“The book of Ecclesiastes is one of the extraordinary pieces of ancient wisdom literature. The author beautifully expressed the desperation of the powerless: ‘I saw all the oppressions that are practiced under the sun. Look, the tears of the oppressed - with no one to comfort them! On the side of their oppressors there was power’ (Eccles. 4:1).“In our world today, 27 million individuals live as slaves. Frankly, power is on the side of the oppressors at the moment, but a wave of abolitionists is on the rise. They will wipe away the tears of the oppressed and deliver justice to the oppressors.”
To learn more about modern day slavery, I recently read David Batstone’s excellent new book Not for Sale: The Return of the Global Slave Trade - and How We Can Fight It. David Batstone is a professor of ethics and an award-winning journalist who traveled all over the world preparing to write this book. I found this well-researched and passionately written book to be both heartbreaking and inspiring.
In it Batstone gives both statistical and policy information, as well as first hand accounts. He outlines the massive scope of this global crisis; there are an estimated 27 million slaves in the world today, more than in the four centuries of the transatlantic slave trade combined. He explains the main types of modern slavery - sex trafficking/forced prostitution, bonded labor, and captive child soldiers. And he details actions that are being undertaken and need to be undertaken by governments and institutions to fight against this scourge.
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05-15-2007 |
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03-02-2007 |
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I wish I could remember all their names, my 20,000 ghosts. Beautiful African names! We used to call them with grunts—we were the apes! They were the humans.
Tears flow down John Newton’s face as he remembers the slaves that he was responsible for transporting from their home in Africa to the Americas. In an England of wealth and sophistication, elegance and good manners, the horror of slavery was not something people wanted to acknowledge.
A young Member of Parliament shouting passionately about the horrors of the experience of slaves is easy to write off—the first time, and the second time, and the third time. Amazing Grace excellently chronicles the constant failures of William Wilberforce and the Clapham Sect to make slavery illegal. The movie makes Wilberforce a very real character as we sit with him in his despair when he gives up. There is wonder in the final outcome of his attempts—the hand of God?
The powerful role of his wife Barbara in inspiring him to press on despite seemingly impossible obstacles and her determination and faith in her husband are brilliantly portrayed.
Our perspective more than 200 hence clarifies the issues surrounding slavery. “How can they have not seen?”, we wonder. Yet there are similar issues we do not see in our own society. What would William Wilberforce be campaigning about were he alive today?
03-02-2007 |
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