2010-02-25
How can real jobs be found for the thousands of young people who survive by dealing and scheming? How can the informal sector be regularized, so it respects the law, creates the businesses and jobs so needed, and serves local development? Only the government in Algiers, 500km away, can provide the answer, says Jean-Pierre Séréni.
Djamel Bendimered, veteran of the war of independence and owner of the biggest brickyard in western Algeria, asked: “What crisis?” and said: “There’s work and money here for a long time to come.” Before him sprawled 20km of Tlemcen and its outskirts, 250,000 people. Grey concrete absorbs the plains that were covered in orchards and olive groves until the 1970s. Property developers and private individuals build as they please, according to their means. Tlemcen is accumulating dusty neighborhoods and dormitory suburbs: Kiffane has been home to professionals and civil servants since the 1980s, and Imama, with its office blocks, is the new town center.
Growth has accelerated since 2000: 35,000 people already live in the suburb of Oulidja; Boulidja on the opposite hill has 25,000. You can spot the public housing of the Algerian agency for housing development and improvement (AADL), its owner-occupied homes are four or five stories high with small neat gardens. The owners get a good deal, with the government paying half the sale price. The rented council flats are cheap but not so good, although you need connections to get one.
People building their own homes construct a garage on the ground floor to use as a shop while they wait to build one or two stories above, more in a good year. Metal juts out from unfinished brick and breeze-block walls.
The housing boom is self-perpetuating. Construction workers come to Tlemcen from all over Algeria -- to build homes for new arrivals. The authorities have tried but failed to eliminate shantytowns, renamed “spontaneous living areas” in the official jargon. The biggest, Boudghane, sits at the foot of the cliffs of the Lalla-Setti plateau overlooking the town, and is now home to 25,000, compared with 3,000 at the time of independence in 1962. Boudghane swelled with the rural exodus and by the civil war of the 1990s. The authorities have given up the idea of pulling it down and are trying to improve it. The houses have been made permanent, with TV aerials and terraces. The locals built four mosques, which the town council whitewashed. With its narrow winding streets, it attracts artisans and people providing services who want to keep out of sight of the authorities.
Because of the rise in the price of oil and gas over the last decade, Algeria, a major exporter, has had a lot of money to spend on improving Tlemcen and the province: It was badly needed after the black decade of the civil war. There was a lack of clean drinking water, hospitals were under-equipped, classrooms overcrowded, and many municipal buildings on the verge of collapse. In 2004 President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who comes from the region, appointed a new wali (prefect, or state representative) Abdelwahab Noury, to shake things up. He had been the wali of Ain-Defla in central Algeria, a stronghold of Islamist fighters. His new mission was to restore Tlemcen’s former glory.
Glory restored
The results have been spectacular. A two-lane avenue, illuminated at night, leads from Zenata airport 30km away to the monumental entrance to the town, its ring road, multi-colored fountains and tiled pavements, their edges painted red and white. A cable car links the neighborhoods in the west with the Lalla-Setti plateau, more than 1,200 meters high, spruced up and now very popular with families at the weekend. Two huge water desalination plants are under construction, and trenches are being cut in the roads to lay pipes and cables for water, electricity, natural gas and sewage, to almost all homes. “We will cable electricity 2km to supply one family!” says the wali, indifferent to the financial difficulties of the state electricity and gas company, Sonelgaz, which is heavily in debt because it refuses to raise its tariffs. For the first time in 30 years, the people of Tlemcen enjoy peace and a slightly better way of life, despite high inflation.
There is more construction to come. The Islamic educational, scientific and cultural organization (Isesco) has named Tlemcen Capital of Islamic Culture for 2011, after Alexandria, Aleppo, Lahore and Fez. The town has decided on an ambitious program and launched 15 construction projects, including a big hotel on Lalla-Setti being built by a Chinese company. The locals marvel at the pace of the Chinese workers, who toil 24 hours a day. The religious content of the year remains hazy: Each of Isesco’s 49 member countries will have a week to present its version of Islamic culture, but it’s not yet clear what Algeria will do.
