Rabat

Kevin's favourite capital of the, we'll call it, Month (June 2014): Rabat, the capital of Morocco (no Casablanca is not the capital of Morocco).

Morocco is known for being a fairly calm place. Long hailed as the most stable place in the Arab world, it is a popular tourist destination for Europeans and popular for foreign deserty movie scenes for hollywood movies and TV shows (parts of of Game of Thrones were shot in Morocco, if your a fan of the show I'm sure you can guess which parts). The names of some Moroccan cities, Tangiers, Marrakesh, Casablanca, and Fez inspire visions of Middle Eastern splendour. Few people seems to realize that Rabat (which few people have heard of) is Morocco's capital city. It appears that the leaders in Rabat have done much to in the way of promoting a relatively peaceful route from monarchical rule to multi-party constitutional democracy (though the King of Morocco has more in the way of power than other kings in democracies). They have even recently made serious steps to be more inclusive of the original Berber (or Amazigh) culture, which had suffered various spates of repression since Morocco gained independence. Despite the fact that a majority chunk of the population speaks the Berber tongue, only a few years ago did it become one of the official languages of Morocco. Though have pointed out that this appears to have been spurred by the various protest across the region at the time (known as the Arab Spring). It is still considered a trend in the right direction.

 It is the state of Western Sahara that causes the most international tension surrounding Morocco's leadership. Morocco, though it is not recognized as such by the UN, claims control of most of West Sahara and left the African Union in protest in 1984 when the AU admitted West Sahara (called the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic) as an independent state controlled by the Polisario Front. The Front and the SADR are strongly backed by Morocco's Eastern neighbour Algeria. The peace talks and process had been deadlocked more or less since 1991 when the armed conflict between Moroccan forces and SADR forces ceased. There have been a few promising moments, always ending with one side or the other rejecting a key agreement. There has also been a small UN peace keeping force in Western Sahara for a number of years now (recently renewed for at least another year). Morocco was most recently annoyed by the latest attempt at negotiating by the African Union, which is sending a special envoy (Joaquim Chissano former president of Mozambique) to help settle the dispute. International concern outside of Africa has also been growing about the Western Sahara refugee camps as well and putting a larger spot light on the area once more. The UNHRC recently made its concern known and calls for international pressure to solve the dispute have been growing. It is possible that this time around there may be some resolution. Possibly.