bcbm
11th February 2011, 20:45
http://media.thestar.topscms.com/images/4d/39/fffde36740fa8c40683694f0a9c1.jpeg
RABAT, MOROCCOIf Mehdi Sahli lived in Cairo or Tunis instead of Rabat, Morocco's capital, no doubt he would have joined the furious mobs that were hurling stones and toppling dictators.
He's young, poor and unemployed, and he's a punk. Plugged in through Facebook and his cellphone, inspired by Western music and currents of social change elsewhere, he has transformed himself from a traditional Muslim youth into an anarchist.
In fact, the 24-year-old had the letter A, the symbol for anarchy, tattooed on his left forearm.
His hair is short now there's just a whisper of a mohawk but once it towered grandly in multiple hues, a stiff foot above his head. His studded leather jacket is painted with the words punk is not dead.
Yet Sahli is also courteous, and well-educated. He studied law for two years at Mohammed V University.
Sahli says he understands why Egyptians have said halas! which means done, finished and are pushing for the once immovable Hosni Mubarak to go, and why Tunisia's dictator, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, has fled.
Idly hanging out with friends in a columned arcade in the centre of the city, he fits perfectly the demographic of a generation that, elsewhere, is blazing a trail to revolution.
But Sahli and his friends are not storming the barricades.
continued:
http://www.thestar.com/news/article/936758--the-star-in-morocco-where-egypt-like-revolution-is-unlikely?bn=1
RABAT, MOROCCOIf Mehdi Sahli lived in Cairo or Tunis instead of Rabat, Morocco's capital, no doubt he would have joined the furious mobs that were hurling stones and toppling dictators.
He's young, poor and unemployed, and he's a punk. Plugged in through Facebook and his cellphone, inspired by Western music and currents of social change elsewhere, he has transformed himself from a traditional Muslim youth into an anarchist.
In fact, the 24-year-old had the letter A, the symbol for anarchy, tattooed on his left forearm.
His hair is short now there's just a whisper of a mohawk but once it towered grandly in multiple hues, a stiff foot above his head. His studded leather jacket is painted with the words punk is not dead.
Yet Sahli is also courteous, and well-educated. He studied law for two years at Mohammed V University.
Sahli says he understands why Egyptians have said halas! which means done, finished and are pushing for the once immovable Hosni Mubarak to go, and why Tunisia's dictator, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, has fled.
Idly hanging out with friends in a columned arcade in the centre of the city, he fits perfectly the demographic of a generation that, elsewhere, is blazing a trail to revolution.
But Sahli and his friends are not storming the barricades.
continued:
http://www.thestar.com/news/article/936758--the-star-in-morocco-where-egypt-like-revolution-is-unlikely?bn=1