Slavery Still Exists? Freedom Still Exists?
Why do people ignore Slavery, when it exists? It could be mainly because slavery is not thrown in our face everyday. For me witnessing slavery first hand in my face changed my entire outlook on the world. Suburban America puts you in a bubble where you aren’t exposed deliberately to dire situations in the developing world. I do believe slavery exists in America also; it’s just not as explicit.
In developing countries slavery is everywhere; it’s so bad that it can’t be hidden.
Slavery
You go outside for a stroll in a Rickshaw, and slavery is right there watching you through a blind man’s half empty voiceful eyes—sadly, he was just begging for food, not money. The Rickshawallahs also suffer from a type of slavery. Most Rickshawallas are young men who moved from the rural areas to make money in the cities. Due to malnutrition and excessive driving of heavy loads of people…they suffer immensely and die within ten years. I also saw slavery in the markets outside: young boys running to carry your groceries home. You ask them how old they are, and they don’t even know. I can’t believe I come from such an ageless society. A world where my people, don’t even have records of their history…Isn’t that slavery? Jobless, uneducated, impoverished nations have the most slaves…
Slavery Business:
In Bangladesh Slavery is seen as a business. Much of the poor don’t have access to food, and shelter so they travel to middle class/upper middle class homes for some type of stability. 90% of these cases are women. It’s a very grim reality because they have to choose between working for food or prostitution. The men possess competitive advantage in this situation for they can seek work other areas due to their freedom. The slave/master relationship in this case is very unique. Being a silent observer and watching the relationships first hand, I learned that two emotions really exist in this world: fear and love. Begging is a business…I saw many of the beggars with broken limbs communicating with each other through body language indicating which person is giving more or less money. I also learned that the Beggars cut a percentage from their “pimps” who run the streets they should work on..
Forced Slavery: Poverty forces women to be sex slaves. The parents usually are tricked into giving their daughters away, for they think they are giving their children a better life. The Cyclon SIDR for instance took the homes of many people, leaving room for many traffickers to come in and take women…
Slavery is different today. According to Kevin Bales (an extraordinary author on Slavery) two shifts have occurred. Today the price of human beings have collapsed, which has caused people to become disposable. We live in a world of 32 billion disposable people. Freedom can benefit an economy. We can work bottom up or town down.
Kevin broke it down simply. Freedom in a poor family in India would mean just $130.00. Freedom for a poor boy in Ghana would only take $400.00…If we calculate a grand total, it would cost 10.8 Billion (Which is what American’s spend on organic food per year) The return in investment would be $21.6 billion.
Slavery is an economic crime used to make money through targeting at the poor. Do you want to live in a world of slavery? Take initiative educate yourselves!! Why don’t we care? I don’t get it…
3 comments:
Tania,
Your desire to help all people is admirable, but a bit idealistic. What do you really think would happen if all the richest countries expanded aid to poor countries?
One sad result of the American short attention span culture is that you are given to shallow nibblets of imagery instead of the deep trenching that logic almost always requires.
Slavery has been with human civilization for 4,000 years. Only the emergence of oil and electricity allowed humans to create machines to work for them instead. Without your car, you would use horses or humans for labor.
Giving every poor family a few hundred dollars isn't going to change the base infrastructure of a nation. To remove poverty from a society requires a sincere desire from all members of that society to work together to raise the standard of living.
It also requires the establishment of a nationalized bank and currency free from the domination of western banks.
One country that has had some success in this direction is the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela under Hugo Chavéz. While he is a powerful leader, he spent 20 years in grassroots efforts with many confederates from both the civilian and military. They laid plans with the hindsight of witnessing many failed social revolutions all across Latin America during most of the 20th Century.
That is just one example, but the point I am trying to make is that the poor in a society do not exist without the collusion of the rich in that society. Just giving a one-time handout will not change anything. The rich will just take all that money eventually anyway to reinforce their positions of power. Ask anyone who works for an international aid organization about the larceny they often face from local leaders.
Idealism and wonder are part of life. A big part. I love that your heart is in the right place. Just realize the world is a very brutal place and credulous western platitudes usually hurt more than they help.
::: ev01ve :::
I don't think tania, or anyone else believes that a singled handout will fix the problem. The problem is rooted in the culture, and the way everyone lives. Our desire for a better image, at the cost of keeping someone else subjugated. In Bangladesh, you have people spending thousands of taka going to beauty parlor, lakhs being spent on wedding ceremony, even when going to visit another family taking sweet gifts and yet people haggling over 2 taka rikshaw fare or not willing to pay their maid or driver not even enough for them to buy 3 proper meals by themselves daily.
All work should be valued, but in those countries where slavery is still on going at a high rate work is considered to be for the poor and something that should be avoided by the rich. There is no respect for work or life.
While I can't by myself change anything, I try by not eating food prepared by an enslaved maid. I give gift to the drivers, and maids, in equal amount or more than gift to the person I am visiting. Does this make me likable to my relatives, no as I am considered rude. So do you have the courage not to just hang your head and follow what society dictates, or stand up and tell people the way a person being treated is wrong. That the life of a rikshaw puller is as valuable as anyone else.
Of course most people will not do so, because if they accept this tenet and treat people equally then all their comforts will be reduced, and oh my gosh they might have to walk or clean their own dishes, or demand better public service from their government.
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