The political instrumentalisation of an educational model in a colonial context: Spanish-Arab schools in Spanish Morocco (1912–1956)

Abstract

The establishment of the Spanish Protectorate in Northern Morocco between 1912 and 1956 brought with it the need for Spain to create a colonial policy. Education was just one of the instruments put at the service of colonisation in the policy of territorial control. Spain implemented a colonial school model made up of Spanish schools, Spanish-Arab schools and Spanish-Jewish schools designed to educate the Moroccan and Spanish populations living in the area. Since education was considered a priority by the Spanish colonisers, they promoted Spanish-Arab schools as a key part of their colonial policy. The schools created for Moroccans by the Spaniards united tradition – the Arabic language and Muslim religion – with modernity, since the schools did not adhere to traditional Koranic education, but rather followed the teaching models and principles of the schools in Spain at the time, marking a turning point in education in Northern Morocco. The end goal was to instruct the population according to a pro-Spanish, coloniser-friendly ideology in order to control the society and territory in a way that complemented military policies. The instrumentalisation of these schools is reflected in the different names they were given throughout the period: consular schools, Spanish-Arab schools, indigenous schools, advanced schools and Moroccan schools. During the Franco period (1936–56), these institutions were instrumentalised not only in the Moroccan context, but also in the Spanish international context, and the process of Moroccanisation and nationalisation that Spanish-Arab schools underwent can only be understood against this backdrop. For Spain, this school model was new, although similar institutions had already been implemented in other Mediterranean countries including Turkey, Lebanon and Algeria.

Keywords:

• Spanish Morocco
• educational policy
• Spanish-Arab
• Moroccanisation
• school
• Morocco

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación of Spain [CSO2011-29438-C05-02].

Notes

1. Official letter sent by the local controller in Larache to the Ministry of State concerning education, 15/03/1917. Archivo General de la Administración de Alcalá de Henares (AGA), AGA, Africa Section, Directorate-General of Morocco and the Colonies: teaching section, Box M-325, Exp. 2.

2. The Alliance Israelite Universelle was founded in Paris in 1860. From the time of its creation, education was a pillar on which to develop its policies to create new citizens. Its schools combined two educational models, one modern and the other traditional, and included classes on Hebrew and the Talmud. The Alliance thus unified the present–past and cultural–religious tradition with the political–ideological principles of mid-nineteenth-century Europe. The Alliance focused its earliest efforts on Morocco, establishing its first school in Tetouan in 1862. That school set the model that was followed and implemented in other countries around the Mediterranean and – along with Tangier – became the Alliance's working laboratory. The Alliance's first schools in Morocco were set up in 1862 (Tetouan) and 1864 (Tangier), and shortly afterwards, new schools were opened in the future zone of the Spanish Protectorate: Larache (1872) and Alcazarquivir (1878, 1911). The Alliance Israelite also created schools in the territories that comprised the French protectorate: Mogador (1867), Fez (1882), Casablanca (1895), Marrakech (1900), Rabat (1902), Azemmour (1906), Safi (1909), Meknes (1911) and Sefrou (1911). After the Protectorate was established, schools in Settat (1913), Mazagan (1914) and Sale (1914) opened. By the end of the nineteenth century, the Alliance had created more than 100 schools around different parts of the Mediterranean (Laskier 1979; Harrus 2001).

3. The Alliance Française was founded in 1883 – under the leadership of ambassadors Paul Cambon and Pierre Foncin and based on the ideas of Léon Gambetta – as a national association charged with the task of promoting and disseminating the French language in the colonies and abroad. The Alliance Française was made up of outstanding members from the French intelligentsia including Ferdinand de Lesseps, Louis Pasteur, Ernest Renan, Jules Verne and Armand Colin. By 1908, through the Alliance Française, France had established a series of Franco-Arab and French schools in the main cities in Northern Morocco of economic and political interest for the French. While the first of these were intended for the children of the French, Moroccan families without resources and notables in cities such as Tangier (1898), Tetouan (1904), Larache (1905) and Uxda (1907), the second group of schools educated the French and Europeans residing in Morocco. These were mainly found in Tangier – Escuela Robinet (1895) and Escuela Terrier (1904) – and Casablanca – Escuela Peterman (1907).

