This is an excerpt from the account “This Is a Long Story,” by Aiza Azna Zreibih, featured in the book El Amal, historia de mujeressaharauis [El Amal: Stories of Sahrawi Women], published by Editorial Universidad de Guadalajara (2022). The book features accounts from Sahrawi women who have found shelter in the jaimas (tents) of people they met along their journey or those they built themselves to provide shelter for others and a space for building their struggle. In Aiza’s account, she shares her journey of struggle from the city of Tan-Tan, in present-time occupied Sahrawi territory, walking all the way to refugee camps, and her political work advocating for women.
The slogan of the 6th Action of the World March of Women is “We march against wars and capitalism! We defend peoples’ sovereignty and good living!” and the symbol of this action is the feminist solidarity tents. As the launch statement reads, “tents represent disaster capitalism, war, displacement and migration, but they also symbolize shelter for communities, traditional knowledge and wisdom and resistance in many cultures. Drawing on these reflections, we plan to construct a global feminist solidarity tent embodying what we want for the future of our planet as a grassroots feminist movement.”
This Is a Long Story
(…) In 1972, in Tan-Tan, Sahrawi citizens were staging a demonstration in Moroccan territory demanding the independence of Sahara when eight of these young citizens were arrested. For this reason, we, women, were called to action, and I joined in. We witnessed how the Moroccan police beat us and tried to silence us. I didn’t understand much, but it was from that moment that I started to ask a lot of questions. As part of the movement, the revolutionary intellectual youth started to write chants, and they sang them to us so that we could write them, which started to mobilize girls’ awareness. The words to one of the chants were something like this:
“Our enemy is living in this people
acting by principle and willing to do anything in this struggle.
Hassan fears for this people
Because we started to call each other,
We are preparing this tent;
which is everyone’s tent.
Another chant to mobilize women was along these lines:
This pressure on women angers me
all they need is to be free.
As women heard those chants, they started to mobilize, and that also helped reduce the pressure we endured, and we started to feel freer. I myself was under pressure from my family, but, with this movement, we started to have more freedom. I joined the political organization, I attended meetings to listen and study. There was a time when I was so active that the Moroccan police started to follow me. I had a small child, Husein, whom I was still nursing, and, because they were following me, I had no other option but to flee. I had to run away, among other many reasons, because my husband also did not want me taking part in the revolution, and I told him: “I will take part in it, whether you want it or not,” and so we broke up. (…)
When the sun set, we set out on our journey. Before we left, we were told which stars we should follow. We should always be guided by a star that never fades, always have it within sight, and follow it. The journey was somewhat familiar to us, because some of the women were Bedouins. Among us, there were two pregnant women and three children that walked. On our journey, we did all sorts of things to erase our traces—when we ran into sheep, we made them walk around us to erase our steps.
(…)
After walking for a long time, we found a tent and we entered it. We were very tired. When that family’s parents saw we come in, they got scared and left the tent, leaving us alone, but after a while one of their daughters came back, apparently from fetching firewood, and she was the one who helped us. Our legs were bleeding and our skin had cracked. The girl started to apply henna mixed with a little oil on our legs and strapped our feet with pieces of cloth. She gave us some food and water, gifted us with two camels, and put saddle on them. The woman who had just given birth mounted one of them, the pregnant woman mounted the other, and we left.
When we crossed a milestone, we were captured by the Spanish police. They initially surrounded us, because, a few days earlier, they had captured a group of armed Moroccans, so they thought we were part of that group. The police wanted us to get in their cars, saying they would take us to Al Mahbes, Spanish territory, but we refused to get in. They left, but a helicopter kept hovering over our heads. I recognized a Sahrawi man among the police officers, but he did not speak to me, and I didn’t speak to him.
When we were close to Al Mahbes, a group of Sahrawis showed up in a car and took us to a house, where there were other women who offered us clean melfas [traditional Sahrawi cloth], quilts, food, bandages for our feet, etc. Apparently, that Sahrawi man who was with the police spread the word that there was a group of women coming and that they wouldn’t get in the police cars, so all of them welcomed us with great pleasure and joy.
