The French in North Africa

by GENERAL AUGUSTIN GUILLAUME

Translated by George L. Hoire

1

THE problem of Morocco, submitted to the General Assembly of the United Nations at its last session, has aroused world-wide interest, just as it did at the beginning of the century. At that time the Western powers had periodically to intervene against the anarchy which paralyzed the Sherifian Empire. Two international agreements — the Act of Algeciras in 1906 and the Treaty of Fez in 1912 — finally ended the series of disorders and interventions by giving France the mission of rebuilding the country.

The reactionary forces which then opposed Western influence and the recovery of Morocco have revived today, paradoxically seeking support from the most liberal elements of the world’s opinion.

Some leaders of this systematic opposition claim to be apostles of the democratic state which only the presence of France, they say, prevents from arising on Moroccan soil. Some glorify the Golden Age of the old regime and turn a filial gaze to the East. The virulent outbreaks in their press, and the recent troubles in Morocco, show that a few demagogues, in no way reflecting the thought of the country, are stubbornly trying by force to prevent a normal evolution, and at the same time to throw on the protecting power responsibility for the disorders of which they are the principal cause.

France’s first purpose is to make Morocco a modern state, endowed with true democracy. This purpose demands a social and economic structure wholly detached from medieval concepts. The advances of the last forty years in this direction prove that it is possible to reconcile progress with tradition, to combine the methods and principles of the modern West with the religious heritage of the Moslem East. The aim of France in Morocco implies a synthesis of the dynamic West with the spiritual East, which is not necessarily to be achieved by independence.

On the contrary, that magic word presupposes that the structure is complete, or at least assured of completion. Liberty is the supreme aspiration of every people. But independence does not always mean liberty. There are chains heavier and tighter than those of political allegiance: the chains of hunger, poverty, and ignorance. For a backward and undeveloped country independence would be a delusion unless based on a political, social, economic, and cultural foundation. And if it were achieved too soon, at the demand of a blind nationalism skillfully manipulated by the agents of Soviet Communism, it could well be a synonym for slavery.

Morocco, besides, is inescapably part of a strategic framework. It is the outpost of the East, the defensive emplacement of the Mediterranean, the crossroads of Europe and Africa, and—more and more — of America. It is bound, like France itself, to the destiny of the free world, now that the West, threatened by Soviet imperialism, has been forced to organize its collective defense.

Moreover, it would be absurd if Morocco did not form part of the political system with which its whole economy is integrated.

Finally, France, as the protecting power, can justly claim the rights which spring from its sacrifices, from the labor of its pioneers, and from its financial help. Without these, modern Morocco would not exist.

Those who belittle the achievement in Morocco seem to forget that several centuries cannot be overtaken in forty years, twenty of which were given to pacification, and ten to two wars which drained the lifeblood of France on other fields. France’s first task in Morocco was to restore order, for protracted anarchy had almost extinguished the Sultan’s sovereignty. His authority had to be restored among a number of dissident tribes, and the concept of statehood to be created from a wide dispersion of local fiefs. The social and administrative outline was preserved, but had to be consolidated, unified, and adapted to twentieth-century conditions. It was necessary to found government services, both general and special, before a complete separation of powers could be considered. This separation of powers, which is the rule among modern nations, has proved hard to reconcile with the theocratic character of the Sherifian monarchy.

A judicial system had to be organized which would respect the institutions and estates controlled by religious law. A modern code of justice had to be created, with a corps of judges able to apply it and a public opinion able to understand its principles. The insecurity of the old tribal struggles is now only an unhappy memory with which the elders can astonish the incredulous new generation.

Western methods have brought efficiency into every technique. The feeling of public and private liberty is widespread. In a country where some can still remember their own slavery, freedom of expression is henceforward complete in so far as it does not degenerate, as it did last December with the Istiqlal and the Communist press, to an appeal to violence and revolt against the established order.

This evolution from a medieval society to a modern state has not been accomplished without setbacks. The first generation born under the new regime is one of transition, which has not succeeded in adapting itself wholly to the great transformation of the country; whereas the second, now reaching the age of responsibility, shows its desire to conform to Western life. Encouraging signs are monogamy, the grouping of single families in a common home, and the growth of new material and cultural demands. The Moslem population will from now on develop more and more quickly, like the Moroccan Jews, who, unhindered by the same distrusts, have progressed farther.

It will be essential to preserve the country from the scourge of class struggle, that breeder of racial hatred, by developing social security and by protecting the workers, especially at the factory level, where the influence of workers’ councils already seems fruitful in preparing a normal union activity without communistic violence.

2

IN the economic field, the most critical observer must admit success. Aside from expenditures on its own account, France each year finances half the cost of government operation — in 1953, more than $51,000,000 out of $105,000,000. At the dawn of the twentieth century, Morocco had no roads, no factories, and no usable harbors. Today 25,000 miles of highway carry goods across the country, helping to prevent the famines of former days. More than 200,000 Moroccans work in modern factories which provide a million people with a livelihood.

