About My Visit to a Successful Hellhole

Shops and companies are constantly under the scrutiny of the business press. “They doing well”, “they’re downsizing”, “save money by shopping there”, “they’re hiring”, “new CEO targets smaller communities”…. But also “the stocks are rising” or “the shares fall”.

The embassies and the consulates should also be competing, just like the businesses. The headlines in the news would definitely be “they’re closing”, when it comes to the Moroccan embassy and consulates in Belgium, if they were scrutinized by the press.

Last Monday, I first visited the consulate of France in Brussels. It is located in rue de la Régence, where a great number of embassies and consulates are located as well as the European Union institutions. It is on walking distance from the house of the Belgian Prime Minister, not far from the Royal Palace and the Palace of Justice. It is also opposite the embassy of the USA. “You try to come near here”, the cage around the US embassy seems to challenge. I boasted with laughter when I noticed that cage.

Directly afterwards, I went to the consulate of Morocco in Anderlecht, which moved addresses in the recent years. In terms of address, the relocation feels like a waste of money because the consulate didn’t move to a better area, and the difference with the French consulate is like day and night. It was like traveling from a paradise to a hell.

Anderlecht is not like the area where the European Institutions are. Anderlecht is very much like Molenbeek. It is a poor part of Brussels, which is densely populated by immigrants. The local governance and social relations have led to very high unemployment, very low education level and it has become a rear-base of criminality, including international terrorism.

The Moroccan consulate is located in rue des Vétérinaires n° 55. It is definitely not the address for any embassy or consulate, all the more that the area of Anderlecht where it is located, is known for it’s numerous slaughterhouses, butcheries and morning markets.

I was by car and accompanied by a French-Moroccan family. We were looking for house number 55, in rue des Vétérinaires. From the car it was difficult to read the house numbers but Khedidja, a grandma who was with us, and who normally doesn’t see very well, noticed the consulate before we did. “There is the Moroccan flag”. It’s color was not vibrant red. It was almost black.

The flag was hanging sadly from a rod right above the very wide and huge metal door made for letting big trucks in. The building is not a regualar house or an office building. To me it seems like a warehouse or a place where animals were killed for their meat, indeed, and probably alluding to “Slaughterhouse 5”, by Kurt Vonnegut.

I asked the family to come inside with me, even though this visit concerns only my Moroccan ID card. I wanted to know if they had the same idea about the Moroccan consulate like I do. They stepped out willfully, also driven by the curiosity to see if Morocco is going forward, be it in the style of dealing with the Moroccan public. They too remember the times when the consulate had an outrageous relationship with the Moroccan citizens, cramming them in one big room and keeping them waiting the whole day. It used to be a consulate which functions for some and not for others.

The lack of internal coordination inside the consulate of Morocco led to people standing in long lines during hours. The only way to avoid that was to be the first to be let in, which caused people to camp and picnic in front of the consulate building, the night before. Other ways for avoiding all of this, was to apply for the Belgian nationality, or to give money under the table. My question has always been : what does it take for Morocco to structure the service in a seamless way, and to make the people happy ?

When we entered the French consulate, we first entered a corridor with a hand luggage security system, and we walk through weapon detector. After we were cleared, then they gave us access to the office building and to the reception area. You could see that they do a lot of efforts for protecting people’s personal data.

When we entered the Moroccan consulate, we were already inside the office building… I mean a big hangar capable of storing an aircraft. There is no door, but a ribbon which separates the security clearance area from the area with the officials and with the people’s data, which is supposed to be secret.

The security was handled by one single security agent, who counts on the people’s comprehension to walk through the weapon detector, because you could just as well walk past it. What’s the point of checking people bags and pockets if you are already standing inside the area prohibited of access without the security clearance, anyway.

Once you are inside you are supposed to speak to the reception. The receptionists were seated behind a counter with a big window as if hiding lots of money. I didn’t see much computer screens, but I saw a microphone through which they talk back to you, and I didn’t one for talking to them. Given the huge ceiling, in which your voice gets lost in the space, I was not sure I was heard.

“I came to collect my Moroccan ID card”, I said to a woman behind the counter. She pointed with her finger to the counter on the opposite side to hers. She was doing her job with pride, but without much know-how. “You don’t need a ticket for that”, she said with a smile.

In the French embassy, the receptionist keeps records of who comes in and of the nature of the request. He then gives you a turn number and he indicates the floor where the service is located. When he gives you the turn number, the corresponding service expects to receive you with that number, how else will they know if you were before or after somebody else ? They also call the number when nobody turns up, to check if the corresponding person is still in the building.

At the Moroccan embassy in Antwerp, which is by the way a cute terrassed house which should be cozy inside. Inside, they have taken away a lot of it’s cozy character, with the wrong furniture, never mind the people. They also use numbers, but the doorman doesn’t print them automatically. He still uses a roll with tickets that he pulls off, just like pulling off toilet paper. He tucks the ticket in your hand.

Khedidja told me that in Antwerp, they shout out the people’s names, which is so embarrassing, if you have anything to handle discreetly, like a divorce or a problem of custody. She immitated the calling out of names, and we were laughing with delight.

