In order to get an idea of the extent of cultural, scientific and technological progress achieved over the last decades, one must first try to understand what is now known as information revolution. Information as a basis of knowledge is assuming vital importance the world over. Nowadays, it is regarded as more valuable a commodity than raw material or even capital. However, information would be utterly useless if it were not memorized. Hence, the vital role of memory. From a biological viewpoint, life itself depends to a very large extent on information processing with the support of the neuro-physiological system as well as the genetic code which functions as a memory.
The devastating weapons used by the United States against Iraq differ from conventional hardware in that they have built-in computer-based memories. Many other examples may be provided to illustrate the vital importance of memory in so many areas.
The Gulf war is an opportunity for us to analyze and try to make a critical evaluation of what happened in order to anticipate future developments, set our objectives accordingly and determine the ways and means to achieve them.
If we look into the Arabic word for memory, which is "Dhakira" we will find that it is derived from the verb "Dhakara" (to quote, to write down, to recall, to remember). The holy Quran is called, among other names, "Al Dhikr Al Hakeem" (the judicious call, the wise memory, the invocation of God). The word "Dhikr" occurs 268 times in the Quran and has 63 derivatives in the Holy Book. This word "dhikr" has many connotations in Islam. It is the opposite of "Nissiyane" (forgetting). The verb to forget (Nassiya) occurs 45 times in the Quran. 28 of its derivatives are also mentioned in the sacred book. The following examples are verses from the Holy Quran:
"And verily We made a covenant of old with Adam, but he forgot, and we found no constancy in him." (Sourate XX, verse 115)
"Lo! Those who wander from the way of Allah have an awful doom, forasmuch as they forgot the Day of Reckoning." (Sourate XXXVIII, verse 26)
We have no right to discard the past so readily and forget what the
Maghreb, the Arab World, the Islamic World and the Third World have gone
through, at least since World War II. So far there have been 275 armed
conflicts which caused tens of millions of casualties. There have been
more Arab casualties during that period than there were Jewish victims
during World War II.
As we are addressing the subject of memory on this 10th day of April 1991, let us remember the historic speech which His Majesty the late King Mohammed V delivered at Tangiers on the 9th of April 1947 and in which he expressed the determined intention of the entire people of Morocco to free themselves from the yoke of French cultural domination. This was an occasion for the late
monarch to emphasize a fact of paramount importance, namely that Morocco is an integral part of the Arab and Islamic worlds. This declaration of the King led to the dismissal of the French General Resident (Governor) and his replacement by General Juin.
There is also the anniversary of the Protectorate Treaty which was signed on March 31, 1912 and which must not be allowed to fall into oblivion. Similarly, the 1906 Algeciras Treaty must be remembered as it marked the beginning of a colonial order quite similar to the "New International Order" - or post-colonial order - which is being imposed on us by the United States with the help of the United Nations.
Let us go back a few decades before the Tangiers memorable speech by the late King Mohammed V. The 3rd of October 1903 was the day when France established its first stronghold in Morocco by setting up, at Tangiers, the French Scientific Mission. Founded by Alfred Le Chatelier, it was to be run by Georges Salmon according to Tayeb Boutbouqat, a Moroccan academic who devoted his doctoral thesis to the history of this Mission and its role in the history of colonialism in Morocco.
What we should keep in mind is that it was through the funding of studies and surveys on Islam and the Maghreb region that the French were paving the way for the introduction of colonial rule whose effects are still visible, though in different forms nowadays. It was an idea of the French Governor in Algiers to establish that Mission in Morocco. Therefore, unlike what history books tell us, the occupation of Morocco did not start in 1912 but in 1903 when academic surveys and studies were initiated in an attempt to combat Islam and all related
values.
Still in connection with the notion of memory, the 5th of April 1991 will, as far as I am concerned, stand out as a constant reminder of the beginning of the "post-colonial era" in Morocco. On that day, at 5:45 p.m., Moroccan time, "Médi 1" Radio Station (Tangiers) was running a one-hour programme with the French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas. The words and arguments he used were those of a person who had forgotten that Morocco was an independent country.
