A scene from Mauritania. Geraint Rowland/Flickr. Creative Commons.
The Islamic Republic of Mauritania officially abolished slavery in 1980-81. In 2007 the practise was criminalised, and in 2015 actual punishment for enslavement was legislated. While the Mauritanian government continues to speak of ‘vestiges’ of slavery, local anti-slavery activists such as Boubacar Messaoud and Biram Dah Abeid continue to insist that slavery remains alive and well. As Messaoud recently observed, why would new legislation against slavery be repeatedly necessary if there was no longer a slavery problem ?
Racism, slavery and political activism
While Messaoud and Abeid share a common cause against slavery, they approach the issues of slavery and race in different ways. Messaoud grew up during the last years of French colonial rule (1940-50s), and much of his adult activism took place in the context of political dictatorship (1984-2005). He founded the NGO SOS Esclaves in 1995 in order to agitate for reform and bring international attention to slavery and discrimination against the descendants of slaves (known in Mauritania as haratine. Messaoud insists that slavery in Mauritania is not a matter of whites-enslaving-blacks, as it was in the United States; masters are both ethnically black (Fulani, Soninke) and white (beidan), ‘white’ being a relative term given generations of miscegenation. Thus he maintains that it is slavery as a social institution that is the key problem.
