Morocco is often invoked as a model "moderate" Islamic state. But it looks as if the jihadists have been able to gain a foothold there as well, the same way they have been able to do so everywhere: through intimidation and appeals to the Qur'an and Sunnah. "Arrests spark fears of armed Islamist takeover," from the Washington Times, with thanks to Twostellas:
RABAT, Morocco -- Police have arrested more than 500 Islamist activists since late May on accusations that they were planning a coup to replace Morocco's pro-U.S. monarchy with an Islamic state.Most were released swiftly, but the arrests revived fears that the country's largest Islamic movement, Al Adl wa al Ihsane, or Justice and Charity, is preparing to take up arms to fulfill predictions from the group's own Sufi mystics that Morocco's monarchy will fall this year.
The group, which already has Islamized higher education in Morocco, wants to replace the monarchy with an Islamic state and cut all political, cultural and economic relations with the West -- moves that it argues will end poverty and corruption in Morocco.
So far, its hundreds of thousands of followers have been content to patiently wait for an Islamic state to emerge. However, as the group's mystics churn out religiously inspired visions at an ever-faster rate, analysts fear the group will have to take action or risk losing credibility....
Sheik Yassine added that, for 14 centuries, "politics and spirituality have been kept apart by the Arab elites. And we have been able to reconnect these two aspects of Islam -- and that is why people fear us."
George Joffe, a North Africa specialist at the Center of International Studies at Cambridge University, said Al Adl wa al Ihsane "may not be directly threatening violence, but their subtext is that the government is creating conditions which might cause violence to erupt."...
"They have changed the universities into places of intolerance -- against girls, against gays, Jews, alcohol -- against almost everything," said Jamal Berraoui, editor of Voice of the People, a Casablanca newspaper. "They hold the universities hostage. They have created a climate of intellectual terrorism."
The Al Adl wa al Ihsane-run student union has forced the government to remove secular subjects such as philosophy from university curriculums. The group also has campaigned successfully for new university mosques, which it then staffs with radical Islamic preachers.
"When we talk with the Ministry of Education, we insist that our education conform to Islamic standards," said Mohamed Belkasmi, an economics student and head of the student union at Casablanca University. "We insist that our country's laws and teachings consist only of the Koran."
Does this mean Rick's Place will be closed down?
Oh well, We'll always have Paris. errr
The whole anti-Jihad movement insists that the soft disciplines count, that the content of religious or educational programs is significant and that culture is important, not just GDP or balance of trade. On the homefront, the issue being neglected is the justification of jihad and the different means of jihad, not just the use of violence.
Let me again note the following article, which made an impression because of the author's attitude, in particular her attitude about the ideological basis of violent action:
http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/politicsphilosophyandsociety/story/0,,1798994,00.html
Minnesota honours Morocco
Ummah News Links
So we have a book that calls for the death of Jews..But we are to call it Noble and Respect it...Some one please tell me why?
"We insist that our country's laws and teachings consist only of the Koran."
How delightful. It seems that Islamists are "hell-bent" to roll back human progress to the time when they proudly remind the rest of the world that they invented the zero.
So, even as they depend on all manner of wester-invented scientific, engineering and medical advances (even enjoying the benefits of using Viagra), they take steps backup up with violence to insure that not a single one of their young people will invent anything again, with the possible exception of more violent ways to kill infidels.
"predictions from the group's own Sufi mystics that Morocco's monarchy will fall this year."
So much for Stephan Schwartz and his Sufi spin on things.
If countries which capture these jihadists would just kill them to the last s.o.b. instead of releasing them after show trials and light sentences there might be some hope of ultimately defeating them.
Sadat of Egypt foolishly released the Muslim Brotherhood jihadists who eventually assassinated him.
Jordan released released Zarqawi. Thanks Hussein.
Bill Clinton released Bin Laden. (Failing to take the offer of Osama in chains long before 9/11.) And then failed to hit him in Afghanistan for fear of collaterally killing visiting UAE 'princelings' who were gaily falconing with the maniac.
Catch and release makes sense for undersized bass.
Catch and kill works better for Islamic fascists.
