In December 2019 a South, Central, and West Asian Workshop was held in Marrakech, Morocco. Approximately forty people attended—from Morocco, Israel, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden, England, and the United States. The following are some of my highlights.


Azi Khalili, International Liberation Reference Person for South, Central, and West Asian-Heritage People, did a great job of leading. She was clear, direct, loving, and standing proud. Azi and Iman Awadh, the organizer and main interpreter, both stretched themselves heroically and accomplished a great deal for our people’s re-emergence and liberation.


It was wonderful to see how RC has grown in Morocco. Co-Counselors there have taught many new people, among whom are several young adult women from poor and working-class backgrounds. 


I thought about how Sustaining All Life was nearby in Spain doing outreach at COP25 (the twenty-fifth United Nations Climate Change Conference) and how our efforts three years ago at COP22 had led to such a hopeful and ongoing venture here in Morocco. For example, a Co-Counselor has been spreading RC ideas in the Moroccan “mental health” system. Another, a contact from the 2016 COP, was at the workshop with a friend he has taught one-to-one. My fundamentals student in Oujda, who couldn’t come, has started teaching his fiancée one-to-one.


There was a lively culture sharing on Saturday night. It included music, dancing, and a demonstration of the daily ritual of preparing tea. Diane Balser, International Liberation Reference Person for Women, and I shared a little RC history, with photographs of RC Arab pioneers and an appreciation of Betsy Najjar, an RC leader who recently passed away. A group of Amazigh, the Indigenous North African people, sang a song for Betsy wishing her well and saying we missed her and that we are still connected. It was a moving moment on a lovely Moroccan evening on the terrace overlooking the old city.


The workshop included a meeting for working-class and raised-poor folks, our second annual Christian-heritage topic group, a mealtime table on care of the environment, and a Havdalah. (Havdalah is Hebrew for “separation” and refers to the verbal declaration made at the end of Shabbat, or a Jewish holiday, in which the holy day is separated from the mundane period that follows.) 


On Sunday Diane led a workshop for women. I led one for men consisting of five Moroccans living in Morocco, one Turk living in the Netherlands, one Indian living in England, and one Lebanese man from the United States. At one point I told the story of how RC had started. There was group laughter when I talked about Harvey Jackins trying to get Merle to stop discharging laughter and take the situation more seriously. We talked about sex and frozen needs, which we hadn’t talked about before. The latter was a big highlight for many of the men, who said that it wasn’t talked about in their families and was the first time they had talked about it in the Moroccan RC Community. Someone asked if there is a conflict between RC and Islam. I said there is both wisdom and distress in most religions and we need to discharge and re-evaluate to tell the difference. We finished in a closing circle, arms around each other, and appreciated the workshop, ourselves, and the man on our right.