Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0247/02476.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 39KB | 669 lines

$Unique_ID{COW02476}
$Pretitle{249}
$Title{Morocco
Front Matter}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Harold D. Nelson}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{morocco
percent
moroccan
government
political
sahara
system
king
western
arabic}
$Date{1986}
$Log{Global Map*0247602.scf
Figure 1.*0247603.scf
}
Country:     Morocco
Book:        Morocco, a Country Study
Author:      Harold D. Nelson
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1986

Front Matter

Foreword

     This volume is one of a continuing series of books prepared by Foreign
Area Studies, The American University, under the Country Studies/Area Handbook
Program. The last page of this book provides a listing of other published
studies. Each book in the series deals with a particular foreign country,
describing and analyzing its economic, national security, political, and
social systems and institutions and examining the interrelationships of those
systems and institutions and the ways that they are shaped by cultural
factors. Each study is written by a multidisciplinary team of social
scientists. The authors seek to provide a basic insight and understanding of
the society under observation, striving for a dynamic rather than a static
portrayal of it. The study focuses on historical antecedents and on the
cultural, political and socioeconomic characteristics that contribute to
cohesion and cleavage within the society. Particular attention is given to the
origins and traditions of the people who make up the society, their dominant
beliefs and values, their community of interests and the issues on which
they are divided, the nature and extent of their involvement with the national
institutions, and their attitudes toward each other and toward the social
system and political order within which they live.

     The contents of the book represent the views, opinions, and findings of
Foreign Area Studies and should not be construed as an official Department of
the Army position, policy, or decision, unless so designated by other official
documentation. The authors have sought to adhere to accepted standards of
scholarly objectivity. Such corrections, additions, and suggestions for
factual or other changes that readers may have will be welcomed for use in
future new editions.

Director, Foreign Area Studies
The American University
5010 Wisconsin Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 10016

Acknowledgements

     The authors are grateful to those individuals in various international,
governmental, and academic organizations who gave of their time, data, special
knowledge, and authoritative perspective on Morocco. Gratitude is also
extended to members of the Foreign Area Studies support staff who contributed
directly to the production of this book. These include Dorothy M. Lohmann,
Andrea T. Merrill, Lenny Granger, and Denise Ryan, who edited the manuscript;
Harriett R. Blood and Gustavo Adolfo Mendoza, who prepared the graphics;
Ernest A. Will, publications manager; Eloise W. Brandt and Wayne W. Olsen,
administrative assistants; Beverly A. Johnson, who keyboarded the manuscript;
and Liane Rosenblatt, whose research assistance contributed to the preparation
of Chapter 2. The book was indexed by Kathryne Kozak and Joanne Morgan, and
phototypeset by Margaret Quinn.

     The aesthetic touches that enhance the book's appearance are the work of
Mr. Mendoza, whose illustrations appear on the cover and the title pages of
the chapters. The inclusion of photographs in this study was made possible by
the generosity of various individuals and public and private agencies. The
authors acknowledge their appreciation especially to those persons who
contributed original camera work not previously published.

Preface

     This edition of Morocco: A Country Study replaces the fourth edition,
which was researched and written in late 1977 and early 1978. One of the
world's few remaining monarchies, Morocco has been the scene of periodic
political restiveness since regaining its independence from French and Spanish
protectorate control in 1956. When the 1978 edition was published, a sense of
national unity had pervaded the country as Moroccans sought to regain and
administer a large segment of the Western Sahara (formerly the Spanish Sahara)
in collaboration with Mauritania. A climate of tension, however, had
intensified over the matter of the territory, where for more than two years
Morocco's goal had been thwarted, and a costly military action to contain
opposition by Algerian-supported Saharan guerrillas was still under way. In
the interval since 1978 Mauritania abandoned its claim to a share of the
Western Sahara, and Morocco quickly claimed the entire territory, an
assertion that has gone unrecognized by all other countries. The costly war
has continued, adding a heavy burden to a national economy already in distress
in other quarters.

     The fifth edition, like its predecessor, seeks to provide a compact and
objective exposition of the country's dominant social, economic, political,
and national security institutions and, hopefully, to give the reader some
appreciation of the forces involved in contemporary Moroccan history. In
presenting this new study, the authors have relied primarily on official
reports of governmental and international organizations, journals, newspapers,
and material reflecting recent field research by scholarly authorities.
Detailed information on many aspects of the society, however, were not always
readily available, and gaps in the data as well as varying interpretations
existed among some of the sources consulted. Where appropriate, these gaps and
inconsistencies have been noted in the text. Should readers require greater
detail on core area topics, the authors have noted the availability of
amplifying materials in bibliographic statements at the end of each chapter.
Full references to these and other sources used or considered are included in
the detailed Bibliography.

     The literature of Morocco is frequently confusing because of the tendency
to mix English, Spanish, and French transliterations of Arabic words, phrases,
personal names, and place-names. The authors of Morocco: A Country Study have
attempted to reduce this confusion by adhering generally to the system known
as BGN/PCGN, one agreed to by the United States Board on Geographic Names and
the Permanent Committee on Geographical Names for British Official Use. For
the most part, place-names have been spelled in accordance with the United
States Board on Geographic Names' Morocco: Official Standard Names Gazetteer,
No. 112 of June 1970 and Spanish Sahara: Official Standard Names Gazetteer,
No. 108 of June 1969. Some modifications have been introduced, however,
including the omission of diacritical markings and hyphens that often appear
in Arabic terms. In addition, the names of certain people and places are so
well-known by more conventional spellings that to have used the BGN/PCGN
system in every instance might have caused confusion for the reader.

     Arab personal names are often particularly confusing to the Western
reader. A man's name includes his paternal genealogy and sometimes indicates
his family name, his tribal affiliation, and his village or region of origin.
For example, a man named Abd al Rahman ibn (or ben) Qasim ibn Mohammed (or
Mohamed) Al (or El) Hajeb would be recognized as the son of Qasim, who was the
son of Mohammed, and a native of the town of Al Hajeb, a town some 30
kilometers southeast of Meknes. The man would be addressed as Mister (or his
title, if any) Abd al Rahman. In spoken Arabic, names are elided, so that in
this instance the name is pronounced as if it were spelled Abdur Rahman. In
many instances the Western press spells such names as Abdel (or Abdul) Rahman,
implying incorrecty that the man's first name is Abdel and his last is Rahman.
Many Arabic names, such as the one in this example, are designations of the
attributes of God. Abd al means slave or servant of, and Rahman means
merciful; thus the name literally means the slave