Islamism and Family Law Reform in Morocco and Jordan

Transcription

1 Mediterranean Politics ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: Islamism and Family Law Reform in Morocco and Jordan Janine A. Clark & Amy E. Young To cite this article: Janine A. Clark & Amy E. Young (2008) Islamism and Family Law Reform in Morocco and Jordan, Mediterranean Politics, 13:3, , DOI: / To link to this article: Published online: 31 Oct Submit your article to this journal Article views: 1318 View related articles Citing articles: 15 View citing articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

2 Mediterranean Politics, Vol. 13, No. 3, , November 2008 Islamism and Family Law Reform in Morocco and Jordan JANINE A. CLARK* & AMY E. YOUNG** *Associate Professor in Political Science, University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada, **Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Gettysburg College, Pennsylvania, USA ABSTRACT This article questions why Islamists approved family law reform in Morocco and not in Jordan. The answer entails three inter-related factors: the different relationships Islamists had with their respective monarchs; the strength of leftist parties and their ties to civil society; and how the respective reforms were presented by the two monarchs. This article contributes to a body of literature that argues, while not discounting ideology, that an understanding of Islamist parties requires an examination of the larger political context and Islamist responses to it. At first glance, Jordan and Morocco appear remarkably alike. Both are constitutional monarchies with young kings who have recently succeeded their powerful fathers, hold multi-party elections for the lower house in Parliament, have a majority Muslim population and have diplomatic relations with the United States and ties with Israel. Most importantly, both have influential Islamist movements and political parties. In Jordan, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) is a multi-faceted social movement. Its political party, the Islamic Action Front (IAF), has repeatedly won the largest number of seats of any party in national elections since Jordan reintroduced parliamentary elections in 1989 and dominates the opposition movement. 1 In Morocco, the Islamist Party of Justice and Development (PJD) has won an increasing number of seats in the last two legislative elections and also now dominates the opposition. Furthermore, both Islamist parties can be considered socially conservative. Islamists in Jordan have attempted to enforce sexual segregation within specific ministries, ban male hairdressers from female clientele and prevent men (including fathers) from watching girls sports. Morocco s PJD has expressed comparable concerns about public morality and the changing status and roles of women. Correspondence Addresses: Dr Janine A. Clark, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, College of Social and Applied Human Sciences, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada N1G 2W1. Janine.clark@sympatico.ca; jclark@uoguelph.ca; Dr Amy Elizabeth Young, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Gettysburg College, 300 North Washington Street, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, 17325, USA. ayoung@gettysburg.edu Print/ Online/08/ q 2008 Taylor & Francis DOI: /

3 334 J. A. Clark & A. E. Young Yet, despite these similarities, the PJD recently (2004) supported reform of Morocco s Family Code (FC) while the IAF voted against attempts in Jordan to reform the Personal Status Laws (PSL). Both initiatives addressed similar bodies of law those that delineate the rights and responsibilities of individuals within the family. Deepening the puzzle is the fact that, while the amendments to Jordan s PSL were relatively limited, the proposed revisions to Morocco s FC were vast. Yet the more extensive reform of laws of the two states was the one to pass. This difference struck us as an interesting point of comparison and contrast between Morocco and Jordan. Why did legislation succeed in one and fail in the other? Specifically, why did the PJD approve reform of the FC while the IAF did not approve the PSL reform? This article argues that the answer to this question lies in three inter-related factors: the different relationships the PJD and the IAF had at the time of the reforms with their respective monarchs; the strength of the two countries leftist parties, including their relations with women s non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and human rights organizations working in the field of legal reform; and the differing ways in which the respective reforms were introduced and/or defended by the two monarchs. In making this argument, this article situates itself within and contributes to a small but growing body of literature that essentially argues that Islamists are context-dependent. While ideology cannot be discounted, a full understanding of Islamist political parties requires an examination of the larger political context and how they accordingly respond to it. The Context-Dependent Nature of Moderate Islamism 2 To the knowledge of both authors, no study has been conducted comparing FC reform in Morocco and Jordan. Many of the scholars examining Morocco s FC reform (Buskens, 2003; Wuerth, 2005; Sadiqi and Ennaji, 2006) point to the monarch s decisive role in its passage. The deep legitimacy of the 700 year old monarchy and the constitutional role of the Moroccan monarch as Leader of the Faithful are seen as pivotal to the success of the legislation: when the King threw his weight behind the legislation, the parties fell into line and supported it. Although the centrality of the monarch is important, this line of reasoning is unsatisfactory for the case at hand. The King supported the FC in both 1999 and 2004, yet the PJD only accepted it in This leaves us with the same question: why did the PJD support reform in 2004 and not in 1999? On the other hand, the issue of the PSL in Jordan has been examined only in a very limited manner and then not in the context of why the legislation failed to pass in Parliament (Clark, 2006). This article also addresses this lacuna in the literature. Most significantly, the comparison of Morocco and Jordan allows the researchers to examine the grey zone between what have become two areas of deeply ingrained assumptions in much of the literature on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) today: the role and strength of the two monarchs on the one hand and the supposed ideological rigidity of the two Islamist parties on the other. With the introduction of political liberalization and limited democratization in several countries of the MENA in the early 1990s, a growing body of literature began examining the impact of political inclusion on Islamist movements

