Tunisia is just next door to morocco , this little country is developping so fast in the recent years , their hospitals are much better than Morocco, the tourism industry is booming thanks to foreign investments specially UAE , their media and tv are much advanced , their tv presenters have presence and personnalities unlike the moroccan ones who look scared frozen and no talents , tunisian women were the first to gain a lot of rights (eurpean system in devorce)
i went to 3 travel agencies recently all of them hav an advert for tunisia and none of them have destination Morocco i think we have to wake up before it s too late

Salam Rosette

I don't agree with you at all Rosette, Tunisia is only comparable to morocco during the reign of Hassan II, don't forget that the country is ruled by a despote, and that it is a police state, and no one has the right to criticize the regime.. in addition to political disappearances who are still in vogue there ...

in 2006 tunisia recieved more than 6 million tourists, same thing in morocco, but regarding the size of morocco and other criteria we are a bit behind....

for me, what is more important than these economical facts is that citizens of both countries have no freedom of speech, no real democracy and no sense of social justice...

in tunisia, the so-called rights that women have were granted and not gained, it is not the same, still, (as an exemple) women do not have the right to wear hijab (veil) which is unique in the world ...

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Hicham_A
Salam Rosette

I don't agree with you at all Rosette, Tunisia is only comparable to morocco during the reign of Hassan II, don't forget that the country is ruled by a despote, and that it is a police state, and no one has the right to criticize the regime.. in addition to political disappearances who are still in vogue there ...

Agree with you Hicham

in 2006 tunisia recieved more than 6 million tourists, same thing in morocco, but regarding the size of morocco and other criteria we are a bit behind....

We make a lot more money than Tunisia even when we have less tourists (which is no longer the case by the way). Tunisia positions itself as an extremely cheap destination, about 1/2 the price of Morocco. The kind of tourism they get is harmful to the environment, generates a lot of spending since hotels have to be maintained and yet brings in little money.


for me, what is more important than these economical facts is that citizens of both countries have no freedom of speech, no real democracy and no sense of social justice...

It is a lot worse in Tunisia except for social justice where most of the Tunisian society is part of the middle-class, which is not the case in Morocco

in tunisia, the so-called rights that women have were granted and not gained, it is not the same, still, (as an exemple) women do not have the right to wear hijab (veil) which is unique in the world ...

Morocco has given excellent rights to women lately,gone are the days of the middle-ages

Bottom line there is absolutely no reason for Morocco to feel inferior to Tunisia, these last 4 years, a lot has happened in Morocco. However to ensure real progress, Tunisa, Algeria and Morocco should develop a real strategic partnership. If we continue picking on each other we will not get anywhere.

all the arab countries are ruled by dectators , i know tunisia is ruled by a hand of iron their president doesn t tolerate any opposition and he loves his white suit, what i am talking about is the economy specially tourism , i visited tunisia honestly some places there like las vegas , Monaco , carribean , a lot of investment and everybody from little child in the to the taxi driver every citizen .........they all work hard to give a good image about their country which is a tiny little place geographically , every thing looks modern and clean , their tv for instance it is full of publicity talking about environment , how to save water, ....bins for rubbish are everywhere every 50 meters, they are embrassing modernisation in a very fast way , men are not allowed to annoy woemn in the street like we have in Morocco ther is a strict law ther , annoying a woman in the street it is considered a criminal offence there and all young men in the street are aware of it
in my opinion despite the size of their country i think they passed alot of bigger arab countries when it comes to selling the image of their country abroad, and their hospitals are much muche better than the moroccan ones .
of course the downs side is the human right issue but at least i hope Morocco multiply more efforts specially the ministry of health

Rosette,

You are right to say that Tunisia is a head of the large majority of Arab countries, however Morocco is catching up very fast. The Moroccan awakening happened some 2 to 3 years ago ans we are doing well, had it not been for the drought that paralyzes our economy. And as someone who has had a career in tourism, I can tell you that we would have everything to loose if we followed Tunesia's mass tourism marketing strategy. About respecting women and environment awareness I agree 100% that we should imitate them.

Rosette ,


Tunisia did invest heavily in turist & knew how to create jobs ,it is true Tunisia is a samller than Morocco but its well advertised every where i was surprised to see Tunisia as a honeymoon destination for Hungarian couples over 4 yeards ago before they joined EU.

You are right we should take note & try to learn from what they did by working hard as you said while we want it easy ,stop being arrogant & knock at all the doors we could tap in to other markets we seem to keep our noises in the French .....all the time , i do like it now when i see & hear people talking about the Anglosaxons tourist & comapre them to the french people realise how impolate & demanding & stingy the frogs are !

