Category Archives: Civil Rights

Blogging in Morocco

3 Replies


Said Benjebli, Casablanca, July 19, 2009.

Said Benjebli, president of the Association of Moroccan Bloggers, describes the group (from an interview in Afrik.com):

    “Our movement is secular and our members come from very diverse backgrounds. Atheists, socialists, Amazigh, secular… everyone is represented in our association. We are above all free and we operate in a democratic manner. …
    “We cannot insult religions. Whether it’s Muslim, Jewish, Christian or otherwise. Within our association, we are able to differentiate between criticisms and insults. We of course encourage criticism, but we neither insult people nor what is sacred. Regarding homosexuals, I have backed some in the past. I have no problem with that. I think they have every right to express themselves, to run a blog or a website. … This is to tell you that we respect everyone and remain open to all trends.”

Regarding the National Dialogue on Media and Society:

    “This initiative comes from the very top. Jamal Eddine Naji, the coordinator, is a close friend of the King. He was commissioned by the ruling party, Authenticity and Modernity Party, to impose the state agenda without taking the opinion of journalists into account. …
    “If it is a dialogue, it is being done without the real actors of the electronic media. They instead want to keep the press at bay, impose their rules, impose electronic censorship and muzzle it. I personally received an official invitation. I attended two of their meetings, once as a representative of the association of bloggers and another as a journalist. But once they realized that we were serious, that our proposals were credible, they discredited us by calling us fundamentalists to silence us. So we steered clear.”

Regarding the climate of blogging in Morocco generally:

    “We live in a constant state of arrests and releases. … It is true that there are no laws that regulate the blogosphere to guarantee the right to free expression. However, what the authorities are looking for is a way to censor blogs. They have the means to put pressure on the media — through printing presses, distribution agencies, etc. — but blogs are difficult to censor. That is why the authorities are severe with bloggers.”

I met Said Benjebli last summer, when by coincidence I was in Casablanca on the same night as a meeting of the Association of Moroccan Bloggers. I attended by invitation from blogger Mounir Bensalah, and the photo above is from that occasion.

I have a few questions. They aren’t rhetorical questions, these are things I’m genuinely not sure about.

  • Granted that 2009 wasn’t a great year for freedom of expression in Morocco. I could list the cases here, but others have done that. Said Benjebli isn’t alone in fearing that the Moroccan authorities are turning away from their earlier promise of greater freedoms. But is it possible that the recent wave of criminal prosecutions is, paradoxically, a result of those greater freedoms? Perhaps they are growing pains as journalists and bloggers test the limits, and the state struggles to define its new boundaries?
     
  • Should a bloggers’ association be focused primarily on defending the rights of bloggers who test the limits, or does it have a broader constituency? I would certainly want such a group backing me if I were a Moroccan blogger who unknowingly ran afoul of the famous red lines. On the other hand, I can’t help feeling that there are infinite creative ways to express ourselves, without directly taking on the state in areas where it feels most insecure. Technology, education, history, the arts, the economy, philosophy, social science, and religion are all domains of self-expression that aren’t necessarily political. By defining bloggers as journalist-activists who test the political limits, is the association scaring away, rather than promoting, other worthy forms of self-expression?
     
  • What are the right limits on freedom of expression? Surely we’ll agree that no right is absolute. Even in the U.S., a phone call to a Congresswoman threatening to torch her house, or an active-duty soldier calling on his fellows to disobey the president’s orders, will earn the attention of the authorities. Those may be extreme cases, but where do we draw the line? The Moroccan state has the right, even the duty, to protect its territorial security and social stability. If certain forms of expression are seen as a threat, it can pass laws to restrict them. We may disagree with those laws, as I have in the past, in which case we have two choices — lobby to change them while continuing to obey them, or break them consciously to show they are unjust. The second choice, civil disobedience, involves accepting the penalty as a form of protest. So what are the right limits on freedom of expression in Morocco? Should bloggers be allowed to write literally anything? What should the state do when bloggers go over the line?
     
  • As a developing country in a troubled world, Morocco has its share of problems. However, when I look around me, I see a diverse population, a growing economy, and young people with a lively creative imagination. It pains me a bit to see reports of Morocco slipping back into a dark age of heavy-handed repression, because that doesn’t jibe with what I see around me every day. So let’s assume for a moment that Morocco is moving forward, but in a two-steps-forward, one-step-back kind of way. Sometimes we’re made painfully aware of the limits on progress — and yet progress is being made. What is the best way to promote self-expression in such a context? Where will it do the most good?

UPDATE: Hisham of Al Miraat has published an interview on Global Voices with blogger Bashir Hazzam, who was sentenced to four months in prison for blogging about a demonstration in the southern town of Tarhjicht. He was released on Feburary 8, two months after his arrest, partly due to interntional pressure. He explains his views about blogging this way:

    “I discovered the world of blogging when I was a student. I came across a number of blogs and realized that blogging enables people to publish their ideas easily, without control and for free. I liked the idea so much that, after a brief research, I ended up creating my own blog…. The blogosphere enabled me to exchange views and ideas and communicate with many bloggers and writers from around the world. … What happened will not affect me. Despite the arbitrary detention, I kept my writing style intact. It will not affect my thoughts or my views. … I would invite people to take advantage of technologies offered by the Internet to highlight their skills and talents, and express their ambitions and aspirations through blogging, so as to break the systematic marginalization imposed by authoritarian states, especially on the youth.”

