Sahrawi Sahrawi Wiegmann Category="Accuracy disputes"Category="Arabic words"Category="Bedouin groups"Category="Ethnic groups of Africa"Category="History of the Maghreb"Category="NPOV disputes"Category="Sahara"The factual accuracy of this article is disputed

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Sahrawi and Saharawi are terms most commonly used for the indigenous people of the Western Sahara. Ethnic Sahrawis are however found in southern Morocco and among the Moors in northern Mauritania as well, the Western Sahara conflict having fractured this tiny Nomad people into several communities forced to exist under wildly differing cultural and political conditions. The exact size of the Sahrawi ethnic group is unknown, and due to the political dispute it is hard to find neutral accounts, but it is probably somewhere over 500,000. Of these, 200-250,000 are or are descended from original inhabitants of Western Sahara.

Political divisions

The Western Saharan Sahrawis have been bloodily split between their homeland and the refugee camps in Tindouf, Algeria, where some 165,000 refugee Sahrawis have lived in exile since being driven out of Western Sahara in 1975. Almost the same number managed to stay behind under Moroccan control, but demonstrations and dissident activity seem to indicate the sympathy of some Sahrawis to the cause of the Polisario and refugee return. Most of the Moroccan Sahrawis have been resettled, sometimes more or less voluntarily, in the Moroccan-controlled parts of Western Sahara in an attempt to bolster Morocco's claims to the area. The attitude of this group towards independence is complicated: several tribes are pro-Moroccan, but there has also been numerous instances of Moroccan Sahrawis displaying their solidarity with the Polisario movement, and a couple of the most high-profile independence activists (such as Ali Salem Tamek) are actually from southern Morocco rather than Western Sahara.

The Sahrawis in Morocco and Mauritania are not claiming their home areas as part of an independent Western Sahara. Sahrawis' human rights was repressed in Moroccan controlled parts and in Tindouf camps in the 1970's but the situation has considerably improved since then, and Sahrawi culture and traditions have been encouraged by the Moroccan government. The situation of the Sahrawis in Mauritania has been relatively unproblematic, and they tend to support a Sahrawi state in Western Sahara. During Mauritania's brief occupation of southern Western Sahara (1975-79) the rebel ranks were swelled by ethnically Sahrawi sympathizers who deserted from the occupation army, and the community in general termed it a "fratricidal war".

History, language and culture

In Arabic, the word "Sahrawi" means "of the Sahara", the word sahara itself meaning desert. Thus, the literal meaning is "Desert inhabitant." They are presumed to have descended from the Beni Hassan, a Yemeni Arab tribe who migrated into Western Sahara about one thousand years ago, although they are today of mixed Arab-Berber descent. They count their Berber ancestry to the Sanhaja tribe.

Sahrawis speak the Arabic dialect of Hassaniya, notoriously difficult to understand for non-Sahrawi Arab speakers, and they also see Spanish as part of their cultural legacy, Spain having colonized Western Sahara, French is also widely used in Moroccan controlled parts. Religiously, they are Sunni Muslims of the Maliki school, with religious ritual adopted to nomad life (for example, mosques are uncommon). Their nomadic and tribal traditions were not challenged until the end of Spanish colonialism, and they have developed a Bedouin culture distinct from the settled Arabs in Mauritania, Algeria and Morocco. Especially notable are the relative emancipation of women and the heavy emphasis on social equality. Today Sahrawi culture is undergoing rapid transformation, but under all the differing systems of government the concept of modernization has become entangled with the political development.

The Polisario Front is the main Sahrawi nationalist organization, fighting for Western Sahara's independence since 1973. It is based in the Tindouf camps among Refugee Sahrawis, but also controls about a third of Western Sahara. Since backing a cease-fire in 1991, it is presently trying to bring about a Sahrawi state through peaceful negotiations, but so far with little success.

Contrast this term with Saharan.

See also:

External links