Across the Divide

Critics say these changes are not enough, and that the now familiar amalgam of economic despair and political frustration could fuel radicalism anew. There's no good way out, but there are lots of bad ones — drugs, Islamist extremism, illegal immigration or some combination of the three. "Sadly, the only way to protest the regime is Islamism now," says Ali Lmrabet, a Moroccan editor who has lived in Spain since he was pardoned last year after serving part of a prison term for writing an article the government claimed undermined the monarchy. Lmrabet says nothing in Morocco will change until it finds a democratic path between "feudal monarchy and violent Islamism." Says Mohammed Najib Boulif, a Moroccan M.P. from the moderate Islamic Justice and Development Party: "If there is social harmony, jobs, equality before the law, there will never be extremism; if injustice increases in Morocco, there will always be extremists."

Last year in Tangier, the Community House for Women, which offers self-help programs to poor women, hosted a discussion about the Madrid attacks. Organizers expected a handful of people to turn up, but dozens packed the room — mostly mothers with sons living, legally or illegally, in Europe. "They were really scared that their children are turning to terrorism," says Mounira Bouzid el Alami, president of the Darna Association in Tangier, which runs the Community House for Women. "For the first time, they realized that you don't become a terrorist just because you meet somebody and he tells you to put a bomb somewhere. Morocco prepared them for terrorism. When you have no future, anybody can work on your brain."

Once in Europe, many Moroccans face discrimination for jobs and housing and find themselves back at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder. "When they go to Europe, they are not prepared for the realities," says Naima Benyaich, sister of Salaheddin and Abdulaziz Benyaich, who are jailed in Morocco and Spain, respectively, on terror-related charges. "They want to recover their religious values and resort to the mosques there. What do they find? A more rigid mentality than the one they left behind."