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| "Le Journal Hebdomadaire", issue no 238, 7-20 January 2006 |
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| She proposed and insisted to invite us for dinner in her home in Salé, only a minute away from the civil prison. Her alibi: “I follow a diet”. She had carefully prepared a delicious mixed salad, crusty traditional lasagnas – although a little bit salty – a home-made custard tart and tea with mint as a dessert. All served warmly, with a charming smile and a chat as exciting as straightforward.Where have you spent the Christmas and New Year celebrations ? |
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| At home, but preparing no turkey and admiring no Christmas tree... |
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| All right, we’re in 2006; it’s the year where the prophecy of Imam Yassine should take place. What’s going to happen exactly ? |
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| Oh yes, it’s the year 2006, the year of all dangers and of all hopes as well. 2006 is decisive in Morocco’s history and we need no prophecy for that. In addition, this story of prophecy and the sarcastic remarks that surround it are something of a caricature. First, it’s never been a matter of a prophecy made by Imam Yassine. It is a matter of hundreds of “ruâs” that our brothers and sisters have had. I would translate “ruâs” rather as premonitory dreams even though it is almost impossible to translate the mystic concepts conveyed by the Arabic language. Our Islamic culture enjoins on us to take such dreams very seriously for the simple reason that taking this dimension into consideration is recommended by the Prophet himself. |
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| You want to say that there is no prophecy of Imam Yassine ? |
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| Not at all! Imam Yassine is not a soothsayer acting under orders. The fact is that my father right from the 1970s, in “Tomorrow Islam”, has been advocating an educational project of return to the sources and rediscovery of all those dimensions of Islam that have been lost on the way for one reason or another. |
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| Some people say that you are alluding to the “qawma” (the big march) ? |
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| The “qawma” is not a big march. The concept of “qawma” is used by my father in his thinking to distinguish himself from the traditional revolutionary language that wants every change to be made by violence. “Qawma” comes from the verb “qâma”, which means “to stand up”. Making a “qawma” means to marshall all efforts, to assemble all good wills in order to build the future. Never has it been a matter of a particular Day, a specified action or a fixed appointment. To tell you the truth, the “qawma” for us began already thirty years ago with the open letter “Islam or Deluge”. I therefore reassure the guys of “law and order”. We absolutely plan nothing for 2006 that runs counter to our principles of non-violence. They are mistaken about their adversaries. |
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| In this regard, how do you find the recommendations of the IER (Equity and Reconciliation Institution) that calls to the control and the good governance of the security apparatus ? |
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| Beyond the generally favorable welcome that such recommendations have received, and without having the intention to offend the IER’s members, I remain skeptical as to the work of an official institution established by the Palace in order to regain an already lost prestige. These recommendations remind me of Mawardi’s famous “Ahkam Sultania” [rules of kingship], wherein the author presents recommendations without putting into question the foundations of the autocratic system that needs to be questioned more seriously. It amounts to stroking a pet that needs to be kept on a leash and to have a muzzle. |
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| None of the recommendations issued by this organization has any value in your opinion ? |
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| All the recommendations are meritorious, but we tend to forget that it’s all put on. Morocco is governed visually and what it really needs is not mere recommendations but rather deep obligations of reforms of its system of government. The regime reserves indeed all prerogatives, even those of having recommendations made. |
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| You’re not at all tender with the regime… |
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| I’m 47 years of age, and I think that I know enough this regime that I have mixed with for nearly half a century. They have given to Moroccans too many false hopes, too many false promises. They have too much made us believe in an imminent democratic process. However, nothing moves at the bottom. |
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| Don’t you believe in the democratic process started a few years ago by the monarchy ? |
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| I really don’t see where this democratic process is. In the superficial opening? It’s the logic of international relations and the nature of the namely media globalization that forced Hassan II already to make concessions. With a Constitution as archaic as our own, we are not close beside any process. Let us be clear: the hereditary monarchy the way we have undergone it in our age-old history is antinomic to democracy. If in Spain, in Sweden or elsewhere in Europe, the historical context – both national and international – has enabled to combine monarchy with democracy, I don’t think that we have the same socio-political configuration. We must cure of our political realities that are not only structurally unable to offer alternatives but also prevent us from progressing towards the future. |
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| What is your alternative ? |
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| I am not advocating a clean sweep. Anyway, all clean sweeps are not always recommended especially with a legacy as explosive as that of today’s Morocco. We have proposed the Islamic pact. The top of priorities, if we want to survive the challenges that await us as a nation, is to find the means to educate people into a real democracy. It is impossible to promote a democratic system in a country where the majority of the population lives in illiteracy, misery and total marginalization. |
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| To this extent ? |