As soon as we got to this house where we were welcomed, the baby of the pregnant woman was born. We stayed in Al Mahbes until the arrival of the founder of the Polisario Front, who gave instructions for those who wanted to go to the refugee camps in Rabouni. As soon as I arrived at the camps, I joined the military training and learned how to handle land mines, even though we did everything. Sometimes I worked in the kitchen, sometimes I studied, delivered lectures, etc.
When I first got to Rabouni, in around 1976, I lived in the only house that was built, called the women’s house. Little by little, more and more people started to arrive, Sahrawis who, just like me, were forced out of where they lived. Back then, I was in charge of the women’s office, where I helped them solve any issues they had, if they needed to go out, if they needed to go to the hospital—any issues facing women.
Since then, I have continued to work on the women’s front. One of the things we did together was write a letter so that the world would know what was happening to Sahrawi women in the middle of the desert. I think that, amid all those problems, we, Sahrawi women, did not think like regular women—we only thought about what we could do to survive and have the world know what was happening here.
With a group with several women, we went to Algeria and Libya to raise awareness among others of us. After three years, I got married again with a fighter and had a daughter. I was removed for a while to tend to my daughter, but I continued to lead the daerah [Sahrawi camp district], and that is not an easy task, because it entails solving all issues people have regarding water supply, food, etc. I also took part in the creation of a school for women, because I’ve always enjoyed continuing to advance and expand my knowledge.
From 2003 to 2009, I was dedicated to working in congresses for women’s participation, but by the end of 2009 I had to take a pause due to a heart condition. Nevertheless, while I cannot do much right now because of my health condition, I remain loyal to the cause and to Sahrawi women until the end, especially to women, because I have seen all they have experienced, how brave and courageous they are—they join the army, they are doctors, nurses, teachers, economists, educators, politicians, diplomats, etc. And we, the women, are the ones who have raised this people the best possible way.
(…)
I think that, at this point in my life, the only thing left is to tell the new generations to continue to care and struggle for our culture, for our tradition and the Sahrawi ethics, and, most of all, to keep the unity of our people, because it was thanks to this unity that we have come to where we are, and we cannot break up. It is really important for our new generations to do everything that is possible to continue to study and prepare to use that wisdom in the future.
I see a great difference between my generation of women and the current generations—that is, my daughter’s and my granddaughters’ generations. Back in my time, many Sahrawi women—not just me—had to flee, struggle, and face everything, make do while carrying our children. Now the new generations already have a space, they were able to experience other things, they are in a stable position, they can prepare, they can study. So my wish for these women, the daughters of the daughters and the daughters of these other daughters, is that they can do even more, have even greater determination, because all the mothers from these previous generations have suffered a lot, and there is no family that hasn’t lost a family member, whether in combat, because of the epidemic, or due to the circumstances in which we live. So I think women today have a greater responsibility, because they have culture, education, they know other languages, and they can go wherever they want.
Last, but not least, I must say that, after I left Tan-Tan, I never saw my parents again. I only learned that my father died as a prisoner in a Moroccan prison and that my mother died soon after in El Aaiún. Two of my siblings died in combat, but I still have two brothers living in El Aaiún, an occupied city. In 2005, through a visit organized by the UN, I was able to go back to see what was left of my family and my city. When I was there, I cried a lot, because some militants like me were not as lucky—they were captured and spent more than 20 years in prison. Walking around the streets and remembering how the city used to be when I lived there made me very said. I wanted to recognize some detail of the El Aaiún I remembered.
We are a humane people that does not want war or death—we only ask for what is rightfully ours, we only demand our freedom, freedom for my homeland. Where is the world, where is the humanity that sees how people are tortured, how rights are stomped on, how prisons have women locked up for decades simply for standing up for a cause, and just do nothing about it? I wonder: where is humanity? Where is justice and the law?
When I see some pictures, they give me a feeling of longing and sadness, because many of the people that I have known and are in these pictures are no longer living—they have died without seeing the liberation of our people. The picture I have in my hands is from when I was in military training in Rabouni. And despite all those circumstances we were experiences, I was able to smile.
