One hundred years ago this week, Muhammad ibn Abd el-Karim el-Khattabi\u2014better known simply as Abd el-Karim\u2014surrendered, ending his five-year rebellion against Spanish and French colonial forces. In 1921, when the war began, Abd el-Karim was just a regional judge in the Rif region of northern Morocco. By 1925, he was on the cover of Time magazine<\/a>. The accompanying article described him as an \u201cimpressive man,\u201d \u201cliberally bewhiskered,\u201d and \u201cmaster of the terrain.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In a few short years, Abd el-Karim destroyed an army from Spain, demoralized another from France, and established a short-lived state called the Republic of the Rif. As a result, anti-colonialists and leftists in Europe, the United States, and elsewhere took up Abd el-Karim\u2019s cause.<\/p>\n Ultimately, Abd el-Karim, or Moulay Mohand, as he remained known in the Rif, failed to liberate his homeland. Defeated by French forces, he was sent into exile, eventually settling in Cairo. Despite living nearly 40 more years, Abd el-Karim never again set foot in Morocco.<\/p>\n A century later, Abd el-Karim still hasn\u2019t been properly welcomed back. In the foothills of north-central Morocco, 15 or so kilometers from the Mediterranean Sea, along the winding road between Temsaman and Ben Taieb, there\u2019s a walled enclosure with a little ceremonial gate. Inside, a chiseled marble plaque commemorates the July 1921 Battle of Anoual, where Abd el-Karim\u2019s confederation of tribal forces ambushed and destroyed a Spanish garrison.<\/p>\n Nowadays, the monument at Anoual<\/a> is a dusty place. The central plaque reads, in Arabic, \u201cThe battle confirmed the will of the Moroccan people to defend their land, their sacred values, and their national unity.\u201d That national unity would only come 30 years after Abd el-Karim\u2019s surrender. In 1956, Morocco won its independence from France and Spain, unifying the multiple colonial zones with Sultan (and later King) Mohammed V on the throne. Today, Mohammad V\u2019s grandson still rules all of Morocco. Is this what Abd el-Karim would have wanted?<\/p>\n The plaque, and its obscurity, speak to the tension at the heart of Abd el-Karim\u2019s legacy. For most Moroccans, Abd el-Karim remains a symbol of national unity and steadfast resistance to European imperialism. But in the Rif itself and among the activist diaspora in Europe, Abd el-Karim represents an alternative to the modern Moroccan nation-state from which many Riffians continue to feel excluded\u2014which is also why the Moroccan monarchy and their allies continue to keep Abd el-Karim\u2019s legacy at a distance.<\/p>\n Abd el-Karim with soldiers in the Rif Mountains of Morocco in an undated photo. Ullstein Bild via Getty Images)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Abd el-Karim was born in<\/a> 1882 in Ajdir<\/a>, a small town in the Rif belonging to the Ait Waryagher tribe just a few kilometers from the Mediterranean. While few Riffians could read and write, Abd el-Karim came from a learned family whose members had long held positions as tribal judges.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThe Rif\u201d (pronounced \u201creef\u201d) refers to the range of steep, craggy mountains that run roughly parallel to Morocco\u2019s northern Mediterranean coast, in some spots extending right up to the sea. The majority of Riffians speak Tarifit, a dialect of Berber. Indeed, despite centuries of Arabization, Arabic remains a second language in much of the region. The Rif was a poor place in the early 20th century, with locals subsisting on small gardens, goats, and cultivating olive and fruit trees.<\/p>\n Perhaps most importantly, the Rif has long had a reputation for its resistance to authority. Small-scale and short-term rebellions were very common in northern Morocco in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Several pretenders to the throne capitalized on local frustration over encroaching European influence to launch full-fledged rebellions against the sultan, sometimes with a messianic religious bent.<\/p>\n In 1912, France signed the Treaty of Fes with Moroccan Sultan Abd el-Hafid, establishing the French protectorate in Morocco. France in turn handed over control of the north to Spain, which also established its own protectorate, with Tetouan as the capital.<\/p>\n Both Abd el-Karim and his brother were recruited to serve in the early days of the Spanish colonial administration. Abd el-Karim was an editor of the Arabic version of the official Spanish newspaper, El Telegrama del Rif<\/em>, which he eventually used to speak out against Spanish colonialism. For this, he spent nearly two years in prison\u2014which he attempted to escape, unsuccessfully\u2014and finally returned to his tribe in 1919.