LIKE millions of others, I was shocked by recent reports of a Benin slave
ship full of children. In a world where moral absolutes are scarce, this looked
like one. Surely no one could believe this was anything other than wrong?
By chance, I鈥檝e been in Mauritania, a West African country where slavery was
only abolished in 1980. And where, say human rights groups, it secretly
persists.
One of the nicest people I met there was a man, Ely, whose family once owned
slaves, and who badly wanted me to understand how tough it is being a slave
owner. And yes, he did use the present tense.
Advertisement
He didn鈥檛 convert me to the virtues of slavery. Far from it. But his country
did give me a sharp lesson in the dangers of making easy assumptions about
race.
Ely was a tall, athletic government official. We shared a car ride through
the desert in search of fishermen to interview. He was chaperoning me because,
upset by persistent stories about slavery, the government is wary of foreign
journalists. But Ely didn鈥檛 fight shy. He laughed as he explained that the son
of one of his family鈥檚 slaves is now a senior aide to the prime minister. 鈥淪o
the former slave is my boss.鈥�
Better that than slaves who stay put. 鈥淵ou cannot throw your ex-slaves out
into the desert,鈥� he opined. 鈥淵ou have to clothe and feed and house them. It鈥檚
quite expensive. They get old. Some couldn鈥檛 survive on their own.鈥�
He explained the role that race plays in his country. It is run by Moors,
followers of Islam. But there are white Moors鈥攃omprising Arabs and
Berbers鈥攁nd black Moors. Most former slaves are black Moors. And 鈥渆ven
blacks had slaves鈥�, he added.
There is no stigma in being an ex-slave. Those considered to be the lowest in
Mauritania are blacks from the south of the country. They were never slaves, but
they suffer from something worse: not being Moors. A decade ago, hundreds of
southern blacks were killed in a pogrom, and many more of them fled to
neighbouring Senegal. It鈥檚 all over now, Ely insists. 鈥淭hey can come back if
they wish.鈥�
Mauritania is still largely run by a caste of Moorish Koranic scholars called
marabout, who hold enormous sway across Islamic West Africa. Many run large
estates, often worked by young boys lured from their homes by promises of
schooling.
Shades of slavery. Yet some marabout set up as international prophets,
apparently targeting black Americans to invest in their desert fiefdoms. A
perversion of the notion of racial brotherhood if ever there was one, and
another bizarre lesson for a white English liberal.
There were other confusions. I visited a remote fishing people called the
Imraguen. One reference book called them 鈥渢he smallest black ethnic group, still
held in Arab bondage鈥�. But it turned out Imraguen just means fishermen. Some
were former slaves. But some were high-born white Moors.
I never did find out why rich Moors went fishing. But they don鈥檛 talk about
a lot of things there, especially if it touches on the time鈥攋ust
yesterday, really鈥攚hen many were slaves, and some were slave owners. And
maybe still are.