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Johan Leman, 26 March 2024

Currently, some 40 migrants (or a son or daughter thereof) from Morocco and Turkey who arrived in Brussels in the 1960s have already been interviewed. It is very instructive. Some observations:
. Each story has its own very distinct interpretation.
. On the Turkish side, there seems to have been more organisation through agencies yonder on the ground than in the case of Morocco.
. Admittedly, 1964 is the year being advanced as the key year for those migrations from Morocco and Turkey because bilateral agreements were concluded between Belgium and those countries at that time, and that will probably be the case. But it is nevertheless striking that people very rarely refer to those agreements, and all the more to “a cousin” or “someone from the village who had already emigrated”… and that someone had even come to Brussels to work as early as 1961.

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