8
Challenging the Political Order

The emergence of not one, but two important social movements in the Maghrib at the end of the twentieth century is not a historical accident. Ideas for political action frequently germinate but more rarely take root and spread. Ideas that do find expression in social movements appear and develop when established structures and familiar patterns of social interaction that have provided meaning and order in some way now fail to satisfy widespread and salient needs. It is not personal misfortune multiplied, but rather shared discomfort at prevalent social change that gives rise to social movements. Conditions for the appearance of new ideologies, Robert Wuthnow has argued, are optimized when the existing moral order is disrupted and when disruptions are experienced collectively as alterations in the patterns of moral obligations that bind society.^[1] In North Africa in the 1970s, such a time was ripening.

North African societies have in recent decades increasingly had to face the reality that political independence provides no palliative for the social upheaval associated with the waning of patriarchal order. Social disruptions have been most dramatic in Tunisia and Algeria, where the particular nature of the colonial experience produced a cultural divide between elites and masses, but the moral order has been challenged throughout the region. The social distance of elites often exacerbated disruptions, but the slow progress of economic transformation has more basically and pervasively undermined the established order of society as it spread. Formal education, the decline of agriculture, and the growing importance of urbanism have all contributed to expectations that Maghribi adolescents will not replicate the lives of their parents. By a multitude of technological changes, some mundane and others dramatic, the social universe of the Maghrib has undeniably been altered. It has not turned out to be the

happy-ever-after dénouement promised by theories of modernization, but it is change.

A patriarchal system that for all of its tyranny had governed family relations and economic activities, created marriages, channeled the sacred, and mediated political relations has slowly been rendered impotent, its structures in shambles. Patriarchy provided moral order, and its decline necessarily poses uncomfortable questions about the nature of meaning in Maghribi society. As I argued in Chapter 3, the logic of patriarchal hierarchy required individuals to sacrifice personal interest to the greater welfare of the social unit, but thereby assured one's place in the social hierarchy. Whatever physical vicissitudes might arise, emotional security was guaranteed. As patriarchal authority eroded in the family unit, in the polity, and across society at large, moral obligations relaxed and individual liberties expanded. Insecurities and anxiety, however, increased as well.

Disruptions in moral order affect particular individuals and various groups within society differently, and sometimes in opposite fashion. In consequence, times of upheaval commonly yield a variety of ideological responses, some inevitably at odds with others.^[2] Contemporary social movements in the Maghrib may be seen in that light. In many critical regards, the Islamist movement and the human rights movement are quite opposite, but both social movements are reactions to a patriarchal order under assault and to governmental difficulties in navigating the troubled waters of change. Their diagnoses and prescriptions constitute different responses to the same set of concerns.

The Islamist movement addresses the moment with designs to restore the power and respect of patriarchy. Particularly in Tunisia and Algeria, the institutions put in place at independence deliberately diminished the role of religion and the religious elite who were its cultural custodians. New political elites viewed Islam as an impediment to the work of government, or at least to the effective rule of governors. The emergence of a politicized Islamic movement from the mid 1970s on suggests that not all prospered—politically, economically, or emotionally—under the banners of modernity and socialism. In the Islamist movement many found a way to give voice to displeasure about the social management of power relations. "Islam" is the banner participants raise, but their principal distinction from other political groups and even from governments in power is not so much based on their practice of Islam's sacred rituals or on their endorsement of particular social and political goals as upon the nature of social relations and the structure of the social order they advocate. Several

Islamist leaders have acknowledged a profound social alienation, and Ahmida Enneifer attributes the early growth of an Islamist movement in Tunisia to pervasive social disorientation:

The uneasiness was not just political, but much larger than that. We did not know any longer where we were going. Those who joined the ranks of the Islamists were those who realized that they did not know what to hang on to, that they were neither on the right nor the left, that they were rootless. All those who came from the countryside into the cities, and for whom there was no plan to anchor them.^[3]

"Islam" provides a political frame that resonates well and legitimates feelings of discontent and discomfort, but the highly structured social and political relations within the Islamist movement also provide an emotional anchor in turbulent times. Islamists propose restoration of a fallen moral order.

The North African human rights movement also addresses issues of moral order but offers a different diagnosis and prescription. Whereas Islamists decry governmental inability to guide society and fulfill socioeconomic needs, human rights groups have focused on abuses of government power and the extension of civil liberties. Both movements are necessarily political to the extent that they locate the central problem in the conduct of government,^[4] but human rights activists worry about too much governmental power rather than too little control. For human rights activists, the central problem resides in arbitrary powers exercised within the political system. Proposed solutions that protect and extend individual liberties necessarily entail a less hierarchical and less heteronomous society.

The objectives pursued by national human rights groups vary according to the prevalent patterns of state-society relations, and this is the place where we must draw on the analyses of national political dynamics explored in Part II. Although they shared a common commitment to promoting and defending human rights, groups across the region adjusted their work to address their own national contexts. In Tunisia, where the framework of law was theoretically in place, but was disregarded when convenient by Bourguiba and the political apparatus at his disposal, the Tunisian League of Human Rights (LTDH) has pursued two principal objectives. First, it worked to lend substance to the form of law. Playing boldly with the disparity between law and practice, the LTDH observed political trials, and in some instances its members offered themselves as defense attorneys. Academic seminars on political rights were also effective vehicles for encouraging private discussions and debates. Because Tunisian law nomi-

nally protected political rights—and, perhaps more important, established the intent to punish abuse of authority—such discussions, if carefully framed, could appear politically innocuous. Inasmuch as they promoted human rights, they were not.

