Our brave mothers
They endured to continue life thanks to the determination of amazing women: our mothers.
Underneath the feet of these wonderful Moroccan women, without their knowledge for sure, and in the likeness of the gods of Homer, lie the gardens of sacred books and our acknowledgments of gratitude and beauty.
These mothers embraced life and the burdens of the social sciences, dedicating themselves to their ordinary and extraordinary roles as women and mothers, with a constant giving embrace, protectors of the family and the home.
They quietly and humbly devoted themselves to maintaining the warmth of our homes, with the flame of the “kanoun,” the stove, our Moroccan ember.
These ordinary and extraordinary mothers gave birth to children like us, like everyone else, and spent the rest of their lives relentlessly preserving the invisible and enduring bond that only a mother can keep, “in service” to her children, her beloved ones, the liver that cannot be separated from the body.
On their woven fabric, they gave life to both small and great joys, childhood illnesses, and teenage sorrows, yet they always found ways to reconnect our lives with the fluctuating twists of hope.
They wiped away our wounds, dried our tears, and taught us the secrets of ordinary existence.
They kept us strong thanks to their deep faith in their role as mothers, weavers of resilience, hope, and love in one direction.
Our courageous mothers,
Your epics, your legends, enabled us to resist and endure, so that today we can present this testimony.
Oh, you who alleviate our sorrows, in the original sense of the word, in its painful and partial meaning. That is an inevitable reality for a mother.
Beneath the sacred feet of mothers, extends a Garden of Eden shaped by the will of the sacred books and others…
They console our sorrows, weaving our resistance, guardians of our memories as children, not always their biological children, and citizens not always like all citizens.
Thanks to you, we endured.
The resistance of mothers,
It endured to provide the oldest testimonials in favor of these beloved and admirable women who symbolize resistance, who nourish resistance.
Our mothers are wonderful with their courage and authenticity.
Mother Mustafa, Mother Mustafa, Mother Mustafa Ahmed and Naïma, Mother Mohammed the engineer, Medidcha, the mother of Sidi Jawad, Mother As-Siddiq, Donia Juana Mama de Rojo, Mama Amina, Mother Driss, Mother Zohra Midad, May Habashi, Mother Dawaia, Mother Qasim, Al-Qarsha, Mother Qadah, and May Halima, my aunt Pasha, and others.
Mother Hafiza, the authentic Amazigh woman.
My life endured just as this remarkable woman, Mother Hafiza, endured. A citizen of the Middle Atlas, from the region of Khénifra, her husband was suspected of engaging in political activities related to the opposition party, the National Union of Popular Forces, at that time by the authorities.
A citizen of the Middle Atlas, a housewife, perhaps, if she was a woman of the harsh Middle Atlas, with a clear and simple voice, with a strong Amazigh accent, unmistakably Moroccan.
This woman, Mother Hafiza, with her brotherly and warm voice, spoke at that meeting in memory of one of those we lost due to the consequences of the arrests in Darb Moulay Sherif.
This woman, Mother Hafiza, as if she had lost her way this evening to the meeting in her traditional attire, with her scarf, and her Amazigh language.
She spoke to reveal her story, her voice rising majestic and clear like a song from a spring in the mountains.
“Oh my brothers, my sisters,” she said in Amazigh,
“I was arrested and tortured for the first time in 1972 because they couldn’t arrest my wanted husband.
Oh my brothers, my sisters, the beatings and choking with a cloth soaked in dirty water, the electricity, the cold, and hunger.
In 1973, I was arrested again for the same reasons and deported for 11 months, passing through Moulay Bouazza, Khénifra, Fes, Meknes, back to Khénifra, from the police station to the gendarmerie barracks or the military camp (mobile security).
As usual: Oh my brothers, my sisters, Ashifun, Asit, Asumid, Bohiuf…
My six-year-old daughter had to spend the first four months on the streets before joining me.
The last months of my pregnancy coincided with the end of my detention, so my son Hafiz saw the light and spent his first weeks in a camp of torture and arbitrary detention.
As a diet for the entire period of pregnancy and the first weeks after birth: Oh my brothers, my sisters, Ashifun, Asit, Asumid, Bohiuf, and other forms of torture and humiliation.
Mother Mustafa
I remember this mother as well.
On that morning, after a 45-day hunger strike protesting the conditions of detention.
This woman, who arrived early, insisted on heading to the courtyard of Al Idrissi Hospital in Kenitra, where we had been transferred since the thirty-sixth or thirty-seventh day of the strike.
She stayed there in the hospital courtyard for 8 hours. Lying down, she watched with her eyes other families lining up to enter, intending to visit their sons, brothers, or husbands at the end of their long days of fasting.
She observed the spreading presence of security forces. Some in official uniforms, others in civilian clothes, discreetly monitoring everything that was happening…
She shook her head in refusal every time she was told that it would be better for her to visit immediately because her condition did not allow her to wait.
