Enduring Slavery
In pre-biblical times, within biblical times and thenceforth evermore slavery as a fact of life which benefited a few to the horrible detriment of many has existed as a measure of the little regard humankind has for one another. Human tragedies the world inflicts on itself through the pursuit of enabling some to achieve great potential wealth through the enslaving of segments of a population unable to fend for themselves as free human beings. War and slavery remain the two indelible black marks against mankind as the flower of free will.In ancient times religion sanctioned slavery as a recognized social condition of material progress. Prohibitions came slowly as mankind become ever more civilized, rational and emancipated from the belief that the strong had the right to take over the lives of the weak. But it certainly took a long, long time. Slavery still exists in its original forms, in its original cradles of existence, from bonded-labour, to child and female sexual slavery, to the kidnapping of young people for the purpose of using them as fodder to wage war.
In Europe, the slave trade which took its victims by long sea voyages to other continents began in the 16th century and flourished there for the next three centuries. Arab traders, long accustomed to acquiring black slaves in Africa, along with the warring African tribes who themselves acquired slaves as war tributes proved themselves adept at this new kind of trade. Fully ten percent of slaves being conveyed to their new places of slavery died en route. The condition of slavery was a continuum from birth to marriage to birth to death.
In Upper Canada the slave trade was abolished in 1793 through an anti-slavery bill supported by Lt.Governor John Graves Simcoe. That same bill established gradual emancipation for the children of existing slaves. In Britain the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act received royal assent in 1807, ending the slave trade across the British Empire, although slavery itself was not abolished by the British Parliament until 1833, preparing the way for the abolition of slavery in every colony of the British Empire.
It is entirely possible that the deep psychosis wounding the black slaves and their descendants has still not been healed over the course of history that brings us to the present day, two and a half centuries later. A peoples' stinging memories handed down from generation to generation of the haunting tenuousness of their lives, their living agony as those whose lives were completely at the command of those owning their bodies and souls may never be healed. The stark injustice of one segment of a population completely at the mercy of others who considered them less human, eminently disposable, and theirs to task until death is not easily erased.
In the world of today we wonder how our ancestors could have taken the stance that a life is but a commodity, to be purchased, owned and worked to their advantage. The belief that slaves owned no emotions resembling those of 'real' people such as those who owned slaves, enabled slave-owners to disregard the needs of their dependent-slaves, to overlook their suffering much as they would those of ill-used farm animals. While we wonder now how civilized society could have lent itself so blithely to the misuse of other human beings we seem not to understand that the condition of slavery continues.
It's estimated that world wide there are 27-million people living in slavery; women as sex-slaves linked to organized crime; bonded-labour slavery where low-caste indigenous people are worked with little recompense and no freedom, in perpetuity. Domestic-labour slavery through a female migration from South Asia, and child-soldier slavery in Uganda and Sri Lanka are among the sources. Niger, Mali, Mauritania and Sudan have a very active slave workforce where thousands upon thousands are worked without pay, little food or water.
Slavery is condemned world wide, and as a result the countries in which it remains a common condition may have legally outlawed its practise, but it continues regardless. It's our enduring shame.
Labels: World Crises
posted by Pieface @ Sunday, March 25, 2007
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