L'indispensable bloggeur socialiste
Lenin's Tomb , particulièrement attentif à tout ce qui touche, l'islam, le Moyen-Orient et le racisme, consacre pour la première fois me semble-t-il un billet au Maroc, et plus particulièrement à la colonisation espagnole du Maroc. L'entame
du billet est pas mal: "
Supposedly, when Franco was lying on his deathbed, he heard the noise of people gathered outside the window and asked his subordinates what was going on. "It is the people," he was told, "they have come to say goodbye." "Oh," he said, "where are they going?" ".
Dans la foulée d'
Aimé Césaire et de
Sven Lindqvist (auteur de "
Exterminez toutes ces brutes "), le lien idéologique et fonctionnel entre colonialisme et fascisme/nazisme est souligné. Ce n'est pas là une constation révolutionnaire ou islamo-gauchiste: l'historien britannique
Michael Burleigh , qui est
plutôt très néo-conservateur , avait relevé la parenté dans sa récente et monumentale somme "
The Third Reich: a New History ", en se fondant notamment sur des propos de Hitler déclarant s'inspirer de la colonisation britannique des Indes pour son "
Drang nach Osten ", son
Ostsiedlung et son
Generalplan Ost . Même le spécialiste français d'histoire juive Georges Bensoussan, qu'on ne saurait taxer d'antisionisme outrancier, aborde ce lien dans les premières pages de son "
Europe, une passion génocidaire. Essai d'histoire culturelle ".
Pour en revenir à Lenin's Tomb, qui s'inspire très largement de l'ouvrage de l'historien britannique Sebastian Balfour "
Deadly Embrace: Morocco and the Road to the Spanish Civil War ", que je n'ai pas encore eu le temps de lire, certaines remarques ne valent pas seulement pour la colonisation espagnole du Maroc du début du XXeme - jugez-en:
"
Spanish power in Morocco was initially the result of military penetration, on the one hand, and 'peaceful penetration', the injection of capital and particularly of mining capital in the north, on the other. Arising ten years after the defeat of Spain by the United States in Cuba and the Philippines in 1898, known then as the 'Disaster', and in the context of the 'Scramble for Africa', Spain's bid for a resumption of some world power status was frustrated by the manoeuvring of its imperial rivals, England and France in particular, and by the growth of a militant working class and an anti-military culture. Essentially, in negotiations with France in 1909, Spain was permitted a small 'sphere of influence' in the north of Morocco, dominated by the Rif, while France controlled the remainder. Later in 1912, they and the 'international community' agreed that the spheres should become Protectorates, and they awarded themselves the right to intervene militarily. On the face of it, they were committed to defending the rule of the Sultanate - it was pro-sovereignty imperialism - but in reality, the arrival of European troops and commerce both disrupted the delicate balance of tribal society and weakened the already limited grip of political elites. Although the commitment of troops to Morocco stirred mass public opposition, and even led to an anti-war strike in Barcelona when indigenous resistance against mining interests led to a military occupation to pacify the country, it encouraged conservative Catholic constituencies for whom the Reconquest against the Moorish infidel was still a worthy political goal. And, ironically, military disaster seemed to temporarily overcome public scepticism - both in 1909 and in 1921, when resistance inflicted harsh defeats on the Spanish troops, a temporary upsurge in militarism resulted. The political elite, mainly guided by 19th Century Liberalism, oscillated between the 'peaceful penetration' of the neo-colonial business lobby and the strident racialism and conquest policies of the colonial military, tending more and more toward the latter as the situation became more difficult ".
Et ceci sur la gauche républicaine espagnole, guère moins coloniale que les fascistes franquistes:
"
The Spanish army undertook a stern enlistment drive among Moroccoans, but while the Nationalists made a careful pitch to the Moroccans, no such effort was made by the Republicans - who might have been expected to liberate the colonies in order to undercut Franco's base. They were so busy trying to put the French and British governments at ease that they could not possibly conceive of stimulating an anti-colonial revolt in the north of Africa. Instead, the Republicans used their airforce to drop shells indiscriminately on Moroccan towns. It should be said that the fascists had no intention of trying to recruit from the anti-colonial rebels, since they knew their chances were slim. The fascist General Mola instead ordered that anyone who had partaken in that rebellion should be arrested. The fascists recruited Moroccans on the basis that they should wage a Holy War for one of the world's great religions against atheists, Jews and Communists who were inherently anti-Muslim. Had the Republicans been anti-colonialists, this would have been exposed as a mirage: but they were not. In fact, the Regulares were used much as they had been in Morocco - to carry out the most dangerous, onerous work, while the Spanish commanders frequently watched from afar. The colonial methods of mass bombardment, repression, summary execution, torture and pacificatory 'total war' had been learned in Morocco and exported to Spain ".
Toute ressemblance avec des pays, des faits et des personnages contemporains etc...
Jeudi 27 Mars 2008
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