Talk:Music of Western Sahara

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[edit] POV judgements

My little tour of the Western Saharan oriented activist article profusion continues to amuse me. The characterisations here are, well, quite special. (i) "The music of the Sahrawi people is more Mauritanian than Moroccan" : This is based on what? Certainly the Sahrawi modes of music is more saharan than that of the dominant Moroccan pop music tradition, Rai, Chaabi for example, coming as they do from the northern urban traditions. However to say more Mauritanian than Moroccan strikes me as unwarranted given southern Moroccan Saharan music is quite similar, and that there is a clear implied political angle. (ii) This statement is equally problematic: "In contrast to Mauritanian music, Sahrawi musicians can come from any caste." Well modern urban Mauritania musicians come from a variety of backgrounds, so again the intent here seems to be create a false distinction.

It would be rather more useful to have an introduction that read: "The music of the Western Saharan populations shares common features with neighboring Arab-Berber Saharan musical traditions, as found in Morocco, Mauritania and Algeria, and represents a distinct blend of Afro-Arab or Afro-Berber musical blending."

Leaving out the politics. collounsbury 17:02, 17 February 2007 (UTC)