Salé:
- For the Canadian figure skater, see Jamie Salé. For the Finnish Union of Sex Workers, see Salli.
Salé (Amazigh: Sla, Arabic: سلا) (from the Berber word asla, meaning "rock") is the twin city to Rabat, capital of Morocco. Today it is home to around 800,000 people, mostly impoverished factory workers. It was once a self-contained, self-ruled Republic with international scope, situated on the mouth of the Bou Regreg river on the Atlantic coast. The city's name is sometimes transliterated as Salli.
[edit] History
Salé was apparently colonised by the Phoenicians at approximately the same time that Chellah, across the Bou Regreg to the south. Researchers know a considerable amount about the Chellah[1] colony, probably because of the good state of preservation of the Chellah site.
In Pirate Utopias, Peter Lamborn Wilson says:
- "Salé ... dates back at least to Carthaginian times (around 7th century BC). The Romans called the place Sala Colonia, part of their province of Mauritania Tingitane. Pliny the Elder mentions it (as a desert town infested with elephants!). The Vandals captured the area in the 5th century AD and left behind a number of blonde, blue-eyed Berbers. The Arabs (7th century) kept the old name and believed it derived from "Sala" (sic., his name is actually Salah), son of Ham, son of Noah; they said that Salé was the first city ever built by the Berbers."[2]
In about 1630 Salé became a haven for Moriscos-turned-Barbary pirates. Salé pirates (the well-known "Sallee Rovers") roamed the seas as far as the shores of the Americas, bringing back loot and slaves. There is an American family van Salee descended from a Salee Rover who was captured by the Dutch and settled in New Amsterdam. The character Robinson Crusoe, in Daniel Defoe's novel by the same name, spends time in captivity of the local pirates and at last sails off to liberty from the mouth of the Salé river.
Salé has played a rich and important part in Moroccan history. The first demonstrations for independence against the French, for example, sparked off in Salé. A good number of government officials, decision makers and royal advisors of both France and Morocco were from Salé. Salé people, the Slawis, have always had a "tribal" sense of belonging, a sense of pride which developed into a feeling of superiority towards the "berranis", i.e. Outsiders.
[edit] Modern city
Modern Salé is a highly polluted, badly planned, rapidly expanding town because of rural exodus. The city is now a large "dormitory town" with little or no real community life, devoid of a "centre" of its own. Most of its influential and wealthy inhabitants have departed to live in Rabat on the other side of the river. Physical remnants of Salé's historical heritage are totally decrepit, pollution is prevalent and insecurity is high. However, both its geographical situation and its "melting pot" aspect make it a town with a lot of potential that so far remains untapped by the local authorities. Recent developments, including the new bridge connecting to Rabat, a new Sale-Rabat tram system, marina and coastal development, all show that this is changing with the government and private development companies such as Emaar Properties pouring money into the area.
Water supply and wastewater collection in Salé was irregular, with poorer and illegal housing units suffering the highest costs and most acute scarcities.[3] Much of the city used to rely upon communal standpipes, which was often shut down, depriving some neighbourhoods of safe drinking water[3] for indefinite periods of time. Nevertheless, Salé fared better than inland Moroccan locations, where water scarcity is even more acute.[3] Recent improvements from the goverment, local business's and Redal has meant that this situation has improved drastically in recent times. High un-employment used to be a serious issue to the Sale area with many textile factorys being located in this area being the only real source of work, this is recently diversing into other areas such as international call centres, electronics and recently a new "techno park" was opened, which was modeled on the Casablanca techno centre success.
The A.S.S. is the football club of the city, and the president is Abderrahmane Chokri.[citation needed]
The film Black Hawk Down was partially filmed in Salé, in particular the wide angle aerial shots with helicopters flying down the coastline.
[edit] External links
[edit] References
Coordinates: 34°02′N 6°48′W / 34.033, -6.8
http://www.geocities.com/dane97520/VanSalee.html http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~windmill/html/murad%20reis.html
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