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After returning to Morocco some thirty-five years after first reporting from North Africa, Ms. Howe discovered that there were still many significant challenges facing the country today: the role of women’s rights movements in a political climate still resistant to change; Berbers still seeking recognition of their identity and language; and the reality of a bleak job market for recent college graduates. Despite the gravity of these social and economic issues, Ms. Howe focused her talk on challenges posed by the rise of Islamist parties.

Ms. Howe elaborated on the reawakening of political Islam in Morocco and throughout the region in the late 1960s and 1970s. Reacting to the rise of Islam in his own country, King Hassan II was able to avoid many of the problems facing other Arab countries at the time by successfully playing Islamist parties against the left, whom he saw as his main opponents. These measures kept Islamist groups at bay for most of King Hassan II’s 38-year reign. However, the prominence of political Islam started to grow again in the late 1990s as King Hassan II started opening up the government to opposition parties in order to ensure an orderly succession to the throne for his son Mohammed VI. This rise in popularity and appeal among Morocco’s Islamist parties was strengthened by the political relaxation carried out by King Mohammed VI upon his ascension to the throne in 1999. As a result of the king’s new policies, such as tolerating an independent press, Islamists benefited greatly from the freedom to exploit the government’s numerous unfulfilled promises.

In her analysis of the current status of political Islam in Morocco, Ms. Howe sees three distinct currents within the Islamist movement. The first are the moderates, represented by the Party of Justice and Development. This party enjoys a working relationship with the government of King Mohammed while exercising political clout. Next are the mainstream Islamists, represented by the Justice and Charity Organization, who do not recognize King Hassan’s government because they believe that Morocco’s rulers should be chosen by Islamic theologians. In order to portray Islam as the cure for the nation’s numerous ills, this party aggressively gets its message out in slums and universities, capitalizing on the gap between the king’s rhetoric and his actions on social issues. Finally, Ms. Howe considered the radicals as the final current in the Islamist movement. This group went relatively unnoticed before the 9/11 attacks and used the Moroccan government’s sympathetic response to the attacks to build support for their agenda of extremism.

The turning point for Morocco’s relationship with Islamists came on May 16, 2003, when suicide bombings against Jewish and Western targets in Casablanca left 45 dead, most of whom were Moroccans. Ms. Howe highlighted this moment because it forced Moroccan authorities to realize that their country was no longer impervious to the grip of Islamic radicals who have taken a tremendous toll on many of their neighbors, most notably Algeria. In response to these attacks, democratic reforms were put on hold and King Mohammed initiated a “sweeping repression” in what many described as a regression to the repressive measures that frequently characterized his father’s rule.

Today, Morocco is at what Ms. Howe aptly called the proverbial crossroads. King Mohammed currently has two options. His first option is to follow the status quo, whereby free elections still take place, but he retains full power and fills most key positions. His other option is to listen to the growing “voices for change,” which call for greater economic, social, and democratic reforms. Ms. Howe predicts that if the status quo is maintained and Moroccans continue to feel as if they lack a stake in their future, then parliamentary elections in 2007 will swing in favor of Islamists.

As one of a handful of Arab countries which Washington can comfortably consider a friend, Morocco is viewed as a cornerstone for the American policy of promoting democracy in the region. Caught between the process of democratization and the growing momentum of political Islam, Morocco is a place that anyone concerned with the future of democracy in the Arab world should be watching closely.