“Morocco is going through an end-of-reign atmosphere: an absent king, a gagged society, a stalled economy, and a monarchy aligning with Israel in contempt of its people. Between repression, poverty and diplomatic isolation, the Makhzen is cracking on all sides. The succession of Mohammed VI, already under foreign influence, does not promise renewal but rather the prolongation of a dying system.”
An atmosphere of the end of reign reigns in Rabat, writes the French newspaper Le Monde.
An exhausted system
• The reign of Mohammed VI, long adorned with a façade of modernism, has today been reduced to a caricature: an absent monarch, secluded in his palaces, leaving behind a drained economy, a disillusioned youth, and a gagged society.
• The security obsession has turned the country into an open-air prison: a Facebook post, a critical video, or a caricature can mean jail. Prisons are full of silenced voices.
• Journalists rot behind bars, activists remain silent or go into exile, citizens censor themselves on social media out of fear of ending up in prison. The myth of the 'modernist king' has collapsed. Makhzenian modernity means censorship, poverty, and repression.
• Economically, the situation is equally dire: a country rich in resources yet ruined by a predatory dynasty. Recurrent shortages, food and energy dependency, and the monopolization of wealth by an oligarchy feed latent social anger.
Israel: New Co-Owner of the Kingdom
• On the diplomatic front, the rupture is even more blatant. By signing unprecedented military and security agreements with Israel, Mohammed VI has crossed a historic red line.
• This normalization, presented as a diplomatic masterstroke, in reality amounts to tutelage. Morocco is no longer merely a disguised French protectorate: it has become an Israeli co-property.
• The king has traded what remained of sovereignty for a shameful normalization. This is no longer 'cooperation,' but co-management.
• Israeli investors advance their pawns, the military sees their bases infiltrated, and the Moroccan army, once a pillar of the regime, grinds its teeth.
• Consequences are explosive: infiltration in strategic sectors, growing Israeli influence in the military sphere, and frustrations building within the army.
The Monarchy Faces Its Dilemma
• Two camps now clash at the top. On one side, the king and his inner circle, determined to reinforce the Israeli alliance, even at the cost of sovereignty. On the other, the guardians of traditional Makhzen orthodoxy, worried that the internal balance is fracturing.
• For them, the prospect of a 'Hassan III' inspires fear rather than support: a succession seen as artificial and imposed from abroad.
• Meanwhile, the people observe. Moroccans are not fooled: they see the obscene contrast between signing military agreements with Israel and the massacres in Gaza.
• They know their king has chosen his camp—and it is not theirs.
A Historical Dead End
• This system, built by Lyautey, maintained by France, and recycled by Mohammed VI, has reached its limits.
• Moroccans no longer believe in the myth of a providential monarchy. They see the contradictions: a king who signs with Israel while Gaza is bombed; a regime that claims religious legitimacy while selling out political sovereignty; a power that proclaims reform while governing through repression.
• The regime survives on fear, police, and business networks. But for how long? Each day, the fracture widens: between a ghostly power and a suffocating society, between an absent king and an abandoned people, between a submissive monarchy and a youth seeking dignity.
• The end of reign is not a hypothesis, but a certainty. The only unknown is when and how.
Double or Nothing
• The Moroccan monarchy is playing its future on a dangerous card: survival through Israeli co-management, at the cost of irreversible fracture with its people and Arab environment.
• This is a flight forward, a short-term strategy that mortgages the future.
• Morocco is not yet on the edge of the abyss. But it moves inexorably toward its monarchical twilight.
• The illusion is gone. The Makhzen is no longer an impregnable citadel, but a cracked fortress.
• The Moroccan people are not duped: they know their destiny cannot remain tied to the whims of an absent monarch and the interests of a cumbersome ally.
• The monarchy has a clear choice: either embrace a radical, real transformation and be accountable to its people, or persist in Israeli alignment and police autocracy. But history has already written the outcome: like all disconnected monarchies, it will end swept away by its own arrogance.
Author
Kader Tahri
Engaged columnist, concerned observer
“Things must be said as they are, but we must refuse to let them remain that way.”
Source:
https://kadertahri.blogspot.com/