Sari-Ali Hikmet, a doctor, and founding member of the Algerian National Union of Zawiyas (UNZA) hopes to use the opportunity to promote his ideas about secular North African Islam: “Unlike the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia, we have always preached the separation of religious and state power. The town’s patron saint, Sidi Boumediene, taught in the 12th century that we should respect the king,” said Hikmet, whose grandfather was the town’s first Muslim doctor. Most zawiya leaders refused to support the FIS (Islamic Salvation Front) between 1989 and 1992; many were killed. The government helps their many philanthropic activities, from distributing charity at Ramadan to running soup kitchens. But that does not mean the zawiyas will be allowed to play a role in national education, as UNZA wants. The union claims to represent 8,900 zawiyas affiliated to nine religious fraternities, to which they say a majority of the Algerian population belong.
“They are opportunists. They pretend to be moderate but their real goal is an Islamic state,” said a farmer on the Terni plateau. “We don’t want Tlemcen to become an Islamic town.” There are no cinemas or theaters and few restaurants, and in the last year all but one of the 16 shops selling alcohol have been closed down.
We have taken control
Religion remains at the center of social life, and the mosque sets the rhythm of the day, occupies minds and dominates conversation. Young men fight over the honor of delivering the call to prayer from the minaret, others demand extra loudspeakers so they can hear the sacred words better, even if light sleepers complain about being woken. “Outside work, I devote myself to Islam,” said a shy plumber. The wilaya (prefecture) maintains a strict surveillance of Tlemcen’s 34 mosques. “We have taken back control,” said an official. “The imam is appointed by the state, and we give him the broad lines of his Friday sermon, which must not last more than 20 minutes. In the past anyone could turn up and preach.” The official had in his pocket the keys to the main mosque, where the opening hours are set by the government: one hour before lunch for the midday prayer, from 4pm to 10pm for the last prayer. “In the past too many people spent the night here and damaged the place.”
The government believes the ministry of religious affairs’ lack of control over the mosques 20 years ago helped the FIS to grow. The “little brothers,” as radical Islamist militants are nicknamed, are still around but they keep quiet, and fewer are willing to wear white robes. The full veil for women has gone out of fashion in favor of a lighter scarf, and many female students in this university town keep their heads uncovered. “How will I find a husband if I keep my face hidden?” asked one.
The building of mosques is also tightly controlled. They must be built on state land by an approved contractor, and the money collected at Friday prayers in the main mosques is redistributed between them by the wali.
The wali is in charge of every aspect of town and provincial life. Nothing gets done without his approval, and there is no one to stand in his way. He has power because the money comes from central government in Algiers, whose coffers are swollen by oil revenue. Local elected officials lack resources and legitimacy, and traditional leaders are absent from official bodies. Many feel a vague sense of having been cheated. Tlemcen was one of three cities in French Algeria with a Franco-Muslim secondary school providing a solid education in Arabic and French. It produced bright young graduates who played an important role in the war of independence and setting up the new state. Graduates of the school and of another Tlemcen institution, Slane College, have for a long time occupied key posts in the government, the civil service and business, as well as the army and security services.
Algeria’s chaotic conversion in the 1990s from socialism to a market economy weakened the public sector. State-owned businesses were closed or mothballed, their bosses eclipsed by the rise of the private sector and a new kind of businessman who had money, if not always the right manner. Only doctors avoided a drop in status because, even though healthcare has officially been free in Algeria since 1974, in practice patients often have to open their wallets. There are 10 private clinics in the town, attracting wealthy patients away from the dilapidated colonial hospital built in 1947. A new hospital is scheduled for the campus being built at Abou Bekr Belkaid university, which already has 35,000 students, 58% of them female. “They want to succeed, they work harder than boys, and their families no longer mind them finishing their studies before marrying a man who will let them work,” said the university rector, Nourredine Ghouali, a mathematician from Tlemcen.
