Talk:Sahrawis

The extreme southwest of Algeria

This enigmatic phrase "the extreme southwest of Algeria" is used in the first paragraph of the lead of this article.

Owing to the fact that Algeria's southwestern border is more-or-less a straight line at approximately a 40° angle to parallels of latitude, there is no "extreme southwest of Algeria". There is an extreme Westernmost region near Tindouf and an extreme southernmost point, near In Guezzam and Bordj Badji Mokhtar, but the southwest of the country goes only as far as the line joining approximately these points. Perhaps the editor who wrote this would like to rephrase: maybe the intended meaning of the phrase would be something like "along the southwestern border", but it may be possible to be more specific. Hedles (talk) 23:20, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

I wouldn't describe Tindouf as "westernmost", because that word would include also Tlemcen, which is 1,000 km to the north, but I have made the change to "along the southwestern border", I think that might be quite correct. Ilyacadiz (talk) 16:35, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

"Matriarchal"

I have just deleted the following sentence from the introduction:

The matriarchal tradition of the Sahrawis is an Arab one that predates the arrival of Islam, and is a characteristic that they share with the other ethnic groups of the Sahel.

The reason: the quoted source (The Guardian) doesn't support this assertion in any way. The word "matriarchal" doesn't appear in the text, and the description given of the Sahrawi society is clearly one of traditional patriarchal roles ("there have been reports of women being imprisoned for adultery and they remain excluded from the highest political posts. In Western Sahara, too, while traditional gender roles have freed women to push for independence, those norms also often mean they do not pursue careers". The fact that many women participate in the political struggle is precisely attributed to the "prevalence of traditional gender roles, which they say give women the time to demonstrate." So if anybody wants to include information about the role of women in traditional and / or modern Sahrawi society, that would be wonderful, but we must find sources to support what we write. And then, of course, the sentence "The matriarchal tradition of the Sahrawis is an Arab one that predates the arrival of Islam" (absolutely nothing like that is mentioned in the source) is rather strange - if it predates the arrival of Islam to the region, how can it be Arab? If it is an Arab tradition, as opposed to a local one (African, Berber, Sahel...), then it cannot predate Islam. Comments and thoughts appreciated! Ilyacadiz (talk) 16:30, 3 September 2022 (UTC)