MAURITANIA

OLD SLAVERY,NEW WORLD

With Thanks to Kevin Bales

• Sociologist and• author of Disposable People and

Understanding Global Slavery• See him on Ted Talks at• http://www.ted.com/talks/kevin_bales_how_to_combat_modern_slavery.html

MAURATANIA IS OVER THE RAINBOW

Or Alice’s Wonderland…

• Bribes are graciously accepted in most public places

• It has a violent military government, yet friendly soldiers welcome guests

• It’s a police state – folks who call for public elections disappear or die,

• Yet a police officer who accidentally bumps into you will bubble over with apologies

Mauritania is a geographic buffer

The Population is 2.2 million

• The main ethnic/social groups are:• Arabs or “White Moors” (slaveholders)Who include the Hassanyi (warrior caste) and

the priestly casteThe Slaves and ex-slaves Harratines (merchants) & Afro-Mauritanians

Census Data is hard to Obtain

• The ruling Moors keep percentages secret, likely to hide the ubiquitous slavery that has been outlawed for many years.

Slavery has been officially abolished many times

• The last time was in 1980• At this time, slavery was abolished and no

longer existed.• Except that no one bothered to tell the slaves.

Harratines, or merchants

• Are business folk who are descended from freed slaves

• Shocked and insulted to be lumped together with the illiterate, ragged mass of “freed slaves” in 1980.

• But nothing has REALLY changed.• Mauritania’s struggling economy rests solely

on the backs and shoulders of slave laborers.

For example, Consider Bilial

• Bilial is the name of many Mauritanian slaves (it would never be a master’s name)

• Name of the Prophet Mohammed’s freed slave.• Since 40-45% of the city dwellers in this arid land

have no water, Bilial begins his day before dawn having a quick breakfast (prepared by female slaves who rose earlier), then takes his master’s donkey and cart down to the public well.

300,000 people rely on slaves like Bilial to bring them daily water.

• The public well has a bucket and a rope– no pump. It is basically a hole walled by bricks.

• Bilial lowers the bucket and brings it up several times and fills two 60 liter barrels

• He then first delivers water to his master’s house first, filling bottles and buckets with a makeshift funnel.

Bilial then delivers water to his master’s extended family

• When he runs out of water, he goes back to the public well and fills up his barrels by hand, then loads the water on the donkey cart.

• Then he sells water to other city households.

Bilial sells the water for his master.

• He collects 1 ouguiya per liter• 200 ouguiya = 1$ US• Again, when his barrels are empty, he returns

to the well to fill them.• Often he has to wait for other slaves who are

also filling their barrels.

Bilial is given a little money for food

• To keep him working all day without stopping.• His master expects him to sell at least 800 liters

per day.• He will make 7-10 trips to the well each day,

during the hottest part of the day.• At sundown, Bilial returns to his master’s house

to hand over the money. • He is beaten or berated if he did not sell

enough water.

Bilial may also have his food allowance cut if he did not make much money

• Bilial then helps with other household tasks.• When he finally can sleep, he finds a place on

his master’s porch or in the cardboard shelters behind his master’s house.

•

When questioned by Bales, Bilial said

• “I do this not because I get money, but because I want to help my master.”

• (The standard response drilled into slaves by their masters. Most are afraid to say anything else. There is nowhere to go – the extended family networks and no jobs give slaves few options.)

Later, Bilial admitted

• “But of course, I am a slave”

Many slaves would not know about freedom if not for working in cities

.

• “What I really want is a salary, a fixed amount of money for the work I do”

• Bilial knows this is unlikely.

Bilial admits

• “If I complain, my master will send me back to the country where he has even more control over me.”

• How easy was it for Bales to have completed this interview?

Police in Mauritania are Everywhere

• “Who are you?”• “What are you doing?”• “Where are your papers?”• Police are in plain clothes and in uniform• This is a police state hiding a dirty secret:• Slavery that is in plain sight.

Mauritania is immersed

…in the kind of slavery practiced 100s if not 1000s of years ago

• slavery is a cultural component dating back to when African slaves sold in Ancient Rome were re-captured by Moors and then brought into what is now southern Mauritania.

In “Old Testament” slavery

• Slaves were born from slaves for generations as long back as remembered

• Slaves were often secondary wives who bore their masters’ sons

• This is the type of slavery that largely still exists in Mauritania.

Slaves never

• Have days off• Have a childhood (they start work as children)• Have a paycheck or their own money• Have choices/freedom of movement• Exist without threats (they are often beaten)• Get to “sleep in”

Yet many slaves in Mauritania

• Consider themselves part of their masters’ households or even family

• Believe they are placed there by God(therefore religion keeps them there and

rationalizes their positions)• Are sometimes friendly enough with their masters

to go walking with them through the streets hand-in-hand. (Yet masters do NOT consider slaves equals by any imaginative stretch)

Most Moor masters in Mauritania

• Feel a certain responsibility for slaves• Feel Slaves are “children”• Feel themselves to be “good family men” and

good Muslims• Make sure that Slaves are often cared for

when elderly• Do not condone extreme brutality towards

slaves which is rare

Most of the population in Mauritania

• Is either master or slave,• Yet slavery does not officially exist.• There is no semblance of equality.• There is nowhere for slaves to go.

Religion protects slaves

• Yet keeps them in bondage.• Masters and slaves have all been Muslim for

thousands of years.• The Koran is clear that only captives taken in a

holy war may be enslaved.• Islamic jurists are stingy with the truth – there

has been no large scale freeing of slaves.

