A little sociological analysis! Let’s start by dividing Moroccan youth into three groups, and drawing a brief caricature of each.

At the bottom of the social ladder are the excluded, whom I assume to be the vast majority of Moroccan youth. They have few prospects for the future except to scrounge for a living. They have no financial independence, because their families are needier than they are and rely on the few pennies they bring in. Most in this group will never make it through high school, though some have specialized skills that allow them to make money from time to time. They include car mechanics, masons, fishermen, agricultural workers, and apprentices in the trades. They include young people who work with their extended family in groceries or in souqs. They also include drug runners, those who steal cell phones, and those who have nothing whatsoever to do. They live in shantytowns, cold-water tenements, and dirt-poor rural environments. Their hopes for the future are so low that they are desperate to seduce some Spanish girl into marriage, or get in overloaded boats to cross the Gibraltar Strait.

The next group may have issued from the same social class in the beginning, but they have managed to reach university level, and have broader ambitions. Many have supplemented their education with some private-school training, in computers, tourism, or secretarial work. This is the group that thinks most like American youth. They want to help their families and better themselves at the same time. Many work as teachers or in public administration, or on the lower rungs of the still-small corporate sector. These are the youth who work at call centers, or in big-city electronics and furniture showrooms. A few make it as freelance designers, or start small businesses of their own. Some are the first generation in their families to reach this level, while others have parents who are salaried workers themselves, and can give them a small boost. They have computers, a bit of money in their pocket, and the time to read newspapers and discuss with their friends. Their interests are broader, their tastes are more sophisticated, and most secular democrats come from this group.

The third group, the children of the elite, never have to worry where they fit in society, because their place is assured. They can get what they want through the power of connections. Whatever goes wrong for them, daddy will take care of it. They are arrogant, spoiled, and out of touch. They believe they are deserving, because everyone says so. They go to the front of the line, and public servants greet them with a smile. They are allowed to break the law, because no one wants to mess with daddy. They have mostly been educated outside Morocco. They are crudely materialistic, with fancy cars and sharp clothing. They buy expensive things because they are expensive. They start high-profile companies in media or real estate. They flaunt everything that divides them from the ordinary Moroccan, causing resentment in others, but they don’t notice this because they live in a bubble. Perhaps some of them doubt their advantages, but I can’t prove it because I have very little contact with this group.

So for the sake of our crude analysis, we have a social pyramid. Let’s say that the group on the bottom, the excluded, makes up 70% of Moroccan youth. The next group, the aspiring middle class, makes up 28%. The children of the elite are the last 2%. So where does each group stand relative to Morocco’s February 20 movement?

It should be clear that the first group isn’t happy about how things are going in Morocco. In their view, Morocco is run by a bunch of crooks. They’ve never been helped by the state, only harrassed and ripped off. But they’re pretty much out of it as far as constitutional questions are concerned. Their political consciousness is nonexistent, or limited to questions that concern them directly, like their housing conditions or medical care for their family. There is no political party that speaks to them, and they may feel that February 20 is made up of the same kind of slick opportunists. These are the people the king calls “nihilists,” because they don’t think politics is anything more than a con game. They are just as likely to be reactionary and authoritarian as they are democratic — the “baltagiyas” or regime-supporting thugs come from this group. But if February 20 could present a social platform that would improve their lives in concrete ways, it would have room for growth in this consituency.

The second group, the aspiring middle class, is where February 20 draws most of its support. This is a growing demographic that is frustrated by a lack of opportunities to match their capacities. They are educated, self-aware, and competent. They are the real future of Morocco. They want to contribute, and many of them do, through associations, cultural activities, or internet forums. They are aware of what’s wrong and brainstorm solutions. They are growing into their role as citizens, and want to be leaders, but find themselves blocked by a system that favors the well connected. They are a bridge between the excluded and the elites, because they have the grievances of the former and the ambitions of the latter. This is the group that would benefit most from change, because they are capable of much more than they can get in the present system. Critical thinking is necessary to belong to this group, and they apply it to their own case by asking, “Why not me?” A movement like February 20 is natural to this group, an example of their committed spirit. But while this demographic is growing, it is still a minority. The challenge before them is to broaden their appeal.

Finally, the children of the elite have nothing to gain from a reform movement. They have been raised to step into daddy’s shoes, and have received the best of everything in preparation. Their whole world is based on entitlement. They have received a first-class education, while the public school system is left to languish. Their expensive playthings are a consequence of daddy’s favors and kickbacks. Their status above the law would be lost in a democracy. Since they are the people whose privileges are targeted by February 20, what would motivate them to join in? Aside from a few rebels of conscience, their attitude is one of indifference. They will keep on partying right through the revolution, as seen in this video of Qaddafi’s sons, or this recent piece from Syria.

