THE KINGDOM MOROCCO
“Jewish people
in exchange of your freedom.”: sad Adolf Hitler. In 1944 the kingdom of Morocco was occupied
by two countries, Spain and France. The king at that time Mohammed the fifth
received a strange correspondence from a
certain Adolf Hitler proposing an alliance pact. The Nazi will liberate Morocco
from the colonizers but in contour part, the king has to handle all Jewish
Moroccans to the Nazi. Mohammed fifth answered: “I do not see any Jewish, I see
only Moroccans.” A story among so many that symbolizes the tolerance of a Muslim
country far away from the Middle East turmoil.
The kingdom of Morocco
or Al Maghreb in Arabic means "far west".
When the first Arab Merchants arrived to northern Africa in the seventh
century, Morocco was believed to be the westernmost
point in the world. At that time, the
Maghreb region included the countries of Morocco,
Algeria, and Tunisia.
The strategic
location of Morocco at only 9 miles of
Spanish and Portuguese coasts made it the entrance door to Africans treasures .The kingdom was invaded by all leading
civilizations: Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans,
and Byzantine Greeks. Those civilizations successively
set up their own empires. The Berber tribes or native Moroccans were far removed from each other and this was one
reason why Morocco was often invaded
.However, the Berber populations never
accepted the presence of those colonizer forces and chase
them one by one.
Finally,
in the 7th century, the Arabs arrived to North Africa not as invaders but as merchants.
The trading activities with the Islamic empire at that time were at its apotheosis. The Arabs were more interested by the Golden road. The road linking Morocco to Timbuktu
(Mali)
through which gold, ivory and many goods
were exchanged. Many of these merchants settled in Morocco and introduced their civilization. The Moroccan
population was composed of Berbers (name giving for non Arab person), few
Berbers converted to Christianity and a substantial
Jewish population.
The
first Muslim Arab dynasty that came to powering
in Morocco
was the Idrisid. Berbers
and Christian inhabitants of the land were converted to Islam during this period. For
centuries to follow, Arab and Berber factions fought
together to control all North
Africa. The Berbers welcome Islam because it allowed them to form
a united nation, where they were all equal. They shaped
Islam in their own image then overcame control of the Abbasid Caliphate in
Baghdad . Morocco became independent from
the Islamic empire and started expanding its borders from Spain to the north to
Senegal to the south . The golden age of the
kingdom of Morocco
was during the 8th century when Taariq Ibn Ziyaad one of the most prominent commanders of Islamic history conquered
Andalusia actual (Spain, Portugal and Gibraltar).
This state lasted for eight centuries.
The
Alaouites have been the dynasty in power in
Morocco since the 17th century. The Kingdom
of Morocco developed a constitutional monarchy based on
Islamic law and French and Spanish civil law systems soon after receiving
independence. The king is not only a political
leader , he is a religious leader and
commander in chief of the royal army. The mix of European and Arab influence, loyalty to the
king and a strong Islamic base, creates the uniquely
Moroccan identity and allowed a rare stability
to the kingdom in a region of tumult. Stability no one expected
to resist to the wind of democracy brought
by the Arab spring. Most political analysts predicted the fall of
monarchy in Morocco following the revolts in the neighbors :Tunisia, Libya and
Egypt. The kingdom of Morocco unlike the petro-monarchies in Middle East doesn’t have any oil or gas resources to buy
social peace from its population. The kingdom depends mainly on: agriculture
and tourism. However, the population enjoys a relative freedom comparing to all
Arab world. The political system allowed everyone to express its own opinion;
we count over 30 political parties in the kingdom. Having no major political
parties like in the USA,
the winning party in every election has to form a coalition of 4 of 5 parties
to govern. Another reason for the stability of Morocco is religion. In Morocco
we don’t have any tribal system; every family is made up of a mixture of Jews,
Berbers and Arabs. We are also strictly attached to the monarchy; the king is
the Godfather to all Moroccans and the guardant
of safety and prosperity off its entire people.
Finally,
to avoid any critics, the actual king Mohammed 6 submitted a referendum last year limiting his power in favor of
the first minister of the party elected. Ironically,
an Islamic party was elected and a new page
in the history of the kingdom was turned without any blood drop.
Sources
How
Middle East and North Africa Can Rise Above
Spatial Disparities. Publication no. ISBN 978-
0-8213-8321-6. Washington,
D.C.: World Bank, 2010.
Political
Islam and the Moroccan Arab Spring, Nederlands Instituut ,Marokko Minor Social Studies of Morocco, Lenie Brouwer.
The Development in Morocco in the Shade of the Arabic Spring and its
Consequences on Migration, report from a Swedish-Swiss fact finding
mission to Morocco
Mediterranean Politics,Volume 17,
Issue 1, 2012,
Understanding Moroccan Politics: Tools for Assessing the Impact of the Arab
Spring
Sadiqi, Fatima. ‘’Morocco’’
In Kelly, S and Breslin, J. Women’s Rights in the
Middle East and North Africa: Progress amid
Resistance. New York,
Freedom House, 2010.