The questions were put to him from Paris by well chosen Moroccans and other Maghreb citizens who are known as members of "Hizb Faransa" (Party of France) because of a long-standing pro-French attitude which they displayed even more conspicuously during the Gulf war.
The 5th of April 1991 marked the beginning of a new era and unlike Mr. Roland Dumas who stated, in reference to the Gulf war, that "a new page had definitely been turned over. We must look forward to the future". My personal opinion is that France has actually begun a new chapter, that of post-colonialism with respect to Morocco and the rest of the Maghreb.
The 5th of April 1991 was a stark reminder of the 1947 Casablanca carnage in which one hundred Moroccans were killed and hundreds more injured in a plot conjured up by the colonialists in order to prevent the trip to Tangiers by the late King Mohammed V.
The 5th of April 1991 was also an occasion for us to remember the historic march by the Moroccan people in their determination to express solidarity with the Iraqi people and outrage at the new face of American-Anglo-French imperialism. Aside from the 1976 Green March, never since independence did the country experience a massive demonstration of this magnitude.
We just cannot afford to forget. We have no right to hamper the collective memory building process. This is not an expression of grudge or a call for vengeance. It is simply a claim for the exercise of the right to memory. Mr. Dumas can not make us forget what is presently happening in the Gulf.
On this 83rd day since the outbreak of hostilities no one can claim that the war is over. Just today, there were reports of nearly 2.400 sorties by American aircraft over the Iraqi territory, thus exacerbating the suffering of innocent civilian population. According to my estimates, the total number of Iraqi casualties will soon reach 350,000.
There is talk about the Arabs being "defeated." In fact, there was never a war like this in that region before. This is the first war to be imposed on one country, Iraq, by a coalition of 37 states. No Arab was killed apart from Iraqis and Palestinians who have been suffering daily casualties before and after the Gulf conflict, and there are no prospects for a change so long as the "new international order" is being imposed and so long as countries such as France are promoting and exploiting the new legal concept which they have coined : "the right of interference."
Western contradictions are plentiful. As France was exercising "her"
right of interference, the White House spokesman said the United States
had no intention of interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq ("Le Figaro"
daily, Paris, March 12, 1991). This means that somebody was lying! No Arab
Government dared stand up against the injustice inflicted on the people
of Iraq. Even those who ventured timid expressions of solidarity and moral
support have now withdrawn into silence. Apart from those who wanted to
make us believe that they were true Arabs, what has the League of Arab
States done? Where is the Arab Maghreb Union (UMA)? What was the outcome
of its hesitant attempt to find a "diplomatic" solution to the conflict?
Can we just forget those painful facts and ignore the stark reality that is in front of us? Can we afford to engage in dialogue and discard the feelings which Arab, Muslim and Third World populations have expressed so strongly in massive street demonstrations?
Can we forget what happened in France, a country which claims to teach us the virtues of democracy? Can we forget that the chairman of the French Section of Amnesty International was dismissed in retaliation for his opposition to the Gulf war? We know what happened within the ruling socialist party in France. Three or four of its leading members were simply barred from making public statements of any kind, on any subject and under any circumstances, before January 1992. We know that 11 other members of the party were reprimanded for their opinion on the subject. Yet that country and others are still trying to teach us the basics of freedom and democracy!
We should all realize that the events going on around the world have something to do with culture in the full acceptation of the word. Cultural hegemony is a major feature of some powers' foreign policy. President Bush himself said on the first day of the Gulf crisis: "It is our values and our lifestyle that we are defending."
Culture is a determining factor in the Gulf War and in the North-South conflicts which are in the making. No nation should remain indifferent to the schemes and strategies which are designed to undermine its own value systems. We must all be on our guards and try to respond just as European countries, including France, are responding to the threat of American cultural invasion. Why should we not be allowed to adopt the same defensive attitude towards France? After all it has made no secret of its cultural designs in Africa and the Arab World.
