Thami El Glaoui - The Nationalists

The Nationalists

As part of the resistance against the French Occupation, a political party, the Istiqlal had started up with a nationalist (i.e. anti-colonialist) policy. T'hami and his son Brahim were supporters of the French, but several of T'hami's other sons were nationalists. This could be risky; he had one of them imprisoned in a dungeon.

T'hami had grown up and lived most of his life as a feudal warlord, and so had many of the other pashas and caïds. Their opposition to the nationalists was based on conservatism:

• The only line of communication between the people and the Sultan was by means of the pashas and caïds; this was the route by which tax money found its way to the Makhzen. No-one - certainly not the nationalists, who were mostly commoners - should breach this protocol. The pashas and caïds believed that this social order was to the benefit of their subjects as well as themselves. This was perhaps true to this extent: any pasha or caïd expressing a nationalist sympathy was likely to be stripped of his position by the French and replaced by either a puppet or even a French official to the detriment of their subjects.
• As well as challenging traditional political power, the nationalists were also held to be responsible for endangering the spiritual leadership. Traditional religious sensibilities amongst the pashas and caïds were outraged by media pictures of royal princesses in bathing suits at the beach or by the pool. The nationalists were held to blame for introducing the Sultan to such new-fangled anti-Islamic ideas.

Thami was not opposed to nationalism (in the sense of being against French colonialism) in itself, but was offended that it seemed to be associated with an upset of the established temporal and spiritual authority of the Sultan.