Catalan Moroccans speak: "There is no opportunity there"

Barcelona“They live off this imaginary, off the cousin who studied in a public school and now works in what she wants,” says Àsia. She is 24 years old, was born in Catalonia, and is the daughter of Moroccans. They often visit family, especially in the summer. “What do they tell you?”, I ask her. “Well, that I can choose and do what I want,” she replies. She recently graduated in law, and is doing an internship at a law firm while studying for a master's degree in legal practice.

There, young people her age, Àsia explains, have their sights set on leaving the country. For a few weeks now, she has been watching less news and trying not to go on social media because it is hard for her to see the images of what is happening in Ceuta. “I feel sadness and indignation.” A sentiment shared by Fatiha, who, through family reunification, arrived in Catalonia in the year 2000, the place where her three children have grown up. “What has happened in Ceuta is the injustice that characterizes the world, where a part of the world's population has the privilege of taking a passport, looking for the cheapest flight, and going to Thailand, to Senegal, or wherever they want, while the poor of the global south can only leave by forcing the borders to look for other opportunities”.

Next to her, Mustafà listens, who arrived in Catalonia in 2000, in the midst of the construction boom and many job offers, and was able to regularize his status –ironies of fate– thanks to the government of José María Aznar. “Europe does not want to know what is happening in Morocco,” he declares. He states that it is not a stable country, that there is no future or room for criticism. It is precisely to understand the reality that is lived in Morocco and the reasons that push its citizens to leave, often even risking their lives in the attempt, that the ARA talks with Àsia, Fatiha, and Mustafà.

Escapes and European approval

“The Morocco I left has nothing to do with the current one,” laments Fatiha, who left her country when she was 26 years old. She studied in the public school system and later obtained a scholarship to attend university, also public, to study economics. Today, she says, private schooling carries more and more weight, gathering the majority of students, and “public school has been left for the poorest of the poor.” She states that capitalism has been savagely implemented in the country's economic management, that the State does not invest in basic services and, what is more dangerous, that people do not trust in any change in the short or medium term. “That is why they look for solutions abroad, they have lost all faith in politics,” she asserts.

Mustafa adds that the minimum wage has not moved in twenty years and does not exceed 300 euros, and that the citizenry is doomed to “a great deal of poverty, uncertainty, and labor exploitation.” He argues that the situation in Morocco has the approval of European countries. “This is the crux of the problem: Europe is not interested in us enjoying rights or freedom. Europe is very much in favor of the current policy of the Moroccan regime, and the proof of this is the European Union's agreement with Morocco to protect the southern border,” he argues.

Mustafa also believes that “if free and transparent elections were held in Morocco, options that would place restrictions on European interests in Africa could win.” He cites as an example the case of Algeria, where in 1991 the victory of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) and its plan to nationalize gas ended up provoking a coup d'état driven by France's refusal to lose the profits of its companies. He argues that Europe is interested in maintaining the statu quo. Fatiha adds that Morocco is today the “gendarme” of the European Union: it does the “dirty work” in exchange for silence, she says.

The imagery of the Moroccan woman

“People see their dream of progress frustrated and they leave to seek a future. And they encounter racism and dehumanization,” says Mustafà. “What did you find yourselves?”, I ask. Fatiha explains that she had to struggle with an imaginary constructed about Morocco, and specifically about the Moroccan woman. “An imaginary that does not correspond to the diverse reality of Morocco: we are portrayed as women without the capacity to decide, without studies, and submissive to men.” She was already working in Morocco when she came to Catalonia to reunite with her husband, who had been working here for some time. The family reunification route gave her a card to reside, but not to work. “By law, I had to dedicate myself to responding precisely to this imaginary: taking care of the children and the husband, which is what the immigration law wanted.” It is an imaginary, she says, that is not corrected.

“I don’t receive racism from them, but they also ask me where I’m from. And I answer that I am Catalan. Then they tell me: ‘Yeah, yeah, but where, really?’”, explains Àsia. She knows many young people who, even though they were born here like her, say they are from Morocco. “If they don’t make you feel like you belong here, the ghetto effect of the neighborhoods is created. People go where there are people who resemble you, where you feel you can be part of a group.”

She states that the situation has worsened, that racism is shown more openly, to the point that her father even told her that perhaps she too should end up migrating: “Watch out, it’s not the same as before, the response of this society is scary.”

Institutional racism

“What worries me is institutional racism,” says Mustafà, who claims he detects it, for example, in institutions for the reception of minors. “And in the immigration law,” Fatiha replies. “It doesn’t allow you to work, it doesn’t allow you to vote, even though the people from Vox think that the day after residency you can already do it. You arrive here and maybe you have nationality after fifteen years.” She recalls that when her husband arrived to study, it was impossible for him to find an apartment or a job, and he had to live in a shack on the outskirts of Mataró until he found work during the Barcelona Olympic Games. And she asserts that now racism has been “unmasked.” But she makes it clear that structural racism is much more problematic than comments on social media. “The big problem for immigrants is not being able to have housing despite having a payroll and a steady job. Much more than a comment on social media, which they make because they see themselves as legitimized to speak in this way because they know that, on an institutional and structural level, this type of racism is protected.” And she further adds that “it does more harm that other parents take their children to a charter school if they see that there are many children of immigrants in a public one” than certain comments on social media.

Mustafà remarks that racism is inherent to the European continent and has its historical roots in the era of Isabella the Catholic. In this sense, he believes that Spain and Catalonia should avoid failed integration models like the French, Belgian, or German ones, and look towards the model of the Netherlands, based on shared neighborhoods to avoid segregation.

The migratory and humanitarian crisis in Ceuta, added to the inaction of the administrations, has been a breeding ground for hate speech from the far right, which has instrumentalized the situation experienced in the city for its own interests.

The reactionary rise throughout Europe directly impacts the day-to-day life of people like Àsia, Mustafà, and Fatiha, Catalan Moroccans who suffer different forms of discrimination due to their origin or the origin of their parents. Àsia relates it to the racist raids seen this last year in the United States by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) service and wonders if these images cannot be replicated in the Europe of the future, increasingly turned towards the right: “I am worried that we will find ourselves in a similar situation.”