“Targeted Killings”

10 Replies


Anwar al-Awlaki, American citizen condemned to death without a trial.

For all I know, “radical Muslim cleric” Anwar al-Awlaki has done something deserving of a death sentence — but that’s what the judicial process is supposed to determine. In America we have the principle of “innocent until proven guilty,” but instead, the National Security Council has condemned this man to death based on secret evidence.

Here’s what the British newspaper the Guardian presents as the reasoning behind the decision.

    “Awlaki has been accused of encouraging terrorism in his sermons and writings. … He has been linked to Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, in November, and to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian charged with trying to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day. …
    “The decision to place Awlaki on a hit list took place this year… as U.S. counterterrorism officials judged he had moved beyond inciting attacks against the U.S…. to participating in them. ‘The danger Awlaki poses to this country is no longer confined to words,’ an official told the New York Times. ‘He’s gotten involved in plots.'”

The New York Times adds this detail.

    “American counterterrorism officials say Mr. Awlaki is an operative of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula…. They say they believe that he has become a recruiter for the terrorist network, feeding prospects into plots aimed at the United States and at Americans abroad.”

So we have the word of anonymous officials that al-Awlaki is an “operative” and “recruiter” for Al Qaeda who has “gotten involved in plots.” It’s not even a question of being asked to take their word for it — the decision to target al-Awlaki was made weeks ago, and might never have been announced publicly if journalists hadn’t done a little digging.

Of course the CIA “hit list” is nothing new, as we’ve seen in numerous drone strikes in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen dating back to 2002. The only advantage al-Awlaki got as an American citizen was that his death sentence was approved at the highest level, in a National Security Council review.

al-Awlaki is “linked to” two terrorist plots, one successful, one not. In the case of the Fort Hood shootings, the link seems to be limited to an exchange of emails. In the case of the Christmas bombing attempt, he allegedly met with Abumultallab in Yemen and helped recruit him into the mission. He also says hateful things in his sermons that encourage others to resort to violence — but even Rush Limbaugh has been accused of that.

Even if he directly aided and abetted the two plots mentioned — by suggesting specific targets, for example, or by supplying materiel — it isn’t clear this would earn him a death sentence in a U.S. courtroom. In the Oklahoma City bombing case of 1995, Terry Nichols got off with life in prison for helping Timothy McVeigh to assemble his bomb. In any case, the charges against al-Awlaki have yet to be proven in court.

al-Awlaki with his thick beard, foreign-sounding name, and militant Islamism may not be a sympathetic figure to most Americans, but it might be helpful to remember this famous principle from the Nazi era.

    “They came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. … Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.”

al-Awlaki may very well be a security risk to the United States, if he is indeed part of a network that recruits, trains and arms terrorists. But the thing is, nothing has been proven. All we have is the word of anonymous officials, whose judgment we’re supposed to trust.

All U.S. citizens are entitled to the protections of the U.S. Constitution, which was designed as a check on the arbitrary use of power. Condemning someone to death without a trial, in a Star Chamber proceeding with secret evidence, is just that — an arbitary use of power.

Those who cheer this decision because it involves a “radical Muslim cleric” might ask themselves how they would feel if the same thing were to happen on American soil. Should the National Security Council approve “targeted killings” of groups like the Hutaree Militia, who allegedly plotted to kill a police officer and bomb his funeral?

I think we’re on a slippery slope here. America has to stick to the rule of law, no matter how inconvenient it may sometimes seem.

Democracy in Egypt?

Leave a reply

Mohamed ElBaradei, Nobel Peace Prize winner and potential challenger to the 30-year rule of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, had this to say last week:

    “Western policy towards this part of the world has been a total failure, in my view. It has not been based on dialogue, understanding, supporting civil society and empowering people, but rather it’s been based on supporting authoritarian systems as long as the oil keeps pumping.
    “If you bet on individuals [like Mubarak] instead of the people, you are going to fail. And Western policy so far has been to bet on individuals, individuals who are not supported by their people and who are being discredited every day. …
    “The West talks a lot about elections in Iran, for example, but at least there were elections — yet where are the elections in the Arab world? If the West doesn’t talk about that, then how can it have any credibility?
    “Only if you empower the liberals, if you empower the moderate socialists, if you empower all factions of society, only then will extremists be marginalised.”

I wish Dr. ElBaradei all the luck in the world with his quixotic crusade to bring democracy to Egypt. He is exactly the sort of moderate, popular, independent-minded reformer the West has long claimed to hope for in the Middle East, so whether the West responds positively to his efforts (assuming they gain traction) will be a test of sincerity.

On the other hand, maybe Western governments should keep their mouths shut even if they do favor him, so as not to poison the well of his support. Unfortunately, the policies of the Bush administration have given “democracy creation” a bad name in the Middle East.

One thing is clear, President Mubarak is not long for this world. He is already over 80, and just returned from three weeks in Germany where he underwent surgery to remove his gall bladder. The choice of a new leader will be upon Egypt very soon, certainly no later than the presidential elections of 2011, in which he is not expected to run.