We need to be more profesionnel & stop the corruption that eating our country as for lucking respect to our ladies that an other huge issue & i think that is why we have more & more problems now with every one coming over & lucking respect to us & our girls ,we defenitely need a law stopping these bustards shouting abuse & stopping their bagers , bikes & trying hard to intimidate any girl passing by & i feel we all have a duty to stop such behaviour when we witness them

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atlasmagic
Rosette ,
We need to be more profesionnel & stop the corruption that eating our country as for lucking respect to our ladies that an other huge issue & i think that is why we have more & more problems now with every one coming over & lucking respect to us & our girls ,we defenitely need a law stopping these bustards shouting abuse & stopping their bagers , bikes & trying hard to intimidate any girl passing by & i feel we all have a duty to stop such behaviour when we witness them

You said it all Atlasmagic. Thank you very much. Walking in the streets of Morocco can be quite humiliating for women.

hi all:
women harassement in the streets of morccan s towns is a very shameul phenomene , a sign of uncivilisation and lack of respect , reflects the backward mentality we have , and the culture of bullying women in the streets and in the work place
in my opinion women associations and institution have to put this harassment on top of their agenda
as we did with modawna , it is very important , women are citizens too and have the right to be in the streets , in shops , do diferent types of works without being harassed by some unemployed looser or by some sexually furstrated dirty minded pervert

we have to classify harassing women and young girls in the streets as a crime , the police have to take this seriously , more police presence in the streets who have the power to stop any sign of harassement
as a young woman i feel very strongly about this and it was up to me i will make a law 6 months in prison to anyone who allow himself to annoy a woman or a school girl in street , this is how to spread the message , by giving exemples and punishing this behaviour , we need concret actions not just words

rossete

I cannot agree more with your points but i like to add that for this to change we have to work from the grass roots : families ,school ,work place ...................
Its is a shame to accept this degradation of women in our street & if we wait just for the laws & the police to enforce them we will be waiting ................. take for exemple driving in Morocco : we have laws we have the police to enforce them ,but every day almost every seconde people jump red lights ,overtake in the wrong place ,speed ........& every day we loose lifes because of this stupidity plus drink driving is a macho thing in Labled while every where else its a crime ! Education ,Education Education i say ( shit sounds like Blair yakh

yeah you sound like blair bliar smiler:0i am just joking
yes education is important but it s not enough , we have a proverb in Morocco: which says : we moroccans are like cumin, no smell unless crushed a little , i am not encouraging a police state but as you probably know we have to make it clear that you do the crime , you do the time , harassing a woman in the street is a crime against a human being and needs to be punish it ,it s not a joke or a pass time or a hobby : it is a serious offence , an on spot fine will make a lot of diference for instance in uk since the smoking ban everybody doesn t dare smoke in a restaurenat ou a pub simply because the coucil little spies are everywhere and citizens could inform the authorities and get the smoker fined
moroccans don t like to pay penalties and fine and i think a law like that will definitely make a huge difference .

salam again

It seems as harrassing women is the only problem in morocco, off course its very bad to see how people behave in the streets and how they disrespect everyone, which is something that has to be punished severely.. but don't forget that those who are supposed to establish order are the ones bringing chaos, i am talking about the authorities (police...) the outhorities in morocco are involved in the most dangerous practices: drugs, corruption, prostitution ... in morocco you can have your driving license in one week if you want to (a real story) and still we are surprised to see how many accidents we have.. you can give a policeman or a gendarme 20 dh and do whatever you like, a bus can go from marrakech to agadir without the technical control paper, all the driver has to do is bribe the police ...i know someone who was responsible of killing one person when he was driving dead drunk ... his punishement? they took his driving license.. he 's been driving without it since 1999 ...

the point is that we cannot point every single problem without a deep global poilical and social introspection ...meaning if we have for example more than 75 % of illetrate women in the countryside we know exactly who is responsible .. if we have more than 30000 accident in one year ( i dont know the right statistic) we know exactly that it is ont ONLY because people are uneducated, but because of corruption, if a man or a woman living in the countryside or deep in the atlas mountains is sick and has to suffer more in our hospitals or sell his cows to have an operation in a clinique privée we know exactly who is responsible ..

we need real change and this will never happen as long as there is no change in our political system..
we aspire to develop within a system that is simply uncompatible with developement ...

rosette

I did not say do not bring laws & get the police to make sure people adhere to them but i'am in favour for getting the message tru in the homes schools ect that its not acceptable to do or to witness such behaviours as the laws alone wont work in Morocco

You can not campere Morocco to Tunisia..
is easy to handle 3 million than 30 million, is easy to sweep a floor as big as casablance.

as you can not campere USA to Danmark, Danmark is cleaner individual lives better that amecican..but that doesn´t mean that america is behind.. the mass people and area make it hard to make a country looks good.

the same with Morocco and tunisia. what have Tunisia achieved that we suppose to emitat.. TV, Tourism.. the money Tunisia make om Tourism Marocco mke double of it from Moroccan living abroad.

We need to compete with spain that took many of our client. not tunisia.. tunisia just try to survive ..


