In the imagination of many Spaniards, Morocco is an exotic, distant country. Especially far.
Now with the crisis in Ceuta, Morocco has entered the living room of Spanish homes, but I fear that for a short time. It had been so long since we looked south! And suddenly the south emerges. What to do! A reality appears that we did not want to see: the difference in income between one part of the border and another is the largest on the planet, more for example than between the famous US-Mexico border. The image of men, women, children, fleeing Morocco with nothing on, many risking their lives, has clearly shown it to us.
And it is also forgotten that many of Morocco’s problems come from decolonization, from European neocolonism, from our policies. As shown by the death by drowning, just three months ago of 25 employees, most of them women, in a Spanish textile factory that operated clandestinely in a basement in Tangier. LThe democratization of Morocco must be part of the Spanish agenda. Few Spaniards know when there are elections in Morocco, what is the political situation in the country, something that we should know, even if it were only for what may affect us.
Foucault, Simone de Beauvoir, Sartre, many European philosophers and leaders supported the democratization of Spain, they experienced it as something that was not foreign to them. Foucault was held at the Madrid airport and expelled because he came to support the Spanish who were fighting for democracy.
Many times also, when talking about getting closer to Morocco, about interculturality, it is considered that it is hard work because it is based on the fact that one has to start practically from scratch. As if Spanish and Moroccan culture had nothing to do with each other, almost as if Moroccans lived in another galaxy. It is not taken into account that all cultures share many aspects. And let’s not say between two neighboring countries with a largely shared, common history. So this idea of distance prevails.
Remoteness, furthermore despite the fact that more than a million Moroccans or people of Moroccan origin, who live here among us, but contact with the host society is also often scarce.
For more than 20 years I have been providing mental health care to Moroccans who live in Spain and who especially now suffer from very difficult situations after the 2008 crisis and Covid-19. And there is a word that resonates over and over again in the office, in the voices of these men and women: hazin (in masculine) hazina (in feminine) …….the feeling of sadness. And today, in the face of the events in Ceuta, I would say that not only they, we all share that feeling: hazin, hazina, sadness.
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