00:00in our special series called in focus where we talk to experts regarding our most important
00:19national and international developments joining me today is dr abhishek mishra he is an associate
00:25fellow with the manohar parikar institute for defense studies and analysis his research involves
00:31developments in africa and prior to that he was working with orf think tank in new delhi and he's
00:39joining us today to speak about what is behind the moroccan a 212 zainzi protests so why don't we
00:46start dr mishra by you informing our audiences what is really behind these protests what are the
00:53grievances what are some of the important systemic issues zainzi protesters are uh you know talking
01:00about yes uh thank you for having me uh so the trigger point for this uh current uh ongoing
01:06protest uh it started uh in mid-september this year when uh moroccan government uh they unveiled
01:14a new soccer stadium which was to hold post the african cup of nations later this year the
01:21mule abdulillah of the last soccer stadium which reportedly it costs around 75 million dollars
01:30now simultaneously as the government was uh uh was erecting this stadium uh there were several reports
01:38from different parts in morocco that due to patients were dying in hospitals public hospitals due to
01:45medical negligence so that again brought back amongst the moroccan population brought back several
01:53questions about what exactly are the developmental priorities of morocco why is morocco following
02:03uh so-called infrastructure uh driven foreign policy rather than looking at their own domestic issues
02:13issues so on 27th september uh gen z primarily using the hashtag uh 212 is basically uh morocco's uh
02:25international country code uh they expressed their in a first initially in a peaceful manner they
02:31expressed frustration over the degrading education as well as uh health services uh and they brought out the
02:39the anomaly where uh the government is building all these uh state-of-the-art uh infrastructure uh but at the
02:47same time they are not uh looking to uh rectify these uh domestic priorities now if you have to realize that
02:56in morocco youth they make up one third of the moroccan entire population so they are feeling uh
03:05disenfranchised the other thing we have to note is that morocco is a constitutional monarchy
03:13this is the first such protest which has happened which the country has seen witnessed
03:18post the arab spring and also the february 20 uh revolution in back in 2011. due to those due to the
03:29arab spring those movements what we saw was that the monarch he got less powers and the powers were equally
03:38distributed between the monarch the legislature and the executive so morocco is essentially a
03:46constitutional monarchy now that brings up that brings a dichotomy because a lot of these gen z
03:53protesters they are looking towards uh king muhammad the sixth to basically to implement some policies
04:03which can rectify these uh issues which i just mentioned even the successor to king muhammad the sixth
04:10the crown prince he himself is a gen z so a lot of the youth are resonating with his view his opinions
04:18and mobilizing as as how he will approach reforms when he will he's going to eventually succeed so not
04:26just uh the health and education uh grievances but also morocco as a nation has not fully recovered
04:33also from the economic crisis from lingering economic crisis of the covet 19 pandemic and also uh another
04:41development was that in 2023 uh there was a huge earthquake uh the i believe the all all house uh
04:47earthquake so the moroccan public who were affected they were also not fully they have still not been
04:53fully uh compensated the victims of it so uh there has been more acquisitions against the prime minister
05:00prime minister aziz uh who has been in power since 2021 end of 2021 uh and the prime minister aziz he is
05:10also the owner of the uh aqua group basically the aqua group basically that has he has a total network
05:18of around 1.6 or 1.7 billion dollars so how his personal uh interest how his personal projects and
05:26state projects are also being uh dealt with has also come under uh public scrutiny in recent year so
05:34although this initial protest uh was started by the gen z uh in a decentralized manner just the youth
05:40coming together but eventually just like how they have taken inspiration from similar events
05:47most recently in nepal and indonesia madagascar etc in this age of digital revolution they have been able to
05:54use uh social media messaging platforms communication platform like discord or tick tock etc to mobilize at such a
06:03uh in such a uh so so quickly you spoke about the 2011 arab spring protest in morocco uh at that time
06:12there must be some sort of a leadership or some sort of institutions or group of activists involved
06:18i mean that protest largely had a face but this time it did not have any sort of face or any uh you know
06:25leader coming up saying that i am the one who is actually calling out and supporting these protesters
06:30uh in their call to reforms uh so what do you think is it something deliberate which is happening or is
06:35it really the like people simply you know formed servers on discord and got together the uh the most
06:42the protests where it has turned violent it has mostly turned violent in the suburban areas
06:48and it's not i mean it has started in this uh in the capital rabat but at the same time i mean it has
06:56mostly been prominent in smaller suburb cities and suburban areas within those cities in like
07:02in cities like saleh and uh ujda etc uh so the difference from the 2011 uh issue is that um
07:11the currently the youth they banded together and they came but eventually just like what we saw in
07:20nepal as well the entire issue was highlight uh was hijacked by the political class this time
