According to a news release from International Christian Concern (ICC), on Sept.17, the Moroccan newspaper Al Massae reported that Harder and Sanhi Russell were expelled from the country for “carrying out acts of proselytism” in the city of Kenitra.
ICC reported the article said that Harder, a Canadian citizen, was teaching Arabic at a local school, while Sanhi, of Korean descent, worked with women by teaching “literacy through the teaching of the Bible.” The article reported that the couple was supported by churches in the United States and France.
Some Christians doing humanitarian work were also investigated:
The next day, a Moroccan pastor informed ICC that he had been investigated by the Moroccan secret police for delivering school supplies to the village of Benguerir. The pastor distributed the supplies with the help of 15 foreigners working for a U.S. based organization.
ICC said during the distribution, two members of the secret police arrived to investigate. The pastor and the school director were questioned for more than an hour about the reasons for the Americans’ visit, and the content of the supplies.
The police said the investigation was a precaution to ensure that the group was not proselytizing.
One of my readers recently asked me how Moroccans were reacting to the controversy over the proposed mosque/Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero. Honestly, no one has mentioned it since I've been back in Morocco, and I haven't brought the subject up. But I have been following the ruckus online and have been disappointed with the way the debate (shouting match?) has developed.
Since my audience is generally Western, let me start with something unfamiliar: a video making the rounds in the Francophone Muslim world that a number of my Moroccan Facebook friends have posted on Facebook.
The video begins with footage of Muslims dressed in Western style, cheering Western sports, and playing Western-inspired game shows like "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" while these words appear (in French):
While we sing, dance, eat, and imitate their civilization...
...look what's happening in their civilization.
It then flashes to a CNN interview with Pastor Terry Jones, whose church has decided to burn Korans in commemoration of 9/11 and protest against Islam. As the Facebook posts testify, this is far from helpful to relations between Islam and the West. The American interviewer is obviously hostile to such a stupid idea, and Pastor Jones cannot respond satisfactorily to his line of questioning. More text appears:
While a Muslim scholar does his duty...
The video then cuts to footage of Khalid Arrachid, an Islamic scholar who was apparently jailed for "defending the prophet in the Muhammed cartoon controversy". I can't find anything online to confirm he was jailed, but in this video he describes the Danish cartoons of Muhammed and then cites a Koranic passage about being "severe with the disbelievers" to demand violence against those who mock the prophet. He decries the shame and disgrace Muslims suffer, calls Muslims to show their manhood and defend the prophet, mocks the "effeminacy" of Europeans and their "freedom of expression", and laments the lack of visible leadership of Muslim nations.
After lamenting the imprisonment of this Islamic scholars for "doing his duty", the above video ends with seemingly threatening footage of a man with a gun trained on someone off screen. The last words to appear are:
Islam is a religion of peace but not of humiliation.
It's no viral sensation, but the video does have over 11,000 views now.
A Facebook group entitled "tous contre l'acte de bruler le coran le 11 septembre 2010" ("Everyone Against Burning the Koran on September 11, 2010") was started in opposition to this proposed Koran burning. Currently it has 13, 799 members. The comments on the group's page range from exhortations to defend Islam's honor a la Khalid Arrachid to quotes of Koranic ayas (verses) to prophecies that Pastor Jones and company will burn in hell to pleas for non-violence because violence would only confirm American stereotypes about Islam. It's a mixed bag, but at least some of it is quite troubling.
I draw a few observations from this Facebook activity:
1) Moroccan Teenagers Have a Liberalized, Western Outlook Moroccan teenagers' desire to defend their religious tradition is only one of their many interests and concerns, and a good number of them actually conflict with the message of the video. The majority of items they post on their Facebook walls represent the Westernizing tendency the video decries: Western sports stars and celebrities, American music videos, and quizzes about love and sexiness. They may strongly and defensively identify as Muslim, but the way their interests and concerns are unconstrained ideologically or legally is not that different from the situation of Westerner teenagers. As time goes on, these tendencies will only strengthen. The Arab world is westernizing faster than many realize.
2) Islam Currently Has Illiberal, Violent Tendencies The maker of the YouTube video obviously does realize how quickly this westernization is happening, and he is opposed to it. Khalid Arrachid is not alone when he opines on the victimized state of Muslims, the effeminate nature of Western culture, the manly necessity of defending Islam and its prophet, and the possible violence such a defense will require. Now his cries may fall on deaf ears among middle and upper class Moroccan youth because they are financially and politically secure, but they still are deeply angered by insults to Islam and to Mohammed. Moreover, immigrants in Europe (and to a lesser extent the United States), citizens of less developed Muslim countries, and lower class Moroccan citizens often do not share that security, and so their anger is more likely to express itself violently.
3) There Are Legitimate Questions About Islam In Pluralist Societies These phenomena raise serious questions about how such an Islam can fit into pluralist, secular societies. Those on the right tend to ignore the nuances of these questions as they raise voices and money in crude and xenophobic populism. They gloss over cherished American values like religious freedom, freedom of association, and property rights. But those on the left similarly ignore the illiberal, violent tendencies of Islam as they work themselves into an indignantly righteous rage against the other side's crude, xenophobic populism. They fail to understand how religion works, the historical development of Western political-religious involvement, and, in their intense emotional obsession with this moment in time, the broader sweep of the complicated process of assimilation into the American mainstream.
If Catholics in America are any indication, the prognosis for a future assimilation of Muslims into an American consensus is good. Pre-Vatican II and pre-JFK, there were some very serious questions about whether Catholics, with their illiberal tendencies, could function well in a pluralist democracy. But after theological recognition of pluralist democracy and after a charismatic leader who made necessary concessions to an already existent American consensus on religion and politics, Catholics gradually became a surprisingly normal and uncontroversial part of our nation's political and religious mosaic.
Protesting an Islamic cultural center directed by a Muslim leader who goes on speaking tours for the U.S. government and burning Korans are most definitely not intelligent, serious ways to engage these questions, but even if the overly mediatized, populist right cannot address them as they should, they remain important questions. And until they are resolved as they were with Catholicism half a century ago, they will continue to inspire inarticulate and emotional resistance to Muslims.
