When Land and Water Are Seized for the Sake of Normalization: The Moroccan Farmer, a Stranger on His Own Land and Hounded for His Livelihood
BY Dr. Hana Saada
MOROCCO – In shocking scenes that have triggered widespread outrage and a wave of protests across Moroccan social media platforms, activists circulated a video documenting the moment security authorities stormed the property of an ordinary Moroccan farmer and forcibly took him away, as he cried out desperately for help: “Film it… film it!”
That desperate cry was no mere plea for help in the face of repression. It has instead become a popular indictment, laying bare the very real tragedy confronting small-scale farmers in Morocco, who find themselves hounded and deprived of the right to cultivate their own land and make use of their water resources, even as the doors are thrown wide open to Zionist investment companies seeking to acquire the country’s most fertile land and drain its groundwater reserves in order to cultivate and export avocados.
The Bitter Paradox: Water Is Denied to the Citizen, Yet Made Available to Israeli Investment
This deeply disturbing episode lays bare the stark asymmetry underpinning Morocco’s administrative and economic order:
Crippling the small farmer: Small-scale farmers are called upon to practise austerity and endure the consequences of drought and water scarcity, while being subjected to restrictions, penalties and legal persecution whenever they attempt to cultivate enough to feed their families or secure a dignified livelihood.
Depleting resources through dubious partnerships: By contrast, sweeping concessions and virtually unrestricted licences are granted to Zionist occupation companies specialising in water-intensive agriculture—such as avocado and mango cultivation—allowing them to drain the country’s already drought-stricken aquifers before exporting both profits and produce abroad, with scant regard for the food security of Moroccan citizens.
Historic Sovereignty Under the Hammer of Foreign Domination
The issue transcends the fate of a single tree or a single crop; it strikes at the very foundations of national sovereignty and human dignity:
The dictatorship of agricultural decision-making: Agricultural policies have increasingly been designed to accommodate the demands of foreign capital and the pressure exerted by agricultural normalisation companies, while the traditional Moroccan farmer—who inherited his land from his forefathers, generation after generation—is pushed to the margins or driven into prison.
The rhetoric of “development” masking creeping displacement: These events have demonstrated that the much-vaunted slogans of “development initiatives” and “agricultural programmes” are little more than a façade concealing the concentration of wealth and resources in the hands of a narrow elite aligned with external agendas, at the expense of an already impoverished and battered farming class.
Who Inherits the Land When Its Owner Is Suppressed?
The true sovereignty of any state is measured not merely by the raising of flags or the convening of conferences, but by its ability to provide its citizens with protection, food security and dignity on their own national soil.
When the cultivator of the land is reduced to the status of a “stranger” or a “troublemaker” on his own property merely for asserting his right to cultivate the soil and access water, while red carpets are unfurled for settlement investment to plunder the country’s resources, a fundamental question of sovereignty can no longer be evaded:
In whose interests are Morocco’s agricultural and water resources being administered today? And why has national dignity become the first casualty in the marketplace of normalization?
— 𝐄𝐍𝐃 —
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