<\/p>\n Initially, Spanish rule was disorganized and feeble. Nearly a decade into their protectorate, they had yet to exert real control over virtually all the interior and had to limit themselves to operations along the coast. But in 1921 they finally put forth a concerted effort to \u2018pacify\u2019 the Rif Mountains. For Abd el-Karim, this created the opportunity to act on his longstanding opposition of Spanish rule.<\/p>\n Riflemen work on the Rif front during the Rif war in Morocco in an undated photo.DeAgostini\/Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Forming a confederation of local tribal forces, Abd el-Karim launched a surprise attack on a Spanish advanced post. When Spanish forces attempted an unsuccessful counterattack, they left themselves short on supplies, enabling Abd el-Karim to strike again at the Spanish railway line. In response, the Spanish army advanced further into the Rif mountains, setting up an encampment at Anoual. When the Riffian army besieged it, Spanish forces found themselves again overextended and decided to retreat. Quickly, the retreat turned into a rout. The Spanish chaotically fled to their coastal stronghold at Melilla, and the Riffians pursued, capturing, or killing thousands. All told, at least 15,000 Spanish were killed in the battle and its aftermath.<\/p>\n After this, Abd el-Karim declared an independent state in the Rif. He intentionally styled it as a republic<\/a>, not an emirate or caliphate or empire. He understood well that his challenge was to unite historically antagonistic tribes, and that doing so required a new sort of system.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Abd el-Karim never laid claim to the Moroccan throne and never disputed the legitimacy of the French-backed sultan, Moulay Yousef. He also insisted that, upon the war\u2019s end, he would step down as president of the republic and hand the role to someone else.\u00a0Indeed, this is one reason the legacy of Abd el-Karim\u2019s republic remains somewhat uncomfortable for Morocco\u2019s monarchy: It\u2019s a reminder of the alternatives to dynastic rule.<\/p>\n Having declared a republic, Abd el-Karim spent much of the next three years trying to build his new state while seeking support from abroad. The revolt was incredibly popular among Moroccans, and Abd el-Karim faced pressure from tribes in and near the French zone to attack French outposts as well. He finally did so in April 1925, achieving considerable initial success but also opening new front against a significantly more capable foreign power.<\/p>\n The new offensive sent France into a panic. Hubert Lyautey, the protectorate\u2019s top official and architect of the French colonial project in Morocco, had seen the possible threat and begged for troops. After initially downplaying these pleas, France now acted more quickly. Philippe P\u00e9tain, \u201cthe Lion of Verdun,\u201d was sent to direct hundreds of thousands of reinforcements.<\/p>\n Spanish legions advance on Ajdir, Morocco, on Oct. 16, 1925.Bettmann Archive\/Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n This was the moment when the Rif War galvanized a wide audience around the globe. Leftists<\/a> in France responded with horror at the news of French planes leveling remote mountain villages and Spanish forces using mustard gas against the Riffians. Reporting in U.S. newspapers and magazines turned U.S. opinion in favor of the Rif upstarts. Two U.S. foreign correspondents, Vincent Sheean<\/a> and Paul Mowrer<\/a>, reported from the field and even obtained interviews with Abd el-Karim himself.<\/p>\n In 1925, the same U.S. aviators who had volunteered to fight for France in World War I as part of the Escadrille La Fayette<\/em> returned for another, less heroic mission. Branded the Escadrille Cherifienne<\/em>\u2014suggesting that they fought on behalf of Sultan Moulay Yousef himself\u2014they led bombing missions against rebels in the Rif. But the escadrille disbanded after just four months. U.S. newspapers reported their mass bombing of Moroccan civilians and the State Department threatened the aviators with denaturalization for violating the Neutrality Act of 1794.<\/p>\n In the end, the Riffians, forced to fight on two separate fronts against two separate empires, were too heavily outnumbered to succeed. Although the writing was on the wall earlier in the spring of 1926, Abd el-Karim rejected the French and Spanish terms of peace and fought on. A popular Riffian verse from the period mourned, \u201cOh Moulay Mohammed [Abd el-Karim], look out, for we are going to die.