| dc.description.abstract | At the beginning of the twentieth century, imperial colonialism was in vogue. Great Britain, France and Russia--the great European imperial powers--had gobbled up much of Asia and Africa. With the Western Hemisphere protected by the United States under cover of the Monroe Doctrine, the only major prize yet to be had was Morocco. Morocco was a primitive Islamic state, little affected by the technological and social progress of Europe and the United States. Its subjects universally recognized the spiritual authority of the Sultan as Commander of the Faithful, but many of them--perhaps a majority--denied his temporal authority. Morocco was without the military strength to resist annexation, but was protected by the rivalry between the European powers which for a variety of reasons preferred an independent Morocco to one colonized by a rival power. In 1904, however, Great Britain and France reached an agreement defining their spheres of influence and colonization in Africa. Morocco fell in the French sphere. Germany made a belated bid for Morocco in the decade preceding World War I but was finessed by the British-Russian accord in 1907 defining mutual spheres of influence in Asia. That agreement completed the isolation of Germany in its quest for colonies. France had a free hand for the annexation of Morocco. France, established in Algeria since 1830-1847 and in Tunisia since 1881, desired Morocco as the capstone of a North African empire. Half of Morocco's terrain was fertile and well-watered by African standards and would provide ground for agricultural development. Its mineral riches, if suspected, had not yet been discovered, for the most part, so did not play a major role in the colonialist's quest. France penetrated Morocco militarily from Algeria, and economically from Paris. Finally, in 1912, France imposed the Treaty of Fez on Morocco and established its Protectorate. In the Treaty, France agreed to defend the territorial integrity of Morocco, to protect the position and prerogatives of the Sultan, to protect the Islamic character of Morocco, and to modernize and pacify the state. Almost immediately, however, France began the dismemberment of the Sheriffian Empire. Spain was given a Protectorate over the northern third of Morocco, and, later, Ifni and the Sakiet el Hamra (Spanish Sahara) in the South; Tangier and an enclave surrounding it was internationalized, and the eastern Saharan region of Morocco was detached and annexed to Algeria. Marshal Hubert Lyautey served as France's Resident-General in Morocco from 1912 to 1925. He generally observed the spirit of the Treaty, but his successors were bent on establishing a French government, directly administered, if not from France then at least by Frenchmen. The policy of direct administration was increasingly resisted by the Moroccans. Milestones were the Berber dahir of 1930, a decree which sought to remove the Berber element of the Moroccan population from the penal jurisdiction of the Sultan; the Plan of Reforms in 1934; the Istiqlal (independence) Manifesto of 1944; Sultan Mohammed hen Youssef's speech at Tangier in 1947; the attempted dethronement in 1951; and the actual dethronement and exile in 1953. The dethronement, on August 20, 1953, provoked the Moroccans to violent resistance: at first isolated acts of assassination, arson, and sabotage, and by mid-1954, guerrilla armies in the field. In the post World War II period, political instability in France left the colonial lobby in Morocco a free hand, but the repressive policies of Protectorate officials in Morocco alienated the French intellectual community in both Morocco and France. Its voice, joined to that of the Moroccan intelligensia, produced a reversal of French policy in a period of just two years. The political evolution between 1953 and 1955 which led to the restoration of Mohammed V to the Moroccan throne and independence has been described in several authoritative works. The catalytic role of the Committee of Seventy-Five has hardly been mentioned and certainly not described. The Committee of Seventy-Five was the seventy-five signatories of a letter dated May 11, 1954, addressed to the President of the French Republic, which called for substantial reform in Protectorate policies in Morocco. All were Frenchmen, almost all of them previously apolitical. Their protest was based on moral rather than political grounds. Although supported by other French liberals, identified opponents of the Protectorate regime, theirs was a new voice to which Paris listened in seeking to maintain a vestige of French economic and cultural influence in Morocco. The counsel of the Committee of Seventy-Five was decisive. Although several organizations and individuals realized the need for increased Moroccan participation in the direction of the affairs of the Empire, and sought dialogue with Moroccan counterparts, it remained for Maroc-Presse, the one independent newspaper in Morocco, to catalyze in 1954 these disparate ideas and objectives into an independence movement. Perhaps the most significant act in this unfolding drama was the publication of the Letter of the Committee of Seventy-Five on May 11, 1954. This has hardly been mentioned and certainly not described in the several authoritative works concerning the political evolution between 1953 and 1955. After independence was achieved in 1956, the coalition of forces that brought it about, the Committee of Seventy-Five (and its allied French intellectuals), and the Liberation Army disintegrated. Members of the Liberation Army, all Moroccans, returned to their civilian vocations, except for a few who were integrated into the new Royal Moroccan Armed Forces, Perhaps a half of The Committee of Seventy-Five and its allied Frenchmen returned to France; some remained in Morocco as employees of the Moroccan government, others remained in private business. But whether in Morocco or elsewhere in the world, they retain influence with the government of present-day Morocco; their contribution will not soon be forgotten. | |
