The Daily Reveille – Opinion
By Nicholas Pierce, Columnist
Three days after finals last semester, I boarded an airplane at George Bush International bound for the Kingdom of Morocco.
As we crossed the Strait of Gibraltar, I leaned across the old man next to me and caught my first glimpse of the Moroccan coast. Hosni Mubarak, Moammar Gadafi and Arab revolutions were the last things on my mind. I was too worried about meeting my mother-in-law.
Thirty thousand feet below me, however, the Arab Spring was certainly no longer an ocean away.
In the closing weeks of 2010, North Africa and the Middle-East were gripped by what would become the Arab Spring. It began in Tunisia with the peaceful toppling of strongman and perpetual president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. With one dictator down, the Arab Spring blew across northern Africa like a wild fire.
It engulfed Egypt, then hopped the Red Sea and set the Middle East ablaze.
Since the very beginning, the Arab revolutions have been met with skepticism here in the West. Our pundits have acted as though our revolution in 1776 was the end of positive social upheaval. Everything I saw in Morocco laid that idea flat.
Since then, the Egyptians have removed their own dictator-in-chief, Hosni Mubarak, in what must have been one of history’s most effective acts of civil disobedience.
Libya followed Egypt’s lead and tossed out its dictator in a much bloodier but no less effective revolution. Syria, the site of mass demonstrations and angry government intervention, is hot on Libya’s tail.
Yemen, Bahrain and even Jordan are experiencing similar titanic convulsions.
Morocco took a different route.
Although the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia were peaceful, they led to the overthrow of their entire political systems. The revolution in Libya was bloody, but it had the same effect. It is becoming increasingly clear that Syria is headed down that road as well.
Meanwhile, Morocco’s upheaval was cut from a wholly different cloth.
The Arab Spring was evident all around me as I stepped off the plane in Casablanca. My wife and I traversed the country, and in every city, walls were plastered with campaign posters, streets were filled with demonstrators, and the airwaves and coffee shops hummed with political discourse.
Morocco was not a hotbed of anti-American Islamist activity. People weren’t driving around toting rifles and burning U.S. flags.
Morocco’s revolution, like its Arab brothers, had almost nothing to do with us and our foreign policy . It had everything to do with income inequality, the cost of living and a desire to see positive change.
Morocco’s revolution was brief, bloodless and subtle. When the people took to the streets in February 2011, King Muhammed VI responded swiftly — not with a brutal military crackdown, but with an invitation to the ballot box.
That June, the king and his ministers drafted a constitutional referendum which would transfer a large portion of his executive powers to the Moroccan Parliament. Less than a month later, Muhammed VI’s referendum passed by an overwhelming majority, effectively turning Morocco’s 600-year-old despotism into something far more democratic. The king then had parliamentary elections moved up a full year and encouraged his people not only to vote, but to vote wisely.
Muhammed VI declared that he was a citizen first and a monarch second.
To put it bluntly, our understanding of the Arab Spring is shallow and narcissistic.
We bray about the possible takeover of these countries by our foes, but in reality, the most pressing concerns in North Africa are paved roads, decent schools and an end to corrupt and oppressive regimes.
I arrived in Morocco as the Justice and Development Party formed its new government. The JDP is an Islamic party. Its first act was to declare there would be no imposition of Sharia law. Instead, the party would focus on growing the economy and putting people back to work.
As I prepared to leave, my brother-in-law took me aside. He didn’t speak much English, but he did get this across: “America, Mexico, Paris, China, Morocco — people all same. People all want be happy.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Nicholas Pierce is a 22-year-old history junior from Baton Rouge. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_nabdulpierc.
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Contact Nicholas Pierce at npierce
