Mehdi Ben Barka

Mehdi Ben Barka (Arabic: المهدي بن بركة, romanized: al-Mahdī Bin Baraka; 1920 – disappeared 29 October 1965) was a Moroccan nationalist, Arab socialist, politician, revolutionary, anti-imperialist, head of the left-wing National Union of Popular Forces (UNFP) and secretary of the Tricontinental Conference. A vocal opponent of both French imperialism and King Hassan II, he "disappeared" in Paris in 1965.

Many theories attempting to explain what happened to him were put forward over the years; in 2018 new claims regarding his disappearance were made by Israeli journalist and author Ronen Bergman in his book Rise And Kill First: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations. Based on research and interviews with Israeli intelligence operatives who were involved in planning the kidnapping of Barka, Bergman concluded that he was located by the Mossad on behalf of Moroccan intelligence, who assisted the latter in planning the murder ultimately committed by Moroccan agents and French police, after which the Mossad disposed of his body.

Mehdi Ben Barka was born January 1920 into a middle class family in the Sidi Fettah quarter of Rabat; his father Ahmed Ben M'hammed Ben Barka was a faqih and at the beginning of his career, served as personal secretary of the Pasha of Tangier, before becoming a businessman in Rabat, and his mother Lalla Fatouma Bouanane was a stay-at-home mother and seamstress in her home. His family were originally from the Zyayda tribe before migrating to Rabat. His home was shared with the families of his maternal uncle and paternal aunt and they did not have electricity or running water.

He was one of the very few Moroccan children not from the colonial bourgeoisie to have access to a good education. He studied at Collège Moulay Youssef in Rabat, among the children of the colons and the city's nobility, where he joined the drama club and excelled in his studies. Meanwhile, in addition to his studies, he worked as a simple accountant at the wholesale market to help his family. He earned his first diploma in 1938 with high honors at a time when Morocco only produced about 20 or so graduates of baccalauréat secondary school programs per year.

In response to the change of the legal system under Berber Dahir of May 16, 1930, which placed Amazigh populations under the jurisdiction of the French authorities, 14-year-old Mehdi Ben Barka joined the Comité d'action marocaine, the first political movement born under the protectorate.

His outstanding academic performance attracted the attention of the French Résident Général Charles Noguès, who sent him along with other distinguished students on a trip to Paris. He studied at Lycée Lyautey in Casablanca from 1938 to 1939, and received his baccalauréat diploma in mathematics in 1939.

As a 17-year-old, he became one of the youngest members of Allal al-Fassi's National Party for the Realization of Reforms (الحركة الوطنية لتحقيق الإصلاحات), which would become the Istiqlal Party a few years later.

Though he wanted to complete his studies in France, the outbreak of World War II forced him to continue his studies in mathematics at the University of Algiers, also under French control in 1940, instead. He earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics and degree in physics and became the first Moroccan to do so at an official French school. The Algerian People's Party influenced him to broaden the scale of his nationalism to incorporate all of North Africa. He could not disassociate the fate of Morocco from the fate of the entire Maghreb.