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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 May 2019
1 See, e.g., Bandak, Andreas and Haugbølle, Sune, eds., “The Ends of Revolution in the Arab Middle East,” special issue, Middle East Critique 26 (2017)Google Scholar, https://doi.org/10.1080/19436149.2017.1334304.
2 Mehdi Ben Barka's original assessment from 1969 is found in Barka, Mehdi Ben, “The Lost Revolution,” International Journal of Politics 7 (1977): 83–87Google Scholar. Ben Barka was kidnapped and assassinated in 1965 in France. In recent years an increasing number of testimonies point to a joint Moroccan, Israeli, and French operation.
3 This tension lasted a long time and many leftists today consider the Kingdom of Morocco to exist in neocolonial relations with France and Spain as a subsidiary. For instance, the enormous student strike that fueled mass protests in 1970 was a direct response to the visit of the Spanish prime minister.
4 For a comprehensive analysis of these red lines, see Smith, Andrew R. and Loudiy, Fadoua, “Testing the Red Lines: On the Liberalization of Speech in Morocco,” Human Rights Quarterly 27 (2005): 1069–119CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
5 Leftists often refer to King Hasan II's televised broadcast in 1965 amid major student and worker protests, where he said: “Allow me to tell you there is no greater danger to the state than the so-called intellectual. It would have been better for you to be illiterate.” Maâti Monjib discusses the importance of this speech in his La Monarchie Marocaine et la lutte pour le pouvoir (Paris: L'harmattan, 1992)Google Scholar.
6 For a comprehensive overview of the postcolonial left, see Bouaziz, Mostafa, The Moroccan New Left (1965–1979) (Marrakesh: Dar Tinmel, 1993)Google Scholar. A comprehensive assessment of the post-2011 left is offered by Ali Aznague, “The Role of the Political Left in Mobilizations against Neoliberal Policies,” CADTM, 12 June 2018, accessed 15 January 2019, http://www.cadtm.org/Protest-Movements-in-Morocco-and-the-Role-of-the-Political-Left-in-Mobilization.
7 This internationalist and radical position has been one of the key reasons for the crushing of the left under Hasan II. The magazine Anfas (Fr. Souffles) is an interesting example of the relation between radical leftist epistemology, the role of intellectuals, and approaches vis-à-vis the case of Western Sahara. See, e.g., Harrison, Olivia C. and Villa-Ignacio, Teresa, eds., Souffles-Anfas: A Critical Anthology from the Moroccan Journal of Culture and Politics (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2016)Google Scholar.
8 Another source of remembering the suffering has been the writings of former prisoners. One brilliant example of such a radical culture of memory making that is available in English is Bouih, Fatna El, Talk of Darkness, trans. Kamal, Mustafa and Slyomovics, Susan (Austin, Tex.: University of Texas Press, 2008)Google Scholar.
9 They chanted uqsimu bi-allah al-ʿalī al-ʿaẓim a lā nakhun wa-la nabīʿ qadiyatana wa-lau ʿala hisābi hayātinā; wa-lau ʿala hisābi arwāḥinā (I swear by the almighty to never betray and to never sell out our cause even if that costs our life, even if that costs our soul). Arif News has uploaded and archived this extraordinary moment at https://www.facebook.com/arifnews1/videos/529722790805291/, accessed 5 January 2019.
10 The full chant during a protest in Tangier was al-makhzan al-akbari bga irjaʿna li-lawry, li-layām rasas ʿawd tānī, li-l-ʿahd hasan al-tānī (the reactionary makhzan wants to take us back, back to the years of lead, back to Hassan the second). These activists realize that history does not simply repeat itself, not even as farce, because they have seen it before.