"The group, which already has Islamized higher education in Morocco, wants to replace the monarchy with an Islamic state and cut all political, cultural and economic relations with the West -- moves that it argues will end poverty and corruption in Morocco."
-- from the article above
The Sherifian claims to descent from You-Know-Who have been used by the current dynasty to give it the required Islamic cachet; apparently not everyone is convinced.
Among those unconvinced are Sufis, and has is poointed out above, those who think that "Sufis" are otherworldly mystics who have no time for the real, worrisome aspects of Islam, fail to realize that all kinds of Sufis preached the necessity of Jihad (the violent kind).
Suppose Morocco is convulsed. Suppose an Islamic state were somehow achieved. Suppose that the new regime did "cut all political, cultural and economic relations with the West." Remember, Morocco doesn't have that oil manna to keep itself going. Morocco has nothing. Morocco would sink without French aid of all kinds, tourism of all kinds, and so on. If it does, it will be a salutary lesson of the "here is your brain....here is your brain on Islam" variety.
Here is Morocco.
Here is Morocco on full-throttled Islam.
A lesson for Moroccans in and outside Morocco, though one hopes that all those who managed to achieve refugee status by claiming they had been persecuted by the King's regime, will promptly be sent back to enjoy the new, improved, even more hideously Muslim version than before.
And just think -- wasn't it just a few months ago that the son of the well-known writer on Sufism for Western audiences, Idries Shah -- I forget his name -- was showing everyone his newly renovated palace in Morocco, to which he had moved his family from England?
Perhaps he'll have to look into that Sufism a bit more closely for his next travel book.
Good point Hugh. It is too bad because Morocco is an excellent place to visit and live. I'll have to get back there soon... while I still can.
I don't think that "arab elites" have kept any politics separated from islam - if so, then only for a relatively brief time until they were ousted (in one fashion or another...). As Hugh has pointed out, these jihads seem to sprout up every couple of generations; this time they've just waited for us to invent better killing machines and now it's simple, fear-leveraged blackmail.
By using democracy against its creators the enemy continues to wrestle more and more from the 21st century. Can we save ourselves from our self-created marshmellow PC apologists, and use democratic values to oust the invaders (our vote), or will each country be forced to endure 7th century drones until it is "too late"?
What can be done to save Morroco? If Morroco falls, will europe even care, let alone do anything?
Its long past time to DE-elect the do-gooder marshmellows and send them down to to the 9th level where they can spend quality time with their beloved Mohammod.
"Morocco is an excellent place to visit and live..."
--- from a posting above
Not if you are Ben Barka, looking forward to a nice quiet lunch at the Brasserie Lipp. Not if you are a member of the Oufkir family, especially a female member. Not if you are Abdellatif Laabi. Not if you are any number of people, foreign and domestic, who have endured the real Morocco, and not merely the Morocco of the souks, the pigeon pies, and those bright colors once captured by Western painters, when Morocco was still safe and semi-civilized, during the years of Western dominance and French rule.
I am shocked, shocked to hear that there is a resurgent Islam fundamentalist movement in Morocco!
Perpster, It's Rick's Cafe Americain. Of all the gin joints in all the world . . .
TheBuckwheat wrote, "How delightful. It seems that Islamists are "hell-bent" to roll back human progress to the time when they proudly remind the rest of the world that they invented the zero."
This just in, Arabs did not invent the zero; it's of Indian origin. The only invention that is completely Arab is Jim Crow.
