Middle East Research and Information Project

Critical Coverage of the Middle East Since 1971

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Government Efforts to Reduce Inequality in Morocco Are Only Making Matters Worse — Residents of Ouaklim near the city of Tinghir demonstrate to request construction of a middle school closer to their village, 2015. The banner reads: “The residents of the village of Ouaklim maintain their demand for basic needs in Ouaklim.” Courtesy of the authors.

MER Article

Government Efforts to Reduce Inequality in Morocco Are Only Making Matters Worse

Inequality between rural and urban areas of Morocco has been deeply entrenched since the colonial era. But recent government public policies that ostensibly seek to reduce disparities are in fact further marginalizing already impoverished communities. Atia and Samlali's research reveals what is goin

Mona Atia, Said Samlali • 13 min read

Minorities in Libya Marginalized by the Revolution — Amazigh protesters make their way to the Prime Minister’s office in Tripoli November 27, 2011 to press their demands for greater representation. Ismail Zetouny/Reuters

MER Article

Minorities in Libya Marginalized by the Revolution

Despite a decade of attempts to create a new democratic system of governance based on respect for human rights, efforts by non-Arab groups and other minorities in Libya to end discriminatory practices have been unsuccessful. The continued marginalization of minority groups is largely due to the pers

Sabina Henneberg • 9 min read

An Invisible War in Western Sahara — Sahrawis participate in the sit-in blocking the road at the Guergarat crossing from Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara to Mauritania, through the UN buffer zone. October 2020. Photo by Liman Bachir.A map of Western Sahara by the United Nations with the berm marked in brown.

MER Article

An Invisible War in Western Sahara

War has broken out in Western Sahara and few have heard the news. At a crossroads between sub-Saharan Africa and North Africa, the Saharan desert has long been misconstrued in colonial discourses as a largely unpeopled geography deemed culturally marginal and largely assimilable to Maghrebi post-col

Vivian Solana • 11 min read

The Importance of Mauritanian Scholars in Global Islam — Mohamed Lemine Ould Abdallahi, custodian of his family’s library of ancient manuscripts, with an original text in the Mauritanian village of Chinguetti. Some of the 1,400 manuscripts in the family library, located on the southern fringes of the Sahara desert, are from Mecca and Medina and are more than 900 years old. Finbarr O’Reilly/Reuters

MER Article

The Importance of Mauritanian Scholars in Global Islam

The North African nation of Mauritania may be peripheral in global affairs, but its robust network of Islamic scholars is central to transnational Islamic movements and ideas. Zekeria Ould Ahmed Salem traces the influential political economy of Mauritanian Islamic scholarship that has both bolstered

Zekeria Ould Ahmed Salem • 11 min read