The Veiling of Religious Markers in the Sahrawi Diaspora

Abstract

2 to have become a form of "religion" in and of themselves (ie. Hopgood's 2006 analysis of Amnesty International). Despite this increased attention, the ways in which religious symbols have been strategically mobilized by non-state actors such as the Polisario Front/SADR as a means of negotiating interactions between refugees and humanitarian donors have been under-represented within academic and policy-relevant studies alike. This chapter thus draws upon the case-study of the Sahrawi protracted refugee situation to explore the role(s) which religious symbols play during "humanitarian encounters" between Sahrawi refugees in their Algerian-based refugee camps and across the refugee-diaspora in countries including Spain and Cuba, and European and North American humanitarian actors which purport to be secular in nature. 1 In so doing, I identify some of the ways in which purportedly secular humanitarianism is nonetheless deeply implicated in state and non-state discourses and practices pertaining to religious identity and practice, especially in light of contemporary geopolitical concerns regarding 'Islamism' and 'terrorism' in North Africa. Scripting the Sahrawi Refugee Camps Whilst almost entirely dependent upon externally provided support, the Sahrawi refugee camps have been managed by the Polisario Front since the camps' establishment in 1975 (for a detailed history of the conflict over the Western Sahara, see Fiddian-Qasmiyeh 2014). In February 1976, the Polisario established the camp-based 'Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic' (SADR), the Sahrawi 'state-in-exile' which has been recognized by over 70 non-Western states and is a full member of the African Union (formerly the Organization of African Unity). The Polisario/SADR is 'the only authority with which camp residents have regular contact' (Human Rights Watch 2008: 9), and it has developed its own constitution, camp-based ministries, police force (and prisons), army and parallel 'state' and religious legal systems, the latter implementing a Maliki interpretation of Islam. The Sahrawi 'state', law and religion are thus intimately interconnected in the camps, with Islam identified in the Sahrawi Constitution as the explicit fundamental source of the Sahrawi legal system (Art. 2 and Art. 3 of the 2003 and 1976 SADR Constitution respectively), and the Ministry of Justice and Religious Affairs having joint functions. Despite these interconnections, however, the Sahrawi refugee camps have habitually been heralded by European and North American observers as 'ideal' spaces and locales of 'best practice' through explicit reference to the 'secular' and 'democratic' nature of the camps (Fiddian-Qasmiyeh 2010a, 2014). Indeed, elsewhere I have argued that during encounters with European secular and Christian audiences, the Polisario mobilizes two intersecting strategies: first, it has a tendency to 'silence' and render invisible the multiple, and at times contested, roles of Islam in the camps; second, on those occasions when religion is mentioned, the Polisario systematic...