Azul, Salaam, Hellow,

The Sahara issue is an interesting subject to write about to understand the Maghreb.

For a good understanding of the complexity of the Sahara issue it is very important to understand the complete administrative history as well as ethnic origin, language and culture of this people . The polisario says to stand for the interests of Sahroui people. This guerrilla group has a leader who is born and raised in the Moroccan city of Marrakech. The polisario frequently turn off clearly the Moroccan identity, you can wonder why they do this so persistent.

The Maghrebbian people are the inhabitants of the Maghreb countries. These inhabitants have a common cultural background as well as etnicity and language. Are the Sahroui really so different from other Maghrebbian people? Didn`t the polisario leadership and Algerian nationalists shaped the Sahroui people to be the playball of their hidden agenda`s ? To what extent are the Sahroui people brainwashed by polisario holding them in Tindouf (Algeria) camps and forbid them travelling to Morocco, only let them travel to marxist states (Cuba North-Korea etc). To what extent does the polisario represents the will of the Sahroui`s? And has this vote been legitimate and democratically? There are a lot of rumours that a large part of the Sahroui`s are kept against their will by the polisario in Tindouf camps and can not travel by freely to Morocco. Is there a possibility perhaps to have a referendum under the Sahroui`s in Tindouf concerning the decision returning to their country of origin.

Can we talk about a Moroccan, Algerian etc. identity? Do the Sahroui people know that the current borders are a result of a colonial inheritance. Must we better think of the larger picture, the Maghrebbian identity, if you consider that all Maghrebbians actually are of Amazigh ( Berber) descent with an Arab-Amazigh culture. Factors that have to be taken into account are the geopolitics of the Maghreb territoy. Psychological status of the Sahroui people and other Maghrebbian tribes. Post-colonial influence of the past and the cold war period. These factors were all external to the Maghreb and imported by the ruling class by help of foreign countries that were after own interest. These actions contributes a great deal to the division of the Maghreb countries and resulted in a deadlock of the Maghreb unification and polarisation of the Moroccan and Algerian people.

It also may be interesting to consider to what extent the call of the Kabyle Amazigh( Berbers) people in North of Algeria for more autonomy can be compared to the Sahara issue. It is certain that the current borders of the Maghreb countries are not natural and are the result is of colonialian inheritance: Knowing this is interesting because the call for a Saharan republic by the polisario with their known borders seems not logic. So what is the original habitat of the original Sahroui people? Isn`t the original habitat of the Sahroui also the South of Algeria and the West of Libya? Why don`t the Sahroui leadership also claim a part of these countries and just the Moroccan Sahara with it`s unnatural colonial times borders? To what extent are these other Maghreb countries prepared give a part of their country to the self-management of these Sahroui`s ?

If you consider there are more people living in the Western Sahara than in the Tindouf camps, these people are under Moroccan administration and came for the large part with the Green March. These people claim to be Saharan and were expelled and fled to the North of Morocco during the Spanish colonisation. These people cannot prove that they are Saharan, and are not taken into account with the UN referendum explaining the dead lock of that plan in the past. To what extent is it practical to create a country as large as the state California with 200,000 Sahroui`s from Tindouf if you consider that in the North part there are more than 30 millions inhabitants? What is the plan for the larger group of people that are living there already that came for a great deal with the Green March? These have established themselves in the Sahara after the Green March and already live here several generations.

What will this so called Saharan republic do for the geopolitics of the Maghreb? How big is the chance that this country could become a banana republic or a vassal state of the relatively unstable Algeria. How big is the chance that this country could becomes dominated and subject for extremist organisations generated by a lack of knowledge and experience in public governance, resources, international recognition, legitimacy of leadership, etc.? Considering the following factors such as the goodwill which the Moroccan government has shown in the field of woman rights, emancipation of the Amazigh identity, economic development of the poor areas, moderate Islamic course, these factors makes Morocco a relatavly progressive country in the Maghreb. In international African magazines Morocco is illustrated as an country that could be an example for the region when one concerns the previous developments Morocco could be an example for other African nations. The Kabyle Amazigh people of Algeria just like other tribes in the Maghreb are denied all forms of self-management by their national governments. Colonel Muammar Ghadaffi that seized power by a coup in Libya doesn’t even want to recognise that there is Amazigh identity in his country and rules Libya like a dictator with no development democratically what so ever. There is hope when his son will follow up, he is more libaral and open minded than his father. The previous compared with the courage’s, far-reaching autonomy initiative of Morocco makes Morocco a benchmark for the other Maghreb countries. The autonomy proposal shows that Morocco is looking for a realistic solution, this shows the willingness of this multi cultural country with its progressive approach.

