La Passion de l'Ambition

Tout le monde a ses propres rêves qu'il voudrait voir se réaliser un jour...toute personne à des pensées intimes qu'elle aimerait accomplir un jour. Mais quand ces rêves et pensées deviennent notre unique leitmotiv qu'advient-il de nous? Lorsque toutes nos attentes et espérances sont portées sur une seule idée, quand l'envie frise l'obsession...On perd nos repères et valeurs, et on s'engage dans une course de fond sans aucune considération aux valeurs humaines. De là, on perd nos qualités humaines et émotionnelles et on en vit que pour notre but ultime. On sent l'épée de Damoclès menacer notre vie à tout moment mais on continue dans notre élan incommensurable. Il s'agit de l'ambition...l'ambition que la plupart des personnes confondent avec l'enthousiasme. Si on avait à théoriser ce concept et à lui trouver un schéma redondant, il serait le suivant: il est toujours question de l'histoire d'un campagnard éduqué dans les profondeurs abyssales d'une montagne et qui par la finesse de l'esprit l'aiguisement de ses sens a pu se tracer des objectifs et un parcours de guerrier qu'il accomplira une fois qu'il ait foulé le sol de la ville. C'est l'histoire de l'homme malheureux en guerre avec la société. "A nous deux Paris!" comme a dit Rastignac, personnage Balzacien qui évolua au fil des oeuvres de la Comédie humaine. Rastignac incarne le prototype de l'ambitieux lors de son évolution dans la société. N'oublions pas Julien Sorel qui fut le plus ambitieux des personnages Stendhaliens. Ces deux personnages à eux seuls représentent en long et en large le mécanisme de l'ambition dans la société.
"Nous voulons la fortune et nous n'avons le sou" est la devise de tous les ambitieux désireux d'atteindre les hautes sphères de la société sans aucune considération des désagréments qui puissent survenir lors de la vie. Est-ce une attitude à adopter de temps à autre pour la complétion de nos objectifs, ou bien cela reste-t-il un mode de vie à part que toute personne qui y pénètre ne pourra plus s'en extirper?

Cette Politique Taboue

Que ce soit dans nos écoles primaires, collèges, lycées ou encore universités...la politique revêt des attraits très rébarbatifs. Je m'explique; dans aucun des cours, qu'on a dû suivre au cours de notre enfance ou jeunesse, nous n'avions eu une présentation neutre ou encore positive de la politique. On nous a toujours inculqué que la politique était l'art de parler pour ne rien dire, que les politiciens sont tous des fous à lier, que, que, que...Mais pourquoi donc avoir cette perception à la limite de l'ignorance? On m’a bien appris que ce soit sur les bancs des écoles respectives que j'ai fréquenté, ou encore à la maison que la politique est le gagne-pain des loups de la société. Que la politique n'est pas un honnête travail, et que les politiciens ne sont pas intègres. De là à se demander si le métier de politicien n'aurait pas quelques traits en commun avec celui de voleur ou de chenapan. Des politiciens se sont montrés cupides, trop ambitieux et ont loupé leur carrière; mais ceci n'est pas pour autant une raison pour juger tout ceux qui font de la politique. Pourquoi n'a-t-on pas la même idée des médecins ou des ingénieurs, il y'en a eu pourtant quelques-uns d'entre eux qui n'ont pas respecté la déontologie et qui ont transgressé toutes les lois. Mais non! Il faut qu'on s'en prenne toujours aux plus beaux parleurs, ou encore à ceux qui ne maîtrisent pas de science exacte, et de là ils n'auront aucune preuve à donner à part des théories machiavéliques qu'aucune personne ne comprendra jamais.
Venons-en à la politique au Maroc; si le cas dans les pays occidentaux nous fait de la peine, celui du Maroc est déplorable. Plus aucune loi n'existe, et comme a dit Balavoine, artiste chanteur mais qui avait compris les engrenages de la société "la loi ne fait pas les hommes, mais ce sont les hommes qui font la loi". De prime abord, on pourrait mettre tout les hommes politiques marocains dans un panier et dire qu'ils sont la cause de tout nos maux et qu'ils ne font que servir leurs intérêts personnels et accroître le désastre. Mais pour être de fins penseurs et analystes, et ne laisser aucun petit détail nous échapper d'entre les mains, il vaudrait mieux de faire travailler nos neurones et d'avoir une approche objective et rationnelle de la situation sans affluence de sentiments patriotiques ou autres. Je me suis longuement penchée sur la biographie et l'évolution d'hommes politiques au Maroc ce qui a complètement changé ma vision des choses. Je n'ai pas fait les louanges de la politique car je crois qu'il s'agit d'un état des lieux où il est facile d'évoluer. Les préliminaires instructifs avant l'intégration dans la politique se résumeraient en deux grands points: l’acquisition d'une maturité suffisante ainsi que la connaissance approfondie des rouages de la politique mondiale et interne.

