Aicha Kandisha
Aicha Kandisha is often framed as a terrifying jinn—a spirit lurking in the shadows, seducing and destroying those who cross her path. But beneath the colonial-era fearmongering and folkloric distortion lies the story of a resistance figure, a woman whose legend refuses to be erased.
In Moroccan oral history, Aicha Kandisha is said to have lured and killed colonial officers and foreign occupiers, using her allure as a weapon against those who sought to dominate the land. Her name, whispered with caution, was a warning—a reminder of the dangers that awaited those who underestimated her. Like many historical figures who posed a threat to colonial rule, her story was twisted into something monstrous. The femme fatale, the supernatural seductress, the demonized woman—these are familiar tropes used to discredit and neutralize powerful female figures throughout history.
This piece reclaims Aicha Kandisha as an anti-colonial heroine. Rather than seeing her as a ghost of fear, she emerges here as a spirit of defiance, her presence a reminder that colonial power was never uncontested. She exists in the space between history and myth, embodying the resistance that lives on through storytelling, memory, and the refusal to disappear.