A second objective, yet more tailored to the Tunisian context, was to create an independent voice that would not be drowned out by Bourguiba and the PSD. Over the past fifteen years, the LTDH has consistently promoted the idea of political pluralism. Statements on civil unrest in 1978 and 1984 implicitly contested the joint monopoly of the state and the PSD on political commentary and set precedents for the league as well as for others. Ben Ali's rapid endorsement of a human rights platform momentarily obscured the league's voice and created a crisis of identity within it, but even within that context the LTDH developed positions on provisions of the new electoral code. The league's message was muted with the loss of several key members enticed to command ministerial posts, but in time it reaffirmed its mission and strengthened its contrapunctual voice. During the Gulf War, admidst great controversy, it steered debate away from feverish nationalism toward international legal principles, and in 1991, when repression again gripped the country, it directed its criticism even at those who once had been of kindred purpose.

In Algeria, the agenda of human rights groups has been more basic. Political form with regards both to law and to government is more rudimentary, and the two competing human rights groups openly differed with regard to the objectives they pursued. The goal of the Algerian League for the Defense of Human Rights (LADDH) goal was ambitious: the Algerian political system needed a near-complete overhaul to establish the rule of law. The LADDH—primarily reflecting Ali Yahia's own voice—has with temerity held up a mirror to the Algerian government, exposing practices and situations to inform, and perhaps surprise, many Algerians and more outsiders. Its clear objective has been to shed light on behavior by the Algerian government that is deemed abusive by the international standards to which Algeria has adhered, and thereby to force a change in the practices of governance. While the LADDH has sought implementation, and even enforcement, of human rights standards, the Algerian League of Human Rights (LADH) has limited its efforts to the more modest goal of promoting human rights.^[5] Many of its members have had access to the inner circles of power, and few have wished to provoke more instability than seems already in the offing. The LADH has not only spoken with a more moderate voice; it has pursued a more limited objective of opening political discourse and expanding the pool of political participants. That its 1988

conference on censorship was seen by participants as daring, and by the government as threatening, reflects the extent to which the Algerian system has been closed and the importance in that context of a perceived need simply to establish the legitimacy of human rights claims.

For Moroccan human rights activists, the principal objective has been to alter the monarchy's position vis-à-vis the law. The existence of a constitution notwithstanding, the king has never been bound by law, and in consequence neither law nor legal procedure carries full weight. The monarchy has dominated the political scene and the façade of law that barely masks its preponderant influence can easily be pushed aside. There are important similarities between Morocco and Tunisia in this regard, although in Morocco formal legal procedures have at times been altogether ignored. Moroccan human rights activists have concentrated on elevating the place of law in society and in governance structures and have made a key objective the straightforward, but politically hazardous, commitment to making visible the widespread but surreptitious practices thatclearly violate domestic and international law. Simply cataloguing and publicizing the cases of political prisoners has been a major thrust of the work of the Moroccan Organization of Human Rights (OMDH), and since 1990 the Moroccan Association of Human Rights (AMDH) has tested political taboos by openly questioning police practices. The purpose in these efforts has been to eliminate the notion that abuses are isolated and to illustrate the existing limitations of law and legal practice.^[6]

Although specific objectives and the tactics used to pursue them vary according to individual groups and particular national contexts, across the Maghrib, human rights activists collectively challenge the underpinnings of political structures and processes. They have successfully created an issue, and as William Gamson notes, the sheer existence of a symbolic contest is a major achievement for the challenger.^[7] A social movement's effectiveness at making its concerns heard, let alone having them addressed, is far from assured, but any measure of success depends foremost on its ability to mobilize social resources and exert pressure. Recognition of the importance of organizing activity for resource mobilization directs attention to questions of collective identity and the internal dynamics of particular groups. The political impact of human rights groups depends, of course, as much on external factors as on their own internal dynamics, but a significant part of what human rights groups might accomplish is a function of the extent to which their concerns resonate in society, how they assess structures of power and interact with them, and how they function as a group.

Human Rights as a Social Movement

In Chapter 1, I argued that the success of the independent human rights groups has been partially dependent upon the moral force they have mustered and the strategies they have adopted. A survey of the interactions these groups have had with governments and the various tactics they have adopted makes it clear that their strategic choices (and ultimately their political significance) depend upon the microdynamics within the groups. Several questions in particular require attention. To whom have human rights groups appealed, and why have individuals—sometimes at considerable personal risk—decided to assert themselves on behalf of a class to which they do not belong? How have groups pursued their goals, and what concerns have governed their choices? To what extent are they bounded by the dynamics of North African political culture and their own national contexts? The body of theory about social movements developed over the past two decades supplies a framework within which to organize this inquiry. Specifically, our attention is directed to interrelated questions of recruitment and resource mobilization, the place of political discourse, and the actual organization of the human rights groups.

