Almaghrib - 1ère année - No 67 - 17 septembre 1937
Moroccan circles were astonished to learn that the Conference of the Association of Muslim Students of North Africa (AMSNA) was postponed sine die by order of the government. Everyone was perplexed in view of the lack of justification of this unexpected postponement, especially since the initiatives which were enacted directly with the authorities concerned had successfully convinced and obtained their agreement to hold this conference. The AMSNA in Paris had proceeded well into the preparations and the Preparatory Committee in Rabat was all set for what was required materially for organizing the event. We were hence persuaded the conference was going to take place thanks to a wise policy dictated by a will to recognize the rights of Moroccans as well as by the need to permit them to undertake all that law and order did not prohibit.
But, despite the postponement of the conference (and we are now used to understand this empty vocable to mean a pure and simple cancellation, just like the case in previous years) we do not lose hope in the final analysis. The necessary authorization will be granted, because the conference, after all, is but a forum during which student issues are raised and the student wishes are revealed and debated. It would prove a total lack of maturity to have it direct itself to political issues or to have an individual or group try to exploit it for propaganda purposes with no bearing on its mission. Moreover it was out of the question to have it debate issues which were not previously settled and registered in the work agenda of the conference.
It is highly probable that the newspaper which hurled this negative tall tale did not believe itself that a conference would occupy itself during its sessions with issues not registered in the agenda of their proceedings. Whatever be the allegations of this newspaper, it is not a preparatory body of the conference. Only the ASMNA in Paris and the Preparatory Committee in Rabat are responsible for organizing and setting up the agenda. Moreover the mission allotted to the committee ends at the opening session after it delivers all documentation in its possession to the office elected by the student assembly eligible to participate in the proceedings of the conference.
The ASMNA and the Preparatory Committee had given prior assurances that no topics of a political nature would be tackled and in addition they would not tolerate that the conference be exploited for political propaganda. It is therefore the wrong time to report the postponement is due to a one-sided article which appeared in one newspaper. Otherwise, to what advantage would the North African students play such a dirty trick, i.e. by pretending that their conference is exclusively concerned with intellectual and student issues and then to use it as a platform to address issues of a political nature? The administration should understand that the North African youth do not know this type of behavior and do not permit a lack of harmony between their words and their acts. We hope that the government assures itself quickly of this and to authorize the conference to hold its sessions at the agreed to dates. By acting in this way, it would show its moderation and it would be an opportunity for it to make the most of its well-thought-out policy both at the national and foreign level.
The Moroccan people will then have no cause to be astonished. Instead they will have the assurance that they will benefit from the same authorizations granted to their neighbors since ASMNA conferences were able to proceed on several occasions in Algeria and Tunisia. Only Morocco has been treated as if it was not in the same boat as its sister countries. Each year it had to wait impatiently for its youth to be granted the authorization to hold their conference and to debate problems they come up against at the individual and collective level in an attempt to find adequate fixes. Will it be once again disappointed? Will the administration again proceed to be an obstacle between our youth and what they aspire for? This attitude serves the interests of neither party. On the contrary this will lead to the creation of a tense atmosphere between the administration and the bulk of Moroccan students that we can do without.
Comments on the border of the article below:
Al Maghrib has written on the border of an item of news published by the newspaper, La Vigie (with allegiance to the colonists), the following commentary:
Paris - September 1937. The Minister of Foreign Affairs was informed of the postponement of the ASMNA Conference which was due to be held in Rabat on September 15 on the orders of the protectorate authorities . We have made inquiries with two specialists on North African issues and they have responded that the conference agenda contained nothing that was not authorized by the protectorate authorities as it relates to student issues. However it appeared opportune to postpone it to a later date partly because feelings were still overheated by the incidents in Meknez and on the other hand by events that took center stage on the Mediterranean as has been noted by Parisian political circles. According to these same sources, there was fear that the gathering of the Muslim youth from different countries would lead to agitated debates as well as problems susceptible to exploitation by professional troublemakers. But this did not mean that the conference has been definitively canceled; it will be held as soon as emotions are calmer.
Protest letter relative to an earlier ban of the Conference of the Association of Muslim Students of North Africa which was to be held for the first time in Fez in September 1933. Amongst the signatures on September 30, 1933 one can recognize those by Said Hajji, Mohammed Hassar, Mohammed El Fassi, Mohammed ben Hassan El Wazzani, Abou Bakr Kadiri, Abelassis be Driss and Hachmi Filali.