4) There Is A Denial About The Islamic Inspiration For Terrorism Partially as a reaction to the hateful and xenophobic reaction against Muslims as a whole, both secular Westerners and Muslims comfortable in liberal, secular society tend to ignore that attacks such as 9/11 are in fact inspired by a certain interpretation of Islam. Instead, there is a tendency among the secular elite to attribute terrorism's motivation solely to economic and political considerations.
While European colonialism of the Arab world (including Zionism), cozy relationships between the United States and Arab governments, and continuing difficult economic circumstances play important roles in Islamic terrorism, the religious motivation cannot just be swept aside. This form of terrorism is inspired, justified and praised by Muslims with a certain historical and religious hermeneutic...a hermeneutic that will not just go away with a wave of the magic wand of secular liberalism.
Of course, neither can Islam be treated as a monolithic entity, as too many conservative commentators tend to do. Only a small minority of Muslims share Al-Qaeda's ideology, although a good many may sympathize at least in part. But that doesn't detach Al-Qaeda's hermeneutic and actions from the Islamic tradition. "Islam is a religion of peace but not of humiliation", a mantra shared by most Muslims, necessarily implies violence and resistance towards liberal, pluralist Western governments at some point in time.
Since the Enlightenment, for better or for worse, religion in the Western world has been viewed more or less as an internalized set of personal convictions and beliefs. This necessarily conflicts with a religion like Islam that is less focused around orthodoxy (correct belief) than around orthopraxis (correct action). European Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan has proposed an interesting solution to the conflict. Time will tell if his or some other synthesis will prevail in the Muslim community. In the meantime, non-Muslim Westerners are unlikely to have any positive influence in those debates, but, at the very least, we can recognize that they are happening.
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.
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 notableexceptions. 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.
In rather belated coverage of the event, The Economist finally got around to writing an article about the expulsion of evangelicals from Morocco. Nothing new is reported, but because of the far reach of The Economist perhaps now more of the world's citizenry is informed.
The Economist opines on the motivation behind the expulsions:
But the motivation for the crackdowns is probably political more than religious. Morocco’s constitution is based on the hereditary position of the king as “commander of the faithful”. Any drift of Muhammad VI’s subjects away from the dominant stream of moderate Sunni Islam might, his advisers fear, diminish his authority.
The whole article is pretty short. So I'll post it in its entirety because it provides an excellent summary of the events:
Morocco's evangelical Christians Stop preaching or get out The king is unamused by Christians who proselytise Jul 29th 2010 | FEZ
EVANGELICAL Christians in the poor world are rarely accused of undermining public order. All the more surprising, then, that in recent months around a hundred have been deported from Morocco for just that. The Christians, mostly from the United States and Europe, have been accused of trying to convert Muslims to Christianity, a crime punishable by imprisonment under Moroccan law, which protects the freedom to practise one’s faith but forbids any attempt to convert others.
Rules against proselytising are quite common in Muslim countries but Morocco has long enjoyed a reputation as a bastion of religious tolerance in the region. Almost all the country’s 32m citizens are Sunni Muslims but churches and synagogues exist, alongside mosques, to cater for the 1% of the people who are Christian or Jewish.
Such open-mindedness presumably appealed to the Christian missionaries who ran the “Village of Hope” home for children 80km (50 miles) south of Fez, a former capital known for religion and scholarship. The 16 aid-workers had cared for abandoned children for over a decade when, in March, the Moroccan authorities sent inspectors to the orphanage, then gave the workers a few days’ notice to leave the country. Witnesses reported distraught farewells between the Moroccan children and the foreigners who had acted as foster parents.
Morocco’s communications minister, Khaled Naciri, said the missionaries “took advantage of the poverty of some families and targeted their young children”. The aid-workers deny pumping the children with Christianity. But sympathisers say that even if they did, a few hours of preaching was a small price to pay for education and pastoral care. There have been further expulsions since then, most recently of an evangelical Spanish teacher.
Local residents are quick to point out that it is not only Christians who have been targets; last year a similar campaign was waged against Morocco’s even smaller population of Shia Muslims. But the motivation for the crackdowns is probably political more than religious. Morocco’s constitution is based on the hereditary position of the king as “commander of the faithful”. Any drift of Muhammad VI’s subjects away from the dominant stream of moderate Sunni Islam might, his advisers fear, diminish his authority.
The American branch of an evangelical organisation, Open Doors, which speaks up for persecuted Christians across the world, is backing a campaign by a Republican congressman, Frank Wolf, to press the Moroccans to be kinder to the evangelicals. Seeing that Morocco is one of America’s closest Arab allies, the American administration has been notably silent.
MoroccoBoard has helpfully translated an article from this week's Tel Quel about the continuing expulsions of Christians from Morocco.
Unlike the previous waves of expulsions this year, this one has involved judicial proceedings. As such, Morocco can say that is giving foreign Christians due process.
"Every three months, since the beginning of the year, the Moroccan authorities are expelling Foreign Christians with a vengeance. The novelty now is that they are providing a legal document called "the Order of expulsion of foreign resident " allowing the victims to challenge the decision before a Moroccan court, whereas before no formal written orders were provided ", says member of a Church in the capital city of Rabat who wishes to remain anonymous.
It is unfortunate that this opportunity was not accorded the workers at the Village of Hope orphanage or the Egyptian friar who were suddenly and mysteriously expelled in March. Nonetheless, it is a welcome development.
Previously American Congressman Wolf had accused the American embassy in Morocco of being "AWOL" in regard to this issue, especially compared with the efforts of other nations. This article, however, calls into question that version of events.
"The Spanish, French, Swiss nationals have not been supported by their embassies as much as the Americans were, " said Moroccan Attorney Mr. Dgharni. The Embassy of France’s position is clear: "The consulates of France have been informed about the evictions, these are decisions of a sovereign state and it is not for us to comment." The other concerned embassies did not wish to issue a statement on the issue.
