Popular Neighborhoods and the Arab Spring: Elements for a Renewed Approach

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Jun 21, 2014 Syria
Popular Neighborhoods and the Arab Spring: Elements for a Renewed Approach

Popular Neighborhoods and the Arab Spring: Elements for a Renewed Approach

By : Eric Denis

Pierre-Arnaud Barthel and Sylvy Jaglin, editors, Quartiers informels d’un monde arabe en transition. Réflexions et perspectives pour l’action urbaine [Informal Settlements in an Arab World in Transition. Reflections and Perspectives for Urban Action]. Paris: Agence Française pour le Développement, Conférences et Séminaires 7, 2013. Available online.

Housing in most of the Arab world cities is an informal affair. After having founded a family, or to remain near employment opportunities, most people trying to find a place to live in end up building their houses themselves, or participating in construction projects managed either by families or by modest real-estate developers. Due to the government’s inability to provide or support affordable housing on a large scale, people have to cope on their own to access shelter and neighborhoods. Despite the importance of the issue, very few studies have been conducted in the domain, and it remains relatively unnoticed. In fact, after the 2000s, the interest in the subject has even begun to dwindle. Urban studies were more focusing on megaprojects, which renew and extend the urban landscape in a much more spectacular manner, such as the making of new towns, luxury housing, malls, historical downtowns, new business districts, and coastal resorts.

This edited volume by Pierre-Arnaud Barthel and Sylvy Jaglin updates knowledge of the common urban landscape of the Arab world, informs about the initiatives to improve popular housing, and to generate more inclusive cities. Most of the authors included in this volume have to their credit key publications on popular housing, and informal settlements in the Arab world. They have been studying the subject over a decade, and are thus capable of offering a thoroughly documented, precise, and pertinent perspective on the changes, and interventions in non-regulated built neighborhoods, viewed through the prism of recent grassroots movements. Can we talk about an “Arab spring of urban policies,” asks Pierre-Arnaud Barthel in his introduction? The shared aim of the contributions is examining the current status of working-class neighborhoods, either by reviewing the interventions, and the mobilization in these neighborhoods since the 1990s, in the light of the 2011 and 2012 events, or by examining the changes brought about by the shockwaves of the revolution, leading to the overthrow of dictatorial regime (Egypt), or to the acceleration of reforms (Morocco after the protests of 20 April 2011). These national movements seem to be often spearheaded by people from those neighborhoods. They may thus indicate the shortcomings of a clientelistic approach, as well as the duality of interventions vis-à-vis the consolidation and expansion of informal settlements, which oscillate between tolerance, minimum redistribution and denial, and containment, relocation, and brutal eviction.

The six chapters in the book do not claim to cover all the issues, and all the urban environments of the region. Three articles explore more deeply the situation of Cairo dwellers. David Sims gives an account of post-revolution dynamics in the housing sector. Agnès Deboulet reflects upon conditions where it would be possible to take into account the competences of the residents in construction projects, in order to make housing for the working classes, and the masses more secure. Jimmy Markoum and Eric Verdeil look into Cairo’s gas distribution network, highlighting its segregation effects when it penetrates informal neighborhoods. 

Two chapters are complementary in their analysis of the Moroccan situation: Lamia Zaki points out to the links between reforms at the national level, contributing to the stability of the regime in the shaky environment of the Arab Spring, and the intensification of slums’ mobilization. Oliver Toutain re-examines the mega-project, "Villes sans Bidonvilles" (PSVB), or Slum-Free City launched in eighty-five Moroccan towns in 2005. He concludes that the integration of the inhabitants is limited. Many households are excluded from the process of rehabilitation, or enter into a spiral of poverty when they are relocated in distant peripheries.

Valérie Clerc writes about the changes in urban policies concerning informal settlements in Syria during the 2000s. There was an attempt to implement an approach to integrate illegal settlements, and to re-launch the production of social housing, in order to counter balance the effects of liberalization. However, the “social market economy” collapsed after the uprisings of 2011, which began in informal neighborhoods. They have since then been reduced into heaps of rubble by recurrent bombings.

