Morocco: The Islamist Awakening and Other Challenges [Hardcover]

Marvine Howe (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0195169638 | ISBN-13: 978-0195169638 | Publication Date: June 30, 2005 | Edition: 1St Edition

In Morocco, Marvine Howe, a former correspondent for The New York Times, presents an incisive and comprehensive review of the Moroccan kingdom and its people, past and present. She provides a vivid and frank portrait of late King Hassan, whom she knew personally and credits with laying the foundations of a modern, pro-Western state and analyzes the pressures his successor, King Mohammed VI has come under to transform the autocratic monarchy into a full-fledged democracy. Howe addresses emerging issues and problems--equal rights for women, elimination of corruption and correction of glaring economic and social disparities--and asks the fundamental question: can this ancient Muslim kingdom embrace western democracy in an era of deepening divisions between the Islamic world and the West?

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Here we have a bird's-eye view of Morocco today as seen through the eyes of a seasoned reporter who has had a long love affair with the country. Her first-hand account of the early days of nationhood when Morocco's destiny hung in the balance is especially absorbing and well worth the retelling."--Susan Gilson Miller, Director of Moroccan Studies, Harvard University

"This is a very special book and everyone who is going to Morocco or is seriously interested in that country should have it. Clearly written, it combines a traveler's description of the country with a historical and contemporary review. It focuses on the opportunities and dilemmas facing King Muhammad VI as he seeks to modernize and democratize Morocco in the face of long standing economic and social problems, rising Islamist influence and concerns about international terrorism. An established journalist, Marvine Howe has been covering Morocco since the early 1950s and knows almost everyone of political importance. She provides a rare view of both the underside and the surface of Moroccan politics today."--Richard B. Parker, Former Ambassador to Morocco

"Morocco is an intriguing, culturally complex country that's become a focal point in the contest between democracy and Islamic terrorism. Marvine Howe has a longstanding, intimate knowledge of the country. Here, she shares her insights into the lives and thoughts of a broad sampling of its 30 million people--women's rights activists, veteran politicians, Amazigh (Berber) educators, hard-pressed slum-dwellers, Muslim association leaders, and more. Howe's illuminating tour reveals the continued ossification of the country's political system--but also, surprises such as the relative liveliness of its NGO sector."--Helena Cobban, Columnist, The Christian Science Monitor

From the Publisher

"Here we have a bird's-eye view of Morocco today as seen through the eyes of a seasoned reporter who has had a long love affair with the country. Her first-hand account of the early days of nationhood when Morocco's destiny hung in the balance is especially absorbing and well worth the retelling."--Susan Gilson Miller, Director of Moroccan Studies, Harvard University

"This is a very special book and everyone who is going to Morocco or is seriously interested in that country should have it. Clearly written, it combines a traveler's description of the country with a historical and contemporary review. It focuses on the opportunities and dilemmas facing King Muhammad VI as he seeks to modernize and democratize Morocco in the face of long standing economic and social problems, rising Islamist influence and concerns about international terrorism. An established journalist, Marvine Howe has been covering Morocco since the early 1950s and knows almost everyone of political importance. She provides a rare view of both the underside and the surface of Moroccan politics today."--Richard B. Parker, Former Ambassador to Morocco

"Morocco is an intriguing, culturally complex country that's become a focal point in the contest between democracy and Islamic terrorism. Marvine Howe has a longstanding, intimate knowledge of the country. Here, she shares her insights into the lives and thoughts of a broad sampling of its 30 million people--women's rights activists, veteran politicians, Amazigh (Berber) educators, hard-pressed slum-dwellers, Muslim association leaders, and more. Howe's illuminating tour reveals the continued ossification of the country's political system--but also, surprises such as the relative liveliness of its NGO sector."--Helena Cobban, Columnist, The Christian Science Monitor

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; 1St Edition edition (June 30, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195169638
• ISBN-13: 978-0195169638
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #297,278 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #16 in Books > History > Africa > Morocco
  • #68 in Books > History > Africa > North Africa

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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Flawed Yet Welcome, January 27, 2007

By 

Jazz It Up Baby - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Morocco: The Islamist Awakening and Other Challenges (Hardcover)

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.

19 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Morocco : The Islamist Awakening and Other Challenges, December 31, 2005

By 

Bertrand C. Bellaigue "bcb" (France) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Morocco: The Islamist Awakening and Other Challenges (Hardcover)

Morocco: The Islamist Awakening and Other Challenges by Marvine Howe

Oxford University Press, 2005.

Surely, this is a book that goes beyond the beaten paths - not only those of the classic history of Morocco with its dynasties, its kasbahs, its folklore, Andalusian cuisine, mint tea and marble fountains - but also its recent past during which a powerful monarch, who incarnated Religion and Tradition as well as reform and modernity, who faced traditions stronger than his own, military and civilian forces on his right and even "progressive" forces who barred the way to reforms that were not of their making.

This book is different because it gives voice to young Moroccans who describe their daily lives and to women who reaffirm their own demands and their solidarity with women everywhere.

This book is remarkable in that it presents the growth of the Islamist phenomenon (surely one of the first English-language publications to do so), which had been an underlying factor in the past, without being totally absent, and now has targeted - in a timid fashion still - the actual head of the pyramid of power in Morocco, that is the two institutions: the monarchy and religion of which the young king is the supreme depositary.

Nor does this work fail to examine that painful chapter for all Moroccans which is known as les années de plomb -the years of lead - a period of "tortures and disappearances.'' At the same time, it notes the establishment of the Commission for Equity and Reconciliation, the only example of its kind in the Arab-Muslim world for such cases, and which has not altogether failed its enormous task of reconciling the country with itself and the people with the regime.

Since the recovery of its sovereignty, Morocco has been the subject of various diametrically opposed studies. There are those that heap infamy on the regime based on somewhat archaic traditions and in keeping with the "progressive" tenor of the times, disparaging everything that comes from the hands of this ancient monarchy. Then there are those, which out of atavism or personal interest are forever praising the benevolence and the wise governance of the reigning monarch. Now this book arrives to restore as much as possible the balance and adopt the golden mean, which is truer to the country's reality. But it must be stressed that without a good measure of sensitivity at the outset, it would have been difficult for the author to achieve such an understanding of her subject.

For the American reader, one must add that the United States has shown a keen interest in the fate of Morocco ever since the American fleet faced problems in the Strait of Gibraltar, which like the Dardanelle's, is a vital maritime passageway. One can be sure that this geo-strategic aspect is also an important factor in the interest that will be generated by this book.

Having lived a long time in Morocco and in Turkey and becoming a specialist of these two countries that exercise a certain control over their respective straits, the author, however, has not been tempted to make a comparative study of the legacies of the two Caliphates, of the East and the West. Nevertheless, she arrives at a common situation, that is, in the past, these countries underwent similar offensives from the ancient Christian West. But today, being a permanent geographic link for this same Christian West, supposedly became "wiser", they are still imbued with goals of economic and cultural expansion and more than ever intoxicated by its dreams of hegemony over the southern Mediterranean and Africa for some; toward East Africa and Asia for others. If it were only to outline this perspective, while not explicit, the new book of Marvine Howe on Morocco is well worth reading.

Rabat, Dec. 26, 2005

Signed: Aissa Benchekroun

Retired Ambassador of the Kingdom of Morocco

13 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not an objective history, but a stream of personal perspectives, September 2, 2006

By 

Odysseus "A Traveller" (Virginia, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Morocco: The Islamist Awakening and Other Challenges (Hardcover)

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.