So what if Aminatu returned?”

The great Arab novelist and intellectual Abdurrahman Munif once said that the natural resources of oil and natural gas are nothing but a curse on the Arabs. The international community has long experienced the nature of this curse in the forms of international terrorism, and exhausting heated conflicts and non-stoppable wars in the Arab regions. As for the Arab community, if we share in general this curse in the form of handicapped and incapable governments, then we the Moroccans take in particular the part of it that touches directly our dignity and that of our mothers and sisters. Yes, if the Gulf oil made of our sisters in Casablanca and Agadir an easy pickup, then the Algerian natural gas made of a Sahrawi woman a sell out separatist and double standard activist. Kudos to you Munif, the world can and should understand that the phenomenon of Aminatu Haidar is nothing but a misleading activism and a stereophony of a cause fueled primarily by natural gas dollars.  Thanks to this woman the world community witnessed the birth of a gasroot movement, and military general intelligentsia backed activism, with all my apologies to my liberal friends for this oxymoron!   And thanks to her for the first time  Gandhism equates opportunism in meaning and significance!

This mother who renounced her home and that of her two children, and her homeland for the sake of the spotlight and euro-cameras obviously has the name of the mother of the prophet of Islam.  Despite Islam being a religion that abhors its followers giving in to disunion and fitna.  She abusively appropriated for herself the name of Gandhi, even though the Mahatma himself was never a media or spotlight lover, and as history witnessed he was saddened until his death by the separation of India even if that disunion was based on religious beliefs!

Well this key element in neo-global market activism has now returned to Morocco, after loudly renouncing her Moroccan nationality and animating a media circus in Lanzarote airport, an island that is still witness to the aggressive colonial saga of Spain. Against the will of millions of Moroccans within and outside of the country, she returned. As much as her return unveiled the arbitrary work of our sunny beach and shopping mall loving diplomats, it also unveiled the real reason for her activism: that is the European market interest; and especially the European government hypocrisy.

I found a descriptive account of this hypocrisy in light of this separatist issue not only in the lines of the worthy of applause and admiration Moroccan voice of Rachid Nini in his daily column, but also in the voices of the immigrant masses protesting in front of mayoral offices and Algerian and Spanish embassies in Europe, and surprisingly in the comments of too many Mexicans replying to their number one daily El Excelsior as it reported on the issue. I remain astonished by how many Mexicans and other Latinos criticized the double standard attitude of Spain and discredited the circus called Aminatu Haidar. Well these voices of Latin America, this power surfacing part of the globe, are appreciated for their work in lieu of that of our Moroccan diplomats assigned to this region. These diplomats deserve a vacation in Acapulco and Cancun after their hard work in translating (without follow through or interpretation) His Majesties milestone discourse on the issue of the Sahara and posting it on their respective websites! These voices are the voices of people that are better suited to unveiling the Spanish government’s heritage in conspiracies and colonial sagas. People that, following the same path as the Chinese and Indians, will hopefully be better equipped and ready to partake in the global market soon, and as such deserving of a good taste of Moroccan tomatoes.  However, this will require of our diplomats far more skills than just a rudimentary knowledge of the Spanish language.

By other standards this agent activist’s return home to Morocco proved to be beneficial for us. It put Moroccans in the position of questioning how we can carry on better our responsibilities towards the land of our mothers, fathers, and loved ones; this life long responsibility towards our homeland.  It hurt all of us to see the Spanish press writing that she finally returned to her homeland with a triumph. What homeland did they mean by her homeland? Is her homeland this domain shared with millions of Moroccans that stamped her with treason and are angry at the mishandling of her issue by their government? Or is it this land of opportunity where she was offered a very fat financial advantage as an ex-political prisoner?  A check that was fat enough to enable her to release her new skill of entrepreneurial activism.

This media hungry element definitely does not have the same idea or definition of homeland that I have or that any of my fellow Moroccans who paid the price for Morocco’s territorial integrity by marching the mined lands during the Green March has. Obviously she does not share the same concept of homeland with those Moroccans splitting their paycheck with the Sahrawis countrymen of the south; or of those returning home to their families, bearing both physical and psychological wounds, after 30 years of sand war.

Well, since this neo-global market activist did not arm her hanger drama (from dramaturgy) in some airport in the País Vasco or Cataluña the Spanish press was free from any pressure to fill the concept of homeland with whatever interest driven political meaning it wanted. As for Moroccans, and precisely those Moroccans living abroad, because of her, homeland has once again been proven to be more than a home or a back home: it has been proven to be a passion. A passion displayed in love, in anger; in pride, in protest. Thanks to this fallacious activist we rediscover how the bleu passports we use to enter the airports of Morocco are nothing but a sign that express our engagement in the full meaning of dual citizenship, respecting the land that hosts us without abandoning the love of the land that gave us birth. Unlike this non-citizen with no loyalty but to the controversial benefits she will get by holding onto the green passport.           

As Moroccans living abroad, our attention and tension were gravitated by how our homeland was going to handle her issue and by extension the milestone issue of Moroccan politics, the question of the Sahara.  Moroccans abroad unanimously agree that there can be no concessions made with regards to the unity of the Moroccan territories.  Along history, Morocco may have known rebellions, some pseudo-territorial autonomy, siba, but never some type of balkanization except perhaps that imposed by the colonial aggression of Spain in the north and the south and France in the middle.

After the Green March Morocco was not only a land but a firm idea about land.  Unfortunately, what Morocco never became, was an ideology about this land.  Call it nationalism or patriotism; Morocco is still desperate for logos about Moroccanity.  It appears obvious that the Moroccan territorial unity remains the sole ideological factor that unites Moroccans everywhere in the world, as was proved by the many blogs in support of Morocco’s legitimate right in the southern territories of the Sahara.

However, when we, Moroccans living abroad, configure a solid idea about our homeland based on territorial unity in the present, and prosperity in the future we are nurturing an ideology of hope and optimism that many Moroccans inside Morocco may not forcibly share with us.  While we are here closely following the conspiracies of Spain and the godfathers of the land of gas and generals against our borders, our fellow countrymen are living inside the borders as victims of a conspiracy between illiteracy, government negligence, and daily humiliation.

  While we paint with the brush of nostalgia and longing a colorful country of two seas, snowy mountains, and a bright sun; our brothers and sisters only see the grayish hues of pessimism and a foggy horizon. We think of Morocco while we are enjoying the advantages and opportunities offered in the promise land, based on our skills and knowledge, while Moroccans still residing in Morocco are living Fassifihirlandia where opportunities are copyrighted to a select few based on family ties and blood proximity.

What will this double standard and opportunistic separatist mean to the dignity of Morocco for the numerous Moroccans whose dignity is tarnished every day with unemployment and a lack of vital needs? Without question Moroccans support their country’s territorial integrity, however the reality of their daily lives is threatening to obscure this fact. 

By letting this women return home to her children, Morocco gained world recognition for caring about human life and family. Morocco’s humanity proved more worthy than gas smelling dollars diplomacy. Let’s not be harsh on Morocco.  Let’s just look at it as another dosage in the growing democracy and respect for human rights we all long and spire for in our beloved Morocco.  In the end only through the lenses of democracy can our countrymen see the Morocco that is worth defending at any price, and our brothers in the south can see that what they were taught to think of as freedom is nothing but a free pass toward the Atlantic Ocean.