4 Islamism and Family Law Reform in Morocco and Jordan 335 (Salame, 1994; Schwedler, 2006). One of the primary questions pursued by these scholars is whether inclusion in the political system has moderated Islamists who form political parties and participate in elections (Schwedler, 2007). Jillian Schwedler (2006) found, for example, that Islamist political parties respond to political opportunity structures, such as the introduction of elections. Once having justified the establishment of political parties and their participation in elections actions deemed as unacceptable at one point due to the legitimacy they indirectly attribute to the secular regimes their participation requires further justifications. Similarly, Mona El-Ghobashy argues that the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood s participation in elections has resulted in the Brotherhood taking a more prodemocratic turn (El-Ghobashy, 2005: 374). These authors share the more nuanced view that Islamist actions are not entirely dictated by ideology but also are in response to contextual factors, which may even modify their ideology (Turam, 2004). While earlier work focused on the role of the state in this process, scholars more recently have begun examining the impact of other contextual factors. The majority of these scholars look at the interactions between Islamist parties and other parties, specifically in alliances and coalitions, and question the impact of these interactions upon Islamism (Abdelrahman, 2004, 2009; Wickham, 2004; Cavatorta, 2006; Clark, 2006, forthcoming; Schwedler, 2006; Schwedler and Clark, 2006; Browers, 2007a, 2007b). Others have begun to look at the impact of environmental and structural factors (Őniş and Keyman, 2003). Examining the Islamist trade union Hak-İş in Turkey, Burhanettin Duran and Engin Yildirim (2005) note that as a result of the union s decision to support entry into the European Union, Hak-İş (2005) has come to embrace democratic concepts and is playing a role in forcing a democratization of the Islamist movement as a whole. Ayşe Buğra (1998, 2002) compares Hak-İş with another Islamist association in Turkey and argues that the social projects they support are different as a result of their class differences. Still other scholars focus more upon the internal divisions within Islamist movements and parties, and how pressures from within can force leadership to change their positions (Clark and Schwedler 2005; Cavatorta, 2006). Cavatorta cites the example of the Moroccan Justice and Spirituality Organization (JSO), an extra-parliamentary Islamist movement that originally opposed the revisions to the FC and later reversed its position. He argues that the JSO abandoned its opposition in part due to pressure from within by female members (Cavatorta, 2006: ), and concludes: Islamist ideology is flexible when the political rewards are high (Cavatorta, 2006: 216). These authors raise larger issues regarding the adaptability of Islamists to internal and external factors and challenge the assumption that Islamist parties are bound in ideological straitjackets. This article situates itself within this larger literature and demonstrates the multiplicity of factors Islamist parties simultaneously take into account when situating themselves ideologically within the larger political arena. Historical Context On 23 October 2003, Morocco s King Mohammed VI (1999 ) opened the new session of Parliament with an astounding statement: his determination to enact a vast

5 336 J. A. Clark & A. E. Young reform of the FC. His proposed reforms included: strictly regulating polygamy; suppressing the requirement that all females contract their marriages through a male representative; allowing both women and men to initiate divorce for what one might call irreconcilable differences ; raising the minimum age of marriage to 18 for both sexes; declaring husbands and wives equal heads of household; and removing the requirement that wives obey their husbands. The media immediately heralded the proposal as revolutionary. The King s announcement was the culmination of a process that had begun in earnest in Although the Moroccan women s movement had existed in some form since Independence in 1956, it was not until the 1980s that activists began to focus primarily on FC reform. The Moroccan Constitution guaranteed equal citizenship for men and women; and, in 1993, Morocco ratified the UN Convention for the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), albeit with two major reservations where CEDAW conflicted with the FC. Activists claimed that the FC enforced the legal minority of women and argued that women could not be integrated into development programmes until these legal obstacles to their full citizenship were removed and their human rights guaranteed by a new FC. The women s rights movement s major push for reform began in 1992 with a successful campaign to obtain a million signatures on a petition to King Hassan II ( ) demanding that the FC be changed, led by one of the largest and bestknown national women s associations, the Women s Action Union (UAF) and a coalition of other women s associations, most of which had grown out of leftleaning political parties (see below). Their demands went largely unmet; however, the idea of a vast reform gained momentum and led directly to the socialist-led government s proposal, in 1999, of the Plan of Action for the Integration of Women in Development, which included and went beyond the FC reforms that have now been adopted. In March 2000, in reaction to the announcement of the Plan and also in celebration of International Women s Day, some 50,000 to 100,000 people marched in Rabat. At the same time, Islamist groups organized a larger march against the Plan estimates vary, but by most accounts it attracted 10 times the participants of the Rabat march, including many women. Government leaders and political parties stepped back from their support of the Plan, and the new King Mohammed VI (who had ascended the throne during this period, see below) demanded the formation of a diverse consultative commission to investigate and advise him on the possibilities of FC reform. After more than three years of missing successive deadlines, the commission comprising religious scholars, judges and civil society leaders, including several women ultimately found it impossible to reconcile the various opinions expressed and produced two separate reports of suggestions. In Mohammed VI s landmark speech to Parliament in October 2003, he chose the plan of reform, and within four months on 16 January 2004 Parliament had approved the reform; the Ministry of Justice implemented it on 5 February. Leaders of both Islamist groups, the PJD and JSO, 3 gave interviews voicing their support of the reform although they were at times careful to add (echoing women s rights activists) that the reform was merely a beginning and would mean nothing without