\u201d<\/p>\n On May 27, 1926, Abd el-Karim faced the inevitable. He surrendered to France\u2014assuming Spain would have treated him more harshly\u2014and was sent into exile. He vowed to only return to Morocco when all foreign armies had been expelled from Moroccan soil. But even after the country\u2019s independence in 1956, he stayed in Egypt.<\/p>\n Left: A car burns in Meknes, Morocco, on July 25, 1955, after violent anti-French demonstrations. Right: French soldiers stop Moroccan motorcyclists heading toward Meknes on Oct. 27, 1956, following riots in the city a few days earlier. Boissonnade\/AFP via Getty Images; Bettmann Archive\/Getty Images; Jacques Belin\/AFP via Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Implicit in Abd el-Karim\u2019s refusal to return was the charge that the Alawi dynasty\u2014Morocco\u2019s royal family\u2014wasn\u2019t really independent. In 1912, Moulay Yousef, the great-grandfather of Morocco\u2019s current king, Mohammed VI, ascended to the throne after the French forced his own brother to abdicate. The current king\u2019s grandfather, Mohammed V, eventually emerged as a committed and savvy anti-colonial nationalist. But it was still French colonial policy had helped put him in the job to begin with. Abd el-Karim was too shrewd to explicitly question the legitimacy of the Alawi dynasty, but he condemned the Moroccan government\u2019s coziness with predatory foreign powers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Indeed, Abd el-Karim\u2019s war continued after 1956. In the early 1950s, Abd el-Karim, working from exile, helped organize anti-colonial guerilla force<\/a> called the Army of Liberation. Initially, it attacked French and Spanish interests, but in 1958, two years after independence, Riffian Army of Liberation veterans turned on the new Moroccan government. They stormed police posts and offices of the Istiqlal party\u2014a group conservative Arab nationalists who formed the monarchy\u2019s new ruling elite. The Riffians were angry at the lack of government investment and at the appointment of non-locals to important local government posts. Among the rebels\u2019 demands was Abd el-Karim\u2019s return from exile. For his part, Abd el-Karim pointedly asked<\/a> the new Moroccan leadership, \u201cAre you a government, or a gang?\u201d<\/p>\n After some initial losses, the Moroccan army under Crown Prince Hassan brutally suppressed the revolt. Its leaders were either arrested or fled into exile. But tensions between the region and the central government remained, driven by many of the same concerns as in 1958. Twenty-five years later in 1984, riots erupted in a number of northern Moroccan cities. Hassan, now on the throne himself, responded with a warning: \u201cThe people of the North have already known the violence of the crown prince; it would be better for them not to know the violence of the king.\u201d<\/p>\n The very public animosity between the central government and the Rif began to fade with the death of Hassan II in 1999. The new king, Mohammed VI, extended if not an olive branch then at least a twig. He created an Equity and Reconciliation Commission to report on past human rights abuses and began investing in infrastructure in the north.<\/p>\n Thousands of protesters crowd the streets of the northern Moroccan city of al-Hoceima on on May 31, 2017, during a demonstration demanding the release of a \u201cPopular Movement\u201d leader Nasser Zefzafi . Fadel Senna\/AFP via Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n But while tourism investments and global shipping infrastructure helped some parts of the region, many Riffians felt left behind. Tensions boiled over in 2016, with the killing of Mouhcine Fikri. A local fishmonger, Firki had climbed into a trash compactor to save fish confiscated by police and was crushed to death. His death sparked a wave of regional outrage against the corruption and neglect of the Moroccan government.<\/p>\n The grassroots demonstrations around Fikri\u2019s death grew into the Hirak<\/em><\/a>, meaning \u201cmovement\u201d in Arabic. One of its more extremist leaders, Nasser Zefzafi, often appeared publicly in front of an image of Abd el-Karim and protestors carried the red and white flag of the former Rif Republic in the streets. Perhaps most poignantly, a popular song<\/a> went, \u201cMoulay Mohand is dead \/ But his sons are still [living] \/ They will continue peacefully \/ They will finish their marches.\u201d The overarching theme was pretty clear: For many Riffians, the work of Abd el-Karim remained unfinished.<\/p>\n A protester from the Rif movement hurls a stone at security forces during a demonstration against corruption, repression, and unemployment, sen in Morocco\u2019s northern town of Imzouren on June 10, 2017. Fadel Senna\/AFP via Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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