4. The Franciscan community in Morocco dates back to the thirteenth century, although it was not until the last third of the nineteenth century and first half of the twentieth century that it reached its heights. While education was one of the main focuses of missionary activity established by the community, it was not until this time that its aims were achieved. In 1860, the Franciscan Mission in Morocco fell under the protection of the Spanish government, becoming an instrument of that country in its policy pursuits in that country. As a result, various European legations repeatedly accused the Spanish prefects of using the Franciscans to drive their political and cultural penetration into Morocco. The great renovator of the Franciscan mission in Morocco was Father Lerchundi (1836–96), who based his work on education and health in accordance with reformist principles.

5. The Board of Deputies of British Jews was founded in London in 1760 to represent English synagogues. The Board included among its objectives the protection and defence of the religious and cultural interests of the Jewish community, cooperation with the authorities working on behalf of the community's defence and security and support for Israeli communities outside of London.

6. ‘In their hearts, sympathy, affection for our geography, our history and our language; in a word, we will have made them Spanish.’ Teaching guide. Escuelas Españolas de Alfonso XIII for boys in Alcazarquivir, created by the teacher Gregorio Ortega Alfonso for the 1915–16 school year Alcazarquivir 21/07/1916. AGA, Africa Section, Directorate-General of Morocco and the Colonies: teaching section, Box M-333, Exp. 1.

7. The High Commission was the highest Spanish institution in the Protectorate. It was headed by the High Commissioner, who was assisted in his duties by a Secretary-General and three delegations: Indigenous Affairs; Taxes, Economy and Finance; and Development. In 1941, the High Commission created two new delegations – Education and Culture; and Finance – that eased the burden on the Indigenous Affairs Delegation.

8. Reorganisation of the Spanish-Israeli and Spanish schools in the Protectorate. Boletín Oficial de la Zona del Protectorado Español en Marruecos (BOZPEM), 33, 30/11/1935, 1427–1430. In Alcazarquivir, two school groups were created with Jewish sections: Grupo Escolar Juan Nieto (Jewish Section) and Grupo Escolar Benchaprut (former Spanish-Jewish school). In Arcila, the Grupo Escolar Juan Nieto was given a Jewish section. Larache had four schools with two groups with Jewish sections (Grupo Escolar España and Escuelas Miguel de Cervantes) and two former Spanish-Jewish schools were reconverted (Grupo Escolar Yudah Halevy and Grupo Escolar Salomón Bengabirol). In Nador, a Jewish section was created in the Grupo Escolar Lope de Vega and also in Chefchaouen in the Escuelas Ramón y Cajal. In Tetouan, a Spanish-Jewish school was transformed into the Escuelas Isaac Toledano and new sections were opened in the Escuelas Pedro Antonio de Alarcón and Grupo Escolar España.

9. Africanismo was an intellectual and political movement that emerged in Spain in the late nineteenth century. Its supporters included members of the military, jurists, historians, linguists, teachers, diplomats, biologists, businesspeople, doctors and the like. With the loss of the last Spanish colonies in Cuba and the Philippines, the ensuing political, social and economic crisis in Spain, combined with a crisis of national identity, led these actors to present a project for Spanish regeneration characterised by a change in the country's international positioning towards the African continent in general and Morocco in particular. It was during the Franco period that Africanismo reached its height, with a strong institutional and political presence. Africanismo often invoked the need for direct Spanish intervention in neighbouring Morocco for reasons, it claimed, of security and national defence, commerce, education and language, among others (Martínez Antonio and González González 2011).

10. López Ferrer was appointed High Commissioner for Spain in Morocco in 1931 and was replaced by Juan Moles Ormell in 1933.

11. ‘Notes on the Study of Public Education in Morocco, Especially in Tetouan’. BOZPEM, 2, 25/04/1913, 122–150.

12. ‘Notes on the Study of Public Education in Morocco, Especially in Tetouan'. BOZPEM, 2, 25/04/1913, 123.

13. ‘Notes on the Study of Public Education in Morocco, Especially in Tetouan'. BOZPEM, 2, 25/04/1913, 127.

14. ‘Algunas consideraciones sobre la organización del Majzén en el Bajalato de Tetouan, impuestos que se perciben en las kabilas y modo de practicar la enseñanza’, BOZPEM, 19, 10/01/1914, 13–55. A longer version of this report can be found in AGA, Africa Section, Directorate-General of Morocco and the Colonies: teaching section, Box M-324, Exp. 6.

