Mauritania: Social Paradigm

Elycheikh Ahmedtolba

Culturally any society needs to be scrutinized profoundly within its political, social, and economic contexts. These contexts are what delineate the possible ways in which the past, the present, and the future get mingled together intimately.

Our Mauritania doesn't escape from this rule, but rather it confirms it in terms of all the aspects. Mauritania, which has not yet been the subject-matter of any attempt of recollecting or reorganizing its glorious history. It has never been the business of its intellectuals to have a regard on the social stratifications with a critical eye of the critical situation in which we are and still going through.

This laziness also is one of the countless social absurdities that are characterizing our social life. Absurdities in which we all find ourselves obligedto comply with and be the subject of a stupid gaze.

Our society is in need for , first of all, the exploitation of the potential intellectuality of the elite to be employed properly, but this positive exploitation should be conditioned and accompanied with a political engagement or a political intention to open all the doors equally before the ambitious upcoming generations. In this serious political act for which I'm calling has not to be regarded from a very narrow perspectives. We want it to be realized at the social, political and economic levels.

What has been realized on the ground so far is not something worth mentioning or even it is nothing in comparison with our aspirations. We were just disillusioned with some vague social and political promises that have been announced by under the cover of a transitional military regime.

I don't deny that we were suffocating; we were aspiring to change and improve our society. But unfortunately I think apparently nothing is yet looming in the sheltering sky. Will there be any possibilities of improvements?

It is to be mentioned that our society is a multiracial society. This fact, which is politically refuted and denied as a taboo for the intellectuals to touch upon. If we want to enhance and push our society ahead, we have to be Franck in tackling all the racial issues with an open mind and extrovert hearts.

This multiplicity of races is now what is making our social diversity and is what bears at the same time the seeds of destruction. We are in a state of being two struggling communities within on community. Two communities, that are sharing the same landscape, the same identity, and the samedestiny. But deeply there is a huge gap that is getting wider and wider day after day due to the uselessness of education.

This lackof communication is a result of the educational reforms that took place in the mid of 1980's and we are still paying its costs expensively. Because of these stupid reforms, we became a lost generation. This reform or rather deformbrought about some intricate social problems that are out of control. It has discriminated the two races through breaking the social bones between them and let the things fall apart. How could this gap be bridged?

Regardless to the social practices, which are out of fashion and are leading people amazingly and blindly sticking to them, especially the Moorish community. Really, we are backing up the old western stereotypes that the Arab people don't fit to be "civilized" or at least to cope with the technological advancements.

For instance, we are manipulating computer with the mind of a camel rider. I think, the major characteristic of our society is that we are fatalists and we are unable to conduct any projects of our lives for the long term. We have learnt from the desert how to accept the situation as inevitably unchangeable without any try to affect it positively or negatively. We hold it as an absolute truth that we were born to live the way things come up then die as we were born. That is why we will never be revolutionary or liberal to change ourselves and we will remain submissive. We are oblivious of our situation so we are proud of being marginalized and dehumanized.

We are double-victimized; first, from a political standpoint the government is completely neglecting everything but themselves. They are not ready to be disturbed with launching any kind of development. The political or military leaders think as if they were granted their position for the sake of their eyes. They behave in a way that anyone to believe tenaciously in their social and political premature. Second, Mauritanian individuals are mentally victimized by some traditions and customs that were engraved in them since their existence.

Eventually, it is upon the political leaders, who have imposed themselves on the innocent indigenous people unwillingly, to change their way of the backward thinking of their personal benefit and set out a promising steps towards solving our social, political, and economic shortcomings or predicaments.