Transcript geopolitical position

Helena Olsson 2012
Mauritania
• Multiethnic country which bridges the Arab
Maghreb and western sub-Saharan Africa
• A transit country
• Geopolitical and strategic position
• Internal and external challenges
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4 major challenges
• The process of construction of the State
• The process of democracy;
• The process of construction of identity and
social cohesion.
• The geopolitical position and external
tensions
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Key figures
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3 million inhabitants
Ethnic groups: Arabs, peulhs, soninkés
Religion: Sunni Islam
1 million km2
GDP: approximately $ 3.5 billion
GDP per capita: $900
Poverty: about 40%
HDI 2010: 136th of 170 countries
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History in brief
• Independency 1960
• Mohtar Ould Daddah: growing arabisation of the educational system,
dictatorship, respect for real of order never established
• 1991: new constitution, multiple political parties
• 2005 military coup and democratic transition: organisation of free
elections.
• Cited in 2007 as a 'model' of democratic transition
• New military coup 2008
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Legal system
• Law: combination of Sharia and French Civil
law• Using Sharia for legitimacy purposes.
• Islamic law/French law: not necessarily.
identical approaches. Unclear guidance by the
state.
• Slavery criminalized but still existing.
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Highly segmented society
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Arab-Berger Moorish tribes
Harratin: former slaves; “black Moors”, 40%
Black Africans
White Moors/black Moors/black African : each
30-40 %. Census after 1960 never made public.
• Tribal and regional splits in the country.
• Lack of intergroup communication and
understanding
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Slavery
• Holding people in slavery is seen as socially
acceptable in wide range of socio-ethnic
groups.
• The status of being enslaved has been part of
the social structure among Moors and the
different black ethnic groups for generations.
• (Extreme) violence is not required to preserve
slavery.
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Inequal society
• Society is still marked by a mentality of inequality.
Slavery continues; the descendants of slaves find
difficulty to access knowledge and power.
• Difficulty to broaden political participation, while social
segments are won by radical temptations.
• Juxtaposition of economic marginalization
• Concentration of wealth, linked to the exercise of the
power.
• Imperfect targeting development policy to the benefit
of vulnerable groups and systemic corruption reduce
the ability of the State to ensure a minimum of human
security to the people.
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The weakness of culture and
democratic claim
• The ruling elites find more advantage in a closed system
where they can 'negotiate' compromise, than in an open
system.
• Low interest in building of a strong State.
• Poverty eradication: people prefer clientelism and corruption
because of their redistributive effects;
• Patrimonialisation of power
• Parties have difficulty to impose themselves as vectors of
political socialization;
• Oligarchic groups hiding behind the screen of the
institutions.
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difficult transposition of pluralist
democracy
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Gap between citizens and the institutions: risk to
establish a formal framework, operating in
isolation, far from the social realities.
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Emptiness of the institutions and the lack of
effective counterweiling powers.
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Politicization and interference of the army in
politics: (17 coups, including 5 successful).
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failure of institutions to resolve political conflicts
within a constitutional framework.
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Conflicts
• National identity and the uncertain
sharing of power.
• Access to resources which generate,
sometimes, a competition for
survival, exacerbated by the scarcity
of resources.
• Redistribution of wealth, due to gaps
in income and correlation between
the traditional social status and level
of poverty.
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Complicated subregional
environment
• Salafists.
• Migration, various traffic, road of
the drug (10 tonnes seized and
274 arrests among cross-border
supply chains in 2010).
• 'Constable of the desert', (fight
against the terrorist threat).
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Fundamentalism
- Fundamentalism feeds itself on martyrdom.
- Fundamentalism feeds of 'political world
disorder.
Therefore: The fight against terrorism is a
collective responsibility
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Government vs ’popular’ islam
• A 'popular' islam emerging more and more as
challenging the legitimacy of the State and the
'official' islam.
• After 2010 a new doctrine which combines
firmness to dialogue with the moderate and
forgiveness for 'repentant'.
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Acts of mercy to coax the radicals
• Commitment of dialogue (2010) between renowned
theologians, mandated by the Government, and
detainees.
• Calls by great scholars encouraging the return to the
virtues of tolerant Islam.
- Release of 52 people, convicted in cases related to
terrorism. Having expressed their repentance, they
committed themselves to "conform to tolerant Sunni
islam.
- The authorities plan to allocate funding for
rehabilitation.
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Hyphen between sub-Saharan Africa
and the Arab world
• Located on the road to transsahariens exchanges.
• Contribution to the expansion of Islam in Africa.
• Reputation in the East, where number of its
theologians have always served as imams or
muftis.
• Arab financing.
• Large network of Mauritanian traders.
• Western Sahara (Mauritania neutral but the new
tensions a risk factor)• Malian border.
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AQIM
• Globalization vs traditional values.
• Limited inability of the State to ensure a minimum of
human security.
• The development of AQMIs activities, since 2005, shows
that emergence of radical thinking is current, an antithesis
of the national tradition and putting in question the
legitimacy of the State.
• Taking advantage of instability and the weakeness of the
state AQMI could emerge as a sustainable challenging
force, mobilizing the poorest layers. The weakness of the
State and national capacities for control of borders (+ 5,
600sq km) make of Mauritania 'soft belly of the region.
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Security risks
• Risky choices of the 1990s to be closer to the
West.
• Suppression of the religious intelligentsia:
Salafism, the natural son of the police state?
• Widespread corruption of the ruling elites.
• Establishing relationships with Israel; (disagreed).
• Volunteers , trained and radicalized, returned
and continue the struggle against the
Government (GSPC AQMI 'Ansar Allah El
Mourabitoune').
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Military actions
- Implementation of intervention groups
specialising in the fight against terrorism.
- Organized in light, mobile units.
- Preventive attacks of Al Qaeda bases to
destabilize the enemy and prevent its operations
in the country.
- Systematic denial of the exchange of prisoners
against the hostages.
- Infiltration of officers to encourage to desertion.
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Consequences
• Ambition to cooperate with the rest of the international
community to control the chaos in the Sahara and play a
stabilizing role and encourage dialogue between Islam and
the West.
• However a proactive commitment in the fight against
terrorism causes.
• Change of budgetary priorities in favour of the defence and
to the detriment of social.
• Risk of failure of the internal consensus and discredit
attached to a close cooperation with the West (seen as the
heir of the Crusades, colonization and the protector of
Israel);
• Risk of military adventure against an unfindable enemy.
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Concervative society but a land of
moderation
• Governments have implemented religious
legitimation strategies to limit the influence of
the radicals, based on:
- the reaffirmation of the Islamic identity:
proclamation of the Islamic law (shariaa) as the
sole source of law in the country;
- Control of training and recruitment of religious
leaders, and 'production' of moderate imams to
limit the influence of the radicals.
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