The evolution of urban policies can be explored further in three recently edited volumes coordinated by Lamia Zaki: L’action urbaine au Maghreb [Urban Policies in North Africa] (2011), Expérimenter la ville durable au sud de la Méditerranée [Experiments of Sustainable City in the Southern Mediterranean] (2011)—the latter has been co-edited with Pierre-Arnaud Barthel. They deal with the Tunisian and Algerian contexts not represented in this reviewed volume. Morched Chabbi’s article “Tunisia: Revolution in Spite of the Rehabilitation of Working Class Neighborhoods,” throws light on the Tunisian revolution, and the limitations of urban policies, even when in-situ rehabilitations were done using a very inclusive approach. One can also refer to the edited volume by Myriam Ababsa, Baudouin Dupret, and Eric Denis, Popular Housing and Urban Land Tenure in the Middle East (2012), and its review by Mona Fawaz.

Sylvy Jaglin points out, early on in the preface, that it would be naive to think there is any kind of synchronicity between political transitions during the period following a revolution, and the implementation of new urban interventions in informal neighborhoods, or even more generally in the city at large. Comparing this to other ruptures of the democratic or governance process, she observes that the teachings in countries south of the Sahara also advocate caution, and tend to demonstrate that the periods following political turmoil are not opportune for innovations, and the gestation of new ideas in urban planning. The inertia of the old policy framework is a serious hindrance. It seems impossible to sidestep, or waive away urban planning professionals whose ideas, and tools remain unchallenged. Replacing them would necessitate the emergence of new schools, or a complete restructuring of the existing engineering curricula, which continue to regard citizens’ capabilities to build their houses and settlements, as backward. Thus, the institutional incapacity to take into account latent demands, and the inhabitants’ competences revealed through self-emancipatory collective actions to organize and take control of the future of their neighborhood, is reinforced. And, no possibility of reform appears. The institutions which are supposedly proficient in this domain, are still concerned with containing, limiting, and controlling or even servicing the existing settlements, but never with foreseeing, anticipating, and accompanying an expansion, which is nevertheless unavoidable.

“For a new approach to see the light of day, informal settlements should be viewed from a different perspective,” confirms Pierre-Arnaud Barthel in the introduction. Instead of regarding them as a threat, it would be in the interest of the new policy makers to reflect upon their potential and advantages in order to rethink tomorrow’s city: compactness of the urban network (i.e. real estate economy), multi-functionality, strong social links, emphasis on pedestrian mobility between work and home, cross-neighborhood transportation system (motorized tricycles—tuk tuk, microbus), etc. David Sims points out that, in an informal neighborhood in the periphery of the town center in Cairo, half of the active population work on site.

Diversity of Implemented Policies and Political Instability

The authors have examined in detail the modalities of prior interventions.  Their study reveals that it is possible to compare them, and to identify solutions which converge, or which are specific to a country, as of the 1990s. Everywhere, the transition to liberal economies during the 1990s and 2000s has modified policies vis-à-vis illegal neighborhoods. The collapse of public and subsidized housing did not provide alternatives to citizens who had to secure the building of their own houses. Temporalities as well as scales of intervention may vary a great deal. Lots of changes can take place between the scope, and the type of initiatives envisaged, and their implementation. Very few projects achieved their initial aim. In Syria, after the 2005 shift, and the announcement of the “social market economy,” the national scale projects shifted into innumerable local ones, with conflicting intentions, swinging between dwellers’ interests and investors’ interests in developing deregulated real estate (Clerc). International cooperation and development agencies seem to play here a major role by multiplying isolated experiments, which can even compete with each other. In Syria, Japanese, French, and German agencies as well as the European Union, the World Bank, and the Cities Alliance (UN-Habitat, Cities without Slums) intervened altogether. Each one was trying to latch onto, or influence, national or local projects.

Cairo has been subjected to the same experiments and intervention recipes that are never coordinated. Such projects insist on public-private partnerships promoting in-situ rehabilitation with densification, land titling or infrastructure development. They juxtapose to each other and are openly in competition. They have been unable to transform urban policies, nor even to launch new large-scale programs (on this issue, see the excellent work Villes et ‘best practices’).

