Interview with Fadoua Massat

Fadoua Massat is a young Moroccan reporter who burst onto the Maghreb journalism scene with an article exposing prostitution rackets in the capital city Rabat that serviced wealthy sheikhs visiting from the Gulf. Massat’s report on sex trafficking was so shocking because it came firsthand: She had gone undercover with girls who sold themselves to support their families while studying at university.

Massat’s article astounded newspaper readers with a vivid account of the abuses heaped upon desperate young Moroccan women – and promptly earned her threats from the governments of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. After all, her foray into trafficking had involved a night in the Rabat villa of UAE ruler Sheikh Zayed al-Nahayan.

“Even when I was young, in elementary school, I was always different,” Massat explains. “I always wanted to do something for the people of my society. I always felt obliged to work for the real Morocco, the forgotten Morocco.” When Massat posed as a maid for an upper-class Moroccan family, she was forced to sleep on the terrace on a roll-up mattress, received scraps to eat, and was forced to walk three steps behind her mistress when they went out in the street. A stint as a beggar revealed crime bosses running the pan-handlers, corrupt police asking for bribes, and a vagabond mother who gave her children sleeping pills to keep quiet while she works.

Massat’s muckraking reporting from the dark underbelly of Moroccan society created shockwaves, and in 2002, Massat was given the “Best New Writer Award” by the Union of Moroccan Writers. But she grew increasingly disillusioned with the self-censorship of the country’s press. Now, her voices reaches across the Middle East at her job as a reporter for Radio Sawa, America’s Arabic news radio station.

What made a girl from a large family in the quiet town of Ouezzane become a daring undercover reporter in Morocco’s capital?
Well it all comes from one simple problem: I love to read. I am addicted to reading. If I like a book, I can’t sleep until I finish it. As a child, books were my window to the world. I knew what was going in the US when I was young, because I used to read about it in books.

Where did you find the books to read?
First I got books at my elementary school library. Then I used to go the neighborhood library and borrow books. Most people in my town didn’t take advantage of the library. The library wasn’t too crowded, and mostly had older men. I was the only little girl, hiding between the books and looking for the new books.

What books did you read?
I started with romance stories. That inspired the fiction writer side of me. I read 1001 Nights. It was so magical for me. I imaged the colors and the smells. Then I started to read politics and history, books with very rich Arabic language. I read hadith and sunna. It was very unusual for a young woman to read this. Then I started to read translated Russian, Spanish, and English books: Dostoyevsky, Pablo Coelo. These books I couldn’t put down.

You said wanting to read all the time was a “problem” – how?
When I was young child, my mother would ask me to do the dishes after dinner and I would. But then one day when I was 12, my mother asked me to do the dishes – but I wanted to go read. My brother was a year younger, and he was just sitting on the couch watching TV. I wanted to go to read and I couldn’t understand why he couldn’t do the dishes. So I refused to go the kitchen. My mother was angry, but she began to understand that I was different from my sisters. At first she tried to fight with me, but after a while she gave up on me. Eventually she would tell me: “Ok you can go and read.”

What did you discover in the books you read?
I realized that there is a different life from the one my mother wanted me to live. I realized that in the world there are women who can make it. They don’t have what I call the “grey life” – the life of my grandmother and my mother. I love them dearly, but their role in life has been to have children and care for them. I read writing by Egyptian feminist Nawal As-saadawi. She argued that women should not just have this grey life: to raise children and stay at home. Women can study and develop.

Why did you become interested in women’s equality?
I would ask myself: What’s the difference between me and my brothers? They can think, and I can think. I can read, but some of them can’t even read. So I thought about gender equality all the time. In fact, the first research I did when I attended journalism school was on what I see as the misogny in Arabic, what I call the “Masculinization of the Arabic Language.” For example, most bad concepts in Arabic, for instance, are feminine. Good things are overwhelmingly masculine. You have one man in a group of two million women and you must refer to the group in the masculine form.

Reading seems to have opened your mind to powerful ideas.
As I got older, I began to look at my reading as a form of research. I actually tried to have scientific files to catalog the articles I was reading. I had folders on sex, religion, women’s rights, etc. I still have these. For me, it’s my greatest treasure. These articles that made me start to feel there was a journalist inside me. I would file the material, year after year.

What do your parents think about your writing?
My mother was worried I would have problems with the authorities. When I published my first article, on the masculine bias of Arabic language, it came out in a local Rabat newspaper, Al-Alam. My mom took the newspaper and was very intrigued. My mother never went to school and so she can’t read. She looked at the newspaper without reading it. My sisters showed her the story. She hugged it, put it under her pillow and slept with it. For women like my mom, who didn’t go to school and who can’t read, I must be their voice. I want women in the next generation to go to school, to read, and to know they have another choice. Instead of the grey life, they can have a colorful life.