6 Islamism and Family Law Reform in Morocco and Jordan 337 a change in mentalities within Moroccan society as a whole. Female PJD leaders displayed similar scepticism regarding the FC s potential to change anything for women. 4 The PJD, as other parties, proposed amendments to individual articles before Parliament and abstained from voting on 21 of them (out of 400 total) but, in the end, the party participated in a unanimous vote in the lower house of Parliament approving the final version of the entire FC (La Gazette du Maroc, 9 February 2004). As in Morocco, Jordan s Parliament also dealt with its family code reform, the PSL, in However, in the case of Jordan, the elected lower house of Parliament voted for the second time against the PSL amendments. Having been passed by the appointed upper house and rejected twice by the lower house, the amendments now seem destined to await indefinitely a joint session of the two houses for a final vote to determine their fate. In the meantime, the amendments remain on the books as temporary laws. Jordanian women technically are guaranteed equality before the law. The Jordanian Constitution states that all men and women are equal, and Jordan has ratified several international conventions dealing with the equality of women, including CEDAW. However, as in Morocco, Jordan registered several reservations with regard to CEDAW, including those relating to marriage and divorce. Jordanian laws such as the PSL openly contradict the Constitution (Amawi, 2001: 131 6). Furthermore, as Brand (1998: 132) states, the few protections that are in the law for women are not respected (and see Sonbol, 2003: 183). As in the case of Morocco, women s activism with regard to the PSL began seriously in the early 1990s. 5 Following Jordan s political opening in 1989, a significant number of women s organizations began reviewing legislation, preparing suggestions for amendments to eliminate legal discrimination between the sexes and initiating workshops and campaigns aimed at changing the existing laws (Brand, 1998: 134). At the same time, the then Crown Prince Hassan assembled a committee which included women NGO representatives to examine the PSL. However, the resultant draft legislation did not reach Parliament. In 1996, the draft legislation was officially shelved and the government announced that a new draft law of the PSL would be produced; none was forthcoming (Brand, 1998: 149). Official efforts to address inequalities in the PSL did not occur again until after King Abdullah II took the throne in In March 2000, King Abdullah II established a Royal Commission for Human Rights (RCHR). Chaired by his wife, Queen Rania, the mandate of the RCHR was to review the status of human rights in Jordan in order to ensure compliance with international human rights conventions and to recommend any necessary legal changes. The eventual PSL amendments emerged as RCHR recommendations. On 13 December 2001, the amendments to the PSL were issued as royal decrees along with over 200 other temporary laws while Parliament was in suspension (June 2001 June 2003) (Al-Quds Al-Arabi, December 2001). Upon the renewal of Parliament after the 2003 elections, the three amendments were some of the first items the new Members of Parliament (MPs) were asked to vote upon. According to the amendments, the legal marriage age was raised from 15 and 16 to 18 years of age for girls and boys respectively, although judges may permit exceptions.

7 338 J. A. Clark & A. E. Young While maintaining polygamy, the amendments furthermore stipulated that shariah court judges must inform wives of any additional marriages entered into by their husbands thus removing any secrecy regarding second or other wives. The most controversial of the three was the khula amendment, which allows women divorce on demand (a right that men already have) with the stipulations that there be a 30 day period of attempted reconciliation, the woman return her dowry and that she waive all financial obligations listed in the marriage contract (Jordan Times, 21 February 2002; 2 May 2002). After heated debate, on 3 August 2003, MPs in the lower house voted overwhelmingly against the PSL amendments by a vote of 85 to 25 ( state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41724.htm). 6 In response, media columnists and human rights activists began a campaign of criticism condemning MPs for their hasty rejection (Jordan Times, 10 August 2003) and on 11 August approximately 200 women activists held a protest against the MPs and in support of the PSL amendments (Jordan Times, 10 August 2003; 11 August 2003). Most importantly, on 13 August, Princess Basma (aunt to King Abdullah II and sister to his father, King Hussein ) with four prominent women s NGOs launched the National Plan of Action (NPA) (Jordan Times, 14 August 2003). The NPA entailed three regional meetings during which Princess Basma met with political, religious and civil society leaders to explain the importance of the PSL amendments and listen to their objections. Princess Basma s lobbying efforts were matched by those of the King, who invited MPs to the palace for discussions, and by supportive MPs. On 25 August, the legal committee of the upper house once again passed the PSL and sent it back to the lower house (Al-Ra i, 26 August 2003). Reflecting MPs concerns, one alteration was made to the amendment the period of reconciliation was extended 60 days (Jordan Times, 29 August 2003; Al-Ra i, 29 August 2003; 2 September 2003; 8 September 2003). When the lower house met in mid-september, 53 out of the 85 MPs present approved the PSL upon the condition that it be sent to the legal committee of the lower house for review. Only 25 voted against the PSL (Clark, 2006: 549). Activists were confident that the PSL would pass, particularly when the legal committee endorsed the PSL (Jordan Times, 17 June 2004). However, when the PSL returned to the lower house on 27 June 2004, 44 out of the 83 MPs present voted against the amendments (Clark, 2006: 550). Success or Failure? Three Key Contextual Factors In both cases the respective monarchs supported reform each time it was presented to Parliament. Neither the political structure nor the role of the monarchy in either setting changed over the time period discussed above, thus not helping us understand the success or failure of reform in its respective society. Furthermore, in both cases, the language of reform was modified in order to appease Islamists, yet the PJD in Morocco accepted reform while the IAF in Jordan continued to oppose it. The following three sections delineate the inter-related factors we feel explain this difference.

