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Saturday, Jul 4, 2009
It's what America wants: A moderate Muslim country moving toward democracy. But Bush's policies have so enraged Moroccans that urgently needed reforms are seen as a U.S. plot.
Jan 7, 2005 | Recently, 50,000 Islamic fundamentalists from all over Morocco streamed into Rabat, the capital, to march. The women were a rainbow of pastel-colored head scarves; many men wore green headbands. They carried banners in Arabic, French and -- to make sure their point got across -- fractured English, denouncing "Americo-sionism," "US attacs on Iraq" and an upcoming democracy forum featuring Colin Powell.
A few nights later, in a club called Bodega, dark-haired hipsters in jeans and leather jackets sipped beer, flirted, heard live flamenco upstairs and swayed to techno downstairs. It might have been New York's East Village, but it was in Casablanca. The upstairs bar was decorated with flags of many countries -- Britain, Germany, Australia, Brazil, Canada and France, among others -- but one was conspicuously absent. A Moroccan friend shouted over the din, "Don't expect the U.S. flag here!"
From Islamist traditionalists to urban sophisticates, hostility to America is now so commonplace among Moroccans that it dictates reactions to U.S. actions and symbols. In this pivotal north African country, historically moderate but now facing extremist threats (some linked to al-Qaida), a young king has put his throne on the line to back reform. After long supporting the status quo, America sides with the reformers. But there is so much ire over America's record on Iraq, Palestine and Morocco itself that Uncle Sam can't get a hearing. This is even true among the people who should be our friends and whose support our initiatives need.
The growth of anti-Americanism in countries like Morocco has real costs. Morocco's situation is a microcosm of the crisis facing much of the Muslim world: vast inequality, a sinking economy, political paralysis and rising Islamism. But the United States is losing influence with potential allies in such places, where its involvement could be a perhaps decisive factor favoring reform.
Casablanca is a modern, rectilinear city whose name fits: white shines everywhere. Near the sea, pedestrians swarm through the narrow lanes and tiny shop fronts of the walled medina, or old city, but the new city dominates. Laid out by the French in the 1930s, two decades before their colonial sway ended, it mixes Moorish, modern, and art deco styles, stylishly housing Western expatriates and the hard-working local middle class. The center city, in turn, is a world apart from the slums on its outskirts, where Islamist imams preach to a growing audience among the pious poor.
The urban elite and the rest of the country might be on different planets. Though the World Bank classifies Morocco as a middle-income country, it is so unequal that its social indicators -- like adult literacy and infant mortality -- are closer to those of basket cases like Bangladesh and Nicaragua. The majority of Morocco's adults cannot read or write, and almost 5 percent of its children die before their fifth birthday. The gaps between rich and poor in access to schools and clean water are among the greatest anywhere.
And things are getting worse, not better. Rural poverty is growing, while in the towns, unemployment is 20 percent and rising. Joblessness runs even higher among university graduates and the volatile young men on city streets, some of whom were involved in al-Qaida-linked bombings in May 2003 that killed 45 people in Casablanca.
During the Cold War, Morocco was America's staunch Middle East ally, its absolute monarch, Hassan II, a bulwark against communism. Hassan co-opted opponents who could be bought and repressed those who could not. His patronage networks also kept the illiterate, impoverished masses subservient to the monarch's retainers, or "makhzen" (storehouse/treasury). They held a near-monopoly on the distribution of goods and services and on the kingdom's most lucrative businesses. The king, who is commander of the faithful as well as head of state, built up Islamist groups as a counter to the left, as U.S-aligned governments did in other Muslim lands, including Egypt, Indonesia, and the Israeli-occupied territories. Since the end of the Cold War, the struggle against communism has given way to the struggle against Islamic terror. In Morocco, as elsewhere, that war is being fought in new ways, with development, democracy, and social reform on the one hand, but also with the harsh police tactics of the past, allegedly including torture, on the other.
In the post-Cold War world, Hassan's legacies have become headaches for his son, the 41-year-old Mohammed VI, who became king on his father's death in 1999. An undereducated workforce attracts few investors -- and Morocco's schools remain north Africa's worst. (Its illiteracy rate is the region's highest, while college attendance is one-fourth that of booming Tunisia.) Trade liberalization, needed to tie the economy to the global market, threatens politically protected industries like textiles.
