calór y companía. Se murió de frío, y de soledad. Entonces pense, con el corazón róto: "Como se parecen la soledád y el frío! Ambos mátan... y en ambos falta el calór."

F: I am a Feminist - M: "You are Off-Track!"

Well, not necessarily. Feminism could be a healthy way of thinking... if it promotes collaboration rather than conflict. I have been reading a few articles about feminist scholarship in Muslim and Arab Middle Eastern countries, and I've just noticed the "bitterness" of the life that feminists have to experience. They are being insulted and accused of profanation and deviation,portraying them as haters of both Arab and Islamic cultures, and as troublemakers whose final target is to provoke heated talks about the notion of gender.

In our Middle Eastern, traditional culture, a feminist is thought to be a brainwashed individual who was basically duped by the western ideology and stream of thoughts that pictures the oriental woman as a slave to men, living in harems, wearing thick veils around their faces and bodies, and deprived from her rights as a human being. A thought that promises her now – by following the feminist track, and joining their voice to that of liberating women from the claws of patriarchy – a dignified status for herself and for every female being.



Fatima Mernissi is one of the leading feminists in Morocco as well as in the Middle East, and she wrote many books treating the issue of gender in Morocco and in the Arab cultures at large. One of her favorite heroines – and mine too – is Sheherezade. For Fatima Mernissi, this subtle and eloquent female character is a model to follow, because of her early and revolutionary awareness of the power of the narrative, and of her outstanding knowledge and skills to address the audience. She managed to deploy her narrative skills, and subvert the king’s mind-set, and to transform his determination to take revenge from women, by reducing them first to a mere object of mannish sexual satisfaction and then by exterminating them right after.

Sheherezade has also played an important political role because she changed the voice of supreme authority. i.e. the king himself. She- did not have the intention to entertain the king so long that he would give up the idea of killing her. She had an even more powerful design to change him, and twist the fate of humanity on the whole. She understood that the extermination of women would lead to the total destruction of human race, and a way to stop this massacre was to re-educate the king, to change his mindset, and make him see the fallacy of his thoughts in the mirror of his own mind.

Sheherazade was not that irresistibly beautiful belly-dancer who carries the charming secrets of the oriental female sensuality, nor was she that simple entertainer who made use of the age-old female skill par excellence that is narration. She was an exceptionally clever, well-informed and confident woman, who understood both the educational and political role of narration. She feared not the supreme power and authority of the blood-thirsty and misogynist king over her, and instead of letting the fear of being deflowered and then pitilessly butchered overcome her, she mustered all the courage in her, rallied all the intellect she had, and took the decision to tame the beast that dwelt in the king, by instructing him over again that evil and good coexist, and that women can be either evil or good as many other creatures and things in existence. For this aim, she made use of the wisest accounts of what went before in bygone times and nations, the very accounts she had compiled through her readings.

What I would suggest here is not to resist or refute patriarchy, rather redefining and rectifying it. Looking for the problem with patriarchy, should be yet based on the existing fundamentals of our own culture – the Islamic culture. We – who say are feminists – should start from there, and subtly incorporate our approach to male-female relationships in every area of our lives. All the good exists in questioning and giving a critical view of things that surround us, let alone the factors that are supposed to guide and show us the way. Being a feminist should bear no insult to our culture, it should, instead, contribute to promoting our manners and conduct, to open our eyes on the misleading notions we have on ourselves and on the others. It should dust off the dangerous "erroneous ideas" about gender, whose danger dwell in their capability to reduce the potential of some of us at the expense of morphological - and not an essential- difference. At the end, it should teach us that being either male or female must not be a reason to overvalue or underestimate ourselves…

About the blog

The blog is the countinuation of a Ph.D project that took as its core substance the Moroccan Fairy Tale. The project consisted of collecting folktales from aged people and translating them into English. This is a cross-road of old folktales and narratives from different parts of Morocco... Don't hesitate to celebrate the art of storytelling and join us!