 Good afternoon to you all. Unfortunately, my Catalan, it's Bonatarda, Sabahanor. My German, sorry, my Arabic is a little bit better. I would like to apologize because this morning has been quite stressful for me. I couldn't be here because the reason being, well, our flight has been canceled at the very last minute. So thank you very much for your understanding and patience to you all, the audience and the organizers. And a special thanks to Mr. Uriel López and Lourdes Pradas for their kind invitation. It's always a pleasure to come back here to Barcelona. My speech today, as usual, we start with a sort of letter to Santa. Some of the objectives are reached. Some others are never. My idea, at least, is to give you a broader spectrum so that I can welcome research fellows here to carry on with a few research lines. But it's hard sometimes to offer specific figures and conclusions. First of all, I would like to express a few of the reasons why some of these Arabs from the Mašrík and the Maghreb actually wanted to join the brigades. And the idea we have is that Totem Revolutum, quite homogenous, was where some ideas have been forgotten about. I would like to analyze the Maghreb or Moroccan actually participation in some military actions, some operations, some battalions, et cetera. Specifically, all about their ideology. And it's quite paradoxal when it comes to this collective imaginary of those moros, of those moors, those Moroccan forces by Franco, which used any sort of violence, burning and annihilating. But hey, let's remember the way Moroccan is in the international brigade. It's a paradox, indeed. But there were a series of motivations and reasons that actually had these Moroccan people working on one side or the other. And I would like to talk about Arab and specifically Moroccan soldiers, because not only we've spoken about the international perspective of this conflict, it's the idea that you were not only coming to work only for liberties in Spain, but against fascism in Spain, but also to defend liberties all over the globe. I would like to change also our idea about the Arab world. And I would like to highlight and question the negative idea that is portrayed on the Moorish person. This is my letter to Santa. When it comes to literature, we don't have actually a lot. So I would like to welcome research fellows to Lordes Lidia, the Sivring project. It's wonderful what they're doing. I have been checking your sources for us, your reference source. A wonderful one for people studying this topic. And here I would love you to encourage to carry on and let's feed and help each other. Because we have a long path to walk. Now, some work that is on post-prod at the moment by Amal Ramses, you come from far away, the film by this Egyptian director. I don't want to spoil you the story. This is a great film, Anas, for bibliographical work, Abdelatif Ben Salim, a Tunisian colleague. He was one of the first researchers who was interested to talk about the Arab volunteers and Yara de Castells, the classic one. There's a great article by Porafoy, who is doing field work in the Soviet archives and which has offered us a great list to consult. Kafa, Mustafa, is one of the great unknown authors. But his work is very, very interesting. One of the Arabism, Pedro Martinez Montabe, who did highlight already the great left-wing commitment of Arabs towards the fight and the defense of democracy in Spain. Nieves Paradella, one of the best translators who's carried out the first trial to talk about Nafjati Siddik. And I will read a few fragments about his career, his work. And of course, the gator, Nafati Siddikli. It was presented in a man in Jordan. He presented his PhD, which is unknown in Spanish. Right, this is basically the relatively scarce bibliography which we have so far. This actually makes our participation very scarce, very little. These are some figures, and I would like to mention sources. But this let me highlight its work that still has to be re-analyzed. The origin of the Arab regators is the main problem in order to actually find out the exact figures. Because in the database, both terms are included, so it's quite easy to do specific searches. If we're looking for Palestinians, for example, we find Jewish or Arab origin Palestinians, or people from Algeria, again, could be from Spanish origin, et cetera. This is why I would like to highlight the easy to use database, because we face many difficulties at the beginning of our work. And from up to the year round, 1,000, again, take it with a pinch of salt, we estimate that around half of these 1,000 people could die on Spanish soil. Again, it's not 100% validated information. What happens? Well, this participation has been ignored in academia in the past. For example, masters done in 2007, 2013, we see that some stereotypes are spoken about in the, it's not spoken about the participation of North African volunteers. Also, a sort of closeness relationship with the origin countries was established. And this propaganda work was very important for the Arab world. So it is still a sort of whole black hole