Alongside these isolated experiments, other more routine modes of government action are implemented, and adapted to realities on the ground. In an Arab world where decentralization, and local governments are so to say absent, it is astonishing to observe that, according to a national survey on illegal areas to be “addressed” (Morocco, Syria, Egypt), the projects are implemented at the local level using negotiated mechanisms. In certain cities and neighborhoods, they will never be launched, or will be partially transformed into eviction. In many cases, significant delays have been observed (cf. Zaki on Morocco, and Cities Without Slums). The in-depth report of Cities Without Slums project in Morocco (Toutain)—the only national level program, which was implemented on a very large scale—shows how much the results vary according to cities, neighborhoods, and inhabitants. While some cities have indeed been declared to be without slums, the social outcomes are mitigated. One cannot but compare this with the eradication of slums project implemented in France in the 1960s. There too, large housing projects grouping one hundred thousand inhabitants sprung out of nowhere, especially in Agadir. With the implementation of The Cities Without Slums Action Plan, the poor who used to live in makeshift houses were relocated in modern residences. There was certainly an improvement in their living conditions, but their social and professional links were weakened, and the access to resources was made harder, leading to a loss of income. Zaki and Toutain both agree however that Cities Without Slums was one of the flagship programs, which curbed the rising revolts in Morocco, in relation to the Arab Spring. But, the Moroccan solution obviously cannot be exported on such a scale. In Egypt for example, ninety percent of informal neighborhoods consist of multiple-storey apartment buildings with concrete pillars, beams, and brick walls. Their destruction is inconceivable. In-situ rehabilitation with the residents, by the residents, as says Agnès Deboulet, remains the best approach.

The attempt to handle this issue, and it does not seem to have evolved much, generates contradictory effects: some neighborhoods, or some inhabitants are given legal recognition, or allotted lodging in the context of rehousing programs, while others are left out, or struck-off from the list of people entitled to housing, because they showed-up after the cut-off-date, as in Syria after 2008 (Clerc). In Egypt, there was an unsuccessful attempt to implement a similar approach in keeping with a military decree (no.1-1996). Confinement is considered to be a solution in Cairo (Sims), especially with the idea in 2006 of developing residential areas all around informal neighborhoods, and thus avoid further expansion. Previously, it was the ring road that was supposed to do the job. Built towards the end of the 1990s, it did indeed cut off and isolate informal neighborhoods, but it did not slow down their growth. Authors obliquely stress upon the fact that urban planning, zoning, and master plans do not serve to foresee, or control population dynamics. Popular settlements are built from below, on the fringes of plannings, by subverting the plan. By hiding behind the power of the plan, authorities in charge exclude themselves from the urban fabric which is obviously negotiated locally. 

Risks and Liberalization

One of the main justifications in the treatment of sub-standard, and irregular neighborhoods is the danger of unrest or terrorism. New policies have come into being, especially in Egypt, since the 1990s with the growing awareness of the threat of potential terrorists, and extremists in neighborhoods where government authorities were absent, and social work was left in the hands of organizations with Islamic leanings (Denis 1994). Efforts were made to upgrade the infrastructure, and strengthen the presence of the State as well the police surveillance capacity. Toutain points out that in Morocco, following the 2003 attacks in Casablanca, strict government regulations were reinforced, and hitherto unprecedented measures implemented. The Cities Without Slums program launched in 2005 was one of the main tools. During the 2000s, the danger became prevalent, and besides the security risk that the squatter settlements represented, the environmental conditions of these zones also became a source of worry. Agnès Deboulet emphasizes the fact that, since 2010, as in Cairo with the creation of the Informal Settlements Development Facility (ISDF), districts are revisited, classified, and mapped in terms of vulnerability. Public authorities thus use the argument of natural risk to justify interventions, which, until then, were difficult to envisage, except in the context of major infrastructure projects (Deboulet). Thus, thirty-five zones qualified as “life threatening areas” were targeted, and sixteen amongst them were in Cairo (presentation of the ISDF in Global Risk Forum in Davos in June, 2010).

However, because of the revolution, and the fear of mass mobilization, the temptation to transfer people by force seems to be currently averted. But, the ISDF has neither disappeared, nor significantly changed its orientation. In 2013, irregular settlements remain on top of the government’s agenda. In March 2013, an agreement of cooperation was signed with the governors of Giza and Cairo, and with the German aid, the European Union and the UN Habitat, for setting up the Participatory Development Programme in Urban Areas, under the aegis of ISDF. In spite of participatory label, there is every reason to believe that the currently implemented formula is the same as before. Thus, in January 2014 the armed forces made a formal commitment to the ISDF to sustain the redevelopment of popular neighborhoods in Giza and Cairo for a year, by setting up themselves projects, as these “require a high degree of expertise,” as per the press release! In Morocco, on the other hand, the Cities Without Slums’ action plan has changed considerably, especially in relation to the funding of constructions using “third party” (Zaki).

