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Recent geopolitical events have led to a worldwide resurgence in nationalism which entails political togetherness and invokes the spirit of patriotism. In various contexts, language has been a central point of departure for many nationalist movements. In particular, English is increasingly discussed with regards to its sociopolitical and sociocultural implications for the expanding-circle spaces. This research is a critical qualitative study that examines how neo-nationalist policies are potentially transforming TESOL classes in Morocco. By focusing on TESOL teachers' reactions, we seek to reveal the range of impacts that recent nationalist policies have had on English teaching in Morocco and discuss pedagogical possibilities that can balance internationalist and nationalist desires in the country. In addition, we attempt to investigate how understandings of the nation are actualized in classrooms and how English language teaching practices and policies account for the ideas about the Moroccan nation. The study highlights how English language teachers make sense of debates surrounding English as a threat to national languages and how they can be agentive in realizing change through critical pedagogical interventions with nationalism and the concept of nation.

Any country's choice of the medium of instruction (MOI) reveals a lot about its social, cultural, economic, and political agenda. The question of MOI in North Africa, and more precisely in Morocco, has been a thorny issue since the country's independence in 1956. This article aims at contributing to the debate around which of Morocco's two main languages, French and Modern Standard Arabic, should be chosen as MOI in public schools. The article discusses some of the reasons that led to the recent decision to reinstate French language as a MOI in Morocco's education after decades of Arabization policy. Moreover, the article examines the effects of language planning on the quality of education and the identity debate as conservative Islamist ideologies have begun to play an important role in Morocco's political discourse and cultural debate. In addition, following the recognition of Amazigh language, the paper discusses the sensitive debate concerning Morocco's multilingual and multicultural identity.

This study investigates the relation between religious group identification and ethnic and national identity among Moroccan-Dutch Muslim adolescents (11-18 years) and their parents (n = 369). Compared to their parents, adolescents showed higher national identification and lower religious and ethnic group identification. However, for adolescents and their parents, there were similar positive relations between Muslim and ethnic identifications, and both identifications were negatively related to Dutch identification. For early adolescents, parent's religious group identification was strongly related to their religious identification and ethnic and national identifications. These associations were not significant for middle adolescents. It is concluded that research on children from immigrant Muslim families should not only focus on ethnicity but on religious identity in particular. (Contains 4 tables and 2 figures.)

Tainted by decades of direct colonial influence, Moroccan cultural identity in the postcolonial era became the battleground for conflicting discourses and competing voices grappling for recognition and dominance. The project of cultural decolonisation and national identity construction was avidly endorsed by Moroccan nationalist authors whose 'engaged' literature aimed at resurrecting Moroccanness on solid Islamic and nationalist foundations. Modernist writers, however, espoused a different vision that is based on modernisation, liberalism and secularism. Some other writers wrote 'undesirable' literature that is highly individualistic and unconcerned with the question of identity. The cultural scene in general and the novel genre in particular, being a new and a widely receptive genre, vehicled these postcolonial conflicting discourses and ideologies and reflected the discursive and ideological heterogeneity of postcolonial Morocco. This article sheds light on this heterogeneity as manifested in the works of prominent Moroccan post-colonial novelists. I, therefore, contend that there were several literatures at play subsequent to Morocco's political independence; one is progressive, another reactionary, and the other is ahistorical; all representing the three major currents of post-colonial Moroccan literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A public debate about the social status of women accompanied the emergence of mass politics in Morocco after World War II. The Arabic-language press argued that true sovereignty required the liberation of the kingdom's female citizens from the shackles of tradition. Taking inspiration from developments across the decolonizing world, nationalists promoted women's "rights and duties" to build a "new Morocco" beyond the constraints of French colonialism. State formation became dependent on a profound social transformation. Following independence in 1956, however, King Mohammed V gradually replaced the public conversation about female emancipation with a narrative that began and ended with the royal palace, thereby constructing a unique version of state feminism that persists today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Universitaria de Historia Militar (RUHM) is the property of Centro de Estudios de la Guerra and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revue Académique des Études Sociales et Humaines is the property of Hassif Benbouali University of Chlef and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

