Genesis

3.1.2 Social

As mentioned earlier, harsh economic conditions have continued dislocating effects on large segments of the Moroccan society. Since 1970 the rural exodus to the cities has been alarming. Under severe and long droughts during 1980s, living conditions in the countryside have deteriorated and forced several thousands of Moroccans to immigrate into urban centres, which increased the level of urbanization. In 1960, 25 percent of the total population lived in cities in 1984, 45 percent. Already in 1993, the Moroccan urban population exceeded the number of those living in the countryside. At present, two-thirds of all Moroccans live in urban centers and around 20 percent of the urban population live in shantytowns on the outskirts of the urban centers (Tessler, 1997: 96). Some sociologists warned from a concomitant “ruralisation of cities”, which means that the unceasing tide of migration from the countryside to the cities has rapidly grown and is likely to grow (Darif, 1992: 176).

Newly urbanized population are devoutly religious people whose shift to Islam-oriented political movements is a consequence of their perceived hopelessness and despair.

This despair has been closely related to the shortages of housing, high rate of unemployment and virtual lack of social services. Many youth lack even the most basic means of making a living, and Islam-oriented movements claim to offer a way out. A deep and abiding commitment to Islam has made them readily receptive to the Islam-oriented movement’s symbolism, idioms and messages.

Morocco has suffered since 1975 from structural unemployment. Urban unemployment constituted a serious problem as it reached 25 percent. Employment among people of 20 to 40 years of age is very high, mounting to 40 percent of the total of the unemployed (Tessler, 1997: 94).⁴⁸ The well-educated people are also among the most affected. University education is no longer the sine qua non of social mobility, since a college education does bring no expected improvements in economic status. While the exact number of unemployed graduates is difficult to establish, reliable estimates indicate that 35 percent of Moroccan university graduates are unemployed.⁴⁹ The regime’s ability to employ academics has increasingly become very limited. In 1992, Moroccan university

48 In the poor city centers, where parents cannot afford to send their children to university, the jobless rate is much higher.

49 With new graduates coming out of the universities every year, the number of educated young people has consistently exceeded the number of available jobs.

graduates organized themselves in the association of “Unemployed Graduates” to articulate their vested interests (Tessler, 1997: 94).

Under the socio-economic context, social problems and the political tensions are likely to exacerbate. The lives of the overwhelming majority of Moroccans continue to deteriorate and disparities between the haves and the have-nots grow ever wider. Economic deprivations, which are growing among the population, may ultimately erode the legitimacy accorded to the regime and become the most salient dimension of public attitudes toward authority. Such pressures have already made themselves felt on some occasions, particularly during the rioting of 1981, 1984, 1990 and 1991.

3.1.3 Political

In the decades that followed independence in 1956, Moroccan universities and institutions of higher education were greatly influenced by Marxism and particularly the Marxist-Leninist ideas found a favourable echo among the youth (Waterbury, 1970). The constellation of ideological battle between the capitalist and the socialist models had strong impact on the intellectual life in Morocco. In the Moroccan political discourse the secular thinking assumed a dominant position. In the wake of the Arab’s crushing defeat in June 1967, this situation began to change. Arab modern secular ideologies have gradually lost credibility. In the face of it, socialist ideas and Marxist principles began to loose their appeal and influence, they once enjoyed among young educated.

Since 1970, the regime followed a policy of weakening Marxist political parties and organizations. The regime also contributed to the weakness of students unions.⁵⁰ In an effort to stem the imminent threat to the regime by the Marxist groups and their pervasive influence in high schools and universities, the regime unleashed Islam-oriented groups and encouraged the establishment of Islam-oriented groups on university campuses (Tozy, 1999). The regime-sponsored proliferation of cultural and religious associations was influenced to a certain extent by the counterbalancing policies used by the regime in

50 In 1973, the major student organization, National Union of Moroccan Students (NUMS) was banned (Darif, 1992: 228).

regard to the once-strongest leftist opposition. The regime believed that toleration of the creation of Islam-oriented groups could defuse the wrath of the discontented youth.

The momentous development that also enhanced the appeal of Islam in the 1980s was the Iranian revolution of 1979. The Iranian revolution called attention to a reassertion of Islam in Muslim personal and public life (Darif, 1992). This greatly boosted revolution fervor in the Arab world, and added energy and veracity to the actions of the activists.⁵¹ It increased the level of their consciousness concerning the possibility of a political transformation shaped along religious lines. It also boosted the confidence and aspirations of Islam-oriented-movements throughout the Muslim world, by providing them with political symbols and slogans.⁵²

In the early 1990s, the political and ideological debate in Morocco has changed, because of the changes in the global constellation of ideological battle between the capitalist and the socialist models. The debate on modernity has taken a new direction. The collapse of Marxist-Leninist states in the socialist bloc caused a debilitation of the oppositional ideologies in Morocco. The majority o f the young urban has become indifferent to the intellectual appeals of secular political principles. They have sought refuge from the secular ideological alternative principles to the inherent appeal of Islam (Bourqia et al., 2000). Existing political disenchantment, resulting from the increasing ideological irrelevance of the socialist ideologies to satisfy the aspirations of youth, as it was relatively the case during the sixties and seventy, has contributed to a historically unprecedented sharpening of social consciousness among young people (Shahin, 1997:

179). The conscious choice of Islam as the lynchpin of identity among an increasing number of educated Moroccans has been the single most important step toward the Re-islamization of Moroccan society (Burgat, 1995: 77).