“Pool parties in the Damascus suburb of Barada are openly promoted on Facebook, inviting patrons to get ‘wet and wild’ every Friday as mosques call the faithful to prayer. […] The fuel behind the fun is not escapism, but indifference. […] Many of the young, fashionable crowd in Damascus and Aleppo — who have varying degrees of association with the regime — drive in fast cars with blacked-out windows and openly smoke marijuana, knowing they are above the law and resenting the ongoing troubles. […] They have too much to lose and virtually nothing to gain and feel irrevocably alienated from their fellow countrymen.”

So what should we take away from all this? First, that the February 20 protesters do not yet represent a majority of Moroccan youth, but they have a chance to change this if they can persuade the marginalized majority that political reform can bring concrete results. The excluded class at the bottom is frustrated and angry, but they are the victim of years of social engineering designed to teach them passivity in the face of oppression. February 20 activists will have their work cut out for them if they want to connect with this group. They will need to go to Morocco’s villages and urban neighborhoods with teach-ins and community organizing. That will take time, but it represents the only potential for February 20 to expand its base and become a majority movement. Meanwhile, February 20 should expect no help from the young privileged elites, who will look out for themselves despite the taste for personal freedom they superficially share.

In light of the constitutional reform proposal of King Mohammed VI, perhaps it would be useful to take a look at this recent article about Jordan, by Morten Valbjørn in Foreign Policy, which calls Jordan a “liberalizing autocracy” gifted at creating the illusion of change.

“Indeed, by some measures Jordan is today less free than in 1989, when its much-claimed democratic transition began. This does not, however, mean that Jor­dan’s ‘transition to nowhere’ should be framed as an example of ‘failure of demo­cra­tization.’ Instead, Jordan should be seen as an example of a ‘libe­ra­li­zing autocracy’: always ap­pearing as being in the midst of a promising reform process, but still always an auto­cracy. Those in real power are not accountable to their citi­zens and they do not aim to gi­ve up or even share their power. They are only following Lampe­du­sa’s old advice that ‘if we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.’ Such liberalizing autocracies should not be perceived as be­ing a transitory state on the road toward democracy, but rather as a distinct and quite resilient kind of authoritarian regime.”

What techniques does a nation like Jordan (or Morocco) use to appear to be liberalizing while in fact changing nothing? One is the transfer of liberalizing functions outside the state to NGOs, which have no political power and can be easily controlled.

“Liberalization in such autocracies typically focuses on areas of special concern to international audiences which do not touch the heart of power. One of these areas is the field of civil-society…. The King has several times emphasized the importance of a dynamic civil-society and has cal­led on his fellow Jordanians to get involved in the more than 2,000 NGOs. However, this ‘civil-society promoting’ policy is supplemented by a number of subtle techniques which ensure that NGOs will not turn into a significant political force. These include the ‘Law of Societies,’ which states that NGOs must obtain licenses from the authorities and are moreover not allowed to be political or to ‘contradict with the public order.’ […] If the de­li­be­rately vaguely-stated requirements are not fulfilled, it is possible to dissolve an NGO or put it under administration. […] Finally, so-called Royal NGOs, wealthy associations sponsored by members of the royal family, make up nearly 60 percent of Jordan’s civil society, crowding out more indepen­dent NGOs.”

Sound familiar? This is the story of Mohammed VI’s twelve years of reign in Morocco. But what of the constitutional reforms he just proposed? That’s a real change in the balance of power, right?

“The powers of the King are defined by the con­stitution and the citizens are entitled with basic rights. However, the con­­stitution is not only written by but also for the regime. Thus, the King is given extensive powers without being accoun­table and a nominal recognition of fundamental civil liberties is often balanced by various exceptions. The King has famously stated that the ‘sky is the limit’ when it comes to the level of freedom of expression…. In reality, there are ‘red li­nes’ regarding criticism of the King, the royal court, ‘friendly nations,’ or sta­te­ments that may hurt Jordan’s international repu­ta­tion. […]

A reflection of how it often makes more sense speaking of ‘rule by law’ than ‘rule of law’ is the Jordanian election system. On the one hand, Jordan has since 1989 — with a few exceptions — regu­lar­ly held both local and parliamentary-elections…. While being (almost) spared for simple fraud, these elections have on the other hand been regulated by means of a highly con­tro­ver­sial elec­­tion law. Due to the voting-procedure and the distribution of constituencies, the elections are ac­cu­sed of favoring ‘independent’ candidates over political parties, [and] rural tribal areas over more regi­me-critical urban ones….