She would reply, “He told me not to come until three o’clock in the afternoon.”
“He” is her son, the political prisoner recovering from a 45-day hunger strike.
He had asked his brother not to bring their mother until three o’clock in the afternoon to avoid the crowd.
She had arrived since eight in the morning, but she wanted to obey him and wait until three o’clock in the afternoon to see him, to touch him to make sure that nothing had happened to him that couldn’t be remedied.
So she remained lying in the hospital garden throughout the morning.
At three o’clock in the afternoon, she entered with the rest of the family and gently laid herself on a companion’s bed.
She spoke a little.
She contented herself with looking at him with a painful, immense, and superhumanly thirsty tenderness.
She died a few weeks later when she began a new hunger strike with some of her companions.
Mother Mustafa, Ahmed, and Naïma.
I remember this other mother who used to come from Tangier. Here are excerpts from her story.
It was the day of the minor holiday. Usually, women worked from early morning, on such occasions, preparing cookies and Eid sweets.
As for her, she was in a different place.
Alone with her suffering.
She mechanically took her hijab and left. The city was still asleep, and she moved forward, her tears blurring her vision.
Unaware, she followed the “Honor” road. Alone, with the faces of the person imprisoned in the Casablanca prison, the face of the woman still detained in the police station in Tangier, and the face of the “disappeared.”
She avoided seeing the trees and the few houses in the neighborhood at that time…
At home, her absence was noticed late, and the search for her began. How many hours did her tearful journey last without direction?
They found her in the evening, exhausted at the foot of a tree in front of an abandoned shrine…
Months later, she saw them “reappear”: first Naïma, then Mustafa, and finally Ahmed.
Her determination and patience were behind her integration into a family similar to her in Casablanca, the Madad family, and then the large family of mothers and families of political prisoners.
Mother of Mohamed the engineer.
“Memory uses many tricks.”
This other mother also nourished our resistance against the erosion caused by those years of bullets and concrete.
“There were many sisters.”
“He” was the miraculous son who returned from France with an engineering degree, ranking among the top in his field as a Moroccan.
But… he was arrested, her engineer son.
They “hid” him and tortured him during this “disappearance” like his comrades.
And in the end, he was sentenced to ten years in prison…
At first, she was strong and visited him regularly.
But her legs couldn’t bear it anymore. She became paralyzed…
Since then, long waits have been marked by crises, hospital stays, painful treatments, slight improvements, and setbacks…
Dear Sidi Jawad,
Hajja Meddesh was an exceptional woman.
For this unique woman, the world revolved around Hajj Meddesh, her husband, companion, and beloved beggar (originating from the Tassoul region in the mountains, far from Fez, according to her). Sidi Jawad (Meddesh) was her son, imprisoned along with her other children, whether they were from Fes or beggars, to such an extent that we laughed about it.
She brought something new to most of us: orange blossom water, small dishes from the depths of Fes’ jars, even ground and dried ghassoul, oh my lady, according to the rules of “meticulous art.”
As for the soap maker, Amelharsh,
She was a small woman, not much stronger than three apples.
She belonged to the nobility of Salé. It was a bond of belonging. She had connections with the best families in this city, which was no less important than Fez in terms of its attachment to Andalusian roots.
A widow, she raised her two sons and two daughters.
The friend, the youngest son, worked in the national railway office. He helped with the necessities of life.
How did she know how to foresee what would happen?
They took the friend away.
“Gabroh.”
And the soap maker joined a large family of political prisoners’ families.
For her as well, life became organized around finding information about the missing person and then around the visit.
It was her habit to speak with clenched teeth.
She mumbled curses at the guards: “May God take them.” And because she pronounced the letter “qaf” like “a,” we couldn’t initially understand what she meant. She threatened them that “God will punish and avenge the executioners, kidnappers, and villains.”
Every time she went to meet the public prosecutor to obtain a visit permit, she wiped the ground with her handkerchief and shouted loudly and comprehensibly, “May God wipe the earth with you.”
Whenever there was a problem or an argument with the guards or the police, she stepped forward despite her weakness, asserting herself and ready to fight if necessary.
Donia Juana, Rokho’s mother,
We also had two Spanish mothers.
The first was an imposing woman with a bright smile.
I was always in awe and shy in front of her, while my relationship was direct and warm with her sailor husband (Haji Ahmed).
There was an emotional scene between this mother and her son Rokho.
She cast long, radiant looks at him.
She affectionately called him “cariño” (my dear, in Spanish).
This mother was one of those brave mothers who were marked by love and tenderness during our long journey through the prisons of this country.
Donia Amina, Idris’s mother,
The second Spanish woman was Amina, Idris’s mother.
She was gentle and kind.
She would huddle in a corner with her son.
They spoke about everything in low voices.
Every time I revisit my memory, I recall the necessity of a soft and sad song:
“Siempre te recuerdo, vieja” (I always remember you, old lady).
I will always remember your courage in facing the ordeal of those years in the “Shadow of the Healing.”