8 Islamism and Family Law Reform in Morocco and Jordan 339 Divergent Relationships with the Monarchies As noted above, recent scholarship suggests that Islamists throughout the region modify their positions on issues in response to a variety of contextual factors. There is an often implicit assumption behind these assertions: that Islamists do so because it is in their best interest. Indeed, divergent domestic responses to regional events and internal events themselves contributed to very different strategic landscapes for the PJD and IAF. Islamists in Morocco developed a cooperative stance with the monarchy, while Islamists in Jordan developed a combative one. The enthronement of Mohammed VI in 1999 was an exciting event for Moroccans. Although beloved and respected to a great degree, his father, Hassan II, had been a brutal monarch, surviving two coup d état attempts and ruling thereafter with an iron fist. The years of lead had seen the imprisonment, torture and/or disappearance of tens of thousands of members of the political opposition up until the early 1990s, when a new constitution and a programme of alternance indicated that Hassan II was prepared to tolerate opposition and change (Brand, 1998). Alternance refers to a shift away from nationalist party dominance in 1998, when the socialist opposition was sworn into government for the first time and the prime minister was selected from the leading opposition party, the Socialist Union of Popular Forces (USFP) (Khatibi, 1998). Also during this time, the PJD was granted legal status as a political party and ran in the legislative election for the first time in 2002, coming in third place with 42 out of 325 seats in Parliament and dominating the new opposition. These two political factions, which Hassan II had alternately encouraged and repressed beginning in the 1970s in an attempt to play them off against each other (Lamchichi, 1997), were now both legitimate players in the political system. As Mohammed VI took the throne, he attempted to make it clear that he would be a different ruler from his father. He liberated more than 46,000 prisoners, cut the expenses of the monarchy, rid himself of his father s most controversial advisors, and planned for elections all powerful, if mostly symbolic, gestures (Maghraoui, 2001). Many of these newly released political prisoners were from the Islamist groups Hassan II had considered enemies, including JSO leader Sheikh Abdessalam Yassine. The spring 2000 Islamist march in opposition to the Plan of Action was a reminder that the Islamists had become a powerful political and social force; and, although the PJD is moderate and explicitly pro-monarchy, the JSO leadership disapproves of the monarchy as an institution and the monarch s role as Leader of the Faithful, which it claims is un-islamic (Buskens, 2003). In the months leading up to the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003 a sore point for Moroccans, who had overwhelmingly supported Iraq in the previous Gulf War it appeared that the PJD was gaining increasing support and would likely win a landslide victory in the upcoming municipal elections planned for the spring of Mohammed VI postponed the elections until autumn All of this changed on 16 May 2003, with terrorist attacks in Casablanca in which 33 died (as well as 12 suicide bombers) and over 100 were wounded. Moroccans poured into the streets for No to Terrorism! marches that sometimes numbered as

9 340 J. A. Clark & A. E. Young many as a million people. The left-leaning press and public opinion, albeit temporarily, took a decided turn against the Islamists or even anyone who appeared to be very religious. The government reacted similarly: rounding up thousands of Islamist leaders and ideologues who it considered to be extreme; convicting 27 people of terrorism-related charges and sentencing to death four participants in planning the attacks; and directing the Ministry of Islamic Affairs and Religious Foundations to bring all mosques under its control, including oversight of mosque activities and the production of Friday sermons. An anti-terrorism law granting the government powers to override civil liberties was passed soon after in All of this activity met with the approval of many leftists and civil society activists, including some prominent human rights activists. PJD critics used the opportunity to call outright in the press for its dismantling. The PJD immediately became conciliatory, voluntarily cancelling most of its plans to run in upcoming elections, publicly denouncing terrorism and religious extremism and underlining its support of the monarchy and democracy despite the fact that it had nothing to do with the Casablanca attacks. 7 The elections took place in September of that year, and, although they gained a great number of important municipal seats most significantly in Marrakesh, Tangier and Casablanca the PJD victory was much less than had been anticipated prior to the attacks. Immediately thereafter, in October, Mohammed VI announced his intention to reform the FC. It is clear that this timing was crucial for the success of FC reform. Although there are other factors, as will be explored below, the Islamist support for the 2004 reform must be seen in light of its temporary, but significant, weakness in public opinion and on the political scene. The ascension of Jordan s King Abdullah II to the throne shared some of the features described above for Mohammed VI. Abdullah II also came to the throne in 1999 amid a degree of trepidation and high hopes for reform. The young king was relatively unknown to the Jordanian public, as, until shortly before King Hussein s death, Prince Hassan (King Hussein s brother and King Abdullah II s uncle) had been designated as Crown Prince and successor to King Hussein. King Abdullah strove to create an image of youth, reform and political and economic rejuvenation. Within a relatively short period of time (2001), he launched a new socio-economic programme aimed at reducing unemployment and poverty and at improving the quality of life of Jordanians generally. As Scott Greenwood (2003: 94 5) states, a correlate of the new socioeconomic plan was a series of government actions designed to improve the political status of Jordanian women. If the Jordanian public had any hopes that the enthronement of the new king would lead to greater democratization, however, these were soon dashed. King Abdullah II inherited a tense political situation with the streets of Jordan experiencing the largest protests since the introduction of political liberalization in Beginning in 1994 with King Hussein s signing of the peace treaty between Israel and Jordan, massive protests bound leftists, centrists and Islamists together in opposition to the normalization of relations with Israel (Scham and Lucas, 2001; Kornbluth, 2002; Lynch, 2002; Schwedler, 2005; Clark, 2006). In response, King Hussein rolled back political liberties. Restrictions on the media, mosques and