The natural disasters approach is not exclusively reserved to precarious housing in Egypt. Karen Coelho and Nithya Rama (2013) have shown that in Chennai, India, the reasons given for forced evictions were fire, floods, and the need to reclaim humid zones for beautification. In many respects, the Indian method of treating illegal neighborhoods and slums shows that democracy, and strong government guidelines do not suffice to ensure good local governance, and to countermand the interests of real estate firms. Decentralization pits local governments against each other, and severe budgetary constraints impose priorities concerning local development, which are not in favor of participatory planning, and integration of illegal neighborhoods. In India, evictions, and relocation to the periphery is the norm. The rapid development of real estate has become the priority. In situ upgrading is rare and marginal (Banda and Sheikh, 2014). In Morocco, Toutain and Zaki point out that the Cities Without Slums Action Plan’s initial aims were rapidly abandoned.

The case of networked urban services sharply reveals how the removal of subsidies continues to deepen socio-spatial inequalities. Higher rates, and other attempts to improve the cost recovery mechanism are often unsuccessful, as in the case of drinking water, or garbage collection in Cairo. Jimmy Markoum and Eric Verdeil examine the extension of the natural gas distribution network launched in 2008 with the support of the World Bank. This program had a social purpose, even a universal aim, and was supposed to rectify the lack of connections in informal neighborhoods. It ended up with major contradictions. During the 1990s-2000s, the connection was set up at no cost to residents, though the irregular settlements in the periphery were left out. Today, however, individual connections have to be paid for, and are thus inaccessible to people with modest means. Moreover, the most densely populated, and illegal neighborhoods could not be connected to the network because the security-price ratio was extremely unfavorable. The socio-spatial injustice has therefore steadily increased. For many families, getting gas bottles remain a difficult daily chore. And, since the revolution, the shortage in gas bottles has worsened, just like the prices. The network thus reinforces the marginalization of urban areas, which become subjected to dual discrimination—socioeconomic and physical. Indeed, these spaces become penalized socially, economically but also in terms of living conditions (Markoum and Verdeil). The authors do not see any alternative to subsidized connections, which would then include disadvantaged populations.

Prospects for Urban Planning from Below

In their thorough review of urban policies before and after the Arab Spring, the book’s authors demonstrate that the issue of supporting people’s capacities is at the heart of the need for a strategic upheaval. The approach relying on projects has shown its limits, given the magnitude of the task, and it is the totality of the urban model that policy makers in different countries, in consultation with citizens, have to redesign. However, hardly any thinking has gone into redefining spaces and their values, remarks Barthel. These neighborhoods that have remarkable urban characteristics are the product of people`s skills. Therefore it is from below, with the participation of residents seeking recognition, and according to the logic of an urbanisme de réparation [urbanism of repair], as coined by Agnès Deboulet, that a concerted, flexible and dense urban development could be positively integrated, assisted, and accompanied.

Will the strong demand for recognition that emanates from popular neighborhoods be placated by technical “recipes,” imported models, rudimentary categorization, and the perpetuation of offsite relocation policies, which have proven their ability to increase poverty? Is the current desire for democracy in the Middle East not an opportunity to test a full-fledged urbanism of repair? (Deboulet)


The authors point to this in all the examined contexts: all have a high percentage of irregular settlements. They house forty percent of the population of Damascus, and some sixty-six percent of those in Cairo. It is also noteworthy that these areas absorb eighty percent of the urban demographic growth. They are thus constantly expanding, and getting more crowded. The Arab world is still characterized by a rapidly growing urbanization, which contributes to the creation of those popular neighborhoods. Let us not forget that the urban growth rate in Egypt was 3.4 percent in 2010, while the growth rate of the total population was less than two percent. In Morocco, it was two percent for 1.2 percent. It is a question of millions of poorly integrated city dwellers.

With the disappearance of local authorities, and the de-legitimization of public authorities during the Arab Spring, illegal neighbourhoods have spread out, and have gotten denser everywhere. Sims says that, in Cairo, "the pace of construction is frenzied," while Toutain and Clerc highlight the acceleration of illegal construction in Morocco and Syria between 2011 and 2012. There is no other alternative to integrating these neighbourhoods, because of the density of the urban population they house at present, and will shelter in the future. They are impossible to contain, move, or even reconfigure according to the standard schemes of property, and city planning laws. And, is it even necessary? Upgrading their infrastructure is not a major problem even at the scale of an entire city, as the costs do not even compare to the expenditures involved in any social housing program (Sims).

