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Arab revolutions: "Fear has changed sides"

An interview published on the site Yabiladi.com / February 15, 2011

If Morocco is currently spared the riots that shook the Arab world The history of the Moroccan kingdom was full of uprisings, riots and attempted coups. To understand this, it is interesting to look into the past. To do this, we interviewed Bencheikh Suleiman, Managing Editor of Zaman, the monthly Moroccan specialty history.

Interview by Mohamed Ezzouak

Can you give us different types of uprisings, rebellions, revolutions known to Morocco in its history?

The challenge has always been violent, Morocco, as in all societies. For cons, the forms it takes change over time and are necessarily dependent on context. In precolonial Morocco, the challenge has often taken the form of a Siba (division) or not quelled by Harker (military campaigns) of the sultan. During the good times of the Moroccan monarchy, Bled Siba shrank to a trickle. In contrast, in times of economic crisis, famine and foreign occupation, Bled Siba grew. This historical form of violent protest often (but not always) based mostly on financial grounds (denial of tax, which is considered excessive or unfair) as a negation of the authority the Sultan.

These uprisings were of strong tribal and regional dimension lasted until after independence. One of the latest incarnations of these tribal revolts is perhaps the revolt Addi Or Bihi Tafilalet in a few months after independence. In some ways, the guerrilla Abdelkrim Khattabi in the 1920s or even the Rif rebellion in 1958, may also be related to remnants of the tribal uprising which, remember, was an almost normal mode of political regulation, before protectorate.

The political protest in Morocco it is a hallmark of rural revolt?

The Siba, which is mainly a rural phenomenon, however, should not forget that Morocco's history is dotted with urban riots and this even before the Protectorate. The best known example is certainly one of the tanners of Fez, a social revolt violently repressed by the Authority at the beginning of the reign of Hassan I.

can say that nationalism Morocco's Istiqlal helped forge mainly in cities, hostile to a revolutionary consciousness protectorate. Political dissent then takes a more "modern", at least more akin to the theories of revolution from the mother of all revolutions, that of 1789, France. The protest, sometimes violent, was then surrounded by an educated elite, the bourgeoisie often do or who wants to free slaouia Morocco and its people, just as in the case of the French Revolution, considered by Marxists as a bourgeois revolution .

From the time the monarchy takes precedence over the national movement, the notion of revolution changes direction: the revolutionaries are no longer resistant to the oppression of the protectorate, but a dangerous communist, or worse, anarchists. It is also interesting to note that the monarchy was still trying to recover some of the revolutionary ideal: speak Is there no revolution of the King and the People, to describe the violence that led to the return of Sultan Mohammed Ben Youssef from exile in 1953?

What can one say of revolts during the reign of Hassan II?

There are three that stand out: the riots in Casablanca in March 1965, when the manifestations of students, soon joined by workers, were violently suppressed by General Oufkir in person; in 1981, the reduction in subsidies for many basic commodities, which sets fire to the powder, riots affect Casablanca, Oujda, Nador, Berkane, finally, we note the uprising of Nador in 1984, which gave the opportunity to Hassan II delivering his famous speech on awbach.

coups are they to be classified in a separate category? They are military and not necessarily the population rises.

I do not think the coups of 1971 and 1972 could amount to a revolution, or even a rebellion or riot. It lacked the popular dimension, even if we could see here and there a few demonstrations of joy when the proclamation of the republic was announced by the junta.

The current situation in Morocco can it lead to a revolt or a revolution in light of what is happening in the rest of the Arab world?

I prefer not to devote myself to the game now predictions. It is a futile exercise. What is certain is that the revolts and riots continue to occur sporadically. It is the law of the world, even democratic regimes face street protests, sometimes violent. Even they are confronted with logic safe. Just look at the riots in Los Angeles in 1992, or more recently the uprising in the suburbs in France. For that runs riot to revolution, it takes a very special chemistry. What is certain is that in the current context, all the Arab regimes and, more generally, all authoritarian regimes in the world, walking on eggshells: fear may have changed sides.