Thursday, September 13, 2007

Modern Slavery

There are more slaves today than there have been in any other time in history. According to the "Not For Sale Campaign," there are over 27 million slaves today. There's a documentary called Trade coming out at the end of the month that I'm sure would be extremely difficult to watch, but would raise awareness to this hidden sin.

This is a biblical heart-of-God issue, as William Wilberforce said:
"The fatal habit of considering Christian morals as distinct from Christian doctrines insensibly gained strength. Thus the peculiar doctrines of Christianity went more and more out of sight, and as might naturally have been expected, the moral system itself also began to wither and decay, being robbed of that which should have supplied it with life and nutriment."

The moral system should be supplied by the motive of doing all things for the glory of God

4 comments:

William said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
William said...

I just watched a great movie dealing with slave trade called Cobra Verde. It was directed by one of my favorite directors Werner Herzog (of Grizzly Man and Rescue Dawn fame).

I had a friend tell me that he thought the film came across as pro-slavery. However, after watching it I realized that Herzog intentionally placed the issue in the historical context of its time.

It did bother me that the character non-nonchalantly picked out which 10 year-old slave they would sleep with that night. And the movie didn't bother to "avenge" the injustice done to the slaves in any way. But guess what? That was history and that was the tragedy of the slave trade. Millions of crimes against humanity were done and the criminals went unpunished (at least in this world).

So I think the film seems pro-slavery only because it isn't staunchly anti-slavery like every Hollywood movie that has been made in the past 30 years.

ALL that said... Watch Cobra Verde. It is Klaus Kinski's last great role and one of my favorites of Herzog's.

wes mcmurray said...

Cobra Verde it is...I've learned to value your taste in film (i.e. Powaqattsi...)

Kevin Bales said...

Hi Wes,
Dave Batsone got his 27 million figure from my book Disposable People. This is a very dark problem, but I want everyone to know that there is hope. There are now laws against slavery in every country and an almost universal moral agreement that slavery must end. We've just completed a 25 year plan for the global eradication of slavery - it is being published this month. You can see a short video (4 minutes) about it and see what Desmond Tutu had to say about it here: http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/11041.html.

To learn more about modern slavery and how we will bring it to an end visit:
www.freetheslaves.net.
Warm wishes,
Kevin Bales