The Casbah Connection
Why Morocco is producing some of the world's most feared terrorists
Not so, counters Abderrahim Harouchi, the minister of social development. The Casablanca bombings, he says, were "a real wake-up call." The government, he points out, now channels more money into welfare and slum clearance. A goal is to build 100,000 new housing units every year. Many who live in the bidonvilles, however, say they can't afford the new apartments--when they are available--even with their heavily subsidized prices.
_ Moroccan officials say the new housing and other improvements are already undercutting the appeal of extremism. In a slum called Al Qaria, a few miles from Rabat, the government has begun neighborhood cleanup efforts, brought in electricity, opened a community center, and increased the number of literacy and health programs. A day after visiting Al Qaria, a former hotbed of militancy, Harouchi told U.S. News , "We've seen a very, very big change. . . . Government has regained the trust of the people."
Rejection. The government's efforts to lift the poor--and boost its own credibility with them--are complicated by a revival of Moroccans' Islamic faith. After centuries of engagement with the West, Morocco has earned a reputation as a haven for a live-and-let-live approach to Islam. Liquor is sold. Betting is legal. In Rabat, women in stylish European dresses stroll with female friends covered nearly head to toe in abayas. In Marrakech, Club Med lies just down the street from the revered Koutoubia mosque, where nonbelievers are barred from entering. This is where the casbah--or at least parts of it--really does rock.
Exposure to western lifestyles, however, seems to be stirring a conservative reaction among many Moroccans: A modernity so visible and yet unattainable breeds frustration. In some parts of Tangier, a port city long accustomed to Europeans, women in western-style dress can expect to be hassled; before the Casablanca bombings, some residents dubbed the self-appointed enforcers of proper attire "the Taliban." "The attitude is, 'If modernity is rejecting me,' " says El Gahs, the deputy youth minister, " 'I'll reject it.' "
The sense of alienation reaches even Moroccans living in Europe, where, having escaped Morocco's punishing poverty, many complain of feeling like cultural outcasts in their new homes. William Zartman of Johns Hopkins University, the dean of Morocco watchers in the United States, refers to this as the "double-rejection phenomenon." In Europe or back home, resentment generates conservatism in many--and a will to kill in a few. Says Mustapha Ramid, the parliamentary leader for the only legal Islamist opposition in Morocco, the Party of Justice and Development, "Part of society is coming back to Islamic values, some in moderation, some with extremism."
Signs of conservative Islamic values, including the use of the veil, are growing. At one French-owned textile factory, more than 95 percent of the 2,500 female workers cover up; 10 years ago, only 20 percent did. Young women in high school and college are opting for the veil more than in the past, dismaying their feminist instructors. The reasons, though, are complex. A few use the veil as a form of teenage rebellion. But Islam experts say many women don the veil to maneuver more freely in a male-dominated society. Explains Mohamed Tozy, a political scientist: "It's a means to make men accept the proximity of women."
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