El-Horria/La Liberté was a bilingual, Judeo-Arabic and French, Jewish weekly newspaper published in Tangier, Morocco between 1914 and ca. 1924. This article offers a careful study of this newspaper in order to show the worldview it created for its consumers through discussion of issues its editor and authors deemed to be crucial for Jewish life in Morocco at the time. These ranged from the consequences of World War I to French colonialism, Jewish peoplehood, Zionism, or the reorganization and modernization of Jewish communities in Morocco. Through a comparison of writings in Judeo-Arabic and French, this article also unpacks the intersections between language, social hierarchy, socio-political commitments, and Jewish minority-Muslim majority relations in Morocco. Ultimately, this article demonstrates how El-Horria/La Liberté promoted the integration of French-speaking, intellectual, urban, Jewish elites into a Jewish world focused on eastern and central Europe, and how it tried to do the same for the larger group of Judeo-Arabic speaking Jews in the Moroccan interior, although it was sometimes challenged by the latter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ruling dynasty of Morocco is one of very few that tracks its royal bloodline back to the Prophet Muhammad himself. Did this lineage contribute to the fact that the North African monarchy was barely touched by the tumultuous Arab Spring of 2011–12? This article challenges such assertions. Despite its divine inception, Moroccan royal power survived the era of modernity solely thanks to the French, who invested in their colony during the protectorate (1912–56). It was France that elevated the royals and allowed for the throne to become the pillar of Moroccan nationalism. This venerable lineage would have been futile had the royal family not learned the sophisticated methods of political struggle against its competitors. The dynasty established a unique system of holding the opposition back in such a way that it simultaneously becomes a bulwark of the state's stability. In addition, the bureaucratization of Islam became a key tool in the Moroccan state‐building arsenal: Religious practice can be conducted only in accordance with the government rulebook. In other words, Morocco's present‐day stability has nothing to do with religion itself, but rather with politics—and the last North African monarchy might still see an Arab Spring awakening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Politica y Sociedad is the property of Universidad Complutense de Madrid and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The disputes that led to the exiling of Kabaka Mutesa II of British Uganda and Sultan Mohammed V of French Morocco in 1953 highlight the shifting and involved agency of the Indigenous rulers in the postwar decolonization struggle. The time was painful for the colonial powers as nationalists brought profound pressure on the Allied Powers to comply with their promises of "self-determination" for colonized peoples.1 In Uganda, Britain's move to sideline the kabaka from the transition process triggered a quarrel between Governor Cohen and the Buganda monarch. In Morocco, the French officials' intent to undercut the sultan's authority turned Mohammed into a radical nationalist. The African rulers' rebellious stance, their consequent punishment with deportation, their homecoming, and reinstatement mirror the new nationalist Zeitgeist's incompatibility with colonial punishment. The result reveals that exile, which effectively forced compliance in the prewar period, proved counterproductive in the postwar era. With young and radical nationalists on their sides, many African rulers exiled in the 1950s used their banishment to negotiate, hasten and even modify the decolonization program to their advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is Moroccan literature, where and when does it happen, and in what languages? In this essay, we tackle these questions by tracing the evolution of the definition of "Moroccan literature" from the first half of the twentieth century until the present. The earliest works of Moroccan literary historiography, such as ʿAbd Allah Kannūn's al-Nubūgh al-maghribī fī al-adab al-ʿarabī (1937), situated Moroccan literature within the Arabic literary tradition and treated Moroccan literature as an important element in the "Arab-Islamic" identity promoted by the Moroccan nationalist movement. Since Moroccan independence in 1956, this definition of Moroccan literature has come under increasing pressure, as the languages and imaginative geographies of Moroccan literature have expanded to include new voices. In what follows, we consider these debates through a survey of a diverse corpus of literary-historical works that throw into question the linguistic, temporal, and spatial borders of Moroccan literature (and of Morocco itself). