The nomadic democracy

Hi Naula,

I was about to stop the bile criticism and say some thing good about my country. I am craving to do so.Then, I thought to myself :If you guys knew about the unique way of governance we are experiencing in the desert, You would all have asked me to say something about it.

The Mauritanian political distinction among Arab states is down to two folds: First , we have five former presidents living today. This is very exceptional in the Arab world, Where leaders must die first in order to( accept) to leave the power.
Second, the high number of coup d'états we have experienced during the short time we have lived as an independent country.
And the latter certainly has to do with the former.

It is disappointedly amazing to have one coup last year, even after we thought we have had enough coup d'états and thrown that era behind us and believe that they are no longer acceptable in the zeitgeist of the 21century. Especially, after the military leaders on 2007 decided to leave the office voluntarily and organized a transparent presidential election handing out the power to the civilians and promised not to poke their noses in the government any more .

When all of the sudden, a new military leader seized the power ,toppled the elected president and organized yet an other election , which he won massively and we are back to the vicious circle. But this what happens when people , who are still far cry from any kind of the individualism, import democracy. A person here is a part of his or her tribe and it is unacceptable even to think out side the clan's concerns.
I find it disturbing that our alliance to our ethnic groups is much stronger than to our country and our parties. Can you imagine someone who got elected to be a senator simply change the party he represents against some money. This is a common act in the Saharan democracy.

Most people here still believe that the government represents their former colony and therefore their arch- enemy. This is the best explanation a person could come up with for citizens who wake up every day to do what ever they can to deplete their own wealth.
Unfortunately, we generally still have a sheer lack of believe in the idea of state and mess it up with the regime that rules the country.

The appointed people for all official portfolios, seem to care only about their clans and relatives and pay no attentiveness to the every day people.
It is almost impossible to get any paper signed at a given department here, without resorting to bribe some if not all staff of the circuit that paper has to go through.

Any of our resources like fishing, or iron ore could simply transform us into a rich state, if only we manage to use it wisely.
Our people, especially our leaders, have chosen to make us very poor .
In fact, we rely mostly on the international aids to survive and many people live on a footy amount monthly. The disparity between the small number of wealthy people and the poor majority is hugely staggering. While the middle class is relatively absent.
The officials diligently try to invent new ways to spend their allocated budgets exclusively on themselves and their family. They work constantly on creating new spurious posts that suit their close relatives. The herculean discretion they give there is definitely enough to mitigate the poverty in our country, had them used it properly. But the normal people benefit seems to be out of their minds.

This is the unwanted truth but I hope all these misconducts going to mutate very soon.
Last month, the new president talked openly, for the first time, about barratry and declared a war against corruption. He also fling some former ministers in jail and order some sacked officials to pay back what they allegedly stolen. More importantly, he vowed that this is going to be a free mischief epoch.
Well, I have my fingers crossed, but I am sure that if he is serious about that, he has to prepare for a long and tough war against too many people who got addicted to corruption.

Now, let me have a try on my home work.
1-But your comments spur me to carry on.
2-Some of them also ask the dead for help and believe that their ancestors still have a great role to play in their own lives; they watch them and protect them from evil.
…3-who must be a religious scholar.
It (slavery) is still a hot debate over here, whether it exists or not
4- I read your blogs both entirely.
5- We passed a law that outlawed to call anyone a slave.
Thanks a lot Nuala, your last corrections really make me pay more attention to agreements and try to keep the whole sentence agree.
I 've just realized that you have added the buskers'pic.

Thanks, again. I have seen this in Montréal-Canada
But I was nosey enough to join them on the stage and asked them about themselves.
They said they had came from outside the Quebec province.

Have a good one

Cheikh Vall

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