Despair and desperation thrive in Casablanca slums

[sbs]

Despair and desperation thrive in Casablanca slums
By Tom Pfeiffer
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CASABLANCA, Morocco (Reuters) - Hidden from the road behind a high concrete wall, the jumble of iron-roofed shacks bakes under a relentless midday sun.

Dogs scratch around in alleyways, women chatter as they queue for water, a welding torch briefly lights up a nearby workshop.

Smoke drifts across open spaces where young boys squat, sniffing glue from plastic bags.

Time is the only luxury in the shanty towns scattered across Morocco's economic capital, Casablanca.

Once a small coastal settlement before becoming a major port under the French protectorate in the first half of the 20th century, "Casa" has mushroomed into a sprawling conurbation.

Its population has grown to more than 3 million as it has absorbed waves of migrants trying to escape poverty in the countryside.

Public services have struggled to keep pace with the growth and the names given to some of the suburbs -- Chechnya, Dallas, The Guts -- reflect their haphazard beginnings and the dark humour of the inhabitants.

The factories that made the city rich have stopped absorbing new labour -- 50,000 jobs were lost in the city's industries between 1994 and 2002.

The local unemployment rate is about 25 percent -- far above the national average -- although estimates are difficult given the city's huge informal economy of shoeshiners, itinerant labourers and street vendors.

It is almost three years since 14 young members of a radical Islamist sect headed out from their slums into central Casablanca to explode bombs in the capital, killing 45 people.

The attacks shocked the population of a kingdom proud of its social stability and focussed attention on radical religious groups waging vigilante morality campaigns and preaching holy war to impressionable youngsters in the poorest neighbourhoods.

After the bombings, police swoops netted several of the ringleaders. However, local activists say the underlying problems of unemployment and poverty remain.

"The situation has not changed," says Zakaria Boujidi of Casablanca's Voluntary and Cultural Work Association. "In Sidi Moumen, where the bombers came from, there are even more slums than before."

HOUSING SHORTAGE

King Mohammed's reform-minded government has announced a goal to eradicate all the country's slums and is building more than a dozen new towns to relieve overcrowding in the cities.

Casablanca's population is swelling by 100,000 per year and the city lacks 250,000 homes, according to official figures. To try to meet the demand, blocks of flats are springing up across the city, many of them offered to slum dwellers at reduced cost.

"Many people have benefited from this privilege," says Zahidi Elarbi, a member of a voluntary development association in Sidi Moumen. "But to really change the area, the slums these people lived in must be destroyed when they leave. Instead, they just sell them to someone else."

As his ageing Mercedes chugs around the streets of Hay Mohammedi, musician Omar Essayed points out the old haunts where his band played their first concerts in the late 1960s.

"There was a theatre here before," he says. "They knocked it down. They demolished the Vox cinema and an arena. Where can young people go? If they have plenty of money, they go to night clubs. Otherwise, it's the mosque."

Essayed's band, Nass El Ghiwane, became Morocco's most famous folk music group, breaking new ground by overlaying music made with traditional instruments with words that expressed the anger and frustration of the modern dispossessed.

His neighbourhood was always grindingly poor -- as a boy he recalls searching for food in bins. However, where once there was solidarity and modest ambition, there is now despair and violence, he says.

Most homes have a satellite dish beaming images of unattainable Western wealth. However, he says, there a few places for young people to meet and to express their pent-up frustration.

"If we don't reach out to these youngsters, one day it will explode."

DRIVEN UNDERGROUND

The number of unofficial mosques has multiplied over the years, often to fulfil a need for meeting places to discuss local issues and resolve grievances.

Unregulated by Morocco's official religious institutions, many imams preaching an orthodox version of Islam with a strict code of public morality have found a ready audience in communities weary of crime and corruption.

The activists who recruited the Casablanca bombers have been jailed or driven underground since the 2003 bombings, but their message still gets through via Internet cafes, CDs and tapes.

A network of more than 80 voluntary associations -- with support from government agencies and private firms -- are trying to break the hopelessness that underpins support for extremism.

They say decades of false starts and unfulfilled promises have raised a barrier of cynicism among the poor, impatient for a real improvement in their lives.

"The conditions are accumulating again," says Elarbi. "Anyone who thinks there is no longer a problem is making a grave mistake."

[Fillmore]

is there where the english people live ?
do you have any photos of english people riding those famous red buses ?

[eva longoria]

Silly boy!

[Fillmore]

[quote=eva longoria][color="Blue"][size="4"][font="Century Gothic"]Silly boy!


silly ,
hahahahah
medication ,
hohohohohoho
eva longoria ,
you wish

[flifla]

Its terrible, Ive seen the slum areas of Casablanca on the outskirts of the city, they are visible as you drive past along the Motorway.
A stark contrast to the well kept California district.