that historiography needs to tackle. And again, a few that either doesn't exist or it's really hard to validate. Again, helps for these stereotypes to be chronic, you know, run and rain. For example, this great source, when it comes to analyzing the Jewish rigidist in Palestine, it's true that his information that he has managed to prove highlights again the fact that maybe we do have a few information. But in some of the cases, information is not analyzed in depth. For example, Al-Baghri is the country's, he just says Al-Jir and Morocco. So we are sort of a baby, you know, if you allow me the metaphor, we're beginning to do this analysis. One of the first authors who has publicly talked about this is Aldeep Rajit Mangilon, a specialist in the Spanish protectorate in Morocco. And when he launched this idea in an academic arena, the surprise was incredible because basically nobody knew about it. And afterwards, Ben-Salem Cajaz's work, Sanchez Roano, where one of the few testimonies by a Moroccan propagator is included and also the references I have already mentioned. The Mountain Seas is one of the best sources too because it helps us compare what it has been done up to the moment. I'd want to establish a two simplistic division of West and non-Western countries. But for you to understand me, I have only been able to find a testimony, which you can see here. Spargh is Sierra de Tuguel in the Tuguel mountain range, where only it's spoken about one person who participates in the Arab world and North African combatants specifically. So Amal Ramsey's documentary, it's the first one that has been devoted to this participation. This film director, who actually was trained in Spain, partly, knew about this Palestinian who participated in the Spanish International Brigade thanks to the reading of the works by Paradeira and Barafouli, amongst others. So we have a first example of that lack of knowledge in the Arab world has been solved by the reading and this analysis in Spain. So she decides to get in touch with this person's family. She reads a little bit more about the personal and work career of Najat-e-Sequil. And she interviews Sequil's two daughters, one in Moscow, one in Athens. And she creates this corpus so that she can develop the project. It was funded by the Arab Foundation in Granada. And this director had to launch a crowdfunding campaign online, which has delayed the post-production up until this year, 2018. So hopefully in the Cartago Film Festival from the 3rd to the 10th of December this year, it will be presented. It will be shown. Why Sequil? Because we have his memories, which have been partially translated by Nevis Paradeira. It is true that we can question a few chapters. We have some data that historically are not true or are a little bit incomplete. But the important of Najat-e-Sequil is that he represented the Arab community in the brigades. And he did Republican propaganda so that Arabs who walked on Franco's files for them to join the Republican files. And at the same Republican troops, and at the same time, this is the paradox, he wanted to convince the Republicans that it was worthwhile trying this propaganda and that not all Moorish were on the Franco's side. And this second task is really giving him a bigger headache. This is what he tells in his memoirs. Born in Jerusalem, he was a journalist. And he got in touch with the local Communist Party when he was working at the post office. So he became an activist. And he was prosecuted under the British mandate and finally he went to Moscow. And in 1936, he moved to Spain to be in charge of the propaganda and type fascism. Through Pogbo Girona, he accessed Spain as a volunteer for five months. He was in the Madrid front, on the Madrid front. And the sentence that can summarize his ideas. And it's quite similar to the Yugoslav and American veterans, is that he came here to fight in favor of democracy. He says, I'm an Arab volunteer, but I came to Madrid to fight for freedom, to defend Damascus in Guadalajara, Jerusalem in Córdoba, Baghdad in Toledo, El Cairo in Cadiz, and Tetzuan in Burgos. I need to read what he said when he arrived in Barcelona. I got to the wonderful and magnificent Barcelona, the capital of Catalonia, of a great civilization. I started walking the streets with orange trees blossoming, the class of trees that we know of as a busufio. They seemed to be illuminated with red lights. And all of a sudden, I came across some militias. Their boss came to me and he spoke to me in Spanish and said, why don't you join us? Smiling, I answered back in French because I was really enthusiastic and I said, I'm an Arab volunteer and I'm here to defend Damascus in Guadalajara, Jerusalem in Córdoba, Baghdad in Toledo, El Cairo in Cadiz, and Tetzuan in Burgos. And he said that with the typical way of speaking, this wonderful way of speaking they have. On his face, he seemed to be surprised and very happy and in a very broken French, he said, are you truly Arabian? Are you really Amor? Amorish, that's not possible. These people are forcing, raping our women. The people from Morocco that