At the end of last week, at least a dozen American Christian evangelicals who have settled in Morocco and who had received verbal orders of deportation for proselytizing were informed by the Moroccan police or by the U.S. consulate in Casablanca, that these deportation orders had been canceled. The canceled deportation orders were part of an apparent third wave of expulsion of Christians from the country for "proselytizing" and "attempting to break the faith of Muslims" two offenses covered by the Moroccan penal code that could have lead to a court trial which the Moroccan authorities wanted to avoid.
Since last March, Morocco has expelled more than a hundred Christians, half of them Americans-including the Casablanca-based-George Washington Academy founder and director Jack Rusenko and two senior school administrators.
The abrupt course reversal of the Moroccan Ministry of Interior is due to the forceful reaction of the U.S. administration. According to Spanish daily El Pais, the US Ambassador in Rabat, Samuel Kaplan, called the Minister of Interior, Mr. Taieb Cherkaoui to protest and to ask for a meeting. At the same time, according to El Pais, the U.S. Embassy is urging its citizens not to obey the verbal orders by the Moroccan police and hold out for for written expulsion orders so that they can eventually contest them in a Moroccan court.
Kaplan strong reaction was probably due to the hearing by the U.S. Congress Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission held last week and co-chaired by Republican Rep. Tom Wolf (R) of Virginia, on the expulsion of US Christians from Morocco.
Rep. Wolf opened the discussion, expressing his concern about the “precarious situation” of the Christian minority in Morocco. Chairman Wolf focused primarily on the deportation of over 40 American citizens and other foreign nationals from Morocco in recent months on charges of violating Morocco’s law against proselytizing. Observing that the Moroccan government did not provide documented evidence for the charges or submit to due process of law, Rep. Wolf stated that the action “calls into question” the longstanding friendship between Morocco and the United States.
The hearings seemed pretty one-sided. One witness mentioned positive aspects about the legal status of women, but no one from the Moroccan government (or supporting the Moroccan government) testified to defend their actions. Of course, it's quite understandable. When you expel dozens of people from your country without presenting evidence and giving them scant time to pack their bags, you are going to have a lot of witnesses willing to testify against you.
I'm not defending the Moroccan government here, but I think that their clear explanation of the events would be beneficial to all involved. So far, the only statements they have released can be disproved by spending a few hours with Moroccans, are patently ridiculous, or are couched in silly meaningless language. (What does it really mean to "shake someone's faith"?) With the exception of Tel Quel, Moroccan media has done little to question the official narrative. Instead it has actively promoted the government's line, and in some cases has printed incendiary rhetoric against foreign residents. Since the press had dropped the ball, probing questions about the events would be welcomed from anyone.
But I also think the government's answers to such questions would have helped guide the discussion away from the direction it took during Representative Wolf's hearings.
On the one hand, the Moroccan government actions are pretty reprehensible according to any conception of the rule of law, empathy, or liberal democracy. And these hearings seemed to cover those flagrant violations pretty well.
But on the other hand, there seemed to be a remarkable lack of historical and regional context, based on the summary I read of the hearings. Morocco did not develop like European countries or like the United States. It consisted of a bunch of unruly tribal areas until very recently. It was colonized. It is a Muslim country, not a secular country based on Christian principles and culture. These are all important differences.
Morocco has attracted so many missionaries mainly because it is so open. College students can come on vacation; they're not that different from other tourists. Many people speak English, and since Americans by and large don't speak Arabic, that enables conversation about religion. Despite recent crackdowns on political dissidents, the press and on non-Sunni Muslims, Morocco is still a better country to be a Westerner or a Christian than almost any other Arab country.
It seems to me we need to stop pretending that all countries come from the same Western mold (liberal democracies based on rule of law and certain fundamental rights). Sure, that would be nice if all countries were. But they're not. And these congressional hearings start from the premise that all countries should be, and when they don't meet the standard, something is terribly wrong.
On another note, it's interesting that all the members of Congress quoted in the coverage of the hearing are Republicans. Their criticism of Obama and his foreign policy cannot be separated from their desire to score some political points, even at the expense of the American ambassador.
Rep. Smith joined in, commenting that the U.S. embassy in Morocco has been “AWOL” regarding its response to the issue, and tied the problem in Morocco to what he called the “feckless” and “ineffective” human rights policy of the Obama administration. Smith said that the fact that the administration has only recently appointed an Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom indicates President Obama’s “lack of prioritization” regarding these issues.
Regarding what kind of assistance the deported Americans had received from the U.S. State Department, Cloud indicated that he had not been contacted by U.S. Ambassador to Morocco Samuel L. Kaplan, whereas Boonstra stated that Ambassador Kaplan’s Dutch counterpart had called him personally on the phone to discuss the deportation.
As I recall, Kaplan pretty roundly denounced the way in which the deportations were carried out while trying to respect Moroccan law as it stands. Not telephoning all the deported Americans strikes me as poor criteria for being "AWOL".
In the end, there are many more important issues in U.S.-Moroccan relations than due process for expelled American missionaries: the Western Sahara question, Islamic terrorists in the Sahara, business and economic links, etc. So it's hard to see the Obama administration taking a firm stand on this small issue at the expense of those others.
Thus, even if the Republicans are correct in pointing out a sad situation, the lack of contextualization, the absence of a Moroccan voice, American political partisanship, and more pressing foreign policy matters all substantially reduce these hearings' significance.
The House of representative Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, which is chaired by James McGovern (D - MA) with ranking republican congressman Frank Wolf (R-VA), will hold a hearing on human rights and religious freedom in Morocco on Thursday June 17th, 2010. The hearing will be open to the press and the public. The reason for the hearings, according to the commission, is the deportation of approximately 40 American citizens and scores of other foreign nationals on charges of proselytism, thus “it has raised serious concerns about the status of religious freedom in Morocco”. The individuals deported, according to a statement from the commission, ran a wide array of humanitarian organizations, which provided services vital to the community. One of the organizations targeted was the Village of Hope, an orphanage that takes in children that have been abandoned by their parents.
