The Years of Embers in Mauritania: Ethnicity and Narratives

The borders in Africa were drawn according to the interests of colonial powers and without consideration of the continent’s ethnic, cultural, and linguistic realities. Thus, roughly 80% of African countries borders were drawn without considering the crucial and pre-existing realities of pre-colonial African societies, splitting ethnically and culturally homogenous groups and grouping diverse others under the same political unit. (Beck, 1993; Lefebvre, 2011). Consequently, many African countries end up with an ethnically diverse population that faces the challenge of living harmoniously together in social cohesion, creating an environment prone to ethnic conflicts, political instabilities, and weak national identities. Mauritania, for example, is home to diverse ethnicities with distinct cultures, languages, and traditions. The competition for power and identity differences between these entities, particularly between the Arab-Berbers and Afro-Mauritanians, among other groups, have led to instabilities and injustices that left collective memories and traumas that fortified the social fragmentation. This study explores the effect of ethnicity, among other variables, on a Mauritanian’s view of the country's ethnically driven instability between 1986 and 1991, referred to as the Years of Embers, by exploring narratives and responses to the event. After designing a survey collecting qualitative and quantitative data and using statistical tests and NVivo, my findings highlight a spectrum of opinions, awareness, and acknowledgment across ethnicities, showing the need for dialogue and understanding to bridge diverse perspectives about the same shared history.