Eighty-one years of editorial freedom Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan Women in Morocco: Behind the veil 4 ' 420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Mich. News Phone: 764-0552 Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers ur the editors. This must be noted in all reprints WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 1972 NIGHT EDITOR: ROSE SUE BERSTEIN Tragedy in Northern Ireland THE RECENT TAKING of 13 more live. in Northern Ireland brings to 23 a death toll over the last three year; which has not discriminated on the basi of age, sex, creed, or national loyalties. It is difficult for outsiders to under- stand the causes for the ominously pre- dictable violence in Ulster, and even harder to feel compassion. Reports de- tailing mass murder and internment coupled with pictures of innocent victim -often children-at the moment of their deaths, has served to foment a genera opinion that the one-and-a-half million Protestants and Catholics living in Bel- fast, Londonderry and the rest of North- ern Ireland are collectively mad. Yet the greatest misconceptions which exist about the strife in Northern Ireland are that it has confined itself to a rela- tively recent period and that it is wholly due tp a religious conflict of such fana- tical proportions that it is nothing less than a Holy War in modern times. In fact, however, the violence and ter- rorism that has become the accepted way of life in Ulster has grown out of a bitter historical feud of bloody nationalism that began in the, Middle Ages-and a solu- tion to the conflict, if there is one to b found, must recogrize this element. THE PRESENT PROBLEMS in Ireland can be traced back as far as the 12th Century, when England first attempted tc conquer its neighbor to the west. In th 1600's, Protestant England succeeded in its conquest and by 1700, the Irish Catho- lice majority owned only one-seventh of the land. By decree of a British Parlia- ment, Catholics were excluded from po- litical life, forbidden to have their own schools, and could not buy back -land from the Protestants. In 1800, Ireland was made an integra p r o v i n c e of the United Kingdom Throughout the 19th and early 20th Centuries Irish nationalists fought this enforced union-culminating in 1916 witb the founding of the zealously nationalis- tic Irish Republican Army (I.R.A.). AFTER WORLD WAR I, nationalist fer- vor reached a high point, as thous- ands of Irishmen clamored for indepen- dence from Britain. At the same time however, the Protestants, concentrated in the North, feared the consequences of separation from England. In 1921, a partition established th Irish Free State in the South, and in the North left six counties of Ulster predomi- nantly Protestant as an integral part o: the United Kingdom, with its own Par- liament at Stormont. Modern Ireland took its present shap in 1949 when the Irish Free State pro- claimed itself a republic and seceded from the Commonwealth. Soon after, Britain's Parliament passed the Ireland Act, unde which Ulster remains a British provinc until it chooses to unite the six counties with those of the South. With this act the Protestants - who outnumber the s Catholics 2 to 1 in the North-were able 2 to establish an iron-fisted economic, so- s cial, and political control over the Catho- s lies much in the same way that Southern whites exerted control over blacks before - the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's. - HE PERIOD of the 232 deaths bega'n in 1968, when the Catholics began a civil rights campaign of their own-for equal job opportunities, better housing, and s voting r e f o r m s. The demonstrations ' turned into bloody riots, and England sent troops-which ironically were init- 1 ially welcomed as protectors by most - Catholics. Gradually, however, the indiscriminate tactics of the British soldiers as they 1 pursued the I.R.A. served to radicalize thousands of Ulster Catholics. For the - past three years, the I.R.A. has claimed - widespread support among Ulster Catho- s lics for its campaign of selective terror. The British troops have had little sub- stantive success in silencing the I.R.A., - even with the help of laws permitting in- r ternment without trial. And because of t the one-sided enforcement of such laws and the very presence of the British troops themselves, the British army's po- sition in Northern Ireland is- looking more and more like our country's involve- I ment in Southeast Asia. Z. D THE END OF the conflict in Northern e Ireland is nowhere in sight. For over 50 years, the I.R.A. has dog- - gedly pursued a single goal: The creation f of a united Ireland free of British con- - trol. I.R.A. spokesmen have repeatedly said their unified Ireland will uphold the 1 rights of all Irishmen, Catholic and Pro- P testants alike. If both sides persist in their present in- l transigent policies, such a goal will never be more than a dream, however. The Protestant majority of Ulster has arro- s