The Moroccan historian Abdel Hafiz Hamman has published a new book called Stations in the History of Tangier.
The book, published by Seliki Brothers Publishing House, contains an introduction and seven studies in chronological order spanning the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, while the contents change. And so that these studies do not remain scattered and scattered here and there, I wanted to collect them in a book and publish them for review by every researcher and those interested in the history of Tangier.
However, this content in its diversity gives the reader an unsatisfactory picture, since it is sufficient to identify many stations and events in the recent history of Tangier.
The book begins its first theme by highlighting French colonial projects in relation to the city of Tangier as they have attracted the political and strategic attention of French governments since the seventeenth century.
This was followed by a special study of the road connecting Tangier and Tetouan during the period of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, and this is one of the main roads in Morocco, which was used by caravans for the transport of goods and trade exchange. , and was used by travelers for personal purposes, or to perform tasks assigned to them by the Moroccan state.
This study also shows the existence of the “Ain Al Jadida Hotel” in the middle of the road, as it was the main station for accommodating travelers and an important strategic hub between the two cities.
In this book, the image of Tangier is presented as it is reflected in French works of various levels, in the allotted period of time, stretching from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century. In it, the author states: “We have sought to combine honesty in presentation with the duty of historical criticism of these writings, invested with a lot of fanaticism and passion, and even a lot of contempt and arrogance.”
The book also touches on an equally important and exciting topic, namely the problem of security that Tangier witnessed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries for a number of reasons related to the conditions in which Morocco found itself at that time.
In this study, the author relied on French diplomatic documents and his intention was to reveal France’s perspective on the security issue in Tangier and how it used security weaknesses to tighten control over a Moroccan warehouse under the pretense of protecting its citizens.
In addition to political history, the book dealt with issues that are considered to be at the heart of the interests of the “new history”, since it is closer to social or cultural history. of medical surgery at the Medical School of Tangier by the hands of Spanish doctors and at the same time revealed the role played by foreign doctors, who were an effective tool for European penetration into Morocco.
The book concludes with two interrelated themes, which the author devoted to revealing the role played by the city of Tangier, despite the international position imposed on it in the colonial era, in resisting the fighters in the sultanate area. French colonialism with military ammunition such as guns, bombs and others. The first theme was based on the memories of one of the Moroccan resistance fighters, who was an important link between the north and south of Morocco in the transfer of weapons, and it was associated with the resistance fighter Hassan Laraki.
As for the second topic, it was based on live testimonies / oral sources of some resistance fighters from the city of Tangier who participated in this operation.
It is noteworthy that the historian Abd al-Hafiz Hamman works as a professor of modern history at the Abd al-Malik al-Saadi University, Faculty of Arts and Humanities in Tetouan, among his previous publications was the book “Morocco and the French Revolution”. from Time in Rabat in 2001, and the book Morocco and France in the Time of Napoleon Bonaparte: Problems and Texts from Tetouan Faculty of Arts and Humanities in 2017.