Recruitment and Resource Mobilization

Scholars once commonly attributed the rise of social protest movements to the predisposition of personality or socioeconomic grievances, but that thinking has generally been superseded by an understanding that social movements depend upon processes of social construction and upon shared social experience, which may or may not involve grievances.^[8] Early models were not able to account for social protest that did not vary commensurately with the level of grievance, nor did they satisfactorily address questions about the social construction of meaning. Collective action was seen as the political response of the alienated and marginalized, rather than of the elites. Unlike the leaders of the Islamist movement, the principals in the early human rights movement in North Africa came from the privileged classes. Virtually all of the movement's leaders—across the three countries—were university educated, and either through professional status or family connections, or both, they felt that they should, and could, command respect. With regard to economic class and social status, they were indistinguishable from those whose claim to absolute power they challenged.

It is political passion that has set them apart, and a closer look at that passion points up the interrelations of ideas, grievance, and collective iden-

tity increasingly recognized as critical to the development of social movements.^[9] In Tunisia the passion grew out of frustration with reform efforts within the PSD. Initial concerns were not so much with protecting human rights per se as with opening up the political system and redressing the political, and personal, wrongs that followed the PSD's 1971 Monastir congress. The passion that fueled the Algerian movements was somewhat different. Ali Yahia's group coalesced within the context of the Berber cultural movement, and while his own motivations in advancing a human rights agenda were born out of frustrations with a closed political system he had experienced firsthand, it was the sense of anger and injustice spread widely within the Kabyle population that created a popular basis for the first Algerian human rights group. For Brahimi and others who helped create the LADH, the passions were less connected to a political program or to particular grievances. In a political system that otherwise appeared entirely stalemated, the LADH offered a more or less sanctioned means of effective political action. Concerns it expressed about arrest procedures, detention and torture moved the LADH to center stage when riots shook Algiers in October 1988. The situation was quite different in Morocco, where the form of political and economic relations obscured the role of the state. In principle, access to politics and private enterprise was not restricted, and it was possible in Morocco in the 1970s to pursue power and profits, without ever confronting the seamy side of politics. Those circumstances undoubtedly delayed the formation of the OMDH, just as they diminished the effectiveness of the existing groups. By the time the OMDH was shaped, the discourse of human rights had gained respect internationally and across the Maghrib, and in consequence, of all the Maghribi groups, the OMDH at its creation projected the clearest purpose of promoting and defending human rights. The nexus of individuals who shaped the OMDH shared knowledge of human rights abuses in Morocco, knowledge that in some measure they had gained through professional experiences as lawyers, journalists, and university professors. They were decent people for whom the veil of innocence had been torn off. Their passion was born of outrage at human indecency. Time and the different cultural contexts shaded the various groups differently, but what all held in common was a fervent commitment: joining a human rights group in the Maghrib was for most not a casual affair.

The passion that inspired human rights activists was for the most part tempered with caution and political savvy. Elite backgrounds meant that activists understood the need to avoid direct threats to those in power. Just a few years before PSD dissidents began to shape the LTDH, they had

witnessed the ouster—and treason trial—of the former planning minister Ahmed Ben Salah, and they well understood the risks. Groups in Morocco and Algeria likewise took stock of the local political context. Recruitment was almost always on a personal basis, and until the national law of association was changed in 1992, an application for membership in the Tunisian league required formal recommendation by an active member. Several scholars have noted the importance of social networks and personal connections in the anchoring of social movements. Mobilization is enhanced when groups share strong, distinctive identities and dense interpersonal networks, and preexisting friendships seem particularly important when the risk is high.^[10] In the North African groups, activists were not necessarily known to one another at the outset, but great care was exercised to establish individual credentials through a chain of contacts and personal connections.

Most groups recognized the advantage of having a well-placed, politically unassailable member at or near the head of the group. Especially desirable was someone whose integrity could not be questioned—that is, someone who would make a credible public advocate for human rights but at the same time would not be viewed as threatening by the defenders of the state. The small group of individuals who spawned the LTDH considered these issues and deliberately recruited Saadeddine Zmerli to satisfy this purpose. As a physician practicing in colonial Algeria, Zmerli had belonged to the Algerian branch of the French League of Human Rights and was respected as an educator and a practitioner. Unlike the LTDH's actual progenitors, however, he had never played a role in politics and was not politically ambitious. The OMDH in Morocco made similar calculations, but as many of the founding members there were relatively unknown and had previously abstained from political involvement, they sought a politically respectable but uncompromised player whose own reputation would move their cause forward while minimizing the appearance of contentious intent. Mahdi el-Mandjra for a time supplied that need. Brahimi's connections within the inner circle of the Algerian political elite likewise afforded certain protections.

Where groups allowed passions to override their pragmatic assessment of political realities, stiff penalties could be exacted. In 1987, in the midst of political turmoil, the LTDH's secretary-general, Khemais Chemmari, was arrested for criticizing the prime minister. Members of the Moroccan Association of Human Rights (AMDH) and the Moroccan league were called in for questioning following a joint communique issued in 1989. The pragmatic wisdom of self-restraint is amply illustrated by the experiences of the LADDH in Algeria and the AMDH in Morocco. Under Ali Yahia's

leadership, the LADDH only minimally diversified its Berber membership base and as a matter of principle it maintained a careful distance from both the FLN and those in seats of governmental power. It dared to operate openly before receiving official approval, and in return, its members were sent to prison. Somewhat more liberal laws of association in Morocco gave the AMDH more breathing space, but the outspoken leftists among its members are sometimes harassed—even to the point of arrest and imprisonment—and for many years the organization was effectively marginalized. While most activists sought to avoid such outcomes, it was ultimately a commitment to speaking out against abuses that bound them together. Maintaining that commitment often necessitated a careful balance between effective action and political risks that were by no means negligible.