gantly refused to allow the Catholics an, equal voice in government and kept them in social and economic squalor. Britain is guilty for looking after its own selfish ' interests and for stubbornly failing' to - modernize its foreign policy which goes - back to the Middle Ages. - As soon as possible, all British troops , must be withdrawn from Ulster. The Protestant majority must begin to give f the Catholics their due, and members of both religions must work together to- e ward uniting Ulster with the Irish Re- public, thus achieving the aim of free- dom from British control. This is the only f course to follow. BUT WHILE this national end is being e achieved, all 'people in Ulster should - reflect on the tragic events which have z occurred there in the name of religious s faith and nationalism. It should become r readily apparent to all Northern Ire- e landers that theirs is a place with too s much religion and not enough human- ity. -ROBERT SCHREINER By DANIEL ZWERDLING A WOMAN'S life in Morocco or Algeria, or any Arab-Moslem society, isn't exactly roses. She spends her life literally under wraps - the traditional Arab robes and veil. She can't pause for a cup or int tea in a cafe, or stroll through the town chat- ting with friends - unless she's walking to and from market, she'll be marked as a whore. She can't dine with her hus- band, but eats leftovers in the kitchen. It's unthinkable that she'd work, but if she does, she must surrender her wages to her husband and natal family. If women are second class citizens in America, they're scarcely persons in Mo- rocco. Women are things: they give their hus- bands sex, babies, a clean home with clean linens, and delicious food. Arab women are delicious cooks. THIS NEW WAY of looking at women (or not looking at them, since they pass like timid shadows) slaps me suddenly my second night in Morocco. I'm sitting in a cafe in Tetouan, sipping sugary Turkish coffee with Mohammad, whom I met on a bus. He wears an elegant slim-cut suit and custom made shoes, a gold wristwatch - very elegant, very worldly, the kind of outfit Europeans seldom wear but foreign- ers in Europe always do. He's one of the lucky few Moroccans who got past the border with working papers in his hand, found a good job with 'a shipping firm in Copenhagen, and struck it rich. He's back for a few weeks, visiting his family. IT'S A BEAUTIFUL Moroccan night, too hot to be indoors, sumptuous breezes out- doors. The townspeople are throbbing through the cafes, couples are strolling through the square, walking arm in arm, holding hands, it could be Italy or Spain, except - townspeople? It's the town's men. Where are the women? "A woman cannot leave the house, ex- cept to go shopping, or perform o t h e r errands," Mohammed says. A lone woman on the streets . . ." he smiles. "That's something else." He doesn't know me well enough to be frank. His first wife was Belgian. "We divorced after four years, after she lost her, liveli- ness," Mohammed tells me. He' shakes his head sadly - he should have known that a man from the Arab culture can't be satis- fied with a woman who wants a life of her own. Now, he's married to a Moroccan woman from his birthplace. When they live in Copenhagen, she dresses in western cloth- ing, talks with him and goes to cafes and shows. "Where is she tonight?" I ask him. "She's at home," Mohammed tells me. "This is Morocco. Her liberation is ove." IT'S DIFFICULT to trace the historical origins or sexual roles in any society, but Moslems say they're just obeying the sac- red Koran, which dictates, "Man is the master of the woman." Man is master -and you can see his women serve 4him like slaves. I enjoyed many Moroccan dinners, but only w i t h men. I seldom met or even saw their wives; occasionally, they would greet me silently, then fade into the kitchen. The master of the family and the adult sons would entertain me in rooms hung with tapestries and softened by fat cushions. The daughters and little boys bring great silver urns of water and soap, and bathe our hands. They serve us as we eat. IN A SOCIETY where women are silent robes, forbidden to join men in day-to-day social life, sexual roles as Americans know them don't exist. Try to imagine a daily world where men and women don't talk, don't walk together, can't meet each other - can't even acknowledge that one another exists. Not that you don't see plenty of physi- cal affection in Morocco. You do - but between men only. They stroll arm in hand, embrace each other while sitting, rub each other's knee, clasp hands while strolling through the marketplace. Once I saw two uniformed policemen patrolling a street side by side, holding machine guns in their outer hands, intertwining fingers in the others. I told Lotfi, a young student in Fez, that if I held hands with my male friends in the United States, people would stare at us uncomfortably and type us as "queer." He couldn't understand. "You mean, you never hold hands with your friends?" he asked. "But - isn't that a profound racism?" SEX BETWEEN MEN and women be- fore marriage is taboo, of course (a man and woman can't even meet and talk as friends, until the man has decided he wishes to marry her and pays a visit if to her father). Overt homosexuality is also forbidden. When men get horny, they find a whore. Women better not get horny or they suffer. My friends were surprised and dismayed when I told them that my women friends and I sleep together, like many young Americans. "But, who will you marry?" they wanted to know. "Where will you find any vir- gins?" Once an Arab sleeps with a woman, he loses respect for her. In fact, any woman who comes from behind her robes - and - as they see it - flaunts her sexuality, doesn't deserve re- spect. That's why American women in jeans, or short dresses, and tee shirts (especially without bras) hate Morocco. Arab men pinch their breasts, rub against them and stick their hands in their crotch- es. "They're asking for it," one fellow told me. In some of the big cities, they say the revolution's coming. In Casablanca, which looks as if it was built in France 60 years ago and plopped into Morocco by heli- copter, and in Rabat, the capital and cul- tural center, young women throw off the robes and veils, wear miniskirts and blous- es, set their hair and wear makeup. It's all show. Underneath, they're as traditional as can be," says Mohammed Raamouch, a Moroccan who attended the University in Ann Arbor for a year. Since King Hassan II wants his kingdom to be western (he gets most of' his money from the Ameri- can foreign aid program), he says his women should be western too. He calls him- self "promoter of the emancipation of the Moroccan women. "He even addressed the opening conference of the Union Nationale des Femmes Marocaines, the National Un- ion of Moroccan Women in May, 1969. Guess who's the president? His cousin, Princess Lalla Fatima Zohra. IN MOROCCO, says Hassan, "the concep- tion of the word 'woman,' associated until now with feebleness, physical and intel- lectual incapacity, is recovering itt just significance." The way Hassan sees it (in 1 public appearances, anyway) "t h e woman by ignorance or lack of maturity, has abandoned the rights which Islam gives her." Some avant garde Moroccans have picked a saying of the prophet Hadith: "Wo- men and men have the same responsibili- ties. So, in Morocco, women theoretically can make contractural sales and purchases without their husbands; of course, neither their husbands nor shopkeepers would let them. What does King Hassan II propose to do about all this? He doesn't really say. One Moroccan woman, a European trained law- yer, had some ideas of her own and form- ed a militant women's liberation group, but Hassan outlawed it. I WONDERED eagerly what kind of life Algeria offers to women, now that the revolution is over. After all, didn't Frantz Fanon write about the crucial roles women played winning the homeland from the French? It was women who blew up the MiVV Bar' in the Battle of Algiers. They smuggled guns and ammunition to FLN soldiers, they spied upon French police. Nothing has changed. The women in French Algiers have the same modern wrappings as in Casablanca and Rabat. That's all. The newspapers talk about women's eman- cipation. I even read a big article one day which declared that women must ac- cept their responsibility in the revolution, come from behind the veil and contribute to the productivity of the nation. The menfolk don't like it. I spoke with one Algerian schoolteacher whose father and brother-in-law fought with the revolutionary forces, and were tortured. He pontificates enthusiastically about socialism, factories, increased steel output, and health care. But about women,? "You know what I dislike most about American life?" he asks. "I see in your films, the woman controls the man and the family. If the wife says 'no' and the husband says 'yes', it's 'no', " he declares. I remind him of the revolution, of lives lost, of government pronouncements, of a rosy future where Algerian men and women work side by side as equals. He looks disgusted. "I'm against it," he says. Above us, the linens of ten thousand men flutter from clotheslines strung on the flat roofs of the Algiers casbah. "All us men are." Daniel Zwerdling, Daily Magazine Editor in 1970-71, currently writes for the New Republic. This is the fourth in a series of six articles he is writing for The Daily on contemporary life in North Africa and the Middle East. r 4 + I' Fast foods, french fries, and efficiency The Presidential primary THE AVERAGE VOTER in Michigan will find hid political voice a little louder under the terms of the new state presi- dential primary, approved by the State Senate Monday. The primary scheme will allow the electorate to vote directly for Demo- cratic and Republican presidential hope- fuls. Each candidate will then receive a proportion of the state's votes at each party's national convention equal to the percentage of votes he