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| 07-01-2007 |
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| The Moroccan authorities have been conducting police campaigns against the Justice and Spirituality Movement. What is the impact of these campaigns on your organization? |
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| In the Name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. May God’s blessings and peace be upon His noble Messenger Muhammad.There is a general political rule that makes oppression always end in the interest of the victim. But the disorganized and deteriorating Moroccan regime is not knowledgeable in those rules just as it does not draw lessons from history, old or modern, domestic or international. This rule becomes stronger and fitter when the matter is about a movement that is firmly linked to the deep roots and authentic identity of the Moroccan people, a movement that invites people to all that is sound and good.The best of any good undertaking is indeed to free people from the yoke of ignorance of God and ignorance of the rights, private and public, by which God honored man. The most abominable of wrongs that afflicted the umma, after its estrangement from musing over its destiny in the Hereafter, is its enslavement by despotic rulers in the name of the Qur’an and Islam. We want to free the good wills with sound readings liberated from opportunistic, political interpretations that serve only the interests of a certain elite that has rotated across Muslim history over shedding innocent blood and plundering the umma’s wealth. Our issue is then related to our umma’s destiny and will not be overcome by any arbitrary or oppressive practices. That’s enough…! |
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| Where do you place the travels abroad of the JSM’s senior officials in the strategy of your movement? |
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| The question to be asked is: “What’s the secret behind such sudden interest in the travels of the JSM’s senior officials?” For those travels were mentioned only after the defamatory campaign that accompanied my trip to the United States, as they said that I went to America to present my Republican views, which was not at all the case. I gave a lecture there in a university that is totally independent from the American official policy, and my concern, like any of the JSM’s senior officials, was to open avenues of dialog and establish bridges of contact with all those who want to know details about a profound thinking that needs to be explained and simplified. We have indeed a strong belief in the universal nature of an Appeal that is based on two major principles of Islam: the principle of justice and the principle of spirituality. Justice requires having a clear political vision, and spirituality requires continuous education and training for those who belong to our school. That is the secret behind the travels of the JSM’s senior officials abroad. Opening onto others may lead to global situations more prone to peace, security and dialog instead of violence, despotism and terrorism. |
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| Some circles accuse you of currying favor with the West. Is it a choice or mere political tactics?
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| We neither curry favor with the West nor the East. We address man irrespective of his identity. As far as our political action is concerned, it is purely national and we have chosen to work in total transparency and with a legal association that does not accept foreign financing. Then about what rapprochement do those “circles” talk, and about what “circles” are we talking by the way? Those “circles” that have found no other means to face us than defaming us with the most abominable moral crimes and linking us with circles to which they are closer than we: the circles of drugs, material and moral. Defamation is the weapon of the weak, and our procession will go forward and leave those “circles” in the quagmire of their falsehoods that no longer convince the Moroccan people who have become aware of their schemes. We pray to God to complete on the people the favor of total renascence. |
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| The JSM regards America as a devil. How do you see it now? |
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| We don’t have a binary view of the world. We rather think that there are fates and fates, and among the forms of jihad is to avoid a fate with another fate. It is America that promotes a very simplistic, aggressive worldview and divides the world into devils and angels. The devils are those who lambaste Bush’s foolish policies, and the angels are those who receive him with open arms and oil wells.We are with wisdom and with the word that fears none but God and that does not induce to any reckless, gratuitous form of aggression. Our words are linked to God—Exalted be He—and we do not change our words and positions according to changes in global political winds. For injustice is injustice, and justice is justice, and America must understand that there are historical laws that it will not infringe, as it is doing today, without paying the price sooner or later.If you intend again by your question my visits to the American universities, I can tell you that criticizing the foolish policies of a particular country does not mean having antagonistic sentiments against its people and civil society. We believe that having dialog with the people may lead to a future that is less gloomy than expected. |
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| Your rivals and the regime accuse you of making bids: you decline to play the political game and prefer to remain in the opposition in order to gain the sympathy of larger sections of the Moroccan people. What can you say about that? |
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| We have been used to accusations as individuals and as a movement. Yet those accusations will not make us change our opinion about a regime that we will never join because it has no credibility and because we have no guarantee that it will change its autocratic, corrupt, elitist and vile conduct. We call to building an edifice with completely new foundations, not to repair disguised vestiges. |
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| Your line of action is based on educating the young generations. Does such interest come within your strategy of imposing your conception of the state and power from the grassroots?
