The Father of the Nation had passed away on the 10th of Ramadan of the year 1380 of the Hegira (February 26, 1961), only a few years after the accession of the Kingdom to independence at the price of a relentless struggle which allowed to free the Homeland from the yoke of colonialism.
The late Sovereign, who had dedicated his life to the struggle for the liberation of Morocco, had made all the sacrifices, including the exile to which he was forced together with the Royal Family by the colonial authorities, for the recovery of the full independence of his country.
Moroccans remember the long march of the country’s liberation and the fight that the Liberator of the Nation led, on all fronts and in close symbiosis with his people, a Sovereign whose path was intimately linked to the struggle for the country’s independence and the exercise of sovereignty and freedom for the Moroccan people.
In his relentless struggle for independence, the late King Mohammed V insisted on consultation and coordination with the National Movement, convinced that the recovery of sovereignty could not be the work of a single person or a single institution, but the fruit of a collective action based on faith and the effort of awareness and mobilization of the Moroccan people.
The culmination of this collective nationalist and patriotic action was the presentation, on January 11, 1944, of the Manifesto of Independence, a bold step that reflected the perfect symbiosis between the Throne, the national movement and the people, and constituted the first step on the road to liberation from the yoke of the protectorate.
On April 10, 1947, Sultan Mohammed Ben Youssef went to Tangier to deliver a resounding speech that would leave its mark on history and on people’s minds. And for good reason, the Sovereign solemnly and explicitly formulated, for the first time, the claim of Morocco’s independence, thus giving cold sweats to the colonial authorities who, pushed to their limits, were going to do hand and foot to regain control of the situation.
After the failure of all their scheming, blackmail and threats aimed at pressuring the late HM Mohammed V to give up the national struggle, the colonizer set up a sordid plot against the Sultan and the August Royal Family who were forced into exile in 1953, first in Corsica, then in Madagascar.
The sinister ploy of the occupier backfired. Aiming to cut the bridges between the late King and his loyal people, the deportation of Sultan Mohammed Ben Youssef further welded the people and the national movement behind him, triggered a wave of popular riots and armed actions against the colonial forces, and made independence the cause, no longer of an elite of nationalist politicians and intellectuals, but of a whole people mobilized behind their Sovereign.
This extraordinary epic of patriotism, bravery and loyalty was crowned by the triumphant return of the Father of the Nation and the August Royal Family to the Motherland, on November 16, 1955, and the announcement, one year later, of independence and the beginning of the “Great Jihad”, that of the building of a new and modern Morocco.
After the recovery of the Kingdom’s independence and in the same spirit of the Father of the Nation, His Majesty the late King Hassan II, companion of the hero of independence, continued the work of consolidating the achievements, by engaging in a large-scale program for the economic and social development of the country, before His worthy successor, His Majesty King Mohammed VI, may God assist Him, takes up the torch to continue the work of His predecessors with determination and abnegation.
Thus, His Majesty King Mohammed VI is committed, since His accession to the Throne of His Glorious Ancestors, to the consolidation of this great national project, thus making Morocco enter a new era of modernity and global development.
