Reflections on co-optation and defeat in the contemporary Moroccan novel in Arabic: Mohammed Achaari's The Arch and the Butterfly (2011)

Abstract

Mohammad Achaari's The Arch and Butterfly (Al-Qaws wa al-Farāsha, 2011) is a reflection of the social, political, and economic crisis engulfing contemporary Moroccan society. I argue that Achaari's novel provides a form of social and political intervention in contemporary Morocco in the way it critically engages with the failure of the left's political project, the co-optation of its intellectuals and the loss of its vision. It also engages with the suppressed history and culture of the country's Amazigh roots and the way it has been silenced in official records, an engagement that broadens the scope of historical loss and defeat and takes it deep back into Moroccan history. I also argue that the novel's interventionist vision is compromised by its discourse on the Islamists, which categorizes them all in one basket of militant and terrorist groups and which fails to recognize the growing popularity of ‘moderate’ Islamist politics that has largely come to replace the left as a major political force in the country.

Keywords:

• the plight of the Moroccan left
• co-optation
• defeat
• genealogy of loss
• representation

Notes

Achaari's political career reflects that of his own political party, the centre-left USFP (Socialist Union of Popular Forces). After being in opposition for 40 years, the party agreed to lead the government of ‘alternance’ from 1998–2002, and Achaari held the post of minister of culture. He was appointed minister of culture in other coalition governments from 2002–2007. For a detailed analysis of the USFP's history including its demise and current political crisis, see A'boushi (2010).

Achaari (2011). All translations are my own. An English translation by Kareem James Abu-Zeid is forthcoming in September 2013 as: The Arch and the Butterfly (Doha: Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing).

http://www.wasafiri.org/pages/news_01/news_item.asp?News_01ID=224 (accessed 1 May 2013). See also Binoual (2011).

Achaari here refers to the real name of the notorious Derb Moulāy Chrif prison in Casablanca which was used as a torture centre in colonial times and during the Lead Years. Fatna El Bouih, a female left-wing activist who was incarcerated in the same prison in the 1970s, has been leading a project to transform the prison into a memorial museum for the victims (see Dennerlein 2012).

The indigenous population of Morocco consists of various Amazigh or Berber tribes traditionally located in three geographical locations: the Rif Mountains, the Middle Atlas Mountains, and the Souss Valley. It is beyond the scope of this article to go into the history of the Amazigh Rif and the turbulent relationship they had with the Moroccan monarchy, a relationship which goes back far in history as the Riffians refused to pay taxes and were considered part of blād al-sība (or the land of the un-ruled) as opposed to blād al-Makhzen (or the land of the ruled). The anti-colonial Riffian resistance leader Abdelkrim Alkhatābī and his Rif wars of the 1920s against the colonial powers of the Spanish and the French is barely celebrated in Moroccan official history because of the threat that Alkhatābi posed to the monarchy then. This uneasy relationship between the monarch and the Riffians was further worsened with the Rif 1958–1959 rebellion against the post-independence government, a rebellion that was violently crushed by the then crown prince Hassan II, whose relationship with the Riffians remained very tense until his death in 1999. See Hart (1999b); Gellner (1973).

Hassan II's successor Mohammed VI has largely ended his father's boycott of the Rif region by seeking to integrate ‘this most historically problematic and marginalised area of the country’ into the public life of the nation (Bruce Maddy-Weitzman 2013: 112). Economically, Mohammed VI initiated various infrastructural development projects to do with the building of roads to encourage the tourist industry in the region. Symbolically, he tried to end the official marginalization of the region by holding some official public and religious ceremonies in Northern cities such as Tangier, Tetouan and Alhuceima.

For a detailed analysis of the stagnation of the democratic process in Morocco in the aftermath of the recent Arab uprisings, see Maghraoui (2011).

The term Makhzen was used in the twelfth century to refer to the warehouses where taxes were kept (whether they were in currency or in kind); today it has come to signify the royal court, the ruling elite (particularly security forces, veteran politicians, and economic elites).

El Yazami et al. state that in the period between 2000 and 2004, as many as 41 works dealing with this topic were published. See El-Yazami, Kabous, and Akil (2004), 22.

Narratives include, among many others, Abd Al-Qadir Al-Shawi's Al-Sāhatu Al-Shārīfiya (2000, The Square of Honour); Khadija Marwazi's Sīratu Al-Rāmad (2000, Biography of Ash); and Said Haji's Dhākiratu al-finīq: Sīratun dhātiyatun li wajhin min sanawāt al-rāsās (2006, Memory of the Phoenix: An Autobiography from the Years of the Lead); Muhammad Al-Rays' Mudhākirāt Muhammad al-Rāys: min al-skhirāt ilā Tazmamart: tadkhirat dhahāb wa'iyab ilā al-jaīim (2002, Memoirs of Mohammad al-Rays, from Skhirat to Tazmamart: A Round Trip Ticket to Hell); and Ahmad Marzouqi's Tazmamart: Cellule 10 (2000, Tzamamart: Cell 10).

