The guilty white Left: Making Excuses for those who would rape and enslave infidel activist women

Arabs Harass Female 'Peace' Activists; Left Silences Victims - Politics & Gov't - Israel News - Israel National News

UPDATE: Phyllis Chesler takes up this story.

Canadian nation complicit in slavery

Immigration: 'Child bride' loophole can't be closed | Canada | News | Toronto Sun

Notice how these officials who say they can't do anything don't apparently have - if the reporting is good - the gumption to suggest Parliament set some new immigration regulations - and keep the whole family out? White guilt and cultural relativism... just another word for slavery. I guess it's up to us!

Friday Cleansing

Washing the dirt off a confounding week of highs and lows, with stories glimpsed between the headlines on a damp Friday night.

Apology For Slavery... From Africans: Nigerian Civil Rights groups are demanding that Nigerian tribal chiefs apologize for their role in capturing and selling fellow Africans during the trans-Atlantic slave trade:

The Civil Rights Congress (CRC), a leading coalition of human rights groups, said in a sequel to apologies by the US Senate last June and by Britain's former prime minister Tony Blair for slavery, it was time African traditional leaders take their cue.

"We cannot continue to blame the white men, as Africans, particularly the traditional rulers, are not blameless" said the grouping in a letter to Nigerian traditional chiefs.

"The rulers had participated by - helping to systematically raid and kidnap ... defenceless communities ... and then trading them off with European, American and other collaborators.

"They must apologise on behalf of their ancestors and... put a final seal to the history of slave trade.

"In view of the fact that the Americans and Europe have accepted the cruelty of their roles and have forcefully apologised, it would be logical, reasonable and humbling if African traditional rulers, [... can] accept blame and formally apologise to the descendants of the victims of their collaborative and exploitative slave trade..."

Polluted China: Haunting photographs in a gallery of horrors that catalogues rural life in today's polluted People's Republic of China. An interview with photographer Lu Guang is translated here:

Q: The places you shot at where you think the pollution was very serious, how did the villagers see the pollution in their lives? Did they feel the pollution was very serious and threatening their lives or [that the polluting industries] driving the local economic development was more important?

Lu Guang: In fact, there is no economic development for them, it only brought them destructions. Back then they had fertile fields. There were many water conservancy facilities built in the 70’s, all were every good, used to irrigate the fields. But now, pollution came and the water could not be used to irrigate the fields anymore. After a long time, now all the water conservancy facilities are wastes. The polluted water has led to contamination of the underground water. All their drinking water is underground water, water in the wells or from the water tower. Water from water tower flows straight to their homes, unlike us, the tap water we drink is already processed. Drinking this kind of water for long time, many people got very ill...

What Do Ann Landers and Daniel Defoe Have In Common? Both wrote advice columns for newspapers, reveals the new book on the history of "Agony Aunts": Never Kiss a Man in a Canoe: Words of Wisdom from the Golden Age of Agony Aunts. A review in the UK's Guardian reminds us how much those columns are a mirror of their times:

In our anti-authoritarian age, in which nobody's opinion – professional, amateur, drawn from experience or the ether – is deemed to be more or less valid than anyone else's, the hectoring tone of the Victorian agony aunts sounds utterly alien and alienating. ... Many agony aunts [now] seem to prefer a generalised I-feel-your-pain response. Cloying sympathy has replaced bracing empathy, which may make the reader feel momentarily better but doesn't really do much to resolve the problem.

The Long Shadow Of Slavery In Mauritania

The Islamic Republic of Mauritania's tradition of chattel slavery is back in the news this week.

A special report issued by Gulnara Shahinian, the first United Nations "Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery", reveals how little progress has been made in ending slavery within the borders of that West African nation.

When a new government came to power in 2007, there were attempts under President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi to pass legislation with sufficient leverage to finally, finally, start getting serious about breaking the chains of slavery in Mauritania. The light of that faint hope flickered in the storm of the country's 2008 military coup, and here we are a year later with the shame intact: people in Mauritania, from the day of their birth, continue to be other people's property. An estimated 20% of the people of Mauritania are considered things, not people...
... for they are slaves.

Against this background, the rulers of Mauritania are accused this week of perpetuating the cultural tradition chained to slavery itself: turning a blind eye to its existence.

Slavery in modern times has been documented in Mauritania by many local and foreign human rights groups and the UN for decades. Most Mauritanian governments, stemming from the military elite, have headed policies of denial regarding slavery, often criminalising organisations fighting slavery or speaking about it to foreign media.
...
Since the 2008 coup, however, civil society has again been limited in its freedom and the military government has shown little interest in fighting slavery and helping slaves to be freed.

The UN's Ms Shahinian confirms that slavery continues to be a problem. "In my visits to communities I met with people who told me that they had been victims of slavery practices such as serfdom and domestic servitude. These people had fled slavery and also told the stories of those they had left behind," she reports from her Mauritania visit.
...
The UN Special Rapporteur urged Mauritanian authorities to do more to address slavery. While the 2007 anti-slavery law was still in place, little is done to implement it, she noted between the lines. "In order for victims to be encouraged to come forward, I recommend that the 2007 slavery law include provisions that provide for victim assistance and socio-economic programmes for their reintegration into society," stressed Ms Shahinian.

Enslaved Mauritanians still have little incentives to come forward, even risking being sent back to their masters by local police.

Ms Shahinian also urged the military government to bring back civil society into the process to fight slavery, as done by the toppled government. "The national strategy to combat slavery should be developed by different stakeholders from the government, local and international NGOs, political parties, religious leaders, trade unions, UN agencies and the donor community," she urged.

Finally, Ms Shahinian found the 2007 law too vague in its definition of slavery, as many master-servant dependencies - often encompassing former slavery bonds - fell short of inclusion in the anti-slavery policy. "In order for the judiciary to effectively use this law, I would strongly recommend that the law be amended to contain a clearer definition of slavery and socio-economic programmes which would act as an incentive for victims to bring cases before the law," Ms Shahinian advised.

