Re: Cat in Rabat’s “If you were king…”
Yesterday, Cat in Rabat recalled in a fascinating post a question she had posed to her 20-and-30-something Moroccan students: “If you were the king of Morocco, what law would you change?”
She was surprised when her class answered “A more equitable system of [traffic] fines.”
(Go read the post - you’ll end up adding her blog to your favorites)
I was surprised too. And determined that I would ask my Advanced class of teens and twentysomethings the same question. Given that I had a big class to work with, I ended up splitting them up into same groups and gave them fifteen minutes to make a decision about their new law.
The first group, made up of two young men (both of whom study in the university here), started with trepidation, “If we could change any law in Morocco…we would give more power to the public…a constitutional monarchy…more power like Spain or the UK…” Was I hearing what I thought I was hearing? These two young men were telling me what very few Moroccans dare to say (particularly in our school, which for a long time had a policy of “no religion or politics” in class) - that they wanted the king to have less power, that they felt Morocco was ready for a democracy.
The class took a vote of agreement: 2 students were for, 10 against. Better luck next time.
The second group to speak their minds was made up of five young women - university students mostly, and one employee of a textile manufacturer - who told the class immediately that the most important law to them would be to raise the age of consent for marriage. What?! The age of consent in Morocco, unlike in many Arab countries and most U.S. states, is 18. A reasonable age of consent, and also the age at which one may separate from one’s parents, join the military, and drive. The girls explained to the class that 21 was the perfect age of consent (although two girls in the group felt that 24 was more apropos) and that it would allow girls to finish their studies before taking on the responsibility of a husband and family. Interesting.
The class took a vote: 6 for, 6 against.
The last group up, made up of the youngest students in the class (3 boys, 2 girls, all high school aged) took the floor to tell us that their idea of the perfect new law was to separate religion from government. They explained that they would prefer a system in which religion did not influence laws.
Now, Morocco is not influenced by Shari’a, per se. The new king, Mohammed VI, in particular has modernized family laws, setting a new precedent for women’s rights. In addition, the constitution does provide for freedom of religion - there is no penalty for apostasy, for example. On the other hand, Muslims can technically be arrested if caught eating in public during Ramadan, the sale of alcohol to Muslims is illegal (although that law is, obviously, not enforced) and women cannot legally marry a non-Muslim (although men can marry a Christian or Jew, and even then the woman must only provide a written statement, not an official legal document from her church or synagague - trust me, I didn’t have one).
Such were the examples given by students. One recalled a time when he was walking in town with his sister and stopped by the police, then asked for his marriage certificate. He had to call his parents to explain that the kids were, in fact, brother and sister. Another recalled a distant cousin who had left Morocco so that she could marry a Christian man.
And so we took a vote: 8 were in favor, 4 against. Triumph!
Teachers - I dare you to ask your classes this same question. Thank you Cat in Rabat for the idea!
April 25th, 2007 at 3:34 pm
I’m so very impressed with each of your students’ answers and I hang my head in shame as to the baseness of my students’ answer - which was, by the way, unanimous. My only defence is that I was actually subbing for another teacher so it wasn’t really my class. I also asked “if you were king, what new law would you introduce”. All the women answered that they would destroy the “glass ceiling” by instituting affirmative action hiring policies. One man suggested new animal welfare policies.
April 25th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
Very interesting post.
But I am not agree with the last group. I think that for a muslim country (yes morocco is a muslim country) the laws should always be inspired by Islam. So if I would have choice, I will vote against the last proposition (and i think that the majority of moroccans would vote against)
I just want to precise that I am not an irreproachable muslim but i try to be one.
April 25th, 2007 at 7:14 pm
I didn’t mean to show your students up! I was just curious to see what else would come about…Do me a favor - ask your own classes, and I’ll ask mine - let’s see what best answers they come up with?
April 25th, 2007 at 11:16 pm
@nabil: no Morocco is not a muslim cuntry.
we need a lot of effort and time to convince moroccans that there is no such thing as a “muslim country” or “muslim land”. only an individual could be a muslim. a muslim country must be only populated with people who truly identify as muslim, not nominal muslims like me, agnostics, etc.
I had no choice concerning my nominal religion, but this IS MY country and i don’t want laws based only on a faith which is not mine to be enforced on me.
April 25th, 2007 at 11:23 pm
@Jill: notice that you managed to break the omerta policy on religion and politics, but are you allowed to talk about sexe? :p lol!
April 26th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
@xoussef: That was never a rule, actually, although for my film series at school, I’m not allowed to show kissing!
April 27th, 2007 at 10:33 pm
Could you imagine, for just a moment, Morocco with a constitutional monarchy?
April 29th, 2007 at 6:36 pm
I`m not saying Moroccan law should be influenced by Islam, because I have my own opinions about what it means to have Islamic law, but to have a `Democracy` like Germany, France, Turkey and Tunisia where the government can tell you how to dress is well.. Sort of like Iran, right? One side tells you what you can wear and one what you cannot? And of course, women are too dumb to choose, right? Or how about our great American democracy where an election can be rigged! And an illegal war fought..
April 30th, 2007 at 5:08 pm
Oh, you’re right Rachel - I don’t think democracy is the only answer, but I also don’t think it’s right to force beliefs on a population. I’m not saying Morocco does that as much as say, Iran, but there are certain mandates which affect agnostics and would-be Christian converts quite unfairly in Morocco.
May 1st, 2007 at 6:49 am
I understand what you’re saying, even as a Muslim, although as an Agnostic, hearing about how Christians aren’t allowed to prosthelytize in Morocco really excited me. Of course, I come from the South where you’re bombarded by ‘Jesus love you’ pamphlets and well, stuff you wouldn’t believe! Guess I should try not to let that sway my opinions.
May 1st, 2007 at 11:06 pm
For the record, I abhor proselytizing of any kind, from any religion (I also hate trying to spell “proselytizing” - holy crap!)
Where I’m from in the states, we only get the occasional Jehovah’s Witness or Mormon - but no Jack Chick tracts or anything like that. Protestant New Englanders might be stuffy, but I prefer that to the Bible-thumpin’ south any day!
May 3rd, 2007 at 1:02 am
Oh man, I had to laugh when you said you had a hard time spelling that word, because I had to type it four times before I got it right!
June 3rd, 2007 at 4:48 pm
to nabil
why is it that a muslim county should have its political system in line with islamic laws?
would you also feel the same way if the USA and UK and other countries did not allow secularism and insisted on following their politics based in christianity?
and in that case should nt muslims not live, migrate earn their livings in countries like the uk , usa, france?