September 12, 2002
Woman power counters terrorism in Arab world, say UW advisers heading to Morocco for historic vote
As Moroccans prepare for a historic election in two weeks, they will not just choose a new parliament for their nation — they will be steering the Arab world toward greater democracy and women’s rights.
That is the hope of a team of women political advisers from the University of Washington who will be making their fourth trip to Morocco for the Sept. 27 election, when nearly 10 percent of the seats in Parliament will be set aside for women.
The new women’s “quota” is seen as a monumental change among the 22 nations of the Arab League, half of whose female citizens cannot read and where a recent UN report blamed economic stagnation partly on the political repression of women.
“This is a tipping point,” said delegate Cathy Allen, a Seattle political consultant and board member of the UW Center for Women & Democracy. “One of the things holding back Arab countries is the lack of empowered women, and people in Bahrain, Yemen, Kuwait and elsewhere are looking closely at what’s happening in Morocco.”
For nearly two years, the Center for Women & Democracy — a training and research group headquartered in the UW College of Arts & Sciences– has been advising female candidates from six Moroccan political parties in strategies for getting elected and effectively governing.
This came in response to changes supported by reformist King Mohamed VI guaranteeing that at least 30 women will sit in the 325-member Parliament — up from the current two. Not only did all of Morocco’s political parties agree to place women candidates on a special national list, but even more women could get elected in local districts.
Christine Di Stefano, director of the UW Center for Women & Democracy and an associate professor of political science, said news about terrorism and the Israel-Palestine conflict has obscured many important changes taking place throughout the Muslim world, particularly in Morocco.
“What’s going on in some of these places,” Di Stefano said, “is a quiet movement towards democracy.”
The Center for Women & Democracy — funded largely by private donations and overseen by a board of 40 prominent women that includes Washington state Attorney General Christine Gregoire and state Supreme Court Justice Bobbe Bridge — will send a delegation to accompany candidates on Election Day and help document the events.
This follows a six-day Morocco mission last month that included not only Allen, Gregoire and Bridge, but such other experienced political hands as Renton City Councilwoman Kathy Keolker-Wheeler and Dorothy Mann, a UW clinical associate professor of health services who has held government posts. Through lectures, small groups and one-on-one contacts, the UW trainers worked with first-time candidates on such political basics as building coalitions and communicating a focused message.
As women gradually wield power, the delegates say change could ripple through an Arab world in which extremism is sometimes fed by disenfranchisement and poverty.
“We believe that this is a quiet form of ‘terrorism’ against the forces of violence and extremism,” Allen said. “It’s our way of getting back at Osama bin Laden.”
Co-sponsoring the mission and providing logistical support are the National Democratic Institute, a nonprofit group that receives U.S. Agency for International Development funding, and the Association Democratique des Femmes du Maroc.
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For more information, contact Di Stefano at (206) 685-3474, cell (206) 478-4829 or distefan@u.washington.edu, or Allen at (206) 443-1990 or cathy@connectionsgroup.org.
Sept. 25-27 in Morocco (seven hours ahead of Pacific time):
— Allen cell phone 011-212-070-175-886 (011 is the international code, 212 the country code, and the last nine digits are the phone number).
— National Democratic Institute office in Rabat, 037-77-0-50-26.
— NDI Morocco director Maryam Montague 037-67-06-78 (home) or 061-97-99-60 (cell) or maryam@mtds.com.
— Kirsteen Hall, Women’s Trainings Coordinator in Morocco 067-99-64-76 or 037-75-16-15 or kirsteen@mtds.com.