One of the abolitionist organizations active within Mauritania is the beleaguered SOS Esclaves. To understand a problem in macro, it's sometimes of service to examine it at a micro level. Towards this end, last year I translated a French television documentary I had found online, which followed members of SOS Esclaves in their quest to free a single Mauritanian slave. The sequential videos of that haunting documentary have since been taken offline, but the translations I made still stand on their own as a sad testament to the scale of the tragedy being confronted, the scope of the difficulty in bringing relief to even a single soul in torment, and the degree of faith required to persevere in the belief that there can be such things as happy endings to this eternal problem, given the cruel indifference that persists hand-in-hand with the shadow of slavery.

Freeing one Mauritanian slave, part 1.
Freeing one Mauritanian slave, part 2.
Freeing one Mauritanian slave, part 3.
Freeing one Mauritanian slave, part 4.

Thursday Sights

Hoping for the best, preparing for the worst while threading one's way along life's stream of bitter truths on an overcast Thursday morning.

"Golden Age" Of Islamic Spain: Using hard truths to shine some light on popular utopian myths:

Few of those who want to emphasize the Golden Age of Spain and how it was a land of "tolerance" want to recall that Maimonides and his family were forced to leave Spain in 1148 because the fanatic Muslim rulers, known as the Almohades, gave Jews and other non-Muslims the choice of conversion, exile or death.
Yet this expulsion was never remembered. Is this the place of "humanistic beauty" that Western scholars want us to recall? Was this the "bastion of culture, commerce and beauty"? Western historians have presented this as "the intellectual community which the northern [European] scholars found in Spain was so far superior to what they had at home that it left a lasting jealousy of Arab culture."
Most have forgotten that this Arab culture in Spain was one that included slavery. People speak of Spain as a "Convivencia" or coexistence society. This coexistence society we imagine as a utopia resembles the American antebellum South, with slavery and large wealthy estates.

Today's Great Britain, Where Violent Assault Is Not Necessarily A Crime: The Chief Inspector of Constabulary reports that thousands of violent assaults and domestic attacks are being recorded by investigating police officers as "no crime".

The police inspectorate found one in three decisions to record a violent incident as no crime were wrong.
If the findings, based on a sample, are repeated across all forces, it would mean at least 5,000 victims of violence being ignored.
...
As well as disguising the true extent of violent crime, a wrong "no crime" decision affects the help given to the victim.
...
Among the cases was a woman left battered and bruised after her partner slapped her, grabbed her by the neck and threw her on the floor.
The force, which has not been named, recorded no crime as having taken
place.
The officers wrote that the victim would say she injured herself and that her partner's account was "more accurate".

Preying and Praying: Indianapolis cashier Angela Montez tries to dissuade an armed robber from committing his crime, and -- who knows? -- may have found the words to save him from pursuing a more violent life, if he ends up taking her advice to heart.


The thief's mother identified him from news broadcasts of the security video, and the man has turned himself in to police.

Monday Fallout

Grey skies to greet grey stories fallen from the headlines on a wet Monday morning.

Stolen Innocence: Tragic story of South African Girls as young as 11 being abducted by relatives and condemned to lives little better than sex slaves, in a tribal custom known as "ukuthwalwa" (translated as "to be carried"). One rescued young lady talks about her ordeal, began when an aunt and her own brother arranged for her to be traded to a 42-year old man for some cows:

Nangamso Gezana, 15, says she was abducted in May in Lusikisiki and taken to Rustenburg, where she and her new husband lived in a shack for one month.
"I don't know how many times I thought of killing myself," she says.
"I was like a slave, cooking and cleaning for a man I did not even want. A man who did bad things to me and would not stop even when I cried.
"I think that men are evil."
...
Ms Sinama says she knew she had to leave when she learned that her husband was suffering from HIV.
"I saw his medical certificate in the house, it was written HIV positive. I knew that if I stayed I would get sick and die," she says.

From Morocco's "Little Maid" custom in North Africa, to this tribal custom in South Africa, the scourge of slavery is alive and well across the African continent. And the rest of the world, even the US. One estimate puts the number of slaves in our "enlightened" modern era at 27 million trapped souls. One of the militant atheists' criticisms of the Bible that I can't resolve is why there is so little to say in there about ending the evil of slavery; it's as if the Lord presumes we are such a wicked species that we will never do what it takes to fully stop the vile practice anyway..? Murder and theft are condemned so specifically, but not a crime that murders faith and robs humans so deeply of their humanity? At best the only explanation I can arrive at is that slavery survives as a reminder of our fallability, a reminder that the practice of serving man as god leads only to slavery, whereas it is man serving God that leads to liberty.

Meanwhile, slavery persists, rising in civilization's shadows century after century in direct proportion to the illusion we amuse ourselves with, that we've finally put an end to it. Shame on us all.

The Art Of Biography: UK Telegraph columnist Simon Heffer reports on biographer Richard Thorpe's suggestion that biography itself, as a literary subject, may be about to exhaust itself:

Mr Thorpe talked in his lecture about biography as we know it being a 20th-century phenomenon. Before that there was the "stained glass window", or reverentially monumental, approach of the Victorians; though when J A Froude tried to be monumental and reverential to Carlyle he found himself savaged by Carlyle's family and friends for having dared to cast aspersions on the relationship between the Sage and his wife, Jane.

That all changed with Lytton Strachey, and Eminent Victorians in 1918, where warts-and-all really came into its own. Now, a biography without a decent measure of salaciousness is hardly wanted on the voyage. No secret is too dark to expose; no biography can be considered serious, indeed, unless it is exposed. We have certainly had a golden age of the genre; but how long it will continue is anyone's guess. Books on themes, phenomena, abstracts are all the rage now.

The trouble for those who do persist with biography is this: that the detailed dismemberment of a person and his or her reputation that is now expected by the reading public can make the very task of biography
unpalatable for the writer. It is very, very hard to write a life even of someone one admires. To write one about someone one loathes must be appalling. When Philip Ziegler wrote his superb life of Mountbatten he had to put a notice on his writing-desk that read: "Remember, when all is said and done, he was a great man".

