Mr Rezrazi El Mostafa is seemingly a calm person. Although his resume is out of the ordinary, he has this modesty and restraint inherent to Japanese culture that has managed to combine high-tech and tradition. That of samurais and many Nobel Prize winners. The one that has allowed the country to recover from the first and only nuclear attack in history, in Hiroshima-Nagasaki.
When we meet at the headquarters of the Council of the Moroccan community abroad, he feels embarrassed to talk about himself, about his unusual journey, that of a Moroccan, a pure product of the school and Moroccan universities, now one of the best specialists in strategic studies in the Arab world and Asia. He prefers to be interviewed in English, although, from time to time, he slips some words in Arabic. A bit of humility...
Mr Rezrazi, is one of the first, if not the first Moroccan to obtain a PhD in Regional and International Studies at the University of Tokyo where he became research assistant, then later at the Tohoku University. He is also a visiting professor at the Woodrow Wilson School of International and Public Affairs in the prestigious American University of Princeton.
The child of Safi, decorated by King Mohammed VI in 2005, he studied in his hometown and in the Faculty Mohammed V in Rabat. His first professional experience was journalistic as he collaborated with the newspaper Al-Alam. Years later, in 2005 specifically, he will come across journalism again, with television this time, within the premises of the Al Jazeera in Tokyo where he is both producer and director of the network’s office. Finally he will lead the Asia-Middle East Media Network.
Mr Rezrazi has also chosen to study clinical psychology at the graduate school of clinical psychology in Tokyo, followed by a training in clinical interview techniques and psychological counseling. It comes with no surprise that in 2005, he is officially recognized as a psychologist-psychotherapist at the hospital Hozumi of Tokyo.
Finally in 2014, he earned a doctorate on "psychological dynamics among suicidal jihadists” from the faculty Mohamed V. He is also the author of two books: "Post-Arab spring and democratization" and "New opportunities for negotiated solutions to the issue of the Moroccan Sahara."
Mr Rezrazi has also done some fascinating work on the representations of borders by studying the phenomenon of physical borders and mental borders based on a study of the mental representation of the people of a given territory, without even knowing the geography (physics).
Functions
- Professor-University of International Relations and Strategic Studies (Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Sapporo)
- Secretary General of the Civic Commission for Africa
- Member of the executive board of Japan Global Network
- Secretary General of the Japan Center for Moroccan Studies
- President of the Moroccan Association for Asian Studies and the committee responsible for the creation of the Arab Association for Asian Studies
- Vice President of the Moroccan Society of Clinical Psychologists
- Head of MENA organization Peace Boat
- Professor-University of International Relations and Strategic Studies (Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Sapporo)
- Secretary General of the Civic Commission for Africa
- Member of the executive board of Japan Global Network
- Secretary General of the Japan Center for Moroccan Studies
- President of the Moroccan Association for Asian Studies and the committee responsible for the creation of the Arab Association for Asian Studies
- Vice President of the Moroccan Society of Clinical Psychologists
- Head of MENA organization Peace Boat