Mauritanian parliament to vote on giving up Arabization

It is expected that the Mauritania's parliament will today ratify a draft law proposed by the government that provides for giving up Arabization in teaching.

Meanwhile, the opposition parties front continued its silence, awaiting full study of the situation and taking a united stand, amid a feeling of embarrassments and fears that its internal contradictions will surface in regard to the cultural issue.

A black politician told the London-based al-Hayat daily that the authorities should not pin great hopes on division in the opposition circles.

However the draft law raises a vast regret in lines of the parliament, which is controlled by the ruling Democratic Republican Party. In telephone conversation with al-Hayat, Mauritanian parliament members said they will not vote against the draft law, but experiences revealed that overcoming such stances is usually done by "individual contacts" pressure. Therefore, observers do not expect the parliament to reject this project.

The draft law makes the French language compulsory starting from secondary school as all scientific subjects should be taught in French. Thereby, the Mauritanian government announced its abrogation of the Arabization process, which has been gradually underway since the 1970s, a process which was completed by the beginning of the 1990s with the exception of classes for black children who had the right to choose between Arabic and French.

With the exception of the opposition Nasserite progressive people's alliance party, which opposed the new law in a statement released immediately, opposition parties kept silence.

Nevertheless, there is a feeling in the circles of the opposition front on the effect of the "surprise" and of fears of adopting stances that will be conducive to divisions in the five parties rallied under the United Front. The parties' stances are contradictory concerning the question of culture. At a time when certain parties call for cultural pluralism, Phrancophonic-Arabic, others find the French language to be a foreign language that should be in limited use as with any other foreign language.

However, the most difficult position is that of the leader of the Mauritania's opposition, Ahmad Ould Dada, the main enemy of President Mu'weyah Ould Seidi Ahmad. It would be very difficult for Ould Dada to oppose or to support the draft law and not provoke his allies in other parties and his supporters inside his own party.

A well- informed source at the Democratic Forces Federation party, led by Ould Dada, has denied what was published by al-Hayat in a previous issue that Ould Dada "has been calling during the past years to halt random Arabization."

The sources explained: "Our stand has been always to consolidate the gains of the Arabic language, being the official language, to develop other national languages," African "dialects," adding, "as for French, we have been calling for learning it, being the language of openness."