Warding off terrorism and revolution: Moroccan religious pluralism, national identity and the politics of visual culture

Abstract

This article examines the mobilisation of expressive culture as a powerful vector for social cohesion and disputation; I first discuss the implications of the symbiotic relationship between henna and the Hand of Fatima in nationalistic fine arts, and then analyse the state response to the 2003 Casablanca bombings and the 2011 Arab Spring. I argue that the endurance of the Moroccan nation throughout regional unrest is due, in no small part, to the careful use of resonant tropes from the visual culture of popular Islam.