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Studies in Oral Folk Literature / Estudis de Literatura Oral Popular is the property of Universitat Rovira I Virgili and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Omran for Social Sciences is the property of Arab Center for Research & Policy Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article examines the Spanish army during the decolonization of Morocco, and it explores the connection between Spanish cultural perceptions – seen most clearly in the myth of Spanish-Moroccan brotherhood – and strategic and operational failures. It pays particular attention to the views of Spain's last High Commissioner in Morocco, Lieutenant General Rafael García-Valiño, and the Franco dictatorship's ideologue of Spanish imperialism in North Africa, the influential army officer and prolific writer Tomás García Figueras. Highlighting the diversity in outlooks within Spanish military culture, the study explores why key military africanistas did not see what was coming so that they might have prepared better for the departure process. This failure left the Spanish army in unwinnable, humiliating, and in some cases fatal predicaments, and it has had consequences that linger to this day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on the theory developed by the Nordic school of service marketing, the authors devise a model that involves the direct effects of technical (physical good quality) and functional (service quality and servicescape) elements of the service encounter on customers' behavioral intentions. They test the model using service customers in the fast-food and grocery industries in eight countries (Australia, China, Germany, India, Morocco, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United States). Notable differences exist between fast-food and grocery customers in the eight countries. The relative effects of the technical and functional service elements on behavioral intentions also differ significantly across countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the relation between identity definition and trust in different information sources in Morocco, Jordan and Tunisia following the 2011 Uprisings. While prior to 2011 literature mostly highlighted the role of pan-Arab news channels in consolidating a transnational Arab public sphere, recent studies argued that there has been a reinforcement of national media and identities in the Middle East and North Africa, as a consequence of a partial liberalisation of national broadcasting. Our study is based on the Arab Transformations survey (2014), which unlike previous surveys included questions covering both media consumption and identity definition. We looked at how in the three countries the choice of Muslim, Arab or national identity definition was associated with the preference for distinct sources of political news. The results only partially confirmed the hypothesis of a renewed importance of national media and showed that in the three countries people tended to attribute very different values to the same news sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Ayer: Revista de Historia Contemporánea is the property of Asociacion de Historia Contemporanea and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article addresses the development of nationalist narratives in French protectorate Morocco and their role in cultivating a plural, dynamic sense of belonging among the urban Jewish communities. The three narratives examined include Arab Islamic Moroccan nationalism, political Zionism, and French cultural-linguistic assimilation, each of which included certain aspects that appealed to Jewish conceptions of allegiance and belonging. Presenting primary data in the form of interviews with Moroccan Jews who lived during the protectorate and remain in Morocco today, this article makes two contributions: first, it outlines a theoretical relationship between identity and belonging, and second, it offers primary data that undermine the popular modern dichotomous schema that views Jewish and Arab as incompatible or clashing identity categorizations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article reevaluates the so-called Meknès water riots of 1937 as a way to understand how rural economic decline and the contest over natural resources during the Protectorate period sparked anti-colonial protest in Morocco. The ‘riots’ have long been considered an early example of Moroccans unifying under the banner of an emergent anti-colonial nationalism. This article argues, however, that the revolt cannot be adequately conceptualised as simply a reflection of the nationalist message based on the rehabilitation of the Alawi sultan and Islamic scriptural reform. When situated in the long-term transformations of the regional economy, urban infrastructure and local forms of religious power, the protest emerges as an organic and powerful attempt by Meknès residents to reclaim local sovereignty over natural resources that had been wrested away from their pre-Protectorate arbiters by the sultan's government and French forces. Popular action in Meknès took many forms based on a range of local logics that had little to do with abstract questions of national rebirth and was often diametrically opposed both to nationalist groups from outside the city and to the sultan's government. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An introduction to the journal is presented in which the editor discusses various reports published within the issue, including one on the history of the nationalist movement in the Jbala in Morocco, another on Spain's northern Moroccan possessions, and another one on the U.S. landings in Morocco on November 8, 1942.

