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Ihbat: disillusionment and the Arab Spring in Morocco

This paper provides a reading of Morocco's February 20th movement as an entry into the understanding of political failure experienced by a social movement. While there is an abundance of literature on successful movements, there seems to be little interest in unsuccessful ones. This may be explained by the fact that, unlike publically celebrated political victories, failure remains to a large extent contained within the private sphere. Accordingly, access to the inner dynamics of social movement failure is problematic for the researcher relying on conventional research methods and requires imaginative approaches. In this vein, fiction seems to enable a better engagement with this important facet of collective action. This paper proposes that the key in grasping the politics of failure is the discovery by activists that their belief in the idea of the ‘people always united until victory', which was a central mobilising force celebrated and performed on the streets during the short-lived euphoric phase,is flawed. Likewise, the consideration of the state as a paper tiger vulnerable in the face of an undefeatable peoples’ will is equally erroneous. Disillusionment,translated in the Arabic ihbat, captures the general mood of the post February 20th context. Far from the idealist expectations of radical change, the unfolding of the events produced disappointing results, revealed the disunity within the people, and unveiled the cunning side of state apparatuses and their ability to survive setbacks. Rather than considering ihbat as a static condition, the paper highlights the dynamics of alternative possibility generated by this emotion.