An international year of prayer for
Morocco
| Week 37 |
East &WestMorocco has the distinction of being the western-most Arab nation and is known as the Maghreb. Arabic for "place where the sun sets". Geographically and culturally, Morocco lies at the crossroads between East and West. The late King Hassan II once said, "We are on the continent of Africa, but blown by the winds of Europe." This tension is everywhere. There are bilingual road signs, radio and television. Music is both Eastern and Western. American programming dominates television.Though the Moroccan dialect is fairly unintelligible to Middle Easterners, Arabic is the primary language of Morocco and has been the language of Islam for 1400 years. Moroccans look east to Mecca for the pilgrimage; to Egypt for culture, Oum Kalthoum and soap operas; to Lebanon and Syria for music; to Palestine for political inspiration; and to Iraq for underdogs against imperialists. French is the second national language, a legacy of France's occupation from 1912-1956. It is the language of banking, business, higher education and the Internet. Morocco looks to the West for technological advances, commercial models, modern infrastructure, fashion and sports. America is envied as a "paradise" with MacDonald's, Microsoft, Michael Jordan, Mariah Carey, Hollywood, Buffy & Britney, Coca Cola and Christianity. With the growing importance of English as the language of international commerce, more and more Moroccans are now studying it. Many Moroccans suffer from a low self-esteem in part because they are so far from the Middle East while at the same time they are excluded from the European Community. "A double minded man is unstable in all his ways." James 1:8 KJV "For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ." 2 Corinthians 4:6
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