The Impact of Islamization on Moroccan Feminisms

Abstract

The concept of Islamization is loaded with sense. The one relevant meaning to this essay is the intrinsic link between this concept and the political manipulation of Islam. Such a meaning is country-specific and depends on the immediate ground realities in each country.The story of Moroccan women and Islamization is unique in at least two ways: not only is it linked to the success of multilingualism and multiculturalism in a country where only one religion dominates: Islam, but it also explains the paradoxical situation where a very high level of female (and male) illiteracy co-exists with a spectacular achievement of the Moroccan feminist-movement: a very progressive Family law. Moroccan women engaged with Islamization at various stages of modern history. This engagement resulted in the interesting changes of Moroccan women’s (political) consciousness and power negotiation. Women’s changes of consciousness have been triggered by three factors that interact in complex ways and that chronology alone cannot explain: (i) feminist political consciousness that comes with urbanity and education, (ii) global synergy consciousness which is usually an extension of local feminist consciousness, and (iii) democratization consciousness and awareness of the intriguing role of religion in the (political) power game. These three types of consciousness kept a strong, albeit “invisible”, link not only between legal demands of (literate) feminists and illiterate women but also between feminists and the state rulers. Women’s issues and their marginalized mother tongues (Berber and Moroccan Arabic) became state issues (a means to fight Islamists) while retaining their “feminist” edge allowing women to problematize the centuries-old Islamic practices on which the state itself is based. The clever use of “cultural” and “symbolic” Islam by Moroccan feminists blocks the road in the face of radical Islamists, rallies illiterate women to women’s issues and forces the state to satisfy women’s legal demands (which also serve current state purposes). Women’s multi-faced and fluid involvement with Islamization has turned out to be a central element in the Morocco’s post-colonial overall policy where ideologies of modernity, Islamism, democratization, feminism, and global synergy constitute an interesting blend.

Keywords: Islam, Moroccan feminism, Agency