Becoming human: The political modalities of rights within the Moroccan feminist movement
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Joel Platt is 24 years-old and is from the North West of England. Joel holds an LLM (Dunelm) and MSc (Oxon) and is currently reading for a PhD in international human rights law at Durham Law School.
Joel’s research centres around the vernacularisation of international human rights norms to different local political contexts. In this essay, the successful embrace and adaptation of international human rights norms by the Moroccan feminist movement is explored. This is a particularly interesting and under-researched topic because Morocco is an overwhelmingly Muslim country and Islam is widely posited as incompatible with women’s human rights. Therefore, the tactical approach of the Moroccan feminist movement may offer guidance and inspiration to similar movements across the Islamic world.
Though, as this paper documents, ‘rights’ are intrinsically insecure and thus require constant defence within the public space in order to be protected. Consequently, the Moroccan feminist movement shall remain a key research area for human rights scholars, particularly amidst a continued Islamist presence in the region and the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic in regard to accessing the public space.
- Joel Platt, Author
Introduction
He took away chunks of me with blasé swipes: my independence, my pride, my esteem.
I gave and he took and took.
He Giving Treed me out of existence.
He killed my soul, which should be a crime. Actually it is a crime. According to me, at least.
Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl
The term Homo-sapien means ‘wise man’. When Linnaeus coined the term in 1758, he perhaps did not realise the irony of invoking wisdom. The concept of ‘human’, as part one will outline, is perennially utilised to distinguish the enlightened and benighted, signifying the emptiness of natural rights. The title of ‘human’, and thus human rights, belong to those who are recognised as human equals within their community. It is culturally contingent: a local political achievement. This paper explores Arendt’s ‘right to have rights’ as a juridico-political foundation for a political, bottom-up approach to human rights, working within the international legal paradigm, where the dynamism of human rights is embraced. ‘Universal’ human rights norms and their beneficiaries become subject to constant political challenge in the public space. It is here where the excluded, the bare Homo-sapien, clamours for equal human status.
Part two then explores the contemporary Moroccan women’s human rights movement, where the deployment and adaptation of human rights in distinct socio-cultural circumstances illustrates their malleability. Moroccan women entered the public space and challenged the contradictions of Morocco’s newly liberal system, asserting their humanness. The growing encouragement of their public presence illustrates that they are being recognised as human equals and acquiring the ‘right to have rights’ as they begin to take ownership over the law. The revolutionary 2004 family code reform is testament to the transformative capabilities of human rights politics.