According to Freedom House, Morocco is a "Partly Free" country. It joins a handful of countries such as Lebanon, Kuwait, and Yemen (!?) as the only Arab countries not classified as "Not Free".
The report covers a large number of topics. Here is the paragraph on religious liberty:
Nearly all Moroccans are Muslims, but the small Jewish community is permitted to practice its faith without government interference. However, Moroccan authorities are growing increasingly intolerant of social and religious diversity as reflected in arrest campaigns against Shiites and Muslim converts to Christianity. Authorities have also detained several members of the Moroccan Alternative Movement for Individual Freedoms for planning a public “picnic” during the month of Ramadan to protest against the law that forbids eating during fasting hours. While university campuses generally provide a space for open discussion, professors practice self-censorship when dealing with sensitive topics like Western Sahara, the monarchy, and Islam.
In light of recent events, I should rethink my criticism of the Moroccan government.
Two months ago, I wrote about the expulsion of Christian orphanage families:
It is becoming clearer and clearer that the serious issue in this case is due process of law. The laws were not consistently applied, and excessively severe measures were taken. If there had been consistent standards throughout the process, either The Village of Hope would not have been allowed to be established in the first place or certain activities would have been curtailed since the refounding of the orphanage over 10 years ago. Furthermore, if there had been due process of law, the families would have been allowed a hearing in a court of law or in a real public forum before their deportation.
Well, as it turns out, Morocco is not the only country that expels non-citizens rather than giving them a hearing in court. Other countries curtail the right of non-citizens to defend themselves and deprive them of a fear hearing on what they have done. Italy recently expelled two Moroccans under those same circumstances.
Both stories have received little news coverage. Morocco's first major expulsions of foreigners in March raised some media awareness, but quickly died down. But the government has learned its lesson and has continued the expulsions more discretely. The case of the Italian expulsions of Moroccans has also received little media exposure as GetReligion points out.
The one major difference between the two sets of expulsions: the expelled Moroccans were attempting to obtain explosives to blow up the pope, the expelled foreigners from Morocco were Christians trying to take care of orphans.
The Morocco Board News Service reports on the newest wave of expulsions, including 23 last week:
Morocco has expelled foreign Christians who tried to convert Muslims because, as a moderate Islamic state, it wants to foster "order and calm" and avoid a clash between faiths, its Islamic affairs minister said.
The government has expelled around 100 foreign Christians since March, many of them aid workers, in what Western diplomats have called an unprecedented crackdown on undercover preaching.
"These incidents (expulsions) were prompted by the activism of some foreigners who undermined public order," Religious Endowments and Islamic Affairs Minister Ahmed Toufiq told Reuters in an interview late on Thursday.
"There are some who hide their proselytism and religious activism under the guise of other activities," he said.
I found this line of reasoning interesting. Factually, it is certainly correct. And in Morocco historically concerns over "order and calm" have regularly trumped individuals' freedom of conscience or religion, even if the discussion is limited merely to Muslims. Many Moroccans point to Algeria and its civil war as an example of what happens when you don't use government force to limit religious disagreements.
Thankfully, there hasn't been a civil war in Morocco nor has there been any sort of the extreme bloodletting along religious lines that we have seen in other parts of the Middle East. That is certainly due in large part to the strong arm of the state when it comes to these issues.
That being said, other comments from Minister Toufiq strike me as disingenuous if not blatantly false.
Converting Muslims is a crime in Morocco, punishable by up to six months in jail, but the authorities generally expel foreigners accused of proselytising rather than take them to court to avoid publicity and criticism from abroad.
Muslims make up 99 percent of Morocco's population and the north African country allows freedom of worship to mostly foreign Christians and a few thousand indigenous Jews.
Toufiq said Morocco was eager to foster respect and coexistence between its different faiths, but was also "protecting its religious community".
"Morocco wants to prevent a clash or conflict between religions. It is not necessary that one religion converts believers of another religion," he said, adding that he had explained this position to representatives of other faiths.
If it is not necessary that one religion convert believers of another religion, then why do so many Moroccan Muslims try to convert me to Islam?
Upon meeting a Moroccan, the second or third question is inevitably, "Are you Muslim?" often followed by others like "Do you pray?" or "What do you think of Mohammed?" or "What do you think of the Koran?" I can't count the number of Muslims who have tried to get me to repeat the Shahada (the statement of belief in one God and Mohammed's status as prophet, which when said, makes you a Muslim).
Perhaps it's not clear to Toufiq that Muslims also try to convert others, but from my vantage point it's as clear as day.
I usually shrug these events off with a joke. Or I quote an aya from the Koran to let my new Muslim friends know that I do respect them and I want to coexist with them.
But let's be real about this: most of them want me to be a Muslim. And I wish that they had a real knowledge of the Christian gospel and not the false representation they are all taught. And any sort of honest dialogue in respect has to start from those facts.
In a state where true religious liberty existed, where freedom of conscience was actually valued, we would be able to have discussions about these subjects in mutual respect and tolerance. We would be able to speak openly and the force of the state would not interfere in those discussions nor in the decisions that resulted.
The Moroccan Board News Service posts this testimony of a Mexican working in the north of Morocco for Gateway Medical Alliance. From his article, he had nothing to do with missionary activity.
He was charged with being a threat to the national peace of Morocco:
The official written accusation for my ejection was that I was “considered a threat to the national peace of Morocco.” After telling me in Spanish what was written in Arabic they asked me to sign the document. I told them that I was not willing to sign it since that paper did not describe who I really am. I told them that for the last three years of living in Morocco I have been trying to build peace through working with people with special needs and living in harmony with my neighbors. I also said that I have never spoken or acted against national laws, traditions, national religion or national symbols therefore I refused to sign that paper full of lies about me.
Apparently this is common:
The Spanish customs police received me with a nice supportive attitude and sympathy. After asking me normal customs questions and then hearing of my ejection from Morocco, they stamped my passport and added: “Sir, don’t worry, we are used to seeing this kind of behavior from the Moroccan police. This is their normal way of working.”
