http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3655-3689
![Sample our Museum and Heritage Studies journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5945/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Museum-Heritage-Studies.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
The 2004 Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) that investigated human rights abuses in Morocco under King Hassan II cited the ‘deplorable state of national archives’ as a major obstacle to its work. In 2013, in accordance with the findings of the TRC, the National Archives of Morocco opened with a colonial fonds, primarily holding records from the period of French colonisation (1912–56). This article seeks to understand the late establishment of a national archives, positing that part of the delay was caused by the focus of Moroccan nationalists on the location of indigenous records and their rejection of colonial archives and historiography.
Notes
1. Kingdom of Morocco National Human Rights Council, ‘Inauguration of “Archives of Morocco”: To Write Rational and Pluralistic History’, May/June 2011, available at <https://www.cndh.org.ma/an/bulletin-d-information/inauguration-archives-morocco-write-rational-and-pluralistic-histor>, accessed 20 July 2018.
2. Kingdom of Morocco Justice and Reconciliation Commission, ‘Summary of the Final Report’, 2006, p. 5, available at <https://www.cndh.ma/sites/default/files/documents/rapport_final_mar_eng-3.pdf>, accessed 20 July 2018.
3. ibid., p. 9.
4. S Slyomovics, ‘The Moroccan Equity and Reconciliation Commission: The Promises of a Human Rights Archive’, Arab Studies Journal, vol. 24, no. 1, 2016, p. 15.
5. R Linn, ‘“Change Within Continuity:” The Equity and Reconciliation Commission and Political Reform in Morocco’, The Journal of North African Studies, vol. 16, no. 1, 2011, p. 8.
6. S Hegasy, ‘Transforming Memories: Media and Historiography in the Aftermath of the Moroccan Equity and Reconciliation Commission’, in Norman S Nikro and Sonja Hegasy (eds), The Social Life of Memory: Violence, Trauma, and Testimony in Lebanon and Morocco, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2018, pp. 83–112.
7. K Amine, ‘After the “Years of Lead” in Morocco: Performing the Memory’, New Theatre Quarterly, vol. 32, no. 2, 20, 2016, pp. 130–1.
8. Slyomovics, p. 15.
9. Kingdom of Morocco Justice and Reconciliation Commission, p. 12.
10. ibid., p. 17.
11. Kingdom of Morocco National Human Rights Council, ‘IER Archives, a Responsibility for Tomorrow’, available at <https://www.cndh.org.ma/an/bulletin-d-information/ier-archives-responsibility-tomorrow>, accessed 20 July 2018.
12. Slyomovics, p. 12.
13. ibid.
14. Hegasy, p. 85.
15. SG Miller, ‘Why History Still Matters in Post 2011 Morocco’, Jadaliyya, November 2016, available at <http://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/33789/Why-History-Matters-in-Post-2011-Morocco>, accessed 5 August 2018.
16. L Benjelloun-Laroui, Les Bibliothèques au Maroc, Maisonneuve et Larose, Paris, 1990.
17. E Burke III, ‘The Creation of the Moroccan Colonial Archive 1880–1930’, History and Anthropology, vol. 18, no. 1, 2007, pp. 1–9.
18. For more on this see: LJ Moore, Restoring Order: The Ecole des Chartes and the Organization of archives and libraries in France 1820–1870, Litwin, Duluth, 2008.
19. A Cohen, ‘Quels usages de la bibliothèque au Maroc’, Conserveries mémorielles, vol. 5, no. 1, 2008, pp. 67–80.
20. Benjelloun-Laroui.
21. Y Pérotin, Maroc: préservation et classification des archives, UNESCO, Paris, 1969.
22. T Cook and J Schwartz, ‘Archives, Records, and Power: From (Postmodern) Theory to (Archival) Performance’, Archival Science, vol. 2, 2002, pp. 171–85.
23. L Buckley, ‘Objects of Love and Decay: Colonial Photographs in a Postcolonial Archive’, Cultural Anthropology, vol. 20, no. 2, 2005, pp. 249–70.
24. ibid.
25. S Berger, ‘The Role of National Archives in Constructing National Master Narratives in Europe’, Archival Science, vol. 13, no. 1, 2013, p. 18.
26. ibid., p. 2.
27. S Ahmed, ‘We Call on the Citizens to be Aware of the Value of What is in Their Homes: A Case Study of the Hassan II Prize for Manuscripts and Archival Documents’, PhD dissertation, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, 2016, p. 67.
28. A Laabi, ‘Realities and Dilemmas of National Culture II’, in OC Harrison and T Villa-Ignacio (eds), Soufles-Anfas: A Critical Anthology from the Moroccan Journal of Culture and Politics, Stanford University Press, Standford, 2016, p. 95.
29. J Wansbrough, ‘The Decolonization of North African History’, Journal of African History, vol. 9, no. 4, 1968, p. 643.
30. T Shepard, ‘“Of Sovereignty”: Disputed Archives, “Wholly Modern” Archives, and the Post-Decolonization French and Algerian Republics, 1962–2012’, American Historical Review, vol. 120, no. 3, 2015, p. 877.
31. H Touati, ‘Algerian Historiography in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries: From Chronicle to History’, in M Le Gall and K Perkins (eds), The Maghrib in Question, University of Texas Press, Austin, 1997, p. 91.