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| We are indeed a movement that turns in repentance to God and that seeks to revive the model practice of His Messenger (God bless him and give him peace) that was buried under the debris of a system of government that ruined individuals and peoples. Education is indeed the only solution capable of restoring the principles of justice and spirituality to the individuals, because the State of Medina was not established for the sake of power but rather to protect individuals from despotism and the aberrations ensuing from ignorance and violence. Power is an effective, important instrument if the wills of individuals are ready and prepared for a change that will generate the will of transcendence for the individuals and guarantees dignity and justice for the society. Holding power that is imposed on individuals who have no wills and noble aspirations leads only to the deadlock. |
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| The JSM is known for giving particular attention to social work. Has the movement’s distinction in this field disturbed the authorities? In other words, has the JSM surpassed the state in running social affairs? |
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| If we look at things from the view of capabilities, that will seem hilariously ridiculous. How can a social work based on extra time and voluntary effort disturb a State with all its capabilities and institutions? But if we look at things from the viewpoint of the Makhzen’s philosophy and principles, it is obvious that our effective social presence should disturb a regime renowned for despotism and monopoly, especially if it reduces all its developmental policies to improvised social initiatives and extemporized solidarity campaigns instead of building a strong, competitive economy. |
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| Your grassroots are now over two million members. Isn’t this factor the main cause behind the authorities’ repressive campaigns against the JSM? |
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| Where did you get this figure from? Anyway, right and power are not gauged quantitatively, but qualitatively. Wasn’t the Prophet Abraham (peace be upon him) a nation alone? Quantity does not frighten the regime the way quality does. Then what if both factors gathered along with a popular will that aspires to salvation from a blood-sucking regime? |
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| America now tends to support some Islamic movements as a means of pressure on the Arab and Islamic regimes. Can the JSM be considered as a means of pressure used by America to reach that end? |
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| I think that America would not hesitate to play the card that guarantees the minimum of its interest. But the “circles” that propagate such ideas do not know that we are the last card America would choose to establish its Broad Middle East. However, so long as America’s realism and precautions are based on systematic analyses and predictions, the US can’t help but consider us as an influential political factor that is not to be ignored in its imperialistic calculations. That only indicates that we have an actual popularity, not that we have a love story with Bush and his America. |
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| Some circles await the end of 2006 to verify your visions, while many declarations from your movement’s senior officials confirmed that what was intended was not actually what was propagated? What is your comment? |
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| The vision is part of Prophecy to whose spirit we seek to restore links. If it is a good vision, it is then a letter from the Unseen, as God’s Messenger (God bless him and give him peace) taught us. The Call to prayer, for instance, was prescribed though the vision of a noble Companion. What the JSM wants by showing interest in visions is to lift the siege on the Unseen which the umma feels embarrassed to talk of under the yoke of the absolute materialist civilization that rules the world. We accept the glad tidings from our Lord, proclaim them openly and do not rely on them to take or refrain from an action. The vision is a link that joins us to a world we do not feel now, but we believe in. We are really surprised by the reaction of some Muslims who downplay the importance of the vision in Islam. As for the elite that can only see the world through the eyes of their masters, don’t they know that behind the scenes of the materialist West hide plenty of practices that look onto the unseen world from the windows of sorcery and clairvoyance, and that many politicians and thinkers suffer schizophrenia by officially denying this world while relying on it in secret. We don’t suffer from such schizophrenia, and we rely on God, not on the vision even if we know that the vision brings predictions and glad tidings that may come true as they are seen or may be interpreted otherwise. That does not change in the least our resolution and our attachment to God. Our motto is “O Lord! We have transmitted the message.” |
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| Nadia Yassine is known for her outspoken views regarding many delicate and critical issues. Are those views emanating from deep convictions or mere reactions imposed by incidental circumstances? |
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| The woman has always been accused of being moody and capricious, or to use a term the Wahhabist love “of having shortcomings in her mind and her faith”. We, in the JSM, want to lift this injustice inflicted on the woman through such disparaging attributes by a comprehensive reading of the teachings of our noble Messenger (God bless him and give him peace), and by an understanding that averts those ideological cages wherein the superficial or opportunistic readings confined us; such readings disparage the weak, namely the woman. That can also be achieved by holding steadfastly to one’s opinions, women and men. I am but the product of a multidimensional educational work that makes the woman an active participant at odds with the model of the moody, capricious, withdrawn and helpless woman. On the other hand, our membership in the JSM equals adopting a conduct at variance with performing mere reactions and embracing the mentality of the herd. I am very sorry if some prefer to ascribe some audacious views to “shortcomings in the mind and the faith” so that they may sleep deeply with a “clear” conscience. |