This is a bit late, but a couple of weeks ago the French daily Le Monde published this article about the recent spate of expulsions from Morocco.
It mentions the expulsion of the Franciscan priest that The Moroccan Dispatches covered last month.
All are suspected of "undermining the faith of Muslims," i.e. the crime of proselytizing inscribed in Moroccan law and punishable by six months to three years in prison. Like others, the Franciscan Father Zaki, who officiated at Larache, in the region of Tangier, did not have more than a few hours to pack his bags.
A first. A hispanophone of Egyptian origin, he was returned by plane to Cairo, where he remained in custody for seven hours without a clear explanation of the reasons for his forced departure. And without a clear grounds for his arrest and deportation, there was no opportunity for recourse. "Was it an error? Did he make a mistake? Nobody knows," sighed Father Daniel Nourissat, in charge of the parish of Our Lady of Lourdes to Casablanca. ... Tous sont soupçonnés d'"ébranler la foi des musulmans", un délit de prosélytisme inscrit dans la loi marocaine et puni de six mois à trois ans de prison. Comme les autres, le Père franciscain Zaki, qui officiait à Larache, dans la région de Tanger, n'a donc eu que quelques heures pour faire ses bagages.
Une première. Hispanophone, d'origine égyptienne, il a été renvoyé par avion au Caire, où il est resté sept heures en garde à vue sans pouvoir expliquer les raisons de son départ forcé. Et sans motif clair, pas de recours possible. "Est-ce une erreur ? A-t-il commis une faute ? Nul ne le sait", soupire le Père Daniel Nourissat, chargé de la paroisse Notre-Dame-de-Lourdes de Casablanca.
Unlike the official media coverage here in Morocco where the officially recognized churches parroted the government's line, in the Le Monde article Christian leaders in Morocco nuanced their views. While not condoning the illegal activity of proselytism, they indicated that the recent crackdown was a "harsher stance" than normal. One even classified the recent actions as "bizarre".
The reporter also attempted to get an interview with a Moroccan Christians but was unable to do so even under the condition of anonymity. That fact in and of itself should indicate the fear that Moroccan Christians live under. As commenters on this blog have noted, some Moroccans convert to Christianity out of the hope for money and a visa. But to extend that observation to all Moroccan Christians is clearly naive as this Le Monde article demonstrates.
All in all, the article presents an excellent survey of the entire situation. I highlight it here only because of its thoroughness. It is only a simple article that happens to be well-researched and well-written, but it puts to shame most of the local Moroccan press and the vast majority of the foreign press, neither of which have managed to produce much of similar quality.
I am currently on vacation, but I wanted to briefly write up a summary of Tel Quel's continuing coverage of religious persecution in Morocco.
This is from the March 27-April 2, 2010 issue, so this is a little bit late. I picked it up before I went on vacation.
The front page carries a picture of the Cathedral of Sacre Coeur in front of the Hassan II mosque. The caption translates:
THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST Despite police harassment and death threats, thousands of Moroccans have converted to Christianity. Today the state is violently reacting to counter the 'threat'.
Yes, those are scare quotes.
The entire coverage is an in-depth critique of the incoherence and injustice of recent Moroccan government activities in the area of religious liberty.
The main article is accompanied by testimonies from a number of Moroccans who have converted to Christianity. All have struggled. Some of their families have disowned them; others are more tolerant. Some Moroccan Christians have lost jobs. All have lost friends.
In the main article, it points out that most Moroccans convert to Christianity more as a result of Arabic media and not from foreign missionaries. This jives with my experience: a number of Moroccans I know have had long conversations with Christian missionaries about religion and none have converted. Some defended Islam while smoking hashish just to piss off the Christians, it that gives you an idea of how many Moroccans understand their Islamic identity. This observation about foreign missionaries, of course, undermines the rationale behind the recent expulsions of many foreigners.
Tel Quel notes that what has been effective in getting Moroccans to convert has been Arabic media such as the television channel al Hayat. Tel Quel carries a profile of Al Hayat broadcaster Brother Rachid, a Moroccan who converted to Christianity and often speaks with Father Zakaria, an Egyptian priest who has been imprisoned twice for baptizing new Christians and now is forced to live in exile. Both live in secrecy after having received numerous death threats.
Another point Tel Quel makes is that the common claim that 150,000 Moroccans have converted to Christianity is false. Using French research, they conclude maybe a few thousand have. Of course, the Islamicists have good reason to exaggerate the number to scare the average Moroccan into thinking he or she is surrounded by a growing Christianization (ironically...the same dynamic in Western countries regarding Islam).
Tel Quel concludes that the reason behind the government crackdown on non-Sunni Muslims has to do with internal politics. By holding a hard line against Christian missionaries and generating heat about it from abroad, they counter radical Islamic talking points about decadent Westernization and Christianization. This explanation, which I have seen repeated a few times now, seems most likely to me at this point.
The article ends with a discussion of a quote from an interview the king Mohammed VI gave to Le Figaro in 2001. He stated that he was the Commander of all the believers: Muslims, Jews, and Christians. Tel Quel quotes one Moroccan Christian pleading to be recognized in the same light: a Moroccan believer under the authority of the king...just a Moroccan Christian believer.
Tel Quel's readers seem to be disappointed with the crackdown. In the letters to the editor section, one Mustafa Laafoui of Kenitra writes in to ask some tough questions about Mohamed Naciri. In one quote highlighted by Tel Quel, he says:
Why didn't the honorable Mr. Naciri oppose the expulsion of the supposed evangelists? Why didn't he insist that these individuals be judged according to the laws set in place?
Other media critical of the government have been shut down recently. And the same could happen to Tel Quel. But as long as they are still around, there will be at least some debate and critical thinking about current events.
It appears that TIME is the first mainstream American media to devote significant coverage to the recent expulsions here.
The Village of Hope deportations are part of what appears to be a widespread crackdown on Christian aid workers in Morocco. An estimated 40 foreigners — including Dutch, British, American and Korean citizens — have been deported this month, including Broadbent and his colleagues. Among them were an Egyptian Catholic priest in the northern city of Larache and a Korean-born Protestant pastor in Marrakesh who was arrested as he led services in his church. And this past week, authorities searched an orphanage founded by American missionaries in the town of Azrou called The Children's Haven.