10 Islamism and Family Law Reform in Morocco and Jordan 341 public gatherings were imposed. Indeed, the electoral laws were amended as early as 1993 in order to ensure the dominance of the rural tribal independents loyal to the regime in Parliament (at the expense of urban-based political parties, particularly the IAF) and, consequently, the passage of the peace treaty (Ryan, 2002: 27 8). By the time King Abdullah II came to power, the opposition had expanded its protests to include the regime s authoritarian measures. Within this heated atmosphere, the King postponed the 2001 elections and suspended Parliament. King Abdullah II has taken a far less accommodating approach towards the opposition than his father King Hussein did (see below). Increasingly viewing Jordan s Islamists as security threats, he is particularly less tolerant of Islamist opposition. Unlike the situation in Morocco, where the Casablanca bombings essentially placed the country s Islamists on the defensive, Jordan s Islamists re-entered Parliament in 2003 with the largest number of seats won by any political party (17 out of 110), stronger relations than ever before with other opposition parties with whom they shared the same frustration and anger at the King s policies, and with the full support of other MPs at least in terms of the growing authoritarianism in the Kingdom. Even prior to the vote, many activists felt that the khula amendment, along with other amendments regarding women, would be sacrificed in an effort to strike back at the King. 8 This difference between the two political contexts in Morocco and Jordan is crucial to understanding the parties strategic interests towards reform. Strength of Leftist Political Parties and Civil Society The second variable is the relationship between various leftist political parties and civil society in Morocco and Jordan. King Mohammed VI advocated for reform with the support of mostly left-leaning political parties in conjunction with women s associations and human rights activists. This critical coalition was lacking in Jordan. To the contrary, Jordanian Islamists enjoyed an alliance with the tribal MPs against reform. One of the driving forces of reform in Morocco was the leftist political parties, working in close political and ideological connection to the women s rights movement and larger human rights community. Leftist politics became a threat to the regime almost immediately after independence from France in In the 1960s and 1970s, the Left was brutally suppressed by Hassan II. Many of today s leftist party leaders gained renown as political prisoners who later spoke out against the years of lead and were directly involved in the founding of human rights organizations (Slyomovics, 2005). Hassan II s policy of alternance brought the leftist parties out of their opposition role and into the government in These parties saw great success in the 2002 legislative election, with the USFP gaining the highest number of seats in Parliament (55 out of 325) and its close ally the Party of Progress and Socialism (PPS) gaining 13 seats. The USFP formed a coalition with other leftist and former royalist parties as well as the nationalist Independence Party (PI, which had won 52 seats), dwarfing the opposition led by the PJD with 46 seats.

