New Marxist monthly
Sonia Leith speaks to Abdelmumen Shbari and Abdallah Elharif, editors of the new radical left monthly Annajh Democrati (The Democratic Patf)
• What is the general climate in Morocco? ELHARIF: The economic and social situation is deteriorating. This is reinforcing the contradictions between the classes. The Moroccan people, supported by international democratic forces, had managed to seize certain improvements, particularly concerning human rights and political liberties. An important number of political prisoners have been freed, the majority of exiles have returned, some information has been released about the "disappeared" , and there has been a relative improvement in the legal status of women, and of Amazigh (the Berber language, spoken by up to 40% of the population). The level of popular struggle is certainly lower than in the late 1980s and early 1990s. But the potential is shown by, on the one hand, a series of very "hard" strikes, like the onemonth long railway workers' strike and the two-year strike at the Jebel Awam mine, and on the other hand a series of struggles to preserve and extend civic rights. There are still an important number of district and village-level struggles. Two currents are vying for position in all the parliamentary political forces. A more combative current, sympathetic to the various popular struggles, is gaining ground in the Socialist Union of Popular Forces (USFP) and the Organisation for Democratic and Popular Action (OADP) against the current of technocrats and those who enjoy the privileges the regime allows to parliamentary and local government representatives. Even the ex-Communist Party of Progress and Socialism (PPS) is no longer a monolithic bloc. The tension inside the political parties is a reflection of the deepening contradictions in society. Attempts to reunify the Marxist-Leninist-influenced left in a legal organisation have been underway since the early 1990s. It is worth noting that, while the roots of this left were in the high school and university student sectors, there is now a presence in both the main trade union federations, the General Union of Workers of Morocco (UGTM) and the Democratic Confederation of Labour (CDT) and in a range of associations, from the Association of Unemployed Graduates to the Human Rights Association and the various feminist associations. So this left is now an influential pole in the trade union movement, and on the political scene in general. This is due to its 25-year long struggle, and its refusal to compromise with the regime at the expense of the population. This left has consistently refused the reactionary "national consensus". ', and a "social peace" which is nothing more than a class war against the working population. This left has been part of all the struggles, and has paid dearly.
SHBARI: The political situation could explode. The power is incapable of solving everyday problems, like salaries and health. Even worse, it is attempting to claw back gains like free education, which the democratic movement won at the beginning of the 1960s. The regime is trying to apply the diktats of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and respect the demands of the capitalist institutions. This is the sense of the Moroccan signature of the GATT accords. The regime has always combined repression with political manoeuvring, in order to guarantee stability and its own continuity. After the global and regional transformations of the 1980s, it has tried to construct a new consensus through the creation of a number of councils supposedly dealing with each of the burning questions facing the country. L.]
• What is the effect of the Algerian situation? ELHARIF: The Moroccan regime has followed a different strategy towards the Islamic current. And, unlike in Algeria, there has always been an opposition, including a radical opposition. This radical opposition has had a significant influence on young people. And because it has never been integrated by the institutions of the regime, it has always benefited from a real credibility in the eyes of the population. In Algeria, an absence of cohesion in the FLN and its protracted internal quarrels allowed the Islamic current to develop over a long period. Some FLN fractions even used the Islamists in their internal power struggle. And the radical opposition in Algeria, and to a certain extent in Tunisia, ended up by rallying with the regime [against the fundamentalists] or dissolving themselves. This doesn't mean that the struggle against the Islamists has been won here in Morocco. They have considerable resources, and the growth of their current in Algeria is only encouraging them. The discrediting of socialism since the collapse of the USSR... a framework where there is no influence of the socialist bloc... facilitates the implantation of the Islamists. Fighting against Islamism means fighting for democracy, for a democracy which cannot be separated from its social, economic and cultural aspects. But this is where the danger which plagues the democratic opposition in our countries lies. The regimes try to confine us to the terrain of formal demands for partial constitutional and political reforms, without challenging the economic regime, and the resulting social relations. Only by doing so could the people rise from their misery, acquire decent housing and so on. Our struggle must make this link between the political and the socioeconomic. The widening of democratic liberties must be
International Viewpoint n° 271 — November 1995 15
* Morocco exploited to organise the masses, so that they themselves can win new social and economic improvements.