They dare to ask a question that most media outlets, Moroccan as well as foreign, have refused to ask.
According to the Moroccan government, the deportees all broke the law, using their status as aid workers to cover their proselytizing. "They are guilty of trying to undermine the faith of Muslims," Interior Minister Tayeb Cherkaoui said in a press release.
But were they?
The attachment of a video from the day of expulsions seems a bit tacky. I wonder who is filming and what they hoped to capture when they started recording. We don't see much at all. Really, we just hear the cries of children in the background. It is only three minutes from the few hours before the families were forced to leave and the editing jumps around.
The article itself focuses mainly on an ideal of "tolerance" that Morocco supposedly embodied more in the past but does so less now. In very broad terms, this is perhaps true. But it over-simplifies things a great deal.
Even appeals to human rights seem a bit suspect in my book. After Guantanamo Bay, secret renditions, and other excesses in the "War on Terror", the United States hardly has the moral ground to make any sort of accusations about human rights violations.
Two weeks after the expulsions of a number of missionaries and also of orphanage workers from Morocco, the Moroccan media has produced a number of more nuanced reports on the events.
The first few accounts parroted the government's line and involved no further investigation. When they did go further, like Aujourd'hui Le Maroc in their 12-14 March 2010 issue, they interviewed Moroccans who made inflammatory comments against Christians and foreigners. In one interview, Najia Adib insinuated that foreigners living in Morocco were very likely evangelists or pedophiles and that Moroccans must be suspicious of all of us.
Most coverage used the government's terminology when referring to the individuals expelled. They operated in "cells", bringing to mind terrorist cells. And the orphanage workers were "missionaries" by definition, despite 10 years of unproblematic existence and their protestations to the contrary. The media repeated the claim that they had stashes of proselytism material, CD's and tracts. The materials have never been produced and the local media has not questioned the claim (until now).
In the case of television coverage, this first coverage from the Moroccan state owned channel 2M is about par for the course. Christian books, almost all of them written in English and obviously not intended for Moroccans are laid out as if they were drug paraphernalia. Some, such as "The Schizophrenic Church" can hardly be considered positive about the current state of Christianity, let alone material for proselytism. Christian music CD's and hymnbooks from the "bust" are on display. At one point, a long shot on a page of the secular Christmas song "Jingle Bells" makes for a laughingly ridiculous argument against the orphanage families. Of course, to Moroccans it all looks threatening.
In a change from this original coverage, the periodicals that came out at the end of last week bore a more nuanced take on the situation. L'observateur du Maroc carried a series of editorials, articles, and interviews that gave time to all involved. It began with an editorial by Ahmed Charai that criticized Western governments defending the orphanage workers and remarking that "Freedom of worship does not mean open door to proselytism", all without actually engaging the actual claims of the orphanage workers themselves.
The next article, written by Salaheddine Lemaizi, focuses on the misery of Ain Leuh, where the Village of Hope was found and quotes a few locals, particularly the local imam. He alleges that the directors of The Village of Hope encouraged the local prostitutes to have children and paid them generously. On the next page, Herman Boonstra, director of the Village of Hope refutes that claim in an interview, saying, "We never had contact with the world of prostitution. Moroccan men were the ones who had contact with the prostitutes, not us."
Two points of conflict appear to be four Moroccans who converted to Christianity and the religious education of the Moroccan children by the orphanage families. Boonstra says that the two anonymous individuals M.A. and M.K. converted to Christianity on their own and not because of The Village of Hope.
The rest of the coverage includes a profile of another foreign orphanage at Ougmas, reactions from various religious and political leaders, and a profile of those "Fools for Jesus" evangelicals. Of course, like so many media outlets, it engages in typical bait and switch argumentation. They take Pat Robertson as an example of evangelicals and then use statistics about money and conversion among all evangelicals to make it appear as if the ideas of Robertson are much more widespread than they actually are. Once again, Moroccans not knowing any better, read this information and feel under siege by a radical foreign religious ideology. It is hardly surprising that attacks have occurred against Christian institutions in good standing.
The coverage in this week's Nichane and Tel Quel is much more critical of the government. The two magazines are run by the same editor, but Nichane is in Arabic and Tel Quel is in French and their stories are not exactly the same.
They begin with an editorial by the editor Ahmed Benchemsi entitled "Shameful!" It takes the Moroccan authorities to task for depriving poor Moroccan children of the love and care they otherwise would never have received. Benchemsi points out the decade-long existence of the institution and the agreements made about religion. He also points out the blatant hypocrisy in the allegation that the state had the children's best interests in mind. In very strong language, he argues that Morocco moves further and further from being a country with the rule of law.
An interesting aspect of this week's Tel Quel coverage is the relationship between the main article and the coverage of The Village of Hope. The main article gives a profile of the new Minister of Justice Mohamed Naciri, the man who ordered the expulsions. We learn that he is a pious rich man at the end of a long career as a lawyer for the royal family. In one notable event he successfully took on the influential French newspaper Le Monde for negative comments it made about a member of the royal family. However, at no point in the profile does it mention The Village of Hope nor the recent crackdown on Christians.
Turn the page, though, and the next article is about the orphanage family expulsions. Like L'observateur du Maroc, Tel Quel goes to Ain Leuh to interview locals. However, they find individuals much more friendly to the orphanage. An educator says that everyone knew the families were Christians and it was never a problem. She further adds that the families never tried to convert the locals and even observed Ramadan out of respect for them. According to Tel Quel's sources, the accusation of proselytism originated with the imam a few years ago and some locals became convinced.
The coverage ends with a discussion of the alleged CD's and tracts that provide evidence of The Village of Hope's malfeasance. As I have pointed out before, the government has not produced any evidence of materialism for proselytism beyond a book of children's stories about Jesus in Arabic and an Arabic/English Bible seen in the 2M coverage. While likely illegal, they are far from a strong case against the orphanage.
