THE SPACE BETWEEN:

Morocco: a journey in the space between monarchy and Islamism: Morocco’s complex colonial and post-colonial history, and its fusion of regal and religious authority, cast a particular light on current debates about religion and secularism in the Islamic world. Here, a French writer visits her homeland after a year’s absence and finds a different space of freedom under the stars. (Nelcya Delanoe, 2/05/2003, OpenDemocracy)

After Hassan II’s death in July 1999, the new young king, Mohamed VI, not only welcomed back exiled leftist opponents but freed the radical Islamist leader, Cheikh Abdesslam Yassine, from house arrest. Yassine’s daughter, Nadia, has taken his place in the political arena. She is brilliant, dynamic, intelligent, clever. Her criticism of a corrupt regime contemptuous of democracy strikes a chord in the population, as did her appeals to austerity and decency in the wake of Hassan’s demise.

The followers of Yassine, Al-Adl Wal Ihsane (Justice and Spirituality Movement), refused fully to participate in the September 2002 legislative elections – the closest to free elections in the country’s history – in order to avoid lending legitimacy to the constitution designed by Hassan II to serve his autocratic rule. Their Islamist rivals, the moderate Party for Justice and Democracy (PJD), ran in half of the country only, to avoid ‘an Algerian situation’; that is, winning and precipitating a confrontation with the army, as happened in the fateful elections of 1992 in Morocco’s neighbour.

The PJD’s tactics were acute, for despite their self-denial they still almost won the elections outright. The remnants of the left coalition just managed to come second, after the establishment ‘Independence’ party. The relative success of the PJD is significant; many people voted for them who would otherwise have voted for the more radical, populist, Yassine movement.

In short, the Islamists in Morocco appear to be on the side of the poor and of an ‘Islamist democracy’ (where decisions are made by the umma). [...]

In Morocco, the IntŽgristes are blackmailing the traditional Islamic establishment, with the monarchy at its peak – successfully so, because the latter refuses seriously to reform itself.

The struggle we are now faced with is a political one for power and wealth, dressed up in religious clothes. Those who wear the robe of purity employ religious discourse in the effort to impose an even more inegalitarian, male-only regime. The notion of purity, as we have known for centuries, is a weapon that kills.

Against it, many brave men and even braver women in Morocco are fighting back, to defend civic space, plurality, secularity and equality. Despite the limited freedom they are granted, they win daily, often miniscule, victories. Their support for the Palestinian cause (that is, for a secular state, by now almost completely destroyed by the Israeli right with the help of Hamas and Hezbollah) and their anger at the current policy of the US and Israel is strong. And yet, they are the true democrats of Morocco. They should not be left in isolation.

In the absence of an Islamic Reformation, you have to wonder if it's possible to create democratic states in the Islamic world without ruthlessly repressing the Islamicists. How can nascent democracies take hold when a large and violent portion of the population rejects the very concept of a secular state? Posted by Orrin Judd at February 7, 2003 8:42 AM