Morocco’s 2030 World Cup Challenge: Tackling Incivility in Public Spaces

Toll fraud, disregard for queues, circumvention of rules... Incivility has taken hold in public spaces. Médias reports a case of incivility at the Bouznika toll booth. As he was returning to Casablanca on a Sunday evening in August, Brahim, an experienced road driver, crossed paths with an individual whose vehicle was tailgating him. Annoyed, he stopped and tried to discourage the fare dodger. In the process, "the barrier did not fall fast enough. The profiteer took advantage of it, jumped, overtook him and inflicted a dangerous spin" on Brahim. The man at the wheel is a young Moroccan living in France. After overtaking Brahim, he shouted threats as if he were the victim and the aggressor of the law". This is not an isolated case. Similar behaviors have been observed elsewhere.

Concerned by these acts of incivility, a citizen - Driss Karouache - shared in mid-July an unsigned text entitled "incivility" in the WhatsApp group "Save Casablanca". "Whoever thinks that Morocco’s biggest challenge in hosting the 2030 World Cup is to build stadiums, erect hotels or beautify airport facades is reducing the country’s crisis to a ’simple’ tarmac issue, the truth is that the real challenge is not urban, but moral," the text, which was later published on other social networks between late July and early August, reads. And to add: "The toughest match will not be played on the pitch of a stadium, but on the sidewalks, in taxis, at airport counters, at reception desks... in classrooms and even in homes."

Faced with the rise of the phenomenon of incivility, it is urgent that the authorities take the necessary measures for the success of the 2030 World Cup.