11 342 J. A. Clark & A. E. Young For numerous scholars (Buskens, 2003; Young, 2005; Sadiqi and Ennaji, 2006), women s rights associations have played a major role in the development of Moroccan civil society; and, with their close interrelationship with increasingly powerful human rights organizations and leftist political parties, they have made FC reform a major goal of civil society and leftist politics more generally. Several of the most politically powerful women s rights associations such as the UAF, the Moroccan Association of Women s Rights (ADFM) and the Democratic League of Women s Rights grew out of women s cells established within major political parties on the left the Democratic Popular Action Front, the PPS and the Avant- Garde Social Democratic Party, respectively beginning in the 1970s and 1980s, as women party activists realized that their work was not leading to equality with their male colleagues and that the parties were not prioritizing women s issues in their agendas. These and other associations with leftist politics have held the leadership of the women s rights movement ever since, dominating the lobbying efforts for FC reform and communicating with transnational feminist NGOs and funding agencies (Daoud, 1996). These associations were joined by others becoming disassociated from their political parties, as well as newly formed, independent and more grassroots associations. Associational work included legal aid for women and literacy and job training, among other things; but all of these projects came to be suffused with the ultimate goal of FC reform. The movement developed increasingly sophisticated lobbying and media techniques to force a conversation about the need for FC reform. The major push for reform in 1993, although a disappointment, showed Moroccans that the FC was not sacred and thus represented a major victory for the movement (Brand, 1998). In the 1990s, with heightened international and internal scrutiny of Hassan II s human rights record, the nascent human rights movement took off and associations were able to push Hassan II to make concessions in order to observe international human rights standards (Tessler, 1997; Waltz, 1997). In 1979, the USFP formed the Moroccan Association for Human Rights, followed by the founding of the Moroccan Human Rights Organization in The latter groups intended to be broader-based and more grassroots than an earlier association founded by the PI, but they continued to be caught up in leftist party politics until more recently (Jamai cited in Dwyer, 19910: 163). As the women s rights movement became increasingly allied with these powerful organizations in recent years, calling for FC reform in order to guarantee women s human rights, human rights activists have, likewise, increasingly called for FC reform as a major component of a new human rights regime for Morocco (Buskens, 2003). Thus, one could describe the left-leaning political parties, women s rights movement and human rights movement as three branches of the same family they have intermarried to some degree with the opposition parties of the centre-left, such as PI, 9 but not at all with the Islamist PJD. The leftist parties have provided the political support necessary for the success of civil society agendas around FC reform. Toward the end of Hassan II s reign and as Mohammed VI took the throne, activists from all three communities became major political players. For example,

12 Islamism and Family Law Reform in Morocco and Jordan 343 Nouzha Sqalli, former president of the women s association ADFM and active member of the leftist PPS, is now a MP. Because of a temporary quota system in the 2002 legislative elections, over 10 per cent of Parliament s seats are held by women, and many of them come from these three communities as well. These individuals have carried the ideology of FC reform into the highest levels of government, while increasingly grassroots associations have taught this ideology to the public and infused it into other programmes, such as literacy education (Young, 2005). While in Morocco the leftists have a strong presence in Parliament and work in conjunction with women s NGOs and human rights NGOs, this clearly is not the situation in Jordan. Most striking in Jordan is the absence of leftist and nationalist parties in Parliament. Despite their long history in Jordan, their ability to bring thousands to the streets in demonstrations throughout the 1950s and their dominant presence in the professional associations elections during martial law ( ), this is no longer the case today. The research centre Al-Urdun al-jadid s Directory of Civil Society Organizations lists eight nationalist parties and five leftist parties of the 33 parties included in the Directory (Kassim, 2006: ). Most of these parties are extremely small. Indeed, in the 2003 elections, only nine of Jordan s 31 existing parties at the time fielded candidates (64 candidates in total) (Hourani et al., 2004: 114). Of these nine parties, five won seats in Parliament and only one of these is leftist in orientation, the Jordanian Democratic Leftist Party (ibid.: 115). In total, only two out of the 110 seats in Jordan s elected lower house were held by leftist political parties. In their stead, the Parliament s seats are occupied by two dominant groups. The first are tribal independents or tribally based parties (such as the National Constitutional Party) and the second are the Islamists. Seventy-seven out of the 110 seats in the Parliament were held by independents, most of whom are proregime, largely tribal Figures (ibid.). Of the 33 seats that were held by political parties, 17 were held by the IAF. The strength of these two groups and the weakness of leftists and nationalists has several roots, not the least of which is that, in order to maintain its legitimacy and stability, the state has long privileged tribal groups 10 over Palestinians on the one hand and the MB over the leftists and nationalists on the other (Boulby, 1999; Schwedler, 2006). The Jordanian monarchy historically has relied on an unwritten policy of preferentially recruiting Jordanians of Jordanian descent (the tribes) into influential positions in the state while discriminating against Jordanians of Palestinian origin. Today, this strategy continues to be reflected in electoral laws that are gerrymandered in favour of rural tribal candidates and against urban areas and ideologically based political parties. 11 Similarly, while leftists and nationalists were being forced underground or abroad, the MB was the only political organization allowed to operate openly throughout Jordan s long period of martial law. During that time, it established numerous institutions, such as the Islamic Centre Charity Society (ICCS). In return for their loyalty to the regime and their eschewing of violence, Muslim Brothers were rewarded with ministerial positions. By early 1990s, the ICCS had its own school system, hospital, medical clinics, orphanages and other services throughout the country. As a result, the MB had a significant advantage over the nationalists and leftists deep societal roots that it

