Literary colonial legacies: orientalism and cultural imperialism in al-Maghrib al-Aqsa

Abstract

The paper studies a very significant timeline in Moroccan history: French and Spanish protectorates (1912-1956) to analyze the literary frequencies and resistance through the post-colonial theories of Edward Said in Orientalism (1978) and Cultural Imperialism (1993). The paper adopts a qualitative analytical method to extract the literary texts and works during and post-colonial era. The study investigates how the literary figure of Morocco reflects the ‘orient,’ ‘alienation,’ ‘cultural and psychological trauma,’ ‘hybridity,’ ‘resistance,’ and ‘cultural imperialism.’ The significant findings reveal that during the colonial period (1912-1956), the authors have strongly tried to find their pre-colonial traditions of Moroccan Islamic and Arabic influences. The French dominance, French language, secular education system, western-styled clothing, and pop music provoke the authors to reconceptualize the indigenous Moroccan socioeconomic history, which leads to the ultimate Moroccan resistance and independence. However, the post-colonial literary tendency concerns the vulnerability of Morocco to neocolonialism in the digital era. As the literary figures are predisposed to discuss Western approaches to social and economic structures in Moroccan novels, essays, and poetry. This post-colonial tendency seamlessly portrays Edward Said’s representation of ‘the Occident’ and ‘the Orient.’ Overall, the cultural imperialism exposes the double standards of Moroccan writers in literature in the post-colonial period, which reveals the critical explanation of ‘biased history.’ Substantially, the study offers profound insights into Moroccan literary frequencies during and post-colonial times. And the study contributes to postcolonial studies by extending Said’s framework to North African literature, exposing insights into the literary mechanisms of resistance and identity reconstruction during the postcolonial period.