A souped-up Porsche stands in front of the door, a gold-colored revolver lies on the table, behind Hamid El Abouti mountains of case files are piling up.
Legend:
“It’s not a Fiat… let’s not fool ourselves”. This is how lawyer El Abouti comments on the eye-catcher in front of his office.
SRF/ Charles Liebherr
The milieu lawyer from Molenbeek experiences the humiliation of growing up in Molenbeek almost every day. “When I visit my clients in a prison outside of Brussels, the guards check my bar license fifty times.” As if he had completed his training in Casablanca.
“It’s actually unbelievable,” says El Abouti, shaking his head. His father, summoned to Molenbeek by industrial companies as cheap labor from Morocco, learned neither to read nor to write. Nevertheless, he made sure that his son did not fall off track.
Legend:
Milieu lawyer El Abouti likes to play with clichés in order to speak the language of his clients.
SRF/ Charles Liebherr
El Abouti studied law at the Free University of Brussels. Nevertheless, it still happens that colleagues at the criminal court hypocritically ask him where he studied.
The boys withdraw
Mohamed el Ghalbzouri knows this very well. He majored in sociology, graduating with fieldwork in his home community.
It’s even worse to be equated with terrorists.
Among other things, he wanted to know whether his neighbors experience the same reproachful looks in the subway and how they react to it. This shaped the young researcher after the terrorist attacks in 2016. He, too, felt he was being pilloried, placed on an equal footing with terrorists.
Feeling like a foreigner is one thing. “It’s even worse to be equated with terrorists.”
The results of his study should actually alarm the Brussels authorities. Many young people are retiring, only meet like-minded people from Molenbeek, and have respect for leaving Molenbeek in their free time.
Legend:
On the prosperity index of a maximum of 100, Molenbeek is just under 60.
SRF/ Charles Liebherr
“The boys are looking for security. Their familiar environment gives them this security,” says el Ghalbzouri. “The stigmatization of Molenbeek has a long tradition.”
Molenbeek is also called the Manchester of Belgium. That too is ambiguous. It is an allusion to the many red brick facades, but also to the economic decline after many industrial companies had to close their factory gates.
Legend:
“Manchester of Belgium” also means that the good times are long gone.
SRF/ Charles Liebherr
Poverty is widespread in Molenbeek today. If the prosperity index for Belgium is set at 100 as a reference, then Brussels is at 80 and Molenbeek is under 60 by comparison.The stigma of being poor is attached to all residents.
There is also a counter-movement
Fatima Zibouh, one of the directors of Brussels’ bid to be the European Capital of Culture in 2030, who grew up in Molenbeek herself, believes that these prejudices hindered the development of Molenbeek. But she also recognizes a counter-movement.
Legend:
Fatima Zibouh, feminist and Muslim from Molenbeek, has been fighting against the stigma of Molenbeek for years.
SRF/ Charles Liebherr
“As in many communities that are hit by a storm of indignation, many people in Molenbeek want to convey a different picture and are joining forces.”
A good example of this is the “Maison des Béguines” in a residential area of Molenbeek. The district center has made a spectacular change. Before that it was the «Café des Béguines».
Until the terrorist attacks, the café belonged to the Abdeslam brothers, the terrorists: Brahim Abdeslam blew himself up at the Bataclan concert hall in Paris, killing hundreds. Salah Abdeslam, the younger brother, has to appear in court in Brussels in these months as a survivor of the attack.
But now the “Maison des Béguines” is reviving. A collective of volunteers organizes homework help for children, cycling courses for mothers, language courses for everyone, discussion events and readings. The restaurant is sometimes a bicycle repair shop, sometimes a painting studio.
Legend:
The “Maison des Béguines”, originally a coffee shop for the terrorist brothers, has been transformed into a versatile meeting place.
SRF/ Charles Liebherr
Sara has been living in this neighborhood for several years. The doctor and mother wants to grow old here. “A lot of people move here and others move away. That sometimes makes it a bit difficult to build something. I like that a lot though. Molenbeek keeps moving.”
Prejudices also on the soccer field
Because of his job, Hibo Ahmed is always on the move. She wears the captain’s armband of the RWD Molenbeek Girls and is employed as a social coach by the club.
The athlete looks after young players during their career. Hibo Ahmed observes a personal development in many players that would hardly be possible outside of the football club. “Here, young women receive attention that they rarely receive otherwise. It helped me a lot to find my place on the pitch, off the pitch and in life as a woman.”
Legend:
400 young women train here three times a week. Molenbeek has long been the first and only club in women’s football.
SRF/ Charles Liebherr
Of course, the players still compete against prejudice in away games. The guests are often surprised by so much fair play on the other side. “That makes us a little proud. Because it shows us that we can be ambassadors for a different image of Molenbeek.”
On the artificial turf, Hibo Ahmed puts his left foot next to the ball and hits it with her right foot in a wide arc into the goal.