I went to the counter on the opposite side. It is also with a big window with a hole in it for passing on money or documents, but is it also used as the microphone. The glass of the big window was not crystal clear, but dusty, and that is unacceptable. There was a man sitting behind the window, and he doesn’t have a microphone like the receptionist, even though he has more critical information I had trouble hearing him, so I lowered my head and I was using the hole as an earphone, to understand what he was saying.

In front of him is a table and on top were laying wooden sectioned storage trays, in which he had the digital ID cards stored of everyone. I gave him a piece of paper, which a civil servant of the consulate in Antwerp gave to me, on which he hand-wrote my Moroccan ID card number.

“This is my ID card number and I come to pick it up”, I said. He plunged his hand in one of the holes in the tray, he retrieved a stack of ID cards and he searched for my number. I could easily reach out my hand and grab a stack of ID cards too, and run, because the hole in the window was large enough to stick the arm in it. It seems that the Moroccan consulate was set up precisely for getting people’s ID cards stolen.

“When did you renew your ID card ?” he asked. “End of 2010”, I answered. “Then we’ve sent it back to Morocco”, he said, “you see, we keep the cards during 6 months, and if not collected within that period, we send them back… So what I can suggest to you is that you pay 20 Euro and we will get you a copy of the ID card”, the man told me.

It is not quite that I have lost my ID card, to request a copy of it. I simply didn’t collect it at the consulate directly after making one. Why should I get a copy ? I thought that a copy is appropriate only when accompanied with a police declaration for a theft or a loss. Why can’t I get an original ID card ? What happened to the original ID card ? Why can’t they send it back to me, if they have it in Morocco ?

“I actually live in Antwerp”, I said. “Do you think that I should order the copy of my digital ID card at the Moroccan consulate in Antwerp ?” “Yes, and you must start everything anew there, you must take with you, either your passport or your birth certificate”, the man explained. “I lost all my documents in this country, and the consulate here already has existing files of me”, I explained. “In that case you should transfer your dossier to Antwerp. Please check with the reception for more information”, he said. “Thank you”, I said and I skipped asking if he thinks that he was doing a good job by telling me to tranfer my dossier to Antwerp.

Behind him was an open space with a few worn out desks that didn’t match the seats. The walls were sad and gray. The lighting consisted of one bulb in the middle of the room and white fluorescent tubes… yes, this place must have been a slaughterhouse, perhaps for chicken. The view behind the back of the man who distributes the ID card was unsightly. Unprofessional is the right term.

The ID cards should not be displayed in front of him, but behind him in small drawers. The public should also not see what is happening in the back-office. The civil servants should not be sheepish like illegal Moroccans themselves, but like pro-active people who have taste and style. They should come across like people who are in charge of the destiny of their people and nation.

He said that I must transfer my dossier. “Does this mean that I must take it myself to the Moroccan consulate in Antwerp”, I wondered, because I was in fact not pleased that the Moroccan consulate in Antwerp requested that I go and pick up the ID card myself in at the Moroccan consulate in Brussels. Why can’t they transfer everything between the consulates themselves, my files plus the ID card ? Why must I be the mail man ? Don’t the consulates cooperate ? Why can’t the transfer be requested through the computer and organized by an an officer ?

Before leaving the consulate, we had a look around. I went to the ladies’ room because I drink water all the time. They were two toilets. One young lady came out of one, and I entered the one next door’s. I searched for the switch to turn on the lights, because it was really dark. When I found it, it didn’t work. The light didn’t turn on. “There is always something which doesn’t work in the Moroccan consulate”, I shouted out loud. Like any Moroccan would do, the young lady who was touching up her face agreed emphatically. “Absolument”, she said.

We saw people sitting in big room comparable to a ball room, with a stage at one end. It is possible that the place was previously an auction house. The people were seated just like in the cinema, and they were watching a screen with a film, while awaiting their turn number to appear on it.

I noticed the fake mosaics on the ground and on the ceiling of the ball room. They had better let the ground and the ceiling like it was before. The ornaments — like the tiny fountains against the wall — are of no added value when the rest of the wall in such a huge space is left bare. They don’t match the architecture. Whomever placed the fountains was actually saying “I hope you feel at home and I hope you are happy”.

The room was full and I noticed from the people’s faces that they were bored or tired of waiting. I could also hear that from the cries of an infant which probably was sitting there for hours and it wanted to go home. The child doesn’t want to be in the consulate. It probably also doesn’t want to be in Morocco because of a discouraging Moroccan consulate.

From looking at the state of mind of the child, caused by the atmosphere in the consulate, I really wonder how Morocco does it for attracting so much business from tourism with such an unattractive consulate ?

So for me it is quite surprising the departures from Brussels to Morocco as a tourist destination is one of the highest, because I don’t see the link between the cause and effect. I don’t see what causes the tourism in Morocco to be so successful with the Belgian people despite the fact that the Moroccan consulate in Brussels is far below the standards. It is a question which will definitely continue to puzzle the business press, who is always curious to find out more about successful business models.

My impression was that they are wasting a lot of space at the Moroccan consulate in Brussels. The space was visibly made for receiving trucks and vans, not people. It is a building and a place which doesn’t have the attributes of Morocco which the tourists like, but all the attributes of a hell hole, that Donald Trump was talking about, recently.

Thus I am inviting the international business press to scrutinize the guest-friendliness and the image which any country is sending with it’s embassies and consulates, and why we have disgraceful cases like the Moroccan consulate in Brussels.