By PAUL SCHEMM

RABAT, Morocco — Morocco’s glittering Mawazine international music festival wraps up this weekend with performances by Mariah Carey and Lenny Kravitz, after nine days of showcasing the North African kingdom’s cool factor — even as dissident Moroccan artists are imprisoned for their anti-establishment sentiments.

The 11-year-old “Rhythms of the World” festival in the capital Rabat has always highlighted Morocco’s contradictions as the country spends millions to lure top world artists to perform at generally free concerts, while much the country remains mired in poverty.

In past years the festival has been attacked by Islamists for inviting gay performer Elton John in 2010 and by activists for the cost of attracting Shakira and other high profile acts in 2011, but this year the theme of protest is freedom of expression.

Just a week before the festival began, Human Rights Watch slammed Morocco for sentencing a rapper to a year in prison for lyrics deemed insulting to police — a common theme in rap music elsewhere in the world.

“Morocco hosts one famous international music festival after another each spring, but meanwhile it imprisons one of its own singers solely because of lyrics and images that displease the authorities,” Sarah Leah Whitson, Mideast director of the group said in a statement. “Morocco should be known as a haven for world music, not for locking up singers with a political message.”

Moroccan rapper Mouad Belghouat, known as El-Haqed, or “The Enraged” was convicted on May 11 of “showing contempt” to public servants with his song “Dogs of the State” about police corruption. He is known for his political activism and vitriolic songs attacking social injustice, the monarchy and corruption.

Reuters

Moroccan rapper Mouad Belghouat performs during a demonstration in Casablanca on March 18. He was charged on March 30 with insulting public authorities in a song that was posted on YouTube.

A week later, dissident poet Youssef Belkhdim was convicted of attacking police — a charge he denies — at a sit-in he organized in support of Belghouat and sentenced to two years in prison.

The two men belonged to Morocco’s pro-democracy February 20 movement that last year brought tens of thousands into the streets protesting corruption and calling for political reform.

The extravagant sums spent on the Mawazine have been a mainstay of the movement’s slogans. Festival organizers maintain that the Mawazine’s estimated $7 million price tag is worth it because it improves Morocco’s image abroad and gives people at home access to music from around the world. The festival is funded largely by corporate sponsors with strong ties to the state.

“It’s a celebration. It’s a celebration of the city, a celebration of Morocco and it reflects a bit Morocco’s good life to the world,” said program director Mahmoud Lemseffer. “It is a vehicle to present the image of our country, of its hospitality and tolerance.”

Tens of thousands attend each of the festival’s eight venues which present Arabic music, Moroccan music, music from sub-Saharan Africa as well as international acts, which this year included Evanescence, the Scorpions, Gloria Gaynor, Nigel Kennedy and Jimmy Cliff.

Most of the acts have free sections open to the public and on Tuesday, families strolling along Rabat’s Bouregreg river stopped to listen to Beninian songstress Angelique Kidjo belt out classics from South African diva Mariam Makebe and talk about the struggle against apartheid.

But for critics, there is irony in punishing artists at home while hosting international ones known for their support of freedom of expression. Lenny Kravitz, for instance, has striven in song after song to confront America’s tortured attitude about race.

“I think that people should really say what they feel — everybody has the right to speak their mind, you see how things change in places where people were once condemned,” said Kravitz at a press conference Thursday when asked about politics in music. “When I was in Brazil a couple of years ago, I was talking with (musician and activist) Caetano Veloso who dealt with that same thing, who did jail time — and now he has made a difference.”

Salif Traore of the Ivorian band Magic System said that for African artists, speaking truth to power and freedom of expression is what their music is all about.

“We in Africa, we say that artists, musicians and singers are the eyes, ears, and mouths of the people,” he told The Associated Press, when asked about his views on the El-Haqed case.

Rachid el-Belghiti, who heads a national anti-Mawazine campaign, also contests the government’s assertion that it’s supporting culture in Morocco with this festival, countering that it’s really just about making the country look good abroad.

He said the Mawazine, which is run by a close confidant of King Mohammed VI, eats up the lion’s share of corporate sponsorship so that little is left for other festivals around the country.

As millions are being spent to lure in big name acts, local theaters and dance schools around the country are closing down because of a lack of funding.