13 344 J. A. Clark & A. E. Young was easily able to translate into votes, a well-established infrastructure and significant monetary funds. In contrast, leftists and nationalists were weakened by a lack of infrastructure, finances and a population that feared political involvement. Today, leftist and nationalist parties in Jordan remain highly weakened and divided and little new blood appears to be entering their ranks. While political parties were illegal under Jordan s martial law, close ties developed between leftist parties and the underground women s organizations as well as some of the legal NGOs that eventually were allowed to establish. Women also participated in the illegal parties themselves, usually forming women s sectors or committees. These ties have been maintained to a certain extent. Today, however, relatively few women s NGOs are politically oriented, due to two major factors. First, Law 33 of 1966 regulates all NGOs by greatly restricting their formation and activities and forcing them to submit licence applications and detailed reports for all activities. The second factor is the creation of royal NGOs (RONGOs) and semigovernmental NGOs. Established by a member of the royal family or by the government, respectively, both organizations have a moderating and homogenizing effect on the agenda and activities of women s organizations (Brand, 1998: ; Hermann, 2000: 93 8). RONGOs, by virtue of their royal patronage, funding and size, often dominate donor money and, as a result, the agenda. Other critics single out the umbrella structure of many semi-governmental NGOs, such as the Jordanian Federation of Women. As women s NGOs are legally required to register with the Federation, this structure provides the government an indirect form of control over the activities of other NGOs (Sonbol, 2003: 236). Unlike Morocco, women activists furthermore were not aided by the establishment (2003) of a quota of seats for women in Parliament. The quota grants six seats to the women who win the greatest percentage of votes in their respective electoral districts. Given that the quota is based on a biased distribution of seats, the female MPs were bound to come from rural, socially conservative tribal areas and not from Amman where Jordan s most educated and politically active women are located. Of the six women who came to the 2003 Parliament due to the quota, five are from rural areas (some of whom were put forward by their tribes to take advantage of the quota) and the sixth is from the city of Zarka Hayat Musimi of the IAF. In private and public interviews Musimi opposed the PSL and particularly khula, questioning women s need for divorce on demand. 12 Unlike Morocco, where Islamists face formidable opposition from leftist forces in Parliament, backed by NGOs on the streets, Islamists in Jordan face no such opposition. Rather, the IAF found an alliance (albeit a highly unusual and unpredictable one) with the tribal MPs over the PSL amendments. While each had different reasons for opposing the PSL, the two socially conservative groups found common cause. Nature of Monarchical Support and Presentation of Reforms The third variable that is crucial to consider in regard to our puzzle is the wording and rationale of the proposed legislation. In both cases, the wording was intended to

14 Islamism and Family Law Reform in Morocco and Jordan 345 make the proposals more amenable to Islamists, but there were clear differences in the language and rationales behind them. In Morocco, the King, legitimated by his position as Leader of the Faithful, 13 rooted his reform proposals in religious sources thus significantly contributing towards the acceptability of the reform to Islamists. In Jordan, the King pushed for the reforms based on arguments of equality and women s rights, similar to the justifications used in Morocco s 1999 Plan of Action that had provoked Islamist opposition. Asked why Morocco s Islamists rejected this plan, Nadia Yassine, the spokesperson for her father s Islamist organization, the JSO, responded that they had rejected the form, less the content: We oppose the fact that this plan is dictated by the World Bank and other ill-intentioned Western institutions ( nadiayassine.net/en/page/10297.htm, consulted January 2008). The document was a vast plan to reform the FC and labour, penal and employment laws concerning women and to establish social programmes promoting literacy, education and employment. The PJD and JSO opposed it because of the logistical support it received from funders such as the World Bank; their belief that religious scholars had not been consulted; and the dominance of the socialist government and women s organizations in developing the Plan without input from other groups. PJD leaders also noted that it referenced international human rights and women s rights documents, such as CEDAW, and would lead to the unrestrained westernization of Moroccan society (La Gazette du Maroc, 1 September 1999). As previously noted, prominent Islamists spoke to the press in support of Mohammed VI s 2003 speech calling for reform, and Islamist MPs played a role in shaping this speech into a viable proposal for reform that they could accept. Mustapha El-Khalfi, a PJD leader, explained that there were two reasons for support of the 2004 reform as opposed to the 1999 Plan. 14 First, the PJD felt that the 2004 reform was the result of a more democratic process including years of working through the Consultative Commission and then discussion and voting in Parliament than the 1999 Plan, which was presented by the leading political party and its prime minister without any discussion. Second, and more importantly for the PJD, the 2003 speech and 2004 reform were worded in religious language without specific reference to CEDAW or other international rights documents. The King s unique authority as Leader of the Faithful qualified him to make reforms to the FC, but he was careful to state in his speech, I cannot forbid what God has allowed nor allow what God has forbidden, and to make reforms that did not conflict with Qur anic provisions. For example, he did not forbid polygamy outright but rather made it subject to a host of bureaucratic obstacles and consequently difficult though not impossible to practise. He skirted around the issue of inheritance, as it is clearly outlined in the Qur an, and instead focused the most significant reforms on more ambiguous provisions, always careful to cite the example of the Prophet Mohammed or the wisdom of classical jurists. Because of this approach, a FC was produced in 2004 that both Islamists and feminists could claim as a victory for their respective positions. The example of the wilaya provision shows how this came to be. Marriage for Muslims is a civil contract signed by the two spouses or their representatives. The previous FC required that

