The Moroccan Nationalist Movement: Istiqlal, the Sultan, and the Country

Abstract

The conventional view of the Moroccan nationalist movement argues that its success was rooted in the experience of the Second World War in Morocco. However, this overlooks the critical differentiation in popular response to nationalist ideas that developed over the period from 1926 to independence in 1956. Whereas the pre-war nationalist movement was urban-based, with a strong middle-class and Salafiyyist tradition behind it, and picked up support from other urban groups that suffered from the Great Depression in the 1930s, it consistently lacked the essential concomitant of a broad rural base. This was in part due to the effective control of rural areas maintained by the French administration, but also arose from the development of a new élite in rural areas that had a clear interest in acquisition and control of land. Although this group had antecedents that originated from pre-colonial times, it was the conditions of the Protectorate and the development of a money-based economy which allowed it to flourish while other aspects of indigenous economic activity declined. This group, which may be considered to constitute a ‘kulak’ class, thus had an evident interest in supporting the French Protectorate authorities, and little concern for nationalist aspirations, particularly since it was also closely associated with the French administration of rural areas through its role in the caïdat. It was only when this élite found its economic interests threatened, and realized that the nationalist movement had the support of the Sultan, that its political concerns were redirected. This change occurred in 1947 with the Tangier speech, in which Mohammed V implicitly rejected French tutelage and, by inference, turned to the nationalist movement to support his dynasty. The speech coincided with the end of the consequences of the 1945 famine, which gave the nationalist movement its opportunity to extend its network into rural areas. It was this development, rather than the Second World War itself, that ensured the ultimate success of the Moroccan nationalist movement.