See my discussion from 2007 of the Moroccan parliamentary elections, which resulted in a Parliament so fragmented that no political party, or even a coalition of like-minded parties, could muster the political strength to act independently of the Palace. At the time it was widely assumed that this was intentional, the result of political manipulations dating back to the days of Driss Basri, and perfected in 2007 by “king’s friend” Fouad Ali Al Himma, who as Deputy Interior Minister tinkered with the election laws before being elected to Parliament himself! — where he formed the Party of Authenticity and Modernity (PAM), now Morocco’s largest political party.

Incidentally, in rereading the piece just now, I found this eerily prescient suggestion of what it would take to see real political change in Morocco:

“Could groups at the left end of Morocco’s political spectrum, like the PSU or the Marxist-Leninist Annahj Addimocrati, ignore their differences with Islamists like Al Adl Wal Ihsane and the Mustapha Ramid faction of the PJD, to work together on their common goal of constitutional reform? Such a marriage of refuseniks would be fascinating if it happened, but of course it won’t.”

At the time it seemed frankly crazy, but that’s what is happening now, thanks to the February 20 Movement. Anyway, back to Jordan:

“Although the par­lia­ment, according to the King, is ‘a main pillar of political work in Jordan’ and it nominally consti­tu­tes the legislative power, it does not hold any political significance and it is marked by surprisingly little political debate. Real politics takes place in the royal court, whereas the par­lia­ment is pri­ma­ri­ly an instrument for the distribution of patronage among loyal supporters of the regime. Thus, 80 percent of Jordanians think that their MPs primarily serve their own financial interests and only 4 percent state that the primary function of the parliament is to legislate and to check the government. […]

“As real power and politics are situated in the royal court, the role of the government is prima­rily to implement decisions taken elsewhere. Usually the prime minister and his team are reshuffled once a year as part of a never-ending elite-circulation, where members of the elite re­vol­ve between the royal court, the government and the parliament. In this way, the emergence of [an] alternative basis of power with [its] own client-networks is avoided. Their loyalty is at the same time maintained as they remain within the inner-circles with the pri­vi­le­ges this implies.”

How well these words fit Morocco — which perhaps not incidentally, the West has traditionally grouped with Jordan as one of the “moderate, reforming” Arab states — along with Tunisia and Egypt!

So how will constitutional reform play out in Morocco? If everything else sounds familiar, maybe this will, too:

“[It] becomes clear why Jordan is not an example of a ‘failure of demo­crati­za­ti­on’: democratization was never the real intention, so nothing has failed. Rather, the Jordanian story should be grasped as the ‘success of (a par­ti­cular upgraded form of) autho­ri­ta­ria­nism.’ The Hashemite regime has managed not only to stay firmly seated without any significant opposition, but Jordan has also been suc­cessful in leaving the impression among inter­natio­nal donors… and the US pre­sident apparently, that the coun­try is on the ‘right track’ toward democracy. […]

“This ‘success’ does how­ever come at a price. It has given rise to a political culture marked by politi­cal apathy, wide­spre­ad cynicism to the official reform-lingo and a disillusion about the possi­bi­li­ty of making changes through the official political institutions. […] Against this back­ground, it is natural to question if Jordan is on the right track….”

The king of Morocco, Mohammed VI, gave a speech to the nation last night presenting the outlines of a new constitution, the product of three months of work by a commission hand-picked by the king, in consultation with political parties, labor unions, and civil society groups. The youth of February 20 refused to participate in the consultations, saying they were nontransparent and nondemocratic.

The king only summarized the new constitution in his speech, and the full text has not yet been made public. But at first glance, it seems that the king is keeping about 90% of the powers he already had.

The king’s person will no longer be considered “sacred” but rather “inviolable.” He will remain the spiritual head of Morocco’s Muslims, in a Morocco defined as a Muslim nation. He will remain the head of the armed forces, with sole authority to appoint and command its officers. He will retain the right to name the “walis” and “bashas” who are the true regional government, although elected regional governments will gain new powers under the new plan. He will retain his right of veto over the Interior Minister, who is responsible for Morocco’s police and security services, and he will continue to control Morocco’s foreign policy by appointing ambassadors. He will remain the head of the council that appoints judges, though the judicial branch will gain new independence. He will remain the “symbol of Moroccan unity” and the “referee and guarantor” of Moroccan stability. The main area in which the king has ceded some authority is by giving the Parliament sole responsibility for initiating legislation and running the business of government. The Prime Minister, an elected official, will be designated Head of Government, but the king will remain Head of State.

