Although there’s a temporary pause this week, the protests in Morocco will keep going until they achieve what they set out to do, one of the organizers of the youth-led movement behind the biggest anti-government protests the country has seen in years, told DW.
They were marred by violence last week but the protests have been mostly peaceful and in a statement published early Tuesday morning, the movement — Gen Z 212 — called for the government’s resignation. Analysts have already suggested Morocco’s billionaire Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch may be forced to resign as a result of the Gen Z-led protests. Gen Z 212 has also demanded reforms of the education and health systems and “an independent, impartial judiciary.”
“Health, education and a good living situation isn’t something we should have to demand, these are our rights,” the organizer told DW in a written interview conducted online. “But greed took them from us,” the person said.
The organizer, who spoke to DW on condition of anonymity, is one of the Moroccans behind the group Gen Z 212, which has organized the daily protests.
None of the group’s organizers have been identified and they plan to keep it that way. The person DW interviewed wouldn’t give further details because, they said, the movement speaks for itself.
The organizer did, however, explain how Gen Z 212 began and how it works. The group was first founded on the online platform Discord in mid-September and members called for protests at the end of September.
Gen Z 212 started off with just four people and was originally triggered by anger over what has been called “the hospital of death” in the coastal city of Agadir. Protests around the Hassan II Hospital had been happening for weeks because of patient mistreatment, lack of hygiene, misuse of drugs and patient deaths.
“Morocco just needed a spark,” the Gen Z 212 organizer said, explaining the connection to the hospital. “The movement really started because of the bad situation in Morocco, that my generation has to endure.”
At the time of writing, the group had close to a quarter of a million members. More than 80 other volunteers have since been recruited to help, the anonymous organizer told DW.
Discord, the new digital public square
Discord is a platform that was first founded in 2015 so players of online games could communicate easily while playing. It has text channels, voice chats and various community management features but is usually classified as a “chat for gamers” app, with both a free and a paid service.
Over the past few years, it has become increasingly popular with non-gamers too. In 2017, Discord had 45 million monthly active users. But the COVID-19 pandemic saw use increase and earlier this year, the platform was recording over 200 million users monthly.
Research suggests that almost a third of them don’t even play online games. Discord, which is valued at around $15 billion (€12.8 billion), is now being used for community management by everyone from businesses and schools to climate activists and right-wing extremists, observers point out.
Recently Discord has been in the news more frequently, and not least because of its vital role in various Gen Z protest groups, such as those in Madagascar, Nepal and Morocco.
Tyler Robinson, the 22-year-old American who allegedly murdered right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk, discussed the killing on Discord. Other US school shooters and violent extremists have also been traced back to Discord groups. This week, the platform’s chief executive, Humam Sakhnini, will testify before US Congress on “the radicalization of online forum users.”
Long-time users point to Discord’s security flaws too. Anybody can join and everyone is anonymous, so groups can easily be infiltrated. Chat histories are never deleted even if a user leaves and in September, a tranche of Discord user data was stolen by hackers. Nonetheless as digital specialist French website, Zataz, explains, “Discord resonates with people under 30. The absence of intrusive algorithms, freedom of organization, and a sense of ‘peer-to-peer’ dialogue explain its popularity.”
Moroccan police ‘not familiar’ with Discord
Morocco’s Gen Z 212 is using Discord for very similar reasons. “It’s much easier to use, more secure and offers more channels to discuss different topics and to put announcements, not to mention voice chats that allow people to connect and get closer to one another,” the organizer told DW. “Also, the Moroccan police is still not familiar with Discord.”
The decentralized nature of Discord, with multiple groups working in different channels at once and the continuous chatter, also suits Gen Z 212’s evolving, collective ideology.
The group has held online votes to decide what action to take next. After three protesters died during violence last week, organizers asked members to choose whether to demonstrate as usual (but peacefully, and with a time limit), to protest from their own balconies and rooftops so as to avoid police, or whether to take a day off in mourning. The first option won and protests went ahead.
Around half an hour before protests are due to take place, a list of locations for demonstrations is published on Discord. After protests end, there are chat sessions where members share their experiences and advice, in Arabic, English and French.
The group has also asked members to ensure protests remain peaceful, to avoid criticism of Morocco’s king and to help tidy streets as a gesture of goodwill toward their communities.
Gen Z 212 shy away from hierarchies and also regularly use their Discord channel to denounce anybody who claims to speak on their behalf.
Concerns about keeping control?
Of course, with close to 250,000 in Gen Z 212 it’s impossible for anonymous organizers to maintain control over what members do in real life. Anonymity means the group cannot sit down and speak to Moroccan politicians who have called for dialogue either. Their current demands are “more general and are characterized by a kind of political romanticism,” Moroccan political analyst Rachid Belghiti recently told DW Arabic.
Some changes have been necessary, the anonymous organizer conceded, because the larger group has since been infiltrated by local security forces and other individuals who might try to sabotage discussions. So trusted members have had to start verifying those allowed to vote on future moves, they explained.
It’s not ideal, the anonymous group organizer continued, “but we believe the group will never get out of control as long as we discuss everything and everybody feels as though their voices will be heard, not like in real life. Democracy is always the way,” they stressed.
The interviewee and other leading members also plan to remain anonymous. “Because the country’s security system is known for being bloody … we will not be sitting at any bargaining table either. There isn’t anything to bargain about, when it comes to health, education and a decent living situation,” they concluded.
With additional reporting by Mohamed Moustaid, DW Arabic.
