VU Research Portal Morocco and the Netherlands Fritschy, W.; Bos, P. 2006 document version Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Link to publication in VU Research Portal citation for published version (APA) Fritschy, W., & Bos, P. (2006). Morocco and the Netherlands. General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. E-mail address: [email protected] Download date: 02. Oct. 2021 opm marokko 3 20-06-2006 15:14 Pagina 1 MOROCCO AND THE NETHERLANDS opm marokko 3 20-06-2006 15:14 Pagina 2 opm marokko 3 20-06-2006 15:14 Pagina 3 Morocco and the Netherlands Society, Economy, Culture Petra Bos and Wantje Fritschy (eds.) VU University Press, Amsterdam opm marokko 3 20-06-2006 15:14 Pagina 4 © 2006 The authors and VU University Press,Amsterdam VU University Press is an imprint of VU Boekhandel/Uitgeverij bv De Boelelaan 1105 1081 HV Amsterdam The Netherlands www.vu-uitgeverij.nl e-mail: [email protected] ISBN 90 5383 9801 NUR 697 Photo cover: Koen Verheijden/Hollandse Hoogte Cover design and type setting: Marius Brouwer, Haarlem All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written consent of the publisher. opm marokko 3 20-06-2006 15:14 Pagina 5 CONTENTS Introduction 7 Petra Bos and Wantje Fritschy Part I. Tradition and modernity in Morocco and the Netherlands 1. Tradition et modernité au Maroc, passé et présent 17 Zakya Daoud 2. Modernity and tradition in Morocco and the Netherlands.A comparison 24 Herman Obdeijn Part II. Society 3. Managing religious affairs in Morocco 33 Abdelhamid Lotfi 4. Islamic theology at the Vrije Universiteit 44 Hendrik M.Vroom 5. Ijtihad and Moroccan family law 55 Frans van der Velden 6. Ijtihad et le droit de la famille marocain 67 Mohamed Azzine 7. Local government and Morocco’s political and administrative transition 73 Arne Musch 8. Abdelkrim and the struggle for the past 80 Mustapha El Qadéry Part III. Economy and migration 9. Morocco and the European Union: the economics of association 91 Hans Visser 10. The ‘Barcelona Process’: ten years later 102 Omar Aloui and Saad Belghazi 11. Morocco, the state and illegal practices 113 Hans van der Veen 12. The social and cultural impact of emigration on Moroccan communities: a review 124 Hein de Haas 13. The three ages of international migration from the Maghreb to France and Europe 138 Mohammed Boudoudou opm marokko 3 20-06-2006 15:14 Pagina 6 Part IV. Youth 14. ‘For Allah and myself’ 146 Edien Bartels and Martijn de Koning 15. The meaning of Moroccan Websites: a new social space 156 Lenie Brouwer 16. Perceptions of Islam among highly educated Muslims in Flanders 163 Els Vanderwaeren 17. Jeunes immigrés de culture musulmane en Hollande entre traditionalisme et modernité 171 Anas Talbi 18. Gender identity in a high school in the North of Morocco: resistance 177 to hshouma culture Rachid Touhtouh 19. Youth in the postmodern condition and the ideology of resentment 188 Zakaria Zakri Part V. Culture 20. Une captive hollandaise au Maroc entre tradition et modernité 195 Ouafaâ El Mesmoudi 21. Moroccan writers in the Netherlands 200 Marianne Hermans 22. Language, identity, and the impact of globalization in Morocco 208 Moha Ennaji 23. L’architecture dans la zone de tension entre tradition et modernité 217 Hanane Bouchtalla 24. A feminist view of the architecture of the medina of Fes 221 Fatima Sadiqi 25. L’évolution de l’habitat et des modes de vie à Casablanca 226 Monique Eleb Bibliography 237 List of authors 249 opm marokko 3 20-06-2006 15:14 Pagina 7 P. Bos and W. Fritschy Introduction1 his book on aspects of society, economy and culture in Morocco and the T Netherlands focuses on the tension between tradition and modernity. Nowadays the old opposition between ‘tradition’ and ‘modernity’ seems to have been replaced by an uneasy co-existence between ‘fundamentalism’ and ‘post-modernism’. In contrast to ‘tradition’ and ‘modernity’, however, both ‘fundamentalism’ and ‘post-modernism’ seem to reside mainly in a virtual world. Radical fundamentalism is primarily located in the world of international Internet contacts. It seeks to conquer the minds of an uprooted generation of young Muslims without affinity to the states from which their parents migrated.2 Yet another target are young people who cannot feel loyalty towards states that are unable to offer jobs and political influence to a young generation. Radical fundamentalism is characterized by a lack of ties to historical developments and specific cultures. It believes in a worldwide umma or ‘community of believers’, to be governed by ancient Islamic