Bloggers discussed elections, death and moderation

02/09/2007

Moroccan bloggers may show concern about the upcoming elections and indifference over the death of Driss Basri. They share similar views with their fellow bloggers when it comes to moderation in Islam.

[Getty Images] Taoufik Basri, son of the former Moroccan Interior Minister Driss Basri, helps with his father's coffin during funeral services August 29th in Rabat. Basri died August 27th in a Paris hospital after years of exile.

Morocco's legislative elections are looming, and political parties have been on the campaign trail since last Saturday (August 25th) in hopes of securing a place among the 325 seats in parliament.

This year's elections will be Morocco's eighth since independence in 1960. Amanar is unconvinced there has been any substantive change in the country. The blogger wrote that political parties have nothing new to offer "but their avidity for power and [money]".

Ange Bleu complained of seeing all the same faces since independence, saying that "the youngest among them … is 76 years old."

"They have done nothing for Morocco during its indepe ndence and here they are coming back …we are fed up. Get out. We want well educated young people with new ideas and new projects," concluded the blogger.

If not for the difficulties Moroccans living abroad face -- they must return to Morocco to vote --Larbi wrote, "I would have voted … to get to say what I think, if for nothing else but to eliminate the shareholders of politics that use their representative mandates as a source of personal enrichment … and choose the most trustworthy, those who will be capable of serving, and who will have the courage to call for the modernization of political life at the national level."

One change certain to mark the elections is the Monday (August 27th) death of former Interior Minister Driss Basri.

"The 2007 elections will take place without him," blogged Amina Talhimet who then asked her fellow Moroccans to "vote for Morocco".

In his post entitled "Basri is dead but Morocco is still alive," Spice up your life invited his fellow Moroccans to invest in the future and see a new beginning in the death of the former Interior Minister. "To a young Morocco led by a young leader … may it be a good sign to the youth to really get involved in politics, because we are influenced by politics whether we like it or not." The blogger argued that giving society an effective, responsible and stable set of institutions is better than basing it on individuals that lack that same stability.

Moderate Muslims have finally taken a stand, saying "no to Islamism". Last Tuesday a group of secular Muslims reclaimed their religion, claiming "radicalism has monopolized [it] to their detriment."

Television network ARTE aired a programme on August 28th with "the rare courage to give the floor to democratic Muslims… this courage is very rare, because in western countries there are very few who will discuss Islam, the Arab world or Islamism. We usually only have the choice between Bush and Bin Laden …as if there were no other voices, other paths, as if Muslims were condemned to let themselves to be brainwashed by apprentice sorcerers or accept to live under the thumbs of …avid dictators," Cos-Maux Polis' Mohamed Sifaoui quoted on the blog.

"ARTE's show is very important because it finally shows that Muslims can also be democrats rejecting totalitarianism and fanaticism... those who were asking if Muslim democrats existed will have, I hope, an answer to their question," concluded Mohamed Sifaoui.

"An excellent documentary… a group of Muslim intellectuals discusses means to fight the rise of extreme Islam which uses religion for its own goals," shared Delirium Optimum.

"The rise of extremism, the phenomenon of the pseudo-Islamic veil …have to be fought with the utmost vigour and by all democratic Muslim forces. Keeping silent would be synonymous with complicity with those people that use the religion, drag down our legislative progress and jeopardize a decade spent developing and modernising our systems," the blogger argued.