If passions tempered by political pragmatism provided energy for the movement, the financial resources to sustain it were of only slightly less importance. Producing press releases and publishing reports involves certain expenses, and equipping an office requires more substantial investment. In Morocco and Tunisia, members reached deeply into their pockets, and thanks to their own relative affluence found the wherewithal to fund their causes. In Tunisia, early activists met in the office of Hammouda Ben Slama, a private physician; they soon were able to rent modest office space but waited several years to benefit even from a typewriter. The OMDH's purse was more comfortably lined, and from the outset it occupied spacious quarters in a residential area near the law school in Rabat. In Algeria, where private sources of income are less abundant, government funds have paid for for the LADH's office. Its members, mostly professionals, donate their services and stock supplies. The LADDH, by contrast, has not been provided with an office and depends almost entirely on the limited resources of its president.

Ironically, the activities of human rights groups have been sustained in part by neopatrimonial structures that undergird personal rule. As functionaries or as self-employed professionals, many activists are fairly well paid but relatively underemployed. Energies devoted to human rights groups create meaning and offer a path to social engagement that in some circumstances patrimonial linkage may also supply, but that income alone cannot.

The Role of Political Discourse

Onlookers at times dismiss the rhetorical battles in which social activists and defenders of the status quo engage, but such exchanges are deeply

significant. Political discourse lies at the heart of the work of social movements. David Snow and his associates note that social movements don't simply carry forward well-formulated ideas: they engage in a process of constructing ideas, producing and maintaining meaning for antagonists and bystanders as well as for their own constituents.^[11] Political discourse shapes political action, and social movements both borrow from and try to change public discourse. As Sidney Tarrow puts it, "collective action is the stage on which new meanings are produced, as well as a text full of old meanings."^[12]

In the Maghrib, human rights activists were inspired primarily by the immediate political situations they confronted, and the different histories of individual groups and their various rhetorical emphases are explained by the local context. The Tunisian league pressed for political pluralism and the enforcement of civil and political rights for the most part already set out in law. The two Algerian groups differed in their strategies, but both sought to introduce the notion of civil and political rights. In Morocco, the three human rights groups joined together in efforts to make law more prominent in society and politics. Although all groups argue the indivisibility of civil and political rights on the one hand and of social, economic, and cultural rights on the other, it is clear from both actions and rhetoric that civil and political rights have thus far occasioned the greatest concern.

The cyclical nature of social protest makes the place and the shape of its initial appearance in any given cycle of particular note.^[13] Early ideational frames of collective action within a cycle condition subsequent ones, and although the Tunisian league was not the very first Maghribi human rights group, its role as the first fully mobilized group has had implications for rights organizations across the Maghrib and in other parts of the Middle East as well.

That "human rights" emerged as a master frame of social protest in the Maghrib owes something to the fact that the protest cycle itself commenced in Tunisia. It is a paradox of political dynamics that relatively open governments are most likely to experience political protest.^[14] The fact that Tunisian political rhetoric tacitly acknowledged and legitimized the idea of public liberties gave early activists there a political foothold from which to ratchet upward their claims to more extensive civil and political liberties. More than two decades of official discourse about human dignity had provided compelling rhetorical devices to political opponents who first gathered as the ad hoc council on public liberties. Habib Bourguiba and his political entourage within the PSD were able to expel them from formally

designated political space, but they could not entirely silence them without incurring costs of their own.

Some critics now pose questions about the compatibility of Western-based notion of rights and the Arabo-Muslim cultural heritage, but those issues were not raised at the inception of the LTDH and may appear more a tactical ploy than evidence of a fundamental philosophical difference. Almost a decade before, the Tunisian government had ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: a venerable tradition of political reformism solidly anchored the notion of individual-based rights within the bounds of Tunisian political culture.^[15]

An individualist view of rights need not locate itself within the Western tradition or establish itself as anathema in the East. To assure coherence, Wuthnow argues, a moral ideology based on the individual minimally entails both rights and responsibilities: individuals are seen as capable of possessing rights; individuals are free to act and constitute the locus of choice; and individuals are conceptualized as having moral obligations. Moral accountability is meaningless without freedom, since any notion of moral obligation requires that an individual be free to reject the obligation.^[16] Such a notion of freedom and individual rights and responsibility may be contested by many in Tunisian society inasmuch as it connotes the ability to make doctrinal interpretations that adapt universalistic ideas to particular situations,^[17] , but it is essentially compatible with the reform tradition that can be traced in Tunisian political history from Khayr al-Din Pasha forward.^[18]

"Human rights" was a term gaining international currency in the late 1970s, and Tunisian activists seized upon the notion as a schema that could effectively organize and represent their own concerns. Such schemas, or "collective action frames" as they are identified within the literature on social movements, aid in efforts to locate, perceive, identify, label, and generally interpret events as they occur.^[19] Frames once developed take on a power of their own. When drafting its charter in 1985, the Tunisian League accordingly found itself led through the debate by its own prior conceptualization of the issues as pertaining to human rights (as opposed to Tunisian, Arabo-Muslim, or male rights). In the process, it broadened and expanded the concerns within its purview and explicitly endorsed a universalist concept of human rights.