received across the state. For example, a Democratic candi- date collecting 30 per cent of the state- wide primary vote would receive 30 per cent of the 132 delegates the Democrats will send to the national convention in Miami Beach. Unlike many primary states, where the presidential candidates handpick their delegates to the national convention, Michigan voters will elect precinct dele- gates who will then - first through county conventions and then the state conventions - choose the national dele- gates pledged to each candidate. The new' primary is particularly sig- nificant for the state's newly enfran- chised voters, who would otherwise have been completely excluded from the dele- gate selection process. Previously, unpledged precinct dele- gates were elected two years before each national convention. Because no candi- dates are visible two years before a presi- dential election, few members of the general electorate took notice of these delegate elections, and as a consequence, those elected were normally loyal party workers under control of the party bosses. THE PRESIDENTIAL primary bill now goes to the House where it is ex- pected to pass with only minor altera- tions-perhaps a date change from May 9 to May 29. After that, it is up to the individual. voter to make use of his in- creased electoral muscle. -LINDSAY CHANEY Subversives THE SUBVERSIVE Activities Control Board has found something to do at last. Under the power conferred on it last year by President Nixon to take charge By MICHAEL PALID THIS COUNTRY'S mood is one of accelerated efficiency. The emphasis is on accelerated. The American consumer wants goods now, wants them relatively inex- pensively, and is willing to sac- rifice quality, to these ends. The industry which perhaps satisfies the customers most in this way is the fast foods industry. Fast food establishments, spe- cializing in hamburgers, roast beef sandwiches, and other gastronomic delights, have built economic em- pires on this tendency of the Amer- ican public. In the process, the quality of life in our society has beengreatly devalued, not mere- ly for the buyers, who can blame no one but themselves, but for the unfortunates who must staff these concerns. Jobs in the fast food industry fall to three groups of people: first, those planning a career in fast foods, who learn the business from the bottom up; secondly, those unable to find work else- where - for the most part high schoolers, but older and better educated people in prohibitive job markets; and third, the unin- formed unfortunate who stumbles blindly into the job. Persons from the third category are the first to seek employment elsewhere, and others may follow suit quickly. It could be said that the turnover rate is very high, both for food sold and people employed. dollars is divided among the em- ployes, and subtracted from each employe's check. One manager expressed reservations over the legality of this, since he was leg- ally responsible for this action. He solved his dilemma by refusing to deduct' from the paychecks. He now requests the employes to pay him in cash. Anyone with reser- vations is excused from further employment due to a "bad atti- tude." Although the work itself is, not difficult, one is required to keep forever busy, even is there is nothing to do. Counters and tables are sponged off constantly, in readiness for a rush of customers whose orders will be filled in re- cord time. Some places claim to fill any order within a minute, others think customers will tol- erate a few minutes wait before complaining about the service"and driving off to a competitor. A CLASSIC, but unfortunately typical, example of the atmos- phere of a fast food firm took place at a different local eatery recently. One of the employes was putting french fries into their wax paper wrappers when a manager walked by. "You're filling them too full," he said. The employe mull- ed this over for a second, when another manager happened by. "You're not filling them full enough," he said. Whereupon the disgusted wage earner tore off his image of uniformity and sterility. Thus, a new worker must pur- chase black pants and shoes (which will cost 15-20 hours pay, or $20-$30 at $1.65 per hour), and be outfitted with a company shirt and chef's cap, and perhaps a button recommending the hot ap- ple turnovers. It is easy for an individual to get lost in the crowd HAVING BEEN accepted for employment, the new worker is told that his most important asset is his attitude. A member of the team must always smile, be cour- teous as he takes money, and obey orders unquestioningly. This is a buildup. The employe is then told that he will work for four hours without pay as a training be docked two hours pay. Recently, someone was naive enough to sug- gest that this was against state and federal worker protection laws. He was reprimanded for his bad attitude, and was asked how much he valued his employment. THE EFFICIENCY of this type of operation is beyond belief. The A'