Today I’m talking about a rant, a massively important one. If you happen to follow my personal Facebook account, you may have seen me complaining about the civic paranoia we’re starting to get due to the insecurity reigning in Casablanca. As a matter of fact, people are planning to reunite in order to protest against that, but since I am a coward and the outlaw bandits against whom this protest is held are recently into social media and would probably interfere, I’m afraid there would be any kind of dangerous confrontations between the widely different clans that would cause me some trauma (or a serious injury). That’s the reason why I thought I could at least express my indignation through words and only God knows how much I’m thankful for that tiny bit of liberty still allowing us to do that.
Being bludgeoned from all directions; on social media, newspapers, TV or friends chit-chat, I ended up waking up short on breath few days ago because I’ve been chased by a delinquent in my nightmare all night long (it might’ve been only for a few seconds, but it felt as is). And indeed, that is the exact situation many of Casablanca’s citizens are CONSCIOUSLY living. The city would bewitch its visitors by its facade of the economic capital of Morocco, proudly showing off its mighty buildings and constructions, emphasizing the perks of the racial and cultural diversity residing within it, but appearances are generally quite fooling and the grass isn’t always green around here. Casablanca, my friends, is currently living a tumultuous revolt.
As I got off late from a friend’s house two days ago, I found that the streets were deserted and wet and that the chill was fresh and wintery; perfect weather for the introvert that takes refuge in me. My steps were racing along with my brother’s and I found myself wondering why we can’t take advantage of the simple things that surround us, a walk in this chilly weather for instance. A simple air puff in this kind of night can hose off all the negative thoughts strolling in your head and make you sleep like a baby. It can make you reconsider your resolutions and be productive the day after. Solitary night contemplations of this kind can simply make you a better person. The problem is, you simply can’t go out alone peacefully at a time like that, especially when you’re a girl, it’s an undiscussable no-no because the streets are colonized by the freaking night-lifers that could make this one your last. How can this be fair in a quote unquote democratic country like Morocco? And even in the glimmering daylight, how can you go out peacefully without being chased by the fear of being dragged to a cul-de-sac and find yourself deprived of the couple of gadgets you got used to, that’s if you’re lucky enough of not being raped? How can the average number of robberies in Casablanca reach 60 times a day without ever someone batting an eye? How can we accept the tragedy of the death of an old man in the middle of a street just because he only had 1 DH in his pocket and couldn’t afford buying himself the right to live? SINCE WHEN WAS THAT EVEN BUYABLE? These questions cross my mind every single day without being able to find a potential answer; knowing it’s not even our duty to find one, but the people responsible for this commotion are way too busy reckoning fortunes instead of figuring out a solution.
Street violence and robberies existed eons ago, nothing quite new. I can’t remember that one time I felt secure in my own city. Yet, these criminal acts are noticed to have thrived at an unusual pace during the last few months due to the ineffable indifference of the police that should normally be insuring security within the city, but this time, there’s some novelty about this matter. Generation Y is one of their targets.
If you belong to this latter, you may have heard about the online movement “Tcharmil”. You can tell from its name that it’s not something to joke about. It’s a page hosted on Facebook that displays pictures of male and female potential robbers with their wads of money, stolen phones, rolled joints and most importantly, arm-long sabers. Regardless of the adults that are effectively present on social media, what if a child saw these shocking and terrorizing pictures while scrolling down their news feed? It might cause them some real emotional issues and I’m speaking knowingly; I’m not even a child anymore, I’m 20 and I went a bit bonkers during the three days after I saw the pictures of their facial traumatizing scars, tattooed backs everything that was stated atop.
When I talked about it with some of my acquaintances, one of them advanced the excuse of them being issued from poor families and showing rebellion their way and undoubtedly, I didn’t agree. Even thought the life-cost has increased, nothing justifies the fact of stealing someone else’s property just because you weren’t able to earn it yourself. Plus, from what I’ve seen on their pictures, they own an effing fortune I can’t even gather while working for a whole year and if their real motive was the need for money, they would’ve stopped by now. I truly think that everything goes back to the bad choices our government made and still is making. If they were to allot the fortunes spent on festivals and some nonsensical BS to education and rehab centers, wewouldn’t have been dealing with such matters by now. EDUCATION IS MAINLY THE KEY TO EVERYTHING and I always state the nation ofSouth Korea as an example to follow.
I hope that the forces of order would make a move to improve the quality of life around here and make this current situation a fad that we would bitterly remember several years after that, while rejoicing about our right to go free in the streets, fearing no one but the Almighty and DREAM WHILE WE STILL CAN.
Asmaâ AALBACHI,
