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competition with North Africa's own poor who also wish to reach Europe.
And although the vast majority are Africans, some come from as far away
as the Indian sub-continent. There is a contingent of Bangladeshis now
with the Polisario rebels in the desert -- rebels who would expel
Morocco from the former Spanish Sahara. The Polisario doesn't want
them, but they cannot get across the lines to the disputed
Moroccan-held territory, so they wait, and wait, and wait.</p>
<p>Morocco is a favorite destination because it is so close to Europe
that on a clear day you can see Spain across the Gibraltar Strait from
northern towns such as Tangier. These refugees, waiting for their
chance, speak of Spain as if it were an unimaginable el dorado worth
risking one's life for, and many die in the attempt. In this it is
similar to the fate of Latin Americans trying to cross the desert into
the United States from Mexico, dreaming of ''El Norte," or the
boatloads of Haitians and Cubans who risk their lives at sea.</p>
<p>In Morocco, these would-be asylum seekers are called ''Harraga,"
from the Arabic word ''burn." This is because, under Spanish law, the
authorities cannot expel refugees if their identity and nationality
cannot be proven within 40 days. So, of course, the first thing the
refugees do is burn their papers.</p>
<p>Last autumn, the world was horrified by the heartbreaking scenes of
Africans trying to climb razor-sharp wire in order to force their way
into Spain's last two tiny toeholds in Morocco, Ceuta and Melilla. The
two enclaves are the last European colonial relics on the continent of
Africa.</p>
<p>Morocco was criticized for allowing Africans to assault the fences
from Moroccan territory, and today the government has made it much
harder for immigrants to reach Europe from Morocco. But as a squeezed
balloon will bulge out somewhere else, immigrants shifted their gaze
south to the former Spanish Sahara, disputed territory under Moroccan
control. From the capital, Laayoune, refugees can reach the Spanish
Canary Islands off the African coast.</p>
<p>Falwa Jaafari, who recently produced a documentary for Moroccan
television on the problem, told me that she had asked an African who
was about to embark for the Canaries if he really was going to risk his
life on such an un-seaworthy boat. ''Well, even the Titanic sunk," she
was told as the boat departed the shore.</p>
<p>As Morocco cracks down on the Harraga, however, their embarkation
points shift even further south to Mauritania. From there they arrive
in the Canaries in the hundreds in frail and overcrowded boats,
providing tourists with grotesque photo opportunities. Already around
4,000 Africans have arrived illegally in the Canary Islands this year.
Some have been apprehended and sent back to try again, while more than
1,000 have drowned at sea.</p>
<p>Spain and the European Union have become increasingly alarmed, but
Europe has no common immigration policy, and it is a sign of our times
that waves upon waves of the world's poor will continue to risk all to
wash up upon the shores of the industrialized rich.</p>
<a
 href="http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/04/04/nothing_glamorous_about_this_life/">http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/04/04/nothing_glamorous_about_this_life/</a><br>
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