The terms of popular debate were likewise transformed. Discussions about the role of women in society that had once fallen under the rubric "status of women," for example, were subtly reframed as a rights issue. Women's groups formed in the late 1980s across the region use "rights"

and "democracy" rather than "feminism" or "equality" to advance their claims. Similarly, political uprisings and governmental reprisals conventionally analyzed in terms of class struggle or social order were now seen through the prism of human rights. "Human rights" by the late 1980s had enough currency in the streets of Tunis to sustain conversational debate about the relative precedence of civil and political, as opposed to social and economic, rights. Moroccans and Algerians heard the term somewhat less frequently, but there, too, it entered public discourse. In Algeria the Gulf War was discussed in terms of human rights, and a 1993 sex scandal in Morocco centering on Casablanca's police superintendent was framed as abuse of power, violation of the public trust, and accountability—all terms within the Moroccan human rights lexicon.^[20]

That Tunis was the birthplace of the contemporary Maghribi human rights movement was important for another reason. As already noted, periods of moral disorder frequently give rise to competitive ideologies, and human rights was not the only broad social movement to emerge in the Maghrib in the late twentieth century. The human rights and Islamist movements had parallel histories in Tunisia in the early 1970s, formulating alternative visions. The human rights movement arguably has a major role to play in the evolution of Maghribi politics and has successfully imposed its own frame on public discourse, but it is important not to lose perspective. Of the two contending movements, it is fundamentalist ideology and not human rights that resonates most deeply with the popular culture of the Maghrib. As it turned out, however, "human rights" conveyed a message of protest clearly and effectively enough that Islamist groups chose to adapt the language used by human rights groups, rather than vice versa.

Elements embedded in Tunisian political culture aided this evolution. Of the three Maghribi countries, Tunisia offered the human rights movement its greatest chance to take root and establish itself as an alternative to an Islamist movement. Neither Morocco nor Algeria had as strongly rooted a tradition of reform on which to draw, and in both countries governments openly opposed the domestic promotion of human rights, albeit in different ways and with different rationales. In Tunisia by contrast, Bourguiba had once used an as-yet-inchoate religious movement to combat more threatening challenges from the left, and in time, the government saw human rights as a tool to fight the Islamists. The LTDH perhaps unwittingly abetted the government in this regard with its failure to make bold appeals for the release of Islamists imprisoned in 1981 (although it did closely monitor their prison conditions), and, as explored in Chapter 8, a

combination of elite status and a strict commitment to work within the framework of the law generally diminished perceptions of threat from the LTDH. International human rights groups, though, did take up the Islamist cases, and it was probably through that means that human rights discourse was introduced to the group then known as the MTI.^[21] During the 1987 clampdown that targeted Islamists and their sympathizers, the league did strongly register its concerns. By that time, however, several Islamists had joined the LTDH and both movements were firmly implanted.

It was not simply tolerance for the philosophical notion of human rights that allowed human rights to come to the fore of political discourse. Islamism was also actively repressed. As a cornerstone of Middle Eastern culture, Islam possesses enormous legitimizing power. A movement of social protest tapping its power could threaten any government in the Arab world. Maghribi statesmen implicitly recognized that potential, and regimes in Tunisia and Algeria had sought to tame Islam soon after independence; in Morocco, its power was harnessed to the monarchy. In none of the three countries was the government in place willing to see Islam's potentially explosive power yoked to an opposition group, and in consequence organized Islamism has been met with harsh repression and its rhetoric has been vigorously contested.

There were thus multiple factors influencing the Tunisian human rights movement's delivery of its message, but while the government's intent to use it selectively and exploit it for its own ends must not be discounted, the LTDH's own success in altering political discourse in Tunisia was not negligible. Public discourse is not monopolized by any single actor, no matter how powerful, nor can its location be confined to a designated political space. As Carol McClurg Mueller notes, public discourse involves an interplay among media discourse, issue arenas, interpersonal interactions, and public opinion. In framing issues, defining grievances, and staging collective actions, social movements alter public discourse.^[22] The LTDH managed to insert human rights into political discourse in Tunisia, and with its voice amplified internationally, it spread to other Maghribi societies and polities. In the early 1980s, it would have been difficult to predict that within a decade, the leaders of Algeria and Morocco would take up the theme.

Organization and Tactics

In addition to recruitment issues and political discourse, a social movement's effective micromobilization depends upon the strategies and tactics it adopts. As with political discourse, successful tactics must resonate within the political culture and call on constituents to act, perhaps cre-

atively, with familiar means. Because contextual factors loom very large, there can be no single blueprint for effective action.

North African human rights groups initially faced two questions of broad tactical significance: how to structure their organizations and how to target their efforts. After extensive deliberations, each group developed different strategies, but as with questions of political discourse, the patterns established by the Tunisian league informed and influenced decisions in Morocco and Algeria.

The issue of organizing structures turned on two poles: who (and not simply how ) to recruit, and what relationship to pursue with political parties. The first of these issues occupied groups most keenly in their formative period. Members talked about how large their group might become and whether or not they sought a mass-based organization. Drawing on experiences with the PSD, in Tunisia the choice was for an organization small enough to be monitored from, but not entirely dominated by, the center. In 1982 the league consciously limited the number of groups it would sponsor in Tunis.^[23] In Morocco, the OMDH drew members primarily from professional circles in major cities; the resurgent AMDH attracted members of the OADP as well as more radical elements from within the USFP and set up branches throughout the country.

