[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 112 (Tuesday, August 3, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1731-E1732]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  KING HASSAN II OF MOROCCO--AN APPRECIATION BY DR. JOHN DUKE ANTHONY

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. TOM LANTOS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, August 3, 1999

  Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, on July 23, His Majesty King Hassan II of 
Morocco passed away and his son, Sidi Mohammad ben Al Hassan assumed 
the throne of Morocco.
  I would like to call the attention of my colleagues to a particularly 
thoughtful and insightful essay on the role of King Hassan and his 
positive impact upon Morocco. The essay--``The Passing of Morocco's 
King Hassan II''--was written by Dr. John Duke Anthony, the president 
of the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations, secretary-treasurer of 
the U.S.-Gulf Cooperation Council Corporate Cooperation Committee, and 
a distinguished American scholar of Middle Eastern affairs.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask that Dr. Anthony's essay be placed in the Record, 
and I urge my colleagues to reflect upon his discerning appreciation of 
the role and significance of the reign of King Hassan II.

                The Passing of Morocco's King Hassan II

                       (By Dr. John Duke Anthony)

       In the history of America's foreign affairs, a long-running 
     chapter with Morocco, one of our country's oldest and most 
     important allies, closed and a new one opened this past week.
       The King of Morocco, the first country to recognize the 
     fledgling U.S. republic during the Administration of 
     President George Washington, was laid to rest.
       As anticipated, accession to the kingship of King Hassan 
     II's eldest son and Heir Apparent, the 36-year old Moulay, 
     now King,

[[Page E1732]]