A few impressions of my last trip to Morocco:
The sun mercilessly scorched the flat dry expanse as far as the eye could see. I halted the car by a little grove of scrubby olive trees. On all the horizon it was the only shade. Man made. But to my relief no snotty nosed Berber kids burst from their obscure hiding holes along the one and only lifeline of potholed asphalt. No one was around, it was too hot. But it suited the landscape and lent the eerie whistle of the desert wind an esoteric note. This was natural but it struck me as rare. Where ever I had stopped the car in these treeless plains a dirty unthinking bundle with a face and hair on its head would crawl from the earth. With big unknowing eyes and a trace of analphabetic imbecility it would utter the two syllables that it had been trained to associate with foreigners arriving from beyond comprehension. With outstretched hands it would utter: “Bak shish, bak shish”, distorting the dirty and snotty face to what it thought was a smile. But it mostly resulted only in a bad-toothed grimace. Well, no one was around this little oasis. Though, every little feature hinted at the hard labour of some callous swollen hands; the little irrigation channels hand dug from tree to tree, the little bridge over the main channel. A donkey was grazing at the far end of the plantation but there was not a soul about. That was fine with me and I settled into the mood of the place putting the coffee pot onto the camping gas cooker. The desert wind played with the steady burn of the cooker’s jet which resulted in a spatial growl that made me look for a jet fighter over the desert. But the sky was as blue as the landscape was earthen and nothing happened. Sitting in my perfectly ridiculous camping chair in the shadow of a low hanging olive tree I sipped on my cafe au lait and enjoyed the splendid peace of the barren landscape. The car radio softly played an Arab tune but was interrupted by a French language news broadcast. Beyond the thousand miles of sand to the east the neighboring country existed in a state of mad religious civil war. Bands of Islamic maniacs roamed the desert hamlets slitting the throats of women and children. These were not isolated incidents, but a wholesale policy of mad terror and slaughter. Dozens of villages have been visited. Whole clans were wiped out. Since years now this happened on an almost daily basis, and so it happened this morning again. Twenty two women and children were slaughtered like pigs while they had been asleep. I wondered about the figures who carried out these monstrous assignments, tried to picture them as individuals, caring for their own families and friends. I wondered in what manner they would team up for a raid, how would they get to their target destination ?. The roads over there were surely under massive control, just like here. Did they come through the desert on foot ?, on camels ?. Then they cut throats of horrified victims waking from their sleep with the short knowledge that in a couple of minutes they will have bled to death. It must be a sheer hysteria of gagging and gurgling in agonizing horror. Does it satisfy the butchers ?, must be, otherwise they wouldn’t do it again and again. What kind of people are these ? How can a fanatic blood splattering mass murderer return to humanity ? I wondered if the real deep problem could not be Islam itself. It was so totalitarian in its doctrine that it could produce fanatics en masse. And if I looked at the strongest manifestations of Islam it seemed it was deepest ingrained in societies where education and secular information flow was most stifled. The ignorance resulting mostly from a hard life in a harsh environment but not the less by brutal methods of autocratic suppression from a merciless ruling class. I decided that it was perfectly all right with me if they kept on killing each other provided they do it only to themselves and leave others alone. Of course, they do not do that, having left a few dozen foreigners dead, including the corpses of
beheaded Christian monks, they bombed the subways of Madrid and the London. That, of course, was then termed ‘political’. Any outsider entering a civil war is mad enough and should expect to be killed, but that would be within the bloody conflict and not necessarily raise interest beyond a page two paragraph in the local paper. Exporting the rabid killing to other places was another matter, they suddenly could intimidate whole foreign cultures, create genuine paranoia in the capitals of the rich north, and be recognized as a political force. So with this orgy of stabbing, hacking, and slicing, this bands of rabid desert maniacs showed the world that just a little spark of fanatic inspiration was enough to shatter the rigid structure of organized society. The paranoid population became a herd of cattle waiting to be pounded on by the wolves. Then they died in miserly personal misery, too stupid to raise a war cry and defend themselves. I looked over the desert and thought that the horrors lay just behind that sand, and there were no political borders in that sand. The people here were the cousins of the people there. The car radio played another Arab tune but I still had to think of the mad bands of crazy marauding murderers. They probably could cross the sands without great difficulty. And the border guards on this side were facing thousands of miles of sand dunes. I packed up the gear, backed the car from the olive grove and followed the road north to Oujda. The dry hills did not inspire me anymore as being oriental. They were just dry hills and anybody who had to eke out a living around here was a very poor bastard. I made up my mind to take the boat to Spain.
Morocco's largest Islamic movement is Al Adl wa al Ihsane. Shouldn't that be Al Adl wa al INSANE.
CosmicAvenger
outstanding writing! gives one a sense of time and place so well. You should write as a vocation
Re: "The group, ..............., wants to replace the monarchy with an Islamic state and cut all political, cultural and economic relations with the West -- moves that it argues will end poverty and corruption in Morocco.”
Yup. That’ll sure end poverty.
