King Hassan impressed and reassured by changes in Moroccan society
Morocco, Politics, 7/8/1999

King Hassan II said he was impressed and reassured by the changes that occurred in the Moroccan society over the past decade.

"Throughout the past years, that were tumultuous and uncertain, the Moroccan society witnessed a change that impresses and reassures me," King Hassan II said in an interview with French weekly Le Nouvel Observateur.

"The behavior of Moroccans, especially the youth, seems to be driven by three convinctions: pride of their history, conquest of a kind of democratic dynamism and free respect of an institutional frame that assures them at the same time individual freedom and a kind of serenity and collective security within solidarity and patriotism," the sovereign said.

"The monarchy is a genuine court of appeal that constitutes the authentic spirit of the constitutional and parliamentary monarchy," he said.

"While pan-Arab ideologies were declining, revolutions were failing and the modernity criteria was becoming no longer associated to the republic, a great wisdom was gradually becoming predominating among the Moroccan people," the king added.

The Moroccan people "understood that during the bleak hours they went through (...) the monarchy -- as a protecting dungeon and court of appeal -- was a heaven and that they could unite around it," King Hassan II underlined.

He stressed that the security and durability of the system are guaranteed by the dynasty's continuity. "Everything can change. But what impressed me most is the maturity thanks to which the Moroccan people found its balance in a system that gives democracy an utmost guarantee and a soul."

Touching on "the Islamist threat in Morocco," King Hassan II said the Moroccan society is so aware of what it gained that it will not allow that these gains be put at stake or endangered."

"The Moroccans gained their freedom and emancipation. (...) those are rights that they gained and that they are not ready to relinquish, and that they will not relinquish."

"Our struggle for jobs is an obsession and a priority issue," he said. Economic problems can foment religious fanaticism in some countries and delinquency and drug consumption in others, said King Hassan II, who called for finding a intermediate system between excessive spirituality and lack of collective belief.

Previous Stories:
  Speaker of Tunisian parliament in Rabat to strength legislators ties   (7/7/1999)
  King Hassan to visit France   (7/7/1999)
  Moroccan interior minister issues instructions for stringent control of illegal emigration   (7/5/1999)

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