Political animal

I had an e-mail from my uncle Jim waiting for me in my inbox this morning: "I bet you've got some observations about what's happening."

Oh no, I thought. The time has come. I'm going to have to write about this whole revolution-in-the-Arab-world thing. 

'Cause, you know, I live there. Or whatever.

The problem is that I have nothing intelligent, informed, or insightful to say about the situation. I am not, and never have been, a particularly political animal. I am interested in but do not understand the historical contexts behind what is going on in these nearby countries. I can't sit through more than 10 minutes of news at a time. And my highly educated and informed uncle is asking me for observations.

So. Here are my unintelligent, uninformed, uninsightful observations, followed by Web links for those of you who want actual useful information about what's going on over here.

What I keep hearing over and over again is that Big Revolution isn't going to happen in Morocco. Yes, Moroccans are demonstrating in some of the cities. (Remember that I live in a Moroccan version of Powell, Wyoming, so everything is quiet here.) I suppose what's going on in other countries has added some momentum to these demonstrations. But the mantra of my friends who don't think anything big is going to happen is this: "Moroccans love their king." They can call for an end to corruption, and they are calling for that, and I completely support that, but I can't imagine anyone calling for imposing limitations on the king's power.

Keep in mind, too, that because I don't understand French or Arabic, I'm probably getting my news about Morocco (and all these other countries) from the same news sources you are, like CNN and BBC. Moroccan news is not likely to be particularly more accurate or more informative than those sources.

My understanding, then, is that something could happen here but it's not going to be like what happened (and is happening) in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, etc. For the moms in my audience: we're safe here (as safe as we would be in the United States, anyway).

But if you're interested in reading more about the situation in Morocco, here are some links you can follow:

-Morocco Board News Service

-The View from Fez (a blog)
-Go to NPR's Web site and do a search for "Morocco." I think their coverage is fairly balanced, accurate, and non-sensationalist.