04 April 2007

Cafe Normale politics






Whatever happens in the future elections in Morocco, it is going to bring all the pains back from ages past. It is a sticky situation in here and it is all about general changes and big disorientations.

After the fall of the global model and western democracy and the rise of political Christianity and political Islam people in "the Moroccan café" are thinking about all different ways of pulling out the cart out of the mud of IMF and world Bank with all the promises that we were given since since 1787, 1956 and 1999. we were going to be the good friends submissive and quite... manifest destiny a la morcaine.

All his is falling apart. The image of Marikan (US) is being re-sculptured in most of the heads of Moroccans. It was thought to us at school and fed to us with morning croissants that Marikan is top and the world has to follow. We are going to develop following the foot prints of the western countries inevitably. the "noble savages that we are", we are going to follow ever "the voice of America" broadcasts to us..

Rest a dire, the Moroccan elitist scholarly political craftsmen understand the impact of all their politics on our own choices. i mean, there is definitely a huge gap between how people in morocco make sense of their politics and how those who talk for them understand it. Rulers have to follow what wall street thinks is good for us. ideas have always been crafted somewhere else.

Moroccans for this end are trying to make their own way to understand and catch up. They have been herded for years by an Muslim arabized pro-western leaders to the end of the trail. Now we are all stuck, well.. with the rest of the third world in this machine that holds us accountable for things we have not at all decided. When a political party decided they want to go the Amazigh way, for instance, they were banned. It is scary to be different.. but when PJD decided to operate, they became rulers and a predicted majority.

Now that most of the political parties in this country have been "tried enough", people are looking for other alternatives. People in low classes, the poor and the very poor are not even in the picture. And those are Amazigh people of the mountains and sahara deserts. The middle classes have a tight passage to economical stability. They are loosing everyday, as more and more space is provided for free zones and international big businesses. The Makhzenian, sherifan and Fassi aristocracies are almost loosing grounds for more radical groups that are thought to have finally found the dream and every one will be saved. PJD in its initial form had a unique approach to politics and iconics. In 1992 Abdelilah Benkiran, one of the founding fathers of the PJD ideology said that democracy is a necessary evil”, “ democracy is a bida’a ( a bad invention) made by the west to rule the world” however it is according to his a “democracy is a necessary evil”. They are going to embrace the game of democracy and when they get to the government they are going to change the whole thing and rule by shari’a. this is a huge game that requires a lot of preps and props. They PJG followers are going to wear Nikies , jeans and leather Jackets , shave their beards and look cool and hip. Instead if the old afghani look of the other Ikhwnjiya of Aladl wa Lihsan , shabiba and other groups. they will be all over the place.

They made it in morocco for what ever reason.

They are gaining more ground regardless of the constant warnings of people at both the university and the café. This is the reality, weather we like it or not, political Islam and political Christianity are growing as part of a globalized word order, they are the same side of the coin. May be the wrong side of the coin but they are the currency that lots of people want to use. Maybe they feel they have to use it.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

My argument has always been that like it or not, you can't close the political space to ideas that have popular appeal, because in that case the "cure" (exclusion, repression, corruption) is worse than the disease. Democracies need to find ways to channel the energies surging up from within, and the entry of new forces into politics is usually healthy because it opens up the range of debate. It should be possible in Morocco, for example, to propose alternatives to the current system even if the people end up sticking with what they already know (which usually happens). A power that fears new energy is a power ripe to fall.

That said, I've heard complaints from a lot of people that the PJD has put on a modern face to gain power, but that this is a false face. The quote you give about "a necessary evil" is interesting, but that was 1992. Since then we've seen the Algerian civil war (an example no one wants to repeat), the rise of Islamists to power in Turkey (a positive example), and the transformation of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt into a nearly respectable political party (though they are still illegal). A lot has changed since 1992, so are those quotes still valid today? Has the PJD grown up? I guess we'll soon know!