For further coverage of ElBaradei’s campaign to reform Egyptian politics, see Zeinobia’s blog, The Arabist, or this excellent summary from blogger Baheyya.

Congress Demands Arab Censorship

11 Replies

On December 8, 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives passed, by a vote of 395 to 3, a resolution specifically naming three Arab TV stations — Al Manar, Al Aqsa, and Al Rifadayn — as “terrorist owned and operated” channels that broadcast “incitement to violence against the United States.” The resolution stated that any satellite provider that broadcasts these stations, or others to be named later, would be considered a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” under the law. The president would be required to report to Congress each year concerning “anti-American incitement to violence” on TV stations across the Middle East, covering 19 nations from Morocco to Iran.

The three “terrorist” stations are carried on the two largest satellite providers in the Middle East, NileSat of Egypt and ArabSat of Saudi Arabia. Between them, NileSat and ArabSat offer hundreds of stations, most of which show cheesy movies, game shows, and cartoons for kids, as well as the official state programming of the various Arab nations. This resolution, known as H.R. 2278, would require NileSat and ArabSat to block any channel the U.S. labels as terrorist, or see themselves labeled as supporters of terrorism. The resolution still needs to be approved by the Senate and signed by the president to become law — it is currently before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chaired by John Kerry. So there is still time for Washington to come to its senses, but it should be clear that by issuing such a heavy-handed demand for censorship, Congress has sent exactly the wrong message to the Arab world.

Al Manar is the voice of Hezbollah, which besides being an armed resistance movement against Israel, is a political party active in the Lebanese government. Al Aqsa is linked with Hamas, also a resistance movement and the de facto government of the Gaza Strip. Al Rafidayn is an Iraqi station described by the Open Source Center, an arm of the U.S. intelligence community, as a “pro-Sunni, anti-U.S. Iraqi channel believed to be affiliated with the Association of Muslim Scholars.” Of the three, only Al Rifadayn could remotely be accused of “incitement to violence against the United States,” since it supports resistance to the American occupation of Iraq. There is a blurring of lines here between “terrorism” and legitimate resitance — a difference which is in the eye of the beholder. None of these stations supports random acts of violence against civilians, such as suicide bombings or kidnappings, which is the usual definition of terrorism. All provide legitimate news services to the population. And the target of resistance for both Al Manar and Al Aqsa isn’t the U.S. at all, but the state of Israel.

I’ve watched Al Manar here in Morocco, and while they have their share of pro-resistance propaganda — scenes of heroic battles from the 2006 Lebanon War, accompanied by patriotic songs — they are also a news source with high standards of professionalism. In fact, they were the only ones providing on-the-ground coverage during the Israel–Lebanon conflict — even Al Jazeera used their footage — and it was through their station that I became aware of the devastation Israel was raining down on a beleaguered nation. Perhaps that’s what bothers the U.S. Congress. It’s certainly what bothers Israel. Henry Lamb, an American lawyer living in Lebanon, who seems to be the only one writing in depth about H.R. 2278, cites a “Washington DC observer” on the motivations behind the proposed law.

    “Regarding Al Manar it’s personal for Israel. The reason is that Al Manar did to the Israeli government propaganda machine during and following the July 2006 war what Hezbollah fighters did to Israeli troops. Al Manar kicked butt. That station must be made to disappear. The plan is to stop the 15-20 million daily viewers of Al Manar from receiving its transmission and well as to intimidate all the other Middle East TV channels that are suspected of moving toward the growing ‘Culture of Resistance’….”

In another article, Lamb praises Al Manar’s “reputation for accuracy, thoroughness and objectivity and getting the latest news on the air fast.” Speaking of the tragic crash of an Ethiopian airliner in Beirut on January 25, he adds:

    “As Lebanese woke to the news this morning an estimated 80% of the population is thought to have turned into Al Manar at least once sometime between the hours of 7 am and 11 am, as they and the region regularly do during war or crisis. … Al Manar was the first Lebanese station to give the most details…. Ironically, staff at the American Embassy, and surely the large contingent of CIA agents here, almost certainly sat glued to Al Manar to evaluate what really has happened. [If H.R. 2278 becomes law] US officials may be deprived of this reliable source of information.”

During a recent visit by Senator John McCain, Lebanese president Michel Sleiman asked “that Washington backtrack on its decision to ban certain television channels, including Al Manar,” according to an official statement. Meanwhile Nabih Berri, the speaker of the Lebanese parliament, sent a letter to U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi denouncing the proposed law.

    “[The bill] harms the principles of freedom of expression and civil rights, and leads to further complication in relations. … This bill represents bypassing to the sovereign national laws of the targeted countries, among them Lebanon which is a free ‘Hyde Park’ for the Lebanese and Arab satellite ‘public opinion’ media channels. … Therefore, the bill issued by your Congress undermines our sovereignty as well as the sovereignty of many countries….”

Lebanon is proud of its diversity of opinion, which is the thread holding society together after a generation of civil strife. The above statements show that Congress, in its hastily considered attempt at censorship, has united the entire Lebanese political class in protest — not just Hezbollah, a political movement the U.S. still labels “terrorist,” but the elected government as well, which Washington supports.

