Megamall

It was also in Rabat that I met Natasha and the other Peace Corps Volunteer at Megamall. Megamall is one of these high-end commercial centers for the privileged in poor countries, where you can go bowling, watch a recent Hollywood film (that is sitting in a theater and not a bootleg DVD in your home), pay a lot for American fast food at the food court, and buy expensive European name-brand clothing. It’s a perfect symbol of the inequality that chokes so many of these countries, and how their insecure middle and upper classes ape American excess and consumerism. It’s the kind of place that could be anywhere in the world where people spend themselves stupid on a weekend, and that’s the point. Of course it’s seen as progress and development and government will often laud these “developments.” In Dakar, they are trying to get into the game building their first megamall and planning on an even more luxurious second one. But Morocco is more “developed” and therefore already has a couple. Rich folks in Morocco have a lot of money, I need to look at the numbers but from my short stay there Morocco seemed to be suffering from damn near Brazilian levels of ridiculous economic inequality. You see people who have nothing to envy from North American and Western Europeans (who have been to these countries) next to people who may as well be in Senegal they are so broke. In Morocco there are places where you can forget that you are in an underdeveloped country, something that only happens in Senegal if you stand in front of the Presidential Palace and nowhere else. But the politics in Morocco are even more wack. The king, Mohammed VI, is still too powerful, being both the most important political and religious figure, in his dual role as monarch and “commander of the faithful.” His father, Hassan II, who ruled from 1961 until dying in 1999 was essentially an autocrat. Of course he was supported by the US and France, imprisoning, torturing and murdering dissidents on both left and right. He also IMF-ized the country for the benefit of the Americans and French, leading to more “development” and emigration. As it stands Morocco has one of the largest and most far-flung of the recent diasporas. Even though the current king has gotten a lot of love for democratizing the country, the government still doesn’t protect basic freedoms like freedom of press and speech and is still drinking too much of that neoliberal kool aid for the good of the Moroccan people. They need to get rid of their monarchy or at least Queen Elizabeth-ize his ass.