Without any doubt, the revolutionary movements also gave birth to many organizations across neighborhoods: lijan sha‘biyya [popular committees], but also larger federative structures, such as the Federation of Informal Settlements’ People`s Committees, founded in Cairo in February 2011 (Sims), or the National Coordination of Slums, established in 2010 in Morocco (Zaki). The strength and the achievements of people’s movements in the Arab world shed light on collective action skills, and self-emancipation of people, at all scales, in the street and the country, the neighborhood and the city. It is clear that academic expertise had not anticipated the Arab Spring, as it had previously ignored the skills of the residents that went into building cities—to the exception of some noteworthy authors such as the one gathered in this volume.

Therefore, a revolution in urban policies and urban action seems necessary, in order to give voice to these competent residents. It would place residents, and the collective spaces they create in the place and position of the city planner. This edited volume is a solidly anchored appeal for urban interventions that support, and sustain actions initiated by residents in neighborhoods.

[This book review appeared earlier on Jadaliyya in French. Arunima Choudhury and the author translated it into English.]

References:
Myriam Ababsa, Baudouin Dupret and Eric Denis (eds.), Popular Housing and Urban Land Tenure in the Middle East, (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2012).

Pierre-Arnaud Barthel and  Lamia Zaki (dir.), Expérimenter la ville durable au Sud de la Méditerranée, (La Tour d’Aigues: éditions de l’Aube, 2011).

Karen Coelho and Nithya Raman, “From the Frying Pan to the Floodplain: Negotiating Land, Water and Fire in Chennai’s Development” in Ecologies of Urbanism in India: Metropolitan Civility and Sustainability, edited by A. Rademacher and K. Sivaramakrishnan (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2013): 145-168.

David Sims, Understanding Cairo: The Logic of a City Out of Control (Cairo, New York: American University in Cairo Press, 2010).

Lamia Zaki (ed.) L’action urbaine au Maghreb. Enjeux professionnels et politiques (Paris: Karthala, 2010).
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Nov 8, 2013 Lebanon
Eric Verdeil By :
Eric Verdeil

Les villes petites et moyennes dans les revoltes arabes: un etat des lieux

Les villes petites et moyennes dans les révoltes arabes: un état des lieux.

Compte rendu de: Karine Benafla (dir.), Dossier « Villes arabes: conflits et protestations », Confluences Méditerranée, 85 (2013), 9-164.

Une des dimensions singulières des révoltes arabes est leur territorialité, qui a d`emblée constitué une clé de leur interprétation. Or, cette territorialité est plurielle et se décline en plusieurs moments. Aux révoltes des petites et moyennes villes tunisiennes (Sidi Bouzid, Kasserine), libyennes (Misrata et Benghazi) ou syriennes (Deraa, Homs), et des villes industrielles secondes comme Mahalla al-Koubra ou Suez en Egypte, se sont d’abord agrégés les soulèvements des quartiers populaires des métropoles. Puis, s’est produite une convergence, parfois brève, avec les jeunesses protestataires plus favorisées, sur les grandes places des capitales. C’est alors que le mouvement a gagné sa visibilité médiatique et qu’il a acquis une force qui a précipité la chute des régimes (voir, par exemple, Ayeb 2011). De cette chorégraphie à trois temps, c`est souvent la dernière scène, dramatique, que de nombreux observateurs ont privilégiée, laissant les autres dans une semi-pénombre qui ne commence que maintenant à être véritablement explorée (voir néanmoins Beware of Small Cities, par Deen Sharp). L’analyse proposée ici ne portera pas sur les quartiers des périphéries des grandes villes, pourtant essentiels pour comprendre les recompositions en cours, comme l`illustre le récent collectif piloté par Pierre-Arnaud Barthel avec l`appui de Sylvy Jaglin auquel j`ai modestement participé. Je voudrais plutôt m`intéresser à la place des villes petites et moyennes dans les conflits et protestations en cours, qu’aborde un numéro thématique de la revue Confluences Méditerranée, partiellement issu d`un colloque tenu à Lyon en octobre 2012, à l`initiative des géographes du GREMMO, son directeur, Fabrice Balanche et Karine Bennafla, qui le coordonne.

