It’s a little phrase, a joke, halfway between irony and provocation, which nevertheless sums up decades of profound changes in Morocco. This week in parliament, Ahmed Toufiq, Minister of Habous and Islamic Affairs, reported an exchange with the French Minister of the Interior, the very right-wing Bruno Retailleau.
Ahmed Toufiq responded to the French minister, who asked him if secularism was “shocking”, that in Morocco “we are just as secular as you”. The Minister of Islamic Affairs, who is also an excellent historian, justified his opinion by the fact that Moroccans are free in their choices and their actions because there is “no constraints in matters of religion”, as an oft-quoted Quranic verse states. This sentence provoked reactions, oscillating between incomprehension and rejection. And yet, Ahmed Taoufiq is absolutely right.
When we mention the word secularism, we instinctively think of the French model, result of a historical and political process specific to this country, and which today resembles state fundamentalism, a stepping stone for the extreme right in its conquest of power and minds, and a mask concealing the ugly face of Islamophobia and racism. However, secularism cannot be reduced to a conflict between State and religion, nor to the exclusion of the latter from the public space to make it a purely personal matter.
There are other models in the world where religion integrates smoothly into the political space: in the United States, a secular country, religious symbols are present during the presidential inauguration ceremony and even on the national currency; in Great Britain, another secular state, the king serves as supreme governor of the Anglican Church. We can easily multiply such examples. If we consider secularism as a historical and social process, where the organization of the State, its functioning, the law, the economy and the link between political power and individuals escape religious reign to fall within the temporal and of human deliberation, Morocco would therefore be a secular country.
Thus, in Morocco, the entire legal system – a considerable part of which is a legacy of the colonial period – is positive in nature. The law is drawn up by deputies who refer neither to religious texts nor to the ulama – who were historically responsible for stating the rule of law. Out of hundreds of thousands of articles, the only provisions relating to Muslim law are limited to the Family Code and can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Even the articles sanctioning violations of religious morality (Ramadan fasting, homosexuality, extramarital relations) do not refer to Sharia law, but to French law and texts inherited from the protectorate.
The legal link between Moroccans is their citizenship, not their religious affiliation. The same rights and obligations apply to everyone, whether Muslim, Jewish or Christian. The state does not intervene to determine or fix people’s religious and philosophical beliefs. And this, while for centuries, the link between political power and individuals was exclusively religious. The political, cultural and social horizon of our ancestors was entirely covered by religion.
“Like Mr. Jourdain who wrote prose without knowing it, we are in Morocco in a process of secularization that we pretend not to see”
Abdellah Tourabi
As for the title of Commander of the Faithful, it is a symbolic and historical charge, but also a function of regulating religious affairs. The 2011 Constitution secularized this function by devoting a specific article to it (article 41) and specifying that the king exercises his specifically religious prerogatives by virtue of this title. We are far from the text and practice of the old article 19 of the previous Constitutions, of which Hassan II read extensively, leading to the irruption of the Commandery of Believers at all levels of political life.
Paradoxically, this secular and secular character applies even to the Moroccan Islamist party alone. The PJD, at the height of its political glory, did not conduct its electoral campaigns and did not manage public affairs through religious discourse, but used modern and secular vocabulary (governance, fight against corruption). Preaching and religious discourse were separated by the PJD from political practice, entrusted to its associative branch, the MUR. In summary: like Mr. Jourdain who wrote prose without knowing it, we are in Morocco in a process of secularization that we pretend not to see.
