Water Governance As a Medium for Colonial Conquest in the Early French Protectorate in Morocco, 1912-1925

Water governance as a medium for colonial conquest in the early French protectorate in Morocco, 1912-1925. J.S. Rensen 1052136 Thesis for the Research master Colonial and global history Supervised by Prof. Dr. Jan Bart Gewald Gerrit Doustraat 4 Second reader: Dr. Stefano Bellucci 2311 XP Leiden Due date: 19-07-2019 +31 6 18155495 Word count: 20672 [email protected] Cover image: detail of a map of oued Aïn Ben Kezza Source: Archive du Maroc, Fond du Protectorat, Dahirs et Arrêtés relatifs aux droits de l'eau (D342), A.V. homologuant les opérations des commissions d’enquête relatifs à la reconnaissance de droit d’eau des oueds Ben Kezza, Amellal et N’Ja, Arrête Viziriel homologuant les opérations de la commission d’enquête relatives à la reconnaissance des droits d’eau des oueds Ben Kezza, Amellal et N’Ja, 5. 2 Contents Summary ............................................................................................................................................. 4 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 6 Historical setting ......................................................................................................................... 13 Institutional setting .................................................................................................................... 15 Legal setting ................................................................................................................................ 19 Chapter 1. Public order ..................................................................................................................... 22 Chapter 2. Legal pluralism ................................................................................................................ 30 Chapter 3. Colons and the administration. ....................................................................................... 45 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 61 Bibliography ...................................................................................................................................... 64 3 Summary This paper researches the early colonial conquest of Morocco. The official colonisation process began in 1912 with the establishment of the French protectorate in Morocco, and the early period ended in 1925. Traditionally, communities in Morocco had been relatively independent from central government. The Moroccan people fiercely resisted the loss of their autonomy, often through violent opposition. The French administration aimed to implement a strong, authoritative centralised government and to actualise their control over the people and resources of the territory. They used several strategies to simultaneously do so while minimising popular resistance and violent uprisings. This paper shows that one of those strategies was water governance. The administration implemented several water governance strategies to break open old power structures and replace them with new institutions. Existing laws concerning ownership were nullified and replaced with new legislation, which placed control of water resources in the hands of the French administration. Farmers were compelled to apply for a permit in order to use water sources that their families had been using for generations. The administration also invested strategically in water infrastructure to further limit access to water resources. Control over access to those resources was thus placed firmly in the hands of the French protectorate government. The administration also used water governance to outsource infrastructural construction and maintenance jobs to European colonists, while maintaining control over the water resources through complex legal constructions. This shows that the French administration was not primarily interested in helping the colonists, and not at all in developing the institutions or assisting the people of Morocco. It was mainly involved in creating a dominant and authoritative power structure from which it could further its commercial and colonial goals. Many challenges in the modern kingdom of Morocco have their origins in the colonial policy of the early French protectorate and the governance strategies of its administration.1 1 This thesis could not have been written without the help of Dr. Jan-Bart Gewald, Isabelle Vrijmoed, Andrea Michelini, and Jo Rensen. Enormous gratitude goes out to them and all the people who have advised and supported this project, and to the staff of the Moroccan Archives in Rabat. 4 1912-1986 deceptions, Created by author based on maps in W. Swearingen, Map 1: The military conquest of Morocco, 1912-1934; with administrative points of interest. Tanger Ceuta The military conquest of Morocco, 1912-1934 Tétouan Melilla With administrative points of interest Merdja Merktane and Merdja Bou Oujda (London, 1988), 9; and P. Brignon a.o., a.o., Brignon P. and 9; 1988), (London, Khardja Gharb Taza Kenitra plain Algeria Aïn Amelal Fes Rabat Meknes Saïs Casablanca Tit Mellil plain Seguia Ain Attig Chaouïa El Jadida plain Kenifra Doukkala 5 5 Safi plain Tadla Kasbah Tadla plain Abda Beni Mellal Moroccan Moroccan mirages: Agrarian dreams and plain Er rachida Marrakech Sahara Histoire du Maroc Maroc du Histoire Haouz El Kalaa des Shrarna Essaouira/Mogador plain Tassoultant Before 1912 Agadir 1912 – 1916 (Paris, 1968), 328. 328. 1968), (Paris, Souss 1914 – 1920 plain 1920 – 1926 1931 – 1934 North Introduction Water is a necessity for life. On the most basic level, it determines where we can live, and how we manage to live there. When it is superfluous, we build dikes and drains, and when it is insufficient, we build the most ingenious mechanisms to supply it. This does not just refer to the mighty qanat that has channelled water to towns in the Iranian desert for centuries, or the Roman aqueducts in densely populated urban areas, or other physical infrastructure constructions. In every culture, people have developed socio-political mechanisms for the distribution of water. These are the rules that dictate property, affluence, and livelihood in regions where water is a scarce resource. When access to a water source dictates a crop’s survival, or when access to clean drinking water is no certainty, these questions are prioritised over anything else. The study of water scarcity is timeless. Its problems are at the core of the human experience, and while it is more difficult for some to imagine its acuteness in our age of bottled water and (in many cases) governmental accountability, water scarcity has shaped the world.2 The governance of water scarcity is an enduring concept, and the study of its history is a study of the underlying processes of the human experience.3 This thesis studies how malicious use of water governance can lead to inequality and loss of self- determination. It studies how the mechanisms of water distribution can be deployed to transform a society and its norms and practices of power. In doing so, this thesis provides historical examples of how water governance can be used as a weapon to skew power relations between people, and how these new relations become cemented in institutions that affect generations afterwards. This thesis studies water governance in the French protectorate in Morocco during the rule of its first resident general, Hubert Lyautey, who administered the protectorate between 1912 and 1925.4 During this period the authority of the sultans and the decentralised independence of his people were dramatically deconstructed and transformed by the French administration, and water governance was one of the many tools they used. Using the French protectorate in Morocco between 1912 and 1925 as a case study, the main question this thesis aims to answer is in which ways water governance strategies were used to centralise administrative control over the territory’s resources. 2 T. Naff, ‘Islamic law and the politics of water’ in J. Dellapenna and J. Gupta (eds.), The evolution of the law and politics of water (Berlin, 2009), 37-52, 37. 3 T. Tvedt and E. Jakobsson, ‘Water history is world history’ in T. Tvedt and E. Jakobsson (eds.), A history of water: Series 1 volume 1: Water control and river biographies (London, 2006), ix-xxiii, xi. 4 The state’s official name was ‘he French protectorate in Morocco’ (Le protectorat Français au Maroc) 6 The territory under study was geographically diverse, parted roughly in the middle by the Atlas Mountains from which several perennial rivers flowed (see map 1.). The areas covered by these rivers were mostly very fertile and suitable for agriculture.5 While some of the land outside the direct supply of the rivers was irrigated, it was mostly subjected to the vicissitudes of Moroccan rainfall. The territory to the south of the Atlas Mountains, with the exception of the Marrakech region, was not under the effective control of the French administration, and thus falls outside of the scope of this research. Agricultural fertility and the supply of water decreased as one moved further south and east, where the Sahara proper began. The fertile Atlantic plains formed the heartland of French activity: the Gharb plain in the north-west, the Saïs plain near Fez and Meknes, the Tadla and Haouz plains near Marrakech, and the Chaouïa, Doukkala and Abda plains near Casablanca.6 The scarcity of water in much of this country, combined

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