Middle East International issue 705, 25 July 2003

A colonial affair
Western Sahara Since 1975 Under Moroccan Administration: Social, economic and
political transformation
Akbarali Thobhani
Edwin Mellen Press, London 2002 £74.95/$119.95

THIS IS A BOOK overloaded with statistics to demonstrate the thesis that
Morocco has successfully and beneficially transformed Western Sahara in the 27
years since it occupied the territory. However, it is a case of "water, water
everywhere and not a drop to drink", for it skips over the demographic figures
without which all other numbers are meaningless and analysis impossible.
True enough, the author remarks that there are three categories of inhabitant
- indigenous Sahrawis, ethnic Sahrawis brought into the territory for the
stalled referendum process, and northern Moroccan settlers. The population
breakdown is politically sensitive and contestable, but of a total population
of some 300,000 in 1998 perhaps 70,000 were brought in by Rabat for the
referendum process it has now spurned, many, but far from all, ethnic
Sahrawis. There are probably less than 100,000 indigenous Sahrawis in the
territory (plus some 160,000 refugees in southern Algeria), making the bulk of
the population in the territory settlers.

Once this is grasped, Thobhani's central thesis begins to crumble because the
economic and social case, there is little scope for discussion of the role of
Western Sahara in the Moroccan economy; whether the infrastructural spend is
seen as an investment for future returns, a cost-effective sink for bidonville
dwellers from northern Morocco, or an expense demanded by ideology. Certainly
there is no examination of employment and wage profiles.

At the social level too, Thobhani misses the point. For pro-independence
Sahrawis in the territory (of whom there are very many, although Thobhani
appears to have missed them), the education system exemplifies not development
but a political project of integration. Broadly, they argue that Sahrawi
children are taught Moroccan history in a Moroccan curriculum by Moroccan
teachers and, if they protest, are snatched from schools by Moroccan security
forces. The successful then attend universities in Morocco. And the years in
education are the only years for most when there is more than superficial
interaction between the communities.

Coverage of the politics of the independence movement is not central to the
theme of the book but it would have been better to avoid the topic entirely
than to have dealt with it as done here. There is no hint of any contact with
Polisario, no suggestion Thobhani has visited the refugee camps in Algeria,
and no account of Polisario's politics. Yet there is an eight-page recitation
of defections to Morocco and uncritical reporting of the comments of returnees
who, I suspect, are the usual collection presented to visitors by the Moroccan
administration.

Thobhani does nod towards the charges of death, brutality, imprisonment and
disappearance levelled at Rabat but largely in order to support his assertion
that "people in the Saharan Provinces are hoping for and looking forward to a
new era under the new king". With the Sahrawi section of the Forum for Truth
and Justice closed down in June as a Moroccan journalist and a Sahrawi
activist both approached death on hunger strike and the king promised to
toughen up after the Casablanca bombing, that assertion is premature at best.
Little has been written in English about Western Sahara for two decades. This
book adds little by way of pertinent fact or analysis.

Toby Shelley

Shelley, who works for the Financial Times, is himself writing a
book on Western Sahara for Zed Books.

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URL: http://meionline.com/electronicarchive.shtml#119
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Forwarded by:
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Norwegian Support Committee for Western Sahara
wsahara@...

*** Referendum now! ***

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Sahara-update
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