150.000 Muslims demonstrate against Al Qaeda

According to Gateway Pundit  via Pickled Politics, 150,000 Moroccan Muslims turned out to demonstrate against Al Qaeda to protest against their decision to murder two Moroccan hostages in Iraq.

Remember Michael Totten's and Glenn Reynolds' "protest babes" posts from Lebanon? Well, it's not my way of looking at them, but I actually do agree that when you see glamorous young women enthusiastically at the front of spontaneous mass protests, you know you are in the presence of freedom and democracy on the march.

Because rent-a-crowd protestors and even run of the mill political activists just don't look like that.

And glamorous young women only expend their energies doing street protests on those incredibly rare occasions when a passionate realization that freedom is worth fighting for sweeps away all the normal things they'd be doing. Like shopping,or hanging out in cafes.

So just look at the two vibrant images that Gateway Pundit has up of the protest march in Morocco. Look at the faces of those young Muslim women. These are not standard protesters. You can see a video clip of the protest here.

Then look at the slogans and demands that go with the march.

All Moroccans are with Iraq, all Moroccans are innocent

Yes to freedom, No to terrorism and barbarity

The highest religious authorities in Morocco, the

influential organization of Islamic scholars, known as the High Council of the Ulema and the Councils of Ulema in the Moroccan Kingdom, said Al-Qaeda members in Iraq will suffer the "horrors of hell" if they kill the Moroccan hostages and the victims will die as martyrs. It dismissed Al-Qaeda's argument that its verdict to kill the two embassy employees was "God's judgment."

And the march itself is was an alliance that brought together trade unionists, pro and anti government political groups, civil rights groups and even some Islamists.

There's an even more extraordinary back story, which is that the protests themselves have come out of a wider awakening of yearnings for freedom, democracy and human rights which commentators argue was started off by the Casablanca bombings of 2003.

And those were bombings which were primarily targeted at the small remaining Jewish community of Morocco. Now imagine a demonstration by English trade unionists for the synagogue that got torched and the Jewish cemetries that got desecrated like that. Imagine a demonstration in Argentina for the justice that still eludes the victims of the Islamist bombing that killed so many when the Buenos Aires Jewish Centre was bombed. But this was a demonstration just a few days ago by Muslims in an Arab country.

The Boston News report of that says

The contradictory state of human rights in Morocco is an instructive sketch of how terrorist attacks can shift accepted ideas about justice, civil liberties, and government. People here say ''May 16," the date of the attacks, with a knowing look. It hangs in the language, overflowing with meaning, the way Sept. 11 looms in the American mind.

When the broken glass had been swept away and the bodies lain in the earth, things had changed in this country where religion and poverty have long made a volatile mix. It's difficult to trace social currents here without bumping into the Casablanca carnage, without being reminded of the 45 people who died and how the attacks have reverberated through society

In the face of all this, the Islamists of Morocco realised they had to switch tactics. But they won't be able to put the genie of freedom back in the bottle:

The same story has unfolded throughout the Arab world in recent decades as the street credibility of Islamist leaders has grown. Some Arab governments relied on torture, repression, and mass arrest to quell the rising political tide.

But Morocco tried a different strategy. In 1996, the kingdom for the first time allowed a fundamentalist Islamic party to field candidates in legislative elections. Since then, the Party of Justice and Development has been locked in a touchy, ambiguous game with the government. Each side appears to barely tolerate the other -- and each seems to believe it will emerge victorious in the end.

''The best way to control these movements and to moderate them is to integrate them into the political game," said Bouabid Brahim, a spokesman for the Justice Ministry. ''Because then the fight is with ideas and not arms."

Justice and Development legislators rail against modernity and the West, and the party newspaper splashes angry headlines about men and women mixing at music festivals. Their rhetoric unnerves secular observers, who fear they would like to roll back women's rights, curb alcohol consumption, and introduce Islamic law. But under the contentious rhetoric, the party has remained generally obedient to the whims of the palace, and is commonly referred to as a ''moderate Islamist party."

''Every day the Islamist movements are gaining more ground and becoming more popular," said Taoufik Moussaif, a lawyer and Justice and Development activist. ''But we are not in favor of radical solutions. We move gradually and respect the law. The future is ours."

That is what secular Moroccans fear. Their apprehension is rooted in the ambiguity of the debate over democracy and Islamism from Baghdad to Gaza, from Cairo to Algiers: Are Islamists sincere when they call for democracy, or would they exploit democratic privileges to gain power, only to choke off democracy and impose their vision of God's will?

It looks to me like the Moroccan man and woman in the street are not about to let democracy be choked off. They are sending a message, not just to Zarqawi and the murderous thugs of Al Qaeda. Not just to the ordinary people of Iraq. But to democracies and people who struggle for democracy across the world.

It's the first time I've seen an Islamic demonstration that's made my spirits soar in that way. But I'm sure it won't be the last.

