Religion, Nationalism, and Terror

Les islamistes marocains sous le contrôle du roi, Liberation, September 8, 2007

«La gestion des islamistes par Mohammed VI, c’est du cousu main. En dépit des efforts pour éradiquer les bidonvilles, il sait que le désespoir généré par la misère ne disparaîtra pas à court terme. Alors il travaille dans quatre autres domaines : la religion, l’intégration des modérés au système, les lois… et la contrainte», résume un proche du Palais.

Le Monde.fr : Les Marocains ont massivement boudé les urnes lors des élections législatives, le Monde, le 8 septembre, 2007

Un seul problème : les électeurs ne sont pas au rendez-vous… A Souissi, le quartier chic de Rabat, c’est encore pire. Les bureaux de vote sont restés quasi déserts toute la journée.

Vendredi soir, à 20 heures, quand Chakib Benmoussa, ministre de l’intérieur, est apparu à la télévision pour annoncer un taux de participation historiquement bas - autour de 41 % -, les Marocains tentaient de se consoler : “Au moins, on nous dit la vérité. C’est déjà un succès !”

MEMRI, September 6, 2007

There is a very active debate in Morocco as to the Party of Justice and Development’s ideology, political program, and projects for the future. The fact that the party does not always maintain a consistent line only adds fuel to the debate. As a recent example, up until the last week of August 2007, the conclusion of the official party history on the PJD website read: “This is the course [followed] by a party that has never ceased to pronounce the declaration of faith [i.e. “There is no god but Allah” etc.] over the Moroccan political reality… and it is as determined as can be to bring this reality to the [stage of] implementation of Allah’s law and the benefits this law brings to the land and the people.”

In the last week of August, the website underwent an overhaul. A more succinct overview of the party’s history is now included in a statement titled “The Party’s Vision for the Morocco of Tomorrow,” which does not include any mention of implementation of Islamic law. The new version defines the party as “a nationalist political party that strives, on the basis of Islamic authority and within the framework of the constitutional monarchy based on [the king’s role as] Commander of the Faithful, to take part in building a modern and democratic Morocco…” [5]

Le roi règne, le Maroc vote, Libération, September 6, 2007

Le pouvoir a tout fait pour contenir le PJD en procédant à un découpage électoral sur mesure, destiné à surreprésenter les campagnes, plus imperméables au discours islamiste. Le mode de scrutin de liste à la proportionnelle intégrale, ajouté à la multiplication des partis (36 en lice !) plus ou moins représentatifs, favorise aussi un émiettement des résultats et place le roi en position d’arbitre absolu. Malgré les appels répétés du monarque à la transparence, la «démocratie» marocaine reste donc sous contrôle très étroit.

Turkey - Abdullah Gul - New York Times, September 2, 2007
Still, even if religion in public life is not on the table now, questions of power and class are. Mr. Gul, like many observant Muslims, is from Kayseri, a working-class city in Turkey’s heartland. The urban secularists who were in power for so long are used to thinking of themselves as the elite.

Belief and the Ballot - TIME

Being in opposition allows the PJD to build its base without appearing to be doing the monarchy’s bidding. It may be true that the Moroccan regime has postponed constitutional reform that would signal clear commitment to democratization. Nonetheless, its strategy of accommodating, rather than attacking, political Islam should be closely followed throughout the Middle East and the West.

Turkey is clearly an important example of moderate and democratic Islamism. As such, it needs to be studied carefully.

Turkish elections bring Arab silence - Haaretz
While Arab opposition parties, civil society and democracy activists cheered the news from Turkey, there was official silence from Arab governments, as if the elections had occurred on another planet. Unlike the front-page headlines in independent media, the state-controlled media in many Arab countries either ignored, delayed or relegated the Turkish elections’ story to internal pages or the tail end of their regular news.

By the third or fourth day, these media pundits went out of their way to tell their respective audiences how different the situation in Turkey was from that of Arab countries. Some played up the chronic Kurdish, Armenian and Cypriot problems as if to dampen any Arab joy for their northern neighbor.

Turk With Islamic Ties Is Elected President - New York Times, 8/29/2007
Ali Murat Yel, chairman of the sociology department at Fatih University in Istanbul, said the selection of Mr. Gul was comparable in significance to an African-American being elected president in the United States.

“It’s a very important turning point,” Mr. Yel said. “Those people who are the peasants and farmers and petty bourgeoisie always had republican values imposed on them. Now they are rising against it. They are saying, ‘Hey, we are here, and we want our own way.’ ”

Though Turkey’s secular establishment has taken pains to portray Mr. Gul and his close ally, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as inseparable from their Islamic pasts, their supporters argue they have changed dramatically since the early 1990s, when they were members of the overtly Islamic Welfare Party.

“They can sit on the same table as some people who drink alcohol and they drink their Coke, and they would be able to talk to them,” Mr. Yel said. “They have come to terms with the reality of this country.”

Secularists and Islamists face off again, Guardian, August 14, 2007