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| What are the probable scenarios of your trial? |
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| I think the attributes mentioned in the previous question befit accurately the Moroccan regime that is moody and capricious, and no one but God knows the course of its political schemes. They may play the card of my trial just as they may inter it for ever. |
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| King Mohamed VI opened a number of workshops that were appreciated and hailed by many foreign observers. Could such initiatives save the country from the abyss? |
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| Morocco does not need workshops that are closer to social works and charity campaigns than to real developmental policies. Such initiatives do not befit the country’s big and complex needs, especially when they are taken in a political atmosphere known for corruption and the plundering of the funds allotted for those workshops, as you call them. |
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| After 7 years of King Mohamed VI’s rule, social problems have become even worse. Has the adopted policy failed or are there other priorities that placed those social problems in the second position of interest? |
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| The question that is to be asked is: is there already a policy adopted as you have said? And what priority can precede the economic decline that Morocco knows and the despair of its youth that is attached to the future, as their only dream is to flee the country’s deteriorating condition as everybody attest. The late king—God have mercy upon him—was known for inventing priorities and issues that give hope in the long run and that attract attention for a long time. Now everybody knows the lot of the issue that exhausted Morocco’s entire energy and efforts in the name of priorities. |
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| Is it true that the Party of Justice and Development will win the next elections by a landslide with the blessing of the regime? |
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| I think that all signs indicate that, as the regime is used to looking for fresh blood that may give it new impetus until a term appointed. |
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| If the JSM were asked to take part in drafting the Constitution, what are the most important amendments that you deem necessary? |
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| The JSM will not take part in any project of this kind unless there are enough guarantees that there is a will for real change, not only putting some makeup that disguises the ugly face of power monopoly. The Constitution was amended for reasons that always served the interests of the ruler. It is worth reminding that the Constitution was granted in a political atmosphere that obliged the regime to grant it. You may say it is part of tactics for survival, not the expression of a belief in a principle. It is an additional fence, not a space for freedom. |
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| How does the JSM evaluate the regime’s management of the Western Sahara’s dossier, namely as far as self-government is concerned? |
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| It is indeed a very delicate dossier. My father voiced his opinion about the subject in his “Memorandum To Whom It May Concern”. The least that can be said is that the Makhzen has shown unparalleled clumsiness in managing the dossier. As far as we are concerned, the JSM is not well placed to voice an opinion about an affair that concerns first and above all the Western Sahara’s people. |
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| Whenever some news leak about the health condition of Guide Abdessalam Yassine (God grant him recovery and good health condition), volleys of questions and claims begin to be issued about his successor, and whether or not the JSM will follow the same line that the founder has drawn for the movement. Is it true that a state of unrest occurs in the ranks of your members whenever the Guide feels indisposition, while knowing that all your senior officials have unanimously declared that the issue of succession has already been settled? |
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| As far as the Guide’s condition is concerned, I am really surprised at the baseness of some press that only reflects the bad condition that our country has attained. This sort of press has kept looking down on its readers to the extent of showing disrespect to their mental abilities by propagating false accounts that give the lie to what people know about the Guide’s dynamic and activity and the JSM’s solid cohesion. Those pseudo journalists wish (or are instructed to wish) that some things would happen, and think in their world of imagination that those things happened in reality. Those things have become a sort of pathological hysteria for some.The Guide’s health condition is good—Praise be to God—and the issue of succession is not a problem for us simply because we are a movement that works with real democratic institutions, and we do not aspire to reproduce a model we have been lambasting for three decades now. |
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| What is your comment on: |
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| - The Family Code: an amendment that proves that the problem was that of a political choice, not of a religious reference.- The National Initiative for Human Development: the idea of Mohamed Younes, who suggested an improvised solution to the damages occasioned by the official policies.- The Equity and Conciliation Committee: an aspirin pill whose effect will soon go and the pains caused by the chronic disease will come back again.- The next elections: a new scene of an old play. |
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