     Mohammad VI, proceeded smoothly and effectively. Also as 
     expected, no significant changes in Morocco's domestic and 
     foreign policies are envisioned at this time.
       What, if anything, are the implications for American and 
     other international interests in the passing of Africa's and 
     one of the Arab and Islamic world's longest-serving heads of 
     state?
       At first glance, the most important certainty is the 
     certainty that key Moroccan policies are likely to continue 
     as before.
       In this, for the many who have applauded some of the routes 
     less traveled that Morocco chose to traverse for the past 
     decade--in the areas of constitutional reform, economic 
     liberalization, political pluralism, advancement of human 
     rights, the pursuit of a just and durable peace between Arabs 
     and Israelis--there is comfort.
       For those who pray and plot for the quicker rather than 
     later passing of hereditary systems of governance--for the 
     demise of the Arab and Islamic world's emirs, shaikhs, 
     sultans, and monarchs--their day, certainly with regard to 
     Morocco, appears to be no nearer to hand than before.
       Indeed, a case can be made that, in large measure because 
     of the timeliness, relevance, and overall popularity of the 
     late King's reforms, the imminence of the Moroccan monarchy's 
     political demise is even more distant than it was when Hassan 
     II succeeded his father as King of Morocco in 1960.
       To say this is but to underscore the extent to which the 
     Middle East has become so topsy-turvy within the adult 
     lifetime of a single person: the late King of Morocco.
       Had Hassan II lived and chosen to speak his mind on the 
     subject, it's likely that he would have agreed with Diogenes, 
     who is alleged to have requested that he be ``buried with my 
     fact to the ground, for in no time at all the world will 
     likely be upside down.''
       There are ironies here. For one, search any library on the 
     Middle East from the mid-1950s onward, and the work of one 
     political science author to the next will be shown as having 
     predicted with a certainty bordering on arrogance that, in 
     short order, all the Arab world's dynasts would be 
     overthrown, blown away as so many will-o'-the-wisp dandelions 
     into the dust.
       Conventional wisdom of the day postulated that the wave of 
     the future belonged to the Nasirists and their camp followers 
     from Morocco to Muscat, from Baghdad to Berbera, from Aden to 
     Algiers and Aleppo in between.
       Pundits prognosticated that the coming generation, 
     nowadays' nineteen nineties--yesterday's tomorrow--would be 
     led not by Hassan II and his dynastic counterparts, or anyone 
     else whose lot was hereditary, but, rather, by the proverbial 
     middle class military officer, the khaki-clad knight on 
     horseback.
       But, in Morocco, as elsewhere in the Arab world, this was 
     not to be. That it proved not to be the case was in large 
     measure because Hassan II was not bereft of equestrian 
     political skills of his own.
       That those who sought to precipitate the late King's 
     political demise failed in the end was not, however, for lack 
     of trying. Twice, in 1970 and again in 1971, they came close 
     to succeeding. Nor, for that matter, can it be said that they 
     truly failed.
       Indeed, the King's opponents can claim credit for having 
     quickened his conscience andcommon sense to realize Morocco's 
     national interests dictated that he institute sweeping 
     constitutional, political, economic, and human rights 
     reforms.
       Few developing countries have traveled as far and as fast 
     in reforming the underpinnings and trappings of its economy 
     and socio-political system as Morocco in the last decade of 
     the late King's reign.
       In the past few years, a steady stream of American leaders 
     have become eye-witnesses to the ongoing implementation of a 
     range of economic and political reforms launched during the 
     era of Hassan II.
       Together with Tunisia, Morocco has been a pacesetter in 
     embracing the economic precepts of globalization and in 
     forging a multi-faceted trade and investment relationship 
     with the member-states of the European Union.
       In heightening their awareness of the opportunities for 
     American businesses in the ``new Morocco,'' U.S. 
     Congressional Representatives and staff have not been far 
     behind. In March 1999, 110 Members of Congress signed a 
     ``Congressional Friends of Morocco'' letter to President Bill 
     Clinton. Shortly afterwards, First Lady Hillary Clinton 
     visited Morocco, Egypt, and Tunisia.
       In keeping with this momentum, Under-Secretary of State for 
     Economic Affairs Stuart Eizenstadt visited the region and 
     articulated a vision of enhanced foreign investment, 
     liberalized trade arrangements, and regional economic 
     cooperation between the U.S. and three Maghreb nations--
     Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia.
       It is too soon to gauge the full measure of the legacy that 
     Hassan II bequeathed to his son and the Moroccan people. 
     However, beyond the fact that the baton of national 
     leadership has been passed to the new king, Mohammad VI, and 
     with it the task of governing one of the developing world's 
     most fascinating and important countries, there is much else 
     of interest and value for Americans and others to ponder.
       Consider for a moment the following. Morocco is a country 
     that is at once African, Arab, Maghrebian, Mediterranean, 
     Middle Eastern, and Islamic. Its international strategic 
     importance is underscored by its coastal frontage and twenty 
     ports on two of the world's largest and most fabled seas.
       Moreover, Morocco's geography and natural resource base--
     with its mountains, valleys, rivers, trees, and verdant 
     fields--are as variegated as any in the developing world. Its 
     people are the heirs of an extraordinarily rich culture and 
     heritage that, long before we became an independent nation, 
     had links to our own.
       Within Morocco's archives, and continuing to this day in 
     the country's international relations, is abundant and 
     ongoing evidence of a record of friendship with the United 
     States and the American people that, among the world's 
     politics, is second to none.
       The implications of the change in Morocco's leadership for 
     American national interests are that the U.S. needn't change 
     any of its policies toward this oldest among contemporary 
     Arab kingdoms.
       They are to underscore the value of Morocco's having stood 
     by the U.S.--and the U.S. having stood by Morocco--throughout 
     the Cold War and after, and our joint commitment to remain 
     each other's ally in the future.
       They are to take heart in the realization that, if 
     anything, the new King, who is no stranger to the United 
     States and American values, is likely to work even harder at 
     strengthening the U.S. Morrocco relationship.
       The implications of the smooth and effective passing of the 
     mantle of leadership from father to son, as had been 
     envisioned all along, were encapsulated in the act of 
     Presidents Clinton and Bush walking with other heads of state 
     behind the King's coffin on the day of his funeral.
       They lie in the predictability of continued American 
     national benefit from the leadership of a ruling family that, 
     from the time of Eisenhower's visit to Morocco in the midst 
     of World War Two, straight through until the present, has 
     never buckled when the going got rough.
       They lie in the agreement of American and Moroccan foreign 
     affairs practitioners on the ongoing relevance of a leader 
     with the courage to act upon her or his convictions. In 
     Hassan II, the world was blessed with a visionary and 
     dedicated leader who never shied from tackling the 
     controversial issue of Middle East peace.
       Longer than any other living Muslim leader, the late king, 
     always far from the limelight, generated an immense amount of 
     trust and confidence among Arab and Jew alike.
       In the end, Hassan II will be remembered for many things. 
     Among them, not least will be the fact that, for more than a 
     quarter of a century, he worked tirelessly at nudging, but 
     never shoving, the protagonists much nearer to an enduring 
     peaceful settlement than would have been likely had he, and 
     now his son, upon whom the burden falls to continue the 
     effort, not passed our way.

     

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