“A country which puts its artists in prison simply for expressing themselves with their voice or their instruments cannot pretend to support culture,” he said. “That’s impossible.”

la Mole in cattivita’, originally uploaded by il neige sur Liège.

http://www.museonazionaledelcinema.it/

Sullo sfondo di un cielo assolutamente cobalto si stagliava la Mole quel primo pomeriggio di giugno dello scorso anno. Dopo la pioggia del giorno precedente, Torino ci ha presentato una bella sorpresa. In studio con Stefania e poi in giro con lei a scoprire e ad incontrare gente. www.visitatorino.com
La Mole, circondata dal filo spinato, mi apparve come un’altera reclusa, sdegnosa e intoccabile, volta verso il cielo ed immemore delle costrizioni imposte dalla pochezza umana – che richiede che si protegga il pubblico da coloro che ne abusano senza fallo; non si parla di teoria ma di pratica corrente – distruggere e desacrare tutto quello che appartiene alla gente tutta da parte di pochi ignoranti e malfacenti!

Luna di settembre sopra Calamosca — September moon over Calamosca

Mi pare che il nuovo viaggio di scoperta non consista, come dice Proust, “nell’avere nuovi occhi”, ma nel guardare, e soprattutto vedere il mondo, e cio’ che contiene, con occhi nuovi, continuamente rinati, e rinnovati. Comparando e rivalutando il veduto e il vissuto, con occhio sempre fresco e sempre giovane: nuovo e innocente, appunto!

Infine, il grande Marcel forse intendeva proprio questo!

I believe that what Proust said about journey of discovery meant not to have new eyes, rather to look at and see the world, and all that inhabits it, with a spontaneous, fresh look, daily reborn and regenerated. Comparing and re-evaluating all one has seen and lived, with an ever young eye: innocent and new to the world, in fact!

July moon — luna di luglio

Che fai tu luna in ciel
Dimmi, che fai, silenziosa luna? [Giacomo Leopardi]

— luna d’aprile — April moon
pink moon over Brunate Luna rosa sopra Brunate —

Related articles

• again … out of reach – al di la’ del nostro percorso… clouds… nubi… (ilmondoedio.com)

Discovery

Words light as feathers…
light as light…
sadness… loneliness… despair…
the greatest love
a man can carry in his heart…

love here… there… everywhere…
and life… and beauty…
that the eyes and the heart
and the mind and the soul
could detect at once…

Self by il neige sur Liège – texts and photos ©mariana costa weldon

ALLUSION to the SELF
evening is nearing and calm is the air
warm and balmy
memory flows back to starry nights
in the Orient remote
space at the end of time and the mind…
gardens and scents and sounds
all mixed in the perceptions
of today and then again it is yesterday
and an unknown
touch fills your soul as if you had
never felt a touch before
promises of paradise and smiles
from a stranger’s lips
his warmth so real his face so near
his hands a butterfly
wing on your soft skin …

discovery of depths unknown

Lovers by il neige sur Liège – texts and photos ©mariana costa weldon

your soft spoken words
touch my heart
you
a true magician
have woven a net of
stars around my soul
immense distances
between mind and body
glitter of far away worlds
accompany my nights
yearning for your touch

aspettando … il fotografo, originally uploaded by il neige sur Liège.

Il riposo dei… guerrieri… ) Ecco una candida ripresa del post-sfilata di Sant’Efisio.
Hanno ammiccato i cavalieri, e acconsentito a farsi fare un’istantanea in premio alla loro fatica del 1 maggio.

Alle 19 passate erano cotti e stracotti, quasi quanto me, che ero appena arrivata da Milano! Ma loro dovevano ancora esibirsi sul palco nella Piazza del Carmine.

Dettagli post Sant’Efisio

Read more here: Will Vogue Magazine ever learn? [Ban Ki Panky, Italian Style]

Uncanny how little consciousness and conscience [as well as knowledge of true world events and realities] some journalists have! Imagine failures and dictatorships claim to glamour and fame! Bah!

Iranian Navy Able to Deploy Vessels Three Miles off New York Coasts [Fars News Agency] http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8101301309

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran enjoys the capability to position its naval vessels three miles off the United States’ East coasts, a senior Iranian Navy commander said.

“Our naval forces are so powerful that we have a presence in all the waters of the world and, if needed, we can move to within three miles of New York,” The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Navy Commander Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi said Tuesday during a speech to the students of the University of Yazd in Iran.

Fadavi said dominance over the Persian Gulf is “the only tool for the Americans to rule the world” and that’s why “they confront any other power that threatens their status” in the waterway.

The admiral was speaking on the anniversary of a failed April 24, 1980 US military operation – dubbed “Operation Eagle Claw” – that sought to rescue American hostages held captive at the US Embassy in Tehran.

Also on Friday, IRGC Aerospace Commander Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh told FNA that the Islamic republic’s military is also capable of crippling or disabling US aircraft carriers.

