David Stenner on the Global Campaign for Moroccan Independence

Speaker: Dr. David Stenner, Sultan Scholar, CMES

Following the end of WWII, the activists of the Moroccan Hizb al-Istiqlal (Independence Party) commenced a global anti-colonial propaganda campaign, which contributed to the abolishing of the French and Spanish Protectorates in 1956. Organized around offices in Cairo, Paris, and New York, the nationalists successfully created an international network of supporters that helped them present their case before world public opinion and convince the UN to deal with the status of Morocco. However, although the very structure of the nationalists' non-hierarchical and flexible propaganda network allowed them to prevail in their struggle against the colonizers, it also enabled King Muhammad V to co-opt its central nodes after independence and transform the Istiqlal into an opposition party, thus laying the foundation for the pro-Western authoritarian monarchy that persists today.