Membership policies reflect how the risk of participation was assessed. Both the LTDH and the OMDH understood that they were pushing the boundaries of politically acceptable action and recognized the importance of internal cohesiveness and trust. Their membership was deliberately drawn from professional classes who maintained important stakes in society. Not wishing to court trouble, they moved carefully. Algerian groups, too, were initially cautious, but Ali Yahia and associates within the Sons of the Martyrs group had already been chafing for several years and were not inclined to patience. And as noted earlier, for direct expression, they paid a price. As the LADDH developed, Ali Yahia came to exercise considerable personal discretion, and although by 1991 several thousand LADDH membership cards had been distributed, "membership" in the organization did not seriously engage many others besides him. Under Brahimi's wing, the LADH had much less to fear, and its several branches operated freely.

Relation to parties was the second major organizational issue faced by groups, and the more delicate one. The Tunisian league had originally feared that it might be swallowed by the PSD, but a more substantial threat actually came from the social democrats out of whose midst it had been formed. A fiction of separation was originally maintained by electing Zmerli, an independent, as president and by Mestiri's decision to maintain

distance from the league. In 1982, the LTDH went so far as to close one Sahelian branch it thought would be overtaken by the PSD and refused to open another it judged dominated by leftists. Problems developed in 1985, however, when more than a third of the delegates to the league's congress and half of the candidates for the league's executive committee had strong connections to the MDS. The problem caused the league to reaffirm its commitment to nonpartisan action, and the immediate difficulties were finessed by expanding the executive committee (which in 1982 had been reduced to fifteen members). For the moment, at least, the league managed to stay its nonpartisan course.

As the Moroccan Organization of Human Rights was forming, it took heed of the Tunisian league's experience, as well as that of the two existing Moroccan groups. Both of those groups were affiliated with political parties, and as a result both were stymied either by political policies or political wrangling. The OMDH recognized these problems and discussed them with its counterparts in Tunis, but the issue in Morocco was not an easy one to transcend. Even from the beginning, the OMDH locked itself into party structures by permitting parties to send representatives, and following the fall 1989 resignation of most independents within the organization, the OMDH relied more heavily on party structures. Gradually it became associated with the USFP mainstream, and in January 1992 it elected Abdelaziz Bennani, a prominent USFP member, as its president. Ironically, the OMDH's growing links to the USFP have allowed the AMDH—formally affiliated with that party—to develop greater independence.

Algerian human rights activists considered the Tunisian experience as well, but without serious engagement. Although the Front of Socialist Forces (FFS) had resumed its activities in the late 1970s, and the Avant-Garde Socialist Party (PAGS) offered a venue for limited opposition within a partisan framework, in 1987 the FLN was legally and effectively the lone political party in Algeria. The question of party affiliation was thus a simple one, and for Ali Yahia, a known critic of the FLN, the matter was clear. Brahimi's group, on the other hand, might have accepted formal FLN linkage, but it was particularly covetous of affiliation with the International Federation of Human Rights Leagues (FIDH), whose guidelines in the interest of independence prohibited connection to any single party. In 1985, the FIDH had recognized the rival league, and that was the LADH's primary concern.

Allowing political parties to play a substantial role potentially involved both assets and liabilities, which each group had to weigh. Affiliation with parties risked the engulfing of the human rights groups, but allowed the

possibility of harnessing organized energies and gaining access to party congresses, party presses, labor organizations, and so on. Furthermore, only preexisting organizations or cliques promised to counterbalance the strong personalities who emerged as leaders in some of the groups. Party connections by themselves were not necessarily either harmful or helpful to groups, but they posed the difficult question of trade-offs between principle and expediency, which in turn raised the specter of compromise. Groups recognized that they could be effective only to the extent that they maintained the requisite political independence, and the advantages of affiliation with parties had to be balanced against the potential costs of becoming embroiled in partisan struggles. To the extent that groups were committed to metapolitical goals rather than relational politics, the question was critical. If human rights groups sought to alter the political game, their task was in some degree to remove themselves from it. Overlapping roles and conflicting loyalties necessarily confused the concerns.

In this sense, a recent change in Tunisian law that appeared intended to weaken the league may in time strengthen it. A 1992 modification in the law of association (explored more fully in Chapter 9) prohibits overlap between party leadership and group leadership, and although the stipulation resulted in the league's temporary dissolution in 1992, its ultimate impact may well be to strengthen its metapolitical role. As with many questions of political strategy, no single path is clearly optimal. What does seem clear is that the stronger groups have wrestled with these issues, and it is the failure to address them rather than a particular resolution that most threatens a group.

Strategic Choices

In addition to questions about organizing to maximize both integrity and strength within their inner circles, the human rights groups had to consider how to target their efforts. Specifically, they needed a strategy to guide interactions with the two components of society they sought to influence: government and public opinion. The different concerns of those two audiences created another set of tensions for them. Governments held real power, and disregard for the way human rights concerns were framed and presented was likely to exact costs. Modes of action that assuaged government sensibilities, however, tended to cultivate public criticism. A public disaffected with personal politics looked to human rights groups for saintly adherence to principle, taking seriously the moral dimension of human rights work and reacting caustically when the heroes proved more

mortal than moral. Evidence of political calculation invited public criticism, but so did principled adherence to unpopular ideals. Moreover, even popular moral stances rarely rallied mass support. Most groups conceived of themselves as reformers rather than revolutionaries, and they faced a common dilemma: how to compromise without being compromised.