Un enjeu identifié de longue date par les géographes français

Les géographes français avaient depuis longtemps identifié l`enjeu que constituaient ces villes secondes, pour utiliser un cadrage large excluant les métropoles, voire mégapoles, qui font le plus souvent les unes de l`actualité journalistique mais aussi académique. Marc Lavergne, en tandem avec Guy Duvigneau, avait dirigé en 1996 un numéro de Peuples méditerranéens où était souligné le rôle décisif de ces territoires dans les changements sociaux en cours (Lavergne 1996). Réceptacles de l`exode rural des régions environnantes, espace de sédentarisation des nomades ou d`accueil de réfugiés, bénéficiaires de politiques de promotion administrative ou plus largement d`aménagement du territoire, ces villes ont représenté des lieux privilégiés d`acculturation, de modernisation, de négociation avec l`Etat et d`intégration à ses stratégies. Un autre collectif publié par le GREMAMO s`était également attaché à ces villes secondes en 2007 (Souiah 2007). Sans revenir sur son contenu, on peut néanmoins évoquer le remarquable chapitre d’Eric Denis. Ce chercheur y propose une définition contextuelle pleine de finesse des villes intermédiaires dans le monde arabe et, grâce à la précieuse base de données démographiques Géopolis, il fournit d`utiles éléments de cadrage quantitatifs. Ainsi, d`après ses travaux, les villes "intermédiaires" et les petites villes de plus de dix mille habitants représentaient en 2005 près de cinquante-huit pourcent de la population urbaine. Or, les politiques libérales des quinze à vingt dernières années ont contribué à l`accroissement de la concentration des richesses dans les métropoles, non sans inégalités internes, il est vrai. Les populations des villes petites et moyennes en ont subi, au contraire, les effets négatifs. Dans ces conditions, vu leur poids dans la population totale, leur rôle majeur dans les révoltes n`est pas pour étonner.

La question de la place des villes petites et moyennes dans les conflits et protestations en cours constitue donc l`un des fils directeurs du dossier présenté [1], qu’on peut analyser à travers trois thèmes: leur négligence par les politiques étatiques de développement dans la période récente; les ressorts politiques de leur mobilisation pendant les conflits; et les solutions que leurs habitants élaborent ou proposent au cours de ces protestations en vue d`inventer un avenir meilleur.

Des villes délaissées par l`Etat

Les exemples d`Essaouira au Maroc, de Damiette en Egypte, de Maan ou Kerak en Jordanie, de Tripoli au Liban ou encore celui de Monastir en Tunisie illustrent diverses facettes d`une marginalisation économique lié au retrait, ou à la reconfiguration libérale de l`Etat, mais aussi à une transformation du pacte de modernisation conclu dans la période précédente. L`exemple de Monastir, étudié par Mohammed Hellal, en représente fort bien les enjeux. Cette petite ville littorale, d`où Bourguiba était originaire, avait été promue chef-lieu de gouvernorat et nouveau centre touristique. Sous Ben Ali, qui favorisa d`autres villes voisines dans des fonctions économiques similaires, Monastir connut au contraire un déclin qui était avant tout une marginalisation d`ordre politique.

Aussi ne fait-il pas s`étonner de retrouver Monastir, pourtant ville littorale et non pas de l`intérieur, parmi les rebelles. La ville se considère d`ailleurs comme pionnière de la révolution, car dès mars 2010, un jeune vendeur ambulant, Abdesalem Tremech, s`y était lui aussi immolé, martyr oublié de la révolution.

Les Ressorts de la Mobilisation des Villes Moyennes dans les Révoltes

Les différentes contributions permettent d`identifier, au-delà des sacrifices individuels, diverses formes de mobilisation qui ont pesé dans le déroulement des révoltes. L`exemple libyen est intéressant car les mobilisations de Benghazi ou de Misrata ont eu un rôle déterminant dans la révolution. Dans ce pays, les confrontations ont souvent opposé des milices aux fortes identités urbaines antagonistes. On met souvent en avant leur caractère tribal, mais, comme le fait remarquer ici Jean-Louis Romanet dans son entretien avec K. Benafla, cela ne caractérise pas du tout les organisations de la société civile qui ont joué et jouent toujours un rôle essentiel dans la révolution. Par ailleurs, les conflits ont traversé les villes elles-mêmes, entre quartiers aux histoires et aux modes d`appartenance opposés. Dans un autre cadre, Arthur Quesnay soulignait d`ailleurs que les modes de mobilisation, loin d`être toujours de nature "primordiale," se sont construits dans les villes libyennes qu`il a étudiées sur des référents territoriaux ou professionnels (Quesnay 2013).