But there is another dimension to the problem, namely the excuse that H.R. 2278 gives to Arab nations with reasons of their own for censoring opposing views. Chief among them are Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which coincidentally or not, are home to NileSat and ArabSat, respectively. Egypt has been ruled by Hosni Mubarak, known as “the Pharaoh,” for 28 years under martial law. Saudi Arabia is the home of Wahhabism and the obscenely rich Saudi royal family. Both have a history of silencing domestic critics, and both are sponsors of an Arab League proposal to monitor TV stations in all its 22 member nations.

The Arab League first discussed a satellite TV charter back in February 2008, but the recent action by Congress has given new momentum to their plans. On January 24, 2010, Arab information ministers met in Cairo to discuss the proposal. According to Reporters Without Borders, the plan would set up an “Office for Arab Satellite Television” to ensure that stations “respect the ethical standards and moral values of Arab society” and “no longer serve as fronts or outlets for ‘terrorist’ organisations.” In a statement, the Paris-based watchdog group warned of the potential for abuse.

    “The danger is that this super-police could be used to censor all TV stations that criticise the region’s governments. It could eventually be turned into a formidable weapon against freedom of information.”

Anthony Mills of the International Press Institute issued a similar warning.

    “The International Press Institute is wary of efforts to engage in that kind of monitoring particularly given the record of most, if not all, Arab Middle Eastern countries on press freedom. It’s an example of states in the Arab world using the notion of security to in fact monitor and stifle independent reporting.”

The influence of H.R. 2278 can be seen in two of the stations mentioned by Reporters Without Borders as targets of the new plan — Al Aqsa and Al Manar — along with the plan’s emphasis on “terrorism.” However, as Daoud Kuttab shows in a 2008 article, the original motivations have little to do with “terrorism” or “incitement to violence.” Arab governments simply want to shield themselves from an increasingly independent and critical media universe.

    “[Arab information ministers] have been gradually losing power to the satellite stations. For some time governments have been resigned to the fact that the rich and elite will have access to alternative information coming from satellite but the poor masses will continue to be spoon fed through the terrestrial stations. But as the prices of satellite dishes have become affordable to the poor masses, and as the satellite stations have cut deeply into the audience of national broadcasts, the alarm bells started to sound and the ministers of information increased their meetings hoping to find a regional solution to this problem. …
    “Couched between clauses that prohibit broadcasting obscenity, pornography and scenes encouraging smoking, the charter calls for ‘Abstaining from broadcasting anything that would contradict with or jeopardize Arab solidarity….’ It also calls for ‘abidance by objectivity, honesty and respect of the dignity and national sovereignty of states and their people, and not to insult their leaders or national and religious symbols.’
    “The strange notion that politicians are somehow immune from attack, that leaders are not to be insulted or that the satellite broadcasters are obliged not to jeopardize Arab solidarity is nothing short of censorship.”

It’s clear that by taking up the issue just one month after the passage of H.R. 2278, the Arab League is doing its best to defuse to the claims that NileSat and ArabSat are enabling “terrorism.” However, it’s equally clear that they were given an excuse to do what they want to do anyway — rein in stations whose independence is a thorn in their side. One indication is that along with Al Aqsa and Al Manar, Reporters Without Borders names Al Jazeera as a target of the proposed “super-police.” Al Jazeera is the most popular news channel in the Middle East, and the only one with an international reputation for journalistic excellence and independence. They have reporters around the world, even providing excellent coverage of the 2008 American presidential elections. Their investigative reporting is provocative, as are their discussions with public figures and intellectuals. They are an indispensible actor in the move toward greater freedom of expression in the Arab world.

Some in the U.S. seem to have the impression that Al Jazeera is a jihadi station that shows nothing but suicide bombings and tapes from Osama bin Laden. Nothing could be further from the truth, and it is frankly insulting. People in Morocco rely on Al Jazeera to get an independent perspective on what is happening in their own country, and I’m sure the same is true in other Arab nations. This forces the official state channels to compete in a world where they are no longer the sole source of information. This makes them uncomfortable, and forces them to get better if they want to retain credibility. Meanwhile, Al Jazeera has earned its reputation. They aren’t pushing an agenda. They simply provide balance to Western networks like CNN and the BBC by showing what the world looks like from a perspective outside the West. This can be refreshing, even for an American.

Congress did not name Al Jazeera in H.R. 2278, but the Arab League is using the resolution as an excuse to pressure the station. After all, they hold the power. If Al Jazeera were denied access to NileSat and ArabSat, it would vanish from TV screens across the Middle East. This recently happened to another station that annoyed Saudi Arabia, Al Alam of Iran. When Saudi Arabia got involved in a Yemeni civil war that its propaganda blames — falsely — on Iran, it pressured Egypt to kick Al Alam out of the NileSat lineup. Since ArabSat is controlled by Saudi Arabia, there was no problem there. The station went dark across the Arab world, upsetting my friend’s aunt who liked to watch it daily because “it tells the whole truth.” She also likes Al Manar, also for its independence. What business does Congress, none of whose members have ever watched an Arab news channel, have telling my friend’s aunt that she likes “terrorist” TV?

