"Alternative Movement for Individual Freedoms" Eating Disorder

AHMED TAIBI

09/21/09

I resisted commenting on the arrest of the six members of the e-group “Alternative movement for individual freedoms,” known as “MALI,” who crash-landed on reality and caused much of a bedlam in Morocco recently when they decided to eat publically during the fasting hours of Ramadan in an attempt to call for the abrogation of article 222 of Morocco’s penal code. I thought the group vain, their protest self-serving and quixotic, their initiative worthy, but their judgment poor. Their actions were those of a temerarious group of privileged youths who, despite living in Morocco, lack perspective on the social trepidations of the average Moroccan. I also thought the group lacked courage. Why call for the right of Morocco’s Muslims to disregard Ramadan if so they choose when the real issue is the right of Morocco’s Muslims to tergiversate on Islam?

Article 222, which stipulates that any Muslim who publically breaks the fast before sunset during the month of Ramadan will be punished by the law, holds within it quite a contradiction; how can a person be considered a Muslim if he decides, out of his own volition, not to fast during Ramadan, one of the five pillars of Islam incumbent on all Muslims? One has to wonder what criteria the government uses to determine the denomination of Moroccans. Is a Moroccan a Muslim by virtue of his pedigree, or his public proclamation of faith and his actions in support of its fundamental precepts? It is no wonder that some observers saw in the group’s action a stand against the flagrant hypocrisy permeating the Moroccan society. But such hypocrisy is hardly an idiosyncratic character of Morocco or Islam; all cultures and religions are hypocritical. Hypocrisy is not an inconsistency in religious theory for the quest for enlightenment is a sempiternal process. Samuel Johnson explains it best in “Rambler No. 14” when he says:
Nothing is more unjust, however common, than to charge with hypocrisy him that expresses zeal for those virtues which he neglects to practice; since he may be sincerely convinced of the advantages of conquering his passions, without having yet obtained the victory, as a man may be confident of the advantages of a voyage, or a journey, without having courage or industry to undertake it, and may honestly recommend to others, those attempts which he neglects himself.

In protesting against the prohibition of public eating during fasting hours, MALI stood against not the Moroccan government, but the majority of Moroccans. As restrictive as article 222 is, it is also protective; its drafters took into serious consideration the dormant fanatic strain inherent in Islamic thinking. If the MALI group carried out their plan to untimely break the fast publically and the police did not get involved, its members would most likely be lynched by a heterogeneous crowd whose members would regard them as “natural apostates.” Its potentially mortal actions would be justified by the prophet Mohammed ‘saying:
“Whoever amongst you sees anything objectionable, let him change it with his hand, if he is not able, then with his tongue, and if he is not even able to do so, then with his heart, and the latter is the weakest form of faith.”
“MALI” failed to realize that article 222 is in complete concordance with article 29 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states:
In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.

Indeed, one cannot advocate individual freedom without stressing the importance of individual responsibility. Embracing an ethics of unfettered individualism will cause any society to fragment. Even in the U.S., where individualism was described by Alexis de Tocqueville as fundamental to its character, the cohesiveness of society is recognized; Mormons, for instance, understood this when they acquiesced to federal and state laws prohibiting polygyny, a practice that was instrumental to the survival of the sect in the 1800s. Individual freedom does not constitute a license to contravene existing values of institutions that are designed to, not restrain an individual, but uphold the integrity of a community and maintain the civility of its members. A naked man calmly wandering in public places would be arrested in any city, be it Rabat, Paris, New York City, or Tokyo, and individual freedom would never be considered a vindicating justification.

The Moroccan authorities saw in MALI’s eating disorder an unparallel opportunity to subvert the serious efforts of those calling for legitimate reforms. It rallied political, social, and governmental entities to condemn opposition activists whom it painted as deleterious to the values and the unity of the Moroccan society. So, thank you MALI.


A. T. B. Copyright © 2009