ReachExtra
The 2018 APCG congress marked a quarter of a century of collaboration between the journalists’ associations of the Campo de Gibraltar and Northern Morocco
“I sometimes think we’ve talked about almost everything, we’ve touched on all the issues: immigration, women’s rights, cultural identity, socio-economic development, tourism, security, the terrorist threat… and, yet the most important thing about these congresses is not the issue of the day, but the simple fact that they take place at all and we journalists from both coasts continue to make some effort to keep getting to know each other, to keep talking about the issues that concern and worry us, building bridges and dismantling clichés and prejudices”…
So says Javier Martínez, the current president of the Campo de Gibraltar Press Association (APCG), one of the originators, together with the Association of Journalists of Northern Morocco and, previously, the Moroccan National Press Union, of the Congresses of Journalists of the Straits, which every year brings together more than fifty professionals from both sides, and have been doing so for 25 years.
In this period, there have in fact been 36 sessions because, for a time, up until the financial crisis there were two meetings a year: one on the south side, in the spring, and another on the north side, in the autumn … And several took place during difficult periods of diplomatic tension between Spain and Morocco, such as during occasional fishing disputes or exchanges on sensitive issues as the Western Sahara, Ceuta or Melilla.
As Martinez recalls, one of the most fraught congresses was held in Chaouen, in the Rif mountains of Morocco shortly after the Perejil Island crisis of 2002, when Estanislao Ramírez and Mustapha Labbassi, presided their respective associations.. “At that time it really did not matter what we talked about…. Without a doubt, the most notable thing about the Congress was that it happened at all.”
The first “official” meeting among the two groups of journalists from both sides of the Strait had taken place just nine years before, in 1993, six years before the death of King Hassan II and the enthronement of his son Mohamed VI, and no one would have wagered on to what was going to happen next, that the desire for dialogue and understanding among journalists would prevail over all else, and that the Congresses would carry on against wind and tide.
In this quarter of a century, journalists from the north bank have joined their Moroccan colleagues in the struggle to progress towards a true freedom of the press, and have witnessed firsthand how step by step northern Morocco has been moving forward in terms of civil society as well as in tourism and urban and economic development. It must be taken into account that the Congresses not only include talks and seminars, but also visits to places of interest and parallel activities that promote knowledge of each other’s culture, traditions, way of life, economy, art, and so on , thus enhancing peaceful coexistence and even the bonds of friendship between the participants.
“In these 25 years, our conferences have gone through all the cities of the Campo de Gibraltar and northern Morocco, but we have also met in cities that are farther away from our area of influence, such as Seville, Cordoba or Granada, on this side, and Fez, Meknes or Marrakech, on the other”, says Martinez, who highlights the fact that last Congress held to date on this side of the Strait, in October 2017, was held not in Spain, but in Gibraltar, thus fulfilling an old aspiration of the APCG, which “has always opted for dialogue and understanding, also on both sides of the frontier”.