Morocco and Algeria have been at loggerheads over Western Sahara for decades now. Algerian supported rebels in the Polisario movement are regarded as completely evil by most Moroccans, who don't understand why the Western world is tricked into viewing them as your typical run-of-the-mill separatist movement.
Last week, a number of United States Senators have asked Hillary Clinton to support Morocco's limited autonomy plan for Western Sahara in a significant diplomatic victory for Morocco.
Nevertheless, such explicit letter of approval coming from the major foreign policy decision makers in Washington is a notable win for the Moroccan diplomacy and a significant defeat to the Algerians. The Algerian government has been the chief sponsor of the Polisario separatist movement that has been fighting the Moroccans over for the control the Western Sahara. Algeria has made the Polisario and its row with Morocco as the corner stone of its foreign policy spending billions of dollars in arming and financing the Polisario.
Evangelicals have operated for years in Morocco, with their main purpose being the conversion of Muslims. Catholics have operated for longer, but purposefully have not engaged in proselytizing. So it came as a surprise that a Catholic priest was also detained and then exported during last week's crackdown.
The following passage comes from a Franciscan friar who teaches language classes in Morocco:
On Sunday the 7th of March, five minutes before mass began; the police in the city of Larache entered our friary and arrested one of our confrères, Rami Zaki, a young Egyptian friar still in initial formation who was spending a year with us. He was ordered to go with the police, had no possibility to collect anything, and was given no explanation for his arrest.
Simeon, who was preparing to celebrate mass, had little opportunity to react other than to ask the reason for the arrest, to which he was told to be quiet or he'd be arrested too. Simeon immediately phoned our major superior, Manuel, who drove from Rabat to Larache (c. 1.5 hours); and, after mass, they went together to the police station to inquire about Rami.
The police in Larache were just preparing to transport Rami to Rabat and were not willing to talk about anything. So Manuel and Simeon followed the local police to Rabat. Once there, the Rabat police took charge of the case. They demanded Rami's passport, but Manuel refused to give it to them unless they provided a reason for his arrest. After a lengthy discussion and the assurance by the police that Rami would be returned to Larache within a short time, Manuel surrendered the passport. Fifteen minutes later, the police informed Manuel that orders had been changed and Rami was to be taken to the airport in Casablanca and put on a midnight flight to Cairo.
Again Manuel and a few other friars loaded into the car and followed the police for another hour and a half. At the airport, the Rabat police handed Rami over to the jurisdiction of airport security, who permitted him to talk briefly with Manuel and the others before he was put into isolation.
The friars returned to Rabat, but learned later that evening that Rami was not on the plane. The next morning, Monday, they attempted to make contact with Rami although they were unsure where he was. As it turned out, Rami was kept in isolation for another 24 hours and was put on the Monday midnight flight to Cairo. By the time he was put on the plane, he had already spent more than thirty-six hours in police custody deprived of all rights to contact anyone and without any reason being given to his guardians for his arrest. We do not know how he was treated: but certainly there was an interrogation and it is reasonable to think that the police were not concerned about any of his immediate needs or comforts, such as food, adequate clothing, cleanliness, or rest.
When Rami was put on the plane, his passport was taken from him and given to the pilot who later surrendered it with Rami to the police in Cairo. He was detained by the police in Cairo for another seven hours for interrogation before he was permitted to telephone his community of friars. From Sunday, the morning of his arrest, to Tuesday afternoon, when he was released – a total of more than 50 hours – Rami was deprived by the police in Morocco and Egypt of any of his human rights.
THE CONTEXT: This action by the various levels of Moroccan police was a well orchestrated event. It occurred at exactly the same time that sixteen evangelical protestants were arrested in different parts of the country: fifteen who took care of an orphanage near the town of Azrou (where we Catholics have a chapel and where we friars go weekly to say mass), and one who was at prayer in his church in Marrakesh. Obviously it was their intent to make the arrests on a Sunday, when there was little possibility for members of the Christian communities to contact superiors, embassies, officials of the Moroccan government, or the press.
In the recent past, a number of protestant evangelicals have been expelled for breaking the law of the country which prohibits proselytising. The mainline churches – Catholic, Orthodox, Reform, Anglican, and others, as well as Jews – have always expressed their gratitude for the tolerance shown them and for the permission to celebrate in their churches. Furthermore, they (or at any rate, Catholics) have insisted that conversions should not be sought and that we live and work alongside and with the Moroccan people, witnessing thus to our common faith in one true God.
It is not unusual to have occasional waves of Islamic protest and arrests; typically they are the results of local incidents (such as the intrusion and involvement of various Christian groups into the local society, thus begetting reactions of suspicions of proselytising, etc.); but we Catholics have not experienced any arrests or expulsions for the past thirty years.
...
As concerns Rami, it is possible that his teaching children in our Franciscan educational centre at Larache might have been an immediate pretext. If he was actively trying to convert his young students and corrupt their belief, then he deserves to suffer the consequences of the law of the country. It is difficult, however, to accept his total deprivation of rights, the police's refusal to state the charge, the involvement of three different levels of police, and the Interior Minister's, at least, tacit approval – many of which are a corruption of their own civil law: When Manuel finally spoke to the Interior Minister, he denied any knowledge of the event, said the Governor of the province of Larache took the decision, and gave Manuel a telephone number where the governor could be contacted!
The Catholic line in both speech and practice has been that of avoiding proselytizing. Like the US ambassador, this friar only asks only for transparency and due process in the expulsions.
The MoroccanDispatchescontinues to cover the recent expulsion of Christians from Morocco. Some issues are becoming clearer but some are not, raising questions that must be asked, especially since neither the foreign nor the domestic media have not done so.
Shias Also Targeted The Moroccan government has reiterated that this crackdown is not targeted at Christians or Westerners: Shia Muslims have also been deported. All Christians criticizing the expulsion of Christians must keep this in mind. Morocco has made it clear that it desires to be a nation of Sunni Muslims, and it will take measures against any person or group who attempts to change that identity, whether they are Christian or not.