Comments

[Steve M]

"The best way to control these movements and to moderate them is to integrate them into the political game," said Bouabid Brahim, a spokesman for the Justice Ministry. "Because then the fight is with ideas and not arms."

Judy, would you adopt this approach with Hamas?

PS: Why the silence in the British media, including the BBC, on this demonstration by Moroccan Muslims?

[Judy]

Steve, I have been reconsidering my blanket-no since reading about this situation. I think in countries like Morocco and Turkey, where Islamist parties are established without having armed gangs of enforcers and terrorists as part of their organization, Brahim's approach is probably wise.

But in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, where Hamas organizes training for suicide bombers,arms terrorists, recruits children as potential murderers etc., no. They don't pass the democracy test. The same is true for the IRA in northern Ireland.

And I don't think any party that advocates the killing of any group (as did the Islamist Hizb u Tahrir in the UK for gays, Hindus and Jews, should be actively dismantled and its members prosecuted for incitement to murder.

I think the British media are very reluctant to look at any country which has no past colonial link with the UK. In fact, it is even reluctant to give any attention to ex colonies. There has been enormous criticism of the lack of coverage of the horrendous aftermath of the Pakistani earthquake in the British media.

I also think the story of positive Islamic demonstrations against Al Qaeda doesn't sufficiently fit the worldview that the UK press tends to put across.

[Neal]

Judy,

The Boston Globe report overlooks important issues with Islamists and elections that have, in some countries, arisen. In particular, Algeria comes to mind.

In Turkey,moreover, since the election of the Islamist-light government, there have been subtle and not so subtle efforts to undermine the more or less secular veneer of the country. See this article: http://www.nationalreview.com/rubin/rubin200510190816.asp

The article reports, among other things:

--------In the past year, the AKP has begun to translate its near monopoly over most major municipalities and national government into action. Rule-of-law has been a casualty. On January 7, 2005, bulldozers and dozens of policemen showed up outside Chocolate, a trendy café adjacent to the Besiktas soccer stadium. After a Besiktas match, men and women, sons and daughters, would cross the street and relax, have a coffee or beer, and watch the boats go by on the Bosphorous. On that rainy day, the police arrived with bulldozers and told the shocked staff the municipality — run by AKP — had ordered the restaurant destroyed. Television cameras and the property owners videotaped the subsequent confrontation. The landlord’s lawyer demanded to know on what grounds the municipality would demolish the restaurant. He produced the requisite permits and demanded to see a court order. “I don’t know anything about a court order. And I don’t want to see your permits,” the AKP official said. “I have a job to do.” Minutes later, bulldozers drove through the glass atriums of the restaurant in front of shocked onlookers. The AKP did not even switch off the restaurant’s gas before the demolition. Vendetta trumped safety. Three other restaurants fell victim to the AKP’s bulldozers on the same day. The video shows waiters and cooks weeping. No restaurants meant no jobs in Turkey’s already tight job market. Had they worked at a more Islamic establishment, they need not have worried.-----------

In an interesting article on the HNN website, scholar Martin Kramer explains in some detail the problem with Islamists working as part of democracy and why such is not an easy formula. See http://hnn.us/articles/17382.html

In short, I think you are seeing "signs" - droppings from the sky - which disguise the bigger picture which is the re-traditionalization of Islamic society.

[Judy]

Neal-- I agree that one cannot take Islamists working within democracies as a simple issue. However, I think that where there is a healthy democracy, it becomes more an issue of appropriate policing of political parties that get into "enforcement" and intimidation. That's certainly by no means confined to Islamist groups,eg the northern Irish tradition-- and quite a few other mainstream western political party traditions.

One of the encouraging things about the Moroccan situation is that you are unlikely to have an electorate that is either ignorant about or naively trusting of Islamist blandishments.

There is also a parallel with the positioning and threat from former communists in countries like Poland which were formerly Soviet satellites.

The population knows only too well what the communists stand for, but sometimes they will choose them for pragmatic reasons, and they ensure that their power can be challenged.

[Neal]

Judy,

My gut reaction is that Islamism cannot be squared with anything but violence and hatred. Which is to say, I would not place any faith in Islamists having any role in any society.

[Sunny]

Islamists have to be folded and brought into the democractic system in the same way that we tolerate the BNP and their fascist friends within the democratic system.

I don't like the BNP but they should be allowed to have a voice. In the same way I don't like religious radicals, but if you don't give them some avenue of legitimate expression at least, they go underground and do more underhanded things. At least by being in the public face they have to behave with stricter regulations and be careful of not associating with vile elements of society that alienate a big group of supporters.

Just take the BNP and their links with the National Front as an example. Hizb ut Tahrir also cleaned up their website of anti-semitic garbage (insincere but nevertheless) when the public spotlight turned on them.

I may not always agree with you, but you write well. In this case though, I also agree with you.