15. ‘Algunas consideraciones sobre la organización del Majzén en el Bajalato de Tetouan, impuestos que se perciben en las kabilas y modo de practicar la enseñanza', BOZPEM, 19, 10/01/1914, 46.

16. Ricardo Ruiz Orsatti (Tangier 1871–Casablanca 1946) was appointed to head this body. Orsatti was a connoisseur of Arabic and Moroccan society and culture. Like his brother Reginaldo, he worked as an interpreter between 1891 and 1897 in the chancellery of the Spanish consulate in Tetouan under consul Teodoro Cuevas. He was appointed director of the Alfonso XIII Spanish-Arab School in Tangier, which he returned to after resigning as teaching controller in 1923 (Ruiz Orsatti 1918).

17. Muley Ahmed Raisuni belonged to a Chorfa family from the Jebala region with ties to the Tetouan elite. Raisuni saw European penetration into Northeast Morocco as a threat, affecting not only its economic privileges, but also the government's prerogatives and freedom to act in an area beyond the control of the Makhzen. Raisuni focused his confrontations in the region of Jebala, first against rival kabyles and families, and then attacking the interests of the Europeans. Along with Abd-el-Krim, Raisuni was one of the most problematic Moroccans for the Spanish administration during the first years of the Protectorate. In 1925, he died and with him died his cause.

18. Spanish Control Offices in Morocco were local government units that answered to the Indigenous Affairs Delegation. They were led by head controllers, positions filled by members of the Spanish military. Their mission was to maintain control of the territory where they were stationed and oversee issues related to administration, judicial decisions, policies, etc., adopted by the local authorities (Villanova 2004).

19. Note from the Controller General of Spanish-Arab and Indigenous Education in Morocco, No. 8, to the Minister of State. Tangier, 1 May 1916, AGA, Africa Section, Directorate-General of Morocco and the Colonies: teaching section, Box M-324, Exp. 1.

20. Mohammed ben Abd-el-Krim el Jattabi was born in the Beni Urriaguel kabyle in the heart of the Rif and is considered the first nationalist leader from Northern Morocco. Abd-el-Krim led the armed struggle in the Rif against the European colonisers, facing off against them on numerous occasions. One example is the defeat of the Spanish troops in the settlement of Annual, the repercussions of which were felt in Madrid, resulting in, among other things, the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera. Abd-el-Krim proclaimed the Republic of the Rif between 1923 and 1926. The Rif offensive against French Morocco in 1925 brought about French–Spanish collaboration against Abd-el-Krim. At the end of 1926, Abd-el-Krim was defeated by the French–Spanish army and was deported to the French island of La Réunion (Benjelloun 1983; Pennell 1986; Madariaga 2009).

21. ‘La acción de España. Las escuelas indígenas. Solemne acto de reparto de premios’, Telegrama del Rif, 20/07/1913.

22. Note from the Minister of State, Madrid, 12 January 1921. AGA, Africa Section, Directorate-General of Morocco and the Colonies: teaching section, Box M-330, Exp. 1.

23. Document No. 679 from the Secretary-General of the Spanish High Commission in Morocco to the Director-General of Morocco and the Colonies. Tetouan, 25/07/1923. AGA, Africa Section, Directorate-General of Morocco and the Colonies: teaching section, Box M-336.

24. Dahir reorganising Spanish-Arab teaching. BOZPEM, 4, 10/02/1937, 99–100.

25. The Islamic Education High Council was created in 1935 by the government of the Second Republic under the umbrella of the High Commission in order to administer questions related to teaching the Muslim religion. It was the first institution or body to handle questions on Muslim education administered and directed by Moroccans in Spanish Morocco. Although the council began under the full authority of the Jalifa, or representative of the Sultan, in practice both the measures that it adopted and its members were controlled by the Spanish administrator, who initiated a kind of ‘soft’ control of Muslim education. With the arrival of the Franco regime, the council underwent a process of redefinition in 1937 that expanded its powers: monitoring teaching staff and schools, supporting the duties related to Islamic education inspection, creating budgets, organising and reviewing religious teaching programmes, planning courses and convening and subsequently evaluating the mudarrisin.

26. Competition criteria for Moroccan secondary school textbooks. BOZPEM, No. 28, 10/10/1941, 753–762.

27. Statistical Yearbook for the Spanish Protectorate in Northern Morocco.