The Sahara question as such is like the problems in other in African countries a direct consequence of the colonial inheritance. The current country borders have been drawn with little respect for the cultural and administrative history, ethnicity and descent of the people. After the colonial period we had a pan Arab sentiment in North Africa. This Arab nationalism had no respect for the indigenous Amazigh identity and tried aggressively to eradicate all the Amazigh elements in the Maghreb. This Arabisation of the Maghreb had a big impact on the cultural diversity of the Maghreb. This cultural diversity made the Maghreb to be a moderate Islamic region with little space for extremism, separatism and absolute thoughts concerning culture and ethnicity. Initially this Arab nationalism had been developed in the Maghreb to keep the ruling class in its position and to unify the different Maghreb countries. This nationalism was initiated by the pan Arab thought from the Middle East to unify the Arab peoples and nations in a socialst anti Western framework. There was no space for cultural diversity and respect for the endemic people. The Arab Israeli war was initiated by the Palestine people and ‘ Arab’ countries because the didn’t accept the UN proposal of the division of land between of a Palastine and Jewish state. The` Arabs` lost the war and lost as a reslult some parts of their countries that are still occupied by Israel like the West Bank, Golan Hights, Sinai Desert in the past. Arab nationalism didn’t prove to be successful, it didn’t brought anything good to the Maghreb, no democracy, no cultural diversity because of the simple fact Maghreb people are not Arabs in the first place. This pan Arab nationalism is the cause of the current “ Islamic” extremism in Algeria. One of the Arabisation programmes in Algeria imported Arab teachers from Egypt to educate the Amazigh Algerians in the Arab language. What the Arab nationalist didn’t account for was the fact that these teachers of the Muslim Brotherhood could bring an extremist influx to the moderate Maghreb. The nationalist were blinded by there pan Arab ideology and at that time the treat of extremism was unknown. If the Maghreb people were more educated at that time they would never agree with this kind of misplaced nationalism. The more the Maghreb people get educated the more they become aware of the fact they are rather Maghrebbian of Amazigh descent than Arab.

After this unsuccessful pan Arab nationalism and after Algeria became independent from France the Maghreb countries became divided over the division of the French occupied territory. A part of Morocco was part of the French occupied Algeria. After the independence of Algeria this country didn’t want to give Morocco its lands in the East of Algeria back. This conflict resulted in a new kind of nationalism imposed by the rulers of Morocco and Algeria to unify both countries against each other. They created the idea that the inhabitants of the Maghreb differ from each other. At this moment were are still in this period, but there are positive changes for reconciliation of the past and to look at the future by the Maghreb governments. After the Amazigh emancipation of the different Amazigh tribes in the different Maghreb coutries this Aamzigh entity could be the initiator of the creation of more awareness of common values and descent of the Maghreb peoples.

At this moment we cannot redefine the country borders of the Maghreb coutries, this would contribute possibly to the instability of the region and can lead many wars and misery. The current positive developments in the Maghreb is to be supported and to keep the status-quo in government is essential. This platform of the status quo is to be preserved to continue building upon step by step a more democratic Maghreb. This status quo has its current administrative borders. We cannot permit ourselves to simply adapt the borders to a pre colonial period, however these borders may have looked and were legitimate concerning their inhabitants.

The emancipation and acceptance of the endemic language and culture is in my opinion the clue of making the Maghreb more democratic and unified. The cultural awareness of the people of the Maghreb will be followed by looking at common language, culture and ethnicity. There will be an emergence of the the always existing but relatively unknown Maghrebian identity. When the Maghrebian people will realise that they have been kept in fact unaware in the past by their nationalist rulers about their cultural and ethnic closeness the nationalist sentiment will be reduced. And thus a Maghreb Union would be supported by the people. Thus it would not be so important from were your country would be governed, Layoune, Rabat, Algiers, Tripoli etc. The only thing people will be interested is that their region is governed as good as possible not who but how its governed. A Maghreb Union where the separate countries in judicial, economic and military area cooperate and the separate regions by means of autonomy govern their area could be a good plan to work towards in the future. If you look what Europe achieved after the second world war, with so many differences of the member countries in language, culture, politics in contrast of the Maghreb were the people speak the same language have the almost the same culture, would be very realistic. We can learn from countries which have had similar development in the past such as the establishment of the EU and the way Spain gives autonomy to its regions. In short a further division of the Maghreb by creating an so called Saharan republic seems undesirable because the encouragement of nationalist feelings. As a potential consequence it could be a trigger on other tribes within the Maghreb who have misplaced unrighteous and dangerous separatist thought of total undesirable control of their habitat. In my opinion at this moment the focus should better be on enhancing and stimulating cooperation between the Maghreb countries to develop and adjust their economies to each other, to check each other on bettering democratically, be unified against extremist, instead of the infinite division, unity.

Warm regards and Salaam to you,

Jamal Nouhi Foundation Metalsa http://www.stichting-metalsa.nl