Honorable MEPs of the European Parliament,
Subject: why do you need to get involved in the discussion on Moroccan school reform and what does it have to do with European Union affairs?
Honorable representatives of the Parliament of the European Union,
Since the European elections are approaching, I thought it would be wise to call on you, as I have just done with Mr. Christophe Lecourtier, current Ambassador of the Republic of France to the Kingdom of Morocco [1] -, on a problem of great importance and completely absent in your projects, your campaigns and your electoral programs, which is the reform of a school which is not part of Europe, that of the Moroccan school, to be precise!
Your first reflex, completely normal, is to ask yourself the legitimate question of how the problem of reforming a school on the African continent concerns you and your honorable institution? How does it relate to the daily affairs, concerns and problems of your citizens of the European Union?
Frankly, this particular problem concerns you very closely, on at least two levels, since the structural crisis of this North African school is accompanied by direct, transcendent and harmful repercussions on the future of Europe, and even includes the worrying rise of fascist movements and extreme right-wing parties (as revealed by the latest Portuguese elections, after those of Italy, Hungary, Poland, the German Landers, Austria and the Netherlands, and whose polls predict a significant increase in your next European elections in June, where they would top the polls in four of the six founding countries of the European Union! [2]).
The first level is about your aid for international cooperation and your bank loans as part of your “European Neighborhood Policy (ENP)”.
In fact, the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the European Union had released a budget of 102.5 million Euros, to which the Agence Française de Développement (AFD) added 134.7 million Euros and other EU governments (and the World Bank), to support the education reform of the current Moroccan Minister of Education’s « Roadmap 2022-2026 », with the aim of making pre-school education more widespread and combating school drop-outs, who annually exceed 300,000 children (over 3 million in ten years! ), and some of these illiterate minors and youngsters manage to cross every border and end up roaming the main streets of your towns, sowing insecurity and fear as a result of their petty acts of thuggery! This only serves to further strengthen the theses and ranks of authoritarian movements and political formations, who like to surf on « feelings of insecurity, real or perceived, linked to migratory flows, terrorism or economic uncertainties »!
Therefore, and as I expressed to the French ambassador, I am convinced that your precious aid, extracted from the sacrifices and taxes of your citizens of your different European states in these difficult times of austerity, of the War in Ukraine and the deep financial crisis, are used wisely to fight against this scourge of failure and school dropouts, and to improve the performance of Moroccan schools, in the same way as the aid granted for literacy adults. Unfortunately, I am obliged to warn you that these noble objectives will never be achieved as long as the educational authorities of the Kingdom of Morocco continue to fail to respect the recommendations of UNESCO regarding the importance of integrating mother tongue within the school (and within adult literacy campaigns [3]). As stated by Ms. Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO, on the occasion of International Mother Language Day on February 21: “Scientific work is clear: learning in one’s mother tongue is an essential condition of academic achievement. Self-esteem is strengthened, the child’s curiosity is awakened from an early age, and cognitive abilities are facilitated in development. … But a language is not only an idiom or a simple means of communication: it is also the receptacle of a culture. It is the vehicle of a whole set of representations and relationships to the world, of ways of thinking about oneself in one’s relationship to others and to things.” This is what the prestigious French expert in linguistics, Mr. Alain Bentolila, underlined during his relevant inaugural speech on November 15, 2019, in Paris, at the Conference of Ministers of National Education of the States and Governments of the Francophonie , that: “the educational systems of certain countries, as expensive as they are, have become machines for producing illiteracy and academic failure because they have never known (or wanted) to resolve the issue which destroys them: that of the choice of the language of teaching. They lead students to cruel failures because the school welcomed them in a language that their mothers did not teach them and it is intolerable violence for a child and on the solid basis of their mother tongue that we will give them a chance to access reading and writing and that we will then be able to build ambitious learning of official languages.”
The second level concerns the educational programs and bilateral conventions signed by some of your European States with Morocco regarding « Teaching of the Original Language and Culture (ELCO) ».