Intolerant Pakistan: Shabaz Bhatti, Pakistan's first Christian Minorities Minister, delivered a candid address last week to the annual conference of Christian Solidarity Worldwide, a UK-based charity that supports the persecuted church worldwide and has long campaigned for Pakistan’s blasphemy laws to be repealed. He pledges an attempt to curtail Pakistan's notorious anti-Christian violence and persecution against minorities in general:

Shabaz Bhatti told hundreds of Christians in London on Saturday that the Pakistani government was ready to review the notorious blasphemy law that is routinely misused by Islamic extremists to attack and imprison Christians.
He acknowledged that Christians were being attacked, imprisoned and killed under the pretext of committing blasphemy and that the blasphemy charges being brought against Christians were false.
The blasphemy laws, he continued, had created intolerance, disharmony and a “sense of insecurity” among minorities.
...
“The blasphemy laws have remained a tool in the hands of extremists to victimise minorities and innocent Muslims in Pakistan,” said Mr Bhatti... In the wake of the recent attacks in Gojra and Korian, which left eight Christians dead, he said the government was determined not to allow any more innocent Christians to be victimised.
...
Mr Bhatti: “In many cases of violence, it is not only the law which is creating disharmony. It is the mindset of the people who take advantage of the law and the situation and they instigate and incite the people to kill the Christians, the minorities and the innocent people so we need to work to change the mindset of the people and through these intiatives and others we can bring a change in their mindset.”

Friday Fare

As the gate swings shut on another week, we pause for some news before strolling into a pleasant weekend.

Unaware: Jonah Goldberg on President Obama's "shortcuts" comment from this week's press conference, about Churchill not using torture. "Churchill and Great Britain didn't quite take the firm stand against 'torture' that Obama and [Andrew] Sullivan suggest."

Unwelcome: Polish minister plans to extend law prohibiting the production of fascist and totalitarian propaganda so that it includes clothing and anything else that could carry an image related to an authoritarian system.

"The proposal, which could see the faces of some of the leading lights of communist history such as Lenin and Trotsky removed from t-shirts and flags, reflects a Polish view on communism far different from the rose-tinted and romantic images often found in the West.
After experiencing 40 hard years of communism, as well as the horrors of Nazi occupation, few Poles have qualms equating under law the inequities of Nazism and communism.
"Communism was a terrible, murderous system that claimed millions of lives," said Professor Wojciech Roszkowski, a leading Polish historian and member of the European parliament.
"It was very similar to National Socialism, and there is no reason to treat those two systems, and their symbols, differently. Their glorification should be prohibited.' "

Uncivilized: Media reform, taliban-style. "Any media personnel engaged in ‘anti-Taliban’ and ‘pro-western’ agendas will face dire consequences, according to the militants. After bombing schools, barbershops and CD stores — not to mention flogging and killing civilians — the Taliban have now announced their intention to ‘reform’ the media and make it ‘mend its ways’...
‘It is the duty of the media to give space and time to statements which have a positive impact on society.’ "

Unshackled: Students in 3 Washington state schools raise tens of thousands of dollars to free 120 slaves from bondage, through the International Justice Mission.

The teens in this well-to-do suburban area have learned about families working in brick kilns in India and brothels in Cambodia where children their own age — and even younger — are sold into slavery.
"I count my blessings, because they're in such a bad place," said eighth-grader Nellie Hoehl, one of Ensey's students at Pine Lake Middle School.
...
For 10 weeks this spring, about 50 students arrived at school early each Wednesday to paint signs, write letters, sell concert tickets and plan collection dates to raise money for the IJM. That work is going on right now, and ends May 14.
"Everybody talks about it, even when it's not fundraising time," said eighth-grader Angela Moran.
...
It's even changed the way they think about money when they go shopping.
"Every time I go to buy something," said eighth-grader Casey Kovarik, "I think there's something better I could do with the money."

Egyptian Slave Freed From Slavery... In America

Shocking story this week about an Egyptian girl kept enslaved as a house maid for three years by a rich Egyptian family... in the US.

At nine years old, Shyima was "hired" by a wealthy Egyptian couple to work for their family first in their Cairo apartment, and soon after as a "maid" in their California home. Her duties forced her to awake before dawn and work until past midnight, cleaning the luxurious five-bedroom mansion. Her "employers" kept her in a windowless garage that was neither air-conditioned or heated. The light bulb in the garage blew out shortly after she arrived, and was never replaced; Shyima consequently spent her personal life in the dark... in more ways than one. "I thought this was normal", she answered when she was eventually asked why she didn't just run away.

Thanks to sharp-eyed neighbors, who anonymously tipped off Los Angeles authorities that a young girl seemed to be living in Mr. and Mrs. Ibrahim's garage, Shyima was saved; since the trial of her "benefactors" she has been adopted into a family that, unlike the Ibrahims, takes her to Disneyland to go on the rides, not just to carry everyone's bags. Shyima's video interview is a welcome reminder to keep faith in the possibility of happy endings:

[Shyima] graduated from high school this summer after retaking her exit exam and hopes to become a police officer.
Shyima, now 19, has a list of assigned chores. She wears purple eyeshadow, has a boyfriend and frequently updates her profile on MySpace. Her hands are neatly manicured. [This detail is in contrast to the earlier observation made by the police who first rescued Shyima: "They noted her hands were red and caked with dead, hard-looking skin."]

She has had her future given back to her; if only the same could be said for other children still trapped in the bonds of slavery:

The trafficking of children for domestic labor in the U.S. is an extension of an illegal but common practice in Africa. Families in remote villages send their daughters to work in cities for extra money and the opportunity to escape a dead-end life. Some girls work for free on the understanding that they will at least be better fed in the home of their employer.

The custom has led to the spread of trafficking, as well-to-do Africans accustomed to employing children immigrate to the U.S. Around one-third of the estimated 10,000 forced laborers in the United States are servants trapped behind the curtains of suburban homes, according to a study by the National Human Rights Center at the University of California at Berkeley and Free the Slaves, a nonprofit group. No one can say how many are children, especially since their work can so easily be masked as chores.

[Hat Tip to Hot Air]

Freeing One Mauritanian Slave (1 of 4)

The scene: Mauritania. The story: a brother searches for his sister. She is a slave, twice made a mother by having been raped by her master. She lives in a country where slavery has been declared illegal, over and over again. Government officials pass new laws criminalizing slavery, while simultaneously boasting that there is no such thing as slavery anymore.

Yet slavery persists: the brother’s sister lives her life, somewhere, as her master’s property. Her existence is not much different than the sheep she watches over.