The Arab League is divided on the “super-police” proposal, with Egypt and Saudia Arabia as key sponsors, and Qatar and Lebanon strongly opposed. Al Jazeera is based in Qatar, where it began as a project of Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa, so Qatar is defending its own interests there. We’ve already seen that the Lebanese political leadership is ready to defend Al Manar on the grounds of national sovereignty. So it comes down to a test of wills between two nations, Qatar and Lebanon, who are pioneers of Arab media diversity, and two others, Saudia Arabia and Egypt, who represent state censorship and control. Guess which side the U.S. Congress is on? And isn’t it ironic that around the same time Hillary Clinton made a big speech defending the “freedom to connect” on the internet, Congress should be demanding that Arab states use their authority to pull independent media off the air?

My Powerful Voice

7 Replies

Yesterday, President Obama told me:

    “I’ll never stop fighting to make sure that the most powerful voice in Washington belongs to you.”

It’s nice to know that my voice is the one everyone else is listening to. It certainly doesn’t feel that way.

I wanted a much stronger economic stimulus back in the spring, focused on creating jobs by building a new, “green energy” infrastructure. I wanted at least some of the big banks to be taken over by the government, and thoroughly reformed before being broken up and resold to the private sector. I wanted guaranteed health care for everyone, paid for through a national system like in Britain, France or Canada. I wanted an immediate end to the use of drone aircraft in war, which invariably kills civilians. In fact, I wanted all troops withdrawn from Afghanistan and Iraq, closure of most American bases overseas, and a massive cut in our defense budget. I wanted an end to all those unconstitutional things Bush was doing in the name of national security. I wanted a criminal inquiry into torture, secret prisons, and the illegal war in Iraq. I wanted the U.S. to join the International Criminal Court, and to recognize the Goldstone Report that found Israel guilty of war crimes. I wanted a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, with a right of return for Palestinian refugees to Israel. I wanted full diplomatic relations and open exchange with Iran, Cuba and Syria. I wanted to allow anyone, anywhere in the world who wants to move to the U.S. to be able to do so, unless she has committed a violent crime. I wanted a new era of peace and prosperity worldwide, based on economic justice and respect for human rights — and if that wasn’t possible, I at least wanted the U.S. to try really hard to make it happen, without firing a single bullet.

I know my voice isn’t being heard in Washington, and President Obama isn’t hearing it either. There’s probably good reason for that, because my voice is one of many, and not eveyone agrees. But at least spare me the fatuous talk, Mr. President, because you don’t even know me.

“Internet Freedom” as Foreign Policy?

1 Reply

Middle East expert Marc Lynch has some valuable thoughts on American efforts to use “internet freedom” to promote its foreign policy interests, particularly in Iran.

He compares a speech by Hillary Clinton, “outlining America’s commitment to ‘internet freedom,'” with an article published the same day “by two key Bush administration public diplomacy officials, James Glassman and Michael Doran, calling on the U.S. to use the soft power of the internet to promote regime change in Iran.”

    “[For] Glassman and Doran, who both held important public diplomacy positions in the previous administration and have long been enthusiastic advocates of using the internet…the point is not abstract, universal freedoms — it is using those tools against an adversary. They urge the U.S. to use the new media to undermine the Iranian regime and to help the Green Movement by providing moral and educational support….
    “Set aside the question of whether these steps would work to undermine the Iranian regime or strengthen the Green Movement…. The key point here is that internet freedom…[is] clearly and unapologetically a weapon to be wielded against the Iranian regime. For better or for worse, most of the world probably assumes that Clinton has the same goal in mind…even if she doesn’t say so. And that’s a major problem if you think about it. When the U.S. says to Iran or to other adversarial regimes that it should respect ‘freedom of internet expression’ or ‘freedom of internet connectivity,’ those regimes will assume that it is really trying to use those as a rhetorical cover for hostile actions. And if Glassman and Doran have their way, they will be right.”

Lynch goes on to describe the “moral hazard” involved if the U.S. is unwilling or unable to look out for those who might take Clinton’s words at face value.

    “It’s great to support and encourage internet activists and protestors of all sorts. But such support can lead them to take some very risky, dangerous activities against their brutal governments, perhaps in the expectation that the United States will protect them from the consequences. Will it? If a blogger inspired by Clinton’s speech decides to launch a corruption monitoring website, and is summarily imprisoned and tortured, does the U.S. have any plan in place to protect her?”

While I share Clinton’s hope that “the freedom to connect…can help transform societies,” Lynch shows the danger of looking at the world solely through a prism of American interests. American words and actions have consequences, to real people outside the U.S. If “internet freedom” is treated as an arm of American foreign policy in which activists are used and then abandoned, it will make the U.S. look like a cynical manipulator and a feckless hypocrite. If, however, the commitment is real and for the long term, it will mean supporting the internet’s many voices even when they are saying what America doesn’t want to hear.

The Case for the Moroccan Sahara

15 Replies

I support Morocco’s claim to the Western Sahara, or the southern provinces as Morocco calls them — I just couldn’t justify why. The Western media tends to treat Morocco as an illegal occupier. They celebrate independence activist Aminatou Haidar, calling her the “Sahrawi Ghandi.” But independence would mean handing over the Sahara to the Polisario and Algerian influence, and that never felt right to me. As Moroccans see it, it would also mean cutting their country in two. So why is it so hard to find views supporting Morocco’s position in the Western media, even among news sources I respect? Are Moroccans just brainwashed by patriotic sentiment, or is it the Western media that have a one-sided view of the matter? I’ve been reluctant to express an opinion on this until now, because I didn’t feel like I knew enough. So I decided to look into things for myself, and see what I could come up with.

