Morocco: The Islamist Awakening and Other Challenges 1st Edition

The author has presented a fascinating analysis of the political situation in Morocco set in a historical context that reflects her deep understanding of the culture developed over may years of 'lived' experience. It is particularly relevant and assists the reader to gain a better understanding of the current evolution of democracy in North Africa and the Middle East. Highly recommended.

This isn't a straight history book. It's not really a journalistic piece. It's a combination of personal memoir, history, commentary, and occasional bouts of humor. I enjoyed it thoroughly and would recommend it to those not looking for a straight, facts-only, presentation of Moroccan history, but rather something with a bit of spunk thrown in the mix. It is also important to note the author's long-term relationship with Morocco and her personal relationships with many of the key players.

Lots of good information on customs and culture for anyone who is interested in or would like to visit Morocco.

One occasionally wonders what has happened to the ethic of journalism as practiced at the New York Times. I bought this book on Morocco, having visited the country and retained an interest in learning more about its history. Unfortunately, the book turned out to be a sequence of highly personal and subjective takes on Moroccan politics, by a New York Times reporter who hasn't learned the difference between reflexive biases and objective fact.Not that I have any personal beef with the facts as portrayed in this book. The author has much greater experience and knowledge of Morocco than I do, and for all I know, if I possessed the same knowledge, I might reach the same conclusions as does she.But unfortunately she fritters away her credibility by serving up one highly questionable, subjective take on events after another, and more to the point, inappropriately presenting these as objective takes on events.A few cases in point:Howe lauds one Moroccan activist/author for being willing to "call a spade a spade," and presents as evidence of this a quotation in which the author denounces the US military action in Iraq. Now, this is hardly evidence of the author's being willing to "call a spade a spade." Nothing is more convenient in much of the Arab world than to take rhetorical shots at the US action in Iraq; no especial courage or clarity required. In fact, Howe later, in the book, documents that Morocco's official position was in opposition to the US action, and that Moroccans took to the streets to protest it. How, then, is the quote evidence of being willing to "call a spade a spade?" All the episode reveals is that Howe opposes the US action and therefore equates a denunciation of it with truth.If she really wanted to show the guts of a Moroccan writer, she'd quote them defending Israel on a politically sensitive point (Howe is probably incapable of seeing this as a more impressive demonstration of independence, given the number of times in the book that she denounces Israel's unprovoked "assaults" on Palestinians.)At another point in the book, Howe describes a push by some feminist groups in Morocco for representative quotas. She rather reflexively equates the quota push with progress for women, despite the evidence in western democracies that quotas are an ambiguous, at best, route to equality. She expresses disappointment that the king, otherwise a stout champion of women's rights, expresses concern about a quota system and doesn't appreciate its "need." To this reader, the king's quotes made a lot more sense than the author's subjective take.This happens over and over in the book, to the point where one never knows what to believe. In one section, she describes how the socialist coalition government was cynically set up to fail by the monarch. I have no way of knowing whether this is true, but it's a rather breathtaking assertion of a cynical, elaborate gambit -- to willfully subject one's own nation to a host of problems for years solely for the purpose of causing one's socialist opponents to look bad. Howe doesn't seem to consider the very real possibility that the socialist government was simply incompetent, or that the situation may have been ungovernable without any especial sinister intent by the monarch.Reading this book, Howe's sympathies are clear every step of the way, but what is not clear is whether they accord with objective reality.By the end, I found myself flipping impatiently, scanning the later chapters in the book; it was tedious in some places (the chapter on women's rights could have been interesting but instead was little more than a disconnected laundry list of activists and their agendas) and in others, it didn't have the ring of objective history.

Vance Serchuk, from the American Enterprise Institute said that Morocco has been praised by the World Bank for having "one of the most successful programs of human development and political liberalization in the Middle East and North Africa"--which is a little like being named valedictorian of summer school. Still, if any of the states in the Arab world have a shot at making a controlled transition from autocracy to democracy, Rabat is probably toward the top of the list. All the ingredients would seem to be in place: a young, popular, pro-Western ruler, committed to modernizing and liberalizing the country; relative domestic stability and national cohesion; and, not least, geographic proximity to Western Europe, along with strong cultural ties there.Why, then, have the country's problems--from stunted economic growth to the threat of Islamist terrorism--proven so intractable? Morocco, as Howe describes it, is stuck in the same bind as the old regimes of nineteenth century Europe. On the one hand, any move on the monarchy's part to withdraw from governance threatens to create a vacuum, which undesirable actors such as the Islamists would rush to fill; on the other hand, liberal reforms--from the cleanup of thuggish security services to improvements in the legal status of women--are made possible only when they are rammed through the system by the unassailable, and fundamentally illiberal, authority of the king.Like its subject, Howe's book, unfortunately, suffers from confusion about its identity, veering in tone from memoir to travelogue to journalism. The writing would have benefited from the hand of a stronger editor: Howe's descriptions of the Moroccan people and landscape, in particular, read like those sections of a Lonely Planet guidebook that travelers usually skip. There is also evidence of hasty writing. Characters are introduced and then reintroduced; stories are told again and again.Much better are the firsthand accounts of Morocco in the early 1950s where Howe worked as a freelance reporter. Striking up friendships with many of the soon-to-be seminal figures of post-independence Morocco--she took horse-riding lessons from the future King Hassan II--Howe offers a nuanced and subtle portrait of the myriad forces jockeying for power as European colonialism collapsed.Howe is likewise unsparing in her assessment of the Moroccan government that emerged from that struggle, which she criticizes as being run by "nepotism, cronyism, and privilege." Unfortunately, the sprawling scope of the book--which attempts to cram in everything from Berber cultural revival to the conflict over Western Sahara--makes it difficult to linger over any particular topic too long.Also, like many journalists, Howe is better at describing problems than proposing solutions, and many of her policy prescriptions seem tacked-on, not to mention woefully naïve. She proposes, for instance, that the Moroccan monarchy cede power to a democratically elected government that would then "achieve long-term solutions to the grinding problems of unemployment, illiteracy ... and abysmal health care" and "tackle official corruption from top to bottom." Right!Despite its many flaws, Howe's examination of Morocco and its challenges is nonetheless welcome--if only as a reminder of just how difficult the "transformation" of the Middle East is likely to be, even in the most encouraging places.