Senegal>Morocco

Mauritania is a transition from “Arab Africa” to “Black Africa” in the conventional wisdom. It’s somewhere between Morocco and Senegal, but in my expert opinion having been to both countries it’s more Senegal than Morocco. Granted it’s the desert and is “The Islamic Republic of” and speak Arabic, and there are all of these Arab looking dudes walking around with those long, puffy robes with the long slits down the side, but even in Nouadhibou 50 km from Morocco I heard mbalax, saw Senegalese-looking people everywhere and it just looked like Senegal, horse-carts, mad dusty, telecentres, dibiteries, unfinished concrete 2-story buildings, and beat-up old French cars. It even smelled like Senegal. Which brings me to one of the most unsavory aspects of Mauritanian society, yup you guessed it, its deep-rooted anti-black racism. Mauritania basically has three main social groups. First there are the moors of Arab and Berber descent (the ones of “purely” Arab descent or Bidan are the elite according to many sources), then there are the former slaves of the Arabs the Haratin or “black moors” (think Othello) who have assimilated Hassaniya and Moorish cultures, and finally the Soudaniens or black Africans who are basically the same ethnic groups that live on the other side of the Senegal River, the Peul, and some Wolof and Soninke. Then again I don’t know how accurate this schematic is since I did meet a woman who self-identied as “black moor” (maure noire) and spoke Hassaniya but also spoke Wolof and French. What’s certain that this kind of ethnic mix is a explosive (just look at similar situations in Chad and Sudan). In 1989 there were race riots which almost threatened to escalate to war with Senegal as the black in the south rebelled against Arab domination of the government and economy, including for example the imposition of Hassaniya. Furthermore, Mauritania has been condemned by international human rights groups as one of the handful of countries worldwide that still tolerates mass slavery. It all just makes me wonder why God chose black people to suffer so much (but then again in Mali and Niger it’s the black folks oppressing the Moors from the desert, so I guess it really is just structural, still black folks have an awful tendency to show up at the bottom of structures worldwide, with Mali and Niger already being among the top ten poorest countries in the world).