laws. It denies historical developments and the need to adapt laws to new situations.3 Extreme funda- mentalism only seems prepared to enter the real world of politics to engage in acts of violence, with no regard for the reality of human suffering. The main characteristic of post-modernism is a complete loss of belief in historical reality and the relevance and possibility of historical knowledge. Radical post-moder- nism postulates a virtual world consisting only of stories about reality. It has no other ‘message’ for young people than its analysis of ‘differends’,4 situations of irresolvable con- flict arising from the lack of universal frames of reference. It no longer seems to believe in the possibility of making the real world a better place for humanity.The core of both radical fundamentalism and radical post-modernism seems to be a conscious denial of the interconnectedness of human historical reality. Morocco and the Netherlands have been confronted with the reality of human inter- connectedness since the 1960s, when a conscious policy of ‘globalizing’ labour mobility was set in motion. The two countries, which had been loosely connected during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by trade flows and treaties and conflicts concerning trade, corsairs and captives, and during the nineteenth century by reports from Dutch tra- 1 We would like to thank Taalcentrum-VU in Amsterdam for their insightful and often quite intensive revision of all English and French contributions by non-native speakers. 2 Kepel (2004) ‘Introduction’ and Ch. 3. 3 Roy (2002) Ch. 6 and 7, esp. p. 142. See also the contributions to this book by Azzine and Van der Velden on the subject of ‘ijtihad’. 4 Lyotard (1988); see also Zakri’s contribution to this book. 7 opm marokko 3 20-06-2006 15:14 Pagina 8 vellers, writers and painters,5 now became interconnected in a much deeper way. In the wake of this labour-immigration policy, which lasted less than a decade, the Netherlands had to adapt its cities to the reality of tens of thousands of Moroccan immigrants, main- ly originating from the countryside of Morocco’s northern Rif region, whose religion and cultural habits were very different from the (non-)religious attitudes and values of its own urban society.The migration of Moroccans to the Netherlands helped relieve the acute demographic pressure in a country characterized by political tension and a lack of sufficient employment opportunities. At the same time it eased the Netherlands’ transi- tion from an industrial to a service economy during the 1960s and 1970s. It took some time before both Dutch society and the migrants themselves became aware that they would not be returning with a suitcase full of money to build a new life in Morocco once the economic transition of Dutch society had been completed and the jobs they had been asked to fulfil in the Netherlands began to disappear. Conditions in Morocco had not changed enough in the meantime to make return and investment very attractive, although many migrants continued to buy or build houses in Morocco, clin- ging to the idea of being able to return one day. Despite increasing unemployment, ill- nesses due to homesickness and growing tensions within Dutch society, life and pros- pects for their children still seemed so much better in the Netherlands than in Morocco that migrants sought to help as many friends and relatives as possible to escape from the conditions of life in Morocco.This is hardly surprising, as even now the average natio- nal income per head in Morocco is only 14% of that in the Netherlands.6 In the mean- time local Dutch society began to realize the historical reality of the emergence of what has now come to be known as ‘European Islam’.7 Since the second half of the 1970s, Dutch policy has drifted between attempts to uphold human values by allowing ‘family reunion’ and the building of mosques, and attempts to put a stop to immigration for economic reasons. Recently this drifting policy has come to be replaced by panic-stricken measures to restrict immigration much more fiercely, and to artificially intensify the ‘integration’ of migrants into Dutch society.The visibility of mosques and the wearing of the Muslim headscarf came to be openly criticized by some people.This was due to the change in the political climate after ‘9/11’ - the terrorist attacks by Muslim fundamentalists on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington - but even more to two subsequent events within the Netherlands which had a major impact on Dutch society.