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Morocco World
4 days ago
- Politics
- Morocco World
The Colonial Grammar of Resistance: Taleb Sahara and the Paradox of Racialized Militancy
In the aftermath of decolonization, Frantz Fanon warned that the greatest danger to liberation movements was the internalization of colonial logics under the guise of resistance. Today, figures like Taleb Sahara illustrate a troubling mutation of this insight: militants of identity politics who, in the name of emancipation, reproduce the very epistemologies of racism, hierarchy, and essentialism that colonial power once used to dominate the 'native.' In this essay, I argue that Taleb Sahara represents a paradigmatic case of postcolonial racialized militancy that harnesses Eurocentric morophobia to define 'identity,' while simultaneously undermining the moral and ontological legitimacy of the very subject he claims to liberate. I. The Psychoanalytic Seduction of Purity Taleb Sahara's rhetoric is fixated on a fantasy of racial and moral purity, one that opposes the 'civilized Sahrawi' to the allegedly 'criminal' Moroccan. Drawing from Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis, we see here a classic mechanism of projection and scapegoating. The abject Other — in this case, the Moroccan migrant — serves to stabilize a fragile Sahrawi self-image. This maneuver constructs identity through negation: I am Sahrawi because I am not Moroccan. Such boundary-drawing is a response to postcolonial anxiety — an attempt to fix identity in the face of historical fragmentation, hybridity, and geopolitical ambiguity. But this disavowal of the Other is a double bind. As Judith Butler reminds us, identity is never self-possessed; it is always relational, citational, and embedded in power. The Sahrawi subject, as articulated by Taleb Sahara, is only imaginable through the disarticulation of the Moroccan. This is not liberation; it is a psychic repetition of colonial race-thinking. II. The Racial Instrumentalization of the Migrant Taleb's claims — that Morocco 'exports criminals' to Spain as a form of hybrid warfare — echo right-wing conspiratorial narratives across the Global North. The irony is stark: in his attempt to demonize Moroccan statecraft, he borrows the exact racist discourses used by Vox, Rassemblement National, and AfD to exclude all North Africans from the European political imaginary. Here, Taleb joins what Paul Gilroy once called 'the new raciologies' — postcolonial actors who co-opt the biopolitics of race in service of ethno-nationalist agendas. By portraying Moroccan migrants as criminal by default, he reproduces the colonial trope of the 'unassimilable native,' whose very presence threatens the integrity of the Western state. This is not an anti-colonial critique; it is racial ventriloquism. What's more disturbing is Taleb's instrumentalization of state clemency — claiming that Moroccan prisoners pardoned near the end of their sentence are 'weaponized' as migrant criminals. He offers no data, no causality, only paranoid inference. His accusation is not just empirically hollow; it is conceptually perverse. It enacts what Edward Said called a 'travesty of liberation': deploying colonial frameworks of control and suspicion in the name of postcolonial freedom. III. Identity as Fetish, Race as Tool The contradiction in Taleb Sahara's position lies in the fact that while he invokes anti-colonial language — 'liberation,' 'resistance,' 'self-determination' — he does so by deploying the race card as a tactical weapon. But race, as Stuart Hall taught us, is not a stable ground on which to construct identity. It is a floating signifier, subject to the ideological work of power. Taleb's use of race as a tool — to divide, to criminalize, to stigmatize — reintroduces the logics of colonial racial classification into the bloodstream of liberation discourse. He is not dismantling the coloniality of power; he is repurposing it with new targets. This is identity as fetish — a reified, purified ideal that occludes the messiness, plurality, and shared histories of Maghrebi peoples. Postcolonial theorists from Achille Mbembe to Homi Bhabha have shown us that identity is always impure, always in process. To build identity on the foundation of exclusion is not only politically dangerous; it is philosophically bankrupt. It transforms difference into deviance, solidarity into suspicion. IV. The Political Economy of Morophobia Taleb's discourse cannot be separated from a broader European context in which morophobia — a racialized fear of Moroccans — is increasingly weaponized to shape migration policy and diplomatic alignments. His narratives are not isolated; they feed into a transnational economy of fear, one that seeks to devalue Morocco's partnerships and delegitimize its strategic role in Africa and the Mediterranean. But here's the contradiction: while Taleb accuses Morocco of using migrants as pawns, he himself instrumentalizes migrants as political symbols. He invokes the figure of the Moroccan prisoner, stripped of name, voice, or humanity, to enact a rhetorical performance of Sahrawi purity. The migrant becomes a cipher, a blank screen onto which fantasies of contamination, crime, and geopolitical conspiracy are projected. This is not anti-imperialism. It is a re-enactment of imperial power — now in the hands of the postcolonial militant. V. Conclusion: The Trap of Reactive Identity Taleb Sahara's rhetoric exemplifies the danger of what I call reactive identity politics: the construction of selfhood not through affirmative liberation, but through the negation of the Other. This is not a politics of becoming; it is a politics of boundary policing. As Fanon once warned, 'the oppressed will always believe the worst about themselves.' Taleb has taken this one step further — he believes the worst about others in order to justify his own imagined virtue. But in doing so, he resurrects the skeleton of colonial race-thinking and dresses it in the clothes of resistance. True liberation does not require scapegoats. It requires solidarity, plurality, and the rejection of racial logics — especially when they are dressed as emancipation.
