Seeking an ‘other’ desperately: the dialectical opposition of political Islam in Morocco

Abstract

This article uses the ‘opposition’ parameter to analyse the political discourse and practice of the main Islamist political actors in Morocco: the ‘officialist’ political Islam represented by the Harakat al-Tawhid wa-l-Islah (Unicity and Reform Movement, MUR) through its political alter ego, the Hizb al-‘Adala wa-l-Tanmiyya (Justice and Development Party, PJD) in which it is included, tries to reach the power in order to reform the political system in moral terms from the inside, by establishing a dialectical opposition based on Islamic concepts against the rest of the primary elites (opposition-instrumentalisation). The outsider Jama'at al-‘Adl wa-l-Ihsan (Community of Justice and Spirituality, CJS) keeps a firm opposition role against the Moroccan regime, denying both moral and political legitimacy to the ‘Alawi monarchy and trying to change the social and political system from outside of the party system (resistance-démarcation). This study offers some perspectives on the place of the dialectics of opposition in political discourse and their respective position regarding power. It also offers insight into the ideological challenges political Islam should face in the short term.

Keywords:

• Morocco
• political Islam
• opposition
• discourse
• elites

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Following Michel Foucault, discourse is understood here as ‘an order that defines the way of being of the objects’. Between semiotics and politics, it is interesting to add that discourse is also a ‘complex of signs that could have different ways of signification and could be used with different purposes’ (Foucault 1966).

2. According to Mohammed Arkoun, it is impossible to rationalise Islamist discourse, as there is no possibility of rational argumentation in religious fundamentalism (Arkoun 1999).

3. Far from simple ‘unity’, the Arabic word ‘tawhid’ expresses the absolute oneness and uniqueness of God in Islam, so it is related to the religious semantic field.

4. Islamist political practice is based on a clear modern political methodology (Bensaid Alaoui 1999, 39–46).

5. The theoretical framework of this work is based on the analysis of power by Izquierdo Brichs (2012), and on the analysis of the political and symbolic role of Moroccan political Islam regarding the State in Darif (2010) and Belal (2012).

6. See the cases of the most important North African Islamist leaders: the Egyptian Hassan al-Banna (1906–1949), the Tunisian Rachid Ghanouchi (b. 1941), and the Moroccan Abdessalam Yassine (1928–2012).

7. The concept of ‘instrumentalisation’ and its application to the political trajectory of the MUR and the PJD have been developed by the Moroccan political scientist Darif (2010, 77–92).

8. The concept of ‘démarcation’ and its application to the political trajectory of the CJS regarding the State and the political system have been developed by Darif (2010, 49–56).

9. This fight for religious legitimisation of political action in Morocco and the problems drawn out from its research have been very well analysed by Muhammad Darif in one of his earliest contributions (1987, 45–51).

10. See the historical development of the party in (Darif 2010, 67–76).

11. The political trajectories of the Islamist organisations in their beginnings have been studied by Darif (1999).

12. A very complete analysis of the 2007 legislative elections and the electoral role of the PJD can be found in López García (2010, 310).

13. The PJD government headed by Abdelilah Benkirane participates with other political parties from a very diverse ideological background as the al-Haraka al-Sha'biyya (Popular Movement, MP), the Istiqlal (PI), and the Hizb al-Taqaddum wa-l-Ishtirakiyya (Progress and Socialism Party, PPS). Some of them, like the PPS and the PI, refused to share political responsibilities with the PJD after the 2007 elections.

14. The 7th PJD National Congress was held from 14 to 15 July 2012 in Rabat. Abdelilah Benkirane was re-elected as SG over his main competitor, the former PJD SG Saad Eddin El Outhmani (2004–2008), currently the Moroccan Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, with the 85.11% of the total votes of the delegates.

15. ‘My relationship with the King is superb’, stated Benkirane in a public speech addressed to the PJD delegates to de Regional PJD Congress in Casablanca (22 September 2012).

16. Interview with Muhammad Darif in the Moroccan weekly Alʾaan (“Al-Malik lan yasmah ‘ikhwanat’ al-dawla,” 2012, 27).

17. Eva Wenger analyses the political development of the PJD in quantitative terms within the framework of the authoritarian State in Morocco (Wenger 2011).

18. This memorandum was entitled Mudhakira Hizb al-‘Adala wa-l-Tanmiyya hawla al-islah al-dusturi (PJD 2011).

19. PJD (2011, 7); see also (Darif 2010, 13–26) on the role of the imarat al-mu'minin in the Moroccan political field.

20. See the concept of ‘power’ in Ferran Izquierdo Brichs (Izquierdo Brichs 2012).

21. See the concept of ‘islah’ and its controversial political meanings in the Maghreb in Macías Amoretti and Marsá Fuentes (2012).

22. See the speeches of the president Abdelilah Benkirane on the Islamic reform of the bank sector or the anti-corruption measures in www.pjd.ma and www.pm.gov.ma/ar/discours.aspx (September 2012).

23. About the ‘invention’ of the PAM as a ‘royal’ political party and its historical parcours, see Eibl (2012).

24. ‘Penser la rupture et proposer un modèle de pouvoir’, according to Moroccan sociologist Belal (2012, 138).

25. The election of the new Secretary General of the CJS ‘political circle’ in its sixteenth ordinary congress, held in Casablanca in September 2012, has been published in the Moroccan media, with the names of the elected members: Abdelwahed al-Mutawakkil (SG), Omar Amkaso (Vice SG), Muhammad Hamdaoui, Abdallah Chibani, Amane Jourud, Mounia Akrama, Hasnae Kettani, Omar Ihrchan, Mustapha Erriq, Rochdi Bouibri, Abdessamad Fathi, Muhammad Manar, Hassan Bennayih, Abu Shita Mousaif, and Muhammad Salmi.

26. Yassine (1974). See the complete text of the letter on the section ‘maktaba’ at www.aljamaa.net (September 2012).

27. The Moroccan weekly Maghreb al-Yaoum published an interesting article on the so-called ‘ten big mistakes’ of Benkirane's government (Ben Reda 2012, 16–23).

28. See some details of the constitutional reform in Theofilopoulou (2012).

29. About intellectual debates on freedom, Islam, and terrorism in Moroccan society after the 2003 Casablanca bombings, see Bensaid Alaoui (2003).