Melilla
Melilla (Berber: Mrič) is a Spanish exclave on the Mediterranean Rif coast of North Africa. Before the Spanish conquest in 1497, it was a predominantly Berber town. It was regarded as a part of Andalusia adscribed to the Málaga province prior to the March 14, 1995, when the city Statute of Autonomy was passed; it was a free port before Spain joined the European Union. As of 1994 it had a population of 63,670. Its population consists of Christians, Muslims, Jews and a small minority of Hindus. Both Spanish and Tamazight (Amazigh language) are spoken there.
Political status
Morocco claims Melilla, along with Ceuta and various small Spanish islands off the coast of Africa (Plazas de soberanía) that are sovereign posts, drawing comparisons with Spain's territorial claim to Gibraltar. The Spanish government rejects these comparisons (as do the inhabitants of the cities), on the grounds that both Ceuta and Melilla are integral parts of the Spanish state, whereas Gibraltar, a British overseas territory, is not considered part of the United Kingdom. The history of Melilla is similar to that of many towns in the south of mainland Spain, passing through Phoenician, Punic, Roman, Byzantine, Vandal, Visigothic, Muslim and then Christian possession.
Melilla and Ceuta are the only two European territories located in mainland Africa. The amateur radio call sign used for both cities is EA9. They count as one separate "entity".
Subdivisions
Melilla is subdivided into eight wards or neighborhoods (barrios)[1]:
- Barrio de Medina Sidonia
- Barrio del General Larrea
- Barrio del Ataque Seco
- Barrio de los Héroes de España
- Barrio del General Gómez Jordana
- Barrio del Príncipe de Asturias
- Barrio del Carmen
- Barrio del Polígono Residencial de La Paz
Economy
The principal industry is fishing; cross-border commerce (legal or smuggled) and Spanish and European grants and wages are the other income sources.
Melilla is regularly connected to the Peninsula by plane and vessels and also economically connected to Morocco: most of its fruits and vegetables are imported across the border. Also, Moroccans in the city's influence area are attracted to it: 36,000 Moroccans cross the border daily to work, shop, or trade goods [citation needed].
History
Melilla was a Phoenician and later Punic establishment under the name of Rusadir. Later it became a part of the Roman province of Mauretania Tingitana. As centuries passed, it went through Vandal, Byzantine and Hispano-Visigothic hands. Melilla was part of the Moroccan Kingdom of Fez when Juan Alonso Pérez de Guzmán, known as Guzmán el Bueno, the 3rd Duke of Medina Sidonia conquered it in 1497, a few years after Castile had taken control of the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada, the last remain of Al-Andalus.
The current limits of the Spanish territory around the fortress were fixed by treaties with Morocco in 1859, 1860, 1861 and 1894. In the late 19th century, as Spanish influence expanded, Melilla became the only authorized centre of trade on the Rif coast between Tetuan and the Algerian frontier. The value of trade increased, goat skins, eggs and beeswax being the principal exports, and cotton goods, tea, sugar and candles being the chief imports.
The Spaniards had had much trouble with the neighboring tribes—the turbulent Rif, independent Berbers (Amazighs) hardly subject to the sultan of Morocco.
In 1893 the Rif berbers besieged Melilla, and 25,000 men had to be dispatched against them. In 1908 two companies, under the protection of El Roghi, a chieftain then ruling the Rif region, started mining lead and iron some 20 kilometers from Melilla. A railway to the mines was begun. In October of that year the Roghi's vassals revolted against him and raided the mines, which remained closed until June 1909. By July the workmen were again attacked and several of them killed. Severe fighting between the Spaniards and the tribesmen followed. In 1910, the Rif having submitted, saw the Spaniards restarting the mines and undertaking harbour works at Mar Chica. But hostilities broke out again in 1911 and the Abd el Krim forces inflicted a grave defeat on the Spanish (see Battle of Annual), and were not pacified until 1927, when the Spanish Protectorate finally managed to control the area again.
General Francisco Franco used the city as one of his staging grounds for his rebellion in 1936, and a statue of him is still prominently featured.
City culture and society
Melilla's Capilla de Santiago or James's Chapel, by the city walls, is the only genuine Gothic architecture in Africa.
During the change from the 19th to the 20th century, Melilla was thriving in the context of the Spanish Protectorate. A new bourgeois class expressed its prestige in the architectural style of Modernisme, the Catalan version of Art Nouveau, which was then in vogue in Spain. The workshops inspired by the Catalan architect, Enrique Nieto, continued in the modernist style, even after it went out of fashion elsewhere. So Melilla has the second most important concentration of Modernist works in Spain, after Barcelona.
Melilla has been praised as an example of multiculturalism, being a little city in which one can find up to three major religions represented, it is very interesting to see how people of three different religions can live side-by-side in harmony within a small area. However, the Christian majority of the past, being around 65% not so long time ago, has been shrinking while the number of Muslims has been steadily increasing to its present 45% of the population in either sides, and Jews have been leaving for years (from 20% of the population before World War II to less than 5% today). The culture in this little city is divided in two halves,[citation needed] one is European and the other Amazigh, while the first one is represented all over the rest of the country, the second one, being represented only in this little piece of Spain, is considered by some, specially in the mainland, as foreign.
Immigration
There is considerable pressure by African refugees to enter Melilla, a part of the European Union. The border is secured by the Melilla border fence, a six-meter-tall double fence with watch towers, yet refugees frequently manage to cross it illegally, avoiding the attempts by Spanish police to take them back to their home countries. Detection wires, tear gas dispensers, radar, and day/night vision cameras are planned to increase security and prevent illegal immigration. In October 2005, over 700 sub-Saharan migrants tried to enter Spanish territory from the Moroccan border. Many of them were shot in the back by the Moroccan Gendarmerie. Amnesty International and Médecins Sans Frontières have accused the Moroccan government of dumping over 500 refugees in the Sahara Desert without food or water supplies.
Museums
There are several museums in the old part of the city.
Transport
The most common means to reach Melilla are by flights to Melilla Airport from Malaga or Madrid, by the land border with Morocco, or by ferry to Melilla.
See also
- Melilla border fence
- Ceuta
- UD Melilla
- Plazas de soberanía
- List of Spanish Colonial Wars in Morocco
- Spanish Morocco
- Mohamed is the most common surname in Melilla due to how Spanish Christian officials registered the Muslim population.
References
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
- Wilkinson, Tracy, "Spain's Little Piece of Africa", Los Angeles Times, January 11, 2006
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