Morocco World
02-07-2025
- Politics
- Morocco World
The Makhzen Complex: A Psychoanalytical Decoding of Algeria's Obsession with Morocco
The Makhzen is often misunderstood outside Morocco, particularly by its detractors. For Moroccans, Makhzen is not simply a bureaucratic machine or a relic of feudalism—as often caricatured by outsiders—but a deep-rooted, historically evolved system of governance and social cohesion. It refers to the network of traditional authority centered around the monarchy, which includes tribal leaders, dignitaries, religious scholars, and local notables who have historically played a vital role in maintaining unity, mediation, and legitimacy in a diverse and vast territory. What is the Makhzen for Moroccans? Rather than a rigid apparatus, the Makhzen has proven highly adaptive, absorbing modern institutions while maintaining continuity with Morocco's political culture. It embodies continuity, stability, and a sense of identity. It is this very institution—understood not just as state power but as a symbolic and cultural center—that has ensured Morocco's survival through colonialism, independence, modernization, and the present regional turmoil. Why Algerian propagandists are obsessed with the Makhzen – A Psychoanalytical Analysis From a psychoanalytical standpoint, the Algerian regime's pathological obsession with the Makhzen can be seen as a textbook case of projective identification and narcissistic injury. Let us break this down: The Makhzen as the 'Symbolic Father' In Lacanian psychoanalysis, the Name-of-the-Father (Nom-du-Père) represents the symbolic law that gives structure to desire, order, and identity. The Makhzen, in the Moroccan imaginary, plays that role: it structures the symbolic order of the nation. Algeria, born in revolutionary rupture, lacks this deep-rooted symbolic continuity. Its political order is haunted by the absence of a legitimized paternal figure—there is no equivalent of a unifying monarchy. Hence, the Makhzen becomes a fantasmatic Other, a projection screen for everything the Algerian regime unconsciously feels it lacks: rootedness, continuity, legitimacy. The Algerian regime splits the world into 'us' (revolutionary, secular, virtuous) and 'them' (reactionary, monarchical, manipulative). The Makhzen is turned into a bogeyman—blamed for every social unrest, regional loss of influence, or diplomatic failure. This is pure projection—a mechanism where internal conflicts are externalized and ascribed to the Other. Instead of confronting its own deep crises—economic failure, youth unrest, military domination—the regime externalizes blame onto Morocco and its governing model. Narcissistic Wound and Envy Morocco's stability, global alliances, economic diversification, and successful royal diplomacy expose the failures of Algeria's military oligarchy. This produces what Freud would call a narcissistic injury. Rather than admit internal decay, the Algerian state apparatus creates a paranoid fantasy of the Makhzen as a monstrous manipulator controlling Africa, Europe, and even Algerian dissent. This obsessive narrative masks envy—a desire to possess what the Other has, accompanied by hatred because one cannot. Fixation and Compulsion to Repeat Algeria's state media and officials mention 'le Makhzen' more than they mention their own institutions. This is a fixation—a psychic knot that cannot be worked through. In psychoanalytic terms, their discourse is a compulsion to repeat—the repetition of the same accusatory tropes against the Makhzen reveals an inability to symbolically resolve their own political trauma, namely the betrayal of the revolutionary dream by the generals who hijacked power. Unconscious Admiration and Identification Lastly, there is repressed identification. The Algerian state, beneath its hostile rhetoric, secretly admires the symbolic power and international legitimacy of the Moroccan monarchy and its state apparatus. But since this admiration cannot be consciously admitted—given their foundational opposition to monarchy—it returns in the distorted form of obsession, attack, and paranoia. This is the return of the repressed. Conclusion: The Makhzen as Mirror and Threat For Algerian elites, the Makhzen is both a mirror—reflecting what they lack—and a threat—exposing the fragility of their power. Psychoanalysis teaches us that what we hate most is often what we unconsciously resemble or desire. In this sense, the anti-Makhzen hysteria is not just political—it is a deep-seated neurotic symptom of an unresolved postcolonial crisis in Algerian statehood. By invoking the Makhzen obsessively, the Algerian regime unwittingly confirms its own identity crisis—rootless, brittle, and haunted by the authority it cannot emulate and the legitimacy it never fully acquired. Tags: algeria abd moroccoalgeria and human rights