A good part of French, British and American press reports that reach us call for a high degree of cautiousness on our part. We should also ask ourselves why so many delegations are visiting our country on behalf of the French Socialist party, the French National Assembly or the French Employers' Association. Again, let us, for the sake of memory, go back to the above April 5, 1991 statement of Roland Dumas 1. It just reminds me of another statement made exactly one year earlier by André Fontaine, one of the leading executives of the French daily "Le Monde" daily. In an article entitled "Algeria between the veil and the television aerial," he referred to the "democracy vs Islam race" thus suggesting deliberately or out of ignorance that the two systems are antinomic.
Dozens of newspapers and magazines carry incendiary articles against Islam each day. The authoritative magazine "Commentaire" is no exception, in its 52nd issue, 1990-1991, it ran two such articles. The first, entitled "Demography in Islam" and written by Jean Marie Poursin, refers to the "danger" of the population growth in the Islamic world and the risks of the world population being predominantly Muslim. In the second article, written by Nicolas Baverez, the author is convinced that the Algerian experience is doomed to failure. Considering what he called the "danger" of Islam in Algeria, he advocated flexible diplomacy toward the Arab Maghreb Union in spite of the difficulties arising from the Gulf crisis. He suggested a two-way approach, one from "the top," through EEC and UMA, and the other from the base through business dealings between French and Algerian business firms. Concluding his article the French journalist wrote:
"Only if France fulfills these conditions will it be in a position to contribute effectively to the success of Algeria's delicate transition towards democracy and a market economy. It will then be able to share the best part of its values with Algeria, and in so doing it will have demonstrated the validity of General de Gaulle's forecast when he anticipated in 1958 that Algeria would remain French just as France remained Roman."
Similarly, the French weekly, "l'Expansion," published an article last week under the title "A look at the World from Algiers", in which the author, in a reference to the Algerian Foreign Minister Sid Ahmed Ghozali, gave further evidence of the Western - and particularly French - ethnocentric inclinations. More specifically, he said:
"From the way he speaks and from his intellectual references, Sid Ahmed Ghozali is a Frenchman. He is Algerian by origin and by virtue of his political duties."
In the same article of this business magazine, the author said: "the French public opinion in concerned and worried about its security in the South." The South in this context, is meant to cover not only the Maghreb and the Arab region but also Africa and the rest of the Third World. The fear which is plaguing rich nations has become a major factor in International relations.
How can we then take seriously the French and Western slogans about "dialogue," "cooperation," "co-development" and "common interests"? Even when Europeans talk about "Mediterranean" cooperation, they restrict its Southern boundaries to the Maghreb region in order to avoid raising the embarrassing Palestinian issue. Cooperation does not mean assimilation.
The Maghreb history is profoundly influenced by Islam. One cannot grasp the region's background and the events which shaped its history, and which led eventually to the emergence of liberation movements, unless one relates them to the population's longstanding commitment to Islam and its value systems. This fact should be emphasized at a time when the North-South relations are getting increasingly strained because of the North's designs of cultural hegemony. One manifestation of these designs is the policy of "Francophonie" which is being used by France in an attempt to preserve its influence in the shaping of world culture, although French speakers account for hardly 4% of the world population. In fact, "Francophonie" is not designed only for the defense of the French language, its other purpose is to combat Arabic and other African languages.
The "right of interference" which is being advocated by France and which was instrumental in the adoption of Security Council Resolution 688, was inspired much more by cultural motivations rather than by mere political considerations. It so happened that this resolution was adopted in New York on the very day Mr. Dumas was visiting Morocco. But France did not wait for this resolution to start meddling in Arab internal affairs. That is because France has its "Algerian syndrome" just as the United States has the "Vietnam syndrome."
If I am concerned about the progress of the democratic process in Algeria, it is because I know that France is worried about the outcome of the forthcoming elections in that country. Some Algerian communists who are known for their francophilia were reported by "Le Monde" daily as saying: "We do not need elections, because they represent a danger for democracy" ! By this blunt statement, they imply that democracy and freedom of expression are a perilous exercise in that they might bring to power people who are committed to defend values which are shared by the majority of the population.