It has been suggested in the comments of this blog that Morocco conducted these raids and expulsions for reasons we might describe as Realpolitik. The thought is that the Moroccan government wants something, and their turning a blind eye to missionary activity can be a future bargaining chip. A possible political cause for these expulsions could be U.S. support for Western Sahara in its independence struggle against Morocco.
However, I doubt the Obama administration cares that much about evangelicals that most likely voted for McCain, but it is at least worth mentioning as a possibility. Furthermore, viewed in the larger context of all foreign religious missionaries being expelled, (Muslim and Christian; American, Iranian, Dutch, South African, and Kiwi...) it is doubtful that this crackdown is in any way directly connected to America's diplomacy in the region.
Journalistic Use of Sources I suppose this goes without saying, but different journalists use different sources. And if you read through enough of them, three clear groups of sources begin to emerge: the Moroccan authorities, the Christian missionaries and foster families, and the diplomatic representatives of their governments.
In the Moroccan press, at first, only the statements of the Moroccan authorities were reported. The French-language Moroccan weekly Tel Quel's coverage consists of a summary of the official news release by the Moroccan government. However, in today's Al-massae, Morocco's most widely-read newspaper, the front page article gave space to America's ambassador and his frustration at the way in which the raids and expulsions were carried out.
Foreign press agencies, including Reuters and Agence France Presse and the BBC are also representative of this pattern, citing only Moroccan and foreign authorities. While they do not seek the opinions of the expelled Christians themselves, they occasionally cite official Christian representatives in Morocco and even the international organization that sponsor the missionaries.
A notable exception is the Associate Press, whose journalists, unlike those of every other major press agency, managed to find The Village of Hope's website.
On the other end of the spectrum, many foreign blogs and Christian news sites quote only the expelled Christians, ignoring the official authorities of all countries.
The Definition of Adoption When we do take into account the statements made by all the major players in this situation, some discrepancies begin to emerge. In regard to The Village of Hope, one of the most notable discrepancies is over the definition of the word "adoption".
If my understanding is correct, non-Muslims are not allowed to adopt Moroccan children. For this reason, the families at The Village of Hope never legally adopted the 33 children in their care. I assume that if they had tried, they would have been rejected by the authorities because of their open Christian identity.
However, in the Al-massae article today as well as in other Moroccan news outlets, Moroccan official have accused The Village of Hope families of illegally adopting the Moroccan children. Perhaps this an issue of translation, but to my mind, 'adoption' means the legal and official process by which an adult or adults take responsibility for a child. If that is the case, I don't see how they could have been in violation of the law on adoption, since they weren't allowed to adopt in the first place, but only serve as foster parents.
Now, if 'adoption' means the assumption of parental responsibilities regardless of legal status, then clearly the families of The Village of Hope had adopted the children; that was the orphanage's mission. And since it existed legally for over a decade (and for longer in another form), the Moroccan authorities were obviously aware that these families were taking on parental responsibilities for these children.
Proselytism Material One of the clearest conflicts between the stories given by the Village of Hope families and the Moroccan government regards materials for proselytism. However, in both the official news release and in further news reports in the local media, Moroccan authorities have claimed that there were dozens of leaflets ("prospectus") and CD's meant for proselytizing. The Village of Hope states that there is no basis for this charge.
The Moroccan authorities have not produced any evidence of the alleged offence
Now, some Christians have asserted that it is completely normal for Christians to have religious texts and CD's. I do not doubt that the families of The Village of Hope had Christian media. The question is what was contained on that media. Lacking an actual presentation of the CD's and tracts/leaflets it is difficult to know whether the Moroccan authorities correctly discerned their purpose.
Once again, a fair hearing in the media and in a court of law could have addressed these issues and allowed the interested public to make up its own mind on the subject.
Yesterday all the foster families from The Village of Hope signed this first official statement since the expulsions.
Right off the bat, they respond to the concern that I raised in an earlier post about education in Moroccan culture.
VOH has always operated with the full knowledge and agreement of the Moroccan authorities with the overt understanding that the overseas workers are Christian. It has also always been understood that the children would be raised in a Muslim/Christian environment but would also be fully immersed in their Moroccan culture in terms of love for their country, language, education and knowledge of Islam.
Later they praise the king and the international reputation of Morocco, and directly appeal to him to reunite them with their foster children:
We openly and unashamedly appeal directly to the King, as a Father himself, to act with mercy and help us reach a point of compromise and reunite the 33 children with the only parents they know.
After the official statement is posted a waiver that volunteers were required to sign. It requires volunteers to avoid proselytism but encourages them to openly identify as Christians. If every volunteer signed this statement and followed it to the letter, then The Village of Hope is absolutely in the right. The way to verify such a claim would be to talk with a number of the volunteers as well as with those who observed them during their stay and see if they can provide confirmation.
All in all, the statement is a pretty powerful refutation of the authorities' claims against them. They allege that neither they nor volunteers engaged in proselytism or defamed the King, Muhammed, or Islam. The children received an Islamic education and they were given love, expensive medical care, and material comfort.
Of course, I have never visited The Village of Hope. So I have no way of verifying any of the claims lodged against them. They very well could be true. A decade of passed inspections and good relations with the neighboring community inclines me to think otherwise, but their truth is not outside the realm of possibility.
And if they are true, then surely the authorities would be able to provide substantial proof and explanation of their aggressive actions against the families. But there has been no real public discussion or explanation of these actions. The local media marshaled Moroccan Jews and Catholics to roundly condemn proselytizing without actually knowing the details. Outside of Morocco, there has been nothing but support for the expelled foster parents.
A proper response would have involved a full discussion and debate both in the domestic and international public square as well as a full presentation of the evidence before a court where the foster parents would have had the right to defend themselves against the accusations. Then everyone involved would have been able to decide for themselves whether the government or The Village of Hope was in the right.
None of these things has happened. And if there is any tragedy in this situation that rivals the removal of children from their longtime foster parents, it is that there has been not even an inkling of due process or real debate.
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