Germany Moves to Classify Morocco as ‘Safe Country of Origin'
The German federal government is set to adopt a draft law granting it the authority to determine the list of safe countries, on June 4, with the list of safe countries reportedly including Morocco.
Led by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Social Democratic Party (SPD) coalition, this new law would allow the government to bypass the upper house of the federal parliament, the Bundesrat, where several attempts to expand the list of safe countries have mostly failed.
The law will allow the German federal government to tighten its migration policy, beginning with stricter controls on asylum applications. By granting the executive branch the authority to unilaterally designate 'safe countries of origin,' the law paves the way for faster rejections of asylum claims from nationals of those countries, reduced appeal options, and more rapid deportations.
This approach marks a shift toward policies focused on deterrence, emphasizing faster processing and stronger border control over thorough, individual assessments of asylum claims — thus raising concerns about whether the right to seek protection is being fully upheld.
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Earlier in March, the 'Interior, Law, Migration, and Integration' committee of the lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, stated in its official report that the federal government would begin implementing 'pushbacks at shared borders,' including for asylum seekers.
This refers to the practice of forcibly turning away individuals at the border—often without allowing them to file for asylum or undergo individual case assessments. In Germany's case, 'shared borders' typically refer to crossings with neighboring EU countries like Austria, Poland, or France.
Such pushbacks are widely criticized by human rights organizations as violations of international refugee law, particularly the 1951 Refugee Convention, which protects the right to seek asylum and prohibits the return of individuals to places where they may face danger.
As of now, Germany's official list of safe countries includes all EU member states, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ghana, Georgia, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Senegal and Serbia.
In addition to Morocco, Germany is considering expanding this list to include Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Nigeria, India and Mongolia.
Under the proposed law, the government would no longer require approval from the Bundesrat to implement these changes, drastically speeding up the process and centralizing power within the executive branch.
Critics argue that this move could lead to rushed decisions and further erode the legal protections designed to safeguard those fleeing persecution or conflict.
While specific figures for Moroccan asylum seekers are not prominently featured in the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) public reports, data from 2018 indicated that there were 76,200 Moroccan nationals residing in Germany without German citizenship, with 505 individuals granted asylum status at that time.
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Morocco World
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Morocco World
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In the global tapestry of nations, the Kingdom of Morocco occupies a remarkable position—not as the result of historical disjunction, but as a global culture formed by deep and layered encounters. Positioned on the Atlantic, linked to the interior of Africa, and historically enmeshed with the Mediterranean and Islamic worlds, Morocco has long crafted its identity from a mosaic of plural traditions. At the heart of this national distinctiveness lies a concept both vernacular and cultural: Tamaghrabit (or Tamghribīt ), a term that conveys the affective texture and ethical grammar of 'Moroccanness.' In recent years, Tamaghrabit has gained renewed prominence in Moroccan public discourse. From state institutions to civil society, and from intellectuals to policymakers, the term is increasingly embraced as a homegrown civic ethos—a way of being Moroccan that affirms pluralism, historical continuity, and strategic autonomy in a region often marked by fragmentation and ideological disarray (Bennis 2012; Boussouf 2023; Hashas 2024). Rooted in Morocco's deep historical entanglements—Arab, Amazigh, Andalusian, African, Islamic, Jewish, and Mediterranean— Tamaghrabit is invoked both as a cultural inheritance and as a forward-looking identity project. But is it? Beneath this confident narrative lies a set of unresolved questions. Is Tamaghrabit a genuine civic ethos grounded in lived diversity, or a normative framework that seeks to defuse dissent without addressing deeper structural inequalities