In Morocco, the Booba concert canceled after a call for a boycott launched by a nationalist movement
A Booba concert scheduled for June 21 in Casablanca has been canceled by the Moroccan authorities, its organizers confirmed on Tuesday (June 6). On the same day, an email confirming the cancellation was sent to the approximately 6,000 spectators who had purchased their tickets. More than two months ago, a boycott campaign accusing the French rapper of sexism was launched on social networks. If its instigators welcome this decision, feminist activists, for their part, warn of the patriarchal motivations of the groups mobilized for the cancellation of the concert.
“Little Moroccan fucks Berlusconi”in the title ELEPHANT, Or “I only go to the shisha for the Arabs”, In assassin generation : these are the words, deemed insulting to North African women, for which Booba has been implicated on social networks. An online petition launched the mobilization on March 23, collecting nearly 4,500 signatures. And on March 28, the Club of Lawyers in Morocco filed a complaint against Booba for having held “degrading remarks towards Moroccan and North African women”. For them, its presence on Moroccan territory “would constitute a threat to public order”.
“I am satisfied to see this happy ending. We have the feeling of having been heard by our authorities and public opinion has won”, welcomes Tarik Talk, at the origin of the petition. Very followed on Twitter, the man is related to the sovereigntist movement of the “Moorish”, ardent defenders of a strong Moroccan identity on social networks, whose members are mostly from the diaspora. “It’s a victory for all Moroccans”he adds.
A “patriotic” approach
For Betty Lachgar, feminist activist and president of the Alternative Movement for Individual Liberties (MALI), this call for a boycott carried out mainly on Twitter is far from being a feminist initiative. “It is the right, even the Moroccan extreme right, which is at the origin of this mobilizationshe explains. The approach is patriotic, nationalist and above all patriarchal. The message they advocate is: we don’t touch our women, our properties. » And to point out that“they supported the singer Saad Lamjarred, sentenced to six years in prison in France for rape”.
The organizer of the concert, who wishes to remain anonymous, recalled at the start of the controversy that the five previous concerts of Booba in Morocco had met with great success, even though they had taken place after the problematic songs of the rapper. In 2017, he performed in front of 100,000 spectators, according to local media, on the stage of Mawazine, one of the most important festivals in the country, in Rabat.
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