Letter from Melilla
CEMBALEST, ROBIN
SPAIN'S AFRICAN ENCLAVE Letter from Melilla By Robin Cembalest Melilla Walking through this Spanish possession on the coast of North Africa, it is hard to believe you're in the Maghreb....
...As these spill into the political arena, they threaten to disrupt the city's delicate ethnic harmony—withstill wider implications for its uncertain future...
...Melilla is kind of a laboratory...
...The Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Hindus who currently make up the population here are only the most recent cultures drawn to this North African port over the centuries...
...The streets are lined with Art Deco, ArtNouveauand Bauhaus buildings, the legacy of a disciple of Gaudi who emigrated to Melilla back when it anchored Spain's Moroccan Protectorate...
...A further source of tension is illegal immigration...
...When hundreds of Jews who had emigrated from Melilla 40 years ago returned for a reunion, the decorations for Ramadan were still hanging in the streets...
...The Moroccan inspector, disgusted, painstakingly rewrote all the papers in English...
...As Hamed sees it, the quincentennial also underscores a broader issue: the government's fiscal priorities...
...He argues that instead of spending on fiestas, publicity and those multimedia extravaganzas, the city should use the money to solve its illiteracy and unemployment problems, not to mention the lack of amenities like paved streets in its poorest neighborhoods, which are largely Muslim...
...Every month the border police turn away some 15,000 people and expel an average of 900...
...The bull ring, the largest in Africa, is Baroque...
...Many members of their community are Spanish citizens who are distressed by talk about a possible transfer of Melilla to Morocco—indeed, their standard of living and personal liberties would decrease greatly if that came to pass...
...In addition, 700 Central Africans and Algerians who have requested asylum are being held in crowded, unhygienic transit centers, with the overflow living in shacks made of plastic, tree branches and cartons...
...Distracted by the possibilities of its New World colonies, Spain soon lost interest in Melilla...
...The Caudillo would no doubt be horrified to see the last bastion of Spanish empire promoted as a multicultural paradise by his heirs, the conservative Popular Party (PP) that controls Spain's central government and is also the dominant political group in autonomous Melilla...
...They shout 'The Moors are coming!' because this is useful politics...
...Some of the tapas bars are distinctly postmodern...
...Of course, Melilla has its tensions too, and several have been brought to the surface by this year's celebrations commemorating the quincentennial of Spanish rule...
...And it has a slogan, the somewhat inaccurate "500 Years Together," to tout the city's ethnic diversity...
...That is when Pedro de Estopinân claimed it for his duke, who ceded it to the crown of Castile...
...Another was already here...
...Depending on whom you talk to, it is an outdated relic of colonialism or a multicultural harbinger of Europe's future...
...It has financed the construction of a convention center and a sports arena, and has modernized the port to accommodate cruise ships and yachts...
...Though the Spanish government claims the situation of its African enclaves is entirely different—Morocco did not exist in 1497, Sava notes—European diplomats involved in the negotiations don't see it quite that way...
...We need investors...
...Claimed in 1497 by an emissary of Spain's Duke of Medina Sidonia, this four-square-mile city is where Andalusia meets Africa, an outpost of the First World in the Third...
...Aurei Sava Garceran, a PP member who represents Melilla in Parliament and is president of the V Centenario, explains that his goal is to enhance the image of his forgotten city on the peninsula, to attract tourism, business and government funding...
...in 46 BCE the Romans named it Flavia...
...We need help...
...In its latest incarnation, the Legion is an elite professional corps that pursues humanitarian missions in Bosnia and Zaire...
...The Phoenicians found its strategic setting, on an inlet off the Tres Forcas Peninsula, an ideal site for a commercial colony...
...The Jewish community today numbers some 1,000, with three kosher butchers and nine synagogues...
...This is the future of Europe," Sava says...
...Later it belonged to Vandals, Byzantines, the Moorish kingdom of Nekor, the Caliphate of Cordoba, and then to Fez...
...It has created a mascot, an anthropomorphic castle named Estopi— in honor of Estopiñán—who appears on commemorative postcards bearing captions in Spanish, Hindu, Hebrew, Berber, French, and English...
...For centuries it functioned mainly as a military outpost that monitored potential Arab plans for reconquest...