Has your “colorful” writing ever gotten you in trouble?
When I published an expose on the sex trafficking ring in Rabat, it caused a storm. My story showed how young women were being treated in the fancy villas of visiting sheikhs. During my undercover reporting, I was actually transported with other girls into the Rabat villa of UAE ruler Sheikh Zayed al-Nahayan. I wrote about that. When my story appeared in the press, a representative from the UAE embassy came storming into the newsroom, shouting for me. Luckily I was not there, but my editor called me and said: “Don’t come to the office today.” The embassy actually sued me for saying bad things about their president, and I had enough. So I left Morocco.

What was the biggest surprise about life in America?
In America, what counts is the intrinsic value of the individual. Unlike in Morocco, in America you can walk alone in the street without being approached, without hearing obscenities. There are no Islamists, either, no constant Jihad. It’s freedom. In Morocco, I had to seize my own freedom. Here, it is given to me.

It sounds as if you are critical of some religious leaders.
I have published a short-story called “The Believer’s Disappointment.” It’s creative non-fiction, a story about an imam having an affair inside his mosque with a woman. Then later a husband comes to the imam and explains that he suspects his wife is cheating. The imam tells him that the Quran is very clear: if a wife is cheating, you must take revenge. The husband burns his wife, but then it turns out it she wasn’t cheating after all. The imam’s actions and advice have ruined people’s lives. I wrote this story because in Morocco many people look at imams as sacred. But they are human beings who sometimes do bad things. I believe in Allah, but I don’t want anyone to control my life or tell me what to do because he claims to know religion better than I do. I can read the Quran, and I don’t want anyone to tell me how to run my life.

You are also critical of political leaders.
I remember the day King Hassan II died, in 1999. We all learned the news from Al Jazeera at 2 p.m., but no one could say he died. Four hours later, all the reporters were calling each other, whispering in the phone. He was such a powerful man and had made us so afraid. We didn’t even dare say he died. Since your birth, you’ve known him as the only leader. We’ve heard all these stories about kidnapping and jailing people, as well as other human rights abuses. Once when I was talking about politics, during high school, my mother said to me: “Please, don’t talk about that. Even walls have ears. Someone will hear you and take you away to jail.” This was the atmosphere of fear.

How did you feel when you heard about the king’s death?
When he died there was this strange feeling. Here was this symbol of abuse that you couldn’t talk about. But he died. So he was human, just like us, and this was his end. For years the official media had given us this image that he’s powerful and sacred, it seemed as if he would never die. When I saw journalists whispering in the phone with the news that he died, I felt I needed to turn a page. So I wrote a short-story about that day, only it was a parable about the king’s rule.

Did you publish your short-stories in a newspaper?
No newspaper in Morocco then would dare to publish these stories. There are a lot of taboos in Morocco, particularly around the king and religion, and also the conflict in Western Sahara. And my stories discussed religion, sex, and politics. But the Union of Moroccan Writers is more radical, and they agreed to publish the book. The title I chose was “A Taste of Suffering.”

You have now started blogging. Do you find there is a special freedom in blogging?
Definitely. Blogging gives you unlimited freedom to express yourself. When you report for a paper or T.V. station, you have to keep their preferences in mind. In my blog I don’t have to consider anyone’s preferences but my own. If someone doesn’t want to read it, they won’t go to my site. In blogs I can address subjects that are censored in other types of media.

What are the biggest challenges facing independent journalists in the Middle East today?
Our biggest challenge is self-censorship. For so many years journalists were not allowed to write about human rights or criticize the king or even one of his ministers. Now things are slowly changing, but a lot of journalists don’t take advantage of the new climate. They are accustomed to being censored, and now they censor themselves. You have to have courage to write about controversial topics. Journalists can’t do their job because of this atmosphere of fear. My hope is that future generations will grow up accustomed to freedom of speech, and openly talk about subjects that have long been taboo.

What advice would you give to a young female journalist in the Arab world? What is the best way she can make an impact in her society and produce quality independent journalism?
Don’t wait for others to give you opportunities. You have to take your rights with your own hands. Don’t sit around waiting until an editor asks you to go cover a story. In Morocco female journalists usually write only about fashion and social subjects, but hard news shouldn’t be forbidden to us. You have to be very daring and go cover stories on your own initiative. Write on subjects the men around you fear to address. There are so many topics that only women have access to, and we need to take advantage of that.

What would you say to a young woman who is caught in a family that wants her to maintain traditional women’s roles in the household- what you call ‘the grey life’? How should she handle that situation?
Education is the key to a woman’s independence. The reason the grey life exists is because we don’t educate our daughters and teach them that they are equal to men. If you feel trapped at home, go and learn something. Even if you think it’s too late to change the course of your life, educate yourself so at least you will know something. Only you can change your situation. No one can do it for you, and it isn’t easy. When I tried to escape I was punished many times, but now I’m a free woman. I got what I wanted and it was worth the struggle.

What is your hope for the new generation of young men growing up in the Middle East? What kind of attitudes would you like them to have about the role of women in society?
I want young men to understand that they are hurting not only women, but also their country and their children by forcing women to stay in the home. Women are fifty percent of a society’s potential. By making them live ‘the grey life’ you take away their opportunity to contribute actively to their country.

What are the biggest taboos still remaining in Morocco? How do you see them being addressed?