Ifda dossier 47, May/June 1985

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Zakia Belhachmi EDUCATING WOMEN FOR DEVELOPMENT: THE CASE OF MOROCCO 1, THE ARAB MUSLIM CONTEXT The Arab Muslim context, while having many of the generic characterisics of other Third World nations, has at the same time specific cultural idiosyncrasies that determine the particular conditions of women and the related problems of development. In order to grasp the meaning of such specific cultural characteristics, one has to place the Arab Muslim countries in their particular historical contexts and exam- ine them in the light of their own process of social change. Significantly, the social change of Arab Muslim countries has been subjected to Western values during colonial times as well as to Western theories of modernization. These theories suffer from limited perspective deriving from its particular temporal and social origin that generated simplistic and definite concepts about modernization, tradition and development. Instead of conceiving modernization and tradition as essen- tially asymmetrical concepts, most Western social scientists set forth an ideal model of modernization and labeled every- thing different as traditional. Yet, tradition is not only too heterogeneous and evocative to be of much use as an ana- lytical concept, but it is also diverse in values and struc- ture. To view tradition as "static" and the concepts of modernization and tradition as being necessarily conflicting is erroneous. In fact, the concept of modernization sustains several ambi- guities which stem from the tendency to identify and associ- ate modernization with virtue. This failure in conception is due particularly to the failure to distinguish between what is modern and what is Western. Implicitly, the two are assu- med to be identical. Nevertheless, to a non-Western society, the process of modernization and Westernization are two different matters altogether. In such a perspective, a modern society can be both modern and traditional because modernization and tradition are not "mutually exclusive" I/ concepts. The attitudes and behavioral patterns of people, in turn, may in some cases be fused; in others they may comfortably coexist, despite the apparent incongruity of it all. Accordingly, the cultural, psychological and behavioral continuities existing within a society through both its traditional and modern phases may - l/ Reinhard Bendiz, "Tradition and Modernity Reconsidered", Comparative Studies in Society and History, (Vol. XV, April 1967) p. 3. 3 0
e significantly greater than the dissimilarities between them. Therefore, the Arab Muslim culture generally viewed as one that keeps women in a state of subjugation is in fact a complex and social situation where tradition does not necessarily demand female inferiority. As we shall see in our exploration of the specific historical and cultural setting of the Arab world, it can be viewed as a liberating factor. It can be argued that the whole problem of modernization today suffers from a severe lack of the notion of process, viewing tradition and modernization as parts of an infinite continuum from the earliest times of society to the indefi- nite future. This notion of process reveals the inherent structural inequalities of the present world-system, both at the international and national levels. REPLICATION OF THE STRUCTURAL INEQUALITIES The structural inequalities which dominate the world's economic system separating the interests of the North and the South, and imposing inequalities within individual Third World countries are to be found within the Arab nations too. Such inequalities are of special concern to the issue of the participation of women, on a basis of justice and equity, in the development process. These structures, therefore, must be kept in mind as the basic background for planning educa- tion in order to contribute more equitably to the integra- tion of women in development. Because the prevailing concept of development is imbued with a marked ideological content stemming from a predominantly economic, theoretical paradigm designed to explain and jus- tify various facets of social reality, the cultural idiosyncrasies and particular priorities of Third World countries are overlooked, while abstract cross-cultural generaliza- tions are applied to development. Accordingly, the Arab world is virtually "coerced" by the industrial world to be- lieve that development is the direct extension of a whole world of knowledge, patterns of thoughts, lifestyles and experiences that have culminated in Western technocratic society. Similarly, Arab social scientists are provided by their counterparts in the Western countries with definitions and models regarding ways and means by which their own Arab structures are to develop! Those patterns of analysis engen- der a dependency devoid of socio-cultural processes and lacking relevance to the resources and needs of Arab socie- ties it is addressed to. Moreover, this alienating situation is aggravated within particular nations by the literal transfer of patterns of thoughts and forms of analysis from industrial countries. Very often, Arab officials tend to equate the success of modernization or developmental process with a society's ability to import as well as to perform according to stan- dard models originating in the West.
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Page 13 and 14: Introducing modern technology and a
Page 15 and 16: REGENERATIVE ZONES REGENERATING THE
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Ifda dossier 47, May/June 1985

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