“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 |
3 Comments »“Who do you think buys the stones I bring out? Dreamy American girls who all want a storybook wedding and a big, shiny rock, like the ones in the advertisements of your politically-correct magazines.”So please don’t come here and make judgments on me, alright? I provide a service. The world wants what we have and they want it cheap. We’re in business together.”- Diamond smuggler Danny Archer
Blood Diamond tells the intersecting stories of three individuals caught up in the brutal civil war in Sierra Leone in 1999. Leonardo DiCaprio plays an ex-mercenary turned smuggler who will do anything to obtain a rare and priceless diamond. Djimon Hounsou plays a peaceful Mende fisherman whose world is ripped apart when rebel forces brutalize his village and force his young son to become a soldier. And Jennifer Connelly plays an American journalist determined to unmask the dark truth about the diamond trade.
Blood Diamond powerfully depicts the unbearable anguish of parents as their children are torn away, the fear and confusion of child soldiers terrorized into committing brutal acts and the frustration of a journalist begging an indifferent world to pay attention. The movie exposes how the violence and suffering of the civil war were fueled and funded by the illicit diamond trade. And it challenges privileged and comfortable Westerners to educate ourselves about the consequences of our economic choices.
03-30-2007 |
2 Comments »A nearly miraculous 6 month ceasefire between the Lord’s Resistance Army and the government of Uganda is set to expire Wednesday, February 28th (that is, today). This is enormously heartbreaking, as it means that a situation has been *so* bad for so long for so many children, and which looked to be getting better, may now be getting worse again.
If I think about this too much, I start crying.
Does god hate africa more than he hates the rest of us?
02-28-2007 |
16 Comments »