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| Of course. It is ridiculous to ask a person who is materially, morally and intellectually poor not to trade his voice for a few dirhams, to make sure how to choose his representatives and to select the political manifesto that befits him. Democracy is made of informed citizens, and by citizens not by eternal subjects knowingly kept away from political culture, from culture, period. We will be better the day when each one of us, man and woman, will become the authors of our history and not a cattle that is shepherded in all directions according to demagogical winds. |
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| And that is the Monarchy’s fault ? |
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| I am saying that the Muslim peoples must recover the right to choose their leaders. If, once having acquired a political culture and having been assured about the freedom of their choice, they still choose hereditary monarchy as a system, that’s fine… or rather that’s too bad ! |
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| What is then the political and societal project of your movement Al Adl Wal Ihssan and in what way is it better than that of the system you are criticizing ? |
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| Our project, far from being a totalitarian project, is one in which all Moroccans of all trends will have their say. We propose an Islamic pact, a kind of national conference that will be based on the most common cement in a country where they have spared no effort to encourage and manipulate tribalism and corporatism. This cement happens to be Islam. We have no magic wands and the future cannot be managed properly unless with the help of all Morocco’s children. Our movement is not absolutely fond of monopolizing power in a country where the legacy will be bitter and too cumbersome to manage. It will be just the guarantor of a popular stability and the spiritual conscience of our people. We are neither for exclusion nor for exclusivity. We are for multiplicity and the multiparty system, for democracy, in short. |
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| That does not necessarily make an Islamist project ? |
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| I think we must go beyond certain clichés. Being Islamist does not necessarily mean being for terrorism and return to political visions that are outmoded, backward and reactionary. Drawing from the sources of original Islam urges, on the contrary, to understand that the world of God is moving, and that there is no confinement of politics in pre-specified forms or pre-established choices. I would even tell you that our approach of the history of Muslims is very critical in connection with the approach devised by the Umayyads that makes power sacred. In addition, the Islamists learn the ropes and ijtihad is continuous in this field. By the way, it is the Islamists who are in power in Turkey. So, let us go beyond caricatures. |
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| Do you intend to place your project within the framework of a Monarchy, a Republic or an Islamic Caliphate ? |
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| It is not for us to decide for everybody. We want that all conditions conducive to a real choice be set in motion in nonviolence. The Moroccan people will choose. We do not want to be a caliph in the place of a caliph. Moreover, Caliphate is a concept not a political form. |
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| The positions of your movement are intriguing. You speak at the same time about prophecies, visions, dreams and democracy, republic, etc. Are you then a political movement, a mystic brotherhood or simply a sect ? |
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| None of them. Our movement cannot be reduced to the political dimension. Its centers of interest go beyond the political concern; our concern is man and his destiny in this world and in the Hereafter. It is true that politics interests us insofar as it is a decisive instrument in social change, but we definitely do not covet power for the sake of power. We are not a brotherhood even if we claim to have spiritual roots in a particular Sufi order. We think that if Sufism was a school of spirituality and a necessity in the time of fitna [political instability and social disorder], it was none the less misused by the regimes in power, proving thus Karl Marx right when he wrote that religion may become opium. We are rather the representatives of a renascence of the Muslim thinking and a thinking is always complex. |
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| Are you alluding to the Butshishi brotherhood ? |
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| Not necessarily, the Butshishis even though everything leads to believe that they are elected to absorb the inevitable and indispensable spiritual needs in the land of Islam. We rather prefer to see the youth with the Butshishis than with al Adl wal Ihssan, especially that up to now the political appetite remains limited to a few individuals amongst them. |
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| And what do you think of this rush for the brotherhood of Sheik Hamza ? |
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| I think that is an obvious sign that there is a spiritual thirst that remains constant in the Muslim history. The brotherhoods, as well as certain preachers, offer membership to the upper middle class that costs nothing politically, perhaps even that would be profitable politically since the popular base of this movement is clearly more real than that of moribund parties. However, I greatly prefer a rush for a spiritual master rather than for a suicide master, except that the Butshishiya is more eclectic that we might think. So, the danger remains total given the percentage of indigence. |
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| Why does your project frighten many Moroccans ? |
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| Because the propaganda against us is at its height whereas we have no means to explain our project before a large audience. We have no forum in the press and we are harassed by the authorities in all our undertakings. In addition, political illiteracy and terror that still exists in minds make of us scarecrows. |
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| If tomorrow you are the majority actor in power, will you ban alcohol sale and will you close bars ? |
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| No. |
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| Night clubs and casinos ? |
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| Neither. |
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| Will you ban the mixed beaches ? |
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| We will not rush anything. It is not a question of banning, it is a question of persuading. We are not dreamers, utopians or fooled people, as they tend to introduce us. We will take the requisite time for that. The most important things for us are free choice and education; these are two basic concepts of Islam that we want to revive. The great challenge then is to leave bars, night clubs and casinos open, but that nobody will go to them. |
