Le Rif : les méandres d’une réconciliation

Abstract

The purpose of this article, which is based on interviews with various social and political actors as well as on participant observations, is to consider the local forms of reconciliation processes, from the perspective of reparation, by looking at the case of the Rif. The establishment of the Equity and Reconciliation Commission (IER) in Morocco in 2004 has brought to the public arena, especially at the national level, narratives of events that have long marked the country’s political scene and whose memory is still strong and mobilized by the actors (the war of resistance, the events of 1958-59, the 1984 riots...). The IER did not explicitly classify the Rif as a victim region, but included it in the community reparation program. This designation of the Rif as a victim region reinforces and supports the different narratives of the region’s marginality and responds, in large part, to the claims of associative actors regarding the resolution of marginality as part of community reparations through the lens of socio-economic programs. However, neither the claims of local actors nor the reparations programs recognize or refer to marginality in its multiple meanings, reducing it only to its economic aspect, backwardness in development or the region’s isolation.

Keywords

• Morocco
• Rif
• Years of Lead
• ERC
• community reparation
• Marginality