Morocco is one of the most progressive countries in the use of electric power: production is almost a billion kilowatt-hours, and triples every ten years. An extremely rapid development of the subsoil has vastly increased the national income, at the same time contributing to the whole economy of the West. Production of phosphates, managed by a special department for the exclusive profit of the Sultanate, has become a fifth of the world output. Mining operations — lead, manganese, zinc, and cobalt — are expanding rapidly. The American capital invested in the principal lead and zinc mines is a happy example of cooperation among the United States, France, and Morocco. And thanks to persist ent effort, the Sultanate now supplies its own coal and part of its own petroleum.

Industrialization has made considerable progress in Morocco since the war. The French have constantly encouraged it in various ways. Their purpose in doing so was and still is double: they want to increase the market value of the country’s natural products before they are exported; they also want to manufacture locally a greater and greater proportion of the goods which were previously imported. The deficit of Morocco’s trade balance (46 per cent in 1952) stresses the major importance of that double effort.

Of particular significance in the first group of industries is the recent development of a number of metallurgical and chemical industries which process various ores (lead, antimony, and others) or manufacture superphosphates. Also of interest is the establishment of numerous fish, fruit, and vegetable canneries (200 of them are now in operation). But 70 per cent of the private investments made during the last four years have gone to industries which are primarily devoted to the satisfaction of local needs. Manufactured food products, construction materials, and small mechanical equipment are now largely supplied by the newly created industries, which are also able to supply a much greater proportion of the local consumption of textiles, simple electrical appliances, and basic chemicals.

For many years to come, large public funds should be devoted to ensure the continued progress of Morocco’s industries while the greatest care should be given to the maintenance of the present conditions which invite private investments. With a large population that still increases by approximately 150,000 inhabitants annually, Morocco is no longer able to live on its present agricultural output. For this reason, more than 40 per cent of the 1953-1956 development program, which provides for the expenditure of more than half a billion dollars, will be devoted either to opening new land to cultivation and to improving the agricultural techniques or to paving the way for new industries which will be called upon to supply a larger and larger part of the national revenue.

In agriculture, state assistance and the example of French settlers have led to increased yields and to the development of rich acreage in newly irrigated areas, greatly improving the rural standard of life. Since the population has doubled in forty years, this improvement is all the more striking.

Social progress has been equally striking. In 1952 the hospitals of the country gave almost 15,000,000 free consultations, 98 percent of them to Moroccans. Out of half a million school children, 270,000 are pupils in the free public schools. Instruction has increased in geometric progression. After a long delay, Morocco now devotes more of its budget to schooling than most of the independent countries of the Near East. One principal concern of the Protectorate is the improvement of housing. Public and private enterprise have joined to eliminate from the outskirts of the cities the hovels which in Morocco, as everywhere else, have unfortunately accompanied industrial expansion.

3

THE most acute problem of the moment is political: the problem of establishing on the soil of Morocco an amicable and fruitful coexistence of divergent groups whose racial peculiarities and varying degrees of advancement themselves complicate and retard it. Moroccan unity, it cannot be repeated too often, is still a fragile reality. How many people know that the great majority of the population is of Berber origin? For centuries the natives of the plains and mountains, although Mohammedanized, have fiercely resisted the Arab attempts to assimilate them. The presence of 400,000 Europeans and 250,000 Jews in Moroccan territory, side by side with 4,000,000 Berbers and the same number of Arabs or Arabized Berbers, adds another element to this ethnic complication. It is essential, without disturbing the bonds of language, religion, tradition, and custom, to build in the groups which still cling together a political and social community: a state in the true meaning, where all, according to their abilities, can share the management of the country. To achieve this union, it is first necessary to foster the institutions which favor it, and to avoid measures which would leave the component parts in a sterile isolation.

In the country and the villages, contacts between Europeans and Moroccans are generally more frequent, more relaxed and trusting, than in the cities. The relations of the settlers with their farm hands are usually easy and direct. Very often the colon is the valued counselor whose help is sought in difficult situations. Many Moroccan planters, through his presence and advice, have already abandoned their archaic prejudices.

In the cities their contacts appear in a less satisfactory light, for Europeans and Moroccans generally live apart and have little in common outside of work and trade. It is shocking that young Frenchmen born or living in Morocco should not know the Arab language and the sources of Moslem civilization; and it is equally deplorable that young Moroccans, taught and formed in the schools, but embittered or tempted by a sinister propaganda, should use their newly acquired knowledge only to preach a scorn of Western civilization and a hatred of foreigners. Outwardly at least, Moroccan society is pretty much compartmented. However, mutual contacts can well go beyond the materialistic level, and will certainly be helped by the reciprocal use of the two languages.

Modern Morocco is a Franco-Moroccan creation. Only by preserving this character can it maintain its achievements and its vitality.

At present Frenchmen have an important place in the country’s administration, not with the purpose of controlling it, but because the public serv ice has grown into an exact and complex mechanism. Its operation cannot be improvised, for it demands an understanding and a spirit which the recent growth of education has not yet spread broadly enough among the native populations, whose resistance, or almost total indifference, has for a long time hindered the establishment of schools.

