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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Mauritania
Index
Peul market in Nouakchott
Courtesy Larry Barrie
In the 1980s, Mauritanian society was a collection of
distinct, stratified ethnic groups that showed little evidence of
social cohesion or national identity. The process of creating
national institutions or professional classes had hardly begun.
For most Mauritanians, loyalty to family, lineage, and ethnic
group far outweighed allegiance to the state or to national
institutions. Ethnicity, social position, and caste identity
remained strong, conditioning the processes of state formation
and administration.
During the colonial period, Mauritania's social structure had
come to reflect the impact of French administrative preferences.
Individuals, families, and dominant clans attempted to use the
colonial presence to maintain or improve their privileged status.
Among the Maures, for example, the zawaya tribes at
first used their control of religious education to dominate
economically and politically. This was accomplished at the
expense of the hassani, who had made the transition from
warriors, raiders, and tribute collectors to pastoralists,
traders, and low-level civil servants. However, the French
generally employed Wolof and Toucouleur, rather than Maures, as
low-level civil servants. By 1960 black Africans were the
majority of the colonial administration's civil servants and
played a much larger role in the modern employment sector than
did either the hassani or the zawaya.
After independence was granted in 1960, Mauritanian society
changed faster than it had during the colonial period. This era
saw the beginnings of urbanization, the founding of a permanent
capital, the establishment of national organizations such as
trade unions, and the expansion of education facilities and
literacy. It also brought a reorientation away from West Africa
toward the
Maghrib (see Glossary)
as the number of white Maures
in the government increased. Secular education, heretofore
largely the preserve of black Africans, increased significantly
among Maures. White Maures attempted to give Mauritania a
distinct Arab-Berber character and in doing so often alienated
the black population. At the same time, Maures developed a sense
of ethnic identity and unity that had not existed before
independence.
By the 1980s, the ranks of the bureaucracy and military
included both white Maures and black Africans, but the
distribution of professionals in these ranks varied widely
(see Impediments to Change
, ch. 4). In the late 1970s, studies
indicated that black Africans generally formed a larger
proportion of the salaried professional class than did white
Maures, whereas the opposite was the case among wage earners and
general laborers. Continuing the colonial pattern, the Toucouleur
and the Wolof were well represented in higher and mid-level
professional ranks, and the Soninké were beginning to penetrate
the lower and mid-level ranks. White Maures and black Africans
were almost equally represented at the highest bureaucratic
levels.
Considerable tension existed between Maures and black
Africans in the late 1980s. Many Maures still viewed black
Africans as people who should be under Maure control, a
perception especially evident among more traditional Maure tribes
of the north. Many blacks, however, considered Maures (especially
white Maures) to be ignorant, lazy, and inefficient. They also
saw white Maures as slaveholders. Thus, they feared growing Maure
political and social dominance.
These attitudes intensified during the 1980s. Despite
official denials, many black Africans complained of widespread
racial discrimination in political and economic areas. They
pointed to the disproportionate number of Arab-Berbers at the top
of the government bureaucracy and military command, to
Mauritania's close ties with the Arab world, and to the emphasis
on the use of Arabic in national life to support these
complaints.
Another issue that exacerbated racial tensions during the
1980s was access to land along the Senegal River. As plans for
economic development along the river valley progressed, blacks
feared that wealthy white Maures would buy up productive land in
areas traditionally claimed by blacks. Desertification of once-
fertile lands farther north added to the competition for better
watered land in southern Mauritania.
As in many newly independent countries with marked ethnic and
linguistic diversity, the selection of national and official
languages heightened intergroup tensions. At independence,
Hassaniya Arabic was given "national" language status, while
French remained an "official" language. In 1966, however, the
government made Hassaniya Arabic an official language along with
French and required that Arabic be taught in secondary schools, a
requirement that brought protests from Mauritania's blacks
(see Public Order and Internal Security
, ch. 5).
