Elghet Malainine: How Algeria turned Tindouf into a cultural ghetto

In protracted conflicts, battles are fought not only by force of arms or in the courts, but also on the frontlines of identity and culture. Among the most revealing dimensions of the conflict over the Moroccan Sahara is the striking contrast between Moroccan and Algerian approaches to Hassani culture.

While Morocco has undertaken a number of initiatives to preserve and promote its Saharo-Hassani culture, Algeria continues to confine it to a kind of “cultural ghetto” in the Tindouf camps, where identity becomes a political instrument prevented from naturally  being integrating into the nation.

 

 

Cultural rights as an indicator of legitimacy

Cultural rights are a major indicator of states’ commitment to international human rights conventions. They represent the recognition of the right of individuals and communities to express their culture, their intangible heritage, and to participate in cultural life on an equal footing.

The International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (1966) affirms this right in Article 15 and the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (2005) has consolidated it.

In this context, the ability of groups to freely practice their culture becomes fundamental in  understanding the relationship between the state and its citizens. The more inclusive and pluralistic a cultural policy is, the more it reflects deep legitimacy and a shared sense of belonging. Conversely, the denial or politicization of cultural components breeds social fragility and tendencies toward marginalization, or even secession in certain contexts.

Since the early 2000s, Morocco has undertaken a strategic shift toward recognizing its cultural diversity. This process culminated in the 2011 Constitution, Article  which clearly states that “Moroccan identity is one and enriched by the plurality of its tributaries,” and among this identity is the the Hassani culture.

This recognition has not remained a dead letter. This recognition has been translated into concrete policies such as:

– The integration of Hassani culture and language into public media;

– Funding of research programs on Hassani history and heritage;

– The organization of cultural and artistic festivals promoting the Saharan specificity;

– Support for  the local cultural production in the southern provinces;

– The adoption of constitutional standards for the protection of linguistic pluralism.

Although the introduction of Hassani into school curricula is still in its early stages, the political will indicates a promising future for this cultural component, considered an integral part of the national project.

 

Algeria: Internal Marginalization, External Instrumentalization

In contrast, Algeria has never granted its own Hassani component—mainly concentrated in the southwest of the country, around Tindouf—the official recognition it claims on behalf of the Sahrawis of Morocco.

This paradoxical attitude is manifested in a policy of double standards: while defending the “right to self-determination” of the Moroccan sahrawis , it denies its own citizens of Hassani culture the right to express themselves freely. There are no cultural programs dedicated to Hassani culture in Algeria, no official recognition of its language, and no promotion of its symbols.

 

“Tindouf camps are today a closed laboratory for the weakening  of identity. Instead of fostering cultural awakening, Hassani culture is used as a lever for political selection and ideological mobilization.”

 

The inhabitants of these regions are encouraged—sometimes forced—to assimilate into the dominant cultural model of the state or, failing that, to declare themselves “refugees” in  Tindouf camps, thus reproducing a form of “forced cultural refugee” within their own country.

Algerian voices, including journalists, researchers, and activists, have raised concerns about this worrying situation, emphasizing that the Hassani identity has become “foreign in its own country.” It has no representation in the media or space in public policy. According to the  Algerian researcher Saâdi Mbarek, this structural exclusion threatens the extinction of this culture in Algeria. “The Hassani identity is forbidden from expression internally, and is only tolerated as a tool for external political discourse.”

 

The Tindouf Ghetto: When Identity Becomes a Tool of Mobilization

 Tindouf camps are today a closed laboratory for the weakening  of identity. Instead of fostering cultural awakening, Hassani culture is used as a lever for political selection and ideological mobilization. International reports indicate strict controls on residents, with a ban on any spontaneous cultural expression that does not emanate from the official separatist front line. Artists, poets, or cultural actors suspected of sympathy for the Moroccan solution or criticism of the militarization of culture are marginalized and even excluded.

What more, there is a persistent refusal to organize an official census of the camp residents. Despite repeated requests from the UN, Algeria and the Polisario Front continue to oppose it, maintaining the 1974 Spanish census as the reference.  Tindouf camps are the only camps in the world where census has not been conducted.This choice hides troubling demographic realities: according to cross-examinations, barely 10% of camp residents are from the Moroccan regions of the Sahara, while nearly 80% are from southwest Algeria. This imbalance demonstrates that the majority of the residents are not refugees in the legal sense, but Algerian citizens deprived of recognition and instrumentalized in a geopolitical conflict.

End of the Conflict and Domestic Unrest

When the dispute over the Moroccan Sahara finally comes to an end—an increasingly likely prospect in light of international dynamics—the Algerian regime will face an uncomfortable dilemma. The Moroccan Sahrawis will return home. But the others, mostly from Tindouf, Béchar, Adrar, or Timimoun, will then have to reintegrate into a nation that has never fully recognized them.

It will be a brutal reversal: from peripheral cultural silence to an identity crisis at the heart of the national territory. For a population deprived of an identity in the present is rarely ready to blend into the future of a nation that has denied it.

 

Conclusion: The Paradox of Denial and Recognition

 Comparing the two approaches reveals a striking truth: one state (Morocco) recognizes a culture as an integral part of its history and national identity, and another (Algeria) denies it to its own citizens, exploits it abroad, and imprisons them in closed camps.

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Exile does not always extend beyond borders. It can exist within the country itself, when culture is banished and individuals are perceived only through a fleeting political function. In this case, the homeland ceases to be an anchor and becomes a temporary space serving an external narrative.

Such is the tragic reality of the Tindouf camps: the last cultural ghetto of the contemporary Maghreb.

 

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Maghrebi.org. Mohamed Elghet Malainine is the Vice President of the Moroccan Centre for Parallel Diplomacy and Dialogue among Civilisations. 

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