...Either way, considering its location and history—and the fact that its population of 65,000 includes 10,000 soldiers—Melilla's diverse constituencies manage to coexist in remarkable peace...
...On my way to the souk at Nador eight miles away, I mistakenly filled out my application in Spanish...
...With such problems on the rise, many speculate that the military's strong affection for Melilla notwithstanding, Spain will in fact yield to King Hassan II's recent call for "the return of Ceuta and Melilla to the motherland...
...At a heavily guarded border crossing nearby, Moroccans wait patiently in line, many laden with merchandise...
...Thousands from the African continent try to reach Melilla, viewing it as a bridge to a better life in Europe...
...In 1912, following the formal establishment of the Moroccan Protectorate, Melilla exploded, attracting adventurers and entrepreneurs (among them Hindu merchants) hoping to make their fortunes...
...Their plight received national attention earlier this year after a night of five apparently unrelated incidents in which illegal immigrants were accused of various crimes, among them manslaughter, rape and robbery...
...It is advertising Melilla's fiscal advantages for businesses...
...Another, a young lieutenant named Francisco Franco, transformed a ragtag assortment of mercenaries and criminals into the first battalion of the Spanish Legion—forging his military career and his reputation for ruthless brutality in the process...
...One day I made things a little slower for them...
...It has installed multimedia extravaganzas in 16th-century buildings in the old city...
...Making pointed references to the proximity of Algeria and the potential for fundamentalism in Morocco, Sava says of Hamed's party: "They want to take religion to the political system...
...A 16th-century fort perched on high rocks looks out over the Mediterranean...
...Within Melilla, the anniversary has provoked debates about how the legacy of colonialism has affected contemporary approaches to race and social justice...
...Along the beach promenade, Berber women wearing chadors stroll past Jews in yarmulkes and husky Spanish Legionnaires with closecropped hair...
...As the city grew, though, its isolation from the mainland—and from the Inquisition—attracted Sephardic Jews, descended from those who fled Spain in 1492 and were now fleeing persecution in neighboring countries...
...Despite its emphasis on tolerance, the quincentennial's tone has been harshly attacked by newly emergent Muslim politicians...
...They say, 'If you are a good Muslim you must vote for me.'" Hamed responds: "They're making a politics of ethnic division...
...Spanish soldiers pour into a new Berber restaurant to enjoy couscous and snails...
...Robin Cembalest, a new contributor to the NL, is arts editor of the Forward...
...The most important thing is to say to Spain that we are here," he told me in fluent English...
...According to the official Spanish history, after conflicts between the armies of Fez and what is at present Algeria, Melilla was depopulated...
...While the future of Melillahangs in the balance, the year-long V Centenario goes on merrily...
...To Franco, the Moroccan Protectorate represented the last chance to rescue the "great Spain" envisioned by Ferdinand and Isabella...
...He once returned from a raid with the bloody heads of Berber tribesmen as trophies...
...For one thing, the anniversary has galvanized Morocco, which has been asserting its right to the territory (along with Ceuta, another Spanish city 375 miles to the west) since its own independence in 1956...
...The difficulty of administering a growing immigrant population is one reason, but Spain's ongoing effort to recover Gibraltar is a factor as well...
...The next day 80 members of the national police corps were sent to reinforce security at the centers, to ensure that the quincentennial proceeds smoothly...
...The conflict has expanded beyond the quincentennial and turned into a public debate about the growing political power of Muslims...
...With a budget of $ 156 million, the V Centenario is working to promote Melilla as a European gateway to the African continent...
...They would have preferred a quincentennial that was a solemn occasion for reflection, not festivities: "In no case do we support a quincentennial celebrating a warlike act of conquest," said a statement released by the two-year-old Coalition for Melilla, a progressive party composed mostly of Berbers...
...We need solidarity...
...One of them, the Catalan immigrant Enrique Nieto, transformed the cityscape with grand modernista homes for the merchants servicing the Spanish Army...
...When Pedro de Estopinân came, one culture came," Mustafa Hamed, the party's leader, told me in his City Hall office just upstairs from Sava's...
...If a mother celebrates the birthday of her children," he said, "the children have to be well-dressed...
Vol. 80 • August 1997 • No. 13
