Morocco: Islamists Failing as an Alternative

: SAID TEMSAMANI; 10/09/12

By the time massive protests erupted against some Arab dictators, we all know that they were all goners, one way or another. The only way they could have kept their grip on power would have been to slaughter their own people in the streets (as the Syrian dictator is doing now). But it is far from clear that their armies would have been willing to fire on their own people.

And as the examples of Syria and Libya demonstrate, even a willingness to slaughter without mercy is no longer a guarantee of a dictator’s staying power. Moreover, if Mubarak, Ben Ali or Abdallah Salah had opened fire to stay in power, it is hard to imagine the U.S. remaining allied to them afterward. By carrying out a bloodbath, those dictators would have sacrificed whatever scraps of legitimacy they had left, at home or abroad.

So Obama was not wrong to finally withdraw U.S. support from those dictators. Nor was his action necessarily decisive. Obama was merely acknowledging the inevitable. The real mistake was made earlier—by a long line of presidents, from Reagan to Obama, who countenanced those Arab dictators’ rule for so long.

Some of us had been arguing for years that it was a mistake to give them a blank check thinking that those dictators cooperation was essential to fight al-Qaeda and fostering the Israeli-Palestinian “peace process.”

Unfortunately, that policy backfired: It made a revolution, rather a gradual devolution of power, more likely—and when the revolution came it made it more likely that power would be seized by Islamists because the mosque was the only place where any independent political organizing could occur.

To see how things might have worked out differently, look at Morocco. King Mohammed VI has forged a new constitution that allows the largest party in parliament to form a government while keeping for himself control of national security and religious affairs. In Morocco, as in Egypt or Tunisia, Islamist party has emerged as the winner of a recent election. . Morocco’s Islamists, organized in the Justice and Development Party, claim to be moderate, pretend that they are primarily focusing on fighting corruption and expanding services such as health care and schooling, not on banning alcohol or repressing women. It's been almost a year now and no effective political or economic agenda has been implemented. All PJD ministers excel in rhetoric speeches but no action so far. Many observers have started wondering about this and have started questioning the Moroccan Islamists capabilities to elaborate a coherent (doable) social, economic government platform to help the country to get out of the current crisis or at least a road map that can assure the Moroccans of the seriousness and capabilities of the current government. So far the Islamist- led government introduced flashes in the pan either inside the Parliament or in their press meetings. Their campaign to ¨reform Moroccan television is merely an attempt to islamize many of the TV shows and they made that as the top priority of their agenda. Moroccans have started to lose patience with this government and their inability to fulfill many of the promises they have made during the last legislative elections. The Moroccan youth, as the rest of the Arab youth, have started to think that the Arab Spring is a misnomer. The Islamists either in Tunisia, Morocco or Egypt have surfed over the Arab Spring wave and they are likely to dominate Arab politics for generation. The Arab youth rose up for the sake of democracy, rule of law, social justice, employment opportunities and freedom of expression and not for strict implementation of sharia.

Said Temsamani is a political analyst who writes on Morocco and North African Affairs. He lives in Washington.

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Comments (16)

0 #1 RE: Morocco: Islamists Failing as an Alternative — Morcelli 2012-10-09 15:47

In Morocco there are 2 types of people and nothing in between.

Those who'll do anything to keep the status quo, meaning they prefer to keep the makhzen owning the apprehend on the masses just like the author, and those who who think that Islam/Islamists are the saviors.

They are both frightening and dangerous. I don't know who's worse.

I abhor both.