AFRICA FOURTEENTH STOP MAURITANIA

MAP OF MAURITANIA

AFRICA

BACKGROUND :

Africa covers 6 per cent of the surface of the Earth and provides 20.4 per cent of Earth’s landmass.   Occupying this massive  and significant territory there are 1.1 Billion people. Africa is the second largest and second most populous continent on Earth.

MAURITANIA

Oh What a lovely place! 90% is Sahara Desert, it is an "Islamic Republic", 4% of the population are formally slaves, Female genital mutilation is practised and child labor is the norm. Where else would you want to live?

Now i wrote the foregoing about three weeks ago. And it is true that other things have intruded, but , if I am totally honest I would have to admit that The information summarised in the above paragraph really put me off writing about Mauretania.  But I can't spend the rest of my days peering over the border into wretched Mauretania - no, I shall have to mentally go on in!


Bounded by Western Sahara and Algeria in the North, Mali in the East, and South and also by Senegal in the South , Mauritania has for its Western border the Atlantic Ocean.

The country is an Islamic Republic  with a population of approx. 3,500,000 including as we have said 140,000 official slaves - 4% of the population. Languages used include Arabic, French and a version of +Berber.+ The Motto of the country is : " Honor, Fraternity , Justice" - slaves are exempted from these tiresome privileges , as are genitally-mutilated women and child laborers.

The name Mauritania has its origins in the ancient Roman Province of Mauretania Tingitana which occupied most of present day Morocco and survived as a Berber Kingdom until the 7th Century A.D. From around A..D.1000 Arab invaders maintained continual pressure on the country and finally in a thirty years war from 1644 to 1674 Yemeni Arabs crushed the Berber peoples and assumed control. However in the late 19th Century, French forces from Senegal in the South integrated Mauritania into French territory. French rule brought an end to historic legal slavery in the country. But in 1960 the country was again given its independence.Slavery was restored. Its victims are largely sub-Saharan Africans. 

Severe drought in the 1970s- even by Mauritanian standards led to immense civil unrest.As many as 70,000 sub-Saharan African Mauritanians were expelled from the country at the time. A bloodless coup took place in July , 1978 .This has opened the way for a long period of internal instability with coups and counter coups becoming the routine way of life. Slavery has been banned and then re-introduced.

The last of the coups was in 2008, but the political climate remains unhealthy despite elections held.

Now I know where Mauritania is ...but I feel none the better for it!