Four issue areas, with various relevance for particular groups, point up the political difficulties of crafting strategies that fully respect the principles to which groups subscribe. The rise of Islamism, the Western Sahara conflict, the Gulf War, and Palestinian rights have all tested the commitment and clear view of human rights groups in the Maghrib. Assessment of their performance is generally colored by the political preference of the observer. The object here is to discern the extent to which, across these issues, groups have indeed delivered a metapolitical challenge.

The Tunisian league was first to confront the issue of Islamism. Early on, the league had developed a tactical strategy of working with, not against, government. "Mass action," Zmerli cautioned in 1985, "could cause us to skid."^[24] Press releases conveyed the LTDH's position to the public, but it preferred to use dignified, respectful letters or personal interviews to register its concerns with government officials. Through the tactics it adopted, the league presented itself as a loyal opposition, and from as early as 1981, the Islamist movement exposed the unstable nature of that oxymoron. The league dodged the difficult question at first. Although the 1981 trial of the officially unrecognized Islamic Tendency Movement (MTI) leaders prompted its first judicial intervention, its concerns were framed in the broader context of the issues of adequate prison conditions and rights of association. The 1984 amnesty extended to MTI leaders resolved a private quandary, but it resurfaced in 1987 and forced the league to clarify its position. The issue was not straightforward, in that many saw the Islamist movement as fundamentally intolerant and antiliberal. The participation of MTI members and other Islamist activists in the league threw the matter into relief. With clear purpose, through 1987, the league spoke out firmly against abuses and in advocacy of the MTI's right to exist within the law, winning the respect and gratitude of some and the ire of others. After Ben Ali acceded to power, the issue was again confused, this time by Mohammed Charfi in a voice the league well recognized. Charfi was elected president of the LTDH in March 1989; a month later, Ben Ali asked him to head the Ministry of Education. At the time, many speculated that his history within the LTDH would help ease tensions with Islamists at the University of Tunis. As minister of education, however, Charfi adopted a forceful anti-Islamist position that renewed debate and stirred

controversy within human rights circles. Disappointment over the legislative elections in 1989 effectively ended Ben Ali's political honeymoon, but the facts that the league had new leadership and that the ministers they addressed included many old friends complicated matters. Another wave of repression again clarified the issues and renewed resolve to stand on principle in 1990, but in the meantime a central political truth had emerged. So long as the force of Islam could be mustered for purposes of protest politics, it would continue to force Maghribi human rights groups to clarify their own priorities.

The circumstances of context shaded this truth in Algeria and Morocco but did not fundamentally alter it. Ali Yahia clung steadfastly to principle and courageously provided legal defense to the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) leaders Abbas Madani and Ali Belhadj, but politically he was marginalized. The LADDH denounced the January 1992 coup de main, but the conservative LADH was more equivocal. The OMDH in Morocco has confronted similar issues with regard to Islamism and was relatively slow to make public statements about cases that had, for example, been taken up internationally by Amnesty International. In Morocco, however, the issue is less prominent, in that the Moroccan Islamist movement remains largely inchoate and has not been targeted for repression nearly to the extent suffered by the political left. In 1990, the OMDH issued two press releases on behalf of al 'Adl wa'l Ihsan, apparently without political penalty.^[25]

The OMDH (along with the AMDH and the Moroccan league) has faced a greater challenge of principle over the right of Western Saharans to self-determination. International human rights groups have generally remained neutral with regards to the Western Sahara, but the OMDH has instead steadfastly maintained the position that the Sahara is Moroccan. As a nominally independent group, the OMDH's position cannot be explained directly as an extension of a political party's own platform, and its advocacy of the official Moroccan position has set it at odds with its international affiliate, the FIDH.^[26] Selective application of international principles on which the OMDH's work depends points up the great difficulties in transcending partisan, cultural, or national interests, but in this particular case, the near unanimity on the issue at home combined with only mild interest abroad has spared the OMDH political costs and embarrassments. Furthermore, it has won it favor in Moroccan political circles and has removed one potential cause for governmental attacks. At the same time, the political calculus has ramifications for its own actions and raises awkward questions about the group's full commitment to the international

principles it has endorsed. Whereas the OMDH broke new political ground by cataloging and publicizing instances of political detention, it remained silent on the question of disappearances in southern Morocco and the Western Sahara. The strategy has undoubtedly spared the OMDH recriminations, but it also entails loss of an opportunity to challenge the most basic rules of Morocco's political game.

Human rights groups must monitor the mood not only of government but also of society at large. Even in societies with well-established, institutionalized civil rights traditions, an unpopular political stance or legal interpretation can be costly in terms of support. Where the objective of a human rights group is not simply to enforce legally guaranteed rights but to implant and develop respect for those rights, there are inevitably debates about how daring or how conservative to be, and whether to lead society or to be bound by its constraints. North African groups have at times been caught between wanting to respond to and spearhead popular human rights causes and not wanting to pander to public sentiments that threatened to undermine principles or distract them from more immediate concerns. Both the issue of Palestine rights and the Gulf War have tested their ability and resolve.

The Gulf War caused a crisis of sorts in the international human rights community. Many elements were at work: questions of international law; a double standard in international political practice, especially as concerned the Middle East; patterns of abuse by the Iraqi government in Iraq; and the difficulty of discerning truth and lies. For popular sentiment in the Maghrib, however, the issue was generally much simpler. The wealth and affluence enjoyed by the Saudis and Gulf emirates has long rankled in North African society, and from August 1990 on, Saddam Hussein was a hero.

