02/03/2004
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A road doesn’t sound like anything special, but in the middle of the Sahara it
makes quite an impression. Is it a mirage? It indicates a Dangerous Curve to the Left. After miles and miles of nothing, where the jeeps follow paths that exist only
in the experience of the Saharawi drivers, where you might break your neck at
any moment, someone found it helpful to warn us about a sudden curve to the left.
You can make out a strip of asphalt.
A slight distance from the inhabited area, half hidden by a medium-sized dune,
we make out a white building that looks like a military barracks out of a Foreign
Legion movie.
The museum is filled with weapons of every kind, from armoured cars to rifles.
It gives the sensation of being in the waiting room of a big international airport.
There are weapons from all over the world: China, Great Britain, The United States,
Israel, Italy, and Russia. All the well known producers are represented, but there
are also some exotic rarities from South Africa and Iraq. It’s impossible not
to ask yourself what could have been done for the people of Morocco and the Saharawi
with all the money spent on these weapons.
Outside, everyone is eating grilled camel meat. Everybody has his own habits,
but there is more in common between people than you’d imagine. Right outside the
tent, there is the equivalent of the familiar chimpanzee from out circuses. A
long line of people wait for their photo seated on a poor camel who has to kneel
down and stand back up over and over, mounted by another customer, often a fat
one, who wants his picture taken seated on a camel. Endless pictures with that
same slightly stupid expression on their faces, suspended between delight and
fear.
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A museum near Rabuni tells the story of the ongoing war between Morocco and Western Sahara
from our correspondent
Christian Elia
The road from the Auserd refugee camp to the one in Rabuni is a rarity by Saharawi
standards. After miles of stones and sand that thrash the passengers crammed into
the jeep, there suddenly appears a road sign.
A road doesn’t sound like anything special, but in the middle of the Sahara it
makes quite an impression. Is it a mirage? It indicates a Dangerous Curve to the Left. After miles and miles of nothing, where the jeeps follow paths that exist only
in the experience of the Saharawi drivers, where you might break your neck at
any moment, someone found it helpful to warn us about a sudden curve to the left.
You can make out a strip of asphalt.
It’s hard to explain the sense of disorientation you get when you see a familiar
object in a completely different setting. In our home cities, you grow up breathing
asphalt as part of daily life.
After a while in the desert, a paved road strikes you in a whole new way.
It looks like an enormous snake collapsed on the sand, baking in the blazing
sun, but most of all it looks completely out of place from everything surrounding
it. The Rabuni refugee camp is the administrative capital of the Saharawi province.
Each camp represents one Saharawi locale, and Rabuni functions as the national
capital. Here reside the governing council with all its ministers, the national
hospital and the national orchard; that is, the agricultural center, green with
a variety of vegetables, that benefits from the presence of meager desert wells.
Any water extracted from the wells is purified here and then distributed to the
other refugee camps in old tank trucks.
Before entering the inhabited area, we see on the left a large auto cemetery.
Buses, cars, and jeeps are jumbled together into a few square meters. A broken
down fence surrounds it in a merely symbolic manner, with more gaps than a pasta
strainer. Inside, the piled wrecks suggest a transport system that must have been
far greater than what’s available today.
A slight distance from the inhabited area, half hidden by a medium-sized dune,
we make out a white building that looks like a military barracks out of a Foreign
Legion movie.The visitors’ convoy of vehicles pulls up just in front of the camp. The jeeps
start maneuvering into parking spaces. In the absolute emptiness of the desert,
someone considered it fundamentally important to mark out parking spaces with
lines of little stones. The logic is the same as that of any giant shopping center
in Europe; and some still argue that we’re not all the same in this world!
The entryway is dominated by a giant Saharawi flag, identical to the Palestinian
flag, but with an added crescent moon and a red star in the middle. The similarities
between the Palestinians and the Saharawi go well beyond that of their flags,
and not by chance. Inside is a large assembly grounds and another flag raised
on a pole in the center. All around are storehouses with red doors.
The visitors are a little confused because the place has none of the markers
familiar from western museums, but they are just as enchanted. Our guide is named
Khandoud. In a few days, he has played military chief, tourist guide, official
translator, driver, and a thousand other roles, all with the same contained, determined
air. He smiles and winks, “Come on, I’ll introduce you to your old countrymen.