In the late 1980s, blacks continued to protest against the
compulsory study of Arabic and complained that their lack of
proficiency in the language was used to block their advancement
in the bureaucracy and military. Blacks could still choose to be
educated in French, however, and French retained its status as an
official language. The government also permitted primary-level
instruction in several of Mauritania's African languages.
Economic development has altered traditional social
organization, particularly among groups near centers of
modernization. Rapid urbanization has accelerated these changes.
The importance of lineage endogamy has declined among Maures, and
customary marriage patterns have begun to change. By the late
1980s, urban Mauritanians paid less attention to distant segments
of their lineages, and they seldom reckoned their kin-group
membership back more than five generations.
Economic functions of the various black African and Maure
caste groups were becoming less rigid; social patterns,
therefore, also were becoming more fluid. An increasing number of
Mauritanians were involved in work unrelated to traditional caste
occupations. Although the customary social distinctions
associated with traditional stratification patterns remained and
individuals were still identified socially as members of
particular castes, there were indications that caste designations
were becoming less important socially and economically. In
addition, government efforts to modernize and commercialize the
activities of craftsmen and fishermen resulted in some rise in
the social status of these groups.
If the pace of change was slow in Mauritanian society as a
whole, it was even slower in the area of slavery. Slavery was
abolished in 1960 and again in 1980. Mauritanian authorities
acknowledged the continued existence of slavery and took limited
steps to eradicate it, but in 1981 observers estimated that at
least 100,000 people were still slaves and 300,000 were ex-
slaves.
In 1974 a group of escaped slaves formed an emancipation
movement known as El Hor (Freedom). By the late 1970s, El Hor
began to achieve some notable successes; the 1980 decree
abolishing slavery was owed at least in part to El Hor's
agitation, as were fact-finding missions by the London Anti-
Slavery Society (1981) and the UN (1984). Building on these
achievements, El Hor continued to press for specific laws to
ensure that emancipation became a reality and that former slaves
enjoyed equal rights and treatment.
Factors that conditioned the role of women in Mauritanian
society in the late 1980s included the impact of Islam and sharia
(Islamic law); West African influences that allowed women
substantial independence in some social and economic areas;
economic modernization, which challenged customary behavior
patterns in some areas; and Mauritania's rapid pace of
urbanization, which subjected traditional nomadic customs to new
scrutiny. Many women in such urban centers as Nouakchott, for
example, were born in the rural interior of the country and found
their childhood training challenged by changing urban social
conditions.
Girls' education took place primarily at home and emphasized
homemaking skills. Some girls attended Quranic schools, but their
training was usually limited to learning verses from the Quran
and attaining minimal literacy skills. A mother's responsibility
toward her daughter traditionally included instruction in
household and family affairs and childrearing. In recent decades,
fathers were responsible for financing any formal education for
their children, but a father's most important responsibility
toward his daughters was to prepare them for marriage, primarily
by ensuring their physical attractiveness. A widespread practice
was forced feeding (gavage). Forced feeding usually
involved psychological pressure, rather than physical force, but
it often required a family to reserve substantial quantities of
food--in most cases, milk--for consumption by its pre-teenage
daughters, whose beauty was a measure of a father's commitment to
the marriage alliances they would form. Many young women were
betrothed or married by the age of eight or ten. Unmarried
teenage girls were subjected to severe social criticism.
Divorce was fairly common in Mauritanian society in the
1980s, even among very traditional villagers. A divorced man
suffered no social stigma, but a divorced woman could still
become an outcast if her family or her former husband's family
criticized her behavior. Women traditionally had cared for their
homes and worked in limited agricultural pursuits; but by the
1980s, they were beginning to enter professions formerly closed
to them, such as commerce, teaching, and a variety of skilled
occupations.
By 1985 nearly one-fourth of all girls below the age of
eleven attended primary school, a marked increase over enrollment
figures just a decade earlier. More women were attending
secondary schools and university, and in 1987 Khadijatou Bint
Ahmed, Mauritania's minister of mines and industry, became the
nation's first female cabinet official
(see Women
, ch. 4).
Data as of June 1988
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