Publications of the Faculty of letters and human sciences - Mohammed V University - Rabat
Page 579 - Refractory of fascism and fearing the German expansionism, the nationalists were even disposed to cooperate with the Residence
One of them was Said Hajji, young nationalist of Salé, suspected in 1937 of participation in the preparation of a general rising and whose brother Abdelkrim, domiciled in New York, well known for his nationalist ideas, addressed to the French Resident to Rabat during the events of October 1937 several telegrams of protests.
The time he spent in Cairo and Damas as a student (1930-1934) after one year in London where he came in 1929 to brush up his English, his Palestinian acquaintances, his contacts with the newspaper editors of Jerusalem who have published his articles on Morocco and, generally speaking, his exposure of the Palestinian question do not seem to have caused in him particular resentiments to the regard of the Jews... His convictions encouraged him to join the Association "Alwidad" (The Concord) [31] after having been deceived by the limits of the Arab and Islamic solidarity. He always insisted on the role of Islam in safeguarding the Moroccan identity and has called in his newspaper "Almaghrib" upon the principles of 1789, invited the French Residence to spare the future by adopting an attitude in conformity with the republican tradition of France.
In spite of hostile criticisms of some radical patriots among his companions to any opening of political negociations with the French General Resident, he persevered in his search of compromise solutions and was convinced that the National Party had lots to win in managing to achieve a kind of modus vivendi with General Noguès, who ordered to put him into arrest in 1936. Said went then to reach an agreement with Ahmed Balafrej in Switzerland. He criticized the temptations of facility and the disorientation of the youth, and avoided to launch into any polemik with those among them who traced "swatiskas" and "Heil Hitler" on the walls of Salé.
Mohammed Kenbib
