Between idealization and disenchantment. ambivalent memoirs about colonialism, and decolonization among the inhabitants of the old Spanish protectorate in Morocco

Abstract

This article analyses the historical memory about colonialism among the inhabitants of the old Spanish Protectorate in Morocco. It is based upon field research on the ground between 2019 and 2022. For this work in particular, we have selected a sample of 13 informants from Tetouan and Larache with an average age over 70 years old and whose childhood or youth years have gone on over colonial times. Their memories about the Protectorate have a clear bias in favour of it although with certain nuances. Similarly, they also provide a critical discourse regarding the subsequent independence process. All this matches that ambivalence which is so characteristic of the relationship between the colonisers and the colonised. The discourse of these informants reproduces, but also contradicts, different aspects of the old Spanish colonialist discourse and the Moroccan nationalist discourse.