He opens a red door, the visitors stare at each other, and the blood of the Italians
turns to ice, despite the desert heat. Along the walls are low shelves piled with
mines, both anti-personnel and anti-truck mines. The great majority were made
in Italy.
Italians are know throughout the world for many creations they have, perhaps,
every reason to be proud of: cuisine, fashion, cars, music, and many other things.
But they have also been the leaders in the manufacture and sale of these instruments
of death.
Khandoud explains how they work. We look at the floor. You could cut our sense
of shame with a knife, as though we had built the mines ourselves.
The museum is filled with weapons of every kind, from armoured cars to rifles.
It gives the sensation of being in the waiting room of a big international airport.
There are weapons from all over the world: China, Great Britain, The United States,
Israel, Italy, and Russia. All the well known producers are represented, but there
are also some exotic rarities from South Africa and Iraq. It’s impossible not
to ask yourself what could have been done for the people of Morocco and the Saharawi
with all the money spent on these weapons.In another room, the vivid chatter of the visitors suddenly breaks off. We all
hang from the lips of our guide. I think everyone is reflecting on war. Good;
here’s a museum that really works. In another room, a bunch of display cases filled
with all kinds of stuff, but mostly photos. Like trophies, the Saharawi have kept
the official stamps, drivers licenses, permits and papers of Moroccan and Mauritanian
soldiers. But the photos are the most disturbing. Scenes of everyday life, shots
of soldiers in every moment of a typical day in the life of a young African. War
steals everything: youth, memories, intimacy. There are many Moroccan prisoners
of war in Rabuni. Many of them have spent more of their life in prison than in
their homeland. How many wives, girlfriends, sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers,
and children have wept at their disappearance? And how many Saharawi families
have they massacred? All because of a stupid war.
The group gets back into their jeeps, packed like sardines. No one wants to talk.
Khandoud sees that it’s time to raise his guests’ morale. In the afternoon there
will be a trip to the dunes. It sounds strange to talk about a trip to the dunes
when you’re already in the middle of the desert. Everything is a dune here. But
we immediately understand what Khandoud means. The Sahara is very rocky, full
of masses of every size, but in places the sand is extremely fine, like a gold
filigree.
Low hills of sand to climb on foot. Everyone is excited, everyone wants the chance
to be alone for a moment, in contemplation. Living surrounded by construction,
noise, lights, and sound can suffocate the ability to commune with one’s self.
The Saharawi have set up a big tent. Tonight there will be a fiesta, as the Saharawi themselves say. A noise like exotic tambourines comes from
inside the tent. But in fact, the instruments are a drum set, a bass, a guitar,
and a keyboard. Have we come this far in search of tradition sounds, only to find
a provincial pub band? The situation is saved by a group of women we can make
out seated in a circle on the other side of the tent. Hidden behind their veils,
they are rehearsing songs.
Outside, everyone is eating grilled camel meat. Everybody has his own habits,
but there is more in common between people than you’d imagine. Right outside the
tent, there is the equivalent of the familiar chimpanzee from out circuses. A
long line of people wait for their photo seated on a poor camel who has to kneel
down and stand back up over and over, mounted by another customer, often a fat
one, who wants his picture taken seated on a camel. Endless pictures with that
same slightly stupid expression on their faces, suspended between delight and
fear.Then we go into the tent to start the party. We’re all wound up, we laugh and
joke with one another. The little band plays a strange cocktail of traditional
and mew music, nothing special, frankly, but the big number is still to come.
The women who were rehearsing earlier now come onto the stage and stand in a line
before the audience. One by one, each in turn performs a solo while the others
accompany the singer with a powerful sound that rises to the sky. It recalls the
Indian war cry from American westerns, but it’s much sharper, almost hysterical.
It gives you goose bumps. They call it zuchot.
After our sincere applause, the indefatigable Khandoud takes the floor. “Italian
friends, we have offered you a song of joy, but now it’s your turn.” Somehow everything
he says sounds like an order. Among the thousand things he has done in his life,
Khandoud has also been the representative to Italy of the Polisario Front, The
Saharawi political organization. He speaks perfect Italian. “Let’s all sing Bella Ciao.” Our choral voice is powerful; for many of us, the song is almost a national
anthem. But the magic of that moment requires no boring political explanations.
It’s gotten late. It’s time to go back home. The band gets loaded onto a little
pick-up truck. They are cold and crowded, but everyone is laughing.
It must be a collateral effect of the capacity to still see inside ourselves.
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