The brother is accompanied in his search by members of SOS Esclaves (a Mauritanian government-sanctioned anti-slavery human rights organization), as well as a police officer empowered to enforce their nation’s latest anti-slavery laws. They find the sister, in her master’s tent. Together they take her away from her domestic bondage, but not without effort. Four decades of slavery has left its mark on her; terrified, she screams and weeps as if her delivery was actually her enslavement.

When the team arrives back in Nouakchott, the capital city, the sister is subdued. She admits, finally, that she had indeed been a slave, and her earlier denial was caused by fear for her future if she admitted as much in her master’s presence. She expresses relief that her brother has launched this effort to liberate her from her slavery.

This summarizes the gut-wrenching story chronicled in the French documentary, “Chasseurs D’Esclaves”, “Slave Hunters”, broadcast on European television in June of this year. The 45-minute French-language film is available online in three parts.

This is the evil that lurks in the shadow of the recent military coup in Mauritania, the dark secret perennially left out by media accounts on this story.

I'm going to translate substantial sections of the "Slave Hunters" documentary.

Part 1, establishing the background to the case, will be translated here; part 2, showing the confrontation at the master’s tent, will be translated here; and part 3, the rescue, translated here.

Freeing One Mauritanian Slave (2 of 4)

Translating the first of the three-part French documentary on slavery in Mauritania, and the efforts of one brother to free his sister from her forty year life as a chattel slave.

Part 1:


Chasseurs d'esclaves_1/3
Uploaded by tchelsoo

Part 1 of "Chasseurs D'Esclaves", "Slave Hunters":

The opening credits explain that this is one of two documentaries on the taboos of slavery.

At 0:30, the narrator welcomes us from Dakar, Senegal, and we join him in a visit to Gorée Island, former minor transhipment point for the West African slave trade.

1:00: "When we think of slavery, there are images that impose themselves upon us. Goree, here, and its 'house of slaves'. ..."

1:40: "Slavery is not just a scourge of yesteryear. It is also a scourge today. Slavery is not just about whites against blacks. It is also an affair of arabs against blacks. Of blacks against blacks. And even arabs against whites. It is a story totally removed from all of those that you have, that **we have**, been told until now..."

2:20: [a summary of the two documentaries shown as part of the double feature on "The Taboos of Slavery". The first is the one whose translation begins here, "Slave Hunters". The second, "Forgotten Slaves" (Esclaves Oubliees), chronicles the arab slave trade. You can see that one, in French, here: part 1, part 2, part 3.]

3:00: "Slavery, a topical story, not yesterday's news. The proof: If we continued the boat trip a few kilometers more north, we'd arrive in Mauritania, the Mauritania that abolished slavery in 1981, the Mauritania where slavery persists, nevertheless."

4:00: Nouakchott, Mauritania's capital city. Bilal, an escaped slave, visits Biram, an anti-slavery activist.

Bilal: "If I've come to see you, it's because my sister is still back there. She remains a slave. She fetches the water from the well, she takes care of the herd, she does the cooking, she gets no rest. She has two daughters; one is paralyzed. Guess who their father is. Her master. A man who will never acknowledge his children. If you should see her, you would see how she suffers."

5:04: With a haunted look in his eyes, the brother says: "Listen to me: I could never be happy, if I failed to free my sister from her slavery."

6:20: We meet Aminitou, the other participant who will join the "abolitionist caravan". They are both members of SOS Esclaves, an association of 150 members who have waged a ten-year struggle against slavery in Mauritania.

6:51: Biram: "We must end the crime of slavery here. To put a stop to the existence of slavery. Separate the slaves from their masters; this must be the first phase. The second phase, we must find a way to put the criminal slave owners in prison."

7:14: Narrator: "Officially, these activists are sustained by the Mauritanian government. They are even mandated by the state's national commission on human rights. But in the field, it's another matter." Shortly after they drive out of the city, they hit the desert.

8:03: Aminitou: "There is an enormous amount of slavery in this [bush country]. Look at all these camps, there are only slaves here... because their masters, during these hot periods, the masters leave them to go to the city, they leave the slaves to watch over the place."

8:24: The rescue team arrive at a tent city serving as a refugee camp for runaway slaves. The de facto leader of the squalid camp, a former slave himself, says that their only hope for freedom was to flee their masters...which is what he decided to do, along with another one hundred slaves, over a year ago. "We are poor... but it is better to be poor, than a dependant. To be free is to be alive, and that is above any price."

10:25: Narrator: "How did these men live, when they were slaves? Chained, with iron balls attached to their legs? No. They were condemned to toil at all the hard chores, under the hot sun, in their master's place. A domestic slavery, a tradional practice in Mauritania, so traditional that it is extremely difficult to eradicate it."

11:15: The team is arrested by suspicious guards at a security checkpoint. Biram says: "They want to know if we're terrorists. Here, terrorists are militants for human rights."

12:30: During the drive to the police station, Aminitou reveals: "This shows the taboos that exist around this problem... Here, they don't want to hear about human rights."

12:59: Hidden cameras capture their interrogation by local officials: "What's this, this paper?" "An offical authorization from the National commission for human rights. A state organization." "What state?", asks the official. "The Mauritanian state!" replies the frustrated rescue team.

14:45: Later, when their status is confirmed, the police official persists in badgering the anti-slavery activists, about the presence of the documentary film crew. "We are both Mauritanian citizens, so let us resolve our problems between us. We should not draw the attention of strangers, on... on very specific realities."

15:12: Narrator: "Keeping quiet. Hiding slavery. ... Slavery still structures society. Here, men are born masters, especially the white Moors of arabic-Berber origin. Other men are born slaves, especially black Moors of negro-African origin. A millenial slavery, pre-islamic, and islamic.... a caste system that is hard to break."

[ Part 2, translated here. Part 3, translated here. ]

Freeing One Mauritanian Slave (3 of 4)

This continues my translation of a three-part French-language documentary on slavery in Mauritania. (Part 1 translated here, part 3 here.)

