The Quiet Social Engineering of Morocco’s Indigenous Identity
To understand Morocco's transformation, one must first grasp the imperial origins of the Arab nationalism that shaped its post-independence trajectory. Far from being an authentic anti-colonial movement, Arab nationalism was deliberately cultivated by British intelligence during World War I as a tool to fragment the Ottoman Empire whilst maintaining Western influence over the Middle East.
Indigeneity Between Genealogy and Power
In the settler-colonial contexts of the modern West—like the Americas or Australia—these two meanings overlap. The colonized were also the ancestral peoples. As a result, “indigeneity” comes to imply both firstness and oppression—producing a powerful rhetoric of double moral legitimacy: the right of original belonging fused with the moral capital of the victim. But this fusion breaks down in other regions—especially the Middle East.