Morocco, Algeria neighbours hope for open border

Relations between Algerian and Moroccan citizens withstand political disputes.

By Imrane Binoual for Magharebia in Casablanca

[File] “Diwana”, a popular TV comedy aired during Ramadan, featured customs agents posted on opposite sides of the Algeria-Morocco border.
For Algerians living in Morocco and Moroccans living in Algeria, the closed border is an issue for politicians, not the people.

The subject is bound to arise on the street, since any discussion of bilateral relations between the neighbouring countries involves a mention of how political tensions stalled the Arab Maghreb Union (UMA) project.

“But people can make a distinction between neighbourly relations and political matters,” stresses Ichrak Tawafi, a Moroccan student who counts members of Casablanca’s Algerian community among her friends.

“Personally, I decided to stop discussing politics with the Algerians I know. It’s a very complicated issue,” Tawafi adds.

Rather than stirring enmity, the border issue has become a subject of humour. “Diwana”, starring Moroccan comedian Hassan El Fad and Algeria’s Abdelkader Secte as customs agents, aired during Ramadan on Moroccan network 2M. The show turned the issue of the border’s nearly 20-year closure into a source of laughs.

The political wrangling between governments has little impact on inter-personal relations. Fears that nationals from one country living in the other are subject to isolation or discriminatory treatment are unfounded.

“I always find that the Algerians who live among us don’t feel that they are of a different nationality,” says Tawafi, who is studying for her PhD.

Houcine Boulmanem, a young Moroccan entrepreneur with business interests in Algeria, has had similar experiences. “Algerians have always been welcoming towards me. I’ve never experienced any kind of discrimination, either from the public or the authorities, whenever I’ve been there,” he tells Magharebia.

“When I made my first trip, I didn’t feel disoriented, yet I was travelling from one country to another,” he says.

The plane even takes off from Dar El Beida in Morocco and lands at Dar El Beida in Algeria, Boumanem notes.

Algerian Samir Abdelmalek, who works in the press sector in Morocco, has never had any problem integrating into the media world across the border. What is more, he finds that he can easily move from one job to another to develop his career.

Moroccans living in Algeria feel the same way. Nada, a young woman who has just settled in Algiers with her husband, says she has never experienced any discrimination.

“Algerians are friendly and take an interest in us, and also ask us whether we have integrated well into society. And this is just as it should be, because we are virtually the same nation and have many things in common,” Nada says.

“Political differences have nothing to do with us,” she adds.

[AFP/Farouk Batiche] Algerians and Moroccans living along the shared border say they see little that divides them outside of politics.
Yasmina Si Abderrahmane, a member of the Maghreb 21 association, is particularly disturbed by what the border issue does to families.

“In Oujda there are people who have relatives in Algeria, just a few kilometres beyond the border. It’s really not a nice situation to be in. The two nations want to draw closer together,” she says.

“When we are in contact with each other, we get on very well,” she continues. “I think we are one nation, with the same traditions and the same culture.”

The warming trend on the street is echoed in the diplomatic arena. Things have taken a positive turn in recent months.

Algeria-Morocco relations began a dramatic improvement in January, when Moroccan Foreign Minister Saad Eddine El Othmani visited Algiers. The trip – the first by a Moroccan foreign minister to Algeria since 2003- aimed at revitalising the Arab Maghreb Union (UMA).

Borders between Algeria and Morocco will have to open “sooner or later”, Algerian Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia told El Khabar on March 14th.

“Things are moving now in an excellent manner, on the basis of mutual visits and meetings on both sides, pointing to a warming of relations,” he said. “The borders are therefore required to be open.”

Especially, he added, since “we are two neighbouring countries obliged to get along together, given the things which unite us, such as language, religion, common traditions, and our shared history and future”.

Late last month, King Mohammed VI reiterated his call to “take the Maghreb Union from the current state of inertia to a more dynamic status that can help us achieve sustainable, integrated development”.

“Morocco will carry on with its endeavours to reinforce its bilateral relations with all its Maghreb partners – including our neighbour and sister nation Algeria – in order to respond to the pressing, legitimate aspirations of peoples in the region,” the monarch said in a televised speech on Throne Day.

Trade between Algeria and the other countries in the Arab Maghreb Union saw an improvement of 18.14% in 2011. And Morocco remained Algeria’s top trade partner last year.

But a new report released earlier this month by the African Development Bank (AfDB) indicated that the Maghreb region is the least economically integrated neighbourhood in the world.

The Algeria-Morocco border, closed since 1994, is among the biggest obstacles to the long-dormant Arab Maghreb Union, the AfDB noted.

Yet despite the political stalemate, “the potential is huge”, AfDB economist Emanuele Santi said.

“The new political context in North African countries and the crisis in Europe, which compels countries to diversify markets, offer a golden opportunity to refocus on the regional integration agenda as an engine of growth for all countries,” Santi added.

[File] Dozens of civil society activists gathered in Nouakchott last December for the Euro-Maghreb Youth Union (UJEM) conference.
No matter what happens between the Moroccan and Algerian governments, citizens of the sister countries share the same goal, says Taghzout Ghezali of Algeria’s Movement of Independent Youths for Change (MJIC) and a founding member of theEuro-Maghreb Youth Union(UJEM).

“What the people want is for the border to be opened,” he tells Magharebia. “It’s not nice to see people who live just a few kilometres away from each other but cannot cross the border because of the political conflict between the two countries.”

“I think half of Algeria’s people just want the border to be opened so that they can move freely around the Maghreb and the continent of Africa,” Ghezali adds. “It’s very frustrating for people to be able to travel to Tunisia and Libya but not Morocco.”

Maghreb youth share similar aspirations for their region and must now work together to see their goal realised, according to UJEM.

“The attempt to build a Greater Maghreb from the top down failed, and we think it should be done from the bottom up,” Abdessamad Filali told Magharebia.

On either side of their still-closed border, Algerians and Moroccans appear ready to embrace the challenge.