En tout état de cause, ces mobilisations identitaires existent, et il ne s`agit pas de les nier mais plutôt de les contextualiser en donnant à voir leur construction historique. Ainsi, Pierre-André Chabrier propose-t-il, dans le sillage de Michel Seurat, une lecture historicisée des conflits entre `assabiya concurrentes à Tripoli, sunnites de Bab el-Tabbaneh et alaouites de Jabal Mohsen, remontant à la guerre civile. Mais, il montre que cet antagonisme s`inscrit dans une paupérisation dramatique liée à l`absence des politiques étatiques de développement. De ce fait, cette lutte est devenue une "guerre des pauvres," instrumentalisée par des acteurs politiques locaux, nationaux ou régionaux dans le cadre d`une compétition politique multiforme. Compétition électorale, elle fait des pauvres, clientélisés par les services ou les achats de voix, une ressource mobilisable par les chefs locaux dans un système de vote structuré par les appartenances confessionnelles. Conflit militaire, elle conduit à l’enrôlement des jeunes sans emploi comme miliciens aux ordres d`un camp ou de son adversaire. L`exemple de Jaramana, banlieue druzo-chrétienne de Damas, illustre des dynamiques comparables. Mais, Cyril Roussel insiste plutôt sur le vécu confessionnel que sur la construction en ressources politiques par le régime. On aurait d`ailleurs autant aimé que l’auteur étudie l`exemple qu`il connait si bien de Suweyda dans le même esprit, pour mieux résonner avec le dossier.

Les formes d`auto-organisation urbaine dans les révoltes

Mais, la confessionnalisation n`est, pas plus que dans d’autres contextes les solidarités tribales, la seule modalité de la mobilisation politique dans les protestations actuelles. L`autre article consacré à la Syrie, l`un des plus stimulants du dossier, s`inscrit à l`encontre des lectures confessionnelles dominantes dans le conflit syrien, qu`elles ne sauraient résumer selon Akram Kachee. Ce type d`analyse, pour lui, en ferait "des individus à l`identité et à l`appartenance dénuées de toute complexité." (p.107) Au contraire, "à travers les nouvelles formes de vie en milieu urbain imposées par les circonstances actuelles, […] il est possible de discerner la construction [d`]identités syriennes en devenir et de se poser la question de l`émergence d`une citoyenneté syrienne véritable." (p.103) "Les conseils locaux créés pour pallier les lacunes des services publics mis à mal par les événements […] sont devenus," selon lui, "des laboratoires du collectif," (p.104) des lieux de débat, parfois constitués par un processus électoral local, parfois formalisés après coup pour légitimer des équipes informelles œuvrant sur le terrain.

A travers de brèves analyses des exemples de Yabroud, Manbej, Daraya, Salamiyeh, ou encore Kafranbel, il passe en revue une série d`initiatives dans le domaine scolaire, de la santé et de la protection sociale, de la sécurité locale ou de l`organisation de la coexistence pacifique entre communautés travaillées par les agents du régime dans le sens de la division. L`originalité de cet article et la portée de son propos doivent être tempérées par la ténuité des enquêtes directes sur ces expériences, connues par de rares tentatives de synthèse, manquant peut être de distance critique. Il conviendrait, en contrepoint, d`examiner aussi les cas d`échecs ou de dérives de la gestion locale par des milices armées, plutôt occupées à la poursuite de la guerre ou bien à s`enrichir sur les dos de la population via les trafics divers. Plusieurs analyses et reportages consacrés à l’exemple d’Alep y montrent la très grande complexité de ces organisations locales, entre comités citoyens semblables à ceux qu’on vient d’évoquer, et réorganisation des services publics sur une base islamique, comme cela semble être le cas pour les tribunaux à Alep, sur fonds de lutte politique entre collectifs rejetant le référent confessionnel, et groupes islamistes (voir, à propos d’Alep, une série d`informations rapportées sur le blog Syria Comment, et l’analyse sur Noria).

La décentralisation en question

Ces formes d`auto-organisation qu`illustrent les exemples libyen ou syrien sont certainement l`un des facteurs qui contribueront à transformer les modes de gestion municipale dans le monde arabe, et à affirmer le poids des pouvoirs locaux. Encore que l`expérience libanaise, des expériences d`autogestion de la guerre civile, à la difficile construction du pouvoir après la guerre, nous invite à la prudence quant aux héritages de long terme de ces initiatives (Favier 2001).

