When Moroccan Americans get together… June 28, 2006

Posted by Delilah in : General, Maroc, US, World, US Congress , trackback

Last Saturday, I attended a day-long gathering of Moroccan Americans advertized as focusing on “opportunities and responsibilities”. The email invite came from a former colleague that I respect and have known for a long time and I had time, so I went - if only to catch-up with old acquaintances and maybe meet new people. That, I did but the rest was pretty much old school, to say the least.

I got there mid-morning, just as the Ambassador of Morocco was wrapping-up his speech. I had no clue who he was, until I asked the guy sitting next to me, in the back of the room who turned out to be an official at the embassy too. Next to him, was another embassy official. This thing was starting to look “official” to me - which didn’t surprise me at all, although I wished the invite had mentioned it and saved me the trip. I turned my attention again to the Ambassador who was going on about “territorial integrity” (ie the Sahara issue). He even introduced a few former POWs.

Then the MC explained that we would hear from former US Amb. to Morocco, under Bill Clinton, Edward Gabriel whose exceedingly patronizing tone was matched by the hollowness of his presentation. He started off joking that he “knew he was at the right place when he saw signs for the conference room pointing in both directions” - which was a damn lie actually - basically telling the organizers to their face that they are incompetent by virtue of being Moroccan. And the room laughed along with him… He also interjected “couscous” numerous times, basically to indicate how Moroccans do business. And the Moroccans in the room laughed with him.
On the substance, there wasn’t any. The guy focused exclusively on getting the MorAm community “engaged on the Sahara issue to lobby Congress”. And the good Ambassador felt the need to explain to us why we should “get involved” in politics, contribute to candidates and incubent campaigns as well as their charities - and how to talk to folks in Congress about the Sahara. I hope the Embassy isn’t spending any Moroccan taxpayer dirhams on this guy. He is the worst PR for the country, bar none.

Next, we were treated to a presentation by some guy from a group called the “Edelman Office”. All about how to communicate more effectively about the Sahara issue.

Anyway, we were left with a couple of hours at the very end of the day to try to connect with each other in a more meaningful way. It’s kind of a shame, really, that some in the MorAm community feel so attached to the government. It would be refreshing to do our own thing one of these days.