Spain's importance in Morocco for much of her 44 years there (1912–56) was subordinate to that of France, yet Spain managed to carry out an independent policy during that time that corresponded with her continental interests. In the early years, her governing policy in the north was shaped by military concerns, especially during the Rif War (1921–26) when Berber warriors under the leadership of Abdel Krim nearly wrested control of the zone away from her. In the 1930s, Rifian troops fought at Franco's side during the Civil War, winning a reputation for steadfastness and ferocity. Spain managed to seize control of Tangier in 1940, but handed the zone back to international supervision as soon as the war ended. After 1953 Spain's Morocco policy lost direction as the tide of decolonisation swept over the region. Clinging frantically to her northern foothold, Spain played a dangerous game of encouraging the nationalists while trying to stay firmly in control. As independence became increasingly inevitable, Spain courted the Arab League, drawing away from ‘imperial’ France and Britain in an effort to become the ‘friendly’ interlocutor between the Arab peoples and Europe. But when France's withdrawal became inevitable, Spain too capitulated, for Franco's regime was ‘not ready to go to war over Morocco’. Spain's tenure in northern Morocco was marred by a bloody war, incapable administrators, unending corruption, harsh military rule, and the absence of clear goals. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Based on an unpublished memoir about the life of a seven-year-old Moroccan Jewish child in the 1940s in themallah(Jewish quarter) of Casablanca, this article examines the traumatic dimension of a child's memory vis-à-vis the precarious social milieu and the instability of the political street at the time. The article draws a parallel between the deterioration of the protagonist's mental and physical health during 1948 and political and social events relating to the formation of Moroccan national sentiment in Casablanca. It details the contradiction between the official narrative and the ‘homey narrative’, the impact of news and rumours about the war in Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel, and how the formation of a (trans)national politico-religious sentiments among the Jews of Casablanca and Purim festivities coincided with all these events and reflected their uncertainty. The protagonist's mental ‘crisis’ is analysed through concepts used in Deleuze and Guattari's metaphor of a ‘body without organs’ known as ‘BwO’, where schizophrenia is not connected to either an Oedipus complex or the libido; instead, it is related to the world's (dis)order and stems from the repressive social, political, and economic conditions of the milieu in which the ‘subject-patient’ is living. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In January 1943, the leaders of the Allied Forces met in Casablanca to discuss their war strategy. During the course of the Anfa Conference, President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) had a private dinner with Sultan Mohamed ben Youssef, which came to change the course of Moroccan history. Although the details of the conversation between the two statesmen remained shrouded in mystery due to FDR's untimely death just two years later, the Moroccan side later claimed that the American leader had promised to support their country's independence once the Second World War had ended. This article sheds fresh light on both the meeting and its impact on the trajectory of Moroccan history by utilising a number of new sources. It argues that the Sultan and the local nationalist movement seized this opportunity and created a ‘Roosevelt Myth’, thus turning FDR into a saint-like figure whose anti-colonial stance legitimised their own aspirations to abolish the French and Spanish Protectorates established in 1912. Until they finally obtained complete independence in 1956, the Moroccans used FDR's supposed promise to convince the highly reluctant US diplomats and politicians to support their anti-colonial struggle. The meeting between Roosevelt and Sidi Mohamed became one of the central elements of the national historical narrative, and the memory of the late President is still very much alive in the political discourse of today's Morocco. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Allied landings of November 1942 were a critical step towards the final victory over the Axis; they were also meaningful in terms of Morocco's foreign and domestic policy, marking a sharp turn towards the USA and the West that endured far into the future. The arrival of the Americans revived the hopes of the nationalists, encouraged the Sultan to defy the French, and stimulated military and diplomatic contacts between the Moroccan political class and the Americans. The landing also produced a windfall of goods that relieved the suffering of the Moroccan people, as well as a wealth of propaganda on all sides. Nazi media seized upon the event to vilify both Americans and Jews, French propaganda stressed the ignorance of Americans about Muslim customs, while American propaganda featured symbols of its military might. For Moroccan–American relations, the landings are highlighted as contributing to a progressive relationship of warmth and friendliness stretching back to the time of the early Republic. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