On this issue, we have repeatedly called on and denounced the Moroccan authorities for their inappropriate choice of language, without receiving any response from them [4]. What’s more, more than twenty NGOs, including a dozen European ones, questioned the Minister of National Education about the reasons for excluding the teaching of the official Amazigh language and mother tongue to the children of Moroccan citizens living abroad in June 2022 [5], whose numbers are beginning to exceed 6 million. On that date, he had issued a circular for a recruitment competition for « teachers of the Arabic language and Moroccan culture to the children of Moroccans living in Europe », offering 139 places for France, 60 for Spain, 16 for Belgium and 3 for Germany. And here he is again, issuing a new circular on March 8, in which he calls for the recruitment of 151 Arabic language teachers (58 for France, 38 for Spain and 45 for Belgium), to add to the 794 teachers who continue to provide this discriminatory teaching in « your European schools », which is hopelessly at odds with the spirit of the new Moroccan Constitution reformed on July 1, 2011, organic law no. 26. 16 of 2019, unanimously adopted by both houses of parliament, concerning the implementation of the official nature of the Amazigh language [6]. A decision which also runs counter to recent, legitimate and relevant UN recommendations [7], the fundamental aim of which is to call on the Moroccan authorities to work to intensify its efforts to ensure that Amazigh people are not subjected to racial discrimination in the exercise of their fundamental rights, particularly with regard to education.
In short, as I perfectly pointed out in my recent correspondence to Spanish MPs, on the twentieth anniversary of the sad and bloody jihadist attacks in Madrid [8], imposing a language that is not a true « language of origin » or mother tongue on the children of Moroccan citizens living in Europe would only continue to push uprooted young people from this emigration (and by extension North African) into social exclusion, to delinquency and drug trafficking (see the great threat posed by the bloodthirsty and ruthless Mocro Maffia in the Netherlands and Belgium, and their growing monopoly of cocaine trafficking, and the settling of scores that continues to take place right in the heart of your capital, Brussels! ), some of whom may even end up in Islamist and jihadist radicalism [9].
In short, we urge you to draw the attention and responsibility of the Moroccan authorities to the latest UN recommendations [10] and to integrate the Amazigh mother tongue into educational programs and bilateral agreements with your respective countries and the EU.
Hoping that my modest letter of interpellation will find an echo with your attention, please accept the expression of my best regards.
Rachid RAHA, President of the World Amazigh Assembly (AMA)
Copy to:
- Mr Josep Borrell i Fontelles, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission
- Ms. Patricia Pilar LLOMBART CUSSAC, Ambassador and Head of the Delegation of the European Commission to Morocco
Notes :
[1]- http://amamazigh.org/2024/03/lettres-des-amazighs-a-lambassadeur-de-france-a-propos-de-lecole-marocaine/
[2]- https://fr.euronews.com/2024/03/19/elections-europeennes-un-sondage-exclusif-donne-la-coalition-pro-ue-gagnante
[3]- https://amadalamazigh.press.ma/fr/comment-lunion-europeenne-contribue-a-la-radicalisation-des-jeunes-au-maroc/
[4]- https://amadalamazigh.press.ma/fr/journee-nationale-de-migrant-discrimination-persistante-a-lencontre-des-amazighs-de-la-communaute-marocaine-residente-a-letranger/
[5]- https://amadalamazigh.press.ma/fr/des-ong-amazighs-interpellent-le-ministre-marocain-de-leducation-nationale-sur-les-motifs-dexclusion-de-lenseignement-de-la-langue-officielle-amazighe-aux-enfants-des-mre/
[6]- https://amadalamazigh.press.ma/pdf/26.16.pdf
[7]- https://www.facebook.com/share/p/BtCdat21NuHTUidg/?mibextid=oFDknk
[8]- https://www.atalayar.com/en/opinion/rachid-raha/%E2%80%8Bthere-are-moors-on-the-coast/20240310095306197658.html
[9]- http://amadalpresse.com/RAHA/Terroristes.html
[10]- See the Concluding Observations the CERD_Morocco, pages 6 and 7:
https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/treatybodyexternal/TBSearch.aspx?Lang=en&TreatyID=6&CountryID=117