France is taking steps to set up special rapid intervention squads for dispatch to Third World countries where its interests may be in jeopardy. It is doing exactly what the United States has been doing for some time in Latin America. France and other European countries are already feeling the heat of American cultural hegemony which is getting increasingly cumbersome in a world dominated by the Pax Americana which emerged from the Gulf war. Confirming this development, the French Foreign Minister, Roland Dumas, in a statement to "Le Figaro," on March 11, 1991, said:
"The Gulf crisis had a tell-tale effect on Europe and awakened it to its limitations and inadequacies."
France's scientific performance is dwindling to a critical level. Last year, only 12,000 patents were registered in that country, against 600,000 in the USA, 200,000 in Japan, and 30,000 in Germany.
Western arrogance and contempt for Third world populations, especially
Arabs, were clearly expressed in an article recently published by Charles
Krauphammer in the American Time magazine, and in which the author dismissed
the notion of Arab identity as a pure invention of intellectuals who felt
that the West should be concerned by Arab countries' hostility against
the West. In reality, he said, Arab public opinion is tightly controlled
by the secret police and other security networks which also dominate the
local media.
This is to say that we have no such thing as a people, a public opinion or a sense of nationhood. We must always be mindful of this misrepresentation in our thinking, but we must not make the same mistake by overlooking the reality and ignoring the impact of Western public opinion, although it is not always correctly portrayed by some media.
Incidentally, in thinking about the media and the Gulf war, the following question came to my mind: out of the thousands of reporters who covered the war, either directly or indirectly, how many actually read or spoke Arabic? How many of them managed to go through the local press, listen to Arab radio stations, speak to Arab citizens and seek their personal opinion on the events? Of course, if, as Krauphammer said, there is no Arab public opinion, there is no point in raising the question.
We must however, admit that we are largely responsible for this situation, because of our passive attitude and our submission to the Western media. But then, how could we respond, when we know that our own media are denied the slightest degree of freedom and that a large number of our journalists and intellectuals tend to practice self-censorship.
Nevertheless there is something positive about the Gulf events. At least, they acted like a scanning device showing us the ins and outs of the crisis which is within ourselves. The Western powers have already spotted our weaknesses. They are lulling us into amnesia, and proceeding with plans to subjugate us culturally.
In this era of "post-colonialism" we are not only being colonized but we are also made to pay for colonial policies. Western cultural programmes are now being funded from Arab sources. The Western cultural centers operating in our countries are more active than ever before. Old, as well as new, Western dailies are thriving in our lands. It will not be long before new Western political parties emerge in our environment. All these developments are part of a comprehension programme designed to serve the Western designs of civilizational domination.
Arab resources which, up to the Gulf war, were being used to fund extremism and intolerance, are now being used to support foreign institutions and Western cultural centers in their aggression against our value systems. Unfortunately, some Maghrebian intellectuals, deliberately or otherwise, are contributing to this campaign which is aimed at stripping us of our cultural identity. But let us remember that individual amnesia is not necessarily conducive to the loss of collective memory.
What worries me most is that the true danger is within ourselves. Will we stand up to the challenges ahead? Are we in a position to make a thorough and objective assessment of the situation arising from an indiscriminatory and barbarian aggression against innocent people? Do we have the necessary will power to build a society which is governed by law and which provides for the exercise of all liberties including freedom of opinion, freedom of expression and free elections?
Again, no satisfactory answer can be provided unless we recognize
the paramount importance of memory? Governments and politicians may prefer
to forget when oblivion suits them, but people hardly forget because they
are the makers and custodians of collective memory. It is precisely this
kind of memory that makes history and paves the way for the future. Let
us not forget this lesson. Let us not forget those for whom amnesia is
a deliberate choice.
Rabat, 10 April 1991
* Al Khadra, Tangiers, 12 & 19 April, 1992.