Violence Against Women

“I cannot bear anymore to be hit, insulted, and always harassed… I am afraid for my children and myself. This hell that I am living must stop… I need help” (magazine interview; Femmes du Maroc March 2004, 52). Malika is a young woman expressing her anger and rage against her husband who is threatening and beating her. In Morocco, there are numerous women who are in the same situation as Malika, and those women do not have even the courage to denounce their daily martyrdom. Taboos, education and religion are always the reasons to keep the violence that they have undergone secret. In fact, those women keep on bearing violence committed against them and encourage men to continue harassing them. Those women might be our mothers, sisters, friends, teachers, or employees, and they are encountering each day a difficult situation that they have to overcome without being affected. The 25th November of each year is the international day of violence against women, and Morocco also joins the international community to celebrate this great event and to break the barriers that still stop Moroccan women from pointing the finger at their pains. This day is also an occasion to sensitize people about the real meaning of violence, where it occurs and what they should do in a case of violence.
Violence is seen among people as the physical brutality against a person; however, violence includes verbal, non-verbal and physical aggressions. Each woman in Morocco is undergoing each day at least one of those three types of violence; this is why there is an urgency to treat this topic. People, especially women, have to be aware of the seriousness of this issue; the Moroccan family code in a case of violence and the help offered by organizations. Therefore, in this essay I will discuss different forms of violence against women, consequences on victims and efforts made to overcome this phenomenon.
The violence takes different forms; it could be verbal, non-verbal or physical. The verbal violence against women is the most common form of violence in Morocco. Women, young girls or even little girls are victims of men who cannot control themselves. Either on the street, or at home; those men are husbands, colleagues or strangers. They tell aggressive words out loud that hurt their female counterparts and make them feel uncomfortable. The remarks that strangers say against women on the street are often about their clothes, bodies or behavior. Those observations are all biased and low-monitored messages. In fact, women do not react, and prefer to keep silence, which encourages men to keep on harassing them. Besides, the oral violence that occurs at home between husbands and wives is generated because of conflictual relationships. Usually, when there is a lack of respect within the couple then the conflict degenerates to become a quarrel where the man takes the power and insults, or blames his wife. The second type of violence, which is the non-verbal violence, is usually combined with the verbal one. The man usually has aggressive gestures that enhance his violence and it is a form of harassment. The latest form of violence is physical violence. This type of violence is the worst, and brings about the most horrible consequences. A great deal of women is suffering daily from physical brutality either at their houses or offices, and sometimes even on the street. For instance, there are bosses who harass their female employees, and behave with them as if they were their servants. Therefore, the violence noticed among men against women is mainly due to psychological troubles, or jealousy.
Accordingly, violence that some women are undergoing has drastic consequences on the physical and moral health. Women who are physically brutalized have a shocking medical condition; they generally have serious injuries that they are hiding behind sunglasses or underneath their clothes. However, hiding those traces of violence is a way to save the face towards the society without solving the real problem that is set. Still, the physical suffering is softer than the psychological damages that may pursue the aggressed woman during her whole life. The violence that women undertake leads to a lack of both self-esteem and self-confidence. The woman feels that she is guilty for doing something, and that she deserves a punishment from her husband, brother or whoever he is. For that reason, she blames herself and bears all the sarcasms of her aggressor. Besides, she might have nightmares where she sees herself harassed or in the same situations that she endures during quarrels. Additionally, women who are undergoing physical violence may develop a kind of hate towards all men or have an extreme fear from them and be disgusted of their male counterparts. Consequently, harassed women, when they are educating their children, hand down the same fears and grudges to them. On the other hand, women who are verbally harassed do suffer from lack of self-confidence, and the only way to protect themselves is to keep quiet until they feel safer. Insults and words that men use to threaten women allude to their physical appearance or intelligence. This way, men feel that they control those pitiable victims and they reduce them to simple objects to be used. Therefore, physical and moral violence have extreme drawbacks on the psychological side of women that leads to the loss of a mental equilibrium.
In view of that, there are twenty two non-profit organizations trying to help harassed women to get out of the violence spiral (Femmes du Maroc, March 2004, 51). Those listening units have phone numbers where women can call and express themselves openly. Besides, in those centers there are many women who work to rescue harassed and threatened women by giving them psychological support. Militant women working in those units make the victims aware of their rights and show them the juridical procedure to follow if they want to denounce their aggressors. “Centre d’Ecoute de l’Hermitage” is the first center in Morocco that offered help to women victims of violence, and is lead by three militant women. Fatema is working in this center and witnesses each day women telling about their daily sufferance. She concludes “we do not alleviate all the sufferings which these women live, but we let us give them a glimmer of hope. It is usually hard, very hard!” (Femmes du Maroc, March 2004, 52). From this testimony, we can conclude that those women the necessary comfort in those talking units. Usually, the process of reconstructing their personalities takes a long period of time, and represents a hard task to achieve because they have been used to violence against them.
Overall, violence against women is a tough issue that requires comprehensive people who could deal with this concern. Violence inflicted to women could be verbal or non-verbal, and sometimes they undergo both forms of violence. In fact, this violence leads to severe consequences on women’s health; physical damages are the noticeable ones, but still there a deeper harms as the psychological troubles that overwhelm victims. Hence, non-governmental organizations (NGO) are setting programs to help women be aware of their human and constitutional rights. The reason behind all the efforts made against violence towards women is to give back their respect to threatened women because they are an inherent part of the Moroccan society. In the same way, the changes that have been made last year in the Moudawana code are seeking to protect women and give them their rights. The question raised then is to what extent the Moudawana will be applicable in the Moroccan context, but this could be another matter of topic.

Hind El Gaidi