Mauritania's nineteenth century French colonizers envisioned the nation as a geographic and cultural bridge linking North Africa and West Africa. In the late 1980s, Mauritania bore little resemblance to this vision. Instead, it was a society undergoing profound transformation, torn between two cultural and linguistic traditions. The process of compelling nomads to settle that was begun by the colonial government earlier in the twentieth century was accelerated by the severe drought that began in the mid-1960s. For the next two decades, the rate of urbanization was unprecedented; Mauritania was transformed from a nomadic pastoral society to a predominantly urban one. Large pastoral populations were forced to leave land that could no longer support them. The already-overpopulated cities, almost all of which were located in the far south, were unprepared to obtain these displaced populations.

In the late 1980s, ethnic tensions further contributed to an unstable social environment. Even the similarities that linked Maures with peoples of African descent were comparatively superficial. Religious unity within Islam, for example, masked wide differences in religious observances among Maures and blacks. Government officials hoped that the nation's rapid urbanization might increase social and cultural interaction and reduce prejudices, but most admitted that the task of developing a true national identity and a unified society promised to be long and difficult.