Moroccan Islamism. Between local participation and international Islamist networks of influence (original) (raw)
Related papers
2007
Islamist parties in Morocco have seen an ideological transformation from a radical − even violent − political doctrine to a more pragmatic and progressive strategy in recent years. This paper seeks to understand how the internal ideological evolution of Moroccan Islam and the international context have made collaboration with Europe and the US possible. The key Islamist players on the Moroccan political stage are the Party of Justice and Development and the Association for Justice and Charity, both of which have shown a desire to increase cooperation with Europe but this, they claim, has not been reciprocated by the EU. CEPS Working Documents are intended to give an indication of work being conducted within CEPS research programmes and to stimulate reactions from other experts in the field. Unless otherwise indicated, the views expressed are attributable only to the author in a personal capacity and not to any institution with which he is associated.
Across the Islamic world, Islamist groups have chosen to join popular protests stemming from the 2011 Arab Spring. In Morocco, however, an exception emerged. The country’s main Islamist opposition political party – the Justice and Development Party (hizb al-'adala wa al-tanmia) – declined invitations to join demonstrations organized by the February 20th Movement for Change. Under what conditions do Islamist movements support Arab Spring uprisings? Why did the PJD choose to stay outside these protests demanding greater reform? The PJD, some scholars argue, did not support Arab Spring unrest because it is a co-opted Islamist movement. In contrast, I argue that the PJD refused to join the protests because it thought it could leverage them to its advantage. By threatening the Moroccan regime to leave formal party politics for the street, the Islamist party used the unrest to increase its bargaining power, sideline its rivals, and win its policy demands. This threat to “un-moderate” empowered the PJD to get what it wanted from the regime during the Arab Spring. http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journals/10.1163/18763375-00503002;jsessionid=s0ji907ve6mz.x-brill-live-02
Moroccan Islamists Debate the Causes of Violent Extremism
Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective, 2019
Using Moroccan sources associated with the Islamist movement, this paper outlines the theological and political challenges facing Morocco in terms of violent extremism, especially those posed by certain Wahhabi and Salafist views that reject mainstream Moroccan Islam. It outlines the state’s response to terrorism and evaluates its causes as offered by several Islamist Moroccan intellectuals.
Islamic Activism and Anti-Terrorism Legislation in Morocco
2007
The paper portrays the socio-legal transformation in a rural Moroccan area after the state got involved in the international war on terror following intense exposure to transnational Islamic activism. It describes a locality in south western Morocco before anti-terrorism legislation is put into effect. The paper shows how state implementation of the law is first felt as a threat to civil rights, yet how it is afterwards instrumentalised to serve larger interests. It addresses how this locality manages to restrict external control from both the state and actors linked to transnational Salafi Islam, the anti-terrorism legislation thus being used to reinforce local agency and social coherence through intense intertwining with governmental and global strategies.
Political Islam and the Moroccan Arab Spring
Abdessamad Ait Dada and Richard Van Schaik, 2012
Started in Tunisia, a movement unfolded that fundamentally changed the Arab world. People from all kinds of backgrounds united in common goals. They were asking for freedom and democracy, which was long believed to be impossible in the Arab world. The Middle East had the least democracy and freedom among all countries in the world (Karatnycky, 2002, p. 103). Even though secular leaders had long ruled these countries, many observers pointed at the influence of Islam as a cause. These observers, for example, asserted that “democracy and Islam are not compatible. Whereas democracy requires openness, competition, pluralism, and tolerance of diversity, Islam, they argue, encourages intellectual conformity and an uncritical acceptance of authority.” (Tessler, 2002, p. 5) Islam even had anti-democratic tendencies, because it vested sovereignty in God. Western governments were often afraid of rising Islamism, so it would be better that the Middle East would be ruled by autocratic leaders, than by Islamists (Salame, 1993, p. 31-32). Also in Morocco Islamists have always existed in a tense relation with the state. The government has suppressed Jamaa’t Al-Adl Wa Al-Ihsan (Justice and Charity (JC) movement) for decades and people had been suspicious of the Parti de Justice et Development (PJD) ever since its creation. Now, however, during the Arab Spring movement in Morocco – the 20th February movement – the JC was one of its strongest components. They had been part of it since the very beginning and their support lasted for almost an entire year. It was now visible to people all over the world, that the Islamists were actually part of a pro-democracy movement, while many traditional parties stayed out. The PJD officially took a different stance, but nevertheless: the stereotypes were broken. This paradox - of Islamists playing a leading role in the fight for democracy, while according to some theory these two were incompatible - struck us and was the starting point for our research. Our research question is “how did the main political Islamic movements cope with the claims of the 20th February movement?” The main political Islamic movements are, in our understanding, the JC and PJD. We would like to answer this through the following sub-questions: • What are the claims made by the 20th February movement? • What are the main differences and similarities between PJD and JC? • Why did JC participate in the 20th February movement, while PJD didn’t? • How did the 20th February movement affect both movements? During our research we discovered that our paradox wasn’t much of a paradox at all, and that it was quite likely that JC would participate in the protests while PJD wouldn’t. This we can explain through their differences in both internal and external factors. We, nevertheless, still encounter many misconceptions about the 20th February movement and Islamic movements. The media doesn’t always tell that a great part of the people in the demonstrations were members of JC, and as PJD never officially participated it remained largely unknown that still many of its members participated in the demonstration on an individual basis. We therefore are of the opinion that our research is very relevant for anybody that would like to have a better understanding of the subject. Our data is very recent and things have already been changing in the meantime. Discussions about the merit of the Arab Spring are also still going on, but the data on which this is based is scarce and is produced only by a few sources. We therefore hope that our research can be an useful addition to the debate. This research paper will be divided into eight chapters. The first chapter is about the methods we used for conducting our research and a reflection upon this. The second chapter gives a brief history about both Islamic movements - Justice and Charity, and Justice and Development Party – and the 20th February movement. The third chapter will give a theoretical framework with the main concepts that have been used in our research and that provide explanations for our data. In the remaining chapters we will provide the results of our research.
The End of the Moroccan "Model": How Islamists Lost Despite Winning
Brookings Institution, 2023
When it comes to the failures of Islamist movements during and after the Arab Spring, the case of Morocco’s Justice and Development Party (PJD) has often been treated as a success story. This success, of course, is relative, and the bar is low. But compared to, say, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the PJD seems to offer a much more promising model of how an Islamist party can adapt and evolve in challenging circumstances. Not only did the party survive, but it also reached an accommodation with the Moroccan monarchy and even rose to power. While there were always weaknesses to these claims of Moroccan exceptionalism, they have only become more evident with time. Recent developments, including the PJD’s spectacular electoral defeat in 2021, suggest the need for a more careful assessment of what went right — and what went wrong — with Morocco’s Islamist experiment. To the extent that there still remains a Moroccan “model,” it may be better understood as a model of what not to do.