Out Goes the Sultan

In the furnacelike heat of the North African summer, the Moslem holy day of Aid el Kebir rolled around. On that day the heads of Moslem families sacrifice a ram in memory of Abraham's sacrifice of a male sheep in place of his son Ishmael, ancestor of all Arabs. One ram, the most important of all, is ceremoniously knifed by the Sultan, who is regarded by the Arabs and Berbers of French Morocco as their spiritual and temporal sovereign. On Aid el Kebir last week, the knife was wielded not by Sidi Mohammed ben Youssef (who had reigned since he succeeded his father in 1927), but by a new Sultan, Sidi Mohammed ben Moulay Arafa. Ben Youssef had made the mistake of antagonizing the French, and was unceremoniously banished from the land.

The Popular Bandit. The roots of this event go back years, decades, even centuries. The coup would not have been possible without the Berbers, the fierce, proud indigenes of Africa's northwest corner who in the 8th century were engulfed (but not permanently subdued) by the Islamic invaders from Arabia. The Berbers adopted the Moslem religion, but their practices were eccentric--heterodox in some ways (e.g., they eat wild boar's flesh), rigidly fundamentalist in others. Unlike the urban Arabs in Morocco, the rural Berbers have remained steadfastly pro-French.

The most powerful influence among the Berbers is that of Si el Hadj Thami el Mezouari el Glaoui, the aged, cunning and ruthless Pasha of Marrakech. Once a bandit in the southern Moroccan desert, El Glaoui began helping the French in 1912, the first year of the protectorate; he sheltered some French citizens from possible slaughter by rebels. The late great Marshal Lyautey was so pleased that he put the onetime bandit in charge of his Moroccan troops. Eventually El Glaoui became the local ruler of a large territory, and acquired a considerable fortune from mine dividends, taxes and miscellaneous "gifts."

Temporize & Hang On. Not so loyal to the French was Sultan Ben Youssef, though as the third son of the previous Sultan he had been hand-picked and tutored for the job by the French. As the Imam (Commander of the Faithful), he had immense authority and a good living: two wives, many concubines, vast estates, 60 automobiles and $200,000 a year spending money. All he had to do was behave. Back in 1943, the French began to suspect that Ben Youssef was getting out of hand. During the Casablanca conference, the Sultan had a meal alone with Franklin D. Roosevelt, who (the French suspect) filled him full of anticolonialism. He later ignored his aged advisers and heeded his son Moulay Hassan, who was mixed up in the Istiqlal (Nationalist) independence movement.

All of this infuriated General Alphonse Juin, who was then the Resident General, the real ruler of French Morocco. Moroccan-born himself, Juin wholly sympathized with the attitude of the 350,000 French colons, who pointed out that Morocco would still be a feudal slum if it were not for French enterprise (which was true), and that the natives ought to be grateful (which was debatable). Juin called on the Sultan to disavow the nationalists, but he would not. Juin's determination that Ben Youssef must go came to be shared by Juin's good friend and successor, General Augustin Guillaume. But the bureaucrats in Paris hung back: their instructions were, in effect, to temporize, placate, hang on. j

Bathing-Suit Horror. Such temporizing was not for El Glaoui, the ambitious Pasha of Marrakech. He began to stir up trouble. The Sultan's daughter had been photographed in a bathing suit--a horror to the Moslems. The old Pasha told the Berbers that Ben Youssef was too much of a modernist.

El Glaoui drove around Morocco in his Cadillac, getting signatures of the 353 kaids and pashas (rural and urban chiefs) on a petition to oust Sultan Ben Youssef. He got more than 300 to sign. Then he ordered his fanatic Berbers to march on Fez, Marrakech, Rabat and Casablanca. Violence was in the air. General Guillaume was snatched back from a vacation in the Alps and hurried off to Morocco by jet Comet with instructions to slow down 77-year-old El Glaoui, if possible. If that were not possible, then Sultan Ben Youssef would have to be deposed.

After a five-hour conference with the Pasha, Guillaume ordered troops, tanks and artillery mounted on half-tracks to surround Ben Youssef's palace at Rabat. There was no formal abdication. But Ben Youssef and his two sons were hustled off to an airport, flown to Corsica in a DC-3. Another plane followed with five tons of luggage, Ben Youssef's two wives and daughters, and one favorite concubine. On the island where the Emperor Napoleon was born, Ben Youssef spent the first night of his exile at the governor's house in Ajaccio.

"Now I Can Die." The new Sultan, wizened, white-bearded Sidi Mohammed ben Moulay Arafa, 64, is El Glaoui's hand-picked man. Until fate picked him up by the scruff of the neck, Arafa was a docile, wealthy Moslem aristocrat who spent most of his time sitting around Fez and drinking mint tea. He is distantly related to the deposed ruler, and he also belongs to the same tribe as El Glaoui.

Having so weak a Sultan suits the French fine: they intend to decentralize Moslem authority and thus continue to divide and rule. The people seemed to approve; the country was quiet. The French had forehandedly arrested a thousand Istiqlal followers to forestall trouble, but there was none. Old El Glaoui sighed dramatically: "Now I can die. Morocco is saved."

In the new Sultan's first meeting with his councilors this week, they stepped forward to pay their compliments. He startled them all by saying: "Please don't stand there barefoot. It's ridiculous. Put on your babouches, lift up your heads and don't call me majesty. That's a title only God deserves. We should get rid of all these demonstrations of idolatry."

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