The Guardian
28-02-2025
- Sport
- The Guardian
Millwall bring biggest-small-club-in-the-world energy to Selhurst Park
'By undertaking a Freudian analysis of Millwall fandom, combined with a Lacanian interpretation of the death drive … it is possible to perceive Millwall fandom as a form of symbolic masochism.' Hmm. OK then. That sounds, on balance, like a strong disapprove. Although to be fair the walk from New Cross can be a bit bleak at this time of year. The great days of anthropologically vital city-centre rumbles may be long gone, but there is unlikely to be a shortage of this kind of stuff any time soon. A search of the study archive Jstor reveals a tally of 316 academic papers containing the words 'Millwall Football Club', from Princeton Press to the Journal of Arts, from Joshua Sofaer's Dramaturgies of Interference in Public Space, to Supporters et Hooligans en Grande-Bretagne Depuis 1871, to the University of New England pamphlet quoted above, which does, as pamphlets go, slightly take the fun out of shouting at people and waving your arms around on a foggy Tuesday night in Bermondsey. By way of comparison, Manchester United, Liverpool and Manchester City, holders down the years of 49 league titles, have racked up a mere 304 papers between them. Millwall have barely disturbed the waters of elite competition during their 140-year existence, have never played in the Premier League or won a major cup, but there remains an undying fascination with the club's identity. Above all with the urge to locate a unique and definitive kind of footballing darkness there. No one likes us. Apart, it seems, from social science academics looking for a little red meat to go with the dry stuff. As Millwall prepare to travel to Selhurst Park for Saturday's Windrush Line derby, south London will no doubt be crawling once again with leather-satchelled seekers after truth. And to be fair this is a brilliantly well-matched FA Cup fifth-round tie, for legitimate footballing reasons. Palace are in buoyant form, solidly placed in the league and a potent presence in this side of the draw. Millwall are safely lodged in the Millwall Zone of the past few seasons, eternally six to eight points off the Championship playoffs. It seems fair to say Saturday's Cup tie is the biggest event in the calendar for either of these teams as the season starts to narrow to its end point. Plus there is, of course, another hyper-specific London rivalry to be played out. For Millwall supporters enemy No 1 will always be West Ham. This makes cultural sense. The Dockers derby has its roots in wharf tensions on the River Thames, the days when those people from just across the river were literally taking money, work, loading contracts off your own kitchen table. Millwall have a more slow-burn relationship with their various south London neighbours. There is a famous scene to this effect in the reputationally disastrous 1977 Panorama film about football hooliganism, mention of which is likely to bring longsuffering groans from supporters of a certain age. At one point the mass of Millwall's away support is shown travelling north for a game at Sunderland, while a minority of 'faces' ('the real nutters, self-confessed loonies like Harry the Dog') choose instead to infiltrate the nearest neutral ground for 'a ruck'. This is a prelude to 12 undercover Millwall fans sparking a 2,000-person riot in the Tottenham away section, at least according to the blokes filmed talking about it afterwards in the pub, and gleefully parroted by the BBC narration. The hosts on that occasion were Charlton. But Selhurst Park, a few miles south, would have done just as well. There is a very specific kind of animosity between Millwall and Palace. Often football hatred has no real content. It is simply self-sustaining tribalism. This one is at least interesting for its almost imperceptible notions of class. These are both blue-collar London clubs. But from the Millwall perspective, or at least to the enduring Millwall sense of self as inner London, dock-based, authentic, Palace fans are Stripey Nigels from the Surrey borders, lower middle class, nasal, Croydon-not-London, a fanbase of Southgates. From the opposite end Millwall fans are, as ever, seen as feral teenagers in market stall jumpers, disenfranchised urban litter, primary school dropouts, avatars of amorality. How much of this is real? Almost none of it. These things exist only in cartoon form. Bermondsey, with its plastic new-build high rises, is no longer crammed with the descendants of dockers. The housing market has made sure of this. The diaspora often comes in from Kent and beyond now. With this in mind it is worth remembering that had things gone differently a few years back there is a chance Millwall's first trip to Selhurst Park since 2012 (2-2 draw; 20-year-old Chris Wood in the Millwall team) would no longer even qualify as a derby. It is still extraordinary that the Battle for Millwall's Car Park created such heat. It came from a compulsory purchase shemozzle involving Lewisham council that the club considered at one point might threaten its existence in the borough. At which point strange noises off began emerging. The chosen developer for the council's housing project was owned by a mysterious Panama-based trust. Who actually owned the land or the company? 