and historical omissions? Can a discourse founded on pluralism and exceptionalism avoid the pitfalls of ideological reification? To what extent does invoking Tamaghrabit as a 'civilization' risk lapsing into essentialism? And might Tamaghrabit instead evolve as a generative, critical, and open-ended space of identity-making, rather than a finalized narrative of cultural uniqueness? More than a casual signifier of national identity, Tamaghrabit is framed as a 'civilizational' ethos—a cultivated mode of cultural and political being. It represents an orientation to the world shaped by centuries of entanglement among Amazigh, Arab, African, Andalusian, Islamic, Jewish, and Mediterranean influences. This complex identity found legal and symbolic expression in Morocco's 2011 Constitution, which articulates the nation as forged through the convergence of Arab-Islamic, Amazigh, and Saharan-Hassania roots, nourished by African, Andalusian, Hebraic, and Mediterranean tributaries. At the center of this national tapestry is Islam, whose Moroccan iteration emphasizes openness, moderation, and dialogue—a spiritual and ethical compass that informs both private piety and public life. Yet Tamaghrabit is more than constitutional text; it is a lived practice and cultural grammar, expressed through architecture, cuisine, music, ritual, and the multilingualism of Moroccan society. Arabic and Tamazight share official status, while French, Hebrew, Spanish, Hassania, and Moroccan Arabic ( dārija ) course through everyday life, governance, and intellectual production. This polyphony is not a problem to be solved but a defining feature of Morocco's civilizational grammar—a historical strategy of managing cultural difference not through homogenization, but through what Moroccan thinkers term 'unity in diversity.' This ethos is deeply rooted in Morocco's long-standing state tradition. Since the establishment of the Idrissid dynasty in the late 8th century, Morocco has maintained political autonomy from the great caliphal centers of the Islamic world—the Umayyads in Damascus, the Abbasids in Baghdad, and later the Ottomans. This autonomy gave rise to a distinct model of statecraft, centered on the figure of the Amīr al-Muʾminīn (Commander of the Faithful), which tied political authority to sacred lineage and communal legitimacy. Across successive dynasties—from the Almoravids and Marinids to the Saadians and ʿAlawites—this sovereignty became a cornerstone of Moroccan identity. The process of civilizational fusion matured significantly during the Marinid period (13th–15th centuries), when Moroccan territorial, linguistic, and legal boundaries began to crystallize. 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Scholars such as Mohamed Chafik and Hassan Aourid argue that Arabs and Amazighs are not discrete or antagonistic communities, but co-founders of the Moroccan nation and its Islamic civilizational path. This marks a significant epistemic shift from colonial binaries that sought to fragment Moroccan society, toward a postcolonial paradigm that affirms pluralism as foundational. Still, while Tamaghrabit is often celebrated as a framework of cultural pluralism and historical depth, it risks being reified as a coherent and finalized construct. This conceptual closure—reinforced by state narratives and nationalist historiography—can obscure the tensions, hierarchies, and contestations that animate Moroccan plurality. Rather than treating Moroccanness as a stable essence, it is more productive to view it as a site of ongoing negotiation—a dynamic space where cultural, linguistic, political, and epistemic forces interact and reshape one another. 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The late Moroccan sociologist Paul Pascon's concept of the 'composite society' ( société composite ) offers a powerful analytic for these contradictions. Pascon rejected binary models—tribe versus state, tradition versus modernity—that flatten Morocco's complexity. He saw Moroccan society as an overlapping set of social orders—tribal, colonial, capitalist, Islamic—each shaped by historical forces and coexisting in tension. These entanglements produce not harmony but uneven development and contested spaces. Pascon's insights complement Rosen's: identity in Morocco is not fixed but enacted through a continual process of negotiation. It draws on multiple, often conflicting sources—Islamic law, tribal custom, colonial bureaucracy, revolutionary ideologies. The result is not a finished pluralism but a dynamic and fragmented field of becoming, where Moroccanness is continually reshaped and reimagined. These frameworks resonate with Hashas's (2024) tripartite typology of contemporary Moroccan thought— the near , the far , and the other —tracing how Moroccan thinkers engage local traditions, regional connections, and universal values. Rosen's interlocutors live this complexity daily. Their identities draw from Islamic jurisprudence, tribal affiliations, and postcolonial modernity, always negotiated and never settled. In this context, Pascon's société composite provides the structural lens through which these lived negotiations unfold. This ethos of critical dynamism underpins the intellectual tradition of the so-called Rabat School of Thought—a constellation of thinkers who emerged during the French Protectorate and rose to prominence in post-independence Morocco. They articulated a pluralist, reformist, and autonomous epistemology. 