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Resistance and identity in Western Sahara: the majority of Saharawis have been in refugee camps since 1975. Karina Clarke writes that this has been no impediment to building national identity.

Article Excerpt
The Western Sahara is the last African country with defined borders to go through a complete decolonisation process. Saharawis have been waiting since 1991 for a United Nations monitored referendum to be held, which will allow them to vote for either integration with Morocco or independence. Meanwhile, the majority of Saharawis (167,000 by CLAIHR's 1997 figures) have been in refugee camps in Algeria since Morocco annexed the territory on Spain's retreat in 1975. Despite not attaining their goal of total liberation, the Front for the Liberation of Saguia el-Hamra and Rio de Oro (Polisario) have constructed a nation in exile, and a liberation movement that has remained united for thirty years. The Polisario have drawn on a wide repertoire of resistance tactics from guerilla warfare to education and diplomacy, but throughout their struggle the construction of a cohesive Saharawi national identity has been the Polisario's most valuable resource.

The creation of a nation in the case of the Saharawi people was not a natural progression, but grew out of their colonial experience as a calculated strategic move following an internationally recognised and politically legitimate norm. Creating a cohesive national identity out of the disparate nomadic tribes that travelled extensively in this region of the Sahara has required a shared act of imagining. The desire to unite in this act was facilitated by the awakening of a new political consciousness, which has its roots in Spanish colonisation of the Western Sahara. A national identity was formed, not in direct response to the actions of colonial oppressors, but from a new awareness that their position as subalterns facilitated. The dominated Saharawis collectively began to view the Western Sahara from the perspective of the Spanish, and this reflection provided the awareness needed to challenge their social order and conceive of a Saharawi nation.

Identity is of paramount importance in the struggle. Morocco continues to justify its annexation of the Western Sahara, and the appropriation of its mineral wealth, on the grounds that Saharawis are merely dissident Moroccans. To combat this, the Saharawis in the Polisario-run...

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