One of the striking features of the study of nationalism in the colonial era in Morocco is the way in which the rural world hardly features in histories of the movement. Issues such as the Rif War and the Jaysh at-Tahrir (Army of Liberation), or even the Rif Rebellion, tend to be treated in isolation, not as integral parts of the overall resistance to colonialism that developed from the 1920s onwards. In part, this is the problem of the ‘subaltern’, in that the rural world has not enjoyed an autonomous historical voice in the same way as has urban nationalism. In part, too, it is due to a lack of professional interest and, until recently, access to the relevant sources. The archives of the French ‘Affaires Indigènes’ (the body responsible for rural administration after the French conquest), for example, were closed for many years. The article below is an attempt to begin the process of developing a history of rural nationalism by examining the ways in which nationalist awareness evolved in the countryside around the Jbala town of Wazzan, from the ‘primary resistance’ of the Rif War epoch to the ‘secondary resistance’ of the 1950s. It seeks to establish how a nationalist discourse was diffused throughout the Jbala region, divided as it was between the French and Spanish zones, by looking at the interactions of town and countryside and the role of markets as arenas of information exchange. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Hassan II Mosque, in Casablanca, Morocco (completed 1993), is well known for its size, historic appearance, and cutting-edge technologies. While the mosque clearly symbolizes Islam and Morocco, scholars have argued that it was also designed to support the legitimacy of the monarch who built it and gave it his name: King Hassan II. While the mosque's significance has been examined, its context within Hassan's decades-long building program has received little attention. It is argued here that the mosque's historic appearance, although not surprising, was not a given but rather the result of an ever-increasing dependence on Moroccan craft as a way to shape Moroccan identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of anti-colonial nationalism in Morocco have long privileged a macro-level of analysis, masking socio-political processes and local networks. This paper approaches the emergence of Moroccan nationalism through social relationships and focuses on networks of local actors and their fusion into a larger national network. Using urban areas as a starting point allows a better grasp of these local networks and the actions around which they were articulated and better description of the trajectories of these urban pockets towards the emergence of collective organisation at a national level. From this description of the articulations between the local and the national, the paper aims to respond to the question: what is retained of the local within the construction of the national? [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article applies a process approach to the study of nationalism, analysing anti-colonial protest in interwar Morocco to address how and why elite-constructed national identity resonates for larger audiences. Using Alexander's social performance model to study nationalist contention, it examines how a Muslim prayer ritual was re-purposed by Moroccan nationalists to galvanise mass protest against a French divide-and-rule colonial policy towards Moroccan Berbers that they believed threatened Morocco's ethno-religious national unity. By looking at how national identity was forged in the context of contentious performances and why certain religious ( Islam) and ethnic ( Arab) components were drawn on to define the Moroccan nation, this study offers a model for answering why national identity gets defined in specific ways and how the nation gains salience for broader publics as a category of collective identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

¡Harka! (1941) and ¡A mí la Legión! (1942), belonging to the so-called ''crusade cinema,'' are two less well-known films, whose main ideological interest lies in the illustration of the importance of Morocco and the Spanish Legion in the collective imaginary of the Nationalist (i.e. right-wing) Army, on the one side, and, on the other, in the crystallization of an exalted militarist rhetoric, which coalesced various ideologies within the Nationalist side during the Civil War and in its immediate aftermath. The persuasive power of the militarist discourse relies on melodrama, which is meant to embellish the glorified war values through an almost mystical aura. Their powerful appeal to emotions, predominantly through a gestural language, makes them seem good examples of melodrama. The dramatic and persuasive effect of these two films is, none the less, repeatedly halted by moments of explanatory verbosity and by abrupt narrative connections between the scenes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The former nationalists of the Istiqlal Party as well as the royal family continue to suppress any discussion of Morocco's post-independence era, when both sides used any means necessary to take over national politics. The outcome of this decade-long struggle, an authoritarian monarchy dominating an array of weak and fragmented political parties, was not only the result of the clash between Morocco's two dominant institutions during the years of state formation, but was also shaped by early Cold War international politics. The Istiqlalis had commenced a global campaign to influence the nascent ‘world opinion’ to support their cause many years prior to independence in 1956. In order to influence the political discourse from the pages of the American media to the corridors of Capitol Hill and the UN building, the nationalists created a network of supporters that enabled them to spread their message to the United States and later on inspired the Algerian Front de Libération Nationale. This project argues that the very structure of the nationalists’ non-hierarchical and flexible propaganda network and their activities abroad helped them prevail in their struggle against the French, but also enabled the Sultan to co-opt it after independence and turn the Istiqlal into an opposition party. Its informal nature, the lack of a clearly defined membership and loyalty, and the absence of a coherent ideology constituted an advantage at first, but eventually turned into a serious liability. Furthermore, the skills, resources, and personal connections, which the nationalists had acquired during their campaign abroad, fell into the hands of the Sultan and strengthened his position once he had co-opted many of the network's participants. It is by looking at the intersections of the formal and the informal, the foreign and the domestic, the individual and the structural that we can begin to understand the complicated dynamics that underlay this crucial period of Moroccan history. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historians and social scientists studying the French protectorate era in Morocco have suggested that nationalist resistance began by the 1930s, if not earlier. Accordingly, the efforts to reform French rule in the 1930s have been called ‘proto-nationalism’ or ‘early nationalism’ in histories that portray nationalism as an evolutionary process, one that grows in a linear, unidirectional fashion. This article explores the tensions between nationalist and reformist demands, and stresses the distinctiveness of these mobilisation platforms. It argues against subsuming calls for reform into the nationalist narrative, proposing instead that calls for reform constituted an alternative to nationalist demands for independence. Proponents of reform emphasised equality and opposed the authoritarian nature of French rule. In contrast, the Independence Party, founded in 1944, challenged the foreign nature of imperial rule. Attention to these differences points to the diversity of responses to French rule. Moroccan anti-colonialism took multiple forms and did not always espouse nationalist goals. Labelling all opposition ‘nationalist’ inhibits our understanding of how actors come to seek national independence. Further, recognising that activists espoused different goals over time is important because it helps make sense of the different visions of the post-colonial order that elites espoused in the years after independence. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Modernity cannot be just considered as a unidirectional process imposed from ‘the West’. Rather, it is the outcome of an interaction with ‘the West’ in which different parts of the world like the Maghreb built their own versions of social change. During the colonial period theatre became one of the genres and spaces in which these political and cultural interactions can be clearly observed. In the Spanish Protectorate in Morocco, the young Moroccan nationalist movement promoted theatre associations and organized many plays from the end of the 1930s which permitted the spread of Islamic reformist ideas and critiques of colonialism. In this paper I analyse, from colonial sources and the memories of some of the protagonists, the political and cultural role attributed to theatre in cities like Tetuan and Tangier. The pieces played by nationalist associations were monitored by the Spanish colonial administration so that the performances became political events in themselves. At the same time, the plays were portraying the social changes experienced by Moroccan society and religion, particularly in relation to transformations of the family and the roles attributed to women. The theatre as a space also became the subject of political debates about the new public sphere and the presence of women in that sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Throughout the period of French indirect rule in Morocco (1912–56), colonial scholars and administrators generated a mass of literature to explain the perceived differences between Arab and so-called Berber (Amazeeri) societies. In the minds of many colonial enthusiasts, objective ethnic difference translated into a series of clear social, cultural, and political traits that had divided the indigenous populations for centuries. Historians of the period have highlighted this ethnographic focus as one of the preeminent justifications for French reforms in Morocco. The reform and institutionalisation of customary Berber law, which provoked the most widespread urban protest in nearly two decades, has long been understood as an example of legislative overreaching: the vibrant popular reactions to the so-called Berber dahir of 1930 signalled to many contemporary actors and subsequent historians the veritable birth of the Moroccan nationalist movement, as urban populations protested the what they saw as the diminution of the sultan's jurisdiction and the attenuation of shari‘a in many rural areas. Implicit in this narrative is the idea that by 1930 the otherwise cautious and informed process of ethnically specific reform somehow went awry. This article seeks to demonstrate that the French legal reform program was, from its inception, founded upon vague, contested understandings of Berber social and political organisation that colonial administrators mobilised for very specific political ends. The so-called reform of Berber customary law was rather an invention of a system that French administrators used to remove the Berber population from the influence of the Arab makhzan, to marginalise religious law in favour of secular European values, and ultimately to fracture the network of social, cultural, and political relationships between the sultan and his people. Understanding the manipulative bases of legal reform sheds light on the relationship between the human sciences and colonial policy – specifically the complicated strength and malleability of scholarly mythmaking – and underscores the paradoxes of the French ‘civilising mission’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An essay is presented on the Moroccan film "Marock," directed by Laila Marrakchi. It notes that the film investigates certain Moroccan youth practices. It also mentions that the film maps a segment of Moroccan culture, as it represents a modern trend in contemporary Moroccan cinema. Topics on Islamic modernism and secular nationalism are also tackled.