'Why was the previous mayor of Lewisham, Dave Sullivan, mixed up historically with a developer benefiting from decisions being made by the (then) current mayor of Lewisham, Steve Bullock? All allegations of impropriety were denied, and were never backed by any hard evidence. Still, wild rumours skirled, talk of nefarious involvement and outlandish connections. The story went around the world because of Millwall's brand, that compelling biggest-small-club-in-the-world energy, and the link with gentrification, misuse of power, land grabs. The whole thing collapsed in the end and then resurrected itself. A new plan with the developers was glossed. The ground will now be surrounded, but not displaced, by even taller plastic residential towers, extra space clawed out of the air not the land. Sign up to Football Daily Kick off your evenings with the Guardian's take on the world of football after newsletter promotion It is still unclear what all parties, including Millwall's US ownership, really wanted from the entire saga. But the club is safely moored now and there is a new kind of energy about the place. There was genuine sadness at the death in 2024 of John Berylson, a much-loved owner. His son has taken over the role. The most significant development for the club is the granting of a new super-long lease on its land by the council, a gamechanger for anyone with the will to redevelop, either now or after some oft-rumoured future sale. It isn't hard to see why Millwall could be attractive to purchasers. This is one of the last remaining unmodernised, un-flushed-out corners of inner London. Bermondsey has been called many things down the years, from Biscuit Town (home of Peek Freans), to London's Larder, to Target Area G in the Luftwaffe playbook. New Bermondsey, the latest version, has not yet taken shape. The Greggs still has a security guard outside. The magnificently craning rubbish incinerator is still dispersing its particulates. But money is already acting on neglected squares of land around the ground. Thrillingly uncluttered architects' drawings have been circulating of a redeveloped version of the club's site, as they have since the impossible dream of a Super Den (an Asda! A bowling alley!) in the 1970s. The club will at least be present while this happens and there is a sense of general renewal. Steve Kavanagh, the long-serving chief executive, was among those to leave last year. Steve Gallen has come in as an interventionist director of football. The new training ground has coincided with a sense of talent rising through the ranks. This is where Saturday's opponents provide a kind of model. South London has become an obvious talent factory in the past 10 years, the concrete Catalonia, a three-million strong population stretching into the Croydon hinterlands of ambition, cage-ball and well-run academies. Palace have been efficient in channelling this. The academy building looms up like an alien hangar as south London merges into Kent south of Sydenham. There are some signs Millwall have begun to draw on that same pool. The academy is said to be flourishing. Romain Esse is the obvious point of interest before Saturday's game, a homegrown club record sale to Palace in the last transfer window. Tellingly, there was no real sense of outrage when Esse made the switch. The money is good. This is how the club can grow and feed itself. Local kids in the team, a connection to its own terroir. It is a happy model for a club that has at times in the past seemed a little isolated on its peninsula. It is to be hoped Saturday can pass off peacefully. There is always something in these games, not to mention an unusually large ratio of media observers present to report the details. The last couple of meetings have brought some moments of friction and a little performative teenage hooliganism. This time the spectacle itself should be quite enough. Millwall play a relatively fluent style of football under Alex Neil in front of the solid defensive heart of Jake Cooper and a flourishing Japhet Tanganga. Palace have won seven of their past nine and have Jean-Philippe Mateta on a run of seven goals in that time. For both these clubs there is a sense of life and regeneration in whatever form, as disappointing as that news might be for the Death Drive Freudian Masochism crowd.
