WASHINGTON (Dec. 14, 2022)—Today Morocco faces off against France in the 2022 World Cup semi-finals. Morocco is the first African and Arab nation to ever reach this stage of the World Cup and the game is a post-colonial match-up, as France ruled Morocco from 1912 to 1956. As Graham H. Cornwell, George Washington University professor of history of the Middle East and North Africa puts it in his recent op-ed, today’s match is “a perfect anti-colonial trifecta, surely one of the most compelling narrative twists in World Cup history.”
Graham H. Cornwell is an assistant Dean of Research at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. He is available to discuss the cultural impact of Morocco’s success in the World Cup and its history as a colonial nation under France.
In his recently published op-ed in the Washington Post, Cornwell offered this analysis of the cultural ties between the two countries and their shared connection to soccer:
“Every Moroccan has close friends and family members in Europe. They understand the challenges of integrating into European society and raising their kids there while trying to maintain ties to culture and family back home. France and Spain formally left Morocco in 1956 but migration continued, with migrant labor essential to rebuilding the economy of Western Europe in the postwar era…. These fluid identities are emblematic of a country that is part Middle East, Africa, Arab, Atlantic, Amazigh, Saharan and Mediterranean. In some ways, one of the legacies of colonialism was to make this identity even more fluid.”
If you are looking for context on this matter or would like to speak with Professor Cornwell anytime, please contact:
GW Media Relations
gwmedia@gwu.edu
202-994-6460
