The two-hour taxi ride from Saidia, Morocco to Melilla, Spain was expensive—almost $50 US—but the driver, Si Driss, was loquacious, and educated enough to discuss history and current events in an Arabic register that I could understand. When I half-jokingly referred to Melilla al-muhtala, bihal al-Quds al-muhtala (Occupied Melilla, like Occupied Jerusalem) he laughed and shook his head. The artificial borders that humans draw on the surface of the earth, Driss told me, are ridiculous. And not just national borders: Rich people who buy up what could be the best agricultural land to build resorts and golf courses, and stake out the boundaries to keep poor farmers out, are just as bad as the heads of nation states claiming this or that patch of ground for this or that tribe.
Driss’s utopian “imagine there’s no countries” view isn’t universally shared. For Moroccans, the notion of “Occupied Melilla” is real. Spain is occupying a basically Moroccan city. Yet it doesn’t bother them nearly as much as the Zionist occupation of Palestine bothers them. (Not to mention how much it bothers the Palestinians!)
Why aren’t Moroccans forming resistance organizations to fight the occupation of Melilla, the way the Palestinian resistance fights the Zionists? After all, the two situations are not entirely dissimilar. In both cases, European settler colonists, protected by European militaries, swarmed into patches of ground on the Muslim shore of the Mediterranean. Locals resisted. Blood was shed. The settler colonists (unlike those in French Algeria, British Kenya and Tanzania and Rhodesia) refused to close up shop.
But today, Melilla and Palestine are not just at opposite ends of the Mediterranean; they are also poles apart in their relationships between European settlers and Muslim locals. Palestine is in the midst of an attempted genocide by the settlers against the natives, one that will likely backfire and lead to the destruction of the Zionist project (and possibly many of its adherents). Whereas in Melilla, a no-doubt-exaggerated convivencia (“living together”) is not just a slogan, but to some extent a reality.*
It’s worth noting that convivencia or no, Melilla is the most right-wing Catholic city in Spain. It was the last city to take down its statue of Gen. Francisco Franco, who is seen today as a historical villain not only by Moroccans due to Spanish atrocities in the Rif Wars, but also by today’s liberal majority of Spaniards.
And it gets worse. Melilla was founded in the wake of one of the worst ethnic cleansings in history: The destruction of al-Andalus, multi-confessional Muslim-ruled Spain, culminating in the fall of Grenada in 1492 and expulsion of Muslims from the Iberian Peninsula. The Spanish captured Melilla in 1497 and used it as a base against Muslim attempts to resist the expulsions. The fortress (Melilla la Vieja) and the larger city that grew up around it have been anti-Moroccan Spanish strongholds ever since. Since what passes for Spanish identity today bases itself on the Catholics’ defeat and expulsion of the Muslims of al-Andalus, there’s plenty of historical grounds for conflict.
Based on that history, and the right-wing Catholic identity politics of many Spanish settlers in Melilla, we might expect to find a fair bit of hatred and violence here. But that isn’t the case. The only smattering of remotely “political” violence in Melilla is the occasional mistreatment of mostly sub-Saharan African migrants who try to climb the ever-more-militarized fence that separates Morocco from Spain. (The Spanish and Moroccan authorities cooperate in that mistreatment.)
So despite carrying comparable amounts of historical baggage, the difference between peaceful Melilla and blood-soaked Palestine couldn’t be more stark. What accounts for that difference?
I think the main factor is that Spain’s attitude, and Spanish Melillans’ attitude, toward their occupation is relatively reasonable and recognizes the humanity of the Other; whereas Zionists are fanatical extremists who dehumanize their victims. The Spanish basically say: “Okay, we stole Melilla, and did other unpleasant things, but that was long ago, and since we gave back most of what we stole, please work with us and we’ll come to some kind of reasonably generous arrangement. We’ll find a way to make sure that you’ll do better with us here than you would if we left.”
