In this chapter, the author argues that despite the invention of the region as a single geographical unit, it is characterized by fissures born out of the very process of colonial invention. The author discusses three of them: the problem of borders, especially the thorny problem of the western Sahara; the problem of racial formations of population, especially the racial division of Arab versus Berber; and the linguistic problems that too oppose Arabic to Berber and not in a binary way, but in a trinary way, since French is a hegemonic language that governs both. These three major problems of the region, the author argues, cannot be properly debated, much less solved, without taking into account the colonial invention of the region.