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It is not utopian or parochial, but emergent: forged at the intersection of geography and memory, spirit and aspiration. Yet to realize its potential, we must resist the urge to canonize it. Moroccanness is not a finished identity—it is a palimpsest, a site of becoming, where plural pasts meet uncertain futures. Edward Said's warning against essentialist thinking is instructive here. In 'The Clash of Ignorance' (2001), Said critiques Huntington's thesis of 'civilizational clashes,' rejecting the idea of cultures as fixed, self-contained entities. Civilizations, he argues, are dynamic, porous, and internally contested. Applied to Tamaghrabit , Said's insight reminds us that cultural identity must remain open to negotiation. When framed as essence, Tamaghrabit risks becoming an ideological tool—masking dissent and presenting pluralism as a fait accompli. Morocco's history offers rich resources for reimagining identity today: the migrations of Andalusian refugees and expellees; deep Jewish-Muslim ties; trans-Saharan caravans; Sufi cosmopolitanism; centuries of encounter with Ottoman, European, and American actors. These crossings shaped a Moroccan identity forged in connection, not isolation. If Tamaghrabit is to retain meaning, it must embrace these complexities. Tamaghrabit should not be reduced to a national brand. It should be seen as an ethical compass—a way of being that values pluralism, embraces contradiction, and cultivates reflection. Its power lies not in resolving complexity, but in naming it. To acknowledge the cracks in our society is not to weaken Tamaghrabit —it is to humanize and strengthen it. To speak of Tamaghrabit in the spirit of Edward Said is to reject cultural essentialism. Identity is not timeless essence; it is struggle, memory, and practice. Moroccan pluralism is not a completed project—it is an ongoing labor. Sustaining it requires dialogue, critique, and imagination. The stories of Estevanico of Azemmour—the African explorer who crossed continents and cultures—and Ibn Battuta of Tangier—the indefatigable traveler—remind us that identity is not a destination but a journey. To honor them is not to claim national heroes, but to embrace the labor of border-crossing, tension-holding, and narrative-making. In this light, Tamaghrabit is best seen as a living formation—an evolving bundle of meanings and practices shaped by history, memory, and everyday negotiation. It is not a static identity, but a dynamic process: open-ended, contested, and generative. Its strength lies in its capacity for openness—to hold contradiction, resist closure, and invite continual reinterpretation. As such, Tamaghrabit offers Moroccans a framework for navigating pluralism, questioning orthodoxies, and imagining more inclusive futures. Tags: Arabic and FrenchTamazight
Ya Biladi
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Sahara : Moroccan army drone strikes Algerian truck near Bir Lahlou
A Royal Armed Forces (FAR) drone strike on Wednesday, June 4, destroyed an Algerian-registered truck east of the Sand Wall near Bir Lahlou, killing all three occupants on board. The truck, which was returning from Mauritania, had entered the region from southern Algeria. It remains unclear why the vehicle entered this active conflict zone or what it was carrying. In response, Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune convened a meeting of the High Security Council, as briefly noted in a statement from the Algerian presidency. However, Algerian media did not report the drone strike or mention Morocco's involvement. This incident is not unprecedented. Moroccan drones have previously targeted Algerian trucks in the area, prompting verbal warnings from the Algerian government, though these threats have not led to concrete action. Since the Polisario Front resumed hostilities on November 13, 2020, the FAR has effectively enforced a no-go zone east of the Sand Wall, significantly limiting movement in the area and forcing the Polisario to retreat from what it had declared «liberated territories». Bir Lahlou, where the strike occurred, was once regarded as the «capital» of the self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.
