Abraham Serfaty

Abraham Serfaty (born in 1926) is an internationally prominent Moroccan dissident, militant, and political activist, who has been imprisoned for years by King Hassan II of Morocco, for his political actions in favor of democracy and development’s regime, during the Years of Lead. He paid a high price for such actions: fifteen months living underground, seventeen years of imprisonment and eight years of exile.

Life and politics

Abraham Serfaty was born in Casablanca, in 1926, of a middle-class Jewish family originally from Tangier. He graduated in 1949 of Ecole des Mines de Paris one of the most prominent French engineering Grandes Ecoles. His path as a political activist started very early: In February 1944, he joined the Moroccan Youth Communists, and, upon his arrival in France in 1945, the French Communist Party. When he returned to Morocco in 1949, he joined the Moroccan Communist Party. His anti-colonialist fight had him arrested and jailed by the French authorities, and in 1950 he was assigned a forced residence in France for six years.

On the morrow of Morocco’s independence, he encumbered several, more technical than political, posts and was part of the Ministry of Economy from 1957 to 1960. During that time, he has been one of the many promoters of the new mining policy of the newly independent Morocco. From 1960 to 1968, he was the director of the Research-Development of the Cherifian Office of Phosphates, but revoked of his duties because of his solidarity with miners at one strike. From 1968 to 1972, he taught at the Engineers School of Mohammedia, and at the same time, collaborated at the “Souffles/Anfas” artistic journal, headed by Abdellatif Laabi.

Abraham Serfaty is a Moroccan Jew, but also an anti-Zionist Jew who recognized the State of Israel but who demanded the abolition of the so-called “Return” law, and acted for the creation of a Palestinian State. In 1967, he no longer accepts the Israeli nationalism and is outraged by the way Palestinians were treated. He was one of the rare Jews who did not feel part of the Zionist ideology movement.

In 1970, he leaves the Communist Party, which he considers too doctrinarian and gets deeply involved in the establishment of a Marxist-Leninist left-wing organization called “"Ila al-Amam"” ("En Avant" in French, "Forward" in English). In January 1972, he is arrested for the first time and savagely tortured, but released after heavy popular pressure. But as he is again targeted for his continuing fight, he goes underground in March 1972, with one of his friends "A. Zeroual", also wanted by the authorities. It was then that he met for the first time, Christine Daure, a French teacher who helped to hide them both.

After several months hiding, Abraham Serfaty and A. Zeroual are arrested again in 1974. After their arrest, his friend A. Zeroual died, a victim of torture. In October 1977, at the big trial of Casablanca, Abraham Serfaty was one of the five culprits sentenced to life in prison. He was officially charged with “plotting against the State’s security”, but the heavy sentence seemed to have been more a result for his attitude against the annexing of the Western Sahara, even if this motif did not appear in the official indictment, than his political activism. He then served seventeen years at the Kenitra prison, where, thanks to Danielle Mitterrand's help, he was able to marry his biggest supporter, Christine Daure.

Exile and return

The international pressure is such in his favor that he is finally liberated in September 1991, but immediately banned out of Morocco and deprived of his Moroccan nationality on grounds that his father was Brazilian. He will find haven in France, with his wife, Christine Daure-Serfaty. From 1992 to 1995, he teaches at the University of Paris-VIII, in the department of political sciences, on the theme “identities and democracy in the Arab world”.

Eighth years after his exile and two months after the death of King Hassan II, he is finally allowed by the new king to return to Morocco in September 2000, and his Moroccan passport restituted to him. He then settles at Mohammedia with his wife in a house made available to them and even gets a monthly stipend. In the same month, he is appointed as counselor to the National Moroccan Office of Research and Oil Exploitation (Onarep). This nomination did not stop him though for asking, in December 2000, the then Moroccan Prime Minister Abderrahmane Youssoufi to resign after the attacks on the independent newspapers and magazines and restrictions of their rights and freedom of speech.

Abraham Serfaty is the co-author, with his wife Christine, of the book "The Other's Memory" ("La Mémoire de l’Autre"), published in 1993.

References

* "The unsubdued, Jews, Moroccans and Rebels" ("L'Insoumis, Juifs, marocains et rebelles"), with Mikhaël Elbaz, Éditions Desclée de Brouwer, 2001, ISBN 2-220-04724-5
* "Morocco, from black to grey" ("Le Maroc du noir au gris"), Éditions Syllepse, 1998, ISBN 2-907993-89-5
* "The Other's Memory ("La Mémoire de l'Autre"), Éditions Stock, 1993, ISBN 9954-419-00-4
* "In the King's Jails - Kenitra's writings on Morocco" ("Dans les Prisons du Roi - Écrits de Kénitra sur le Maroc"), Editions Messidor, Paris, 1992, ISBN 2-209-06640-9
* "From jail, writings on Palestine" ("Écrits de prison sur la Palestine"), Éditions Arcantère, 1992, ISBN 2-86829-059-0
* "The anti-zionist struggle and the Arab Revolution (Essay on Moroccan Judaism and Zionism)" ("Lutte anti-sioniste et Révolution Arabe - Essai sur le judaïsme marocain et le sionisme"), Éditions Quatre-Vents, 1977, ISBN

ee also

* Morocco
* Hassan II
* Tazmamart
* Abdellatif Laabi