Slavery Still Scars Our World

When is the last time that you had an informal discussion with your friends about slavery? Chances are, if you had such a conversation recently, you were either discussing slavery as a historical topic or as a philosophical construct. If you were discussing slavery in the context of current events, your conversation may have been about the issue of reparations. However, like the majority of Harvard students—and of Americans—you were probably unaware that slavery itself is not simply an institution of the past, but a current practice that continues to oppress tens of millions of people worldwide.

Modern slavery afflicts people of all races, on every populated continent. For now, let’s consider the case of Africa. In the Sudan, Arab troops from the North (which is controlled by a Taliban-like Islamic government) carry out slave raids in the ethnically black South, destroying villages, killing thousands of men, and kidnapping their women and children. Victims are forced to march north for days with little food. Any resistance is met with brutal physical punishment or death. Once the newly-enslaved blacks arrive in the North, they are forced to convert to Islam and set to work. Boys are made to tend animals while women and girls are used as domestic workers and concubines. Slaves who fail to perform their tasks to their masters’ satisfaction are often beaten or mutilated, many having their fingers chopped off one at a time.

The situation in the Sudan is not unique. For instance, in another African country, Mauritania, blacks are born into slave-holding Arab families and treated as non-human property to be bought, sold, traded or inherited.

Yet although slavery is well-documented in both of these countries, the vast majority of US citizens are ignorant of this problem. American children learn of slavery only in history class, where they are taught that slavery was abolished in 1865. There is very little media coverage dealing with the atrocities occurring in the Sudan and Mauritania, or with the many other forms of slavery that take place all over the globe. Due to this lack of information there is a lack of desire among Americans to fight against slavery in the modern world.

Now is the time for us to change that. This February, as we celebrate Black History Month, we should devote time not just to learning about and honoring blacks of the past, but to supporting blacks who carry on the struggle against slavery today. You are probably familiar with Frederick Douglass, an abolitionist of the 1800s, but how much do you know about some other former slaves who speak out as abolitionists in Massachusetts right now—people such as Francis Bok of the Sudan and Ahmeimidi Khaliva of Mauritania? I’m guessing that both names are new to you, so why not take a few minutes to learn their stories.

The better informed we become about slavery, the better we will be able to fight it. President Bush recently signed into law the Sudan Peace Act, allotting millions of dollars to the Sudan in order to support reconciliation between the peoples of the North and South. This law is a great step forward in the fight against Sudanese slavery, but in order for the law to translate into real-world actions, we should urge our elected officials to support the immediate and effective implementation of this act.

But the simplest and most important way that we should all show our opposition to slavery is by making this issue a matter of public discourse. Harvard students have a history of fostering dialogue on issues of social justice—we need only recall the galvanization of the Harvard community during the Living Wage Campaign of two years ago, or more recent demonstrations about the possible war with Iraq, to be reassured that Harvard students are not apathetic to societal debates. The first step towards progress is dialogue, so let’s start talking about slavery—in the present tense instead of the past.

Slavery is an injustice that concerns all people; we cannot sit silently by while tens of millions of our fellow human beings live in conditions of starvation, psychological trauma and unimaginable violence. Let us take some time out of our busy Harvard schedules to raise campus awareness of this issue. Then, as we reflect this month on the progress that has been made in the struggle for racial equality for all peoples, we can honor the memory of earlier abolitionists by carrying on their work right here, right now.

Stephanie E. Brewer ’04 is a psychology concentrator in Lowell House. She is the co-president of Harvard Students Against Slavery.