[Mb-civic] Reform in Morocco - H.D.S. Greenway - Boston Globe Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

  Reform in Morocco

By H.D.S. Greenway  |  April 11, 2006  |  The Boston Globe

TANGIER, Morocco

HALF A century ago I stepped ashore here on the continent of Africa for 
the first time. It was the year of Morocco's independence in the dawn of 
Europe's withdrawal from colonies all over Africa.

Morocco was among the fortunate ones. France and Spain left without a 
fight, and the country never disintegrated into chaos as so much of 
Africa did. Unlike so many states created by colonialists, Morocco was 
never a made-up country. Its borders have grown and contracted over the 
centuries, and dynasties have come and gone, but Morocco and its 
monarchy go back to the eighth century. Morocco claims to have been the 
first country to have recognized the independence of the United States, 
and colonization did not come until the early 20th century when the 
French and the Spanish divided Morocco between themselves.

By 1956, however, the French, having lost Indochina and trying to hold 
onto Algeria next door, decided to withdraw peacefully from Morocco. The 
Spanish followed suit, except for two tiny toeholds on the Strait of 
Gibraltar. King Mohammed V returned from enforced exile in Reunion, and 
the country was basking in its newfound freedom. French soldiers could 
be seen embarking onto ships here in the harbor, either on their way 
home or to Algeria where colonialism would linger to eventually die a 
violent death.

The city of Tangier itself had been an international zone, ruled over by 
a consortium of foreign powers, with a reputation for freewheeling 
bohemianism. American expatriates such as Paul Bowles, William 
Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and others came to Tangier to escape 
convention, but most, except for Bowles, drifted away, as did a plethora 
of foreign banks and businesses, when Tangier was incorporated into the 
Moroccan state.

The last 50 years have not been easy. Mohammed V's successor, Hassan II, 
frustrated coups, foreign invasions, and several assassination attempts, 
and ruled with an iron hand. But Hassan began to loosen up before he 
died in the '90s, and his son, Mohammed VI, who came to power in 1999, 
has taken reforms further. Compared with what has happened in 
sub-Saharan Africa, and in most of the Arab north, however, Morocco got 
off lightly.

The 42-year-old Mohammed VI established a truth commission to 
investigate the sins of the father, and its report in January was a 
dramatic revelation of torture, detentions, disappearances, and deaths 
under the previous regime. From all accounts the new king is determined 
to carry out reforms, even to tinker with family law to improve the 
position of women in society.

Morocco is not a democracy as we know it, but there are political 
parties, a Parliament, and elections, and more importantly the country 
seems firmly on a road to reform. But it will be a race against time. 
Morocco still has low literacy and high poverty rates. And while it was 
thought here that the passions and political poisons of the Middle East 
might not reach this far west to the ''farthest land of the setting 
sun," as it was known to Arabs in ancient times, the bombings in 
Casablanca in 2003 by home-grown Islamic militants ended the dream of 
Moroccan exceptionalism.

America and Europe have a great deal riding on Morocco's success, and 
both know it. Both are looking at ways to ease trade restrictions and 
bring Morocco more into a Western economic orbit. Morocco's brand of 
tolerant, moderate Islam, not at war with modernity, is the West's best 
hope. And since the king, as a descendant of the Prophet Mohammed, is 
''both president and pope here," as one diplomat put it, the best chance 
for democratic reform will come from the throne.

Ideologues in the Bush administration held that democracy would come to 
the Middle East as it did in Eastern Europe -- all of a sudden if only 
obsolete kings, emirs, authoritarian rulers, and traditional societies 
could be removed in a great collapse similar to that of the Soviet 
Union. Iraq was to provide the shove for freedom.

But America's intervention in Iraq has only made matters insufferably 
worse, and its spectacular failure has given radical Islam a boost 
everywhere. If democracy, stability, and modernity are ever to take hold 
in this part of the world it will be through the slow and guided 
progress that Morocco is attempting, not through the radical and naive 
exhortations of the Bush administration that only make the task of 
reformers more difficult.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/04/11/reform_in_morocco/
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