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Monday, January 23, 2006

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That's some interesting Islam in Morocco

Der Spiegel's Helene Zuber has an interesting story about how Morocco's government recent efflorts to fuse Islam, modernization, and civil rights. So far, it seems to be working:

Religion is making a comeback in Morocco, and more and more young, well-educated Moroccans are devouring the Koran. The new piety, no longer limited to the mosque or prayers at home, is evident in full public view. More and more women are wearing headscarves, even in Casablanca's western fashion enclaves and Rabat's gleaming shopping centers. The designers of expensive caftans -- creations of brocade and silk, embellished with gold thread -- are now selling their products as luxury couture for the next party, and their clientele is no longer limited to wealthy tourists.

Morocco's 42-year-old King Mohammed VI has discovered religion as a means of modernizing his society -- and progress through piety seems to be the order of the day. By granting new rights to women and strengthening civil liberties, the ruler of this country of 30 million on Africa's northern edge, which is 99 percent Muslim, plans to democratize Morocco through a tolerant interpretation of the Koran....

The Conseil Supérieur des Oulémas, or council of religious scholars, which the king installed a year and a half ago, has been issuing fatwas on the most pressing questions of the 21st century -- and, surprisingly, they've been well-received by both young people and hardened Islamists. If the king's reform plan succeeds, Morocco could become a model of democratic Islam....

Traditionally women are not permitted to speak out during prayer, so as not to "provoke" the men, explains Fatima al-Kabbaj, a graduate of the time-honored Islamic theological University of Karaouine in Fez and the first woman in the 16-member Council of Religious Scholars. Kabbaj instructed the king and his siblings in the laws of faith. She says that the monarch has recognized that women are better able to gain the trust of the illiterate, most of whom are also women. Besides, says Kabbaj, devout women are also more effective with the rural population and Morocco's four million poor than inaccessible imams....

But can the plan succeed? Can the Moroccan king control the interpretation of the Koran in a country where anyone can gain access to competing foreign views on the internet? The palace, at any rate, is willing to try anything. It's even set up a website that will enable the faithful to chat with religious scholars at 1,000 key mosques. In addition, Radio Coranique Mohammed VI has been broadcasting religious programming for more than a year. And during the last fasting period, the king not only had a woman lead the traditional religious discussion panel at the palace, but also inaugurated an Islamic satellite TV station.

Another tool in Mohammed's battle for the souls of his subjects is the "National Initiative for Development." Although officially more than half of the government's budget is spent on social projects, Morocco is still ranked 124th on the United Nations Human Development Index. With a budget of just under €25 million in immediate aid and another billion euros between 2006 and 2010, the government hopes to reduce poverty by half within the next five years.

If the king has his way, Moroccans will liberate themselves from the slogans and handouts of radical Islamist preachers. Although they may represent a threat to Mohammed VI's reform policies, the only Islamist party seen as capable of succeeding in next year's parliamentary election is the Justice and Development Party.

The party's young leaders are using the Turkish ruling party, AKP, and the German Christian Democrats as their model. In the eight cities controlled by the Islamists, they have already dispensed with prohibitions on serving alcohol, Western films and provocative swimwear -- knowing full well that Morocco's economy depends on tourism.

posted by Dan on 01.23.06 at 10:39 AM

Comments:

Still a dictatorship. The underlying reason is not important.

>"...tolerant interpretation of the Koran."

Tolerant?

Is that like compassionate conservatism?

Are we saying in backhanded way Islam is NOT a tolerant
concept? And you have to go out of your way to make it so?

Interpretations?

Wow...Humans still interpretating religion. Isn't it
simply wonderful that humans have to interpret their religions.

Can't find just one that fits everything human, eh.

Sounds like Morocco is playing the same game as
the Soviet Union did that lead to it's collapse.

Morocco is doomed unless it abandon's it's current
course.

posted by: James on 01.23.06 at 10:39 AM [permalink]

This man has earned the love of his people in a handful of years and his suave transformations seem to work. The man is progressive and ambitious, but wise enough to forsake the idea of building a pyramid in one day. I'd like to see someone prove himself better. Emphasis on "prove". Verbal victory does not really count, in really life.

posted by: Eddie Barzoon on 01.23.06 at 10:39 AM [permalink]

As strange as it may seem, I can't help thinking of this development in the same light as China's transition from totalitarianism to embrace of free markets. Hopefully, they both turn out well.

posted by: Eric on 01.23.06 at 10:39 AM [permalink]

First, Der Speigel needs to get out more. The supposed religious revival is nothing new, what the arty describes in re dress has been true since the 1980s (and for equally long time the superficial have been bitching and moaning about clothing).