Mothers’ courage,
All these brave mothers transitioned from housewives to another role: “The Movement of Families of Political Prisoners.”
“Oh, my lady, if only it were just old age and illness, and our legs that can no longer carry us as usual. There is also the grief that certainly undermines us more.”
“My son, Mohammed V, did not rule to sentence him to 10 years in prison, 20 years, 30 years, or life imprisonment!”
“And what is life imprisonment, tell me, my lady? It’s a lifetime. While his friends work, get married, and live… Isn’t that right, my lady?”
“But thank God, my Lord is great. Praise be to Allah, Allah is the greatest…”
They participated in the famous demonstration at the Sunnah Mosque in Rabat, where the delicate families raised their voices, just as the nationalist movement did during the struggle against the protectorate.
They held sit-ins or attempted to do so in front of the court, in front of the public prosecutor’s offices.
They clashed with the police, experienced arrests and violent interrogations without any consideration.
These amazing mothers were pioneers, without their knowledge, of the human rights movement in Morocco.
Only a few men accompanied this group of brave mothers: Haji Meddesh, Haji Miftah, Haji Ali, and a few others.
After imprisonment, trial, hunger strikes, each of them became a mother to several detainees.
They came from everywhere: Tangier, Tetouan, Berkane, Ain Bani Mathar, Meknes, Bama Mohamed Village, Casablanca, Al Maârif, Darb Sultan, or even Ben Misk, Hay Al-Farah, and Derb Milan, Salé, Rabat, Kenitra, Marrakech, Hwarah, or the Bani Mellal region.
The usual ordeal.
The first stage: The public prosecutor’s office in Rabat!
“Hey, lady, where are you going?”
“Oh, excuse me, you are the families of the students, friends of the Jewish Serfaty, enemies of the king and the desert, the ones who go on strikes, those poor children.”
“….”
Name, surname, degree of kinship, and national ID?
“….”
“No, it’s your ID, not your husband’s ID. We’re not in the mountains anyway! In the civil status register, there is no photo, so it’s not acceptable!”
“I don’t care!”
“Well, here’s the visit permit. No, the uncle or aunt coming from the rural areas or the neighboring city or from France or Australia cannot visit, and even the third brother has no right to visit, as he is underage and not in this place. Goodbye. The loyal one!”
The second stage: Preparation for the visit.
The basket, first.
“He looked very pale on the last visit. I will cook something that gives him strength and energy. Come on.”
“But what? Communal living? What nonsense! He will have to eat what I prepared for him anyway!”
“They’re idiots!”
“Finally, I will ask someone to give him something from it at least.”
“Take it, Ayah! Fatima, take it! Saad, put more so he has a better chance of having some of this food.”
“Communal living, we haven’t seen anything, my lady!”
Then the essential products: sugar, tea, coffee, and butter.
Then clothes and towels.
“Tell me, what did he request in his letter? Yes, pictures of his cousin’s son and margarine for the wick. Oh God, protect them from burning or suffocating with this wick. Anyway, don’t forget anything.”
The visit day starts very early, or even a day in advance for families coming from afar.
And when necessary, all these beautiful things prepared with love were turned upside down in the courtyard of Al-Idrisi Hospital in Kenitra, expressing love and painful support as much as it is profound.
The third stage: Travel.
The bus where they try to doze off to compensate for tiredness and sleeplessness.
Taxi drivers started to recognize these strange travelers. Most drivers express sympathy and solidarity. Sometimes they transport the family for free.
It is the journey where families meet, where mothers talk.
The fourth stage: The visit itself.
Months and the first years go by. Prison guards are rarely sympathetic.
The smell of the prison. Men dressed in strange, gloomy uniforms clinging to the walls in front of the guards.
Bars and steel fences.
The indelible traces of prison bravery.
The final stage: The return from the visit.
As if the enthusiasm of the beginning and the visit have been dried up by the visit.
The return is always silent, even when the conditions of the visit improved significantly after 1979.
Months and years weigh heavily on the mothers and other family members, albeit in different ways.
Despite the bars, a mother has the ability to reveal the weight of years that envelopes a smile with an invisible cover, hardens the corners of the lips, and blurs the vision. She notices moments of her son’s absent-mindedness and the sentences that sometimes hang on the lips before resuming their flow—thousands of small things that indicate the effects of imprisonment. They are not hidden from the mother, from the heart of the mother.
Their Resistance
They resisted the isolation of persecution when neighbors, friends, and sometimes even family members avoided them out of fear and caution.
They resisted blackmail or attempts at deceit, although some of them occasionally fell victim to it.
But they resisted our foolishness, our circular behaviors, and the calls for exclusion that some of us declared against each other.
Thanks to them, thanks to the sacrifices they made to provide us with a portion of what we were missing inside the walls.
The small dishes that emanate love, which we sometimes try to enjoy in defiance of collective rules, the books, letters, and gifts from foreign friends, etc.