History of Mauritania

The borders of the Mauritania were defined in 1904 by the France and the Spain. As for much of African countries, one has not held account in this layout of the populations installed there for several centuries, nor of the homogeneous populations which were separated by a border.

To note that ethnic mixing always existed in Mauritania and that its first inhabitants were blacks.

Antiquity

The first inhabitants of Mauritania were blacks, joined later by a white population which one qualifies habituellemnt descendants of current Berber. Koumbi Saleh, city of the south-east of Mauritania, was the capital of the Empire of Ghana. This empire which extended á one time on most of West Africa and which recovered part of Mali and Senegal, will become thereafter the Empire of Mali then Songhai. Vestiges of this presence are still visible with the fine bottom of the desert Mauritanian.

The Arab conquest

From the 2nd century until the 17th century the Arab tribes conquer the worldwide. The most important tribe is that of the Bani Hassan . Arabic installs a system of castes with free lords, craftsmen, slaves and freed. The Blacks are reduced to l´esclavage. Arabic converts the populations with l´islam. The whole of the population is more or less arabisée, even if many Blacks preserved their languages (toucoulor, oulof). The political power will be from now on with the hands of the monks. Arabic will bring also a new important component, the private property.

French colonization

In 1442, the first Portuguese navigators discover the Cape Blanc and Arguin. They establish a counter for the trade of gold, of the slaves, as well as gum arabic. The Trans-Saharan trade is thus diverted with the profit of Europeans. Arguin is then coveted by the English, the Dutchmen, and the French. In 1664, the latter are finally established there. The trade develops along the valley of the Senegal river, starting from St-Louis. The slaves and the gum arabic are the principal coveted goods there.

From the 19th century, the process of colonization begins. Installed in Senegal, the French benefit from the conflicts between the emirates to subject them and thus carry out the unit of the French Empire between Algeria and Africa Occidentale French. The fight for the possession of close Morocco is also stakes important which is added to the will to pacify the valley of Senegal, subjected with the rezzous of the Moors.

In 1905, Mauritania becomes French territory and thus acquires borders which it had never had before, being before a a whole ground of nomads.

Horma Babana was the first deputy representing Mauritania at the French assembly following the legislative elections of 1946

NB: (cf the detailed site: " Attempt at history of the mauritanie" )

Independent Mauritania

The Mauritania obtained its independence of the France the November 28th, 1960. The country was controlled until 1978 by Moktar Ould Daddah, (Ould means “wire of”) which had founded a civil mode of sole party. Originating in Boutilimit, Daddah had an ideological vision of Mauritania, vision which was worth the reputation to him to have a nationalism and a will to make leave the country the desert and misery. The mode will remain very appreciated and regretted by the whole of the population Mauritanian. President Ould Daddah is reversed, in 1978, by a military junta which the colonel Ould Walata directs, itself reversed in 1980 by the colonel Ould Haidalla and this last, reversed by Ould Taya in December 1994.

President Maaouiya Ould Taya was the subject of three recent coups d'etat (the June 8th, 2003, August 9th, 2004 and August 3rd, 2005). The two first failed; The third, carried out by the Colonel ELY ould Mohamed Vall, director of the national security, and the Colonel Ould Abdel Aziz, chief of the presidential guard, gave to the capacity a junta called Military council for justice and the democracy, which was committed “creating the favorable conditions of a democratic game open and transparent about which the civil society and the political actors will have to come to a conclusion freely”.

She annexed one the southern third of the old Spanish Sahara (from now on the the Western Sahara) in 1976 but she gave up it after three years of raids of the Front Polisario which asserted the sovereignty of this territory.

In 1991, the opposition parties were legalized and a new constitution was installation. Since, three multi-party presidential elections took place but are largely regarded as distorted; Mauritania thus remains actually a state with sole party.

In absence of the official reliable data, according to the world Factbook (the CIA), the various groups of populations were left again between 60% of ethnos groups Métisses Moors/Noirs, 31% of ethnos groups Moors and 33% of ethnos groups Noir be.

The tribes Moors of the east of the country, known as Arab in the local jargon, comprise an important interbreeding. Although a very great majority of population is of the rather African and not-Semitic origin but speaking Arabic, Mauritania belongs to the “Arab League”.

It seems that the acculturation of the populations living this territory produced by the Islamization and the teaching of Arabic led to a confusion of identity in the collective conscience of this young nation, confusion between on the one hand liturgical language and religious practices and on the other hand ethnic identity and ancestral traditions.

Slavery was officially abolished with four recoveries (the last time in 1980, with a mitigated success) but racial segregations, tribal or castes remain there.,

Mauritania attracted itself the lightnings of certain Arab countries by establishing these last years of the diplomatic relations with Israel, in a shy person attempt at standardization and external opening (the country does not have any disagreement with Israel and even tries to forge an strategic alliance with the USA). This choice of foreign politics, remains the least included/understood and more disputed by the public opinion of the country, always an “Islamic” republic.

Characteristics

An exemplary social fabric

Although Mauritania counted up to 80% unemployed, one saw nobody dying there of hunger, even at the time of the fold of the population on great urban centres like Nouakchott following the Désertification, or more exactly the increase in difficulty of the living conditions in the desert. There everyone seems to be able to contact everyone into five or six in-directions. This situation is explained by the structure of social and family fabric very interdependent why one finds elsewhere in West Africa: a credit can nourish all a “family” (in the African meaning) for which the needs are not well heard with measurement for the populations known as developed.

Others

Mauritania sold fishing rights coastal with the Japan, and to the European Union in the Années 1990
Mauritania left the free zone in 1973; by striking its own currency: the ouguiya (UM). 1 EURO= approximately 330 UM with the official course in 2005.

Ecology

In spite of its economic difficulties and at the instigation of the International community, Mauritania created in 1976 a national park “the Bench of Arguin” whose Theodore Monod was one of the instigators. This park lodges many Espèce S of Oiseau X migrating and constitutes an essential biological production zone for the economy of the fishing thanks to the existence of herbaria favourable with the reproduction of the marine species. Fishing there is very severely regulated and comprises a zone of exclusion supervised permanently by Radar. Only the Imraguens, local population of origin Senegal ease, are authorized to practice a not motorized traditional fishing there. Marking the respect for this privileged zone, the road between Nouadhibou and Nouakchott whose economic impact is not negligible circumvent the Bench of Arguin.

Points of history: the Bench of Arguin was the theater of the shipwreck of the raft of the Jellyfish (Géricault) and is on the route of famous the Aéropostale of Mermoz, Guillaumet, Saint Exupéry ( night flight ) which connected Toulouse to Saint-Louis of Senegal then the Argentine. One finds there in a corner of desert a carcass of a plane of the beginning of last century (Bréguet 14?) having probably belonged to this company.

Circulation

circulation observes in the broad outlines the same rules as in continental Europe, some exceptions however:

a curiosity, circulation délatéralise brutally with F' dérik with the approach of the iron mines to be carried out left side but it in a very restricted perimeter. This control on the left makes it possible to better appreciate the roadside to cross enormous ore trucks which have the wheel on the left. Control on the left was adopted in all the mines of this kind

the free animals of very enclosed are frequent source of accidents of the public highway in particular on Nouakchott-Néma the road, known as “road of the hope” which crosses cattle-rearing areas. To announce that in the right Mauritanian the motorist responsible for died for an animal must compensate his owner.

the highway network until now rudimentary is packed. The two principal metropolises Nouadhibou and Nouakchott are now connected by an asphalt road. In the same way the road access to Mali since Ayoun-El-Atrous is from now on open.

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