How Ilaria Salis became the idol of Moroccan nationalists

“Ceuta is not Spain. Ceuta is not Europe.” Ilaria Salis’s (AVS) spectacular speech to the European Parliament last Tuesday was bound to be met with acclaim in Morocco, where Le360, the daily newspaper closest to King Mohammed VI, sang the praises of the Italian MEP. “Salis opens the debate that Spain wanted to close”, ran the headline in the Moroccan newspaper, hailing her as the new champion against the “remnants of European colonialism”. Irredentism, in Rabat, has found new vigour following the invasion of the former Spanish exclave at the end of July, when nearly 80,000 migrants poured into the city with the help of the Moroccan secret services, according to reports drawn up by the Guardia Civil and the Spanish secret services (though, incredibly, denied by Pedro Sánchez’s government). The strategy of the Alawite kingdom – which Madrid, however, refuses to recognise – has been laid bare by Moroccan government officials themselves and consists of taking advantage of the chaos to assert Rabat’s alleged sovereignty over Ceuta and Melilla. Since then, Morocco has been employing nationalist and populist rhetoric regarding the exclaves, likely with an eye to the upcoming general election to renew the Parliament, which is due to take place next Wednesday.

The kingdom’s expansionist ambitions are nothing new. In the 1980s, Morocco encouraged the formation of local parties calling for the annexation of Ceuta and Melilla by Rabat. It was no coincidence that, in the elections, those very same parties failed to win any votes and disbanded: the residents of the exclaves simply felt Spanish and did not want to leave Spain, a wealthy, democratic and free country. The lesson from that time still holds true today. If, in July, 80,000 people – the majority of whom were Moroccans – desperately attempted to enter Ceuta, and thus Spain and the European Union, it is precisely because they were seeking the very freedom that their countries of origin – including Morocco – cannot offer.

Ceuta is not Morocco, therefore, and not only because those who live there feel entirely Spanish – including the Muslim population, which accounts for almost 50 per cent. There are also historical reasons, which are largely overlooked by those who argue that Spain’s exclaves are symbols of the West’s oppressive neo-colonialism. Ceuta, for instance, has been fully Spanish since as far back as 1580 – that is, for around 500 years and more than three centuries before the colonialism referred to by Salis – and had been Portuguese since 1415. If one wishes to go back even further, to the 6th century, one need only consider that it was in Ceuta itself that the very Germanic Visigoths established an outpost to halt the Byzantines’ advance towards Spain. Muslim rule did not arrive until later. Originally, therefore, even before the emergence of Morocco, Ceuta was in fact Christian.

Although the history leaves little room for debate, there is a contradiction in Salis’s statements: his attack on Western neo-colonialism becomes a tool of Moroccan nationalism, as demonstrated by the praise heaped on the media close to the Rabat monarchy. Morocco’s desire to challenge borders, in this case too, is nothing new and is not limited to Ceuta. In 1975, following the Spanish withdrawal, Rabat occupied Western Sahara with the Green March. It was then that the Sahrawi Polisario Front took shape to demand its independence, finding support not only in Algeria but also among the Spanish left – Salis’s allies, so to speak – who have always backed the minority and who, just a few days ago, passed a law in their favour. A week ago, the Spanish Congress established a simpler procedure to enable the Sahrawis to obtain Spanish citizenship. Naturally, Morocco views the law as an affront to its own nationalist and expansionist ambitions in Western Sahara. The very same ambitions that Salis now finds himself supporting with his speech to the European Parliament. On closer inspection, the only form of neo-colonialism from which Ceuta needs to be protected is that of Morocco.