Ending Hereditary Slavery in Mauritania: Bidan (Whites) and Black “Slaves” in 2021 .. part 1

Arab reform ^ | 26 August 2021 | Stephen J. King

[Cronos]

Mauritania, an impoverished, sparsely populated desert country in North-West Africa has the highest proportion of hereditary slavery of any country in the world.1 Out of 4.75 million citizens, Global Slavery Index estimates the number living in hereditary slavery in the country to be 90,000 people.2 In practice, this is descent-based, chattel slavery that treats human beings as property, with violent enforcement. Modern slavery or “slave-like conditions” prevail for up to 500,000 more.3 Slavery in Mauritania is also a racial slavery.4 In a country that has a largely destitute population, Mauritania’s Arabic-speaking Arab-Berber elite, an exclusionary and predatory group that self-identifies as White (Bidan), ruthlessly dominates the country’s state and economy.5 They represent, at most, 30% of the population. The enslaved are Blacks from within Mauritania’s Arab-Islamic linguistic and cultural sphere (Black Arabs or Sudan). Blacks freed from slavery, an institution that has lasted many centuries in Mauritania, are called Haratin (Haratin pl. Hartani, male, Hartania female). Haratin and enslaved Blacks make up 40% of the population. Sometimes the term Haratin refers to both “slaves” and freed Black “slaves.” Non-Arabic speaking Black Mauritanians – Halpulaar, Fulani, Soninke, Wolof, and Bambara ethnic groups – were never enslaved by Mauritania’s Whites, though they share the same ethno-racial origin as the Arabized Haratin. They make up 30% of the country’s population. In general, all Blacks in Mauritania are referred to as ‘Abd, ‘Abid (slave, slaves).

Mauritanian scholars and activists Zekeria Ould Ahmed and Mohamed Ould Cire describe ongoing, racialized, hereditary slavery in Mauritania:

“Because of the nomadic traditions that were prevalent throughout the country until the late 1970s, exploitation (including sexual exploitation), forced labor in the areas of agriculture and livestock breeding, and the sale and granting of slaves were integrated parts of the local social system. Traditionally, [black] slaves were private property to be loaned, given away, sold, or exploited. They had no right to marry without the consent of their masters, to own or inherit property, or to testify in court. As a result, slaves lived in a condition of “social death” and economic exploitation, especially the women. In the Mauritanian slavery system, slavery is hereditary and passed through the mother’s line; therefore, female slaves were expected to be the producers of new slaves for their masters.”6 “[Because they are considered their master’s property] in current Arab- Berber society in Mauritania enslaved Blacks can still be sold, rented, exchanged, given away, lynched, beaten, castrated, raped, and exported into slavery in other countries. There are current slave markets in Mauritania, most notably in the city of Arar. Currently, Black slaves in Mauritania herd animals, collect dates and gum Arabic, and work the oases and cultivable fields in the country.”7 Hereditary, racial slavery persists in Mauritania despite multiple official attempts to abolish it. The colonial French administration declared an end to slavery in 1905, but never enforced it.8 With the phrase “equality for all,” slavery was constitutionally abolished at independence in 1960. In 1981, by presidential decree, Mauritania became the last country in the world to abolish slavery.9 However, no criminal laws were passed to enforced the ban.10 Under international pressure, in 2007 the Mauritanian government passed a law allowing slaveholders to be persecuted.11 However that law has rarely been enforced.12 Far more anti-slavery human rights activists have been prosecuted than the handful of Mauritanian white “masters.”13 In addition, slavers are offered compensation for freeing the enslaved, while the victims of the brutality are offered nothing.14 In 2015, under international and some domestic mobilization pressure, the Mauritanian government created three special courts to prosecute slavery; but so far they have only tried very few cases.

Despite an obvious reality to the contrary, the white-dominated Mauritanian government and state take the position that slavery is totally finished in Mauritania, and that the talk of it suggests manipulation by the West, an act of enmity towards Islam, or influence from the world-wide Jewish conspiracy.15 This paper will attempt to explain why the formal efforts to abolish slavery in Mauritania have failed. Factors include ideology and culture: sharia, fiqh, and white supremacy; traditional social structure: tribalism and caste; the continuing influence of fictive kinship relationships between Whites, Haratins, and Abid (Black slaves); a slave economy in a desert environment; and the intransigence of the Mauritanian state and government. The second part of the paper briefly discusses the Mauritanian economy and the government’s official views on slavery before concluding with recommendations to end slavery and slave-like conditions in Mauritania.

[ronnie raygun]

and somehow the blacks driving BMW’s and Mercedes living in better houses than you are still believe they are inslaved

[Wilhelm Tell]

We know the leftist order of things. To them it is okay if (Chinese) Communists enslave Muslims and it is okay if African or Arab Muslims enslave black Africans.

[dangus]

Joe Bidan?

[marktwain]

This explicitly racial slavery preceded American racial slavery.

And, it still exists, in large part, today.

There were less than four million slaves in the United States in 1860.

[Cronos]

Which blacks? Clarence Thomas and Ben Carson don’t believe they are enslaved.

[Bookshelf]

Throughout Africa’s Sahil, from Mauretania in the west to Sudan in the east the mulatto yet Arabized populations refer to all Blacks as “abeed”, Arabic for slave. And almost universally the abeed are considered second class citizens and should be warred upon with impunity. E.g., Darfur.

[ptsal]

bkmk slavery