Casablanca Calling

Casablanca Calling follows three of the approximately 400 women trained as mordichat (spiritual guides) as part of a new Moroccan initiative designed to make Islam more progressive in its attitudes towards women. Hannane, Bouchra, and Karima are assigned to mosques where they provide counseling about education, employment, marriage, and family issues, as well as religion. Cameras track the three mordichat as they meet with women and schoolgirls, support groups, and families, advocating gently but firmly for women's civil rights and freedoms. Mordichat usually deal with problems related to illiteracy, lack of education for young women, and early marriage (although it is now illegal in Morocco to marry before the age of 18), counseling many young women who are living under radical Islamic restrictions. When a boarding school student commits suicide after her father sees her talking with a boy (he beats her, and then removes her from school), the local mordichat leads a discussion with the girl's classmates, asking them to understand their fathers' fears for them, while also stating that the girl's father was “100 percent wrong,” acting in violation of what Islam allows. The mordichat advise men not to shout at or beat their wives, while some of the men here in turn espouse ingrained ideas that the mordichat are trying to dispel. The mordichats' government-sanctioned position is that even though Sharia law is based on the Koran, societal changes require that some aspects of the law be redefined. As one woman says, “I can't believe Islam says we must live like this, live this bad life.” Offering an inspiring look at a little-publicized effort at humanitarian reform within Islam, this is highly recommended. Aud: C, P. (M. Puffer-Rothenberg)