Morocco and Spain share a history of mutual recognition and estrangement dating back centuries. Today, this relationship faces re-interpretation in an age of post-colonial migration, economic disparity, and ambiguous nationalities. The nebulous 'space between two coasts' is an important site of this re-negotiation, one that draws upon cultural links of the past in order to understand the present. Cuentos de las dos orillas [Tales of two shores], a bilingual Arabic-Spanish edition of eight short stories by both Moroccan and Spanish authors created in 1999, employs this cultural legacy in order to re-interpret the Hispano-Moroccan relationship as experienced on either side of the Strait of Gibraltar. The stories engage in an intertwined dialogue, each providing a window into how notions of 'Spanishness' and 'Moroccanness' are dependent upon one another. The author proposes that the result of this cooperative compilation is a 'traslado' (translation/transfer) of cultural memory, thus defining the exchange between Morocco and Spain as one of circularity. By analysing the stories 'Morir lo mas lejos posible' [To die as far as possible] by Antonio Alamo, 'El safor' [The safor] by El Astillero, and 'Diario de un emigrante clandestino' [Diary of a clandestine immigrant] by Rachid Nini, this paper traces the ways in which the narratives both rupture and perpetuate the sociopolitical and mythical relationship between Spain and Morocco via the themes of brotherhood, the performance of identity, and departure and return. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the three factors that help shape the civil-military relations in four North African countries, in Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, and Algeria. These factors include the military's role in political affairs, the military's acknowledgement of the language of nationalism for personal interests, and the fact that the armed forces take part in building the nation. It is noted that no military dictatorships have resulted from these four countries perhaps because of the combination of the strong rivals to the military within civilian leadership and the political traditions.

In late 19th century Morocco, ideological issues such as nationalism, secularization, and colonialism came to bear on urban society and on the relations among ethnic groups in the city. This study focuses on inter-communal relations in the coastal city of Tangier, the main port for European entry into Morocco, as an example of a "traditional" Islamic city undergoing rapid modernization. Using archival sources and contemporay ethnographic studies, this article examines how the Muslim and Jewish communities of Tangier responded to the coming of modernity by articulating zones of ethnically and religiously marked space that came to be perceived of as critical to each group's expression of self-identity. [Colonialism, sacred space, Morocco, Muslim-Jewish relations] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a note on the size of the Jewish Communities in the South of Morocco. The settlement of the Jews of Morocco is ancient. In some regions of the south, commerce and certain crafts were dominated by Jews. The area has been surveyed several times in the past with at least two attempts, other than by census, at noting the size of these communities. As a result of an extensive trip the author made through this area during the summer of 1965 these statistics can be brought up to date. They will also indicate the dramatic impact which migration to larger urban centres in Morocco, as well as to France, Israel, and other places, has made. An area which once numbered its Jews in tens of thousands is flow virtually depopulated of them. A researcher estimated the Jewish population of the Draa and Tafilalet at 14,000 in 1906. Just a few hundred remain in these areas today. It is estimated that this small remnant will disappear entirely within a few years. The difficulty of living a Jewish life with so few Jews remaining in the villages, and the generally declining economy in the larger centres, as well as the uncertainties of Moroccan and Arab nationalism, are precipitating factors for the steady emigration of Jews, first to the large urban centres of the North, and then out of Morocco itself.