The Moreria

The process which leads to the choice of a title is sometimes very simple. It's a bit like ticking a box to offer an answer. Often this is more laborious, like when we are about to do a bungee jump but our feet remain frozen on the edge of the precipice. We then try in vain to find that word or that combination of words that would really allow us to describe the reality we are trying to express.

It is necessary to be able to translate a complex idea into a mental image, capable of suggesting this whole or of letting it be guessed. We wanted to create a Mauritania-themed website that could offer Mauritanians the opportunity to reinvent themselves. Indeed, we believe that the majority of social, political and economic problems suffer from a bad reading and a bad interpretation on the part of our fellow citizens.

One of the reasons for this phenomenon can be found both in the idea of ​​citizenship and in its definition. The citizen is this individual who nourishes the city, through his presence, his thought, his sacrifice, his work and his commitment to it. Without a conscious citizen, there is no sustainable city, and even less a prosperous society.

The Mauritanian exists, probably, but the Mauritanian citizen is another story, obviously. Out of 58 years of independence, we can only credit civil power with 18 years of effective exercise.

Military power has been rife for 40 years. Under such conditions, it is difficult to imagine the blossoming of Mauritanian citizenship. Everything that the civil power has done to produce citizenship, patriotism and to establish common values ​​among Mauritanians, the military power has methodically defeated by marginalizing citizens and their rights, by establishing a law. barely disguised martial art that ostracizes intellectuals and public figures who once held popular trust.

However, the military authority skillfully maintains itself. She knows how to terrorize but above all she knows how to exploit the ancestral existence of ethnic and cultural determinism. Deprived of social policy, the individual finds the elementary mechanisms of solidarity which allow him to survive within his clan, his tribe or even his caste. The military then instrumentalize passions, stir up rivalries and take advantage of the division to better establish themselves as arbiters.

This generation of officers will sooner or later bear the scars of their terrible betrayal. Their names and their faces will remain forever associated, in the memory of Mauritanians with the taking hostage of their dream, that of a young poor nation formed by old peoples with rich heritages, who one day decided to converge towards a common destiny. . In truth, we are quite incapable of killing dreams, we really only know how to kill dreamers.

In addition to this, you need to know more about it.

This dream which bit the dust, which knew the lies, the tortures and the deportations is still vibrating in the hearts and more and more present in the spirits. This is why, we believe with all our soul, that it is possible for the Mauritanians to reform and organize their reconquest.

Before thinking about the conditions of the reunion between the Mauritanians and imagining the gathering of the vital forces of the Nation, we must accept our share of responsibility in the balance sheet accused by our rulers. This mandatory and salutary step will allow us to consider our political future in a better light, because from now on we will have learned the lesson, which consists in not only being wary of those who seek power but also of those over whom, this power will be exercised.

Now we need to understand where we went wrong, how and why we were neither able nor able to rectify the situation. We will thus avoid falling back into the same mistakes in the future.

To be a nation is a decision, a will, a choice assumed and understood. It is in no way a wishful thinking, a wishful thinking, a hollow slogan. In Mauritania, we do not live as a nation claiming values, pursuing one goal or more. We live as individuals who share a territory, who should we address to a corrupt administration for our papers, we are subject to the yoke of a skillful coercive state and if our constitution recalls the rule of law, discouragement makes us forget them .

The regime, with its opaque, pernicious maneuvers, its industry of carelessness, makes us lose sight of why we are together.

It is always unpleasant to see how much power despises us, infantilizes us and mystifies us. However, once we understand the mechanism of fraud, generally we should not fall back into the trap.

Making mistakes or ignoring realities does not make us stupid or incapable. On the contrary, it is what pushes us to learn, what sharpens our curiosity, which leads us to be more attentive to details.

We don't want to repeat the same mistakes over and over again. The most commendable part of our adventure will be the recognition that imperfection, faults and evil are part of the great challenge of living together. We still suffer from our ignorance, our poverty and our precarious living conditions.

Our voting age citizens are roughly divided into the uneducated and indifferent to political issues, the categorically educated and politicized poor, the categorically educated and politicized middle class, the uneducated and poorly politicized rich, the educated and politicized rich. categorically.

By “categorial”, we mean the level of consciousness and privilege enjoyed by an individual, by virtue of his birth and by the communal play of social categories, often nested one in the other.

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The authorities in place systematically come out winners of this game of which they master the cards perfectly. The state, like a big casino, exhausts us, ruins us and pits us against each other.

He organizes the conditions of our dependence and knows how to take advantage of them. False hopes are a hard drug. Changing this dynamic amounts to performing a tour de force. It is not something that we can change with a wave of a magic wand by concentrating very hard.

We will achieve this when we are able to assimilate the global and historical scope of the notion of citizenship. First, we should get to know this “we” that we will have to embody on an individual basis, which, starting from the show we are giving now, is a delicate work for the one who undertakes it.

Fortunately, your servants are not defeatists and they only accept the sentence of fate as a last resort and always against their heart. Looking for a name that can evoke an unwavering bond, a prestigious history, an intellectual and industrious civilization, a common glorious past ... This deserves deep reflection, painstaking work, we thought.

Not at all. First we found a sound, similar to the clicking of flamenco, a Spanish tone, then two words: LA MORERIA. We did not know the meaning.

An exciting research confirmed our choice. La Moreria, in fact, means "the Moorish quarter". We commonly refer to as “Moors” the Beidanes, the whites of the ethnic landscape of this territory known as Mauritania.

For the Spaniards, the Moors are all the Muslim populations who arose from the African continent to colonize the Iberian Peninsula and form Islamic States there which took the name of caliphate. Our ancestors took part in this wonderful adventure.

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For Europeans, we are all colored people because we are darker than them. This distinction, this relationship with others, we do not want to reproduce or extend it.

He opposes Islam. We want to destroy it, make it obsolete, useless and repugnant. We are turning our backs on it, firmly resolved to replace it.

La Moreria is an idea, in a language with which we have no relation of hostility or mistrust, the idea that we are a pilot nation, a society in accordance with the values ​​conveyed by our common, rich religion. of the different human universes that compose it.

Our ancestors understood everything. Shame on us who not only did not do better than them but who also radically compromised the mental position that would have allowed it.

La Moreria is to assert that Moor does not mean fair skin. On the contrary, it is anyone who feels the heir of Islam, of the unitary and social philosophy that it conveys and promotes, of a regional history as rich as it is eventful, which often exceeds it but always situates it in Mauritania.