To His Excellency Mr Ponceau, General Resident of the French Republic in Morocco

I have the honor to bring to your attention that I presented in June 1935 to His Excellency the Grand Vizir, c/o the Director of the Indigenous Affairs in Rabat, a request for an authorization to publish a weekly newspaper in arabic under the title "Marrakech." The object of this publication is limited to studies and researches in the literary and scientific fields. But I have just been informed that the Government refused my request and decided not to grant me the authorization I am asking for. For this reason, I thought of my duty to address this complaint to the General Resident of the French Republic in Morocco to raise his awareness of a point which appears significant enough to be judged in its right value in the future and engages at present the prestige of the country of which you are the representative.

It is not in my intentions to tackle the question on the political level. The newspaper that I would like to issue is by no means intending to operate in this direction as it aims to be exclusively limited to the literary and cultural subjects. The years will succeed to one another; the present situation will change and the Administration itself will have to reexamine its methods of management of the public affairs. Only the verdict which the history will pronounce over this period that the Moroccan nation is living since a quarter century will remain immutable. This judgement which does not know any falsification will restore the events in their intrinsic truth.

What a severe judgement will be consigned in the registers of this period of the history of our country! The young generation is already seized by the terrible impact it may have on our future relations. The researcher interested by our last cultural life will be deafened by the hard verdict of history over this period of time. We live in an era of a considerable decrease of the Moroccan people's intellectual faculties. and its total isolation from the cultural life where it ceased producing in the fields of knowledge and stopped all kinds of its spirit activities.

Who bears full responsibility for the consequences of such a situation of immobilism, Excellency? Allow me, Mister Representative of the French Republik in our country, to say openly that a considerable share of this responsibility is to be put on the account of a country considered for a long time as a source of light by the nationals of all european countries, individually as well as collectively. Also, it would displease us to see such a country assuming this share of responsibility by preventing the Moroccan people from having access to education and culture.

The history will retain in the registers of its judgements that the Moroccan people counted in its rows a certain niumber of men who kept working to found the conditions of a cultural and journalistic infrastructure and develop a process of literary and scientific productions. But its hopes were completely annihilated by a power, and not the least one, since it represents a nation whose past and present are carried to the highest level of admiration by the Moroccan youth, thanks to its fruitfulness in all the fields, and in particular in those of the human sciences.

It is precisely this nation which endorses such a heavy responsibility, with the agreement of the Representative of the French Republik in Morocco, who knows perfectly well that the Moroccans are resolved to launch a vast campaign of denunciation of this policy at the international level as well in the so-called civilized world as in the countries which are still in the process of development. It is therefore in the interest of the functionaries who represent this power to be weightier in their decisions in order to spare the future, and also to become clearly aware of the responsibility which weighs, beyond the actors of the current political life, on the shoulders of their nation.

For my part, I estimate that the Representative of France, who is the highest authority of the protective power in this country, foresees the future with much sagacity and carries out a right evaluation of the present situation. It is consequently difficult for me to admit that he would tolerate the launch of a campaign stigmatizing all over the world the French policy of preventing the Moroccan people to have access to education and culture, in spite of the fact that the Protectorate Authority is supposed to protect it and integrate it in the current of the modern civilization, on the one hand, and denouncing the refusal of the requests tending to obtain the authorization to publish a periodic newspaper limited to the literary and scientific studies on the other hand.

This idea occupied my mind since I received the decision of refusal of the authorisation to publish the cultural newspaper "Marrakech", and I am hastening to expose my grievance against such an unjustified decision, that I submit to your appreciation, being persuaded that a man known for his wisdom and spirit of moderation as Your Excellency will grant to the above mentioned observations all the interest they deserve.

Please receive, Mr General Resident, the insurance of my high consideration.

Said Hajji