Early Period

A thousand years ago, the region was dominated by the Sanhaja, a Berber tribe. They spread south into Senegal and Nigeria, east into Algeria, and north as far as the Rif Mountains. Abdallah ibn Yassin, the spiritual founder of the Almoravid dynasty, was from this tribe. He formed an alliance with Yahia ibn Ibrahim of the Lamtuna, another local tribe, to spread orthodox Islam. Their string of millitary victories led to the founding of Marrakech in 1070, and an empire stretching as far north as Andalusia in Spain. So a religious movement from the Sahara was responsible for one of the major turning points of Moroccan history. Later, over the centuries, the Sanhaja intermarried with Arab tribes that came into the region, resulting in the Sahrawis of today.

Colonial Period

Spain seized control of the region after a division of Africa into “spheres of influence” by European powers at the Berlin Conference of 1884. Hassan I of Morocco attempted to organize resistance to the Spanish incursion, but failed. During Spanish rule, governors were selected from prominent local tribes with the approval of the colonial administration. Each year on the Prophet’s birthday, they paid homage to the caliph of Spanish Morocco “to show loyalty to the Moroccan monarchy.” Morocco itself fell under the control of French and Spanish protectorates in 1912.

Modern Period

When Morocco regained its independence in 1956, Spain kept control of the Sahara provinces. The Polisario Front was formed in 1973 to lead an armed struggle for independence from Spain. In 1975, Spain promised the Polisario a referendum on independence, but Morocco and Mauritania went to the International Court of Justice with claims that the territory was historically theirs. Algeria opposed these claims and threw its support to the Polisario. In October 1975, the court found that the people of the Sahara had a right to self-determination. The court recognized that in pre-colonial times, certain Saharan tribes had ties of allegiance to the Moroccan sultan, but determined that these claims were insufficient to give Morocco a right to the territory.

In November 1975, as the Spanish dictator Franco lay dying, Hassan II organized the Green March, rallying 350,000 unarmed Moroccans on the southern border with the aim of peacefully occupying the Sahara provinces. Their entry into Spanish-held territory effectively dared the Spanish to open fire on them, but that didn’t happen. Instead, Spain signed an agreement with Morocco and Mauritania to divide the Saharan territory between them. Morocco would get two thirds, and Mauritania the other third. Three months later, the Spanish completed their withdrawal. Algeria continued to support the Polisario, which pressured Mauritania to give up its claims to the remaining third of the territory in 1979. Before the Polisario could move in, Morocco occupied it.

The Polisario continued their guerilla campaign against Morocco until 1991, when a UN-brokered cease-fire took effect. Since then, the battle has shifted to diplomatic channels. The Polisario has continued to demand a referendum on indepedence, in which only those families who lived in the Sahara before 1975 could vote. During the 1990s, Morocco accepted a referendum on principle, but disputed the question of who would be allowed to vote. These disputes were never resolved, so the referendum proved impossible to carry out. Shortly before his death in 1999, Hassan II decided to pursue a new strategy. Morocco would offer autonomy to the Sahara provinces, granting them the right to local self-government while retaining Moroccan sovereignty over the region.

Under Mohammed VI, autonomy has become the official Moroccan position. Morocco has withdrawn its support for a referendum of any sort, insisting that the Sahara is an integral part of Morocco. Sahrawis living on the Moroccan side of the cease-fire line have full rights as Moroccan citizens, and are free to travel anywhere in Morocco. Meanwhile, around 100,000 Sahrawis are living in refugee camps in Tindouf, just inside the Algerian border, which is also the Polisario base. Morocco views the Polisario as a tool of the Algerian generals, who seek to weaken Morocco and set up a client state on the Atlantic Ocean. Algeria denies being a party to the conflict, but it has armed, trained and funded the Polisario for more than thirty years.

In 2007, Morocco presented its autonomy plan to the United Nations. The plan states that “the Sahara populations will themselves run their affairs democratically, through legislative, executive and judicial bodies enjoying exclusive powers. They will have the financial resources needed for the region’s development in all fields, and will take an active part in the nation’s economic, social and cultural life.” The Moroccan Constitution would be amended to accommodate this new status. The UN Security Council responded by “welcoming serious and credible Moroccan efforts to move the process forward towards resolution.”

Today and Tomorrow

Mohammed VI has now gone a step further, proposing what might be seen as an extension of the Saharan autonomy plan to all of Morocco — a project he calls “advanced regionalization.” In his January 3, 2010 speech, he announced the formation a committee to report back to him in six months, with plans to devolve power from the center to Morocco’s regions. He linked this directly to the project for Saharan autonomy, saying, “We intend…to make recovered southern provinces among the first beneficiaries of the advanced regionalization. … Morocco cannot confine itself to the status quo…. We are determined to move forward in…[allowing the] Moroccan Sahara to have greater leeway in managing their own local affairs and this, within the framework of the advanced regionalization.”