A town divided
But many of Tlemcen’s original inhabitants, proud of their lineage, feel overwhelmed by the incomers, especially from the countryside. Incomers outnumber locals five to one. Their shops clutter the pavements in the center, where they buy up old houses, demolish them and replace them with ugly concrete boxes. Marriages symbolize the division. “There’s no question of my daughter marrying one of them,” said a woman, recounting how the daughter of a friend had run off with a boy from Ain-Sefra, 300 km away, and been disowned by her father. The woman’s husband was more diplomatic: “If the marriage goes wrong, the old Tlemcen families, who are often related, know how to arrange things between themselves without too much damage, but they wouldn’t know how to go about it with outsiders.”
Decrees by central government have destroyed the economic base of local families: President Ahmed Ben Bella nationalized the sale of agricultural produce in the 1960s, and President Houari Boumedienne collectivized land in the 1970s. An overzealous and unpredictable bureaucracy has discouraged artisans: weavers, copperware manufacturers, shoemakers and silversmiths. Their workshops created wealth but have now disappeared. “There are only around 40 small businesses left, and fewer than 10 are up to standard,” said Chekib Mered, a drug manufacturer.
The two largest industrial groups employ 1,000 people each and work mostly for the state. “But the return on your investment here is considerable,” said the director of the local branch of Natexis, a French commercial bank. Even so, investment in industry is rare. “We lack capital, managers and qualified staff,” said Abdelhak Boublenza, who exports carob and is setting up a business school in Tlemcen. Sid-Ahmed Kamel Habri, head of a stationery company, Mega Papers, says: “The problem is the unfair competition of the black market.”
The black market has certainly taken off. The informal sector produces nothing: It imports. With no social security contributions, tax or import duty to pay, or regulations to comply with, it thrives with impunity. It affects the whole country, but is particularly acute here, so close to the frontier with Morocco. The border may have been closed for more than 15 years, but it is porous. On the road from Maghnia to the Mediterranean, runs a steady stream of ancient lorries and cars, with their special cargo: domestic fuel oil hidden in extra tanks, which any mechanic from Soudani to Boukanoun is happy to fit.
The obstinacy of Algerian politicians means the price of oil has not risen in 10 years, while in Morocco it has been gradually aligned to the European price: The difference is tenfold, creating a lucrative business. It is decanted into tanks the size of underground car parks dug close to the border. At night it is channeled across the border through irrigation pipes, or carried by donkeys, which know the road so well they can make the journey on their own.
Open borders
It doesn’t matter how many border checkpoints are set up, the pipeline flows. The “businessmen” who buy oil in one of the 17 state-owned Naftal filling stations along the border earn at least four times the minimum Algerian monthly salary of $173. “Some do 14 trips a day,” according to a customs official.
Morocco exports hashish, produced in the nearby Rif mountains, and carefully graded: Blocks marked with the Mercedes three-pointed star are exported to Europe, those with a picture of a bee are for East Africa and the Middle East, and the rest goes to Algeria, where the number of users in major towns is growing.
The profit from this can be seen throughout the area, particularly in Maghnia, which should be suffering from the closed border, but is thriving. Its population has multiplied 13 times since independence. Investment properties and luxury hotels abound, and the housing boom is even more spectacular than in Tlemcen, its rival. The richest traffickers build four- or five-storey villas adorned with turrets and brightly painted cupolas.
Last August a lorry carrying smuggled oil exploded at Ghazaouet, killing 20 people. People were angry and the government clamped down on the traffic. A mini riot broke out, with smugglers protesting they needed work. Within days the traffic was back to normal. “Whenever we clamp down there is unrest, so we let things be to keep the peace,” said a customs officer. That is Tlemcen’s problem, and perhaps that of all Algeria: How can real jobs be found for the thousands of young people who survive by dealing and scheming? How can the informal sector be regularized, so it respects the law, creates the businesses and jobs so needed, and serves local development? Only the government in Algiers, 500km away, can provide the answer.
Source: Middle East Online.
Link:
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=37477.