This in turn will reinforce the social movements.
SHBARI: The situation in Algeria is having a contradictory effect. On the one hand the Moroccan regime is profiting from the situation, since
Algeria is too preoccupied by its own problems to continue to provide the same level of support to the Western
Sahara question. On the other hand, the Algerian Islamists have logistic support in Morocco. The regime here does not fully know what is happening on Moroccan territory.
And the war waged in Algeria reinforces the position of the
Moroccan Islamists, and popularises the "heroism" of the Islamist current.
It is also true that the origins of the
Algerian and Moroccan
Islamic movements is different. In Algeria, they appeared in a context of the suffocation of civic liberties and a one-party state. Here in
Morocco, the Islamic movement was born under the benevolent eye of the regime. It was an official movement, operating in a legal way, with the function of fighting atheism, particularly the Marxist-Leninist current and the progressive movement in general. It is in this context that we should understand the assassination of Omar Ben
Jallun, and the struggle between Islamists and [democratic and left-wing] militants in the student sector.
The Islamic current in Morocco is weak, compared to its
Algerian, Tunisian and Egyptian counterparts. Most of the
Moroccan Islamists do not challenge the status quo, and only demand some modifications of legislation to bring it into accord with Islamic law. But there is one fascisising group, the Movement for Justice and Charity (Harakat al
Adl wal Ihsen). This current is a danger for democracy.
•
What led you to create The Democratic Path?
ELHARIF: The contradictory situation of socio-economic decline offers a certain margin of liberty — in speech, in publication and in the creation of civic associations. We had to find a way to widen our intervention in the mass organisations and the trade unions. We wanted to find a way towards unity of ideas and politics, which could support common activity. This new publication is away of transforming the democratic gains into gains for all the people. It will be a tribune.
SHBARI: For those of us behind The Democratic Path, socialism is still on the agenda! Our references is the open current of Marxism, as developed by the Maoists,
Trotskyists and others.
How will you treat the Berber question?
SHBARI: The Amazigh (Berber) identity is an indivisible part of the multi-dimensional Moroccan identity, which includes an Arab, an Amazigh and an Islamic dimension. The
16 International Viewpoint n° 271 - November 1995
Amazigh dimension was suffocated and marginalised for a long time.
The left began to realise this during the 1970s, though our response was for some time limited to the domain of principled positions. In 1993 a number of leftist militants were arrested for slogans in favour of the use of the Amazigh language during the 1 May demonstrations. Since then, the regime has tried to take the wind from the sails of the movement, by speculating about the possibility of allowing education in the Berber language.
ELHARIF: Our newspaper will defend the Amazigh question, without succumbing to chauvinism. We identify with the linguistic and cultural demands which flow from the contrasting reality of Morocco.
And we place the "Berber question" in the more general framework of the economic and cultural social, marginalisation of entire regions of the muntry. The democratic movement, and revolutionaries, have the responsibility of revolutionaries, have the responsibility or proposing specific solutions, including propositions for the relations there should be between the different parts of the country. The Democratic Path doesn't solutions to these questions. But we are aware of the issues. In my opinion, solutions can only be found through a struggle which will bring together the Moroccan people and the inhabitants of these unique regions.
And women's issues?
SHBARI: The Marxist movement was the first to take up the woman question, back in the 1970s. In our interventions, we pushed for the formation of women's commissions, literacy campaigns aimed at poorer women, and so on. Some of the comrades arrested at the same time as me were sentenced to six years imprisonment for this kind of activity!
Women's issues have been progressively adopted by the various political forces. The Women's Section of the OADP had played a key role. There is now a unitary framework, bringing together all the [democratic] associations, and all the different currents of democratic thought, in order to propose changes to the Code of Personal Status. The effort that goes into The Democratic Path is the effort of militants who are also involved in this unitary mobilisation, and other struggles for women's rights.
Notes
For more information, contact Annajh Democrati at BP 15927, Poste Centrale, 20001
Casablanca, Morocco. Tel/fax +212 2/448522
Both the comrades interviewed were imprisoned for membership of the lla Al Amam organisation (see International Viewpoint #270, October 1995). Abdallah served 17 years of a 20 year sentence, and was released in January 1992. Abdelmumen served 9 years of a
10 year sentence, and was released in the General Amnesty of July 1994.
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