Moroccan Demographics & Ethnic Identities

Cool fez, Hansel

So I know this is the freestyle week and I should probably be writing a post on something "fun" like Moroccan music or the many wonders of the Moroccan fez, but what I'm going to focus on today is ethnic identity in Morocco, and how it may be a problematic concept in both diaspora studies and discussions of Arab Spring. What I'm going to be talking about is considerably muddier waters than Morocco's economic system, so I'm going to rely on more sources than just the CIA World Factbook (as wonderful of a resource as it is). However, let's start out with some easy facts from the trusty Factbook, before we wonder what to make of them: 


Fact: The largest ethnic group in Morocco are the Arab-Berbers, which make up a whopping 99% of the population.

Fact: Arabic is the official language of Morocco.

Fact: Islam is the official religion of Morocco, and 99% of the population identifies as Muslim.

Fact: Morocco is in Africa.

A black Moroccan  (wearing a cooler fez)

I include that last fact because if I had no idea where Morocco was, Facts 1-3 would convince me that Morocco is probably in the Middle East.  Now, if we remember from my first post, around 700 A.D. the Arabs conquered North Africa, after which the area known as Morocco was ruled by Moroccan and Muslim dynasties. The country's history explains why its people are almost exclusively identify as Arab. However, its history cannot explain away the never-changing reality of its geographic location: Morocco is a part of Africa.


Who remembers our conversation in class the other day about Egypt, and how the vast majority of people don't really consider Egypt an "African nation"? I just looked at Egypt's Factbook entry and noticed that "Egyptian" is considered an ethnic identity, not just a national one, and that 99% of the country's people identify as Egyptian. In fact, when I look at all of the North African countries on the map, I hear that voice of so many middle school Social Studies teachers saying, "Well, you know, those aren't really African countries."


What does it mean for the Diaspora and those who study it if the top half of the continent is barely considered part of the continent at all? Even in regard to the uprisings of last year, the protest movements were called Arab Spring -- thereby erasing any kind of African contextual basis they may have. 

This map illustrates what I mean. Considering the top quarter of the African continent as more a part of the Arabian Peninsula than as a part of Africa itself is problematic. There are issues of human rights violations and governmental corruption in so many other parts of Africa, and yet the ones that caught the world's attention last year were only those its "Arab" region. I take issue with the term "Arab Spring" as a discursive mechanism of contextual limitation. Perhaps I am incorrect, but I feel like this term implies that the populaces' new-found power came solely from their being Arab, and nothing else. 

As uncomfortable as I am citing Al Jazeera (seriously), this article demonstrates what I'm getting at, using Egypt as an example: 

...Despite the fact that the rich banks of the Nile are sourced from central Africa, the world looked upon the uprising in Egypt solely as a Middle Eastern issue and commentators scrambled to predict what it would mean for the rest of the Arab world and, of course, Israel. Few seemed to care that Egypt was also part of Africa, a continent with a billion people, most living under despotic regimes and suffering economic strife and political suppression just like their Egyptian neighbours.

"Egypt is in Africa. We should not fool about with the attempts of the North to segregate the countries of North Africa from the rest of the continent," says Firoze Manji, the editor of Pambazuka Online, an advocacy website for social justice in Africa. "Their histories have been intertwined for millennia. Some Egyptians may not feel they are Africans, but that is neither here nor there. They are part of the heritage of the continent."

Morocco's history has similarly been intertwined with that of Africa for millennia. The uprisings there are, I think, just as much a product of problems within Africa as they are the product of problems in the Middle East. It seems that in Morocco, and in other North African countries like it, ethnic identity (read: Arab), is more important than national identity. This becomes an issue when it ideologically separates a huge chunk of the continent from the rest of Africa. How can the Pan-African movement, for example, ever achieve one African community when the continent of Mother Africa has lost her head to the Arab World? 

I have no answers (yet), but I hope to make some sense of all this as I learn more about Morocco and its role in the African diaspora.