32. T Shepherd, ‘Making Sovereignty and Affirming Modernity in the Archives of Decolonisation: The Algeria-France “Dispute” Between the Post-Decolonisation French and Algerian Republics, 1962–2015’, in J Lowry (ed.), Dispaced Archives, Routledge, London, 2017, p. 25.
33. ibid., p. 26.
34. Les Archives Nationales de Tunisie, ‘The National Archives: Historical Overview’, available at <http://www.archives.nat.tn/index.php?id=23&L=2>, accessed 24 October 2018.
35. PM Love Jr, ‘The Colonial Pasts of Medieval Texts in Northern Africa: Useful Knowledge, Publication History, and Political Violence in Colonial and Post-Independence Algeria’, Journal of African History, vol. 58, no. 3, 2017, p. 461.
36. ibid.
37. A Boum, Memories of Absence, How Muslims Remember Jews in Morocco, Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA, 2013, p. 32.
38. Ahmed, p. 67.
39. SG Miller, ‘Research Facilities in Morocco – Addendum’, Review of Middle East Studies, vol. 7, no. 3, 1973, pp. 47–52.
40. J Cagne, ‘Les problèmes de la recherché historique au Maroc: bilan général’, Hepéris Tamuda, vol. 7, 1966, p. 115.
41. M Bencherifa, ‘The Restoration of Manuscripts in Morocco’, in Y Ibish and G Atiyeh (eds), Third Conference of Al-Furqan Islamic Heritage Foundation: The Conservation and Preservation of Islamic Manuscripts, Al-Furqan Islamic Heritage Foundation, London, 1996, p. 25.
42. Pérotin, p. 3.
43. Shepard, p. 878.
44. ibid., p. 4.
45. ibid., p. 11.
46. ibid., p. 8.
47. ibid., p. 11.
48. al-ʿAlam newspaper, 19 February 1969, p. 1, as cited in Ahmed, p. 71.
49. ibid.
50. ibid., p. 72.
51. Boum.
52. Miller, ‘Research Facilities’, p. 49.
53. Ahmed, p. 37.
54. ibid., p. iii.
55. RH Brown and BD Brown, ‘The Making of Memory: The Politics of Archives, Libraries and Museums in the Construction of National Consciousness’, History of the Human Sciences, vol. 11, no. 4, 1999, p. 19.
56. Berger, p. 18.
57. Ahmed, p. 69.
58. Brown and Brown, p. 22.
59. Ahmed, p. 79.
60. G Cornwell, ‘Archives du Maroc’, Hazine, July 2015, available at <http://hazine.info/archives-du-maroc/>, accessed 1 August 2018.
61. Shepherd.
62. Cornwell.
63. Burke, p. 2.
64. ibid.
65. F Cooper, ‘Memories of Colonization: Commemoration, Preservation, and Erasure in an African Archive’, in FX Bloun and WG Rosenberg (eds), Archives, Documentation and Institutions of Social Memory: Essays from the Sawyer Seminar, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 2006, pp. 257.
66. Benjelloun-Laroui, also see Ahmed, p. 26, which discusses the methods Moroccans used to conceal their documents from the French. These included burial and the erection of artificial walls.
67. Cooper, p. 261.
68. Le Reporter.ma, ‘Histoire du Maroc: L’œuvre d’Henry de Castries dévoilée’, 11 May 2017, available at <https://www.lereporter.ma/actualite-culture/histoire-du-maroc-loeuvre-dhenry-de-castries-devoilee/>, accessed 23 August 2018.
69. Brown and Brown, p. 29.
70. M El Mansour, ‘Moroccan Historiography Since Independence’, in M Le Gall and K Perkins (eds), The Maghrib in Question: Essays in History and Historiography, University of Texas Press, Austin, 1997, p. 112.
71. He is sometimes said to be French, but he comes from a Jewish family who lived near Moroccan’s eastern border with Algeria who were granted French citizenship. He himself chose to stay in Morocco after independence.
72. G Ayache, ‘La question des archives historiques marocaines’, Hespéris – Tamuda, vol. 2, nos. 2–3, 1961, pp. 311–26.
73. Miller, ‘Why History Still Matters’.
74. Cooper, p. 258.
75. C Nicholas, ‘Of Texts and Textiles: Colonial Ethnography and Contemporary Moroccan Material Heritage’, The Journal of North African Studies, vol. 19, no. 3, 2014, p. 407.
76. El Mansour, p. 114.
77. Kingdom of Morocco National Human Rights Council, ‘Inauguration of “Archives of Morocco”’. available at <https://www.cndh.ma/an/actualites/inauguration-archives-morocco-write-rational-and-pluralistic-history > accessed 24 October 2018
78. Cornwell.
79. Miller, ‘Why History Still Matters’.
80. ibid.
81. Berger, p.18.
82. Agence France Presse, ‘Histoire: 55 ans après l’indépendance, le Maroc se dote d’Archives nationales’, January 2013, available at <https://www.20minutes.fr/monde/1087985-20130126-histoire-55-ans-apres-independence-maroc-dote-archives-nationales>, accessed 24 October 2018.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Sumayya Ahmed
Sumayya Ahmed is a Lecturer in Library and Information Studies at University College London’s campus in Qatar. Her research interests include the social life of archival documents, including the place of community archives and oral histories in complementing documentary records. She received her PhD in Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where her research focused on Arabic and Islamic manuscripts, digitisation, and documentary cultural heritage in North Africa. She also holds an M.A. from the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS) at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. and was awarded a US State Department Fulbright grant for research in Morocco in 2007-2008.