C`est justement à une réflexion sur la décentralisation, condition indispensable de la démocratisation, qu`invite le papier de Marc Lavergne. Selon lui, les villes dans le monde arabe sont davantage des enjeux que des acteurs, et c`est là toute la difficulté pour changer de mode de gestion locale. L`auteur semble peu intéressé par les débats en cours en Tunisie [2] et en Egypte où certains activistes réclament une transformation du cadre constitutionnel et légal pour y faire une place plus grande à des institutions locales. Le volet décentralisation est pourtant l`un des rares sur lesquels l`Assemblée nationale constituante tunisienne a atteint un consensus visant une évolution ambitieuse, même s’il y a loin des intentions aux actes.[3] La situation est évidemment différente en Egypte, surtout depuis le coup d`Etat de l`été 2013. Dans ce contexte, Marc Lavergne aborde la question de la décentralisation à partir d`une double perspective illustrant l`originalité du regard du géographe. Pour lui, les révoltes en cours font ressortir des identités et les revendications régionales. Or, les Frères musulmans désormais évincés et les officiers supérieurs de retour au premier plan partagent "une culture provinciale," (p.22) et "incarnent la vision du monde de la petite et moyenne bourgeoisie des grandes villes du Delta", à l`opposé du style de la bourgeoisie cairote ou alexandrine liée à l`ancien régime. Ces villes de Delta revendiquent un meilleur traitement financier par l`Etat. Au sud du pays au contraire, dans un "monde rétif à l`Etat," se dessinent des formes d`autonomie où le pouvoir central doit composer avec des forces de fait. Assiout, dans la révolution, a coupé ses liens avec le Caire. L`autre point mis en avant par Marc Lavergne, comme conditionnant l`émergence de revendications en faveur d`une décentralisation véritable, est l`existence d`une base économique forte, exigence d`une certaine autonomie. Il l`illustre avec le cas de la ville de Damiette, où le développement local repose sur une tradition d`échange liée à sa position portuaire, mais aussi à l`industrie locale florissante du meuble. A cela s’ajoute une identité locale perçue et défendue, par exemple lors de mobilisations révolutionnaires contre une usine polluante. L`intérêt de ces réflexions est de ré-enchâsser la discussion sur les processus politiques dans la sociologie et l`économie locale, qui en déterminent les contraintes et les possibilités. En creux, on perçoit que cela implique une conception de l`Etat où celui-ci ne serait plus non plus le dispensateur du développement, mais une instance organisant des formes de solidarités --mais c`est un point qui n`est pas développé.

En définitive, ce dossier a le mérite de proposer des éléments qui alimentent la réflexion sur la question originale et nécessaire des mutations des villes moyennes, et de leur rôle dans les conflits et protestations actuelles. L`ensemble est certes un peu dissonant mais c`est bien la fonction des revues que de donner à voir des travaux en cours et les débats qu’ils ouvrent. Cela reflète aussi la diversité des trajectoires et la très grande fluidité des situations actuelles. C`est justement cette diversité et cette fluidité, si difficiles à saisir, qui constituent un défi majeur pour la recherche urbaine sur les villes du monde arabe actuellement. Que la page Cities de Jadaliyya puisse être l`un des lieux de ce chantier!

Références citées

Habib Ayeb, “Social and political geography of the Tunisian revolution: the alfa grass revolution” Review of African Political Economy 38 (2011): 467‑479. (en ligne: doi:10.1080/03056244.2011.604250)
Agnès Favier (éd.), Municipalités et pouvoirs locaux au Liban (Beyrouth: Centre d’études et de recherches sur le Moyen-Orient contemporain, 2001).
Marc Lavergne (éd.) Monde arabe : le retour du local, 72-73 (Paris: Peuples méditerranéens, 1996).
Arthur Quesnay, “L’insurrection libyenne : un mouvement révolutionnaire décentralisé,” in Au coeur des révoltes arabes: devenir révolutionnaires, éd. par Amin Allal et Thomas Pierret (Paris: Armand Colin, 2013): 113-36.
Sid-Ahmed Souiah (éd.), Villes intermédiaires dans le monde arabe (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2007).

 

[1] Le numéro s`attache aussi à certaines capitales, dont la trop mal connue Manama, avec un intéressant article de Jean-Paul Burdy relatant les mobilisations politiques depuis 2011, et en particulier la radicalisation communautiare orchestrée par le régime au pouvoir dans ce pays.

[2] En Tunisie, voir notamment les mobilisations de l`Association tunisienne des urbanistes, notamment leur manifeste paru en avril 2012 et leur blog.

[3] Voir le chapitre six de l`avant-projet de constitution proposé en juin 2013 (p.42-44).