Morocco's Moderation

MOROCCO: The Islamist Awakening and Other Challenges.

By Marvine Howe. Oxford Univ. Press. 448 pp. $29.95

Middle East analysts often cite Morocco as a country with at least reasonable potential to become a democracy. A nation with a history of relatively moderate politics, Morocco has 33 million people, nearly all of them Muslim, who value education and independence in equal measure. Though Morocco remains a monarchy, its citizens now elect local officials as well as representatives to a parliament, and its recent kings, whatever their failings, haven’t been tyrants.

A New York Times and BBC correspondent since the 1950s, Marvine Howe observed firsthand the end of the French protectorate in 1956 and the evolution of Moroccan independence in the decades thereafter. She offers a broad-stroke summary of Morocco’s past, coupled with the captivating and clearheaded reportorial detail necessary for assessing its future. And she has spoken firsthand to many of the figures who have shaped the past and will have a hand in the future: Mehdi Ben Barka, the opposition leader who was murdered in 1965, seemingly for political reasons; the young prince Moulay Hassan, who went on to reign from 1962 to 1999 as Hassan II; and leading human rights activists.

Howe characterizes the rule of Hassan II as a “prolonged despotic regime,” which seems an overstatement. To be sure, Hassan was a master of playing parties against one another, and he jailed political opponents, though rarely for long. After his death, his son and successor, Mohammad VI, appointed a truth and reconciliation commission, which has granted amnesty to thousands of former prisoners, though without any direct criticism of the monarchy. Yet despite his occasional severity, Hassan generally allowed quite open political discussion at the local level, a tradition that continues under his son. Political parties are free to vie for an electoral role so long as they don’t oppose the monarchy—which makes for authoritarianism of a comparatively mild sort. Howe is especially acute in her assessment of the multiple groups contending for political legitimacy in the name of Islam.

Though she has only limited knowledge of the daily lives of ordinary Moroccans, Howe recognizes the difficulties they face. A fifth of the population lives below the poverty line; half the population is illiterate (schools are cherished but sparse); four million people live in slums; the unemployment rate is 10 percent nationwide and closer to 20 percent in some cities; and the gap between rich and poor continues to widen. At the same time, the policies of the Bush administration give Moroccans repeated opportunities to mount anti-American protests that are often, in actuality, vehicles for critiques of their own system. The king may find his ability to maintain order tested by events such as the Casablanca bombing of 2003, which killed 45 people.

Yet Morocco has significant strengths as well, including a diverse economic base, substantial remittances from Moroccans working abroad, and the harrowing example of Algeria next door, as well as a close-knit society and generally responsive institutions. All of this gives many Moroccans a sense of optimism that can mystify outsiders—but not Howe, who cautiously shares their hope.

As she notes, King Hassan used to say that “Moroccans are not a people of excess.” But he also spoke of Morocco as a lion tethered to him: Sometimes it pulled him, and sometimes he had to jerk the chain and try to lead it. With many Arab states backing away from their modest promises of liberalization, and with many of their citizens more concerned about peace and order than individual liberties, the Moroccan lion and its keeper will continue to lurch onward. But who will be doing the pulling remains uncertain.

—Lawrence Rosen