Pre-Trip Information

 

 

The Saharan Desert has linked, rather than divided, the peoples who inhabit it, and has served as an avenue for trade, migration and conquest. Mauritania, lying next to the Atlantic coast at the western edge of the desert, received and assimilated into its complex society many waves of these migrants and conquerors.

 

Today, Mauritania's population reflects its historical legacy. About two-thirds are Maure and about one-third are of black African descent; about half of the Maure population is actually a mixture of Arab (Moorish) and African lineage. Most of the Arab (Moorish) population consists of nomadic herdsmen, who are somewhat concentrated in the northern area, close to the Sahara Desert. The black African population tends to farm the Senegal River Valley area and as such, they are concentrated in the south of the country. There is also a small percent of non-Africans such as French and Lebanese.

 

The Moors are descendants of North African Berbers and Middle Eastern Arabs who migrated to the present-day Mauritania and, in effect, controlled the region. The black Africans share various ethnic and linguistic traits with other ethnic groups of the Senegal River Valley, notably Wolof and Pulaar. The mixed population share Arab, Berber and black African ancestry.

 

 

 

The historical ethnic divisions have contributed to the contemporary social structure of Mauritania. That is to say, much social status is determined by descent from either the region's Arab-Berber conquerors, or the black African peoples they had dominion over. A distinction between the aristocracy and the servant class traditionally defined Mauritanian society as a dichotomy of "white" and "black" respectively.

 

The "white" system has predominately been a caste system marked by regionally-based lordships and class identities on racial lines. The "black" system has been predominately a kinship system in which family is preserved by interaction and socially supported, shared religious observances, and rituals celebrating stages of life. Both politically and socially the "white" system has long dominated the "black" system. As a result, lineage has become the most important determining factor in Mauritanian social status. These lineage lines follow race lines in which "whites" are superior to "blacks." However, they also follow gender lines. Patrilineal and matrilineal descent are traced separately. Connection to a higher social class through patrilineal descent gives higher social status than through matrilineal descent. In general, a person's social class is only as high as his patrilineal relative.

 

As with most societies in which lineage dominates the social infrastructure, there is a significant unity of both living and dead relatives. Ancestors are held in high importance and lineage groups, especially patrilineal groups tend to celebrate together to maintain the lineage bond.

 

 

 

There is some evidence to suggest that modernization has led to a gradual decline in the importance of caste in the post-independence period. Change in Mauritanian society has been more rapid than perhaps anywhere in Africa. In 1960 an estimated five percent of the population was urban. Today it is estimated that 90 percent of the population is urban.

 

The dramatic rapidity of this shift can largely be attributed to land issues. Most of Mauritania is a desert and not arable. As a result the majority of the population in 1960 were nomadic herders. The connection most people have to the land is thus significantly less than in predominantly agrarian societies. People are more mobile. As desertification, declining importance of trade routes, and other factors have detracted from the viability of desert life, the population has naturally migrated. This urbanization trend may ultimately eliminate the caste divisions, but opportunities for blacks do not appear to be increasing at the same rate as whites. It is thus likely that the connection between race and caste will continue to give way to a more modern structure that correlates race and class.

 

The process of creating a national Mauritanian identity is still nascent. Even though class identities have begun to predominate over caste identities, loyalty to lineage still outweigh allegiances to state or national institutions. Those of a higher caste, specifically the zawaya, tend to use their dominant education to control economic and political institutions at the state level. Hassani or other white groups tend to prosper in business and as civil servants, but not in positions of power. Blacks, mostly Wolof, who largely made up the civil servants during the period of French colonialism, have been alienated. There is also an intermediate group of Haratin, Black Maures, who are former slaves or descendants of slaves who adopted the Arab-Berber culture of their masters.

 

There were significant tensions between Maures and blacks in the late 1980s. Maures considered blacks inferior and thought they should be subservient to Maure control and blacks considered Maures lazy, ignorant and inefficient. As many Maures also were slaveholders, they also feared growing Maure dominance in the political and economic realm. This culminated in the expulsion of a large number of blacks from Mauritania to Senegal in 1990-91.

 

A persistent dividing factor between blacks and whites are the fertile lands of the Senegal River Valley. Blacks fear that increased desertification will push wealthy Maures to buy up, or, worse, take over what have historically been black lands. Recent efforts by Senegal to divert part of the Senegal River for agricultural purposes have further exacerbated these tensions.