Part 2:

Chasseurs d'esclaves_2/3
Uploaded by tchelsoo

0:01: Narrator: "Slavery was abolished in Mauritania three times. In 1905, during French colonization, in 1960, as part of its Independance, and in 1980, under military power; but without real application. Now once again, with the recent democritization of the country, the public has re-engaged in eradicating slavery. In 2007, they promulgate a new law: 'whomsoever reduces another into slavery will be punished with imprisonment for 5 to 10 years'. But this was written, it is said, for the sake of the international community. For to criminalize slavery, first it must be recognized. This is not the case."

1:00: Narrator: "Nouakchott, the National Assembly. For the ruling class the word 'slavery' is taboo. Surprising? Not really. The body is essentially composed of former masters.

1:15: Politician #1: "I don't think there are any slaves in Mauritania, no slavery. There are after-effects of slavery."

1:23: Reporter (off-camera): "Does slavery still exist, or not?"

Politician #2: "No, slavery does not exist..."

Reporter: "Yet, you make laws criminalizing slavery?"

Politician #2: "Yes, for those who would be tempted to fall back on old reflexes."

1:41: Politican #3: "This law was demanded by national considerations. This is a demand that some have made, I don't know why, but it was done and it was accepted, to silence their tongues. To shut up those who wish harm on Mauritania. In Mauritania there are no slaves. I defy anyone to prove to me one single case in Mauritania."

2:11: [Paraphrasing the narrator] The caravan halt for the night in an encampment. Here, out in the countryside, far from the capital, their mission is of no interest to anyone. They make light of it. Here, masters have full power over their slaves, especially the power to free them. All it takes is a enfranchisement document; one is brought to the rescue team. [3:07]

3:14: Amanitou: "This is her master's decision to give her her liberty. It's dated August 12 2000." Biram: "It is a personal paper from the master. Without any administrative witness." Aminitou: "It is the master that certifies, in his own handwriting, that he frees his slave at this date." Biram (to the former slave): "But you know that slavery has been abolished. Why do you need this paper?" Former slave: "People have told me that the law was not valid, that only my master's certificate was valid." Biram: "For you, this is a legal document?" [4:01] Former slave: "Yes, it is islamic law."

4:10: Biram: "Here, everyone sees slavery as a dogma of islamic religion. It is part of a quasi-religious submission to a master. There are slaves that say they cannot disobey their masters because if they do they will go to hell. God will punish them. They believe that in disobeying their master they are disobeying God. ... Islam is not pro-slavery, but islam is also not particularly anti-slavery. Islam does not de-legitimize slavery..."

5:00: [Paraphrasing narration] The caravan arrives at Mederdra, to see the prefect of police and obtain his authorization to rescue Bilal's sister.

5:31: A hidden camera records Biram's charges that local authorities are conniving with the master to block attempts at removing the sister. The police say they saw nothing suspicious: "who's to say that this is a case of slavery?" "Whoever says it's not a case of slavery is someone who did not want to make an honest inquiry. And is waiting to hear complaints that will never come, because of how common the crime of slavery is. The keeper of public law and order must initiate an inquiry himself, because he defends society, it is not about waiting for a person to arrive with a complaint." There are new charges that the master gives sheep as bribes to the authorities, to appease them, which is why he's not worried about the police. Eventually the prefect gives his word to resolve the matter.

8:21: Back on the road, and the rescue team arrives, finally, at the master's camp. They are now accompanied by the police officer. "Will he, this time, apply the law?", asks the narrator. The brother, Bilal, is sent to find where his sister might be. The others look around, asking for the master by name. They eventually drifting towards a shephard boy, who gives them general directions. "Has his slave come here today?", Biram asks him. "No, I haven't seen her", he replies.

10:41: Biram turns to the police official: "Commander, you see that there is a slave here!" The officer mumbles "Yes, yes, we will see", in reply, which causes Biram to laugh in spite of himself.

11:41: They find the tent they were looking for. The brother spots his sister inside the tent. From here on the police officer is decidedly uncomfortable, and tries to stall. The anti-slavery activists proceed on their mission, while he fidgets with his paperwork. "I'm not forcing anyone to leave", he says to them.

13:12: His sister makes her appearance. "I don't want to leave", she says over and over. "You're not a slave?" "No!" There's a very heated exchange between her and brother. The police officer intercedes, trying to calm everyone down. "If you're a slave you must go."

13:47: The sister: "I'm not a slave! I'm not a slave! I am free! I am a slave of allah! I am not leaving! The day has not yet arrived when I will leave with you!"

[Continued, and concluded, in part 3, here]

Freeing One Mauritanian Slave (4 of 4)

This concludes the three-part translation of the French documentary "Slave Hunters", on modern-day slavery in Mauritania. For the two preceding chapters, see part 1 here, and part 2 here.

Part 3:


Chasseurs d'esclaves_3/3
Uploaded by tchelsoo

0:01: The rescue team is trying to convince Bilal's enslaved sister that she is free to leave. The sister refuses: "Mr police officer I wish to press charges against my brother."

The brother is yelling now: "You are a slave!"

The sister answers, "Bring me witnesses."

"Since when is there a need for witnesses to prove servitude?"

0:43: The police officer takes charge. "Listen: slavery has been declared illegal. Every one is free. They want you to flourish, to have your own home, your own family. If you are in need of something, you can even call on the state to help."

1:09: The rescue team are frustrated. "She is indoctrinated. She's been worked over mentally. How do you expect her to come? She's scared. When she sees police for the first time, she's scared of them. It's perfectly normal..." Aminitou tries to get the sister into the car, to talk. She keeps protesting that she's already free, that she's not a slave.

2:24: Aminitou: "I'm here to see you as a sister, I have nothing to gain. I'm a woman like you. I am part of the community."

2:43: Brother Bilal goes to fetch his sister's two children from the tent.

3:00: Her master's wife shows up, asking about their slave. "She's not coming back. Talk to the prefect if you want to know more."

3:32: The sister is in the car, but furious. "You're saying that this woman is my mistress, but that's false." Biram confronts the mistress: "Tell her goodbye and get out of here."

4:12: The reporter is indignant with the police officer, she demands to know why he doesn't arrest the slave's mistress as a criminal. He stammers out excuses. Aminitou the anti-slavery activist is sanguine about it all: "Our problem was to free the person. The rest is the work of the administrators. ... It's their job. If they don't do it, then we'll talk to them." The sister is hysterical with emotion as the caravan drives off the master's encampment, back to the city.

