By Ahmed Jalali
Whiَle King Mohammed VI was chairing a Council of Ministers in Rabat, which included decisions that could be considered a response to the reasonable demands chanted and called for by "Gen Z" in the name of the vast majority of the Moroccan people, other young Moroccans in the heart of Latin America were struggling to achieve the impossible: winning the Youth World Cup in an adventure that reached the depths of a sporting and national epic.
And when you just contemplate the football legends (Brazil, Spain, France, Argentina) that the Atlas Lions' Cubs overcame, you cannot pass it off as something ordinary... No, it is not ordinary at all; it is a miracle. More importantly than the description is the search for a logically and rationally convincing explanation.
The coach is Moroccan, the plan is Moroccan, and the Mohammed VI Football Academy is Moroccan... so the Cup was Moroccan. To hell with everything foreign in our management and in dictating any "philosophy" to us.
These young men created this miracle, in addition to the fully Moroccan context, because they have enough self-confidence and are not afraid of ambition in its most erratic and crazy limits. Simply put, this is a generation unlike its hesitant Moroccan predecessors, the half-ambitious, the quarter-dreamers. These big little ones are practical, dreamers, and work hard to achieve the dream.
Even in their joy (when receiving the medals, for example), they seemed like someone who was confident of victory and convinced that they were the best. These heroes resemble us as Moroccans but are very different from us in temperament and composure.
The very beautiful thing about this great victory, symbolically and psychologically, is its timing: our boys won the World Cup in an Arab and regional context suffering from disappointments, defeats, and setbacks... so the psychological victory became shared and a right for the inhabitants of the Arab region from one end to the other.
The sons of the Amazigh people , who inherited Arabism and Islam as a historical boon of generosity, are happy for their people and share their happiness with the rest of the peoples with whom they share the bonds of religion, culture, and common history. This is the healthy Moroccan exception.
After the frenzy of enthusiasm and the justifiable hysterical joy of a great victory subsides, calm sets in, and you reflect with yourself or out loud with a compatriot you are comfortable with, and you see the amazing paradoxes of a Morocco that is moving at more than one speed:
· You foolishly and delightfully ask yourself: Since Morocco is capable of all these sporting victories and successes, what prevents achieving similar ones in other areas that are closely linked to the daily life of the citizen who suffers woes in their health, finances, work, and with the administration?
· Then you become even more astonished when you see Fouzi Lekjaa, for example, with his sporting prestige and power, and you wonder—this time with bitter anger—and want to know what has stopped the springs of success in the financial aspect connected to the government budget? Since the man has a successful mind that made the national team challenge giants, why doesn't Lekjaa's genius come up with solutions to save the bankrupts of this nation by rationalizing the collection, investment, and distribution of money... and you get a headache in both your temples.
· And as you watch the youth raise the golden cup to see it in the sky of Santiago, you must consider how you can explain to the world that the Moroccan people whose sons create this great magic have shantytowns that make officials ashamed, and ugliness in poor medical services and inhumane treatment in various facilities, and corruption and graft with a stench worse than the most horrific forms of pus and discharge.
· And when you marvel at how these golden adolescents achieved this universal triumph, a more dangerous question sparks in your mind: What if every Moroccan was given the opportunity to show what they have to offer, in all fields, and the criterion was truly equal opportunity? I swear, if this happened, it would only take ten years and we would look down on Spain and France.
Since the arrival of this ill-fated government, Moroccans have gone from one setback to another, from a collective ordeal to a greater catastrophe. The few displays of joy, like distant flashes of light in spacetime, were only created by Moroccan sports youth or by royal decisions that alleviate some of the burden on the people (such as canceling the Eid sacrifice).
It is one of the paradoxes of the beautiful Moroccan sports era that God has given us Wahbi in sports (the coach), who temporarily made us forget the colic caused by the government's Wahbi throughout these heavy years of the Akhannouch government.
The event of winning the Youth World Cup in this epic manner and with this legendary determination transcends sports to something more serious, despite its importance. It is a clear indicator of the possible Morocco, or rather the Morocco that should be in the foreseeable future.
These golden sons of Morocco, along with the youth of Gen Z, are the outcry that must and should awaken the sleepers and make those who are deafened by the desire for monopoly and moving against the tide of history hear.
While the euphoria of victory and the historical increase in allocations for health, education, and employment in the 2026 budget will somewhat ease the social tension boiling in the Moroccan pot, this must be conditional on fundamental rules; otherwise, it is playing with fire and heading straight towards a solid rock:
· First, arresting and prosecuting the plunderers of all sectors, including education and health, holding them accountable, and reclaiming the funds from them by law, and not just Lekjaa's diligence in expanding the tax base through painful increases or decisions targeting "those who can be managed."
· Second, the billions allocated for health and education must ensure that seven-tenths of it are spent where the citizen should feel a direct benefit from it, not just going to management... and so on and so forth, achieving nothing in the end.
· The dozens of university hospitals and others that they promised us: Will citizens find treatment in them, or will they be content with modern buildings and relatively comfortable chairs? Moroccans want real emergency rooms, medical staff to provide immediate relief, and medication that is available and reasonably priced. Furthermore, how are "RAMED," "AMO," and the whole bunch of names, and what is their share of all these inflated figures?
· More important than the current decisions and the reaffirmation of the social state is that the state has correctly caught the signals, believed in the importance of self-criticism, and genuinely decided to wage a relentless war on corruption, and thus change the governance methodology. In the end, governance is a philosophy and a conception, and the people of logic said that judging a thing is a branch of its conception.
Yesterday, I read a post that both delighted and pained me for its cleverness, well-chosen words, and power of expression and brevity: "Removing the hands of the corrupt from public funds is more important than raising budgets." Clear?
The social, political, sporting, and scientific Gen Z is a blessing from God that emerged from the loins of Moroccans, and they are destiny's reward to Moroccans. In return, they deserve a reward from the state and the people: to embrace them, empower them, and grant them every opportunity to be the new blood that revives the state's arteries and strengthens the institutions.
Embrace them and do not fear them, for they are your sons and daughters, not an enemy to be wary of.
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