Not everyone is all up in everyone else’s business.

Recently someone from home asked me how the situation in Iran is going to affect elections here and what people here thought about what was going on there. It was at that moment that I realized that I have never heard anyone here talk about what is going on in Iran. I asked a Mauritanian friend about why there wasn’t any discussion about what was going on in Iran and he said that it wasn’t Mauritania’s business. When I thought about it more I realized that in general people here do not have strong interests and opinions about what is going on internationally. The only events I can remember people talking about since I came here a year ago were Obama’s election, the short/long war between Israel and Palestine, soccer games, Michael Jacksons death, and the economic crisis. That is not to say that they are not informed. In fact, with all of the news they listen to on the radio and on TV, I would wager that they are more informed about what is going on internationally than most Americans. The difference is where as Americans have an opinion on everything that happens in the world, even though we might not always act on that opinion if there is not enough of a vested interest, Mauritanians simply don’t. They are concerned with what concerns them directly and do not have an overarching feeling that the world ought to act politically like them. Of course, they have a very strong opinion on how the rest of the world should act religiously but that does not seem to extend to political events. As I am writing this, I realize that what I am saying might only be true of the black African ethnic groups and not the Moors, they tend to have strong opinions about how everything should be. At any rate, I have not been able to decide if I like that they are not overly concerned with the affairs of the rest of the world or not. On one hand, we Americans are nosy, are sure that we are the pinnacle of civilization, and are easy meddling in more countries than we ought to be. In that sense, it is nice that Mauritanians seem to be content to let other countries run their own affairs as they please. On the other hand, this feeling of apathy towards goings on in the rest of the world also extends to political events in Mauritania. Even as apathetic as we are towards politics in America, compared to other developed democracies, our level of interest and involvement still blows Mauritanians out of the water. Both sides of the issue are germane enough that I am reserving a value judgment and will chalk this up as another thing that is just different.