Many human rights activists across the region felt themselves torn in different directions. As a body, Algerian activists were least troubled by conflict over principle. The LADH had a component identified as Arab nationalists, and although they stopped short of supporting Iraqi claims, both groups found unity and popular support in condemning the privations imposed upon the Iraqi people. The Moroccan OMDH was if anything more outspoken than its Algerian counterparts in condemning the West, but its position entailed more risk, and more debate, inasmuch as it differed from the Moroccan government's stance. The Tunisian league's position was the most complex, and most contested. At the outset of the conflict, LTDH leaders joined political parties in a march to express solidarity with Iraq and support the Tunisian government's decision not to follow Egypt into

an alliance with the United States. But within the league, there was a complicated, multifaceted debate about the place of principle and international law. A Ba'thist contingent within the league openly supported Iraq, but others reasoned that international principles had to be upheld and that sentiments of political affinity should not be allowed to color the issue. Whatever the league's own position, it followed, it should be the same when Iraq invaded Kuwait as it would be had Kuwait invaded Iraq. There was not full unanimity on this position, and an article authored by the LTDH's president, Moncef Marzouki, expressing his own views sparked a long series of debates in the pages of the weekly Réalités and across a series of LTDH communiques. Marzouki castigated his countrymen for letting their passions and pain obscure other realities about the Gulf War and advocated support for the Iraqi people rather than Iraq's leader. His position was publicly attacked even by league members, and the LTDH as a whole lost popular support. Public disapproval amplified internal dissent over the war and the league's position, and for nearly six months it could focus on no other issues.^[27] Meanwhile, a serious campaign of repression targeting Islamist dissidents was under way, and on that issue the league was nearly silent.^[28] Although Moroccan and Algerian groups were not so internally divided, they, too, focused on little else during this period.

If issues of popular interest and import could sidetrack a group, they could also be used by groups to curry popular favor. The Gulf War was used this way in Algeria, in particular, and groups generally find it difficult to resist such opportunities if they do not involve obvious political costs. Among human rights groups in the Maghrib, the question of human conditions in territories occupied by Israel has most commonly served such purposes. Thus six months after the close of the Gulf War, as the Tunisian league was trying to refocus its energies, it seized upon a proposal from the LADH to host a conference on the rights of Palestinians in conjunction with the Arab-Israeli Peace Talks opening in Madrid. Réalités called the conference a "coup,"^[29] and indeed it served to buoy the LTDH's beleaguered public relations. Contingents from all the Maghribi human rights groups attended, and delegates packed the conference hall in Carthage for an address by Yasser Arafat. In the Maghribi context, the conference was an easy success, but it required much planning, and the benefits were not necessarily long-lived.

A social movement's strength is in part derived from its ability to link its own cause to familiar, significant issues and experiences. Like community rituals or an external threat, local issues that inspire passion, but over which there is little division, can serve as rallying devices to consolidate

energies and mobilize support. They can and do serve a positive function for groups, especially when rifts need to be bridged. Net positive effects are not, however, guaranteed. Whether a group is swept into a situation or deliberately chooses to engage its energies in issues that, however compelling, lie beyond its normal scope of activity and domain of influence, the result in either case may be to thwart, rather than to generate, new energies. Albert Hirshman has coined the term "social energy" to describe situations where joint efforts to achieve collective goals provide an inspiration of their own, so that as work proceeds, more energy becomes available than appeared at the start.^[30] The possibilities of expanded energies are not boundless, however, and inevitably a group has difficulties in sustaining intense efforts. Actions in favor of popular causes may help unite groups and build support, but they may also distract groups from more difficult tasks.

As anecdotal evidence suggests, North African human rights groups have not always been guided by clear principle when confronting politically sensitive issues, nor have they been able to resist being drawn into issues that, while politically compelling, lay beyond their range of effective action. Internal politics has at times become mired in such issues. It is mistaken, however, to judge the movement's strength on such grounds. The measure of a group's commitment lies, not in its ability to avoid political snares or withstand distracting pressures, but rather in its resolve and ability to return to its principal objectives with clear purpose.

Conclusion

The human rights movements that began to emerge in the late 1970s were part of a broader protest cycle that concerned the nature of authority in the Maghrib. Their objectives were not always incompatible, but human rights activists and Islamists approached the crisis of authority from different angles, borrowing from different traditions within their immediate societies and beyond. The human rights movement in the Maghrib, no less than Islamism, is embedded in the culture of North Africa.

In part because it is an indigenous force, the human rights movement has offered a significant challenge to Maghribi states in the late twentieth century. They have contested the state's monopoly of political institutions through the medium of political discourse, and their emphasis on the preeminence of law directly challenges the framework of governance. The efficacy of Maghribi human rights groups in pursuit of these ends owes much to the fact that, for the most part, members are drawn from elite

classes. Rarely since independence have social or political groups in the Maghrib enjoyed the cohesion, purpose, or resources to make their own voices carry. Human rights groups pose a challenge from within. The skills, energy, and financial and technological resources they have deployed do not depend upon the state, and thus far the absence of mass support has been compensated for by internal cohesion. They may operate independently, but at the same time, the interests they share with ruling elites mitigate the threatening aspects of their work. In politics the medium is often as important as the message, and the shared language allows human rights activists to press the claim that law is more important than leader.