By Mohamed Lakdali
Fez - The election campaign has really caught my attention recently. Not a single day goes by without my being bombarded with a variety of labels and leaflets, each time by a different group representing a particular party. But the funny part is that the people who work for these parties don’t even explain their future plans or programs; they just hand you a label and leave. What does this mean? Don’t we deserve an explanation? I really think we do.
Election campaigns have proven to be the only occasion when we have the chance to meet politicians. How nice and cool they look! You might ask yourself whether they are really bold enough to be standing here again and giving artificially enthusiastic speeches that simply pull the wool over people’s eyes. Unfortunately, the answer is yes. Actually, many other questions come to mind, but I just let go of them. I am simply one among millions of Moroccan youth who face the same situation and have the same feelings towards politics and politicians.
One of the shrewdest politicians, Charles de Gaulle, said that “politics is the art of fooling people.” This is exactly what is happening to us as Moroccan citizens. These politicians who have imposed themselves upon us think that the masses won’t figure out what the bare reality is and that politicians can keep stupefying the electorate as if they were morons. However, I would like to state that from now on these politicians will no longer wheedle votes out of Moroccans with their smirky smiles, because the people have simply lost trust in politics and their leaders.
In an opinion poll conducted by MWN, 50 Moroccan youth from different cities were asked about their opinions of politics and whether they would vote or not. Almost all of them answered in the negative, stating that they don’t care about politics. Realizing that voting is a right and a national duty, they expressed their apathy not only towards elections but towards the whole political process. According to them, this does not mean they are bad citizens, but it is their way of showing the people in charge that they have utterly lost trust in their politicians.
When asked about the main reasons for their indifference toward politics, they ascribed their apathy to many factors, the most important of which is that the policy of politicians has repeatedly been only about winning the battle and disappearing. Walid Charai, a BA student, said, “I do not trust politics anymore, because all political speeches are devoid of credibility.” Similarly, Mouhcine Alaoui, an MA student in Casablanca, stated that he has “personally lost faith in politics and that all politicians work only for their own benefit and not for the benefit of common people.” In the same vein, a person who preferred to remain anonymous wondered why the number of ministers exceeds the number of ministries. “I think that all of this is a kind of wasting of public money,” he concluded, adding that “in developed countries political parties do not exceed a limited number, while here in Morocco there are more than 33 political parties. Draw your own conclusions about why we need 33 political parties for a population of 33 million.”
Throughout my interviews with Moroccan youth, I sensed a kind of soreness and melancholy in their voices and in the way they were talking about this topic. The bottom line is that the youth have lost faith in politics; they will not participate or even vote because the situation has become unbearable.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Morocco World News’ editorial policy
© Morocco World News. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, rewritten or redistributed without permission
The post Politics Leaves Moroccan Youth Cold appeared first on Morocco World News.