Delineating Borders and Mapping Identities in Western Sahara

3. Taking the Battle to Cyberspace : Delineating Borders and Mapping Identities in Western Sahara Frederik von Reumont Abstract Examining the case of Western Sahara, this chapter takes a closer look at the connection between identity, territory, and borders, as well as their construction in mapping processes. Analysing different web maps, I will show their rootedness in the dominant political world views and contrast them with the perspectives of the parties of conflict (Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic and Morocco). The results show significant differences between proprietary and crowdsourced web maps as well as the cartographic representations authored by the factions. The delineation of borders is directly linked to territorial identity and nation-building. This demonstrates the important role of web maps and other digitally disseminated maps in the definition of identity and (self)-governance. Keywords: Cartography, Western Sahara, Google, Wikimapia Introduction From a historical perspective, I consider maps as tools for institutions to sustain and demonstrate power over a territory (Harley 1989). Culcasi states that ‘elite classes (whether they were ministers, monarchs or the state) have traditionally controlled the production and distribution of maps’ (Culcasi 2012, p. 1104). The arrival of new technologies, however, made the map-making process and, at the same time, the distribution of maps, available to a much wider audience. This made possible a certain culture of counter-mapping, taking advantage of these new technologies Strohmaier, A. and A. Krewani (eds.), Media and Mapping Practices in the Middle East and North Africa: Producing Space. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021 doi 10.5117/9789462989092_ch03 72 FREDERIK VON ReUMONT and making the mapping processes available to the subaltern or oppressed groups and individuals. Following Culcasi, any form of mapping that goes against the norm of an established mapped perspective can be considered counter-mapping in a ‘broader or more subtle’ sense (Culcasi 2012, p. 1105). One of the key technologies in counter-mapping has been the use of the internet. However, the internet has also been one of the key technologies to spread the view of the powerful. Wood called Google Maps ‘a faithful servant of the state, if ever there was one’ (Wood 2010, p. 38). The battle about name places such as the Persian versus Arabian Gulf has led to popular internet hoaxes (Wikipedia 2019). Although there is a comical component involved, the goal is obviously to maintain sovereignty of interpretation. The internet offers a wide variety of maps and thus constructs of the world. This is especially visible in disputed areas of conflicts in the context of the nation state. In the following, I argue that this battle is not only about the maps themselves, but that the maps are used to shape reality by using the strong connection between the map and what it represents: the territory. In the case of Western Sahara, I will show how maps mirror current differing world views and how they are used as a means to construe and thus construct reality. The Role of Maps in Forming National Identities The vast majority of map users seem to assume that maps are truthful representations of the Earth’s surface. This results in the perception of a strong link between the map and the reality it represents. Anderson shows how mappings change the imagination of the territory. Their influence can be far-reaching to the point that they shape the language used to talk about territory. Maps can shape the linguistic expression of these new imaginations by coining a different vocabulary. As a powerful incarnation of the ‘map as a logo’ (Anderson 1983, p. 175), maps can also shape the imagination of the nation state. The map as a logo is ubiquitously disseminated and can ‘form a powerful emblem of […] nationalism’ (An- derson 1983, p. 175). Anderson directly links the case of a brutal territorial struggle (in this case, Indonesia) to the depiction of the corresponding logo map defining the imagination of the territory of the nation state (Anderson 1983, footnote). The often quoted ‘power of maps’ (e.g. Wood 1992) then resides in the ability to impose non-material concepts – such as borders delineating an independent nation state – to a tangible thing TakH ING T E BaTTLE TO CYBERSPACE 73 belonging to a material reality, namely terrains or territories. The power of maps results from their strong connection to the real world. In the map, we can equip a piece of land with an idea. Conversely, we can apply an idea or idealist world view directly to a representation of the real. The power of maps is to convince their users that this is there, and thus maps ‘affirm the existence of the things on them’ (Wood 2010, p. 34). Despite the efforts of critical and post-representational cartography to deconstruct the map and question its relation