Ability & Status of Morocco's Nomadic Population

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Blog Post #4: Ability & Status


In visiting the National Agricultural Research Institute Center of Aridoculture & Terre et Humanisme - Maroc I was made to recognize a group of people that I hadn’t really heard of or learned about prior to visiting the institute. For the first time, I gave thought to Morocco’s nomadic population.
As a little bit of background on the National Agricultural Research Institute Center of Aridoculture, the organization’s principal founder should be discussed. Pierre Rabhi was an Algerian born humanist that spent dedicated his life to environmentalism and sociology in France & Morocco. After the French colonized Morocco in the 20th century, the French government enacted a series of policies that would force the assimilation and resettlement of Morocco’s nomadic peoples under the guise of civilizing the nation. These peoples (Berbers) would be taken from the life they knew and forced to find permanent settlements on lands they were unfamiliar with. Pierre Rabhi worked to rehabilitate these people agriculturally, socially, and economically through connecting them with the land. These ideals are still at the forefront of the institute’s initiatives today.
Though I did not get the chance to interact with (or even see) many actively nomadic peoples while in Morocco, visiting the institute gave me a better look at their status in Moroccan society. It was summed up with a few words spoken to our tour guide, “Some live in heaven, some live in hell.” The nomadic people of Morocco have been forced to uproot their entire way of life only to live on barren land with limited financial & natural resources. These are among the poorest in Morocco, struggling to save even a drop of water for agricultural productivity with little help from the Moroccan government. 
This was an example of poor cultural intelligence (CQ) on the part of the French government. The government assumed that bringing the nomads closer to the European/French culture would ultimately lead to the betterment of the people as a whole. There was no regard for the nomadic way of life or the ways that their culture informed their day to day lives. 
 

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Berber


The arid area that the institute is in.


Comments

  1. Katie SJune 6, 2022 at 7:32 AM

    Haley! Miss you!
    I know we talked about the issues of the Moroccan indigenous people at the end of the trip so I'm glad you also wrote about it because this is a different topic than the one I looked at for my post. I like how you tie in the idea of cultural intelligence. From what I've read on the situation and how it persists today that lack of regard for cultural differences among the Berber people holds strong in within the majority group in Morocco. I did find in my research that the Berber's do have representatives within the moroccan government in various ministries and agencies, so it is at least helpful to see that there is at least some representation of Berber issues on the country level governance. That said, just as there is work to be done in many areas of governance in the U.S. there is still much to be addressed in Morocco.

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