07:27there has been it has been the issue is completely driven by the gen z or gen alphas uh but the
07:36involvement of civil societies of of uh of popular persons etc has been limited whereas back in 2011
07:48there there was a huge involvement of the civil society but that is in my opinion the primary
07:53difference this time that although it has been hijacked by the political class and started by the
08:00gen z and about to be hijacked by the political class where some political statements are coming
08:05across uh the difference from 2011 is that 2011 had more of a civil society representation around that
08:10this time are we see are we going to see more such protests happening around the globe because this is a
08:16digital world and people can easily you know uh galvanize support on these online platforms yes not
08:22just within uh within morocco but within if you look at the entire african continent uh there is a
08:28huge digital revolution taking care where people now realize that there is a huge opportunity for africa
08:36to be connected not geographically but digitally through digital means and the use of smartphones
08:42uh etc has been exponentially uh rising e-commerce payments etc the immediate threat uh is uh in my
08:52opinion um of course we have to look into uh other demonstrations which may arise as a result of
09:01the current crisis in morocco in maybe other north african countries and middle east countries
09:06uh similar to what happened in arab spring where it all started in tunisia and then it and the wave of
09:13protests uh extended to other parts of uh uh other other arab country uh the immediate country where we
09:23should focus our attention is probably uh going to be algeria where they algerian youth they have already
09:29actually started a hashtag to do similar protest uh and their hashtag is i believe uh gen z213 you
09:38know the current government the prime minister of morocco and the you know governing coalition they
09:43are saying that this is something which has been done by the earlier governments all the national health
09:48infrastructure problems education problems this is the doing of the previous government and the
09:53current uh coalition government and their performances the youth have been uh voicing their concerns over
10:02their uh of their administration's uh so-called approach basically to that it's a kind of a dichotomy even
10:11the king mohammed six in a recent speech also uh he basically in a very recent speech he referred to
10:20the moroccan country as a sort of sort of a two-speed economy where kind of opposites coexist uh in a in a
10:28very dysfunctional uh context of manner uh on the one hand we see state-of-the-art infrastructures being
10:34an industrial project being undertaken by the government but on the other hand basic lack of access to basic
10:41vital public services they are performing uh very poorly so the current uh the current coalition
10:49government also has been under the fire uh they have been under public scrutiny for uh quite some
10:56time right uh do you think because this is a constitutional parliamentary monarchy that we're
11:01talking about so do you think that the king can play a role as a mediator between the pm and these
11:07zenzi protesters because the the zenzi protesters have their support for the king yes so uh the
11:15see constitutional monarchy is uh very complicated and complex in nature so dividing powers between a
11:22monarch and the legislator and the executive branches it's not an easy task but that being said uh yes
11:29many demonstrators of the youth they are looking towards uh the king uh to take
11:36firm actions or decisions to address uh the failure of this political governing elite class and
11:42uh and to improve the degrading public uh services now the king also uh had back in during the arab spring
11:52he had uh responded positively to the demands of uh you know to all these demonstrations so naturally
12:01then now also the youth and all the moroccan youth they are expecting they are looking towards the king but
12:07this the dichotomy as i mentioned was that the same reforms due to arab spring which came about that
12:13into the same constitutional reforms all of that where the powers are now equally divided between
12:20the monarchy has less power all of that will obviously now make it more difficult for the king to
12:26just simply go ahead and dissolve the current uh coalition government it will require obviously a very
12:31uh broad uh political uh consensus and also actions deliberate actions from the parliament from the
12:40government side as well so in uh for the king to uh play a decisive role i in my personal opinion
12:47i see it's a very limited in scope and lastly um what do you think will be the future of these
12:54investment projects uh the stadiums and everything do you think that the government can take a back step or
13:00it will continue uh to hold these international you know sports tournaments and the other projects
13:07i think the future of the infrastructure projects is secure and it's fine uh the moroccan government
13:15they have a very very good track record of uh dealing with demonstrations and photos
13:23uh i i mean previous examples have shown that uh so in my opinion uh this social revolution this movement
13:34is going to be absorbed in the coming weeks coming months time uh and a new and and normalcy will
13:42is likely to most likely to return back so this new digital social movement is uh in my opinion unlikely to
13:49transform into some sort of a more
13:54political formative sort of a revolution what happened in nepal where government was completely
14:00all right thank you so much uh dr mishra for speaking with asianet news and providing the insights
14:06thank you thank you thank you for having me thank you
14:15you
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