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| Many Moroccans think that you claim to be moderate, for democracy, against violence, but once power is in your hands, you are likely to impose a radical Islamist way of life. By the way, your father was always seduced by the Iranian model and the revolution of Khomeiny. |
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| My father always says that we will keep learning the ropes and if the Iranian revolution left its mark on our minds as well as on many - and not necessarily Islamist - minds in that time, we also draw from it very edifying lessons. As far as such fear is concerned, it is very legitimate. Yet we must make a bet for democracy, as Ghassan Salamé said. |
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| Where are you up to with your famous project of Moroccan Republic ? |
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| Listen, I have never spoken of a Moroccan Republic. That reflects the paranoia of the regime that was waiting for the chance to trip me up, namely after my visit to the US. That has strangely disturbed the custodians of the temple who clumsily wanted to darken my image by spreading news to the effect that I have contacts with Washington and that I am bought by the Americans. |
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| What is it then ? |
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| I have never called to a republic for Morocco. All I have said, as an intellectual, is that I have always favored a republican system when speaking about republics that have been born naturally, not those that have been created out of postcolonial necessity. So, I have talked about concepts and general points, but I have never affirmed to have a republican project for Moroccans. Now, if a republican system can, more than a monarchical regime, serve democracy in Morocco, that would not bother me at all. I totally assume my stand even though that will get me into more trouble during my trial of March 14 for which I have received no official summons. |
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| How do you exactly perceive the resumption of your trial ? |
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| First, this trial confirms the entire muddle that prevails in all the echelons of the regime. I do not understand the meaning of this trial that has been deferred sine die and then suddenly resumed. They said that it is the US Ambassador in Rabat who intervened in my favor. If that was the case, it is certainly not because we have a love affair with this superpower, but it is a question of realpolitik. As for me, I would rather say it is a cock-and-bull story, nonsensical gesticulating. |
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| Then, you have no fears concerning this trial ? |
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| I do have, but it is the price of our struggle against arbitrariness .The Makhzen is more and more unpredictable, irascible and therefore capable of having attitudes of the raving mad. |
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| But this «irascible» Makhzen you are talking about knows full well that he is dealing with the daughter of Imam Yassine and his movement Al Adl Wal Ihssan ? |
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| Yes, indeed. During my interrogation in the police station, after I have done everything to isolate myself from the movement, they were surprised to see that the movement showed solidarity with me until the end. If they had doubt about the first trial, now they are certain that my trial is that of the movement. |
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| Do you want to say that the regime had better not institute proceedings against the daughter of Imam Yassine ? |
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| No, I was just describing an established fact. Nadia Yassine regards herself as a Moroccan citizen like any other Moroccan. The regime knows full well that the movement was, is and will remain peaceful. The fight takes place at the symbolic level and that will all the more be a loss for them. The image of my gag has turned around the world. I will find something else… |
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| How many are the members of Adl Wal Ihssan ? |
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| (Laughs) It’s a taboo subject. |
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| Why ? |
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| We are not in a democratic country where we can play transparency even in our official figures. The “law-and-order” guys hound and tail our members. It’s therefore fair enough to keep certain pieces of information secret. In addition, that creates job opportunities; we then render a public service. It seems that we are well infiltrated… |
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| If you were not the daughter of Imam Yassine, what would you be ? |
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| (Laughs) I don’t know. I assume in all modesty your question because my father is not only my genitor, but my spiritual master as well. |
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| You are reported to be his successor. Is that true ? |
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| That’s utopianism and we cannot get this way out of 14 centuries of history. Those people who spread this kind of rumors are not realistic. On the other hand, we are realistic. It is true that we want to change things and make them move on. It is also true that the presence of women is very significant within the movement and that their role is very interesting in it. The dynamic of change exists, but it respects the ground swell. And the ground swell comes from afar, from a chauvinistic culture deeply ensconced in frames of mind. That’s why “we should not be dreaming”. The leadership of so imposing a movement does not interest me. In addition, you cannot criticize a hereditary regime and in the meantime reproduce its mechanism within a movement that adopts an institutional system. Succession will be institutional and collegial. |
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| The last book you have read ? |
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| Zayneb, Queen of Marrakech, by Zakia Daoud. |
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| The last movie you have seen ? |
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| The City of Angels. |
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| TAIEB CHADI |
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