The state, the Rif, and the diaspora – a translation of Ayad Zaroual

Below is a Fr->En translation of an essay from Ayad Zaoual, published by Mediapart on the 12 July. 

A month after the sentencing of fifty three of the Popular Movement of the Rif’s (‘Hirak‘s’) leading activists;  a week after ‘tens of thousands‘ protested ‘for the freedom of all political prisoners’ in Rabat; and a day after a substantial demonstration in Barcelona for the same, Zaoual’s essay is on the political-economic relationship between Hirak, the Rifian diaspora, and the Moroccan state (‘al-Makhzan’)

An irony of the historical relationship between the three is that the very marginalisation and repression that drove and still drives emigration in the post-independent period has produced a large, active Rifian diaspora, across Holland, France, and Spain, whose remittances have become a salient regional and indeed national economic fact. How exactly this fact – billions of them, each year – is distributed and redistributed is, as Zaoul shows, a political question (one that prison sentences leave entirely unresolved) – under-developed, the Rif needs emigrants’ remittances; and as a means to ‘development’, the state needs the Rif’s deposits.

I have retained Zaoul’s use of ‘le pouvoir‘, ‘the power’, in distinction with ‘the government’, and the French word ‘Médiatisation’ – the ‘popularization through the (mass) media’, as Larousse defines it.

– JH

In Morocco, the crisis of the Rif: why does the pouvoir distrust its diaspora, and their intervention in the debate?

What’s at issue in the confrontation between the Makzhan and the revolts of the Rif – what’s been as yet unrecognised – is the fact of domination of a high-emigration region as a supplier of economic rents: remittances.

This context is crucial for comprehending the violence of the Makhzan, and the punishment of the ‘revolts of the Rif’, despite their legitimate grievances. As emphasised by Béatrice Hibou – and with the state driven by the economy – the control of remittances is a mechanism of economic oppression and of domination.

Le pouvoir distrusts its diaspora: a ‘den of opponents’

The trial of al-Hirak is also a punishment of the interference of the diaspora, through its alliance with the popular Movement, and it’s médiatisation of it. Hidden behind the accusation of al-Hirak’s ‘secessionism’, and of it’s coalition with ‘the Outside’ is, in reality, the ambiguity of relations between the diaspora and the Makhzan.

In a context of political precarity, and of the return to authoritarianism, distrust is becoming the political marker of a regime that sees, in the diaspora’s interference and their alliance with Hirak, a nest of opponents (nid d’opposants) – a new actor, controlled only with difficulty by public powers, and capable of mobilising attention at the international level.

And indeed, since the explosion of revolts in the Rif, we’ve seen the growth in power of the diaspora in the debate, via a fabuleux ‘Digital Hirak’, which has, unquestionably, brought the precious service of médiatisation. It has brought too a political conscience, a strong sentiment of collective membership, and a re-appropriation of the debate, defining novel forms of citizenship and engagement, entirely ignored by the pouvoir.

The control of rent: remittances

In a context of articulation of the Moroccan economy at the international level – of the ‘discharging’ [of public functions] to the private sector, and the precarity of development aid – the control of remittance transfers is a major issue in the management of political order, and the economy. As underlined by Pierre Vermen, what is at issue in this region of emigration is the control of ‘rent’ – but, due to a partitioning and a dispersing of the Rifian community, any politically-inclusive debate about such control is prohibited.

Indeed, so long as they stick to sending money to brothers, sisters, and parents, the remittances of the marginal regions was applauded with both hands – and seeing the sums involved, one sees better why.

The last study of the World Bank of migrations and money-transfers is clear: in 2017, Moroccans transferred close to €6.6 billion to their country of origin, itself much more than state development aid to Morocco, estimated at more than €1.7 billion, and larger even than direct foreign investments, assessed as close to €2.3 billion. Note that these remittances represent more than a quarter of commercial bank deposits at the national level – and the Rif Oriental region, with it’s high emigration, they can reach 60 to 70% of deposits.

The accusation of Hirak’s ‘separatism’ is a means of the Islamist government and the pouvoir to refuse the diaspora’s entry into the debate over the development of the Rif; the Makhzan fear this emerging, mass consciousness (intelligence) turning towards the human development of the territory.

We have seen this same aversion of the state to coalitions on the terrain of development aid, where local [state] actors mistrust projects involving migrants’ NGOs. And, conversely, the state’s large-scale development projects – the Programme Concerté Maroc (PCM)*1, or the  projects of the Agences de Développement dans le Nord (APDN)*2 – have been met only with apathy by local populations.

The clearest indication of this trustee-like relationship of the state towards the Rif is the official creation of ‘territories of tomorrow’s development’, recommended by the editors of the document ‘Economic Integration’, from the Schéma National d’Aménagement du Territoire (SNAT). The institutional means it suggests is simple, but, for the Rif, redoutable; the colossal financial deposits of the marginal regions – those around Nador and al-Hoceima – will henceforth serve as a resource to finance the economic development of the large, functional metropoles, at the expense of the Rif. This specific territorial governance of the territory, to be ‘instituted’ over fifteen years, will have disastrous consequences for the Rif.

The revolt of the Rif essentially expresses this reality, of ‘disintegrated development’, itself based on an ideology of political dispersion and of control of remittances; the Rif has been for too long trapped by the state’s incomprehension of the local fabric and territory, and of people’s leaving for the city [de départicipation à la cité] – but, today, Hirak has enabled the emergence of collective, popular consciousness, turned towards human development and local democracy.

The young don’t want to listen to either imams or élites – but the Islamist government and the pouvoir deny this questioning, and any Rifian coalition organising local, endogenous development.

—

*1 The PCM, a project generating ‘co-operation between French and Moroccan civil society, for a human, solid development’, according to PCM’s 2014 report.

*2 The APDN is ‘mandated to propel a dynamic of development and territorial promotion’ in provinces in the Moroccan north, including the Rif (the APDN’s site is here).