5:05: Biram reflects on what just happened. "It was practically a kidnapping. Thankfully, a legal kidnapping. For a good cause. But justice does not work. Not a single slavery case has ever been followed up. Zero arrests. ..."

6:00: An interview with a former slave owner, who saw reason and freed his one slave. [I'll skip this story-within-a-story for now, and translate it later, maybe as a separate post, or as an addendum in the comments section.]

13:03: The caravan is now in Nouakchott, in Biram's home. Bilal's sister Habbi seems calmer now. The children are finally dressed, and they rest with their mother. "Do you feel free now?", the reporter asks Habbi, "Do you still feel like a slave?" Habbi shakes her head, no. "So, you were indeed a slave?" "Yes." "Why didn't you say so [back at the camp]?"

14:00: Habbi: "I was afraid of what might happen to me if I admitted that they were my masters."

Reporter: "So you're happy that [your brother] Bilal went to save you?"

Habbi: "Of course."

14:20: Her brother Bilal beams a smile that viewers who have made it this far won't soon forget.

Biram: "So, Bilal, are you happy now?"

Bilal: "Yes, really happy!"

Biram: "What are you feeling?"

Bilal: "Good. Now all I want is for her to find her place and feel good here."

Biram:"You're worried that she will return to her masters?"

Bilal: "Yes, it's true that I'm afraid that she will go back. She's stubborn. And psychologically, she's still in chains. Because of what she's been through, she's very fragile."

15:05: Biram: "Don't lose hope. Consider her in convalescence. She's sick, and so you will cure her. Be gentle with her. And guard her well."

15:25: Narrator: Habbi started a new life. Free. But she will not bring herself to bring charges against her masters. Liberty is a difficult apprenticeship. [Closing credits]

**********

One slave in Mauritania is now free... how many more remain, still in bondage? And what will become of them?

That's the question I have for General Mohamed ould Abdel Aziz, leader of the military coup in Mauritania.

More Delays In Ending Slavery In Mauritania?

The islamic republic of Mauritania is infamous for continuing to practice chattel slavery long after the rest of the world made itself see the light and abandon this evil practice.

Last year we blogged on the first free presidential election ever to take place in this beleaguered west African nation. There was hope in the air that anti-slavery candidate Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi's victory would lead, at long last, to an end to the country's cultural acceptance of slavery. For centuries white Moors have kept black slaves, generations being born into lives of bonded servitude, so that today, in our lifetime, there remain an estimated 600,000 human beings enslaved in Mauritania... approximately 20% of the country's entire population.

This morning comes news of a military coup in Mauritania. President Abdallahi is being held captive and the state-run radio and television stations have been silenced. The big question is: why?

Mauritania has been facing a political crisis and on Monday 48 MPs walked out on the ruling party less than two weeks after a vote of no confidence in the government prompted a cabinet reshuffle.
Renegade lawmakers criticised Abdallahi's exercise of "personal power", adding that he had "disappointed the hopes of Mauritanians," a spokesman for the group said on Monday.
The coup was apparently triggered when Abdallahi moved to replace generals accused of stirring up the political crisis. ...
Recently, [the Mauritanian Parliament] tried to call a special session of parliament to create a commission to investigate the country's response to the rising cost of living, and also the financing of a foundation run by the president's wife.

The last time Mauritania made the headlines, it was due to the slaughter of French tourists at the hands of an al-Qaeda affiliated islamist group. This brutal attack caused the cancellation of the 2008 Dakar rally, a race through the Sahara that brings much desperately-needed tourist trade through impoverished Mauritania.

Less well-publicized was the government's "snail-paced response" to the terrorist attack. This contributed to President Abdallahi's decision to appoint a new Prime Minister, Yahya Ould Ahmed El Waghef. But a new crisis erupted around the new government when the largest opposition party in Parliament claimed that "more than 90 percent of petroleum revenues are being spent without leading to any positive effect on the livelihood of Mauritanian citizens."

What will happen now to Mauritania's latest attempt at ending their deep-rooted tradition of slavery? How can there be such immense social change when the foundations of the nation remain as unstable as the shifting sand dunes so common to that region? How deep can their society's commitment be to ending bondage, when the Teacher whose advice they follow himself owned slaves?

In the interests, perhaps, of simplifying a complicated story, Mauritania's lingering chains to slavery seem left behind in today's news coverage of that nation's military coup. While regrettable, it's understandable that in the rush to spread breaking news the media accounts leave out the sad truth that there still exist mothers giving birth to new-born babes who are owned, like farm animals, by other human beings... that in at least one part of the world, the breath of new life continues to be imprisoned by old bonds forged from old ideas, reminding us of the bitter truth that some things just never change: news, like history, reveals that human existence tends to consist of misery shackled to cruelty.

The story also reminds us how revolutionary it is to be an optimist; to observe the common suffering and yet still choose to live in hope that each person may someday recognize the bonds that we share in common, still believing we may yet learn to look beyond the physical shells toiling our earth and finally see the possible souls resting within. For no matter how different we may be on the outside, there will always be some one thing we shall hold in common, on the inside, something so hard to imagine that we can spend our life learning to see it.

At least, that's what our Teacher tried to teach us to believe...

Melting slavery in Mauritania

"Truth and justice make their best way in the world when they appear in bold and simple majesty."

So spoke Elizabeth Heyrick, an English Quaker devoted to ending the evil of slavery in the early 19th century. Her anti-slavery views inspired the more famous American abolitionist, William Lloyd Garrison, to shift his own activism away from "gradualism", a search for a gradual elimination of slavery, towards "immediatism", the demand for immediate and full emancipation.
"I saw that there was nothing to stand upon, if it could be granted that slavery was, for a moment, right... no valid excuse can be given for the continuance of the evil a single hour."

His uncompromising stand against the continuance of slavery in the United States cost him some support, for there were many abolitionists who felt his goal of complete and sudden change would bring as many new problems as they solved. Any appeals to temper his absolutist position with “practicality” would always be countered with a demonstration of how intolerable it should be to allow slavery to exist in a Christian America built to advance and preserve individual freedom.

