Moroccan nationalism began as a religious or cultural reformist movement based on Salafiya, a form of religious fundamentalism which arose in late nineteenthcentury Egypt as an effort to restore the original purity of Islam and the independence of the Muslim peoples. The Moroccan movement was first expressed in the 1920's by the foundation of the ‘free schools’ and the formation of secret discussion societies, neither of which represented more than a small, concerned elite and whose organization was rudimentary in the extreme. By 1934, it was transformed by events and hard experience into an essentially political and social reform movement which, while not yet a mass party, had become ‘national’ to the extent that it could demonstrate the support of important segments of Moroccan society and which had created a skeletal structure which the post-war movemen would flesh out.

The article represents part of the research for a book on the origins and rise of Moroccan nationalism, 1921–1943.

Roger Casement's role as Irish patriot has obscured his role as Congo reformer. Travelling in the interior of the Congo in 1903 as British consul, Casement gathered evidence that enabled the British government to attack the Congo State on grounds of maladministration. He did not however regard mere diplomatic action as sufficient to redress the wrongs of King Leopold's rubber trade. Convinced that only a humanitarian crusade could abolish the evils of the Leopoldian regime, Casement inspired E. D. Morel to found the Congo Reform Association. Through his dual capacity of civil servant and humanitarian, he attempted, in his own words, to choke off King Leopold ‘as a “helldog” is choked off’. His apocalyptic vision of evil in the Congo may have been exaggerated, but his influence was of the first magnitude in bringing about Belgium's annexation of the Congo in 1908.