are against the Republic are offending with their behavior the Islam. And they only represent themselves. They have been misled. The army of the people from our front has misled them. And they were really surprised at my words and started shaking their heads as if they could not believe what they were hearing or as if they were doubting on my words. This is the typical stereotype of the Moorish that was still prevalent at the time. He published in media like El Mundo Obrero, for example. And he was sent to Córdoba to try to convince from the trenches those national front Arabs to switch to the Republican troops. And he still insists that it was incompatible with Islam. After a terrible failure, he decides that for propaganda to be really more successful, he needed to go to the Argel to avoid that at the point of origin of the recruitment. That is to say, Morocco. They can have all these people going to fight against the Republic. But the French did not allow him to go there. And eventually, he had to go to Damascus, but he continued alerting in the media about the dangers of fascism. To this personal career, there is also a drama because a dramatic ending. Because when he came back, he started getting in trouble. And he started having some differences with the Communist Party and the Soviet authorities, to the extent that his daughter, Julia, who was in an orphanage in Moscow, he could not see here until 25 years later. So the family started to move around. They tried to come back to Jerusalem, but it was impossible because there was the Israeli occupation. And they ended up in another civil war, or an intervention. And finally, they ended up in Athens. And that is the story that is told in the documentary film through the testimonials of the two daughters who remember Cirque. OK, quantifying. And in this case, I need to talk about the sources that we're familiar with. Because the international brigades had these people participating, but they were also in the aviation and in other tasks. So there is a problem, as I was saying, when it comes to the origin. We really need to understand source by source where these people really came from. And it is especially complex in the case of people from Maghreb. Because Borafoul, for example, offers a list of 89 people who are considered to be French. But within them, among them, there are many people from Morocco, Orgel, or Tunisia. And we have not been able to classify these people yet. It is true, though, that most of them come from Maghreb, from Morocco. And it's obvious, of course. First of all, because of the big presence in France and their link to the left wing communist movements. So people from Morocco, from Orgel, from Morocco, if the authorities did not allow to have propaganda, of course, from the French protectorate in Morocco, it was not easy either to counterattack this enlisting of people in the other side. People from Tunisia, Palestine, Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia. And please allow me to say how painful it is that Palestinian, Syrian, Lebanese, they came here to fight in favor of democracy. And it's so painful to me, so hurtful to see how they are now. So the recovery of their memory of these brigaders should also make us think of this participation in democracy. And we all have to repent upon what we're doing right now in the present, in the other crisis that we're facing. There was an ideology background that has some connections with colonialism. We're talking about Mondays, French Mondays in Syria. For example, Iraq was formerly independent, but with a pro-British policy, colonialism in Maghreb, colonialism in Morocco. And we also had the influence of the Non-Intervention Committee. And as you know, it was questionable. And at the same time, and from the ideology point of view, there was a huge emergence of left-wing movements in the Arabic world. Of course, not all political views are religious. There are, in these countries, there are worker movements. There are left-wing movements. They have always been there. And they're still there in the Arab world. We have some writers from Syria and Palestine who published, at the time, some books, again, Fashem in general, and Spanish Fashism in particular. Of course, they're not translated yet. And let me give you some examples from Iraq, from the seed-breed database where I could find photos. So we have Arab family, middle class with a training in Massachusetts, for example. That's one of them. A member of the Communist Party, General Directorate, some articles published in favor of the Palestinian cause. And he was arrested because of his political activities. From his exile in Paris, he became a member of the Lincoln Brigade and fought in the Arab battle. And finally, he was sent to the United States. Another member from Iraq with Hebrew family. There's a big contrast. And he, of course, there are people like this. And he came from Argentina. And same thing. He ended up participating in the same brigade. And he ended up being sent back home. We have some examples from Palestinian members of the Communist Party, like