The Islands and the Algerian route
A few months ago, when the arrival of boats from Algeria to the Balearic Islands was beginning to intensify, I received a call from Radio Illa, based in Formentera, to interview me on the subject. The first question already defined the scope of the interview: Is the migratory route between Algeria and the Balearic Islands established? My answer was a bit brash: of course! In fact, for almost two centuries, this route has been established.
Since the French colonization of Algeria, a territory almost equidistant from the Islands as the Iberian Peninsula, the North African country has become a priority destination for Spanish emigrants from the Mediterranean area. Whenever there was an agrarian crisis, emigration was the main mechanism for self-regulation of the population and its needs. The largest exodus occurred with the phylloxera crisis, which put an end to most of the vineyard crops, vital to the subsistence of the island's countryside.
We could even go further back in time, as when the Majorcans were sent by King Ferdinand of Aragon to Bugia, on the Algerian coast, to wage war. Since the king did not pay them, the survivors kept the weapons that made the Germanías revolt possible 500 years ago. The Algerian city, by the way, is the same place where Ramon Llull, a couple of centuries earlier, had preached in Arabic, having a dispute with the city's wise men at the beginning of the 14th century, recorded in his written work.
At the end of the 19th century, the most important Spanish colony in Algeria was that of the Menorcans, numbering around 20,000. Every time a ship from the French metropolis passed by the island, Menorcan men and women enlisted in search of a better life. There were also people from the other islands, as well as people from Alicante, Almería, Murcia... Albert Camus, the famous writer, considered a pied-noir For the French (an Algerian who emigrated to the French metropolis) he was actually a descendant of Menorcans, as the characters in his novel are also Menorcans. The StrangerIn Algeria they still speak the patouet, or 'Mahonés', the dialect of Catalan spoken by the descendants of the Menorcan community in the country.
Already in the 20th century, Damià Ferrà-Ponç recounts the emigration of the bell ringers (like that of many other Mallorcans) to Algeria in the post-war period, in the 1940s and 1950s. They left from exactly the same places (such as the beaches and coves of Santany) Algerians and Africans fleeing hunger, wars and persecution. The so-called black market We can also frame it here: Joan March became rich by controlling the route, but most islanders used it purely for subsistence.
In any case, the truth is that this century that ancient route has been reactivated, but in the opposite direction, from Algeria to the Balearic Islands, for obvious reasons. Especially since 2022, when the friendship agreement with Algeria is broken due to the conflict with the Sahara, with the change in the historical position of the kingdom of Spain. The composition of the people embarking has also changed in recent years, mostly young Algerians and people of all ages and conditions from other African countries, who have crossed half the continent in conditions of extreme precariousness and violence. In recent months, even people from Somalia have arrived, more than 8,000 kilometers from our archipelago... We cannot even imagine what this represents, and that all these experiences are reduced, at best, to mere soulless numbers. Many have left it along the way. Many have also left their lives.
Because the route between Algeria and the Balearic Islands is a route of hope for many people who suffer today as much or more than the islanders did in the past. But it is also a route of death: more than 328 victims in the first five months of this year, more than 500 last year, and many more missing, as reported by Helena Maleno, PhD. Honoris Causa by the UIB.
Hope and death dance hand in hand on this route, but this could be entirely avoidable. Because beyond the political and media alarmism and the racist criminalization, the response to all this should be, above all, humanitarian. Recognizing a long-standing fact, caring for people who arrive with dignity, and combating hate speech that focuses on those who are nothing more than a flash in the pan reminding us of our own recent past. If we are capable of hosting 20 million tourists, but we protest because we don't want to care for 49 children, or we complain about rescuing and treating with a minimum of dignity people who (it's worth remembering) are just passing through for a few hours, because we are not even their final destination, we should take a long, hard look at this.