15 346 J. A. Clark & A. E. Young a female contract her marriage through a male representative, her wali, usually a close male relative. A male, by contrast, could contract his own marriage beginning at the age of 15. This was an infuriating inequality for women s rights activists and gave too much power to the wali; it is widely supported by Moroccans, however, as a cultural expression of the super-privilege of a father over his family and a protection of females (Mounir, 2005). In his 2003 speech, the King expressed his desire to allow a female to choose to contract her own marriage. During the parliamentary process to develop the new FC, the Justice and Development Group (led by the PJD) proposed an amendment stating that a woman may delegate to her father or one of her close relatives the right to conclude her marriage. This compromise led to the final version that more explicitly stated a woman s choice that she may conclude her marriage contract herself or delegate this power to her father or one of her relatives. According to Mustapha El-Khalfi, the PJD had to be satisfied with the end result because it represented a middle way between the Plan of Action, which would have abolished the wilaya outright, and the special status of the wilaya that the 2004 reform preserves in some form. 15 For women s rights activists and their supporters, by the same token, this wording represents a significant victory because it erases at least rhetorically the inequality at the basis of the wilaya provision and provides a starting point for change. And, not insignificantly, the Moroccan state can present itself to aid donors and foreign governments as a modern state that ensures equality between men and women. This situation was only possible because of the King s special ability to reform the FC, his decision to justify every reform with religious texts, and the PJD s willingness to accept the middle way. In contrast to the King of Morocco, the King of Jordan is not Leader of the Faithful. While the Jordanian monarchy in part justifies its rule through its religious heritage, tracing the Hashemite family back to that of Mohammed, the King has no role as spiritual head. Furthermore, the raison d être for the PSL amendment was the incongruence between Jordanian laws and international conventions regarding the rights of women. The PSL amendments were introduced within a larger discourse regarding international human rights, and the King was viewed as supporting the amendments based on these grounds. While the Senate did respond to religious considerations raised during the NPA, the PSL amendments were part and parcel of a series of larger attempts at political and economic reform, all of which have at their core greater Jordanian integration into international institutions or norms and values. The PSL amendments, backed by the King, the National Centre for Human Rights, human rights and women activists, aimed to grant equal rights of citizenry as defined by standards set by the international, largely Western, community (Al-Ra i, 4 August 2003; Jordan Times, 11 January 2005]. Indeed, the NPA discussions were geared towards demonstrating that khula was necessary for Jordan s development and progress (Jordan Times, 14 August 2003). Princess Basma stressed the need to grant women rights and obligations as citizens, to empower women and to increase their participation in public life (ibid.). Similarly, protesters against the MPs

16 Islamism and Family Law Reform in Morocco and Jordan 347 rejection of the PSL aimed to show the importance of khula to women s status (Jordan Times, 10 August 2003) and argued that they wanted the basic rights of being free (Albawaba.com, posted 10 August 2003). In contrast to arguments regarding citizenry, empowerment and development, IAF and tribal MPs spoke in terms of Jordanian norms and values and religious practice and law. Their objections revolved around the amendments negative effect upon the family and society and the fact that the amendments presumably were un-islamic. The latter debates were the most heated. MPs arguments that the khula amendment would lead to the break-up of families and the moral breakdown of Jordanian society reflected strongly gendered and patriarchal conceptions of women but also belief that these gendered norms and values are fundamental to Jordanian morality, society and identity (Jordan Times, 29 August 2003). 16 Hamzeh Mansour, the then Secretary General of IAF, argued that families would be too vulnerable to the rash decisions of women (Clark, 2006: 552). Independent MP Mahmoud Kharabsheh agreed: Allowing women the right to initiate divorce is against Islamic Sharia and would only lead to the destruction of the family (Jordan Times, 11 August 2003). Similarly, IAF member Mohammed Abu Fares objected that the khula gives women the right to divorce their husbands to pursue affairs with other men they like better than their husbands (Jordan Times, 28 June 2004). Indeed, MPs complained that the khula encourages women to rebel against their husbands (Al-Hayat, 6 August 2003). Similarly, female IAF MP Musimi predicted the collapse of hundreds of families should the amendments pass (Clark, 2006: 552). In response to the first rejection of the PSL reform, Kharabsheh said: If it was up to me, women would be at home raising their children (Jordan Times, 4 August 2003). MPs objections to the other PSL amendments were similar to those against khula. In terms of raising the age of marriage, MPs argued that it would encourage immorality (Jordan Times, 28 June 2004) and promote low morals in society (Jordan Times, 4 August 2003). Another said that delaying marriage harms the Islamic society and since males and females reach puberty at an earlier age than Western countries early marriage should not be discouraged (Jordan Times, 28 June 2004). In terms of the amendment regarding polygamous marriages, MPs defended the rights of men. As MP Mohammed Bani Hani argued, no judge has the right to inform a wife of her husband s decision to remarry should the husband decide to keep it a secret, charging that secrecy is needed for a while until the right time comes for the husband to tell his wife that he got married to another (Jordan Times, 28 June 2004). In addition to arguing that women have all the divorce rights they need under Islam, 17 MPs further argued that the khula amendment was not according to shariah (Al-Ra i, 11 August 2003; 4 August 2003). 18 While Jordanian newspapers ran numerous articles on the different interpretations of khula, the debate over whether the khula amendment was Islamically correct essentially boiled down to two interpretations of a crucial hadith (a story concerning what the Prophet Mohammed said and did during his lifetime) regarding a woman who requested that the Prophet grant her a divorce: the IAF s versus Sheikh Tamimi s, Chief Islamic Justice and legal advisor to the King. At issue was the role of the judge in the divorce