The king, presenting this project as a uniquely Moroccan form of democracy and the only way forward for the nation, called strongly on all Moroccans to vote “Yes” in the referendum to be held in just two weeks. He himself in his role as citizen plans to vote “Yes,” he announced. And then, once Moroccans overwhelmingly vote “Yes” as expected, the nation will continue its slow march to democracy under the benevolent guidance of the king. End of story.

But what of February 20, the youth movement that prompted all this talk of reform in the first place? Will they be satisfied with the new constitution? Perhaps we should wait for an official response, but I can hazard a guess. First, February 20 was already calling for a “No” vote even before the details of the new constitution were announced. In their view, any constitution that is “made to order” as this one is, rather than issuing from an assembly of the people, is illegitimate. Further, the new constitution falls far short of their key demands, namely a king who “reigns but does not govern” and a state whose economic, military, foreign policy, and domestic security institutions are under the control of elected officials.

This could lead to a standoff at some point down the road, between a governing class that wants only tepid reforms, and a youth movement demanding fundamental change. The fault rests, in part, with the political parties, who participated in the recent consultations with a remarkable lack of courage and imagination. The Arab Spring with its revolutions and uprisings opened a window to go much further, through a frank and open exchange of views on all the essential questions. Moroccans have the civic spirit to engage in such a debate peacefully, and achieve true popular consensus on a new system. With the proposed new constitution in which things change only to remain the same, I fear that window is closing.

UPDATE: Najib Chaouki, a February 20 activist from Rabat, made this statement to the AFP (I’ve translated it from the French):

“The national coordinators have called for demonstrations on Sunday for a truly democratic constitution and a parliamentary monarchy. The project as it was proposed by the king yesterday doesn’t answer our demands for a true separation of powers. We will protest peacefully on Sunday against this project.”

Ahmed Mediany, an activist from Casablanca, had this to say:

“The religious status of the king has been greatly strengthened. It’s very unsettling. […] The king preserves the essence of his powers as a political actor. We weren’t expecting that. We are disappointed.”

A few years ago, I wrote in my private journal about how social mutants can become heroes in times of stress.

“When a society remains stable for a long time, the majority who obey its rules are its anchor and its strength — hence the term ‘solid citizens.’ But when a society is in flux and its conditions are changing, the old adaptations no longer work, and it is likely that those at the fringes, the outcasts and eccentrics, will discover qualities that had previously been shunned but are now eminently useful for the survival of the community — precisely because they are eccentric by the common definition, and thus in closer proximity to the new, emerging reality. In this way, those who had been despised become the new heroes, due to their possession of qualities which had never before been put to the test.”

I couldn’t help but be reminded of this when I read an article in Time by Ahmed Benchemsi, the celebrated editor of Nichane and Tel Quel who has gone on to greener pastures in the U.S.

“For several years, groups of Moroccans have been using the power of social media — as well as the ability to attract the conventional media — to clamor for the freedom of belief, sexual liberty (notably for gays) and other individual freedoms that had until then been unthinkable.

“The country’s conservative majority was suitably horrified, but the young activists were able to rally growing constituencies among human-rights advocates, leftist groups and the middle-class youth. Even so, the core group of renegades continued to be perceived as little more than a bunch of crazy kids — until they and their sympathizers spearheaded the most powerful wave of change since the kingdom’s independence, half a century ago.”

The activists of the February 20 movement are pioneers of something new in Morocco, a breach in the silence. Now things are debated in public that were spoken of only within one’s intimate circle just a few months ago. If the movement has one central demand (and it does), it is a reexamination of the state from the ground up, since the people can only be governed with their consent. The challenge to the existing order is fundamental, and now that it has come out in the open, it can never be wished away.

Naturally this causes discomfort to tradition-minded folks, who worry that it will open the Pandora’s box of fitna, or division. “Don’t go there,” they say. “It will only bring trouble.” No matter what humiliations they may have endured in their lives, they imagine a society in chaos and fear it could be worse. Can the Moroccan people truly govern themselves? Can donkeys become men? No one has tried it before, so it is a leap into the unknown. Better the misery they know than to risk the impossible.

