King Hassan Ii Speech
Soukaina Mkhanter
Thimoty Pearson
ENG 2301
2/18/13
Paper I:
Address to the Moroccan people by king Hassan II, 24 July 1986
For my rhetorical Analysis assignment, I thought it would be interesting to analyze the speech King Hassan II gave after his meeting in Ifrane with the former prime minister of Israel at that time: Shimon Perez. King Hassan II tries in the following speech to justify his action of meeting “the enemy” after a lot of critism of the other Arab nations and some Moroccans who tought that it is a coward move to meet with Israel. Hassan the second was born in 1929 and reigned as king and the commander of the faithful for a period of 38 years. He was known to be a very pragmatic person and his period of sovereignty had a big impact on the Moroccan history. After his meeting with Prime minister Perez the 21th of July 1986, many Arab nations accused of sympathizing with the enemy. Khadafi called him a traitor and Syria decided to tear of the relations between the two countries.
The speech is clearly meant for a Moroccan audience as he begins his speech by saying:
“ I want to emphasize how little I care about the criticism and the condemnation of some and the approval and blessings of others, because what interests me firstly, is your approval and your criticisms as well as the clearness of my conscience” (King Hassan II). We can confirm after this first sentence that he is trying to create a link between the people and him. It is known that this was one of the strategies of the king as he employed many times in his speeches terms like: “I am the father of this nation” or he referred to the Moroccans by “my sons”. So it is not unusual to use those emotional appeals from the moment he starts delivering his speech. But before getting into the appeals used by the king, we shall summarize the arguments presented by the sovereign. First we can notice that the speech is really organized. The king was internationally known as a great speaker;
Thimoty Pearson
ENG 2301
2/18/13
Paper I:
Address to the Moroccan people by king Hassan II, 24 July 1986
For my rhetorical Analysis assignment, I thought it would be interesting to analyze the speech King Hassan II gave after his meeting in Ifrane with the former prime minister of Israel at that time: Shimon Perez. King Hassan II tries in the following speech to justify his action of meeting “the enemy” after a lot of critism of the other Arab nations and some Moroccans who tought that it is a coward move to meet with Israel. Hassan the second was born in 1929 and reigned as king and the commander of the faithful for a period of 38 years. He was known to be a very pragmatic person and his period of sovereignty had a big impact on the Moroccan history. After his meeting with Prime minister Perez the 21th of July 1986, many Arab nations accused of sympathizing with the enemy. Khadafi called him a traitor and Syria decided to tear of the relations between the two countries.
The speech is clearly meant for a Moroccan audience as he begins his speech by saying:
“ I want to emphasize how little I care about the criticism and the condemnation of some and the approval and blessings of others, because what interests me firstly, is your approval and your criticisms as well as the clearness of my conscience” (King Hassan II). We can confirm after this first sentence that he is trying to create a link between the people and him. It is known that this was one of the strategies of the king as he employed many times in his speeches terms like: “I am the father of this nation” or he referred to the Moroccans by “my sons”. So it is not unusual to use those emotional appeals from the moment he starts delivering his speech. But before getting into the appeals used by the king, we shall summarize the arguments presented by the sovereign. First we can notice that the speech is really organized. The king was internationally known as a great speaker;
Bibliography: King Hassan II, . "Address to the Moroccan people." 24 Jul 1984. Speech.