A question in Azghang reopens the culture-versus-development debate

At a cultural meeting in Azghang about the novel "Esmeralda", an attendee asked whether fiction can change reality: a seemingly cultural question that in Nador also touches political and social issues.
The city usually measures development by roads and projects, while the impact of a book or public debate is hard to fit into tables of figures.
For writer and economist Tawfiq Fathi, writing does not change the world directly, but it can change the person looking at it: the reader lives another's experience and becomes less quick to condemn.
This idea redefines culture's role in Nador, where development is not only concrete but also the kind of citizen the public space shapes.
Defending culture nonetheless requires libraries, halls and accessible programmes.