Morocco moves forward without a rear-view mirror

Among the notes that I have for ideas to let my reflections flow, many have not yet been said. But one asked me for a conversation after following the debate sparked off by Mr. Bernabé, following an interview in El Independiente (14-03-2023), which deserved the attention of Mr. Haddad and the subsequent replies and counter-replies in this same space of Atalayar. 

I share Mr Bernabé's haste, and I am going ahead, for Morocco to achieve full democracy, but I do not understand it. I agree with them because it is the wish of all Moroccans. And I do not understand them because these processes tend to be long and not without difficulty. In Spain, for example, there are still doubts as to whether or not we have emerged from the transition to begin a second one; bearing in mind that the majority of Spaniards today had not voted for the current 1978 Constitution. 

In a previous interview with Mr. Bernabé in El Periódico de Barcelona (11-02-23), he responded to the question "Are there any short-term options for Morocco to move towards democracy?" He answered "Not in the short term, of course not. It has politicians of very little stature". 

Indeed, in the short term it is, in addition to being obvious, impossible. But the Kingdom of Morocco is working on it. It is aware that haste is a bad adviser. And it is well aware of the idiosyncrasies of Moroccan society. For an undertaking of this magnitude has its risks. 

I would also like to point out that Morocco has made the irreversible choice to move towards democracy with determination. Not by improvisation. It is a long and thorny road, where it is necessary to lift the hard levers of brakes rusted by the patina of time. But without trauma. 

Much progress has been made in social justice. And thanks to economic momentum, the middle class now dominates the political and economic scene. And there is still much to be done. For now it's just a question of building. And I ask myself, how far would the country have come if it had European funds? 

It is not true that Morocco's political elite needs the King's tutelage. One only has to look at the Moroccan Parliament's website to see the existence of numerous bills submitted by different parliamentary groups, in addition to draft laws. 

It is true that Mohammed VI's speeches carry implicit guidelines that the government of the day takes into consideration. Here again, it should be recalled that the Moroccan monarchy has five so-called "sovereignty" portfolios. Because that is what the 2011 Constitution, voted for by the people, states. Incidentally, both the emeritus King Juan Carlos I and Felipe VI had indicated, and the latter has indicated in his speeches, one or another priority of national interest. And without being binding, it had been echoed in government policy. 

External interference, such as the action instigated by Macron by instrumentalising the European Parliament against the Maghreb country, and to which Mr. Bernabé not only gives no importance, but in his latest reply (05/04/2023) accuses Morocco of seeing ghosts everywhere, are a reflection of dark wills that advocate the maintenance of the "status quo". 

Moreover, I would not dare to assess the cases cited by Mr. Bernabé. That is, the uprisings in Al Hoceima and Gdeim Izyk, among others. In the latter, eleven Moroccan agents were savagely murdered. In any case, if what the Arabist says were true, I would describe them as "stumbling blocks" in the difficult transition to democracy. I could cite more cases of injustice that continue to occur in the country, and which citizens face, on a daily basis, before public administrations, commercial, administrative or judicial courts. Always within the democratic game. 

I note that, from my second homeland, Spain, Morocco is only demanded of. Nothing is forgiven. And it is denied the benefit of the doubt. You are well aware, Mr Bernabé, that the Spanish transition was not "velvet". Far from it. The massacre of the Atocha labour lawyers, successive kidnappings and terrorist attacks, the coup d'état (1981), State terrorism (GAL, 1983-87) whose "X" has still not been cleared up to this day, and so on and so forth. 

There are also many condemnatory sentences pronounced by the European Court itself against its member states for inculcating the fundamental rights of their citizens. Nor is the United States spared from this, whose barbarities, committed throughout the length and breadth of the planet, are innumerable. The invasion of Panama, Iraq, the limbo of Guantánamo and the Assange case, among many others. Yes, the WikiLeaks case, in case we have forgotten, where the crime of disclosure of official secrets was combined with that of rape. 

I would interpret the report of an American Department that you use to defend your postulates as issues to be reviewed. Simply because the world moves forward on the basis of mistakes, if there have been any. In fact, mistakes are the driving force behind the progress of humanity and knowledge. That is how we learned and that is how we teach. 

I remember those years when Spaniards and Moroccans treated each other as equals. We were like brothers. We went in and out of one country to another like "Pedro in his own house". Years in which Morocco was much more necessary for Spain than the opposite. And where the Spaniards, with whom I shared a desk at the "Ramón y Cajal" school and at the "Instituto Politécnico Español, IPE" -today "IES Severo Ochoa"-, both in Tangiers, lived and enjoyed a higher quality of life than most Moroccans. Something the latter cannot say as residents of Spain. 

Spain is savouring the joys of joining the European Economic Community (EEC, 1986), now the EU. A wealth that Spanish public opinion has mismanaged with respect to its southern neighbour. There is not a self-respecting television or print media talk show host in the length and breadth of the country, with the exception of Mr. Marhuenda, who does not rub these delicacies in the faces of the thousands of Moroccans who follow Spanish channels live from Morocco and, when they do not, insult Morocco and its King. 

Morocco cannot change this public opinion, which is biased by stereotypes and from a selfish position of superiority, mistrust and "fear of the Moor". In this regard, Mr Bernabé will not find any insult to King Juan Carlos I or Felipe VI, out of respect for the institution they represent and for the Spanish people. Moroccans appreciate Spain and Spaniards, not because of their democracy but because of the sacred concept of neighbourliness and shared history on this shore. Which is no small thing. 

From the outset, I have tried to disassociate the resolution of the pseudo-conflict in the Sahara, as Mr Bernabé has proclaimed. But it is only fair to recall here that the advent of democracy in Spain still keeps alive some of the wounds of Franco's regime 45 years later. Nor has it resolved Basque or Catalan independence aspirations. The Ibarretxe plan was roundly rejected by the full Congress of Deputies (2005). And the Catalan conflict (2017) ended fatally. An illegal referendum, police brutality and unilateral declaration of independence of Catalonia, the DUI, and subsequent flight of President Puigdemont to Belgium. 

Mr Bernabé insists on putting us in the rear-view mirror. His remarks place him on the same plane as the generalised Spanish public opinion, and not on the plane where the reality of today's Morocco looks to the future. 

The consolidation of democracy in Morocco is a question of deadlines. Would the Polisario, which is nothing more than an extension of the Algerian military dictatorship, accept to live in democracy knowing the atrocities perpetrated daily by the rapist Ghali against the kidnapped population of Tindouf? Or rather, is the Polisario worthy of the Kingdom of Morocco?