Garrison’s immediatism echoes this week within the Islamic republic of Mauritania, in north-west Africa.
I have blogged before on Mauritania’s continuing problem with slavery, and how their newly-elected president, Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, promised to see their nation finally confront this ever-present evil in their midst. This isn't kidnapping or trafficking we're talking about; this is chattel slavery, human beings born as slaves, living as property.

This week Mauritania has passed a law promising jail time for slave-holders, “…calling for prison sentences of up to 10 years for people keeping slaves, along with fines for slave-holders and reparations for those who have been enslaved."

What’s particularly noteworthy is the scope of the law’s attacks on slavery:

…
“In an attempt to change cultural norms, the new law also makes any "cultural or artistic work defending slavery" punishable by two years in prison, and makes it an offense for governmental authorities not to pursue slave-holders.
The law will make invoking common proverbs — such as "One should not buy the slave without the stick" — a punishable offense, said Sidi Mohamed Ould Maham, president of the legislature's justice commission.
"This law is going to cause problems for people who are used to talking with impunity, who hold close our people's ancient oral traditions," said Abdou Ould Sidi….”
…

In Garrison’s time, his immediatism tended to scare away potential allies because it didn’t seem to offer long-term solutions for the slaves themselves, just short-term relief. After all, what would happen the day after emancipation..?

We see these historical concerns echoed this week as well:

"There are slaves who hold onto being slaves because they have no way of changing their situation," said Messaoud Ould Boulkheir, a lawyer and human rights activist in Nouakchott.
"It's essentially an economic problem," he said. "I'm am completely against these people remaining slaves, but you can't sanction and criminalize slavery without creating projects to help the poor of this country."

Like the abolitionists of the 19th century, today’s good people ultimately search for the lesser of evils. Befitting humanity’s fallibility, it is a search plagued with stumbles and maddening uncertainties. In trying to do good, do we instead bring injury, and greater misery, rather than progress? Are there cases where stability, inactivity, and toleration of the status quo, are themselves the lesser of evils? Any honest attempt at progress measures both sides before taking action.

Slavery is wrong, such a stain on human dignity, all the more when considered that it can somehow exist **today**, alongside all the freedom and individual liberty that we take so for granted in our daily lives, that for me I can only share Garrison’s, and Mauritania's, immediatism, and applaud what I consider to be rare good news in the world today. In solving one problem, the scourge that is slavery, no doubt other problems will rise in its wake; as a comparatively small point, is it necessary to punish someone for using a proverb..?

Then I am reminded of a conversation William Lloyd Garrison once had with an anti-slavery colleague. His friend tried to convince Garrison to soften his fiery rhetoric, and to moderate his all-or-nothing stand. Garrison looked his friend square in the eye, and replied:

“I have need to be all on fire, for I have mountains of ice about me to melt.”

Breaking the chains of slavery in Mauritania?

Talk about a coincidence: I blog about slavery in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania only to discover that on this very same day they are having their first free political election:

...
Voting passed off peacefully in Mauritania on Sunday in the second round of the country's first democratic presidential election since independence from France in 1960.
Some 1.1 million people were eligible to vote in the final stage in Mauritania's gradual return to civilian rule after the military ousted long-time dictator Maaouiya Ould Taya in August 2005.
The runoff pits former minister Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi against longtime opposition politician Ahmed Ould Daddah, a former finance minister and half-brother of post-independence leader Moktar Ould Daddah.
Both are former political prisoners and exiles in a mostly desert country bordering Mali, Algeria, Senegal and Western Sahara twice the size of France but with just 3.1 million inhabitants.
…
Daddah, 65, who was an ardent critic of ousted dictator Taya, is supported by an array of groups including a first-round candidate representing past slaves.
...
Abdallahi, a fair-skinned Moor, has pledged to attend to grievances of ex-slaves and has received the support of a candidate representing former slaves who finished fourth in the first round. ...

Surprisingly, Mauritania is one of the three nations in the Arab League to maintain diplomatic relations with Israel! At least, for the time being...:

Both candidates have said they will review the country's diplomatic ties with Israel - a rare relationship in the Arab world which many Mauritanians say should be ended.

What remains unclear are the priorities of the Mauritanian electorate: severing ties with Israel, or severing the Mauritanian tradition of slavery:

...
In the West African country of Mauritania, chattel slavery has existed for centuries, and thrives today. Black African tribes have served as the inherited property of Arabo-Berber masters for generations.
According to the rules of this ancient institution, even children of slaves are the master's property. As one Mauritanian slave told an investigator, "My belly belongs to my master."
Another remarked: "God created me to be a slave, just as he created the camel to be a camel."

The first step towards abolishing slavery once and for all in the islamic Republic of Mauritania is to figure out just how big a problem it is in the first place... no, make that first acknowledge that it even is a problem:

… A shocking anomaly in the 21st century, [slavery] is widely accepted in a racially diverse, hierarchical society dominated by a Moorish elite and a brand of Islam that preaches submission.
"It's like having sheep or goats. If a woman is a slave, her descendants are slaves," said Boubacar Messaoud, who was born a slave and is now his country's leading anti-slavery campaigner.
...
Mauritania's military rulers, who are handing over to civilian rule in democratic elections, shy away from discussing the issue and prefer to talk of "vestiges of slavery."
Some members of the light-skinned elite which has traditionally ruled the country deny slavery exists at all. Questions about it can draw anger, mistrust and silence.
But anti-slavery campaigners say the master-slave relationship and its social repercussions are branded into the minds of all Mauritanians, just as class-consciousness still haunts social discourse in Britain and other European states.
...
Anti-slavery groups, such as SOS-Slaves run by Messaoud, say the fear and secrecy cloaking the issue make it difficult to bring cases of slavery to light, let alone to court.
...
Anti-slavery activists say it is impossible to tell how many people remain enslaved in Mauritania ... whose 3 million population mixes white and black Moors and black Mauritanians of several ethnic groups.
Diplomats in Nouakchott say the outgoing junta declined an offer from the European Union to fund an investigative study.
"It's probably fairly widespread. In the houses of the Moors, you see young black boys serving tea. I don't know what their work contracts are but I would not like to have theirs," said one diplomat, who asked not to be named.
...
He said Mauritania's new president, to be elected in a March 25 run-off between two white Moor frontrunners, would have to tackle slavery and enduring social and racial inequality: "It's at the heart of this country's imbalances."
Historians say slavery developed in Mauritania from the 7th century, when Arab invaders pushed south into Sub-Saharan Africa, bringing their Islamic religion which explicitly allowed the enslavement of non-believers.
This blossomed into a Trans-Saharan Slave Trade that captured black Africans several centuries before the peak of the European-run Atlantic Slave Trade.
...
This religious sanctioning of slavery -- and the establishment of Arabicised Berber ruling castes whose wealth was partially based on it -- has marked Mauritanian society.
"There is a racial policy here ... It's the politics of domination," said Boulkheir, adding that Islamic law and succession rights guaranteed the perpetuation of slavery, passing on ownership from master to son.
...

