Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
New Regime, New Hopes
As Moroccans will surely tell you, there's still room for improvement in today's Morocco.
The parliament elected in 2002 set aside 30 seats for women members of parliament, and
implemented some promising reforms: Morocco's first-ever municipal elections, employ-
ment non- discrimination laws, the introduction of Berber languages in state schools, and
the Mudawanna, a legal code protecting women's rights to divorce and custody. But tactics
from the Years of Lead were revived after the 2003 Casablanca trade-centre bombings and
a 2010 military raid of a Western Sahara protest camp, when suspects were rounded up - in
2010 Human Rights Watch reported that many of them had been subjected to abuse and de-
tention without counsel. Civil society is outpacing state reforms, as Moroccans take the ini-
tiative to address poverty and illiteracy through enterprising village associations and non-
governmental organisations.
TIMELINE
Origin
According to Amazigh folklore, the earth's irst couple birthed 100 babies and left them to
inish the job of populating the planet.
248,000-73,000 BC
Precocious 'pebble people' begin fashioning stone tools far ahead of the European Stone
Age technology curve.
5000- 2500 BC
Once the ice age melts away, the Maghreb becomes a melting pot of Saharan, Mediter-
ranean and indigenous people. They meet, mingle and merge into a diverse people: the
Amazigh.
1600 BC
Bronze Age petroglyphs in the High Atlas depict ishing, hunting and horseback riding - a
versatile combination of skills and cultures that would deine the adaptable, resilient
Amazigh.
950 BC