"They have changed the universities into places of intolerance -- against girls, against gays, Jews, alcohol -- against almost everything," said Jamal Berraoui, editor of Voice of the People, a Casablanca newspaper. "They hold the universities hostage. They have created a climate of intellectual terrorism."
It sounds like their version of PC.
Islamic-fascism's link with the collectivist left in America and elswhere is the collectivism, the need to control speech, behavior, ultimately thought.
This mind-set goes beyond political labels (left, right, liberal, conservative, etc.) and is simply totolitarian. It just happens that, at this time in history, most of the totalitarian types are politically to the left in America and elswhere- but that could change.
The definition of "totalitarian" is similar to "obsenity" in that it's not easy to define but we know it when we see it. I think Orwell was right in his presentiment (1984, Animal Farm) that it is the greatest danger we face as we move into the future in Morocco, America, and elsewhere.
Cosmic avenger .... VERY GOOD!
Islam flourishes in the dry arid harsh wastelands of this planet. There's a synergy between these forbidding landscapes and Koranic doctrines
According to my grandfather--who heard it from his grandfather(and perhaps so on and so on), Morocco wasn't a bowl of cherries. Rumor has(d) it the ruling family are descended from Sephardim over 500 years although you hear the same thing from anti semetic Russians today--LOL, so I'm not sure. But, I must confess, it is kind of sad. The beauty of the Spanish archetecture . . . the closest we'll get now is Cancun. Look at the online PBS Frontline special on Islamism in Morocco. It is archieved online. It shows interviews with many 'moderates' in Moroocco and how they make the ideal recruits when then enter Europe. Morocco has major problems and one can easily see monarchy against the Islamists. Look at what a Islamic Hole Algeria as become. Just a san dune over.
These 'monarchys' like Jordan and Morocco should get their houses in order, limit Islamists in education, clamp down ect . . . or it's their as$# in the sling.
Flag gesture warms Israelis to Ghana
Ummah News Links
I like the 'Minnesota honours Morocco' link at
http://ummahnewslinks.com/2006/06/20/minnesota-hounours-morocco.aspx
A better book to read is called 'White Gold' that covers the Barbary states of the 17th century and how Islamic pirates plundered European shipping throughout the Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic as far north as the Cornish coast. Oh, and they also enslaved almost one million Europeans during this time in some of the most appalling conditions imaginable.
Interestingly, around 1800 when the US elected a new president these Barbary states sent a demand for tribute to the US, saying it was customary to give them tribute when a new leader was elected. The US sent them tribute alright - in the form of a fleet of warships, devastating their main city and liberating US slaves (yes, American slaves). The US stance has been that peace is preferable to war, and war preferable to freedom.
Together with the British navy the Barbary states were laid waste, never to rise again.
But it is interesting to read the recent article from a British commander saying that in 10 years it may no longer be safe to sail in the south western Mediterranean due to pirates. Maybe history is about to repeat.
-Jerusalem,
The US stance has been that peace is preferable to war, and war preferable to servitude.
Better, no?
Hello, Morocco is a country with snakes, the king is a monster, with 20 palaces and their people starving. He invaded the spanish colony of Western Sahara and US supported Morocco, like forever the foreign american politics so muslim. Ceuta and Melilla, spanish cities in Africa that are spanish before that Morocco existed aren´t protected by NATO, and like it was demonstrated in Perejil Island, France and US aren´t interested in protecting the truth but their business in Morocco.
Mohamed VI has a great business in Morocco, very american and very french, great friends, their people starving and their people emigrating to spread more islam in Europe. Very good!!
But US is deaf respect Morocco, they think that it´s a wonderful ally, and a "democracy", Ali Larmbet was imprisoned for making a laugh about the King, and none made nothing.
Please don´t believe that Morocco is a wonderful country. Please don´t believe them.
cosmicAvenger - I like your flow. Reads like a sombre blend of Michael Palin & Bill Bryson. You should consider a whole travelogue of dar al-islam. Could do a roaring trade at airport bookshops...
CosmicAvenger- I really enjoyed your Moroccan essay. It was extremely evocative and, well, kind oc cosmic. I've never traveled there, and now have no desire to go. Please keep writing.