Moroccan historiography is increasingly focused on the colonial era, identifying existing lacunae in modern Moroccan history. Some Moroccan historians have contended that the protectorate period (1912-56) has not been adequately studied, and highlight many existing myths surrounding those decades. Moving beyond the historiographic need to illuminate this era's events and developments, there is a growing sense in Morocco that the roots of the country's existing political and social ailments are to be found in the protectorate era, adding a contemporary urgency to this topic. One component of this new focus on the protectorate period is Morocco's nationalist movement. Historians and other scholars question the movement's presumed unity, challenging the prevailing notion that the movement was monolithic and largely dominated by the Fez based traditional oriented elite. The nationalist movement is increasingly recognized as being far more diverse, with alternative centers and figures, and much greater variety among its leaders. This paper probes these questions further by presenting several prominent Moroccan nationalist leaders and analyzing their political profiles. While the lives and ideological positions of senior nationalist leaders such as Allal El-Fassi have been featured in various studies, this paper highlights the lives and opinions of leaders such as Ahmad Belafredj (1908-1990), Mohamed Hassan Ouazzani (1910-1978), and Mehdi Ben Barka (1920-1965) in contrast to El-Fassi. Each individual offers alternative perspectives on Moroccan nationalism and Allal el-Fassi's leadership, stemming from their positions as either el-Fassi's associates-albeit with a different background (Belafredj), personal rivals (Ouazzani) or ideological foes (Ben Barka). Beyond gaining greater familiarity with these leaders, this study shows how Morocco's nationalist movement was far from monolithic and much more complex than its image as a Fez-based, socially and politically conservative closed circle. Sources for this project include memoires, interviews, and statements of these individuals, which present their lives and ideologies as they developed over the course of the nationalist struggle for independence. These sources are complemented by Moroccan, French, and American archival material on these individuals, along with journalistic profiles and retrospective analyses of their roles in Morocco's nationalist politics. This study expands our knowledge about Morocco's nationalist movement, which remains underrepresented in studies of modern Moroccan history and modern North African nationalism. On a broader level, this paper highlights unique aspects of Moroccan nationalism, which may enrich the study of other Arab nationalist movements and ideologies.

In this presentation, it is argued that nationalism was one of the most important characteristics of socialist movement in Turkey in the 1960s. When we look at the socialist movement in Turkey in this period, we encounter with the concept of nationalism, in other words, Turkish socialists’ deliberate attempt at articulating socialism with nationalism, presenting themselves as the real representatives of nationalism in Turkey. The aim of this study is to investigate the uneasy relationship between nationalism and the Turkish left in the 1960s in particular and between socialism and nationalism in general. One important concern of this study is to investigate the internal sources of the articulation of socialism with nationalism in Turkey. A ‘leftist’ variant of Kemalism, becoming a hegemonic discourse within the ranks of the Turkish left in the 1960s, played a very crucial role in the attempts of the leftist intellectuals of the period at accommodating nationalist principles within the idiom of socialism. Turkish left in the 1960s re-invented Kemalism as a progressive, anti-imperialist, anti-feudal and developmentalist outlook. But, Turkish socialists’ engagement with nationalism should be located within an international context and perspective. Turkish socialists were not alone in their efforts to reconcile nationalism with socialism. The history of the ideological and practical accommodation between socialism and nationalism from mid-19th century to the post-colonial era reflects a change from “socialization of the nation” to the “nationalization of socialism” and shows us how this relationship changed from hostility to affinity. Turkish socialists of the 1960s received an important part of their strategic and tactical inspirations from those post-colonial experiences. In this sense, this study analyzes Turkish left’s experience with nationalism also by reference to international experiences, with a special emphasis on the Third Worldist variant of the articulation of socialism with nationalism.