The Spanish have facilitated “irregular trade,” i.e. smuggling, which provides a way for Moroccans in the region to make a living. They permit residents of the neighboring Moroccan city of Nador to cross the border at will. They have granted full Spanish citizenship to the ethnically-Moroccan Muslims of Melilla. (Muslims now constitute the majority of Melilla’s population, and Islam is becoming an indigenous religion of Spain due to conversions and intermarriage.) And Spain has allowed almost a million Moroccans to live on the Peninsula legally, alongside an unknown number of illegal ones. Hardworking Moroccans in Spain send back remittances to their families, which keeps Morocco’s economy afloat.
The Zionists, for their part, have no interest in being generous or even reasonable. They are going to keep right on stealing and killing and expelling—“if I don’t steal it someone else gonna steal it” goes the Israeli proverb—and they are going to keep treating the locals as fourth-class-citizens at best, animals at worst.
I got a taste of the generosity of Melillans yesterday, literally, as I wandered around trying to find my AirBnb. I don’t use a cell phone, and the cafés with wireless were closed for siesta, so my only recourse was to accost real live human beings in half-broken Spanish lapsing into mixtures of French and Moroccan Arabic and ask them for help finding Commandante Royo Street. As it turned out nobody had ever heard of such a street, but several took the time to put up with my linguistic inadequacies, look it up on their cell phones, and point me in this or that direction. After three or four pointers and still no luck, I was getting desperate, when some folks barbecuing shish kebobs on the sidewalk—they appeared to include people of both Spanish and Moroccan ethnicity—insisted that I join the party. Fortified by shish kebobs, orange soda, and conversation with friendly people who put up with my bad Spanish, I hit the streets again and found the place I was looking for.
*A staple of Melilla’s convivencia rhetoric is the reference to “four cultures.” The odd thing is that two of those four cultures—the Muslims and the Catholics—together comprise about 98% of the population, while the Jews and Hindus together are only 2%.
Kevin has written a beautiful short travelogue about his visit to Melilla, a small Spanish-owned enclave in the north of Morocco where the Spanish occupiers and the Moroccan natives actually get along and treat each other like human beings. This is unlike Israel where the Zionist occupiers treat the Palestinians like animals or worse. I am beginning to see more and more commentators now beginning to ask whether the "Zionist entity" can even survive this or a future crisis. My contacts in the Middle East seem absolutely convinced that Israel as a state is going to be coming to an end within the foreseeable future. This is remarkable, as we have been taught to assume that Israel is "forever." The big question is whether the US is going to start World War III over it, because it's also assumed that sooner or later the US military will go after the ones they perceive are behind it all while the Israelis themselves get off scot-free. Let's face it, the US political establishment is controlled by the Zionists; aka, "Neocons," never more so than under brain-dead Biden. On how we got that way, see my new book. https://www.claritypress.com/product/our-country-then-and-now/
RT writes: "You are quite right to mention Spanish colonialism in Morocco, and the brutal Riff war.The Arabs colonised Spain for several centuries, and tolerance was relative. It depended on which dynasty and ruler, the Almohads forced natives to convert to islam.Revolts of Christians like in Toledo were ruthlessly put down , with thousands beheaded.In Muslim lands Christians can never have equal rights as islam is considered supreme, this is one of the main reason for conversions in Bosnia and Egypt. It was a way of paying less taxes. No religion is intrinsically tolerant ,as it would lose its strength, this is why Christianity is in sharp decline with its embracing of LGBTQ ideology and other religions .Other than that,I completely agree with you on Palestine;a genocide is unfolding before our eyes .And the west is obscenily stating that Israel has the right to defend itself.I have been suspended from twitter for supporting Palestine, and getting into heated arguments with Zionists who do not tolerate any disagreements. And Talking of occupied territories my country occupies Gibraltar, which is very similar to Ceuta and Melilla, same populations surrounded by mountains.Intrestingly you have Moroccans ,Hindus and Jews in Gibraltar. Jews have been very prominent in Gibraltar in business and Government, it is one of the main reasons Britain holds on to it.And then there are the Falkland Islands . I have never been able to work out whether Islam is a religion of obscurantism or liberation, you will have to explain it to me some day. Always happy to listen to your shows ,and read your articles."