Homogenisation of the national information system

and the political culture on which the regime legitimized its authority. The national information system was developed to function as an instrument of political, national and economic propaganda and thus designed basically to control and direct public opinion without causing any sort of politicisation.

The regime’s core objective was to control information, by limiting the information horizon. It has never provided detailed accounts of alternative political accounts, unless it is from its own official perspective. Royal directives have determined the role that television should play. The concern of the media officials has always been centred on meeting the demands of the regime rather than the public.

The regime-owned Radio and TV had not provided balanced coverage of the news.

One reason is that most political information, particularly TV, is in the form of propaganda (Waterbury, 1970: 295; El Yahyaoui, 1998). Every thing should be invested politically.

Even apolitical subjects were intensively used to deliver a supporting political message.

News considered in contradiction with the official political and religious discourse was banned. A notorious case in point was what the Moroccan print press called “Tabit-Gate”, a sex crime scandal that involved a senior police officer in 1992. The scandal went unreported by the broadcasting system (Eickelman, 1999: 35).

Content was the most decisive factor in the pattern of control and liberalisation.

Direct political coverage remained the least liberalised and thus the most controlled genre.

In less sensitive genres like sports, entertainment and art, however, content control is relaxed as long as the program is not considered politically and religiously offensive.

Genres that were traditionally close to the centre of political power enjoyed less freedom of expression than those at the political periphery.

Most of these program materials fail to address many important social issues facing young people, including drugs, illegal immigration and unemployment. News and information about political, social and economic situation in the Arab world is often simply not available (Arab Human Development Report, 2003). Because of the traditional forms of censorship and concealment, Moroccan society could not get the true picture of the state of the economy, the fate of the thousands of people kidnapped, tortured and murdered by the regime.⁴³ The media could not play its role by supplying people with a true picture of

43 The evidence either had been destroyed or was stored in secret data banks well hidden within the bureaucracy of the Interior Ministry.

the country, since the facts were simply not there or were concealed (Hidass, 1992: 255;

Clausen, 1996: 261).

The television coverage has tended to homogeneity. This homogenisation of information has also affected the people’s way of thinking on political matters. The practice of promoting a uniformity of political and religious values has reinforced nationalism as opposed to diversity.

In 1977, the king suggested that Moroccans did not know about many things that happened during the last two years. He stated that “the public could not know what I know.

My government knows more than the public. But it knows less than what I myself know”

(Ben Ashour, 1992: 99). The political regime used the mass media to control public and private information. Through this kind of rigid control of the information flow, the political regime planned to keep the level of political consciousness of Moroccan society very low.

The contours of the national information system were more sharply defined, largely in conformist terms. The position of the regime concerning the national information system has been characterised by a sense of traditionalism and conservatism. King Hassan II even legitimized his censorship by Islamic tradition. He claimed that the Prophet Mohammad had deterred journalists from engaging in criticising the regime. A Moslem should not attack other Moslems by month or hand. King Hassan II added to these organs the pen.

Formally put, journalists who attacked the king by pen belong no longer to the Islamic community (Ben Achour, 1992:102).

King Hassan II’s information policy did not favour the exposing of “Morocco’s dirty laundry to the world” in the Moroccan print press (Ben Ashour, 1992: 98). Moroccan mass media, particularly the opposition print press was not allowed to expose Morocco’s internal problems.⁴⁴ According to King Hassan II’s media philosophy, mass media should not publish true facts, albeit true, if the publication may cause harm to the country by tarnishing its image (Ben Ashour, 1992: 99).

The official political and religious view was enshrined in newspapers with titles like, Le Matin du Sahara du Maghreb, the most important daily newspaper, practised an authoritarian style of journalism with strict political regime’s control of news.⁴⁵ Since its creation in 1971, it can be regarded as the prototypical case of a newspaper closely

44 These media restriction should be understood initially not in a political context, they were rather motivated by the tourism industry.

45 The political regime’s press has enjoyed a circulation advantage because all public institutions were required to subscribe to it.

identified with authoritarianism, given its open and uncritical support for the regime. Le Matin du Sahara du Maghreb is the official organ of the political regime, acted as loudspeakers of the political regime. This newspaper has carried the regime’s policies and important directives.

The mouthpiece tended to represent the views of King Hassan II‘s cousin Ahmed Alaoiu, its owner and editor. Its declared objectives are the propagation of the official ideology that should have dominated the national information system. Their admonitions from time to time set the standard and the tone for many other newspapers to follow throughout the country. It attacks domestic and foreign opponents of the regime. In the case of print press, however, the political regime has failed to build newspapers that have access to different sectors of the Moroccan society. While it seemed to exert no influence on Moroccan educated segment or on Moroccan society at large, it is the only publication in Morocco to be totally exempt from censorship.

In practice, ideological hegemony was accomplished by overwhelming the citizenry in every aspect of daily life with official information and interpretations of reality. Since King Hassan II’s regime required the appearance of unanimity, the mass media served the function of explaining and justifying official policy, while still providing an important staging area where various factions could wage surreptitious battle over policy direction.⁴⁶

46 Senior official at the Ministry of the Interior justified its control of the audiovisual by asserting that the regime should have at its disposal a medium of communication to defend its viewpoints against the opposition which traditionally dominates the print press.

3 The Rise of Islam-oriented political movements

In the last quarter of the twentieth century various and sequential waves of Islam-oriented political movements have sprung up in Morocco. Like in many other Arab and Islamic countries, Islam-oriented movements in Morocco have grown as an indigenous response to prevalent socio-economic and political discontent, not as a burst of pietism. Several different explanations have been proposed to account for the emergence of Islam-oriented movements, by concentrating on preconditions and root causes of this phenomenon (Burgat, 1986 Darif, 1992; Entelis; 1997; Munson, 1993; Shahin, 1997; Tessler, 1998;

Tozy, 1999). Historically, Islam has always served as a vehicle for the expression of socio-political and economic dissent, particularly in times of crisis. Due to their agenda regarding state and society, Islam-oriented movements have increasingly become assertive.⁴⁷ In the context of the weakness of institutionalised politics, Islam-oriented movements have now turned to be the leading political opposition force in Morocco.

This chapter traces the rise of Islam-oriented political movements in Morocco and the multiple factors - political, economic, and social - that contributed to their prominence.

Also included in this chapter is the analysis of their social composition and organizational structures. The analysis will focus on the most organized and political organizations that captured larger following and enjoy more influence, namely Al-Adl Wal-Ihsan (Justice and Benevolence), the premier movement of political opposition in today’s Morocco. The second most influential Islam-oriented group in the country is the Al-Adala Wat-Tanmiya party. The other organizations dealt with in this chapter have more or less relevance for the politics in Morocco. The third section is devoted to the regime’s counter-strategies to control the religious field. The last section explores briefly the objectives advanced by these different groups.

47 The regime was aware of the growing significance of the Friday preachers, who begun to play a real political role by deepening people’s awareness of their plight. In March 1987, the regime organized in Fez the first international congress for Friday preachers. The regime formulated new criteria which should be respected if the preacher could be allowed to deliver their sermons (For more details, see Darif, 1996: 42-48).