Brotherhood’s black horse: JDP launches campaign to recruit Moroccan youth
Wednesday 11/December/2019 - 04:18 PM
The youth of the Justice and Development Party (JDP), the political arm of the Brotherhood in Morocco, launched a new campaign to attract and recruit youth under the slogan of political exercise.
Chabiba, the party's youth organization, launched its campaign from the city of Casablanca, which started with the announcement of the organization of the fifth "regional political forum" under the slogan "empowering young people to win the bet of democracy and development" from December 13-15, in the presence of Prime Minister Saadeddine Othmani, the party's leader.
Regional meetings to attract Moroccan youth
The regional meetings organized by Chabiba are considered one of the means that the group relies on to recruit new followers from the Moroccan youth, who exceed a third of the Moroccan people.
According to a number of recent statistics, the percentage of Moroccan youth (between 15 and 34 years) reaches over 34% of the Moroccan population, i.e. 11.7 million young people.
Chabiba resorts to attracting young people and integrating them into the Brotherhood, because they represent the dynamo of the state and the main driver of all social transformations, because of their advantages and capabilities that enable the JDP to reach its goals and stay in power, according to a study published by the Center for Arab Unity Studies (CAUS).
The JDP won 24 seats, including eight reserved for youth, in the 2011 legislative elections, but the party suffered political setbacks that undermined its youth base.
The CAUS study, entitled “Moroccan Youth and Political Participation”, indicated that Moroccan youth suffer from a state of reluctance to participate in politics, especially after the failure of the JDP’s experiment, which was a bad model for political Islamist parties. In the last elections, about 60% of Moroccan youths abstained from voting.
The JDP took advantage of religious slogans and the confidence of people, especially young people, to gain power and achieve its material and moral interests, according to the study.
CAUS considered that the failure of the JDP experience led to the launch of the social protest movements in the regions of Al Hoceima, Jerada and Sidi Ifni in order to demand improving conditions for Moroccan youth and providing them job opportunities.
Recruitment into the Brotherhood
The leader of the JDP’s Chabiba revealed that the fifth forum that will be organized by the group seeks to "engage, frame, train and communicate among the members and leaders of the general Brotherhood project," according to Chabiba’s official website.
The term framing and training refers to the recruitment process carried out by the Brotherhood in Morocco.
Brotherhood recruitment in Morocco
The Brotherhood and its political arms are exploiting the JDP's motives of "loyalty, kinship and religion" to urge young people to join the party and participate politically within its framework.
The group relies on the psychological inlet to recruit young people, as it focuses on those who suffer from psychological, religious or social disorders, considering them easy prey to be polarized.
For his part, Sameh Eid, a dissident Brotherhood leader, told the Reference that the Brotherhood considers the youth to be fertile ground, as they do not carry a political project. In addition, a youth may have been exposed to severe psychological crisis, so this incident is his inlet to enter the group.
Eid emphasized that the Brotherhood depends mainly on teachers, who are important to forming a child's awareness and persuading him from childhood about the group’s approach. Through this manner, people can be militarized and mobilized to attend cultural and sports activities, have sympathy for the Brotherhood and join the group.
There are fatwas regarding the importance of working in teaching, especially for the group’s women, Eid said, noting that women’s roles as teachers allows them to communicate with children at a young age. This is the group's strategy to spread its influence to the minds of young people all around the world, including Morocco.
From recruitment to empowerment
After the Moroccan Brotherhood’s recruitment process is completed, the group and its political arm resort to pushing its members into government jobs to achieve what is known as the “empowerment strategy.”
Documents obtained by the Moroccan website Rue20.Com revealed that the largest appointments to the highest positions were in the governments of Abdelilah Benkirane and Saadeddine Othmani.
There were more than 1,100 appointments to top positions during the Benkirane and Othmani periods, most who were members of the JDP and the Party of Progress and Socialism (PPS), the JDP’s former ally.
The JDP focuses on controlling the sectors that have a direct connection with the citizenry in order to keep the means of direct communication with the Moroccan people and to preserve the survival of JDP-affiliated associations in various regions, cities and villages.
JDP seeks to betray the state
Meanwhile, Moroccan researcher Montaser Hamadeh said that the Othmani and Benkirane governments previously tried to betray the state as a whole through appointments, since the prime minister has the executive authority and has in his hands the administration, the police and everything, in an attempt to extend his influence over the state apparatus.
Hamadeh told the Reference that the JDP came to participate in the government under the umbrella of the Brotherhood's invasion, which succeeded under pressure from regional and international powers.
He pointed out that among the criticisms directed against the previous governments and the government of Othmani is that political consensus depends on the satisfaction of some political parties, and therefore the government of competencies came to change the way of appointment.