Persecution and Freedom: My Position On The Expulsions

These past few months, I've posted a great deal on the waves of expulsions of foreign Christians from Morocco. So I thought I had articulated my own view pretty well. But a conversation I had while back in the United States made me realize that perhaps I hadn't.

Morocco is it's own country and can make it's own laws. We shouldn't expect them to be a Western country because they're not. And Americans who come here should be prepared to face the consequences for breaking those laws. If they proselytize, then they must be prepared to be fined, imprisoned, or expelled.

What's more, I think the evangelical Christian missionaries who were here were aware of that tradeoff. They believed that any eternal award would trump whatever punishment in this life they might receive. So they thought it was worth it, and they willingly paid the price.

In my coverage here, I commented very little on those run-of-the-mill evangelical missionaries. I focused instead on the Village of Hope, on the expelled Arab Catholic priest, and on anti-Christian vandalism.

The Village of Hope had existed openly and legally for over a decade without any problems. Closing them down and closing them down so suddenly had a humanitarian cost. Children who had been with loving foster parents for a decade were stripped from their erstwhile parents forever without even a semblance of due process.

The Catholic priest was also taken, held, and expelled under suspicious circumstances despite Catholics' longstanding and explicit foreswearing of proselytization. The Vatican, unlike any evangelical church, is technically also its own state, and so it has to deal with diplomatic damage if its representatives get in trouble with another state. As a result, they must tread very carefully, knowing that missteps can result in Christians being persecuted or killed in the Muslim world. The fact that the only Catholic priest expelled was of Egyptian descent was also suspect because his existence challenges a commonly shared view of Arab as Muslim. In both cases, lies and misleading statements were given by Moroccan authorities, and the accused had no opportunity to challenge the rulings. A clear explanation and justification of the actions was NEVER given. More bothersome to me, there was little to no investigative coverage of the events by the Moroccan or foreign press, with certain notable exceptions. Injustices will happen; the public should at least have a chance to know about them.

So I focused on these issues because I found them most unfair and underreported GIVEN current Moroccan law and practice.

Morocco is free to determine its own laws and enforce them as it sees fit. But I think we can demand a consistent, honest enforcement of those laws. And that's what I was trying to do.


That being said, I think there is more we can say about traditionally Muslim countries entering a globalized modernity.

On a philosophical note, humans fare very poorly when given freedom. We tend to make poor choices unless we have a strong moral core (for a literary exploration of this topic, see Jonathan Franzen's new novel "Freedom" or just read this week's Time's article on Franzen). As a result, many Moroccans have no problem with censorship and restricted rights that would bother Westerners. They say, "Does more freedom make us better people or a better society?" I'm not sure the answer is clear-cut.

I'm a Westerner, but I'm also a Christian. So I understand what they're getting at. I appreciate our freedoms, but at the same time, I realize that we can't agree on any real set of shared values anymore. That polarizes our political debates and forces us to default to freedom as our utmost value--we don't agree but we're free to disagree and do what we want. In more traditional cultures, there was a more agreed upon view of what human flourishing was and a view of what the state's role was in punishing divergence from that norm. In Morocco, following Islam is part of that norm and divergence from it is not protected. I may not agree with Islam, but I understand the principle. And I also understand the consequences. Despite all its changes, Morocco is still a more homogeneous society than pretty much any Western country. There is a common set of beliefs, allusions, references and norms that everyone knows and follows (or that everyone knows they should follow). And there's value in that sort of homogenization, I think: a shared identity, a sense of belonging, a common moral core.

At the same time, Moroccans are now living in a post-colonial, globalized, technologically-connected world. These days, viewpoints, beliefs, and practices pass very fluidly from culture to culture. And it's impossible to stop. So a Moroccan kid can listen to Jay-Z, dress hip-hop, and use whatever mix of English, French, Darija, and Berber he or she wants. A Moroccan can chose his hairstyle (unlike, say, in Iran) and his marriage partner (unlike in many traditional areas). There is a lot of freedom, but societal unity in Morocco is in the process of breaking down. The upper classes live out European (particularly French) norms. Preferences in movies, music, style, and dating correspond to a consumerist ethic that sees little value in tradition. The days of universal recognition of Um Khalthun, mandatory jelabas, and Islamic courting are over. And so, partially in reaction, many in the lower and middle classes now subscribe to a more stringent, imported brand of Islam that their great-grandparents would not have recognized.

In essence there are two movements: one towards a Western view of freedom as the consummate value and another in resistance of that freedom and a movement towards a supposedly more purified form of Islam that assiduously avoids the pitfalls as well as the benefits of modernity.

So, as someone who sees benefit in societal unity and yet who also views freedom as a least bad sort of option given already existing diversity, I have mixed personal feelings on what would be best for Morocco. I think that Islam (along with other religious systems) serves as a bulwark against the alienating individualism and moral relativism of free Western societies. It provides transcendentally-grounded, ritually-supported moral guidelines on things such as finance and poverty that we in the individualistic, capitalist West would do well to listen to.

On the other hand, I find frustrating the hypocrisy of openly allowing illegal, un-Islamic activities while still repressing a religious minority that would be a natural ally in creating a society that more closely followed those Islamic principles. That's the American in me speaking: the different Christian denominations in early America shared common values while disagreeing on religious doctrine, paving the way for a secular republic that still had a certain sense of societal unity grounded in a European mix of Christianity and Enlightenment rationalism. I tend to think it's a good model, and I don't see why religious liberty and freedom of conscience can't be added to the already expansive list of freedoms Moroccans enjoy.

Of course, that's my personal opinion. I'm not going to argue it with the Moroccan government or with most Moroccans for that matter. I will, however, raise a fuss when they don't consistently and honestly enforce their own laws.