to reality, this does not seem to have great impact outside academia. Maps are still largely seen as representations of reality. In this sense, map readers take borders that are inscribed in the map’s visuals as realities, even when they are not visible in the field (in reality) or are weakly enforced, by a lack of fences or guards, for example. Then the map is all the more important, since it is the only proof or documentation of a status of reality that should only ideally be attained but does not exist (yet). The map is, at the same time, documentation and expression of an unreal ideal. In this sense, it is a document of utopia. The role of borders in a map is to define a group of persons by the means of terrain. Maps group individuals by the territory they occupy, more or less arbitrarily, and those groups’ occupation of the territory is naturalized and de-historicized. Ultimately, the nation state embodies its belonging to the territory. The role that maps oftentimes assume in this situation is to stabilize this unstable idea, ‘to give the elusive idea of the state concrete form’ (Wood 2010, p. 31). Maps give states the appearance of ‘facts of nature, as real enduring things, things like mountains’ (Wood 2010, p. 33). The coherence of the power exerted by states over a certain territory would be ‘very hard to imagine without the intercession of the map’ (Wood 2010, p. 34). Using these mechanisms, the map ‘turned the fiction […] into a fact’ (Wood 2010, p. 34). This capacity of maps, along with the suppression of alternative perspectives, ‘substantively underwrites the reproduction of the social relations of power’ (Wood 2010, p. 35). Referring to Winichakul and Anderson, Wood argues that, early on, state leaders saw the merit of the map as something that turns the idea of the state into a geo-body, a mappable and thus real thing that can – e.g. as a logo – be used to pin identity to territory. This was the case in early American portraits; maps of America in the background of these portraits identify the sitter as American. By ‘assuming […] the prior existence’ (Wood 2010, p. 32) of the relationship between people and territory (e.g. the geo-body), the state obscures its origins in history and thus naturalizes itself as something ahistorical and almost mythical. Once established, however, the connection of the people 74 FREDERIK VON ReUMONT with the land they live on is not only folkloric in the sense of a mythical connection between person and land. It has real effects on the livelihoods of individuals and peoples as soon as a governing law is executed by a ruling power. In the era of the nation state, law is tied to territory. Thus, just a step over the border, whether imagined or not, can, in extreme cases, be a matter of life and death. This seems to be felt throughout communities that consider themselves deprived of the right to self-determination or self-governance. Self-governance in the UN sense means the formation of or the voluntary integration into an independent nation state with a sovereign government. The United Nations has considered Western Sahara a non-self-governing territory since 1963. No administering power has been named for this territory since Spain ended its presence there (United Nations 2019). The United Nations maintains a peacekeeping mission (United Nations Mis- sion for the Referendum in Western Sahara, MINURSO) with the goal of monitoring the ceasefire between the conflicting parties and carrying out a referendum concerning self-governance. One main issue on which the parties disagree is the identification of eligible voters. Persons from three groups have been identified, including persons living outside Western Sahara as refugees (MINURSO 2019). For the factions themselves the situation is much clearer. Morocco apparently considers Western Sahara territory as the ‘southern provinces of the Kingdom of Morocco’ (Corell 2015, p. 1). Although Morocco participates in UN peace talks, it has repeatedly displayed difficulties agreeing to certain proposals. Although there is no official statement on the website of the Moroccan government, a featured map speaks an uncompromising language as to the ownership of the territory. The Moroc- can government established a Royal Advisory Council for Saharan Affairs (CORCAS), and its websites leave no doubt that Morocco claims the territory of Western Sahara as part of the kingdom. The proclamation of the government of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), by contrast, claims ‘the land of Saguiat el-Hamra and Rio de Oro’ for the people of Western Sahara, already relating to the topography of the territory, namely the major rivers. It states that the Polisario Front, responsible for ‘raising the flag of liberation’, is carrying out the will of the Saharawi people to ‘self-determination’ (Lahlou 1976), while Morocco is accused of ‘illegally and forcefully’ occupying Western Sahara (Bashir 2017).

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