The EconomistJanuary 30th 2021 Middle East & Africa 372
1The makhzen has leant on advertisers,
causing the revenues of critical outlets to
collapse. Editors have been thrown into jail
or chased abroad. Some relief seemed to
come in 2016, when prison sentences for
journalistic violations were abolished.
Now, though, the government threatens
cheeky reporters with criminal offences
unrelated to their work.
Observers liken the repression to that of
Hassan ii, the current king’s ruthless fa-
ther. Others draw comparisons to Zine el-
Abidine Ben Ali, the former dictator of Tu-
nisia who used sexual revelations to be-
smirch his critics. The makhzen’s hypocrisy
adds another layer of outrage. When a fe-
male police officer in El Jadida filed harass-
ment charges against her boss in 2016, her
salary was frozen. The boss’s brother-in-
law, Abdellatif Hammouchi, is the king-
dom’s security chief. That same year King
Muhammad caused an outcry when he
paid the legal fees of a Moroccan pop star
being tried for rape in France.
It is not just that naysayers are being
muzzled. The regime and its loyalists have
also flooded the market with dozens of on-
line outlets and launched an army of trolls
to retweet positive headlines. Barlamane,
an online paper, is run by a former interior-
ministry official. Another popular outlet is
thought to be owned by a confidant of the
king. “They killed the independent press,”
says Aboubakr Jamai, the founder of La-
kome, who fled to France years ago after an-
other outlet he founded, Le Journal Hebdo-
madaire, was shut down by the authorities.
In 2011 the king promised to chart a
“democratic course” for Morocco, but he
still rules unaccountably. Royal pro-
nouncements, such as his recent decision
to establish relations with Israel, go un-
questioned. His underlings take the blame
for any problems. In December, for exam-
ple, the king announced a programme to
supply vaccines for covid-19 free to all Mo-
roccans, leading to gushing headlines in
the regime-friendly press. Six weeks on,
the programme is just getting started. The
delay, say ministers, was due to bottle-
necks in the supply.
“I used to assume that the wide margin
of manoeuvre we had was due to the demo-
cratic inclinations of the king,” says anoth-
er editor who fled abroad. “It’s just that it
took him time to consolidate as an absolute
monarch.” The pandemic hasn’t helped.
The government has stopped holding press
conferences, ostensibly to maintain social
distancing. People are fed up with a lack of
jobs and shrinking economy, but they are
reluctant to protest because of the virus.
Still, some refuse to lie low. Last month,
after the police arrested his friend, Mr Abd-
elmoumni broke his silence and revealed
the government’s attempt to blackmail
him. “I expect I’m now on the list for deten-
tion,” he says. “Or worse.” 7E
very wednesday women in villages
around Monze, Zambia, meet to swap
recipes. Tables are lined up in a shady spot,
covered in fluorescent mats and piled with
tupperware. Each dish is introduced along-
side its health benefits: porridge with mor-
inga powder is perfect for babies, ground-
nut butter is for “bodybuilding”. When
three types of soyabean sausages are pre-
sented there is a pause and much laughter.
These are to “build the family”.
The meetings aim to prevent under-
nourishment. Seemingly paradoxically,
they also aim to prevent obesity by show-
ing farmers a variety of goods they can cook
without venturing to shops stocked with
processed food. Allan Mulando, from the
un’s World Food Programme, which helps
organise the meet-ups, points to a small
tray of local produce. “Everything required
is here,” he says.
In the rich world children who do not
finish their meals are often scolded and
told that there are people starving in Africa.
In fact, the number of obese people in the
region is growing, too. This is because, be-
fore covid-19 struck, average incomes had
risen and more people had moved to cities,
where they acquired a taste for junk food.
Expanding waists are linked to long-term
health problems such as diabetes and high
blood pressure. The pandemic, which is es-
pecially dangerous for the overweight,
makes the issue even more pressing.
Development wonks have long worriedabout middle-income South Africa, where
40% of women and 15% of men are obese,
which is defined as having a body-mass in-
dex (bmi) of 30 or more. Much of the rest of
the region is heading in the same direction,
apart from a few of the very poorest coun-
tries such as Chad and Mali. In Zambia, for
example, 35% of women and 20% of men
are overweight, meaning they have a bmi
above 25. More children are getting fat, too.
Processed food drives the obesity epi-
demic in cities. As the hard-up take jobs far
from home, they are eating outside their
homes as much as the rich do. Many flock
to street stalls that hawk chips, sweets and
pre-prepared millet and sorghum. Junk
food is everywhere. A survey found that
25% of children aged between six months
and five years in Niger had scarfed at least
one packaged snack or drink in the previ-
ous 24 hours. It was 30% in Burkina Faso,
and over 40% in Mali and Ivory Coast.
Few people are educated about the risks
of junk food. Often poor mothers feed ba-
bies fizzy drinks and sugary juices along-
side breast milk. They also snack on cheap
crisps and biscuits. Junk food is “exciting
for people, it’s new, it’s convenient,” says
Fathima Abdoola, a nutritionist in Lusaka,
Zambia’s capital.
In many cases a healthy diet is out of
reach, even in the countryside. In Monze
farmers often sell valuable crops like le-
gumes and vegetables for cash and survive
on nshima, a traditional maize porridge. AMONZE
Why obesity and malnutrition often co-existAfrican dietsFeast and famine