[Monday update: Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi won the presidential election, with nearly 53% of the vote]

Putting the brake on slavery

Canadian Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a statement today on the bicentenary of the abolition of the african slave trade:

Today we mark an historic victory in the struggle for freedom and human dignity: the abolition of the African slave trade throughout the British Empire."
On March 25, 1807, King George III proclaimed into law the Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, the culmination of a decades long campaign by courageous abolitionists, led by the great parliamentarian William Wilberforce. With this the full might of the British Empire was directed to ending the barbaric practice of the African slave trade, that saw millions uprooted from their homes and families, transported in deplorable and often deadly conditions, then sold into a life of bondage in the Americas.
On this day we should also recall the important role that Canadians played in the struggle against slavery, most notably the leadership of Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe who persuaded the Legislature of Upper Canada to adopt the first meaningful restrictions on slavery within the British Empire in 1793; and those who made Canada the North Star of the Underground Railroad for thousands of escaped slaves.
While we must always be vigilant in combating the vestiges of racial discrimination,
Canadians can take great pride that we have built a society of hope and equality of opportunity. Let us dedicate ourselves to continuing this work by combating contemporary forms of slavery, such as human trafficking.”

It's fitting that Prime Minister Harper ends his statement on this note, because it connects our duties today to the commitments of our predecessors. Western Civilization, enlightened and emboldened by Judeo-Christian principles of liberty, took the unprecedented step to listen to its conscience and abolish the vile practice of slavery. Canada can be proud of our particular contribution to that ennobling act: the forementioned Lt Governor Simcoe's Act Against Slavery was passed in 1793, long before slavery was officially abolished throughout the British Empire in 1833.

Progress requires truth, and truth requires honesty: it is an inescapable fact that the very Book of Instructions that was used as the authority to end slavery in the West, was for too long also enlisted to justify it. That shame was one of the motivating factors that pushed abolitionists to fight all the harder for redemption. Much of the West's progress has come from the incremental revelation of our fallibility, and our determination to progress beyond the shadow of our mistakes.
Our culture's abolition of slavery teaches the immortal lesson that just because something has always been so, is not the reason for it to remain so. Finding the proper balance between respecting tradition and valuing innovation has frustrated humanity's drive for progress, just as learning to drive a car involves a mysterious combination of alternating between the brake and the gas pedal. We're not always right when we guess when to go forward and when to stay in place; where we redeem ourselves, where we raise ourselves above animals and show our civility as human beings, is in the recognition that somehow there is a "forward" to get to. We are not frozen in time and place, as animals seem to be; lions are not soon to become vegetarian, after all, nor are cows prone to turn into man-eaters. As we navigate through this dance called human experience, it demands of us a combination of tradition and innovation, not just one or the other. We, as humans, are capable of change, and the more we value living up to our true potential, the more we should search for what this balance must be, from generation to generation, civilizing ourselves a step at a time along the journey.

Slavery must be one of the greatest of evils that has cursed our existence, and like all evil it comes from a lie: it carries within it the inherent denial of a fellow invidual's humanity. Slavery breaks the covenant that must exist between us, that despite differences in the physical shell we see on the outside, we should still strive to believe that there exists something within the shell, something without physical form or substance, that unites us together as participants in a shared experience. To practice slavery means to deny one person's existence as a human being, composed of a body and a soul, a life lived in the physical world and a life simultaneously experienced in, shall we say, a spiritial side. "Ownership" belongs in the world of the physical; how can one soul "own" another?

As civilized beings, dare I say as a very test of that civility, we must challenge ourselves to ask whether our revulsion towards slavery remains matched with ongoing committed action against it. For slavery is ongoing: slavery still exists, untold millions of our fellow human beings still suffer under its evil shadow... especially in Africa.

The William Wilbeforces and William Lloyd Garrisons of our modern age need more than courage and devotion, they also need honesty; honesty in admitting Where slavery exists, and Who lets this barbaric, uncivilized practice continue. It goes without saying that we need to grow more intolerant of the atheist pimps and the amoral scum who pleasure themselves in sex slave brothels... but we also need to summon the honesty to tackle all forms of slavery, everywhere, no matter how it might upset the multiculturalist left, determined as they are to freeze everyone into their current physical place... seeing human beings as they do, as mere animals, denying too many their access to the modernizing gas pedal that will drive them out of their medieval bondage, allowing their souls to taste the same life experiences that liberty brings to those of us in the modern West.

One example, from a December Reuters article:

...
Although banned by law in 1980, slavery in Mauritania has persisted, perpetuated by poverty and rigid customs. Authorities long denied its existence but campaigners estimate there are still hundreds of thousands of slaves among the 3 million population -- the highest ratio in the world. Chattel slavery, where one person is the property of another, has existed in the impoverished West African country for more than 800 years, since Arab-Berber raiders swept across the Sahara to subjugate black African tribes.

Traditionally, members of the haratin slave caste must marry who their masters say and can be given as gifts, bought and sold, or presented to the poor as charity.

Children are often separated from their mothers and sent to work in other homes. Girls frequently suffer sexual abuse.

"Westerners think of slaves as people in chains," said Boubacar Messaoud, head of SOS-Slave. "Slaves here have no need to be chained up because they are educated in submission ... They are chained in their heads."

Just as Christianity was once used to justify the trans-Atlantic slave trade, rights workers say many Muslim teachers, or marabouts, in Mauritania preach subservience.

"Paradise under your master's foot" is a Mauritanian saying.