 

 

 

Language has also been a disruptive rather than a uniting force in the seeking of a Mauritanian national identity. At independence in 1960, Hassaniya Arabic was made the national language and French the official language. In 1966, however, Hassaniya Arabic and French were made co-official languages. Since then, Arabic has been the language of instruction in all secondary schools. Today, Hassaniya Arabic is the official language. Mauritanian blacks have argued that the use of Arabic in secondary school has been an effort on the part of Maures to block black advancement in the bureaucracy. For Maures Arabic is a first language, while many blacks do not even have an opportunity to study it prior to being required to being instructed in the language. Blacks thus commonly attend primary school in their own language and then are blocked by their lack of language skills from continuing.

 

 

 

The language barrier is also a religious barrier. Nearly all of Mauritania's population is Sunni Muslim. Arabic is the language of prayer. Advancement in religious education is important to one's social status. Without a strong knowledge of Arabic, it is difficult to increase one's social importance in the religious sphere. Speakers of Wolof and Pulaar thus lack the opportunity to advance in religious circles.

 

 

 

Mauritania has predominantly been a nomadic society, and its resources are limited to iron ore and fish; in many ways, it has had a more difficult social and economic challenge than many other African countries. As a result, living conditions in Mauritania remain exceedingly poor despite a persistent economic growth rate of five percent. There is a deep divide between the haves and have-nots along race lines.

 

According to recent estimates, literacy is 41.7 percent, the infant mortality rate is 78 deaths per 1,000 live births, and life expectancy is 52 years. Fortunately, at 1.8 percent, according to recent statistics, the rate of HIV/AIDS infection in Mauritania remains somewhat low in comparison with other African countries.

About 5.7 percent of GDP in this country is spent on health expenditures; about 4.4 percent of GDP is spent on educational expenditures.

 

One notable indicator used to measure a country's quality of life is the Human Development Index (HDI), which is compiled annually since 1990 by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The HDI is a composite of several indicators, which measure a country's achievements in three main areas of human development: longevity, knowledge and education, as well as economic standard of living. In a recent ranking of 169 countries, the HDI placed Mauritania in the low human development category, at 136th place.

Note: Although the concept of human development is complicated and cannot be properly captured by values and indices, the HDI, which is calculated and updated annually, offers a wide-ranging assessment of human development in certain countries, not based solely upon traditional economic and financial indicators.

 

 

 

The number of slaves in the world today is more than seven and a half times the number in the United States at the height of American slavery. According to the U.S. census there were 3.9 million slaves in the U.S. in 1860, more than at any point in U.S. history. Yet, University of London sociologist Kevin Bales estimates that there are 27 million slaves in the world today. The difficulty of measuring this population leads Bales to report this figure though it has a margin of error of plus or minus six to seven million.

 

This alarmingly high figure requires some explanation. Bales, like abolitionist and journalist Samuel Cotton, redefines slavery for the 21st century. Whereas according to the U.N. Convention of Sept. 25, 1926, slavery is defined as "the state or condition of an individual over whom the attributes of property rights or some of them" are exercised, Bales defines slavery as "the complete control of a person for economic exploitation by violence or the threat of violence." New forms of persecution, he asserts, require new definitions.

 

Bales defines three primary types of slavery in the world today: chattel, debt bondage and contract. The first, chattel slavery, meets the criteria set out in the 1926 convention. Individuals who are owned by other individuals are slaves. The second, debt bondage, is more common. A person pledges him or herself against a loan of money with an undefined length of servitude. The original debt is never repaid and is passed down from generation to generation. The third type, contract slavery, is a hidden form of slavery within modern labor relations. Contracts are offered to individuals offering pay for services in a workshop or factory, but when they get there they learn that they are never paid and cannot leave under threat of violence. Notably missing from these definitions of slavery is employment at the margins. In an effort to maintain scientific rigor in the face of activism, Bales differentiates between slavery and near torturous working conditions for less than the global poverty rate of $1 per day even when workers are kept there by force or threat. The 27 million people he estimates to enslaved today thus does not include the many millions more who work in these treacherous conditions.

 

The need for this change of definition is made evident both by Bales and by Cotton. In the 18th and 19th century slaves were extremely expensive. Owners could abuse their human property, but they had to take care of them enough to maintain their investment. In today's global marketplace, people are disposable inputs into production. There is an unlimited supply of workers so they can be abused or even worked to death without economic consequence to the owner. This is particularly insidious as it is a byproduct of the globalization of the world economy, increasing in number with global business of the 21st century. Whereas once labor needed to be protected because it needed to be brought to the place of work, labor can be exploited as the place of work can move to where the market is greatest.

