Empire of Sand

Nations which get their independence by exercising a boundless nationalism often appear incapable of keeping their nationalism within boundaries. A case in point: the inchoate Republic of Indonesia, which cannot govern itself but claims half of New Guinea. Another: Egypt, which had hardly said goodbye to the British before it was reaching out for the Sudan. But these claims hardly match those of the new Sherman Empire of Morocco, which until a year ago was a part-French, part-Spanish protectorate. Fanatical Moroccan nationalists have staked out a claim to a slice of northwest Africa roughly equal in area to Western Europe. Last week they were fighting for it.

Moroccan nationalists base their claim on the fact that 900 years ago the famed Almoravide Dynasty, from which they reckon descent, ruled all of northwest Africa from the Strait of Gibraltar (its Moorish legions settled in Seville) to dark Senegal and the swamps of the Niger. The new kingdom of Morocco occupies about a fifth of this old Almoravide empire. The remainder of the area is divided between Spain's Rio de Oro, a corner of Algeria, the huge French West African province of Mauritania, and a chunk of the French Sudan reaching a few hundred miles north of legendary Timbuktu. Except for the coastal strip it is sun-scorched desert, rich in minerals, which the French, since they finally subdued the tribes in 1934, have mapped but have hardly tapped.

Civilized Sahara. The nomads of these countries have one chief thing in common with the modern Moroccans: the Moslem religion. It is being used to arouse the Moroccan people to a sense of the imperial grandeur awaiting them outside their back door. Stumping Morocco, Si Allal el Fassi, rabble-rousing leader of the national Istiqlal Party, cries: "Our culture is the culture of the Sahara. Our civilization is the civilization of the Sahara. Our religion is the religion of the Sahara." Then, to excited thousands, he delivers his message: "The battle for the Sahara has begun. We must win it. I proclaim that we will be traitors if we lose one single grain of Sahara sand."

El Fassi's battle for the Sahara sand is a picayune affair so far. Commandos of his liberation army, no longer needed to fight the French in Morocco, have been trucked down through the Rio de Oro and loosed in vast, sparsely settled Mauritania. Joined by turbaned camel riders who dearly love to fight, Moroccan irregulars have launched attacks on isolated French outposts, killed half a dozen French soldiers and burned a few French armored cars. North of Fort Trinquet last month there was a more serious clash in which, according to Moroccan reports, the French lost 22 men. Nevertheless, said huge, tanned Lieut. General Rene Cogny, French commander in Morocco, just back from the region last week: "I am not worried about the military problem. But what is serious is the political side of the story."

New Leader. The political story is that as members of the French Union, the interested tribesmen and traders of Mauritania elect one representative to the French National Assembly in Paris. Ten years ago Mauritania sent to Paris, on the Socialist ticket, an olive-skinned, white-haired Moslem politician named Horma Quid Babana. In last year's general election Quid Babana lost his seat to a hated rival, whose election he tried to invalidate. Failing to secure a patronage job as district tax collector in France, he became violently anti-French and joined the "Cairo" movement. Recently Ould Babana turned up posing as the Emir des Croyants (leader of the believers), with a Senegalese secretary called Prince Sese Zacharias, and leading the Greater Moroccan movement of Mauritania.

What worries the French, more than the troubles in Mauritania, is the new outburst of expansive nationalism in Morocco. To get their iron and copper out of Mauritania and western Algeria, they would like to go through Morocco, and to do that they need good relations with the kingdom they recently freed. Fortnight ago the Moroccan government officially asked France to negotiate on the future of the Saharan frontier. Last week Si Allal el Fassi brought out the first edition of a 16-page weekly propaganda sheet, called The Moroccan Sahara, dedicated to freeing "our Sahara."

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