PS: may be we should learn the mosque pass that Tunisia try to implemente "You have to be a member of a mosque to pray, where you are not allowed to pray in other mosque" sick law... that is humain right!!!! for you

i think my topic has been taking out of context , i didn t say Tunisia is the ideal country we have to copy and envy and work hard to get better than them , i gave the exemple of Tunisia to show that despite small size , dectatorship they managed to acheive some progress , (tunisia is next door as i said ) in the same continent, we can t compare Morocco to Spain which is part of the european community(an african country like Morocco can not be compared to an european country which benefits largely from EU
i visited Tunisia last Year and i felt a lot things they ahave we don t have it in Morocco as i said big progrees in green spaces , environement , cleaniness, they dont have the phenomene of beggers as we have in our capital !!!!!!
@Mr hicham:you said : as harassing women is the only problem? we have more problems...etc
we have to start from somewhere , the civil society have to wake up , all moroccan wait for the gouvernment which the majority of it s membres are corrupted to take the initiative to solve all the problems , how many moroccans are active members in associations and charities ?????1% of the whole population , Moroccan are over 30 millions that in itself is a power which needs to be invested in the developping in the country , education , and awareness of the the citizen rights and reponsibilities are the key
moroccan civil society is a sleep : a solicitor in morocco for instance what does he contribute to the society a part from cases at the court , how many volontary works does he do ? none , the majority of midle class morocco with jobs they don t care about the rest they are locked in their narrow little circles , no one cares , a dirty beach ? who s responsibilty to clean ? of course in developped countries is the council but in Morocco alot of places are neglected with rubbish everywhere people have to be members of srong powerful association , if one person complain none will pay attention to him but if an organised group they will have a presence and the authorities will worry about headaches , scandals , thats how people change things abetter their lives and not but the mentalities we have in morocco ( i dont care not my business)

is always easy to blame others.. won´t cost a thing and make you feel good for a while.

We keep saying people dont do, people dont care ...bla bla ... who are those Moroccan people, they start with you and me..

I dont do shit to make any changes so I dont expect other to do so...

Volantaire work will happend when individuel satisfied his need, which the case is not for most Moroccan, so we are not suppose to expect the impssible from them.

by the way they are lot of assosiation helpping Moroccan in need. Lot of Privat people help sick with their operation, hospital biles, rent, lam in EID EL KABIR .. so is not dark as it look from the out side.

I mentioned once we create an assosiation for us Moroccan living abroad to help our follow Moroccan back home. by adopting some kids, like sending them money every month for there school etc..

but no respond have been made.

TALK WITH NO ACTION IS WORSTE THAN SILENCE.

If only half of the people living abroad or half of the rich peopel in Morocco paid their Zakat, at least peopel wouldn't go hungry in bed. Another thing is interest money, instead of spending the money (wich is haram) send them to a poor famiily so they can start up a business and afford to send all their kids too school. Problem is people have giving up their religion and responsibilty towards other fellow citizins.
(Sorry for hijacking your thread Rosette1)

Back to topic:
Tourism will not help Morocco solve its problem. Have anyone looked at the recent moroccan tradebalance? The import have actually rising because Morocco have imported alot of building material in use for the Plan Azur project. Imgaine the Morocco actually import construction steel!!!!!Why Can't we produce it our self!?!? (or at least produce enough of it and in useable quality) Morocco sels Iron ore to spain an Fench who refine it and sel it back to Moroco as useable construction steel. Calculation: Export of Iron ore X$ Import of construction steele 4X$ result a huge trade defecit. And thats just construction steel.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/12/2007 04:33 by Kutchia.

associations? they exist but not enough!!!!!you said mr aziz, moroccan need first to satisfy their needs before caring about the rest , if i understood what you talking about , you are talking about poor people , unemployed individuals, but the exemple i quoted is people with jobs, solicitors , doctors , teachers , with their jobs they need to volonteer , in their specialilities
actions speaks louder than words , personnally, i am involved with an association and acharity in my home town Meknes , morccan living abroad have to help too , when we visit Morocco we shoudn t pay bribe if we gt stopped by a corrupted policeman , or pay money to jump the queue and burocrcy this is how we change morocco not by religious slogans preying on young unemployed youths planting the seeds of destruction or by winging and moaning all the time without moving a finger to do anything positive
people with words and not of deeds is like a garden full of weeds .

CAN I ASK SOMETHING. YOU GUYS ARE VERY GOOD IN SPEAKING ENGLISH. DO YOU LIVE IN THE USA OR SOMETHIN? I DONT KNOW THIS PAGE FOR SO LONG, BUT I'M NOT USED TO HEAR SO MANY MOROCCAN PEOPLE SPEAK FLUENTLY ENGLISH.

AND DON'T LAUGH AT ME

boessa,dont worry the english forum is very friendly with very good english manners unlike the french speakers wow there is war out there guys and a lot swearing