 

The problem of the definition of slavery haunts many countries of the world. There are 300 laws and international agreements against slavery, but yet 15 to 20 million bonded laborers persist in India, Pakistan and Nepal. The specific forms of slavery found in these countries have grown out of their histories of feudalism. Girls for sex predominate the slave marketplace in Southeast Asia, and an estimated 50,000 sex and domestic slaves are held under threat of violence in the United States.

 

Mauritania is the only country left in the world with a significant percentage of the population held in chattel slavery. Estimates vary widely. Some people argue that it is a historic vestige limited to a few tens of thousands of people. Fatmata Mbaye, who received the Nuremberg International Human Rights Award in 1999 for her campaign against Mauritanian slavery, placed that number even higher arguing that 40 percent - over one million - of Mauritanians are either slaves or exploited by the country's elites. Bales addresses the topic with great rigor. It can be argued, therefore that his figure of just over half a million may be the most accurate.

 

Slavery has been a persistent issue in Mauritania. The Mauritanian government established the National Committee for the Struggle against the Vestiges of Slavery in the 1980s. According to the Mauritanian government, slavery has ceased to exist in the country. However, modifications of the legal framework have made this a legal reality not met by even the most anachronistic of definitions.

 

Arab traders brought slavery to Mauritania as early as the 15th century. The caste structure and racial divide has perpetuated the role of slavery over the centuries both as a means of extracting resources from Mauritania and as a means of perpetuating the dominance of local leaders. Beyond the division of the Mauritanian population into a multi-racial majority of Arabic speakers, and a multi-ethnic minority of non-Arabic speakers, the traditional Mauritanian society had a deep hierarchical organization. In all components, the hierarchical organization closely followed the same social pyramid: aristocracy, caste members and servile strata. It is the members of these historically servile strata who now suffer in servitude.

 

It is important that in Mauritania caste and race have historically been linked. People thought of as Arabs (Berbers or White Moures) enslave people thought of as African or non-Arab. The maintenance of African slaves (Abeed) is seen by White Moures as fundamental to their continued social and economic dominance and the stability of social institutions. The importance is twofold. First, as Cotton points out, Arab dominance in the political sphere is seen as dependent upon the continued dominance in the social and economic sphere. As a result, it behooves the government to maintain the status quo. If this is so then not only is the White Mouer Mauritanian government guilty of perpetuating slavery, but any person, group, or country that seeks to maintain the strength of that government is guilty of perpetuating slavery. Cotton specifically names National of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan as guilty of this injustice. Farrakhan was challenged directly on this issue in relation to his support for a similar social structure in the Sudan. In response, Farrakhan asserted that anyone who believes that slavery still exists is perpetuating a Jewish plot.

 

The second reason why the correlation between caste and race is so critical has to do with the transformation of caste structure. In Mauritania caste was developed as part of a nomadic societal structure driving a trade economy. Today's Mauritania is quite different. Whereas in 1960 camels still watered in the holes of Nouakchott, today it is a bustling city of 700,000 people with one of the fastest growth rates in the world. Nomadic trade routes are all but abandoned in favor of engagement in the modern economy. Under these new social conditions, caste structure is giving way to class structure. It is only a matter of time before chattel slavery becomes socially difficult to maintain. Slavery as a social institution, it seems, will have modernize like other social institutions or else face extinction. Since slavery is not only caste but race-based there is a reason to believe that this will happen. The chattel slaves of today will then become the contract and debt bonde d slaves of tomorrow, thereby maintaining White Moure dominance long after the vestiges of caste identity falls away.

 

The modernization of slavery in Mauritania is well summed up by Aissata Kane. Kane was the country's first female cabinet minister in the 1970s and is now the head of a prominent women's association. Well-protected in her brightly colored boubou from the eyes of men, a journalist asked her if she thought women in Mauritania were oppressed. She responded that women in Mauritania in fact are freer than in most of Africa. The enslavement of women actually increases women's rights. Whereas in most of Africa women are burdened by tremendous domestic responsibilities in service to their families, Mauritanian women have black slaves to carry out such chores. Women are then free to pursue the economic, social and political activities hitherto held only by men. This has allowed her to work to move towards the rights of women to property and material goods and the rights of women to divorce. Freedom from daily chores, she argues, has afforded the modern Mauritanian woman the oppor tunity to demonstrate her business acumen. As a result, today women dominate retail trade in Mauritania. From this view, the modernization of not only the economy but also social roles such as gender rights is dependent upon the smooth transition of slavery sub-types along race lines. Such a complex socioeconomic conundrum will not easily be solved with new legislation.