“First, sinking an aircraft carrier is not a complicated task,” Hajizadeh said. “Second, an aircraft carrier is equipped with so many advanced, delicate, and sensitive devices … that it could be incapacitated by even the smallest explosion.”

IRGC naval commanders said in July 2011 that they would expand their mission into the Atlantic Ocean, and that the country had equipped a number of its vessels with long-range ballistic missiles.

In September, Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi said Iran planned to deploy naval vessels in the Atlantic Ocean. “The Navy has a strong presence in the Caspian Sea, Persian Gulf, Sea of Oman, Indian Ocean and international waters and soon it will be present in the Atlantic Ocean,” Vahidi said.

A promenade at the harbour in a peaceful, Western city

For the iranian mad dogs, (yap, yap) it is better to feed WMD to the people than peace, education, bread and butter, civil liberties and all the ills we suffer in this feisty and disgusting West. If the so-called media people – mediating only what suits their interests, lines their pockets and feeds their hatred of sorts – we might begin to understand the fear that so many good and decent citizens around the world feel.

I cannot fathom how these people, unworthy of the appellation of journalist, can carry on denying evidence and factual signs and proposing incredible, mirror-climbing exercises in absurdity to omit denouncing the real state of affairs everywhere: East and West.

Only in the West can they push government and good citizens to the limit with their lies and interpretation of facts, and remain unscathed; their misinforming, uninformed, indoctrinating, opprobrious writings, filled with iran-serving, or left-serving,  or islam-serving, and of course party/self-serving, lies and one-sided views of the world — their own & their parties/ideologies’ — or, like someone mentioned, their abominable nihilist doxa.

… a slanted out-look and not just about life…

If one wants to shoot comfortably sitting at a cafe’, as was my case, this is what one gets: a slanted, sideways shot of a splendid cathedral. Yet, some details, I reckon, are quite neat and appealing, given the slant, in fact!

Menuett for Mariana – Guenter Brandt, originally uploaded by il neige sur Liège.

Gunther Brandt’ minuet dedication after our second coaching session and the Roaring Twenties party.
“All’s for the best in the best of possible world!” To say it with Candide, in mockery of old Leibniz, though in ours it was just so, I must say!

Il faut savoir encore sourire
Quand le meilleur s’est retiré
Et qu’il ne reste que le pire
Dans une vie bête à pleurer

Il faut savoir, coûte que coûte
Garder toute sa dignité
Et malgré ce qu’il nous en coûte
S’en aller sans se retourner

Face au destin qui nous désarme
Et devant le bonheur perdu
Il faut savoir cacher ses larmes
Mais moi, mon cœur, je n’ai pas su

Il faut savoir quitter la table
Lorsque l’amour est desservi
Sans s’accrocher l’air pitoyable
Mais partir sans faire de bruit

Il faut savoir cacher sa peine
Sous le masque de tous les jours
Et retenir les cris de haine
Qui sont les derniers mots d’amour

Il faut savoir rester de glace
Et taire un cœur qui meurt déjà
Il faut savoir garder la face
Mais moi, je t’aime trop
Mais moi, je ne peux pas

Il faut savoir mais moi
Je ne sais pas…

Reblogged from CiF Watch:

You may or may not smile... Tel-Aviv the capital of Israel! Bah! That tops it all! Everyone knows Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, at least I do! It was at the times of the Nazarene, at the time of the various conquests throughout the centuries that made slaves of the Jews and displaced them to faraway lands. Honest reporting is quasi dead, since 'journalists' are a strange breed, I’d say rara avis, reporting not a priority in their agendas devoted mostly to making up stories for their creed, not understanding much of what goes on in the world – well, for the most part, I noticed… Furthermore, truth has become an unmarketable commodity. Will we stock-pile it for future generation to discover, or will we help those who are trying to wipe out our collective memory as well as historical facts? I simply love it when journalists [sic] talk about historical Palestine. It was a Roman re-naming and again, many centuries later, after the fall of the Ottoman rulers, it was used by the British conquerors of the same area. When history was history, and not a self-serving concoction, we knew of the Kingdom of Judea, of Samaria, of Galilee … and of all the other lands inhabited by the Jewish people, of course others lived there, too... The Jews never had pogroms vied at the people that peacefully lived with them. They only objected to being occupied and ruled by others – as any other nation did and would. Hence their rebellion and the consequences that went with it.... This is an excellent comment, historically and factually pertinent, by Jeff: April 27, 2012 at 1:47 pm Jeff 2 Votes Shouldn’t pre 1948 Israel and the territories be listed as Mandate Palestine, instead of historic Palestine, since the “borders” of the region called Palestine were redrawn by the British? Seems more far more accurate.