02/08/2026
Few words on Ceuta, Morocco, Spain and Europe.
We’ve heard the racist reaction shouting about invasion and emergency. Let’s see what happened.
(I have a master degree on the Euro-Mediterranean border between Ceuta and Melilla and Morocco. The pictures in the background are from my time living and studying there.)
First of all, a lot of people died. We need to respect their lives, lost unfairly like all the other lives lost at this and others deadly borders.
Also, migrants have agency and that can’t be overlooked.
We stand in solidarity with people on the move, always.
Now, onto the geopolitics.
Was it a geopolitical move? Probably, yes.
It happened before, multiple times. Morocco uses, or better relax their security when there is something at stake (as it happens in Libya, in Turkey…).
Morocco, USA, Netanyahu, Algeria, Western Sahara, there were surely several reasons for this.
But.
We have to remember why that border is there, and we definitely have to reflect on the neocolonialism behind it.
European countries built a ‘fortress’ around their borders, and paid and outsourced the dirty job of the outside security to countries like Morocco for Spain and Libya for Italy. Europe wants its fortress but doesn’t want to deal with what’s outside.
It’s the inhumane migration policies implemented by the European countries that made this happen.
Ceuta and Melilla are in Africa and so it cannot be an invasion of Europe, but the other way around.
Ceuta and Melilla have a special status. The EU Schengen system doesn’t apply there, you simply cannot just get to Spain. People that manage to cross are swiftly expelled, or worse die, or are killed.
It’s a ridiculous border (even more than the others), and there is no “emergency”.
It’s neocolonialism, neoliberalism and capitalism that created all this. They want us to fear and hate people just because they are on the other side of the wall.
We can’t let them.
We need to stop the racism, islamophobia and migrant hate.
No one is illegal.
