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56 CHAPTER 1Saharan aspirations to independence. With Algerian help, the Rgaybat, Tajakantand Tikna of the Spanish Sahara then organised into the Sahraoui ArabDemocratic Republic, with its army the Popular Front for the Liberation ofSeguiet El Hamra and Rio d’Oro: POLISARIO, based at Tindouf. The battleover Saharan borders is yet to end.Concentrating all their efforts on Mauritania and Spanish Sahara, the Moroccanspaid much less attention to their claims on Soudan Français and SouthernAlgeria in the 1950s. The Bidân community in Soudan Français howeverresponded vividly to the ‘Saharan question’, to phrase the conflict in the terminologyof those days. In complementary response to the idea of a ‘GreaterMorocco’, Bidân politicians developed the idea of a ‘Greater Mauritania’,which should include, besides Mauritania, the Bidân inhabited northwesternpart of Soudan Français and southern Morocco. 88 This idea was based on thehistory of the 11 th century Almoravid Empire, which originated in present-dayMauritania, from where it conquered Morocco and parts of Spain. This historicaldiscourse implied that Morocco was part of Mauritania. Thus in the eyesof its advocates, greater Mauritania equalled greater Morocco and should in allcases include the Bidân-inhabited parts of Soudan Français. This idea wasadvocated by the Nahda al-Wattaniyya al-Mauritaniyya, the Mauritanian RenaissanceParty. The Nahda was founded in August 1958 in Atar by members ofthe Association de la Jeunesse Mauritanienne who were in favour of the Moroccanclaims. The party was presided over by Bouyagui ould Abidine, a Bidânwith strong connections to Soudan Français. The leader of the Nahda was bornin 1919 around Timbedgha, a Cercle that Soudan Français lost to Mauritania in1944 as a result of the Nioro du Sahel incident, a religious dispute between theTijaniyya Hamawiyya Sufi brotherhood, its neighbours, and the French administrationthat suspected the brotherhood of anti-colonial agitation. 89 After thisadministrative reshuffling, the Bidân who stayed behind in Soudan Français,including Bouyagui’s family, pleaded that their territory should be included inMauritania as well. 90 After his education at the Ecole Primaire Supérieure inBamako, Bouyagui worked for the Postal Service. In 1952 he presented himselffor the Territorial Assembly elections, but was not elected. From 1955 to 1958he was stationed in Bamako. There, right in the den of the Soudanesenationalists, he focused most of his activity in favour of Greater Mauritania,culminating in the foundation of the Nahda in Mauritania with dissident pro888990Based on: Affaires politiques, Mauritanie, administration générale 1957. Fiche concernantBouyagi ould Abidine. ANSOM – 1affpol/2172/2 (under embargo until2019); and Ould Daddah, M. 2003: 182.Traoré, A. 1983: 194-195.Sahara, Soudan, Mauritanie, administration et maintien de l’ordre – les confinssahariens – rapports politiques 1955-56. ANSOM – 1affpol/2173/1. Under embargo.