Najaf Zitrik. But we also have Ali Abdel-Halik, who's a blue collar and who was imprisoned in Palestine. Because of his political idea, he was injured in the Teruel battle, and then he died at the hospital. And then we have another one, who was a member of the worker movement. Hafiz, for example, wrote the French CGT. And at the end, he disappeared in the Ebro battle. Another man from Egypt. Again, this time linked to the British Communist Party. He studied in Cambridge. The strange thing in this case is that he was supposed to have disappeared, but he ended up appearing on a boat going to the United Kingdom. But he ended up deserting. OK, people from Argelia, from the Argel, we have all these people, these 500 volunteers, who created all these links with trade union movements. One of the most well-known is Mohamed Belaydi, who became a machine gun expert. And he participated in these defense of international brigades. And he is the one who appears in the documentary film that I mentioned before. He's the only witness that could be found on the Arab Brigade presence in Spain. We also have Raba Wecidum, who was a member of this battalion that was mixed. And he also died in the Ebro battle. OK, what happens with the participation from brigaders from Morocco? The figures are really difficult to ascertain. We have been working a lot, but we cannot find a figure that has evidence. Castells, for example, mentions 200 volunteers from Morocco. But Sancho Ruano says again, 200. But most came from France. And among them, about 10, between three and 10, from Tangier. Tangier, let's remember, there's an international institute, I'm stated there, sorry, with some legal characteristics that are very different. We also have some Jewish people and people enrolled from Marseille as representatives of these people coming from the Metropolis. Hashmesh Hassan, who was sent to Bordeaux and ended up in Tangier. We also have people who were permanently, more or less, permanently living in Spain. Some of them played a very important role, like Muhammad al-Hassan al-Wazami. But this information that Brathoun says is questioned by path. And not all historians agree, because this man, Muhammad al-Hassan al-Wazami, according to the evidence, did not play an active role in favor of the international brigades. But he fought for the maintenance of the republic and the democratic regime in Spain. But not in particular, he was not a member of the international brigades, according to some historians. There were some people who deserted. That is true. Maybe it was for secret efforts, or maybe it was because what they said in Africa was not true. And then among the curious testimonials, we have a letter of an Australian volunteer, Cormac McCarthy. Please excuse me for my English, where Palmer says that he said the following. I have a colleague who's a young Moor who came with us in October with four more colleagues and some equipment. So even in the databases, we should explore, because we don't have all the information. This is a sample of the propaganda that we're given on the front. And it comes from the Hispanic-Moroccan association that was created when he came to Spain with the two goals that I mentioned before, achieving the Moroccan desertion, but also making Spanish people realize that the Moroccan were not a site of the conflict on themselves, but that they had been forced to fight. And this has been studied. There are many colleagues who have realized that a good part of the people enrolled were coerced. They were threatened. They were in a way economically forced, because there was a huge famine. And of course, some of them ended up coming to Spain to fight because of these problems they had. So I will skip this slide, but I now go to the association that failed on its task. But the most interesting thing is that the stereotypes that Republicans had about Arab people are still there in a journalist of a Russian newspaper that referred to the stealing as exclusively done by Morocans when we know that this was not the case, that it was not only the people from Morocco who did all these crimes and who used all these tactics at the war time. By means of conclusion, I can tell you that the importance of projects like Cibrin and Amal Ramsey's initiatives are important because there's also the interest of researchers. And both archivists, Arab historians, we all necessary have to join our projects in interdisciplinary projects so that we can shed some light on a topic that is absolutely important those days. And of course, archives, like Vora Ful, this has proven that archives are basic with all the difficulties that are there, access problems, catalogization problems, conservation or preservation issues, and so on. Argentinian and Palestinian were the main brigaders, but there were Arab brigaders in the Spanish civil war. And this proves the ideology, variety, or plurality in the Arab world. It is therefore important to reveal our stereotypes and the stereotypes we have about the more. These moreish, more stereotypes have to be fought again. Thank you very much for your attention.