Unshackling the mind of a slave owner

By Talia Whyte
Special to Global Wire

Many international human rights organizations in recent years have made efforts to bring light to the problem of global modern-day slavery.

It is estimated that there are 27 million slaves worldwide. Every once in a while one hears or reads about the plight of a former slave who lived to tell their story. But rarely do ever hear the point of view of a former slave owner.

Students at Boston University Medical School in the South End were able to talk to Abdul Nasser Ould Yessa, a former slave owner-turned-activist, at a forum hosted by the American Anti-Slavery Group on Nov. 17. This was part of Yessa’s week-long tour of the United States sponsored by the organization.

Yessa grew up in a privileged Berber family in the small West African nation of Mauritania. Mauritania is located at the fault line of the Berber-dominated Magrehb and black Sub Saharan Africa. Like the white population in South Africa at one time, Berbers are a minority in Mauritania but dominated the political and economic landscape. The vast majority of blacks in the country are either slaves or free persons who are heavily discriminated against by the Berbers. Mauritania was a French colony up until 1960. Yessa’s father, Ethman Sid Admed Yessa, was the country’s first post-colonial attorney general. The family grew up with a large number of slaves who would do duties many consider degrading. Mauritania is one of the few countries in the world where chattel slavery is still practiced.

“Slavery is a domestic institution in Mauritania,” Yessa said. “The slave’s job is to get water and watch the flocks. When it is hot it is their job to entertain the master. The slaves not only massage feet, they would search their master’s hair for lice. Their lives were conditioned to serve their master.”

There have been slave revolts in the past against poor treatment by slave owners. Many slaves have tried to run away from their situation, but end up coming back because they don’t know how to take care of themselves on their own. Vice versa, the slave master also cannot live without their slaves. Yessa says that the slave/master relationship is almost a ‘psychological malady’ because one doesn’t know how to live without the other. He also says that there is a ‘key nexus between Islam and slavery’ because slaves are convinced that if they don’t stay in their position, they will not be rewarded in heaven.

Yessa’s world view changed at the age of sixteen when he was exposed to Rousseau’s Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, a product of the French Revolution. “All my beliefs fell apart,” he said. “I began to see that what was happening in my country was not normal.”

Yessa admits that at first he noticed a lot of hypocrisy with his newly-found beliefs and his living situation. He remembers a time when he was reading The Diary of Anne Frank and discussing revolution and freedom in his living room with his friends while a slave was serving them tea. But when Yessa moved to Paris to study at university, he was put into a real situation where he had to overcome his own psychological malady.

“When I arrived at the Paris airport I had to carry my own luggage,” he said. “I was expecting a slave to pick them up for me. I had to call home to tell my family about it. I didn’t know how to wash my socks. I would throw them out when they got dirty and buy new ones. I would cook omelets with both the egg and its shells. I didn’t even know how to pick up girls for dates because slaves were supposed to do that for me. The first obstacle I faced was to overcome that mentality.”

Today Yessa is proud to say that he is a better cook, he cleans and picks up his own women. He now lives in exile in Paris where he heads the international efforts of SOS Slaves, an organization he founded in 1995 that advocates freedom for all Mauritanians. The group has been banned by the Mauritanian government and group members are constantly followed by the secret police. During his U.S. tour he has met with Congressman Chris Smith of New Jersey and Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas as well as several think tanks and anti-trafficking groups to discuss the possibility of change through implementations in policy worldwide, but especially in Mauritania.

Yessa is particularly speaking at universities to address young people about current public health concerns among slaves in his country. The HIV rate is growing rapidly in the slave community because a slave producing as many children as possible is seen at a ‘gift’ to the slave owner. When a slave gets sick, the slave owner doesn’t provide treatment either because of the high cost of medications or simply lack of interest. There is also a high rate of blindness due to slaves not being allowed to wear facial shields during sandstorms.

“I think young activists can understand my journey, maybe even better than adults,” he said. “They can understand how I came to realize that there was something wrong that needed to be changed. And the main force that can change and move society is youth.”

As for Yessa’s relationship with his family, he says that he keeps his distance from them. His family still owns slaves. He says that they can’t understand why he would think slavery is wrong. But he hopes they will change their minds one day.

“It is very difficult for parents to admit that their children are right,” he said.