Hafiz traces the genre back to the anti-colonial times when various narratives emerged in the 1950s and 1960s about the brutality of colonial powers in various Arab countries such as Algeria, Egypt, and Syria. For a detailed discussion of Arabic novels on prison and torture in various Arab countries, See Hafiz (2002); on poetry, see Huwwar (2004).

After decades of an iron grip on power, and towards the end of his reign, King Hassan II initiated some reforms in the 1990s, such as the constitutional changes in 1996 with the introduction of a bicameral parliament and a government of alternance whereby power would be alternated between the two major political coalitions of the central-right and central-left, but without giving up much of the palace's power. The USFP led the first government of alternance from 1998–2000 and its programme of reforms collapsed in 2000. They have become largely co-opted by the Makhzen in the process of building ‘national consensus’. For a critical analysis of the alternance government, see Hidass (2001); Ferrié (2002); and Jofée (2009).

Part of this national reconciliation is the establishment of The Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2004. Although this royal initiative is rather unique in the Arab world as it investigated state-perpetuated human rights abuses, it can also be seen as part of a set of carefully state-staged reforms that aimed at establishing a break with the state repression of the past and, therefore, co-opting public criticism of past abuses without giving up much of the palace's power. See Inn (2011).

Yūsuf claims that he wants to go back to the ‘causes of the cradle’ (qadāya al-mahd), which is a reference to the suppression and effacement of the Amazigh culture as he links the loss of the past with the loss experienced in the present in terms of the plundering of the country's sources and heritage (153).

See Coon (1931); Hart (1999a).

There is a significant Amazigh cultural movement in Morocco that has benefited from the recent pro-democracy movements around the Arab world and has made some gains that were unthinkable years ago. These include the recognition of Amazigh cultural identity and Amazigh language as the second official language of the country in the amended Moroccan constitution of 2011. For a detailed analysis of the Amazigh movement, see Maddy-Weitzman (2013); and Errihani (2013).

For a detailed history of the Berbers in antiquity, and particularly the history of Juba II and the Roman Empire, see Chapters 1 and 2 of Brett and Fentress (1996).

For a detailed history of the Rif wars, see Pennell (1986); and Woolman (1965).

Violent Islamist movements or the so-called salafi-jihadists in Morocco are marginal and not popular; they are said to be inspired by Al-Qaida in the way they advocate the use of violence to achieve political ends. They consist of small, non-structured violent organizations such as al-Takfīr wa al-Hijra (‘Excommunication and Exile’) and Jamā’at al-Sirāt al-Mustaqīm (‘The True Path’). The leaders of these movements were jailed after the May 2003 Casablanca terrorist attacks, which killed 33 people and injured many others. For a detailed discussion of the evolution of these movements, see Alfonso and Garcia Ray (2007). See also Tozy (2009).

Morocco has two major political ‘moderate’ Islamist parties. The first is the PJD, which was largely domesticated by the Makhzen and which is perceived as pro-monarchy as it recognizes both the religious and political authority of the King. It has been a political force since its official entry into Moroccan political life in 1997 and is now leading the current coalition government after it gained the majority of seats in the November 2011 elections. The second is the popular, but banned, Islamist movement Justice and Charity which is perceived as an opposition force in Morocco and which remains openly anti-monarchical and uncompromising, although it has no clear political programme or strategy. Neither group advocates violence, but after the May 2003 terrorist attacks in Casablanca, the PJD was criticized for ‘its moral responsibility for the terrorist attacks’ because of its populist discourse and conservative morality (see Mohsen-Finan 2005). The PJD has been leading the current government since January 2012, but the social, political, and economic climate in Morocco remains stagnant as the PJD has yet to deliver its programme of reforms. The PJD's position on women's rights, and minority rights like those of the Amazigh, is inconsistent and vague at times. For a succinct discussion of these two parties and their relationship to the monarchy, see Maghraoui (2013). For detailed discussion of the politics and itineraries of these parties, see among others Wegner (2011).

For a critical assessment of the complex relationship between the major centre-left USFP and the Islamist party PJD and the underlying factors behind their enmity, see Wegner and Pellicer (2011).

Binoual (2011) (the translation is my own).