Wednesday - March 21, 2012

But, but the koran says its OK

It’s an Islamic nation, ruled by a combination of Sharia Law and an “elected” military dictatorship. Everyone speaks Arabic, and the level of poverty is beyond grinding. Illiteracy is rampant and life expectancy is one of the lowest in the world. Nearly half the population gets by on less than $2 a day; the average annual per capita income is only $6. A barren hell on earth, where even the wandering nomads are few and far between.

Yet twenty percent of the population lives in slavery. Generational slavery.

Forced by international pressure, Mauritania didn’t get around to abolishing slavery until 1981. Not 1335. Not 1772. Not 1865. Not 1889. (Finland, England, USA, Brazil) 1981. Just 31 years ago. And that abolition was only lip service; slave owning in Mauritania didn’t even become a crime until 2007, just 5 years ago. And it’s still just lip service, as what passes for a judicial system has only made one prosecution. Somewhere around three quarters of a million people live there in bondage, today.

Lighter skinned Arabs, so called “White Moors” are the owner caste, and darker skinned Africans are the slaves. It’s been that way since forever, and the slaves are often treated with the kind of callous disregard and cruelty that only the Arabs can come up with. Perhaps the greater sin is that the slaves don’t know any better, and consider themselves sub-human.

CNN posts another couple of articles in their continuing series on modern slavery.

It’s a maddening, complicated place — one made all the more difficult for outsiders to understand because no one is allowed to talk about slavery. When we confronted the country’s minister of rural development about slavery’s existence, Brahim Ould M’Bareck Ould Med El Moctar told us his country is among the freest in the world. “All people are free in Mauritania and this phenomenon (of slavery) no longer exists,” he said.

The issue is so sensitive here that we had to conduct most of our interviews in secret, often in the middle of the night and in covert locations. The only other option was to do them in the presence of a government minder, who was assigned to our group by the Ministry of Communications to ensure we didn’t mention the topic. Our official reason for entering the country was to report on the science of locust swarms; our contacts for that story were unaware of our plan to research slavery.

If we were caught talking with an escaped slave like Moulkheir, we could have been arrested or thrown out of the country without our notebooks and footage. That point was made clear to us in a meeting with the national director of audiovisual communications, Mohamed Yahya Ould Haye, who told us journalists who attempted to report on such topics were jailed or ejected from the country.

More important, getting caught talking about slavery could have put our sources at risk. Anti-slavery activists say they have been arrested and tortured for their work.

Abdel, like the rest of his light-skinned family, lived in a large camel-skin tent. Yebawa and other slaves lived in tattered tents of cloth on the periphery of their nomadic camp, which shifted locations to follow the few plants able to grow in the Sahara.

Noble families keep slaves both as servants and status symbols. Abdel’s family had hundreds of slaves, he said, and their labor was divided among aunts, uncles, cousins and other relatives.

“When you divvy up slaves, either you send a slave to go serve a certain branch of the family or if you have just one slave, you divide him up in chunks of time: three months here, four or five there,” he said. “That’s how you share a human being.”

Slaves in Mauritania typically are attached to one family from the time they are born. They can be given away as gifts for special occasions, but usually aren’t bought and sold.

...

Abdel’s family never beat its slaves, he said, but did regard them as subhuman. When it rained on the Tagant plateau, in central Mauritania, slaves like Yebawa picked up the edges of the tent and held them in the air all night long to prevent their masters from getting wet. Abdel recalls hearing the slaves’ teeth chattering all through the cold desert nights—and mocking this “teeth music” with his slave-owning friends.

Read here, and also here.

Posted by Drew458     on 03/21/2012 at 09:13 AM   
Filed Under: • Racism and race relations • RoPMA •  
• Comments (0) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

DISCLAIMER

THE SERVICES AND MATERIALS ON THIS WEBSITE ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE HOSTS OF THIS SITE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ANY AND ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF SATISFACTORY QUALITY, MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, WITH RESPECT TO THE SERVICE OR ANY MATERIALS.

Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:

1. Keep a firm grasp of Right and Wrong
2. Stay involved with government on every level and don't let those bastards get away with a thing
3. Use every legal means to defend yourself in the event of real internal trouble, and, most importantly:
4. Keep talking to each other, whether here or elsewhere

It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

THE INFORMATION AND OTHER CONTENTS OF THIS WEBSITE ARE DESIGNED TO COMPLY WITH THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. THIS WEBSITE SHALL BE GOVERNED BY AND CONSTRUED IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND ALL PARTIES IRREVOCABLY SUBMIT TO THE JURISDICTION OF THE AMERICAN COURTS. IF ANYTHING ON THIS WEBSITE IS CONSTRUED AS BEING CONTRARY TO THE LAWS APPLICABLE IN ANY OTHER COUNTRY, THEN THIS WEBSITE IS NOT INTENDED TO BE ACCESSED BY PERSONS FROM THAT COUNTRY AND ANY PERSONS WHO ARE SUBJECT TO SUCH LAWS SHALL NOT BE ENTITLED TO USE OUR SERVICES UNLESS THEY CAN SATISFY US THAT SUCH USE WOULD BE LAWFUL.

Copyright © 2004-2015 Domain Owner