Spanish National Identity, Colonial Power, and the Portrayal of Muslims and Jews during the Rif War (1909–27)

211 Pages·2021·13.999 MB·English

by  Elisabeth Bolorinos Allard

Colección Támesis
SERIE A: MONOGRAFÍAS, 394
SPANISH NATIONAL IDENTITY,
COLONIAL POWER, AND THE
PORTRAYAL OF MUSLIMS AND JEWS
DURING THE RIF WAR (1909–27)
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SPANISH NATIONAL IDENTITY,
COLONIAL POWER, AND THE
PORTRAYAL OF MUSLIMS AND
JEWS DURING THE RIF WAR
(1909–27)
Elisabeth Bolorinos Allard

TAMESIS
© Elisabeth Bolorinos Allard 2021
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the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with
sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
First published 2021
Tamesis, Woodbridge
ISBN 978 1 85566 345 9 (hardcover)
ISBN 978 1 78744 544 4 (ePDF)
ISBN 978 1 80010 128 9 (ePUB)
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A CIP record for this title is available
from the British Library

Cover image: A. Got, “Una calle de Tetuán”. Cover of África,
March 1928. Digital press archives of the Biblioteca
Nacional de España.
Cover design: www.stay-creative.co.uk
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations vii
Preface and Acknowledgements ix
Introduction: Muslims, Jews, and the Boundaries of the Spanish Nation 1
1. An Anxious Nation: The Rif War, National Identity, and Print
Culture 15
2. ‘Muslim Brothers and Spanish Jews’: Race, Literature, and
History in Discourses of Affinity between Spain and North Africa 43
3. ‘Just as Uncivilised as We are’: Affinity, National Fragility, and
Socialist and Fascist Narratives of Colonialism in La ruta and
Notas marruecas de un soldado 83
4. The ‘Other’ Races that Define Us: Islamophobia, Anti-Semitism,
and National Anxieties in Catholic Traditionalism and Africanist
Orientalism 105
5. Un-making Spanish Men in Literature and Photography of the
Colonial ‘Disasters’ 125
6. Conquering the ‘Indecipherable Soul’ of Morocco: Women
behind the Veil, Urban Spaces, and Colonial Power 149

Afterword: Theorising Cultural Vulnerability in a Multicultural World 177

Bibliography 181

Index 195

ILLUSTRATIONS
1. Photo Díaz, ‘Sidi Ahamed Ben Mohamed Er Raisuni el Hassani el
Alami’; ‘Una visita al señor de la montaña: cuatro días en la zona
rebelde’, Revista de la Raza, September 1922, p. 3. 51
2. Photo Díaz, ‘El célebre caid Ben-Chel-Lal y el ex sargento de
Regulares, Yamani, á quienes se deben varios actos humanitarios
en favor de nuestros soldados’, La Esfera, 18 February 1922, p. 5. 52
3. Photo Alfonso, ‘Parliamentarios moros ofreciendo sumisión’, AGA. 55
4. Photo Díaz, ‘En la tienda del cherif’; ‘Una visita al señor de la
montaña: cuatro días en la zona rebelde’, RR, September 1922, p. 9. 55
5. Photo Alfonso, ‘El teniente Sr. Ontaneda hablando con el celebre
moro “el Gato”, amigo de España, acerca del rescate del General
Navarro y los que con él están prisioneros’, Mundo gráfico, 24
August 1921, p. 12. 57
6. ‘Notas gráficas tetuanís’, La Esfera, 11 November 1922, p. 22. 59
7. ‘Tipos y costumbres de Granada’, Mundo gráfico, 17 May 1916,
p. 20. 64
8. Photo ‘Yey’, ‘Las misteriosas mujeres de Tarifa que se velan la cara’,
Cover page, Estampa, 9 February 1935, in Tomás García Figueras,
‘Miscelanea’, 1930–36, pp. 106–9. 65
9. Photo Alfonso, ‘La tragedia de Monte Arruit’, La Esfera, 5 November
1921, p. 14. 141

10. Photo Alfonso, ‘Interior de casa con cadáveres’, Suplemento gráfico

de El Imparcial, 28 October 1921, p. 1, copy from AGA archive. 142

11. Photo Alfonso, ‘Un camión lleno de cadáveres en Monte-Arruit’,
Nuevo mundo, 4 November 1921, p. 4, copy from AGA archive. 142
12. Photo by author, Jewish quarter, Tétouan, 2014. 160

13. Photo by author, Andalusian quarter, Tétouan, 2014. 160

14. África, May 1929, cover page. 161
viii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
15. Agustín de Figueroa, ‘El alma indescifrable de Marruecos’, c.1930,
Ahora, in Tomás García Figueras, ‘Miscelánea’: Prensa Gráfica,
Biblioteca García Figueras, 1930–36, pp. 165–6. 162
16. Fortuni, ‘Una calle de Tánger’, Nuevo mundo, 23 August 1918,
p. 8. 165
17. ‘Tánger, la codiciada’, Cosmópolis, c.1931, Tomás García Figueras,
‘Miscelánea’: Prensa gráfica, Biblioteca García Figueras, 1930–36,
p. 192. 166
18. Photo Alfonso, ‘Vista de Tetuán’, AGA. 167
19. Photo Alfonso, ‘Visita de Alcalá Zamora a Xauén’, AGA. 168
Full credit details are provided in the captions to the images in the text. The
author and publisher are grateful to all the institutions and individuals for
permission to reproduce the materials in which they hold copyright. Every
effort has been made to trace the copyright holders; apologies are offered
for any omission, and the publisher will be pleased to add any necessary
acknowledgement in subsequent editions.
PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
It has been a hundred years since the Battle of Annual, the most infamous
conflict of the Rif War, took place in northern Morocco and arguably became
a national tragedy on a greater scale than any other military defeat suffered
by Spain in modern history, including the Spanish-American war of 1898. In
July 1921, an alliance of Berber tribes assembled by Muhamed Abd el-Krim
Khattabi to resist Spain’s colonial incursions in the Rif region launched an
offensive against the Spanish military outposts west of Melilla, and as a result
of strategic miscalculations by Spanish military commanders, some of whom
abandoned their troops or committed suicide, between 10,000 and 15,000
Spanish soldiers were killed by Abdel Krim’s forces in less than two weeks.1
In the short run, the so-called Disaster of Annual led to a political, social,
and cultural crisis that ultimately resulted in the Spanish Civil War. In the
long run, this historical moment of colonial conflict has profoundly shaped
contemporary Spanish cultural attitudes towards North Africans, and towards
Muslims in general.
I have written this book out of the firm conviction that the weighty influence
of the colonial past on the multicultural European present needs to be grappled
with and in the hope that this process will continue to move forward beyond
the limits of the academy. I am well aware that by focusing on Spanish
portrayals of Moroccan Muslims and Jews I am not directly featuring the
historical voices that most need to be heard, those of colonised Moroccans,
and I wish that I had the linguistic skills to have done so. However, I have
endeavoured to draw out these voices from between the lines of the texts and
in the spaces of the photographs I examine in this book. Likewise, my central
question, which is how Spanish narratives of national identity are shaped by
Spain’s relationship with Muslim and Jewish cultures in the context of the Rif

War, takes on new importance in twenty-first century Spain, as a generation
of Spaniards of Moroccan ancestry is coming of age and reshaping cultural
identities in the Iberian Peninsula. I eagerly anticipate hearing their voices in
scholarship and society in the years to come.

1 Balfour, 2002, p. 79.