On February 20, the day of the first protests, I was shocked when I left my apartment to discover that a nearby square, usually a bustling hub of fruit stands, pastry shops, and sandwich restaurants, was shut up tight. Even the next day, our neighborhood grocer wouldn’t open his shop all the way, but stood outside with the gate down until clients passed by. I laughed at this, because it was such an overreaction. Far better to benefit from the extra business the protests would bring! It’s true that there was a night of mayhem in some of the outlying districts of the city — car windows broken, a bank branch burned — but this had nothing to do with the protests themselves. It was opportunistic hooligans who came in after the marchers had gone. In any case, all the marches since then have gone off without a hitch, unless it was the forces of order themselves who broke the calm.

It’s true that the shopkeeper class must believe that daily life would be better off without such troubles. These hardworking folks barely make enough as it is, and the loss of a day’s business is nothing to shrug off. My friend Zakaria wrote a report from the scene of the April 29 march in Casablanca, which took place (by design) in a popular neighborhood rather than in the city center. This was the march that produced the startling video, now famous, of police clubbing a mother who was just a bystander, as her little boy runs away in panic. Zakaria reports that even before the march began, the attitude of some local shopkeepers was hostile, and the authorities did their best to stoke these fears.

“[A few hours before the protest, a friend told me] ‘Zakaria, I was out for a walk and I noticed there are many secret police and the worst is that some inhabitants are going to submit complaints at the police station against the Feb 20 movement.’ Later, when we arrived to the neighborhood we realized that local authorities represented by ‘mukadem’ and ‘sheikh’ (very low officials) were asking shop keepers and cafés owners to do that claiming that their commercial interests were damaged because of the previous protest. Local authorities as I know from my friends who live in the neighborhood were also asking those people to display signboard on their shops on which they wrote, addressing the Feb 20 movement: ‘get out of our neighborhood,’ ‘who asked you to speak on our behalf,’ ‘don’t get into our affairs’ and such.”

Obviously, no one wants to see a running street battle in their neighborhood. In this case the battle was one-sided, as the video shows — police on foot or on motorcycles, wielding batons, thrash out almost at random, as their prey do their best to run away or evade the blows. There are two possible reactions from local residents who were caught up in events. The first is to blame the protesters for bringing these troubles to their streets. If there had been no march, there would have been no confrontation, and that mother and her child would have gone unmolested. The other response, perhaps more logical, is to blame the source of the violence, the baton-wielding policemen. If the state keeps acting like this, it will expose a brutal and thuggish side which is already well-known to Moroccans from years of unhappy experience. Those who thought the tiger had changed its stripes in recent years will be disabused of their fantasies. But whether you blame the protesters or the authorities, the choice is a painful one. Either you admit that you live in a country where those charged to protect you are capable of turning their batons against women and children, or you bear the burden in silence because you fear social division. This choice already existed before February 20, but the marches are bringing it into the open. Many will blame the protesters at first, but that could change.

I put it to Zakaria in this way:

“Those who are agitating for change must accept that many people, even the majority, will in the beginning see what they are doing as disruptive, as an unnecessary attack on the social order. But the social order isn’t good in itself, but only insofar as it delivers other, greater goods — like justice and prosperity, for example. So a social order that isn’t providing these goods must be challenged, even torn, before it can be remade in a better way. The test for the people is to weigh the price of change against the price of things staying as they are. Either one is painful, and the activist offers them this painful choice. So he is seen as disruptive, and is blamed for the problem — but the problem was already there, he just exposed it. Eventually, if the activist is right, people will calculate that the pain is greater in staying the same than in changing, and they will decide to change. But in the early stages, the activist must endure being seen as the cause of the pain.”

Does this sound like the quote from the top of this piece, about those who are seen as “outcasts and eccentrics” turning out to be heroes? I think this is the root of any struggle, not just political ones. We could be talking about jazz music, or the invention of the PC. Extraordinary conditions require extraordinary responses, and those who go where others will not, learn those responses before the rest. As I said in my last piece, by shedding the constraints of political parties and recognized leaders, February 20 activists are exposing themselves to more risk, including the risk of being hated, for now, by the shopkeeper class. But they are also learning techniques of networking, collective planning, and communication that will be invaluable in a new, democratic Morocco. They are a democratic mutation, which must seem strange to many Moroccans who have never seen such a rare bird — but they would be completely normal in the streets of New York, Barcelona, or Paris. They are an essential part of what democracy means, and Morocco will never be democratic without them.