Past and present: memory as "present of the past". The case of the Rif hirak

Abstract

Starting from the orality and experience of the Hirak actors, we conducted a series of semi-structured interviews and field observation, as well as the analysis of the web content of the Hirak actors, to express the relationship to the protest memory of the Rif. This memory does not present a logical sequence of events, but rather operates as a rhetorical approach to the past where the real and the imaginary move as elements that constantly shapes the "market of memory". As such, this paper seeks to capture the movements of inversion from a heroic Rif to a victimized Rif, and vice versa. We will show how the Hirak serves to renew memory, and how actors renew their action by making memory dynamic.