ABSTRACT
The paradox of Morocco is that it is both the result of trends dominating the history of the Mediterranean and a permanent, original national reality reasserting itself through changing circumstances. The paradox is not merely factual, but also characterizes the observer's standpoint by referring to two distinct discourses. When faced with societies which do not correspond to recognized patterns of state formation, observers tend either to see them as the result of forces exerting pressure or domination from outside on what are posed as subsidiary and historically irrelevant nations. This is illustrated by such chapter headings as ‘Roman Africa’, ‘the Arab Invasion’, ‘the Colonial Scramble’, or, more recently, ‘Centre and Periphery’. At the same time the actual definition of such societies is left to anthropologists originally committed to purely local observation, with no reference to multidimensional impact, either in synchronistic or diachronic terms. In this paper, I put forward a number of hypotheses with a view to bridging the gap between two disconnected types of analysis in order to achieve a more comprehensive historical interpretation of the working of such societies. I am here more particularly concerned with the nature of political power in a segmentary tribal system such as that of Morocco.
