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Dying to Live: North African Immigration to Europe |
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Jaouad Radouani - AlJazeeraTalk - Morocco
 Morocco is the closest North African Mediterranean country to Europe. Between Tangier and Gibraltar there is not more than 15 kilometres of sea water that separates the two continents, Europe and Africa, from each other. This fact made it possible for the Moroccan, jobless and poor youth to dream of reaching the other side of the sea. Therefore, in pursuit of a sweet dream, the youths in Morocco never mind the obstacles that may face them when making a ‘special’ try to reach the rich continent where opportunities of a sane life and a better future are guaranteed.
The young generation in Morocco dreams of Europe and the western mode of life. Most of them, highly influenced by the western style, find in immigration the solution to their innumerable problems. Every young person has a plan to go ‘there,’ to Europe, find a job, live in peace far from destructing ups and downs of the hard life that is faced in Morocco. But, the truth is that the West is not a target in itself nor is it the western highly advanced mode of life that makes the African poor dream.
The young boys who leave Morocco in dangerous un-guaranteed boats of death, those who hide in engines of vehicles for days and those who hitchhike ships of Goods whose destination the neglect are pushed to take such adventures by the local Moroccan social, political and economic problems. Illegal immigrants whom we call in local Moroccan Arabic “Lhragga” see that there is no future in their own country. Low wages, joblessness, social and economic inequality, political failures and lies, etc, all contribute at making of a youngster a pessimist who does not only ‘think’ but ‘knows’ for sure that the impossibility of life in his nation is making of his life a hell.
Besides the Moroccan youth that is fed up to death with the castrating Moroccan social, economic and political of life there are the sub-Saharan Africans who make their ways through the African Sahara to Morocco for the same reasons. The large numbers of Africans who daily inter Morocco in search for a way out of Africa share with the Moroccan youths the same motives that make them seek for a new mode of life.
No matter what decisions would be taken to fight illegal immigration by the West and North Africa, the youths will to quit their nations will be there forever. The reasons behind such a persistent will are as simple as this: as long as there is no true will to change, the cheap clichés which is sell lies will not work. Therefore, there will be no true nationalistic African citizen who prefers his home country to another unless Africa changes, and we all know how much time change takes.
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As long as poverty ration is undescribable in Africa, the dream goes on!
Thanks for the initiation!