BY KEVIN CAPÉ
For The Register-Guard
CASABLANCA, Morocco — The sparkling new Morocco Mall, Africa’s largest shopping center, looms by the Atlantic Ocean like a silver spaceship, this country’s latest venture into Western consumerism. The irony is that most Moroccans cannot afford to shop in many of the mall’s 350 boutiques, full of international luxury brands.
Finding a delicate balance between globalization and traditional values is the obsession of the country’s political and economic elite. So far, they have not done badly. Unlike Tunisia or Egypt, Morocco has undergone evolution rather than revolution. When demonstrations — albeit relatively peaceful ones — began to shake the country last year, King Mohammed VI promised new elections, after which he would share power with the winners.
The November parliamentary elections gave the Peace and Justice Party of Abdellilah Benkirane a plurality, and the king, true to his words, appointed Benkirane as prime minister. Benkirane spoke warmly of his meeting with Mohammed VI, proclaimed himself a monarchist, and said that he would fight for greater social justice and root out Morocco’s endemic corruption.
He deliberately soft-pedaled his more controversial Islamist positions, which included campaigning against an Elton John concert as “morally corrupt,” and saying that the first right Moroccan women need is the ability to wear the veil in the workplace.
So Morocco has joined Tunisia in a high-stakes experiment to try to graft a new hybrid of Islamic culture with elements of Western modernity. Morocco’s advantage over Tunisia, Libya and Egypt is that Mohammed VI is widely respected, having undertaken significant reforms in the 12 years since he ascended to the throne following his authoritarian father, King Hassan II.
The monarch wisely reined in the arbitrary powers of the police, freed numerous political prisoners, and allowed greater cultural liberty. Of course, it helped that the king’s dynasty is regarded as having descended from the Prophet Mohammed, an unimpeachable endorsement in this part of the world.
Where Morocco has had less success is in reducing economic inequality, starkly apparent in the glittering new mall, where most people must limit themselves to window shopping. The illiteracy rate remains about 40 percent for the adult population, even if it declines to under 25 per cent for teenagers and young adults. Fifteen percent of the population survives on less than two dollars a day, which is why a Western chain like McDonalds is a relatively high-class destination.
The macro-economic picture has been fairly hopeful, though, with economic growth around 4.5 percent in recent years, even if it will be affected by a European recession in the first half of the year. Large infrastructure projects, notably Africa’s first high-speed train, are going forward, along with the expansion of the port of Tangier, as well as ambitious forays into the fields of wind and solar power.
As in so many developing countries, corruption is one of the worst plagues, and the new government of Prime Minister Benkirane is right to make it a priority. Unfortunately, the entrenched elites, beginning with the king’s entourage, are not likely to give up their traditional patronage privileges easily, even if the more enlightened among them acknowledge the need to shed a little ballast to keep their ship from the shoals of radical revolution.
Westerners tend to regard Arab and Muslim countries as monolithic, but what has always struck me about Morocco is its diversity. The Berber language, which predates the Arab invasions, now is recognized along with Arabic as an official language, and French continues to hold sway among Casablanca’s educated population. Compared to Tunisia or Egypt, both of which I visited last year, Morocco retains a relatively carefree air, even at night.
An Islamic party may provide the head of government, but beer and wine still flow freely in the city’s many restaurants and bars. As a woman poured me a glass of wine, I nodded toward a picture of the prime minister in the newspaper, saying, “I hope this won’t be my last glass.” Her answer was confident and affable: “If you come back in a year, we will still be serving wine and my hair will still be uncovered.”
One my favorite little hangouts is in the old medina. It is a rustic little café with plastic tablecloths and customers who alternate between sleepiness and bouts of sudden animation. The television blares out Spanish football matches, and conversations lubricated with mint tea assume the extravagant theatricality common to port cities everywhere. Long may it all last.
Eugene native Kevin Capé (www.kevincape.net) is a Paris-based writer.
13113