But with the post-war drive for education, the Moroccan share in public life is growing from year to year. To speed this participation at the higher level, the Moroccan School of Administration was founded in 1946. It offers an opportunity to educated young Moslems — who, it must be admitted, still prefer the higher pay of business and the professions. The public services are all a function of the Sherifian government., and only a very few high posts, such as those of the Civil Controllers and Administrators of Native Affairs, are held by Frenchmen as agents of the protecting power.

Over all, a Council of Government combines French and Moroccan representatives of the different categories of the population in two sections of equal importance and prerogative. Although this Council is still only consultative, it has already become an organ of popular representation where the Moroccan members can apprentice themselves in Western democracy. At the local level, the erection of elected djemaas (tribal councils) is designed to entrust rural communities with the management of their common interests, and to let their most active membership join the advance guard who will face the tasks of the future. In the cities an important reform is under study, which may create elective municipal assemblies with fairly broad powers.

The quest ion of Moroccan independence must not be faced in vacuo, but with relation to local conditions and to the country’s present situation. There is no question of ignoring the religious and sentimental bonds which join Morocco to the Near East nations, or all that its past owes to the Orient and to the civilization of Islam. But the benefits, the rejuvenation, which spring from its contact with France and the West create other bonds no less strong. French policy has never planned to make Morocco a province or to induce the Moroccans to renounce the spiritual values of Islam. On the contrary, one of the purposes of the last forty years’ reforms has been to integrate these values in a modern state1.

Certainly the former poverty, anarchy, and stagnation never fostered their growth. A repeated evocation of the brilliant but distant past, a constant opposition to every constructive program, and above all a popular scorn of the technical and educational merits of the West — too easily dubbed materialist it—all make one fear that independence would induce a relapse, if not a collapse, in every field.

This return to the past is unthinkable: the Morocco of today, though still loyal to the Moslem faith, can no longer rely on the mirage of t he Orient. The European and Jewish minorities, who have led in all the country’s progress, cannot allow it. Part of the Sultanate for all time, they know that their very existence is at stake and that no guarantee would stand against a concerted desire to restore the old regime by force.

The evolution of Morocco must not be a gamble. That is why the purpose of French policy will always be to give the country a modern economy capable of assuring its rightful place in the world; and above all to guide it to a sound democratic government as rapidly as the populace can make use of one. This policy will not concentrate on material realities at the expense of spiritual factors.

“What man does without time, time destroys,” says the proverb. The evolution which transformed Europe at the end of the Middle Ages is repeating itself in this country before our eyes; but the techniques and the faith which France brings to its task have vastly hastened the rhythm of progress. Morocco must recall its own origin and foresee its own future; and rather than relax in memories of a past which time alone makes beautiful, draw useful lessons from it.

The general policy of France in mandated territory varies in practice but is uniform in principle. It is clear and brief: the population must be helped to manage their own affairs as soon as possible. Hut this objective cannot ignore the interdependence of nations which marks this mid-twentieth century and seems likely to mark those to come. Moreover, the French believe in general that in an era whose problems cannot be expressed in terms of nationality alone, the development of backward countries should be directed toward a progressive assimilation into a large community of principles and interests. As far as the North African protectorates are concerned, with the deep-rooted individual traditions of the natives, self-government must be a continuing growth.

Many specialists in Pacific affairs hold today that while the grant of independence to the Philippines in 1946 proved the liberality of the American government and its resolve to honor promises made at a time of common danger, it nonetheless almost produced a catastrophe; for the new state could not have survived the Communist-inspired Hukbalahap revolt, nor the economic difficulties of every kind, nor the relapse of civic effort, unless the great American democracy had continued to support its former pupil. If such a statement is true of a country exposed for centuries to Western influence, it would be truer still of Morocco, which emerged from the Middle Ages less than half a century ago.

The strategic importance of North Africa for the defense of the West would alone, if necessary, forbid the French government to abandon it. The seven air bases now built or building in Morocco are essential for the long-range protection of the European continent. This vast commitment would be useless if, in the event of a world war, it were isolated in the midst of a country which became the victim of anarchy. The example of Southeast Asia is a parallel. No matter what the cost, the Communists must not be allowed to reinfect the flank of the Atlantic Pact nations. In spite of those theorists who judge questions of policy by the classic standards, Communism and fanatic nationalism are brothers in underdeveloped countries, and the contradictions of their doctrines are in practice reconciled by the urgency of their common cause.

Communist propaganda does not fear contradictions. It adjusts its slogans to the special situation of each country. To peasants exploited by large landholders it promises agrarian reform and the redistribution of the land. To those benighted by poverty and ignorance it offers the benefits of education and social revolution. How can newly wakened and credulous peoples fail to be lured by such dangerous promisesi

Nationalism and Communism are closely alike in the means which they use, if not in the goals which they pursue. It would not serve the cause of world peace to give independence to those countries which could not protect themselves against the threat of Sov iet imperialism. For Morocco the best hope for the future is that which was born ten years ago on the soil of Italy, where American, French, and Moroccan soldiers fought and died side by side for a common ideal.