Algeria: work on Great Mosque begins, amid controversy

[rug]

01 November, 10:34

ANSAmed) - TUNIS, NOVEMBER 1 - Work on the Great Mosque of Algiers will be significant, gigantic even (over an area of just over twenty hectares) and is the result of an ambitious, and therefore costly, project. But is the work really necessary? This is the question being asked by many people in Algeria today, after the first stone was laid by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika (in a ceremony that lasted only a few minutes) in a project that has been awarded to a major Chinese construction group and which, if the timeframe is respected, should be complete within 48 months.

The building of the Mosque, which will include a major conference centre, prayer halls, libraries, a museum, a research centre and shops, spread across around ten buildings, and surrounded by thousands of parking spaces and an array of green areas, will eventually cost the equivalent of roughly one and a half billion dollars. The figure is enormous in absolute terms for a country that, despite being rich in energy resources, is experiencing social difficulties, which are fuelled daily by protests by various sectors. For this reason, many are wondering if it is really necessary to take on such huge spending for work that not everyone believes to be a priority.

In recent months, Algerian political observers have expressed great concern for the situation emerging in the country, where housing is a problem for huge swathes of the population, who live in crumbling buildings and have held heated protests, with some fathers and mothers even resorting to suicide, in desperation more than in protest.

Some people, meanwhile, such as Ghania Lassal in the newspaper El Watan, point out that while the state has allocated the funds necessary to build the world's third biggest mosque in Algiers, the country has 22,000 patients suffering from tumours in its hospitals, and who, amid indescribable suffering, are edging closer to death as a result of a lack of appropriate treatment. Only a couple of weeks ago, in fact, an internet petition demanding that those suffering from tumours be treated abroad at the state's expense gathered thousands of signatures, not all of them from patients and their families, highlighting a social problem that is keenly felt by Algerians. (ANSAmed)

http://www.ansamed.it/en/news/ME.XEF71411.html

[dmallind]

1. Several ways to look at this

The "the money could be used for the poor" argument is on its face very potent, but has some weaknesses: is that a real viable alternative for a start? The money Americans spend on homeopathic snake oil could be used to adopt unwanted children, but if homeopathy disapppeared overnight, would the money be so used in reality? Same here - if the mosque is not built does the money go to hospitals for the poor or does it go to the military for hardware, or the president's Swiss account? Other thoughts would include how much of the cost goes to stimulate the economy including the poor. A 1.5B building uses a lot of laborers, buys a lot of stone, causes a lot of people to visit and buy food and goods while they are there, etc. Then of course there is the long view. A spectacular building has an impact far longer lasting than medical help. If the current poor receive medical care, will they and there descendants no longer be poor in 20 or 200 years? But if they don't will they or their descendants still be able to work at or around a building that draws huge crowds 20 or 200 years hence.

I cannot fathom how many people could have received money and food and shelter for the cost of St. Peter's 500 years ago. But I know for a surefire fact that if they had done so, at the cost of losing St. Peter's, every single one of them would still be dead, their descendants would still run the gamut from poor to wealthy, and a huge source of tourist dollars their descendants could leverage, plus a great treasure for the world, would be absent. Same goes for the Taj Mahal, the Golden Buddha temple, and so on

So all I can hope is that if the mosque is built, it is built to attract people for centuries, not built like a Houston megachurch. Then the future poor will thank them, even if the current poor don't.

[Taverner]

2. Reminds me of how some Muslim employees would rather have a trip to Mecca than food

Makes me shake my head