Ethnicity in the Bilad Shinqit

ETHNICITY IN THE BILAD SHINQIT Charles Dunbar \Jn April 13, 1981, Colonel Muammar Qaddafi proposed to the Mauritanian prime minister, Sid 'Ahmed OuId Bneijara, that Mauritania merge with the new republic proclaimed by the guerrillas fighting to wrest control of the Spanish Sahara from Morocco.1 The following day, a French newspaper carried a statement by the Mauritanian foreign minister endorsing such a move "in the general framework of the African unity that we all seek."2 Prime Minister Sid 'Ahmed was dismissed upon his return from his meeting in Tripoli with Colonel Qaddafi, and the Mauritanian government was handed back to an army officer by the country's president, Lieutenant Colonel Haidalla.3 The foregoing events are intimately related to the development of Moorish ethnicity in the Bilad Shinqit. The Moors are a distinct racial group whose homeland, the Bilad Shinqit, comprises the forbidding corner of Northwest Africa roughly coterminous with present-day Mauritania and the former Spanish Sahara. Ethnicity, along with tribal affiliation and nationalism, has been an important factor in the area's politics and society. Qaddafi's proposal for, in effect, reconstituting the Bilad Shinqit, and the Mauritanian response to it, bring the ethnic question to the center of the regional stage. Inasmuch as Qaddafi's idea, or variations of it, have long appealed to students of the area as 1.The Times, April 14, 1981. 2.Le Monde, April 16, 1981, citing the April 14, 1981, edition of Continent. 3.Le Monde, April 1981. Charles Dunbar is a U.S. foreign service officer on assignment as acting deputy chief of mission at the American embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan. He has served in Morocco, Algeria, Iran, and Mauritania. This is his second tour in Afghanistan. The views expressed in this article are the author's and not those of the United States government. 185 186 SAIS REVIEW providing a possible resolution to the Sahara conflict, this article will assess the likelihood of Shinqiti unity. Before addressing the ethnic development of the Bilad Shinqit, this paper will set forth four propositions about Moorish ethnicity. 1 . During and after the colonial period, the idea of a state in the European sense, and of a nation within colonial boundaries, was introduced into the Bilad Shinqit and took hold quickly. As a result of the colonial occupation, a "cast-iron grid" of state boundaries4 was imposed on the Bilad Shinqit. Moorish ethnicity has not shown much initiative in breaking down these externally imposed cartographic barriers. This grid has been the framework within which Sahrawi nationalism developed during the Spanish colonial period and, more recently, in the war against Morocco. Similarly, despite many vicissitudes and strains, the idea of a multiracial Mauritanian nation existing within the boundaries laid down by the French has proved remarkably resilient. 2.Historically, ethnicity has been less compelling to the Moors as a politically unifying idea than have tribalism, regionalism, and nationalism. Moors are acutely conscious of each other's tribal and regional origins, and these distinctions seem to hold more political meaning for them than their common Moorishness. Even when faced with an outside enemy—first the Europeans and later the Moroccans —Moorish tribes have at times been willing to fight with the outsider against their ethnic brethren. 3.Moorish ethnicity is, nevertheless, an underlying bond. Mauritanian Moors, particularly those living in the north near the Western Sahara, have evinced a growing sympathy for the Sahrawi Moors and their fight. All Moors have had occasion to resent Moroccan irredentism since 1960. The brief alliance between Mauritania and Morocco in the mid-1970s was an uneasy one for the Mauritanians. As the Sahara war continues, and as Moroccan impatience mounts with Mauritania's "lean-to-one-side" neutrality, the strength of Moorish ethnic bonds may increase. 4.Moorish ethnicity and tribes have remained quite stable for several centuries , and the Moors' cultural identity is well known throughout Shinqiti society. The following pages are written primarily to permit an assessment of the role that Shinqiti ethnicity might or might not play in the search for a political solution to the Western Sahara problem. Since the region's political difficulties are better known than the region itself, it...