Second, re this comment:
Tolerant?

Is that like compassionate conservatism?

No, like laid back and... well, tolerant.

Are we saying in backhanded way Islam is NOT a tolerant concept?

Religion.

Like any human institution, obviously highly variable. In time and space.

Equally, the tendency to say stupid things is human, as the above.

Sounds like Morocco is playing the same game as
the Soviet Union did that lead to it's collapse.

Sounds like you have some bizarre axe to grind.

The article is strikingly stupid, but on the other hand Morocco's main issues are trying to move forward across the board to meet globalisation.

Morocco is doomed unless it abandon's it's current course.

Amusingly stupid statement.

posted by: collounsbury on 01.23.06 at 10:39 AM [permalink]

Being 'tolerant' is subjective.

>Are we saying in backhanded way Islam is NOT a tolerant concept?

>>Religion.

Human concept. The word religion is a subset on human behavior
based on a concept created by humans.

>Sounds like Morocco is playing the same game as
>the Soviet Union did that lead to it's collapse.

Simple observation.

>Morocco is doomed unless it abandon's it's current course.

This statement stands. The elements Morocco is trying to mix
together will not work for a stable society.

posted by: James on 01.23.06 at 10:39 AM [permalink]

Well, further to this:

Being 'tolerant' is subjective.

Indeed.

However, as a general matter being tolerant on an operational basis is fairly clear.

Not beating the bloody hell (or its legal equivalent) out of someone doing something you don't like, for example is a fairly non-subjective aspect of tolerance.

Generally speaking, on a relative basis, the Islamic world relative to the other big Abrahamic religion was pretty tolerant (in the aggregate, nothing is perfect) for centuries.

Unsuprisingly that tolerance declined as the economic prospects declined, and at the same time, the confidence. (And we see the inverse in Europe)

>Sounds like Morocco is playing the same game as
>the Soviet Union did that lead to it's collapse.

Simple observation.

Simple minded observation as there is nothing comparable. Nothing.

I had the pleasure of living in the East Bloc briefly when it still existed, and live and work in MENA, including much time in Morocco. Soviet comparisons are laughable and foolish.

The Moroccan system is liberalising (indeed the changes I have witnessed in the past 15 years are quite impressive), largely in the economic realm but relatively impressively in the political realm post 99 w the death of Hassan II.

The core tensions the Moroccan system has to overcome have far more resemblance to say late 19th c Spain than the Soviet system. The banking system is private and was never socialistic, generally speaking the core economic problem is modernising a traditional economy, not central planning or the idiocies of a single party with a bizarro world ideology. Rather, it's modernising a semi-feudal system.

Utterly and profoundly different.

>Morocco is doomed unless it abandon's it's current course.

This statement stands. The elements Morocco is trying to mix together will not work for a stable society.

The statement is pure rubbish by someone reacting to superficial knowledge, in other words, whanking off.

The Moroccan system, while highly problematic, is on the right course, largely - the real issue is whether the rent-seeking semi feudal clans will strangle liberalisation rather like in Latin America, or not.

In the end, Islam is a detail, not terribly different than Catholicism in some ways in its old school Latin American form in terms of its varieties in the Maghreb. And you have no bloody idea what you're bloody well pissing on about.

posted by: collounsbury on 01.23.06 at 10:39 AM [permalink]

As I live and breathe, if it isn’t my old friend from the SD Moonbat Board, Collier Lounsbury. We haven’t communicated since your final wondrously hilarious pratfall there. Ah, the good old days. It’s the kind of thing we can both have a good chuckle over.

Dear old pals,
Jolly old pals,
Sticking together
In all kinds
Of weather.

I see you’re still scrabbling for gold in them thar dysfunctional gravel pits, poor health notwithstanding.

the Islamic world relative to the other big Abrahamic religion was pretty tolerant (in the aggregate, nothing is perfect) for centuries.

That’s a hoot, msieu Turc de Profession. You should try reading Bat Ye’or instead of that prostitute of a historian, Bernard Lewis.