Casablanca women's forum targets Islamist extremism

04/04/2008

As part of an emergency programme to fight terrorism, women’s NGOs organised a symposium in Casablanca to help differentiate between benign religious movements and Islamist terror groups.

By Imrane Binoual for Magharebia in Casablanca – 04/04/08

Imrane Binoual] Democratic League for Women’s Rights president Fouzia Aâssouli told a counter-terrorism symposium that preachers hostile to equality, tolerance and freedom embody "the main ideological breeding ground" for terrorism.

The Democratic League for Women’s Rights (LDDF) and the Moroccan Women’s Information and Observation Centre held a national symposium in Casablanca last week under the theme, "The Islamist Movement’s Strategies: From Preaching to Terrorism". The goal of the March 28th-29th forum, organisers said, was to assess the threat of terrorism and extremism on Morocco's economic, social and political life.

Morocco is "in the middle of a deliberate blurring of religion and politics, facing opposition to the values of equality, citizenship and democracy", LDDF chair Fouzia Aâsouli asserted, adding that preaching based on "extremist interpretations [which are] hostile to humanitarian values of... tolerance and freedom" provides the "main ideological breeding ground" for terrorism.

Mohamed Darif, a specialist on Islamist movements in Morocco, agreed that the fight against extremism and terrorism is everyone’s responsibility, but told forum attendees that a distinction must be made between the three main religious currents. Not all are comprised of terrorists, he emphasised.

First, there is the Sufi movement, which is gaining ground in Morocco, he said, because it is encouraged by the authorities. The second movement – what he calls "Political Islam" – includes Islamists who act within political institutions, such as the Movement for Unity and Reform (MUR), ''elitist" Islamist movements (Al Badil Al Hadari and Al Haraka Min Ajli Al Oumma), and "confrontational" Islamists, such as those in the unrecognised association Al Adl Wal Ihssan (Justice and Spirituality).

According to Darif, it is the third current – that of the Salafist Jihadis – where extremists and terrorists proliferate.

Another specialist on Islamist movements, Abdellah Rami, told participants that the Moroccan Salafist movement moved on from its allegiance to the Wahhabi movement of Saudi Arabia, to its impregnation with the Jihadism of the Algerian GIA. He also added that the leaders of Salafism cannot control the young Jihadis.

"What pushed the members of these currents to their unreasonable state were the events of September 11th, 2001. After these events, the idea of individual Jihad developed. So each individual imbued with the ideas of Jihadist Salafism could move on from theory to execution," Rami argued.

To convey the danger of terrorism to Moroccans attending the symposium, the organisers invited a victim of terrorism in Algeria to offer her personal testimony. Algerian Chrifa Khada, whose mother and brother were assassinated by Islamist terrorists, spoke of Algerians’ tremendous suffering due to terrorism at several levels.