Morocco Is Not Algeria, But Is It Heading in the Same Direction?

By Marvine Howe

"Morocco is not Algeria," say most Moroccans emphatically. But their conviction is tinged with apprehension and they keep looking over their shoulders.

In fact, most Moroccans, whether mainstream Muslims or Islamists, express concern that if King Hassan II—who still holds the real power in this constitutional monarchy—doesn't do something to remedy social and economic conditions, people could take to the streets in despair.

I went to Morocco to assess the rise of the Islamist movement in this westernmost Muslim country and examine the repercussions of the devastating war with radical Islamists in neighboring Algeria. To piece together the story of Morocco's Islamic revival, I saw old friends from the main political parties, scholars, members of the women's movement and, of course, Islamists.

Morocco had changed considerably since I last covered the scene for the New York Times in the late 1970s. It is younger, more urban, more developed, and more Muslim. It also is more vocal and more frustrated with the growing gap between rich and poor. King Hassan II, who also goes by the title of Commander of the Faithful, has set up political and religious institutions but keeps them under his tight control. There are new Islamic councils, more mosques, more people at Friday prayers and more contacts with other Islamic countries. But the king and his Ministry of the Interior still supervise everything Islamic, from pilgrimages to Mecca to sermons in mosques.

The monarch, according to palace sources, is firmly persuaded that the majority of Moroccans are moderate Muslims. Any radicals are watched closely and present no immediate danger. On the other hand, politicians on the left and right argue that failure to strengthen democratic institutions has fueled the current Islamic thrust.

No one can measure accurately the extent of the Islamist movement, but according to unbiased estimates by the leading leftist party, the Socialist Union of Popular Forces, there are as many as three million Islamists—militants and sympathizers—out of a population of 28 million. Since the early 1970s, scores of Islamic associations have appeared around the country. Initially, they were encouraged by the palace as a counterweight to the left. As Islamists began to show their strength, however, the palace was quick to crack down.

The government reaction only bolstered the image of the Islamists, even among the leftists. Today there are about 50 known Islamic associations. Most are reformists seeking to promote Islamic values, but some operate underground and aim to change the system.

The most influential Islamist group in the country today is the outlawed Association for Justice and Charity, which has been taking college campuses by storm. Its leader is Abdessalem Yassine, a 66-year-old mystic, who spent five years in prison and has been kept under house arrest since 1989.

Failure to strengthen democratic institutions has fueled the current Islamic thrust.

Yassine's first political act—which gave birth to his movement—was the publication in 1974 of an open letter to the king entitled "Islam or the Deluge,'' said Fathallah Arslane, the association's spokesman, who received me at his residence in the El Massira quarter of Rabat. In the 124-page letter, Yassine, an inspector in the Ministry of Education, urged the king to assume his responsibilities and advised him how to fight corruption and waste, stimulate the economy and achieve democracy and freedom of expression through the Qur'an. Challenging the legitimacy of the Moroccan monarchy, Yassine called for a return to the early caliphate system whereby the ruler was chosen by Islamic scholars—not by heredity.

Then commenced what Arslane calls the regime's "long campaign of repression.'' This involved repeated arrests of Yassine and his partisans, public trials, intimidation of their supporters, seizure of their publications, and refusal to authorize their request to form either a community or political association. Arslane admits that the authorities have done Yassine's movement a great service, publicizing the association and making it popular. Nonetheless, the association needs legal status to pursue its objectives. Now even its volunteers and doctors are banned from doing social work in mosques.

Arslane warned that a worsening of Morocco's social and economic conditions would lead to "a popular explosion."

He called the situation in adjacent Algeria "catastrophic,'' and expressed concern that it would spread to Morocco. "We are against violence in all its aspects, whether individual violence or state violence. What is happening in Algeria is not Islamist but the people defending their rights against the dictatorship of the army,''Arslane said.

Hardly a Stereotype

Nadia Yassine, daughter of the Islamist leader, is hardly the stereotypical Muslim woman. Although she wears the traditional veil and djellaba or long cloak, she appears to be a successful modern woman, balancing her various roles as mother and wife, artist, businesswoman and political activist. Driving her own car, she picked me up at my hotel and took me home for tea in a middle-class apartment building at Sale, an ancient city across the river from Rabat. Nadia and her husband, Abdallah Chibani (a science teacher who lost his job in the public school system and spent two years in prison for belonging to Yassine's movement), have four young daughters. Nadia is a painter and has exhibited her forceful acrylics and oils (always unsigned) in leading hotels and private clubs. Most of her time is spent on her design business, creating and painting decorative silk panels for djellabas on commission.

Later I saw Nadia, the political persona, meeting with a women's group of the Justice and Charity Association in Rabat's populous Yacoub el Hansour quarter. Enveloped in vivid djellabas and headscarves, a dozen young professionals and college students talked of their struggle for the return to "a true Islamic state'' and their presently outlawed activities: helping out in hospitals, distributing tents, blankets and food after fires in shantytowns, organizing funerals for destitute people, and giving meat to families of jailed students on Muslim holidays.

The women spoke unemotionally about problems they have faced as Islamists. Sadia, a 27-year-old pharmacist, recalled "very tough times'' in the Rabat Faculty of Sciences, during what is known as "the Ramadan aggression'' of 1992. She said riot troops attacked students, beating them with clubs merely for wanting to say their midday prayers on campus during the Muslim month of fasting. She said that several students who were arrested haven't yet been freed.

Malika, now a 26-year-old monitress, was beaten by the police and received summonses on four different occasions while a student in the Faculty of Letters. "They accused me of terrorism,'' she laughed. She also has difficulties with her parents, who cannot understand why she chose this course of conduct.

