The anti-fascist Arabs who fought against Franco

BarcelonaMohand Ameziane Sail was an Algerian anarchist who fought in World War I defending France. He was watched because he was an anti-colonialist "agitator." In 1936, he came to Catalonia to join the POUM militia and fight against Franco. Bestani Belkacem, also Algerian, was 28 when he went to the Aragon front. Mohamed Hammis was an illiterate peasant and left Algeria at 43 to join the International Brigades. Jean-Joseph Akl was a Lebanese man who also fought in the Spanish Civil War.

Najati Sidqi was a Palestinian, born in Jerusalem, who joined the Communist Party while working at the Post Office. His memoirs exude a certain bitterness at the indifference and racism of the Spanish Republicans. Much has been written and spoken about brigade members arriving from the United States or Europe, But very little about those who arrived from Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Palestine, Egypt, Iraq, Syria, or Lebanon. Knowing who they were and their journey is not easy, because there is virtually no memory of them either in Spain or in their countries of origin. Historians specializing in the Arab world, Andreu Rosés and Marc Almodóvar, have spent thirteen years collecting documentation and witnesses to write Moors against Franco: Anti-fascism and the Spanish Civil War in the Arab world (Verse).

Both authors explain how activists from left-wing organizations and parties in the Arab world coordinated solidarity campaigns with the Second Republic, smuggled weapons, joined the International Brigades, and denounced the colonialist use of Moroccan Francoist units. "There are very few published works, and it's a crack that opens up a whole unknown field of memory. Perhaps numerically these volunteers weren't relevant, but everything they symbolize is very important," says Rosés. Many things have been said about the Civil War, but almost always from a Western perspective. "Not much has been explained from the perspective of the colonial countries, and it was interesting to do so because these societies were plural and diverse, and there was a lot of debate, precisely because there was an additional element: colonialism," she adds.

The two historians wanted to dispel the stereotype that labels many Arab nationalisms as fascist. "It's a very partial statement. It's true that certain nationalist movements supported fascism, but it's also true that there were nationalist independence movements that declared themselves anti-fascist," says Almodóvar.

Indifference and racism

Both authors, specialists in the Arab world, wanted to make a documentary at the beginning of their research. "For seven years we had the idea of ​​making a documentary and we searched for relatives and the personal memories of these militants. In the end, we turned it into a book and delved into it in depth, but it was a long journey because it covers so many countries, each with its own particularities. We had to consult many archives from different places and pull many threads," says Almodóvar. Both authors denounce a certain indifference toward these volunteers on the part of the Second Republic. Safer Abdallah was a 27-year-old Algerian who worked for the press service of the International Brigades. He sent various requests to create a group made up of North African brigade members. He argued that most nationalities were represented in the brigades, and that this had positive results both for the combatants and from an international perspective. Furthermore, it would also facilitate their political training. He also called for more propaganda actions in North Africa. The only response he received was that the proposal would be examined and the conclusions would be shared with him. Najati Sidqi explains in her memoirs that one day, while walking along Barcelona's Ramblas, some militiamen told him that "all Moors are with Franco," while he tried to explain that he had come to Spain to defend freedom and fight precisely against Franco.

Both Almodóvar and Rosés denounce the racism that also permeated the Republican press: "There were many jokes against Moroccans, while the Falangist press emphasized the fraternal union between the two peoples, surely with strategic interest." Many articles in the Republican press, for example, portrayed the brutality of the Moroccan regulars on the battlefield or spoke of their predation and sexual prowess.

Morocco has its own particularities. It is surely one of the countries from which the fewest volunteers left, especially when compared to Algeria, from which a fairly significant contingent left, but the situation within the country was quite complex. "In Morocco, the colonial fissures of the Spanish Republic are most clearly visible," the authors state. In the Spanish protectorate of Morocco, the military coup opened an ambivalent scenario for the Moroccan nationalist movement. On the one hand, there was the brutal Francoist repression. On the other, a new opportunity for nationalist demands. Conspiracies and attempts to incite the population against the military multiplied. "They failed again and again, which showed that the Republican camp, due to its colonialist nature, failed to understand the Moroccan reality," the authors explain.

The Contradictions of Palestinian Jews

Palestine, then under British mandate, was another realityThe Civil War coincided with the country's Arab Revolt. The majority of Arabs and Jews who came to fight belonged to the Communist Party, and the Jews suffered the contradictions between the reality they experienced in their neighborhoods and the orders of the Communist Party. One example is the story of Mordechai Milman, who was shot in the head while his battalion tried to take over the Gandesa cemetery in August 1938. Milman, as Almodóvar and Rosés recount in the book, was born in 1910 in Uman, a small town in Ukraine. Along with his mother and siblings, they had to flee after their father fell victim to the anti-Jewish pogroms, which in Ukraine left between 30,000 and 60,000 victims. The family settled in Tel Aviv, where in 1921 99.2% of the population was Jewish. It was, therefore, a city where the Zionist project was advancing strongly.

"In the early 1930s, many Jews were members of the Communist Party, not so much because of an explicit belief in communist ideology as because they were opposed to Zionism. They considered it to represent the aspirations of the Jewish bourgeoisie and to be another pawn of British imperialism," the authors emphasize. The Palestinian Communist Party was deeply anti-Zionist. Many Jewish communists, therefore, were caught between two realities, and the Civil War was also a way to distance themselves from the problems they were experiencing in their country. Like Palestine, at that time many Arab countries were experiencing pivotal moments that would determine their future. "We have tried to help raise a better understanding of both the Civil War and the reality of the colonial world and the role played by anti-fascist movements," the authors note.