The recent calls for change sweeping across parts of the Arab world, triggered by the events in Tunisia, have stimulated interest as to the causation of this phenomenon. In this context, it is worth looking back to the creation of state cultural hegemony in North Africa which pushed key alternative voices out of the public dialogue such as those of Malek Bennabi and Mohammad Hasan Wazzani. Both of these figures were prominent intellectual participants in the Maghrebi nationalist movements. Yet they both suffered more from government restrictions and censorship after independence than they did during the struggle against colonialism. Muhammad Hassan Wazzani founded one of Morocco’s first independence parties al-Shura al–Istiqlal and was a massive proponent of free press, but particularly suffered under Allal al-Fassi’s government. The Algerian thinker Malek Bennabi promoted continual dialogue and self-criticism within the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic in order to create an invigorated and thereby effective state. For social and political reasons, Bennabi found that his intellectual post-modernist critique made him unpopular and ultimately undesirable in Algeria's public domain. Both these individuals were participants in the struggle for independence, and yet ended up to a certain extent on the fringes of Maghrebi nationalism. As well as bringing more attention to these intellectual figures within English language historiography, this paper intends to compare the life and works of these two Maghrebi contemporaries in order to illustrate some of the intellectual undercurrents in early North African nationalism and to discuss some of the problems associated with state formation and cultural hegemony. Both these figures pertained to the more intellectual strands of Maghrebi nationalism, having been involved in the Association of North-African Muslim Students in France and contributed to the nationalist press. This comparative approach can help identify how significant these intellectual contributions were to the processes of nation-building at a micro level while questioning the nature of Magrebi nationalism at a macro level. The study will discuss the problems of defining nationalist movements, the significance of Islamic intellectual currents on Maghrebi nationalism and the degree to which governments are responsible for the diminished impact of these intellectuals on their local cultural spheres. Although it is necessary to ascertain Morocco and Algeria’s different political and intellectual environments, many of these issues are pertinent to the wider history of state formation and the role of Islamic thought in Arab nationalism.

This paper investigates the character of the separatist Kurdish nationalism as reflected in the Jin Journal published during and right after the CUP (Committee of Union and Progress) administration, 1918-1919, specifically focusing on its convergence and divergence with the ethnic Turkish nationalism of the time. CUP, with its nationalist members, approved the principle of centralization in administration, a main reason of Kurdish unrest and reaction, and it promoted the elevation of Turkish people from the status of unsur-i asli (main ethnic group) to that of millet-i hakime (ruling/dominant nation). Ironically enough, writers Jin writers, among whom the Kurdish elite living in Istanbul, used a similar ethno-nationalist tone with Turkish nationalists, which they formulated their nationalism against. The writers of Jin and Turkish nationalists were influenced by the ideological and political trends of their time. They used the exact same terms to raise nationalistic consciousness: Muasirlasmak, compliance with the contemporary age’s necessities, terakki, improvement, necip Kurt milleti, noble Kurdish nation, jon Kurtler, young Kurds, etc. Kurdish nationalists aimed to improve the situation of Kurds as similar to that of contemporary civilization, namely the Western, the same discourse used by the Turkish nationalists. In order to prove the Europeans their legitimacy as a nation and get their support, Kurdish nationalists emphasized that their approach to women, religion; their history, culture and language make them capable of adjusting to the necessities of a civilized nation. Jin writers Lav Resid and Siverekli Hilmi, endeavored to create a repertoire for Kurdish proverbs, tales and folklore to comply with the definitions of ‘a nation’ at that time. The hard-core Turkish and Kurdish nationalists were similarly careful not to use an exclusivist nationalist language as well, but emphasized the role of Islam in uniting their nations to get the support of the masses. Investigating similarities and differences between these nationalisms, this paper argues how each appropriated their discourses to get recognition from the world powers and the support of the masses.

Charles R. Crane is best known as the co-chair of the 1919 King-Crane Commission. While much of the writing about Crane has centered on the question of his anti-Semitism, scholars have generally ignored the important and complex role he played as a patron of both Orientalism and Arab nationalism. Crane was one of the wealthiest men in America during the World War I era, and was one of the five largest financial contributors to the Presidential campaigns of Woodrow Wilson. Crane fancied himself a world traveler and at an early age became fixated on the threat posed by a unified Islam and the Caliphate. Crane used his vast fortune to support several American Orientalists, including Richard Gottheil at Columbia University. However, he was infatuated with the work of the Dutch scholar Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje. Hurgronje and Crane corresponded regularly and Crane found solace in Hurgronje’s “insights” into Islam. Crane in turn funded a number of Hurgronje’s projects and sponsored a 1914 lecture tour of the United States. Crane’s dabbling in Orientalism fundamentally shaped his response to Arab nationalism. A careful study of his papers reveals that Crane was close to a number of Syrian nationalists during the period of the French Mandate, and that he probably provided financial support to one of the leaders of the 1925 nationalist revolt against the French. In addition, Crane forged a relationship with Ibn Saud, almost immediately after Ibn Saud consolidated power over Nejd and the Hejaz. However, Crane never actually understood the nationalism he supported. He believed that Muslims seeking to expand the power of Islam dominated Arab nationalist movements. Crane argued that Western support for Arab nationalism would appease the “Muslim world” and avoid a disastrous religious conflict. Based on the extensive use of the Crane Papers at Columbia University as well as other archival sources including the William Yale Papers at Yale and the Ameen Rihani Papers at the Library of Congress, this paper will examine the strange and misunderstood career of Charles Crane, as well as his role in shaping the American understanding of Islam and Arab nationalism.