Mauritania adopted Sharia

• to supplement income from Saudi Arabian economic aid in 1980

• Sharia is DRACONIAN – stoning of adulterers and cutting off of thieves’ hands, etc

• Sharia exempts slaves from having a voice in the courts and is used to keep them in their place.

• If a female slave leaves, the master can keep her children by claiming he is the father (even if he is not) End of judicial process.

Slaves are infrequently sold between extended households

• Young males go for 500-700• Mature females = 700-1100• (Young, healthy females may go for more)• Masters are allowed up to four wives• Children of slaves live as property of the

masters• Slaves are thus controlled by culture, force, and

through the threat of separation from their children

Slaves are commodities of conspicuous consumption in Mauritania

• Part of a master’s status/wealth/esteem is measured in how many slaves he has.

• Ex-slaves who manage to escape and then are captured are executed publically by Sharian law.

• A master who beat his slave to death would not be guilty of murder

In the “Old Slavery”

• Slaves were more Human, yet less self-directed

• Slaves were bought and owned – as investments

• It behooved the master to keep a slave alive and healthy enough to work

In the Mauratanian economy

• Slaves are beaten “for their own good” and “for their own discipline”

• Food and clothing for slaves are poor – discarded rags and scraps from the masters’ tables (subsistence level)

• Public officials must try to conceal slavery that is perfectly visible

• Because of this dark secret, paranoia abounds and the government feels pressured and watched.

“This country is not part of the modern world”

• All of the roads are paved – both of them• There is one train that goes from the one mine

(and nowhere else) – when the track is passable (sandstorms cover the broken tracks)

• Erosion and sandstorms eat into farmable land• The country receives aid from France (and

some modern goods) and the U.S.

History of Slavery-related “Revolts”

• In 1990, the Government “whipped up lynch mobs of Harratines” to hunt Afro-Mauritanians and Senegalese

• 200 Black Senegalese were killed in the Capital• 70,000 Afro-Mauritanians were expelled into

Senegal and Mali• The torture and murder of 500 Afro-Mauritanians

was documented by the UN in 1993, yet Amnesty laws were passed for those who were violent

Ex-Slave Organizations (such as SOS) exist quietly in Mauritania

• They suffer harassment • In a society full of contradictions:• “Marvelous hospitality” and Blatant Lies• Rigidly set into competing groups who are• “austere, medieval”• Powered by Sharian law of “Islam, racial hate,

drought,” sandstorms and few natural resources (slaves and tin)

Cultural and ethnic distinctions

• Were partly created by European colonials as they established country boundaries

Slow train to the Stone Age

• Mauritania has a staggering foreign debt for a country of its type: $2.3 billion dollars

• This is five times (X 5) its annual export rate• When deciding to exploit its shoals of fish, it

managed to deplete them without profits• Russia and China outstripped their small

wooden boats• Fish were sent to a Japanese processing plant

In the global economy, Mauritania

• Imports rice from Thailand• Imports food, clothes, toys, and games from

France• Somehow convinces France and the U.S. that

there are simply “small pockets” or “vestiges” of slavery so these countries give Mauritania aid.

One Fourth of the Population is estimated to be enslaved

• Slaves are putting up new buildings in cities • (there are yet goods to fill these markets)• Open markets can stay open from early

morning to midnight (since trusted slaves run the shops and often sleep there)

• Market keepers become elusive or “disinterested” when asked about their profits

Even this poor economy would be crushed without slave labor

• The profit-rate of slave labor is enormous• Remember Bilial? Even if he only earns his

master $4.25 per day, the rate of return is and impressive 265%.• $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

If Bilial’s Master owns just four water-slaves

• The income generated in one MONTH is that of the average Mauritanian in one YEAR.

• $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$• $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

The economic“elegance” of harnessing human misery for slaves

• No pensions• No sick pay• No law suits• No salaries• No bonuses• No family leave• No benefits

ANY SALARY

• CANNOT COMPETE WITH NO SALARY

How prevalent is slavery?

• Take out paper and write a list of the countries you can find on the labels easily visible on your “stuff”

Modern Slaves

• In Pakistan may have made your shoes• Or wove the carpet in your home• Caribbean slaves may have put the sugar in your

coffee• Or made the toys in our daycare center• Slaves in Brazil may have made the bricks in the

factory that made your new TV• Or cleared a section of rainforest to make

charcoal

Slaves in the U.S. may have

• just served the lunch you ate • Have been forced into prostitution around the

corner• Have picked the vegetables you ate.• Have herded the cattle that became your

hamburger

Old Slavery Mauritanian New Slavery

• Legal ownership

Modern slavery is a growing, booming business

• There are approximately 27 million slaves in the world (low estimate)

• That number is growing.• Let’s look at the differences and similarities

Old vs Modern vs Mauritanian slavery

Old Slavery, Mauritanian, New Slavery

• Old Slavery Mauritania New Slavery• Legal Ownership Ownership Illegal, but Legal ownership avoided• Asserted upheld by the courts • High Purchase Cost Relatively high purchase cost Very low purchase

cost• Low profits Relatively high profitsVery high profits• Shortage of Potential Shortage of & Competition Glut of potential slaves• Slaves for slaves• Long-Term Relationships Long Term Relas. Short-term relationships• Slaves maintained Slaves maintained Slaves disposable• Ethnic differences important Ethnic differences Ethnic differences not • Accented important•

Extracted by

• KK Shores• Frcc• Ccd• rrcc