In 1998, Abdellah Laroui, whom I greatly respect, briefly developed in the context of an interview a new idea that begins with “Morocco is an island! (…) Our destiny is to be an island and we have to act like an island population“.
But what does he mean by developing this thinking?
Certainly, by referring us to the map of Morocco, in order to see the metaphorical island nature of Morocco, we refer to the topographical, historical, civilizational and linguistic nature of our country, which for several centuries had to develop in a permanent break between two worlds: the Eastern Arab world / the Christian West, the Spanish empire / the Ottoman Empire, liberal modernity in the West / Wahhabism and the Muslim Brotherhood in the East…
Maintaining the essence of their identity and cultural particularities in this context is a historical endeavor that only island nations, such as Japan or England, are effectively capable of.
A little more than ten years later, in 2009, still in the context of an interview, the famous Moroccan historian seemed to add water to his tea, saying: “I would probably be less affirmative today. Our country is not an island and our society has become so porous“.
But while I reiterate my deep respect and admiration for Laroui’s work, I cannot help but express deep disagreement with both statements.
For the first claim, and if we limit ourselves to the last seven or eight centuries, we can more or less clearly distinguish four phases, of approximately two centuries each, which, due to the very nature of the chronicle, we will develop very succinctly.
The first phase is a long decline that begins at the end of the 13th century, with the fall of the Almohads, and the beginning of the irreparable loss of any presence in Andalusia, which ends with the fall of Granada in 1492, the last bastion of the Moorish presence on Iberian soil.
Between the end of the first phase and the beginning of the second, Morocco experienced a period of stabilization – albeit interspersed with occasional unrest and anarchy – that began with the rule of the Marinids and ended with the fall of the Wattassids.
The second corresponds to the second vital impulse of Morocco after the Almoravids and the Almohads, the one to be applied by the Saadians.
However, this vital momentum will not be directed, due to the balance of the forces of time, to the north or to the east, but to the south, which will represent a new continental tropism that continues to this day to reap its fruits at the level of our soft power and our good relations with the countries of the Sahel and West Africa. If this new Saadian projection towards the south initially took on a military dimension, it will very quickly give way to a commercial and above all spiritual dimension that, century after century, has woven an invisible web always connecting the souls and peoples of this region of Africa beyond borders and barriers.
In the same way, economic and military reforms, and the key contribution in terms of knowledge and expertise of the Andalusians who found refuge in Morocco, made it possible to definitively put an end to Portugal’s ambitions on our territory in one battle, that of Oued Al Makhazine. calmed the ardor of the Spaniards.
In the penultimate phase, a new dynamic is established. Supported by the Alawite dynasty, Morocco began, mainly from the reign of Sultan Moulay Ismaïl, the dynamics of strengthening the state apparatus with the aim of centralizing and consolidating the unity of the empire, as well as the establishment of a military caste that could be compared today to a professional army, which does not depend on tribal whims or the attachments of the moment . These reforms enabled, in addition to consolidation, the reconquest of part of the lost territories and the beginning of diplomatic and trade opening with the main Western powers. However, it is important to note that this process takes place in the context of obvious technical, economic and military asymmetry, facing the West at the dawn of its colonial epic. This asymmetry will ultimately lead to the imposition of a protectorate on Morocco, which, let’s recall, was one of the few countries in Africa that managed to preserve its sovereignty until the beginning of the 20th century.
Finally, the last phase begins explicitly after independence in 1956, but which, implicitly, began to germinate under the French protectorate. It is about the constitution of a nation state in the context of accelerated modernization, whose main challenge will be to combine identity and tradition, which are millennia old and deeply anchored in the collective unconscious, with Western modernity, which we cannot avoid.
It follows that the only periods that could a priori be graphically described as insular correspond to historical brackets, contingent in nature. Above all, these are periods of retreat, decline or consolidation, during which Moroccan isolationism or temporary autarky is not of any nature or geographical determination, but an internal process that prepares a new vital momentum, while strengthening our resilience.
No, Morocco is not an island, but a country whose imagination is by nature continental and telluric, whose civilizational roots irreparably lead it to feel confined in a pattern of isolationism, and whose vitality constantly encourages it to project itself beyond its borders. If in today’s world this projection cannot possibly take a military form, it nevertheless remains constant in the form of cultural, diplomatic and increasingly economic influence.
No, Morocco is not an island, but an occasionally besieged civilization, whose vitality is contained.
And no, Morocco is not resistant to change. He is resistant to any form of acculturation or attempts to transplant ideological software, which he perceives as the opposite of his deep nature.
Morocco is changing, but at its own pace. Morocco is developing, but sovereignly.