Messaoud Ould Boulkheir

Messaoud Ould Boulkheir (مسعود ولد بو الخير, born 1943; Fara El Kitane فرع الكتان) is a political figure from Mauritania and a leader in the Haratine community.

Messaoud Ould Boulkheir was born in 1943; the date is unclear because at that time the birth registration service was unknown.

Like most Haratine at that time, his family subsisted on agriculture, including cattle farming and picking fruit, while his father also hunted.

Messaoud's mother had taken care of the family until the older sister of her master got married by the Chief of the Ahel Taleb Community.

Messaoud's mother thought that the queen of the community would help her.

In contrast to what she thought, the queen of the community was jealous of her and was helping her cousins who ignored her when her family was in a difficult situation.

One night, the queen of the community sent her cousin to the Messaoud Ould Boulkheir family tent to destroy it and to beat her mother.

The queen's cousins had burned the Messaoud Ould Boulkheir tent, destroying everything, took her jewelries and beat Messaoud's mother until thinking that she was dead.

They left the place with a lot of blood and fire.

After surviving this event, Messaoud's mother went directly with her dress covered with blood, to the French colonial administration in Nema to complain.

Generally, the colonial administration does not take any part of the problems of the slaves with their masters.

After the colonial administrator saw her covered with blood and harmed, they decided to help her.

The colonial administration asked for the restitution and reimbursement of all of the things the master's had destroyed and taken and to freed Messaoud's mother and her family.

They suggested that Messaoud's mother to stay in the city of Nema to avoid this kind of attack.

But she refused because she wanted to live in her community and to be respected there.

The Messaoud family became one of the first Haratine family in Mauritania to become free and to live equally in the same community as their ancient masters the Beydhan.

Messaoud Ould Boulkheir started his primary school in 1950.

At that time every family was obligated to send one of their sons or daughters to school.

Messaoud was sent to a French school because the Ahel Taleb Ethmane family (the masters of the Messaoud family) did not want to send their children to school.

It was an obligation to send at least one child in each family.

The Ahel Taleb Ethmane family preferred to send one of their slave's sons who were Messaoud Ould Boulkheir.

Messaoud's mother complained and refused, but a woman of the city, who had been to French school, advised her that it was a good idea to send him to school.

Messaoud became the first of the Ahel Taleb Ethmane family to go to school.

Messaoud left the community to go to the city (Nema) to study; he was living with his community correspondent in Nema who a woman from another community who was unkind to him.

Messaoud's mother died in October 1953.

Messaoud Ould Boulkheir obtained his primary studies certificate in 1956.

He started his secondary studies in 1957 at the "College Xavier Coppolani" (Secondary school) in Rosso in the southwest of Mauritania.

Messaoud did not study there for a long time because with the freedom of the secondary school, he was missing many classes to profit of what he did not get in his primary school.

In 1958, he was a benevolent secretary of the "Cercle of Nema" (colonial administration).

He failed his first secondary year and in 1960 he was dismissed from the school.

Messaoud assumed his dismiss but he is sure that if he was a Beydhan, he would not have been dismissed.

At the same time that he was dismissed Messaoud lost his only older sister who was struck under their tent.

His older sister had been taking care of the family after the death of Messaoud's parents.

She left her two young daughters (three and one years old).

After these events, Messaoud was alone without anybody; he realized that his only solution was to fight for his right or to perish.

Messaoud is a former slave who wants to affront the Beydhan in the society; this was the most difficult thing for Messaoud.

Messaoud's favorite hobbies were to read and to listen to the radio.

After these events, Messaoud abandoned his Muslim faith until 1967 when he was 24 years old, and he resumed the practice of Islam.

Messaoud also contributed towards the end of the 1989 events in Mauritania, protecting the right of the victims and the emancipation of the Haratine in Mauritania with his party.

Boulkheir is President of the People's Progressive Alliance, and he was the President of the National Assembly of Mauritania from April 2007 to January 2014.