The king added, “I do not want regions to be merely formal, bureaucratic entities, but rather representative institutions composed of competent officials who can run their respective regions’ affairs efficiently.” By tying Saharan autonomy to a broader regionalization project, the king acknowledged the logic that connects the two. The current system of top-down control from Rabat, if it remains unreformed, would cast doubt on the viability of the autonomy plan. But if Morocco lets its regions govern themselves within a federal system, choosing their own budgets and goals, suddenly autonomy looks much more credible. If the proposed changes are put into practice, it will be a double win for Morocco, offering a way out of the 35-year-old Saharan impasse, and providing a burst of democratization to Morocco as a whole.

Some Moroccan Views

From “The Moroccan Sahara Autonomy Explained” by Zak Ettamymy:

    “For Algeria to think that Morocco will be muscled out of the Sahara is either strange imagination or wishful thinking; Morocco did not occupy a sovereign nation, Morocco did not annex a land belonging to another nation, a Sahara nation was never a reality and not even an idea. For Morocco to accept the injection of a proxy state in the 21st century is pure hallucination from the Algerian generals.”

From “Aminatou Haidar as Seen by Her Own People,” by Mohammed Beni Azza:

    “Ms. Aminatou Haidar, who claims to be a human rights activist, is actually working closely with the Western Sahara separatist group, Polisario, and their backer, Algeria’s military regime. In fact, she is currently working closely with Algeria’s ambassador in Washington, Mr. Abdallah Baali, who is coordinating and funding her ‘human rights’ lobbying activities in the US. … Algeria’s current lobbying through proxies such as Ms. Aminatou Haidar and others aims to keep the status quo in the Sahara by advancing the independence as the only option. In the minds of Algeria’s strategists, keeping Morocco mired in the current situation costs it substantial resources and mitigates any resistance that Morocco would pose to Algeria’s ambition to become a regional power in North Africa. Algeria’s long-term objective is to secure access to the Atlantic ocean through a client ‘state’ such as a ‘Sahrawi Republic’ in the disputed region.”

Further Reading

This 2007 article, “Western Sahara Between Autonomy and Intifada,” is one of the more balanced I was able to find. It seems to take the rightness of the Polisario cause for granted, nearly ignores the Algerian angle, and probably overstates the popularity of the Polisario among the Sahrawi themselves — but at least it has a decent summary of the conflict, in a clean, analytical style. Despite its bias, it reaches the same conclusion I have, that given the stakes held by the various players in the conflict, Saharan independence is no longer an option. As a result, it behooves Morocco to move quickly to offer Sahrawis something more attractive than the current stalemate.

That’s why I think the autonomy plan is so important. Autonomy becomes even more attractive if it can be seen as part of the movement of Morocco as a whole into an era of vibrant democracy and inter-regional cooperation. Aboubakr Jamaï recently made a similar point, in a letter from an imaginary “Sahraoui friend.” His fictional correspondant says that he wants to remain part of Morocco, but has grown more attracted to independence as democratic reforms in Morocco have seemed to stall. Let’s hope that Mohammed VI’s new “advanced regionalization” plan reignites the old sense of hope.

Islamic Parties Aren’t All That Popular

4 Replies

A recent study asks the question:

    Do Muslims automatically vote Islamic? … When we examined results from parliamentary elections in all Muslim societies, we found [that]…given the choice, voters tend to go with secular parties, not religious ones. Over the past 40 years, 86 parliamentary elections in 20 countries have included one or more Islamic parties…. Eighty percent of these Islamic parties earned less than 20 percent of the vote, and a majority got less than 10 percent—hardly landslide victories. The same is true even over the last few years, with numbers barely changing since 2001.
    True, Islamic parties have won a few well-publicized breakthrough victories, such as in Algeria in 1991 and Palestine in 2006. But far more often, Islamic parties tend to do very poorly. What’s more, the more free and fair an election is, the worse the Islamic parties do. By our calculations, the average percentage of seats won by Islamic parties in relatively free elections is 10 points lower than in less free ones.
    Even if they don’t win, Islamic parties often find themselves liberalized by the electoral process. We found that Islamic party platforms are less likely to focus on sharia law or armed jihad in freer elections and more likely to uphold democracy and women’s rights. …
    These are still culturally conservative parties, by any standard, but their decision to run for office places them at odds with Islamic revolutionaries. … What enrages Zawahiri and his ilk is that Islamists keep ignoring demands to stay out of parliamentary politics. Despite threats from terrorists and a cold shoulder from voters, more and more Islamic parties are entering the electoral process. A quarter-century ago, many of these movements were trying to overthrow the state and create an Islamic society…. Now, disillusioned with revolution, they are working within the secular system.

I’m a secular progressive, so I doubt I would ever vote for an Islamic party like Morocco’s Justice and Development Party (PJD), even if I could. However, I certainly support their right to be part of the political process, for precisely the reasons outlined above. Islamic parties are rarely the most popular alternative in free and open elections—and whether they win or not, their efforts to appeal to a majority cause them to moderate their views. Meanwhile, they channel the views of the conservative part of society into the political process, which is certainly better than keeping those views on the angry fringe.

Morocco’s 2007 parliamentary elections were a demonstration of this. Many observers expected the PJD to win a decisive victory, but in fact they ended up in distant second place, behind the center-right Istiqlal Party. While this seemed surprising at the time—one survey by an American organization had predicted the PJD might win 47% of the vote—it is in keeping with the long-term trends shown in this study.