Nadia encouraged the others to speak but was clearly the leader, intervening to present the larger picture or some religious detail. There is prejudice against Islamists, she said, but it is spotty and depends on the department. Islamists are banned from the Engineering Faculty and cannot find work in banks. In 1986, the Islamic presence became visible on university campuses, where Marxists used to dominate, and by 1990 Islamists held the majority in the National Union of Moroccan Students. She linked the increase of Islamists in universities to a general spiritual thirst and the movement around her father, "who has become a symbol of liberty.''

When I raised the classic question of women's rights under Islam, Nadia was ready with an arsenal of religious references. "We don't think about equality but define ourselves vis-ö-vis the Qur'an, which says liberate the slaves,'' she began. "If Islam is practiced faithfully, fathers, brothers or husbands have to take care of women. According to the hadith (sayings of the Prophet Muhammad), the best man is the one who treats his wife best. A woman cannot be obliged to marry someone against her will. We are not submissive but the family must be solid. The man is the captain of the ship; the woman is the crew. The crew can always go on strike."

Arguing that society "is in full decadence'' and Islam "if practiced correctly, is a liberal religion,'' she shares her father's political views on the need to return to rule by a caliph, chosen by leaders of the Muslim community and holding both religious and secular power. But, she insists, her father wants to achieve this aim through free elections.

On the other side of town, but a world away, I saw the tremendous gap between Islamists and secularists. It was at a seminar grouping 60 women from various non-governmental organizations (NGOs) discussing projects and funding sources with a delegate of the United Nations Population Fund. They were bright, dynamic women, bubbling with ideas and interests and dressed in the latest Western fashions. The U.N., I was told, works only with officially recognized organizations, which would exclude illegal groups like the Association for Justice and Charity.

Several NGO leaders admitted they were afraid of Islamists' ideology, calling it "anti-woman,'' and said they will not work with them. Rabea Naciri, who heads a North African feminist group which has organized meetings of solidarity with Algerian women, says Islamists are excluded on the principle of "the non-instrumentalization of religion.'' Nadira Barkallil, a leader of the Democratic Association of Moroccan Women, called Islamists "a dangerous force because they are clandestine, not structured and repressed."

"Moroccans have learned a lot from the horrors in Algeria,'' said Leila Chaouni, who heads Le Fennec, a young, avant garde publishing firm in Casablanca. "Algeria was a one-party state and Morocco has a multi-party society which is being reinforced by the spread of NGOs," Ms. Chaouni said. But Morocco, like Algeria, is faced with the "rupture'' between the French-educated elites and the Arabized masses. Le Fennec is trying to bridge the gap with publications in French and Arabic, like "Women in Islam,'' which debunks popular misconceptions.

A Mood of Frustration

In Rabat's handsome parliament building, the mood of frustration was palpable. Politicians I talked to from the main opposition parties, the conservative Istiqlal and the Socialist Union, feared that without urgent reforms, democratic institutions would erode to the advantage of extremists. King Hassan had agreed to the establishment of a representative government after the strong showing in 1995 legislative elections by the opposition front. But protracted negotiations broke down early this year when the king insisted on keeping a close aide in the key post of minister of the interior. Since then, the government, composed of the king's friends and a few technocrats, seems to be at a standstill.

M'hamed Douiri, a former minister of public works and now a member of parliament for Istiqlal Party, said the growth of the Islamic movement stemmed from economic and social problems.

"What is necessary is rapid reform of the management of the state and the budget to deal with poverty, inequality and injustice,'' he said. "It is a mistake," Douiri stressed, "not to recognize the Islamist movement." He pointed out that both the Istiqlal and the Socialist Union have urged the liberation of the Islamist leader, Yassine.

"All political parties whose aims comply with the rights of man and basic liberties should be recognized,'' said Abderrahmane Youssoufi, a leader of the Socialist Union and an international human rights lawyer. Youssoufi spoke soberly of the government's failure to come to grips with the major national problems: widespread corruption, lack of investments, 30 percent unemployment, anarchy in education, and young people without a present or a future.

"Is there an Algerian danger in Morocco?" I asked yet again.

"We have seen what is happening in Algeria and the example has penetrated all circles,'' Youssoufi responded carefully. "The king has said: 'Don't worry about Islamists; we can take care of them,' but that hasn't stopped the movement from growing. The opposition—the political parties and trade unions—is well organized and can counteract any extremist movement, if given the chance. But structural and constitutional reforms are needed, which can only be carried out by a credible government with executive autonomy and a credible parliament based on really free elections."

Strangely, there was no sense of urgency in the royal palace. Ahmed Peda Guedira, one of the king's oldest and closest counselors, minimized the importance of the radical Islamic movement in Morocco.

"Moroccan Islamists are not the same as those in Algeria or Egypt; Moroccans are moderate and don't have the same spirit of violence,'' the king's aide contended. He estimated there were only two or three thousand militants, mostly on university campuses, "isolated, under control and not a danger.''

Asked then why Yassine was kept under house arrest and his association barred, he snapped that Yassine had "gone too far," holding meetings in his home and wanting to create a religious party.

"That was Algeria's mistake, authorizing the Islamic Salvation Front,'' Guedira said firmly. "We are against religious parties and will never allow them. Besides, Moroccans don't have to go to the mosque to express themselves; they have other means, political parties, trade unions, parliament.''

Leaving this luminous, tranquil country, I felt dark misgivings. If Morocco pursued its present course, I feared the authoritarian rule would only spawn increased radicalism and emasculate the fledgling democratic institutions. Moroccans are known to be pacific and patient, but three-quarters of the population are under 35—young people who see television and have higher expectations than their elders. If they can't find jobs and are barred from immigrating to Europe and the United States, it is likely they will turn to Islamic militants, as they have done in Egypt and Algeria.

Marvine Howe, a former reporter for the New York Times, recently returned from a trip to Morocco.