Which Way Morocco?

The Makhzen, foot soldiers of the Moroccan royal Mafia, will do anything to prevent democracy.

There's only one way for society to deal with the entitled families that style themselves "royal" and behave as though they are entitled to the wealth of their nations. The English Parliament got it exactly right in 1649 when they had Charles I , who insisted he was ordained by God, beheaded. In 1793 the French people did the same thing to the so-called "royal family," and the Russians finally blotted out the despicable Romanov parasites in 1917.

There are still kings in various parts of the world, still stealing the collective wealth of the countries they claim to "own." One of the slickest, greediest and most Mafia-like is the so-called "king" of Morocco, Mohammed VI, who I lived next to last Christmas in Marrakech... and wrote a bit about at the time.

With the Arab Spring awakening the masses across the Arab world and sweeping away tyrants, it was always only a matter of time before Morocco would start catching up with the likes of Tunisia and Egypt... and hopefully not Bahrain and Syria, where hereditary families like Morocco's would rather kill their own people than give up their ability to milk their countries. Last week Mohammed tried offering some superficial "reforms" without giving up any of his ability to plunder the national wealth as his family has been doing for generations. Many in Morocco say it won't work this time, and they want the king and his cronies to loosen their iron grip on the nation. Advised by allies in the West, Mohammed's regime is trying to foment the credible threat of a civil war to keep himself in power.

For four months now, activists have campaigned for the king to transfer powers to elected representatives and reign only as a symbolic head.

In Friday's speech, he announced the constitutional reforms he had promised in March after the first bout of protests.

The most significant proposed change is the boost in the executive powers of the prime minister and the parliament. For instance, the prime minister would appoint and remove ministers as well as dissolve the lower house of parliament in consultation with the king.

The king, however, is not divorced from executive power. The king would choose the prime minister from the party that wins the elections and he could also dissolve the parliament in consultations with the prime minister and members of the new constitutional court, half of whom he would appoint.

The continued presence of the king in the executive branch ignores the key protester demand of separation of powers. He also remains the military and religious head of the country.

While the king is offering a constitutional monarchy, the demand is for a parliamentary monarchy like the United Kingdom. For the activists, the king’s reforms are piecemeal and if they compromise now then the momentum they have generated for comprehensive change will be lost.

They also suspect that the king is trying to rush a referendum on proposed reforms-- he set the vote for July 1-- before mass resistance can be mobilized.

The pro-democracy movement – called February 20 (after the first day of widespread protests in Morocco) – is made up of the web-savvy youth, left-leaning parties, and Islamists.

Peaceful rallies have attracted tens of thousands of people. A few of these demonstrations have been violently dispersed by government forces but not as brutally as protests in much of the Arab world.

Conservatives hope the king's slick, superficial performance Friday will derail the Feb. 20 Movement. But Sunday thousands of Moroccans took to the streets to protest the phony reforms. They recognize that the network of corrupt privilege around the regime has to go if Morocco is ever going to prosper and join the modern world. Americans and Europeans have downplayed the Moroccans' thirst for the end of tyranny and want desperately to see the country as a happy little kingdom just south of Spain where they can go for slightly exotic, inexpensive holidays.

Since I first went there in 1969, I've been to Morocco over a dozen times. Although the royals have made sure illiteracy would remain high-- conservatives always know education is their mortal enemy, whether we're talking about "royal" families, the Taliban or the American GOP and plutocracy-- there is no Arab country I've ever visited better-prepared to take its place in the 21st century. Last week Nick Kristof opined that "Perhaps no Arab ruler responded as wisely to this year’s pro-democracy protests as the king of Morocco-- although that is an exceptionally low bar." He's right-- the bar is exceptionally low... and the P.R. campaign aimed at journalists like Kristof is the best that money can buy.

When other dictators in the Arab world answered protesters with gunfire, King Mohammed VI grudgingly accepted demonstrations, at least when he was in a good mood. His regime claimed that antigovernment activism underscored the country’s openness, and on Friday the king announced constitutional reforms that seem likely to reduce his own role in governing the country.

...It’s troubling that even as the king has been talking about reform, he has engaged in a violent crackdown on peaceful protesters in the last few months. One demonstrator died, apparently from his injuries. But the repression was just harsh enough to inflame protesters, not terrifying enough to scare them into staying home.

“Everybody gets hit,” Aymane Aoudi, a 20-year-old college student and activist, told me. “They even hit women and children.”

Another student, Imad Iddine Habib, proudly told me that he had been arrested three times this spring, and beaten two of those times. But the beatings become badges of honor among young people-- more of an inducement to protest than a deterrent.

The king perhaps realized that he was digging himself deeper, because this month the regime has mostly refrained from beatings. The government now seems at a turning point.

The king can follow Bahrain’s example and use extreme violence to crush protesters. Or he can grit his teeth and put up with them-- but then he will have to endure more criticism and accept more compromises.

If he does embark on wider democratic reform, he could make Morocco-- already a pretty remarkable and wonderful country, where the semi-banned Islamist movement is so mellow that it has a female spokesman who advocates for women’s rights-- even more of a trailblazer. Morocco would show Middle Eastern rulers that they can respond to popular pressure with ballots rather than bullets.

In my conversations with protesters here, I keep noting how much better off they are than those in Syria or Yemen. But they don’t care about that: they keep noting how repressed they are compared with Americans or Europeans.