Resumen de Sufism and Moroccan Political Culture: from the Theatrics of Domination to Neoliberal Development
Emilio Spadola, Alice Catanzaro
From the colonial period to post-Independence to the present, scholarly and state discourses have treated Sufism as a defining element of Morocco’s political culture. Yet while state discourses have consistently emphasized Moroccan Suficulture’s deep historical foundations, social historians and ethnographers now argue for Moroccan Suficulture’s distinctly modern provenance, that is, its fundamental re-formation as a facet of modern national identity and statecraft. In this article we reassess key works in this critical scholarship in light of the Mohammed VI’s signature doctrine of “spiritual security.” Affirming the scholarship’s historicist approach, we argue nevertheless that theoretical alternatives to master-and-discipleship and performative domination are needed to explain the distinctive role of Sufism under Morocco’s contemporary neoliberal dispensation. More specifically, drawing on our ethnographic research and textual analysis of state doctrine, we propose that Sufism’s current framing as spiritual self-development is wholly congruous with national socio-economic development, and indeed, that its political influence (even among ostensibly anti-Sufi Muslims) reflects Muslims’ broader reimagining of Islam, in Morocco and globally, in accordance with neoliberal ethics. In short, Sufism’s role in contemporary Moroccan political culture is to make economic self-sufficiency and entrepreneurial conduct a spiritual virtue. At the same time, we maintain that if Moroccan Sufism reflects more a global Calvinist work ethic than a master-disciple paradigm, it is equally conducive to authoritarianism in its new neoliberal forms
