by Andy Eyschen

The 3rd Morocco Liberty Camp, jointly organized by Friedrich Naumann Foundation (FNF), Language of Liberty Institute (LLI), and Chantier de Citoyennete (CDC) took place from 22 to 25 April 2019 at the same place as the first two in the beach resort town of Bouznika, half-way between the capital Rabat and the largest city Casablanca.


The number of students this year was lower than usual at 16 due to exam times, 15 were from Morocco and one was from Congo Brazzaville, doing an Entrepreneurship course at a Moroccan University.


The program this year focused mainly on “Liberal Values” and the political spectrum, plus Free Market Economics. FNF was represented by its Program Director for Senegal, Daouda Seck and its local coordinator Chaimae Bourjij. Country Manager Olaf Kellerhoff dropped by for a brief visit. LLI was represented by Andy Eyschen and CDC by Oussama Benhmida.


The movie John Q, starring Denzel Washington, was screened to prompt a discussion on universal health care and how it should be financed.
Most of the lectures were presented in French with the exception of the 4 LLI lectures done in English.


A joint presentation on the political spectrum was done by Andy and Daouda and students were asked to identify the political values of various well-known political parties and pin them on a chart from extreme right to extreme left on the spectrum. 


While the majority of students had not been previously exposed to classical liberalism, they all appreciated the idea of personal, political and economic freedoms and were highly skeptical of those exercising political power in Morocco today, making the link between power and corruption, not even excluding royalty, a controversial and potentially dangerous opinion to have in a country like Morocco.


The quality of the students was above average despite the language challenges for some of them, clearly being more comfortable in French than English.


This was Daouda Seck’s first Liberty Camp experience, but he liked the idea so much that he will promote it to the FNF management in West Africa and will endeavor to organize a Liberty Camp in Senegal, possibly later this year. Language will be a challenge again, as Senegal is officially a French-speaking country, like Morocco.  Chaimae also hinted at a 4th Morocco Liberty Camp for next year.


The Moroccans also report that the Berber translation of Ken Schoolland’s The Adventures of Jonathan Gullible: A Free Market Odyssey (already published in 53 languages) is in progress and should be complete this year.