Once again, let me say that it distresses me to see Muslims portrayed in the American media as extremist by nature. Taking a few highly visible exceptions and projecting them onto society as a whole makes no more sense than imagining that everyone in America is as rich as Warren Buffett. In Morocco at least, Muslims are no more extremist in their views than most Americans, and I’m convinced that the majority favor a secular approach to public policy. What Moroccans want is good governance and economic opportunity, and these are secular, not religious concerns.

Fortunately we now have a study to show what common sense should have told us already—that democracy in the Muslim world, far from being a path to religious extremism, is in fact a useful tool in helping to ensure its decline.

Voluntary Servitude

Leave a reply

The Discourse on Voluntary Servitude was written by Étienne de la Boétie in 1549, when he was an 18-year-old university student. This excerpt reminds me of certain societies I know today.

    Poor miserable folk, foolish peoples, nations obstinate in evil and blind to good! You let the most beautiful and fair of your revenue be taken from under your eyes, you let your fields be ravaged, you let the possessions of your ancestors be stolen and stripped from your homes! You live in such a way that nothing is yours any longer. It seems that you would henceforth see it as a great blessing if you were left only half of your goods, your families, your lives. And all these harms, these misfortunes, this ruin, doesn’t come to you from enemies, but indeed from the enemy, the very one who you made what he is, the one for whom you go so courageously to war, and for whose grandeur you don’t hesitate to give up your lives. Yet this master has only two eyes, two hands, one body, and nothing more than the least of the inhabitants of our countless cities. All he has more than that, are the means you provide him with to destroy you. Where does he get those eyes to spy on you, if it isn’t from you? How does he have so many hands to strike you with, if you don’t lend them to him? Aren’t the feet with which he treads on your towns also yours? Does he have any power over you that isn’t your own? How would he dare to harass you, if you weren’t in agreement with with him? What evil could he do you, if you weren’t shelterers of the thief who plunders you, accomplices of the murderer who kills you, and traitors to yourselves? You plant your fields so he can lay them waste, you furnish and fill your houses to provide for his plunders, you raise your daughters in order to satisfy his pleasure, you feed your children so he can make soldiers of them in the best of cases, so he can lead them to war, to butchery, turning them into ministers of his covetousness and executors of his vengeance. You wear yourselves out in hardship so he can cosset himself with delights and wallow in his filthy pleasures. You weaken yourselves so he will be stronger, and hold you more tightly on a shorter leash. And from so many indignities that the beasts themselves would not put up with them if they felt them, you could free yourselves if you tried, not even to free yourselves, but only to want it.
    Make up your minds to no longer serve, and you are free.

My thanks, not for the first time, to Yahia for bringing this text to my attention. The translation is my own.

Iran: Let’s Be Clear

1 Reply

Here is guest poster doga’s response to recent events in Iran. He warns of possible hidden motives in the West’s support for Mir-Hossein Mousavi, asking why the West has been quick to champion a man who is part of the same system they have so long criticized?

It’s clear that the reactions of Iranian society to the events of recent weeks, and to the pressures these events have placed on them, haven’t followed a clear logic either in favor of the individual or in favor of the Iranian authorities. It’s true that there has been violence against the demonstrators, but there has also been a destruction of private property which the police are responsible for protecting. For this reason, whether we are for these demonstrations or against them, if we are sincere we mustn’t betray our belief in the liberating and pacifying potential of reason and communication.

Before these events the West had the greatest difficulty in understanding the Iranian people, their way of thinking and their view of the world, and the Western media put their energies into perpetuating a distorted image such as the one presented in the American film Not Without My Daughter—but now all of a sudden everything is reversed, and the majority of Iranians are progressives who support the open, liberal vision of the reformer Mousavi. But are Mousavi’s ideas really as friendly to the West as they seem?

We need to remember that Mousavi is part of the overall Iranian system, even if he now claims that if he had succeeded in the presidential elections, the Revolutionary Guard would have launched a coup against him! We mustn’t forget that in the early days of the revolution he was the editor of the official journal of the Islamic Republican Party, then foreign minister and finally prime minister from 1981–1989 under the presidency of Ali Khomeini, who is none other than the current Supreme Leader of the Revolution, the highest post in the republic. Mousavi chose not to run for the presidency in 1997 when his reformist ally Mohammed Khatami was elected and then reelected by a significant margin, which goes to show that the reformers are part of the Islamic system and have been playing a direct role in it for years, even though the Islamic revolution is only 30 years old! That is why in normal circumstances the West would not support Mousavi today even with words, simply because he doesn’t share their values and goals.

We can say that the West is more against Ahmadinejad than it is for Mousavi. Indeed it is against the system in general and for civil disorder, for well-known reasons. It is hardly obvious that Western call for liberty and for demonstrations, mixed with the indirect call for an uprising against the Iranian system, is in the best interests of the Iranian people, who in my view are an open and tolerant people despite the stereotypic image we see in the media.

In my opinion we need to be vigilant if we want to understand objectively what is currently happening in Iran, because there is always the possibility of hidden interests that want to manipulate the system to their own private ends. We may agree with someone who tells us that gambling destroys the social life of the people, but never with someone who loses everything in the casino and then tells us the same thing!