Slavery Alive and Well in Yemen

What are the most remarkable liberal causes?

Liberals are for equality of the sexes, against slavery, against imperialism, and for gay rights.

Israel enforces equality of the sexes, has no slavery and grants refuge to escaped slaves, is tiny and recognises gay marriage.

The Arabs discriminate against women, keep slaves, rule the middle-east and northern Africa and all the nations who exist there and execute homosexuals.

Question: Which side would liberals support?

Answer: The Arabs. But it has nothing to do with antisemitism.

 

Was it not you that published a story a couple of years ago about a Christian Sudanese being sold into slavery in the Muslim North?

And as you pointed out just recently (although this story is not indicative of it), the Arabic  word for blacks is slave?

Yes. I wrote about several cases, most prominently that of Simon Deng who was enslaved in southern (African) Sudan by northeners (Arabs) and kept as a slave until he escaped. He now lives in the US, as far as I know, and wrote a book about his life.

Mr Deng, like many former slaves, is a prominent supporter of Israel and has often vocally defended Israel's right to do whatever it takes to defend Israel from the fate of other non-Arab peoples in the region.




The Arabic word for "black" is "ashud" or "shud". I believe this is where the name "Sudan" comes from ("shudan" is the plural of "shud", I think).

But the typical Arabic word for "black" as in "black person" (or "negro") is "abd" which translates to "slave" or "servant".

As far as I know in conversational Arabic it is common to refer to an African as an "abd". I don't think it's a very friendly term.


Of course, the only racism that Arab regimes recognise is the treatment they undergo at the hands of people they attack, so nothing much will happen.

http://www.hudson-ny.org/149/bishop-tutu-and-israeli-apartheid

 

The history of slavery goes back to the ancient world.

Are you aware that human slavery existed in ancient Israel and was a part of the ancient Semitic culture and during the first few centuries after Christ? 

 

 

I meant black people (man), not the color.  Thanks for the clarification and the confirmation.

Yes, of course slavery existed in ancient Israel.

But in Israel's defence, Jewish law already limited the powers a master had over the slave. Slavery was abolished in Israel when the Persians invaded. While Persia respected local law systems, Zoroastrianism doesn't accept slavery at all and Cyrus knew that freed slaves were valuable allies.

The early Christians continued the Jewish tradition of limiting masters' powers. But a few hundred years later Christian powers would be the greatest slavers.

 

Okay...yes, I figured you knew this and brought it up for context and background which I think is important to understand that slavery has existed under different forms.

But ancient Israel can be defended only so far. According to Jewish Scriptures, in Israel the following were reduced to slavery...

 

Captives taken in raids, insolvent debtors, convicted thieves unable to make retribution, young girls sold by their fathers into conditional slavery, and non-Israelite prisoners taken in wars. You are right about the Jewish law limiting slavery and the powers of a master over the slave. According to the OT legislation especially the Deuteronomic code, aimed at keeping the number of Hebrew slaves at a  minimum. The law limited slavery to a maximum time of 6 years Ex. 21:2; Deut. 15:12. Verses 13-18 explain that at the end of this service they were to be freed. A Hebrew who sold himself into slavery was to serve until the Jubilee Year. 

But from reading Jeremias 34:8-22, it turns out this humanitarian legislation of a 7th year release became a broken pledge to God's covenant.

It's worth reading.

[8] The word that came to Jeremias from the Lord, after that king Sedecias had made a covenant with all the people in Jerusalem making a proclamation: [9] That every man should let his manservant, and every man his maidservant, being a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman, go free: and that they should not lord it over them, to wit, over the Jews their brethren. [10] And all the princes, and all the people who entered into the covenant, heard that every man should let his manservant, and every man his maidservant go free, and should no more have dominion over them: and they obeyed, and let them go free.

[11] But afterwards they turned: and brought back again their servants and their handmaids, whom they had let go free, and brought them into subjection as menservants and maidservants. [12] And the word of the Lord came to Jeremias from the Lord, saying: [13] Thus saith the Lord the God of Israel: I made a covenant with your fathers in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, saying: [14] At the end of seven years, let ye go every man his brother being a Hebrew, who hath been sold to thee, so he shall serve thee six years: and thou shalt let him go free from thee: and your fathers did not hearken to me, nor did they incline their ear. [15] And you turned today, and did that which was right in my eyes, in proclaiming liberty every one to his brother: and you made a covenant in my sight, in the house upon which my name is invocated.

[16] And you are fallen back, and have defiled my name: and you have brought back again every man his manservant, and every man his maidservant, whom you had let go free, and set at liberty: and you have brought them into subjection to be your servants and handmaids. [17] Therefore thus saith the Lord: You have not hearkened to me, in proclaiming liberty every man to his brother and every man to his friend: behold I proclaim a liberty for you, saith the Lord, to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine: and I will cause you to be removed to all the kingdoms of the earth. [18] And I will give the men that have transgressed my covenant, and have not performed the words of the covenant which they agreed to in my presence, when they cut the calf in two and passed between the parts thereof: [19] The princes of Juda, and the princes of Jerusalem, the eunuchs, and the priests, and all the people of the land that passed between the parts of the calf: [20] And I will give them into the hands of their enemies, and into the hands of them that seek their life: and their dead bodies shall be for meat to the fowls of the air, and to the beasts of the earth.

[21] And Sedecias the king of Juda, and his princes, I will give into the hands of their enemies, and into the hands of them that seek their lives, and into the hands of the armies of the king of Babylon, which are gone from you. [22] Behold I will command, saith the Lord, and I will bring them again to this city, and they shall fight against it, and take it, and burn it with fire: and I will make the cities of Juda a desolation, without an inhabitant.

.......................

Legally, the slave was property, without name or genealogy, a commodity to be sold, bought or inherited.

By different forms I mean that slavery didn't always have the odious connotation that it does today.

Turns out, the history of slavery reveals two quite different forms exist side by side depending upon the virtue of the owners. And this I think is where the Judaic/Christian religion comes in.

The form known as symbiotic slavery where master and slave worked together for the mutual good as human beings. ON the part of the slave there was fidelity, devotedness and willing service and on the part of the Master there was keeping kindness, human respect, and sometimes real friendship, the slave becoming part of the household.

The other historical form of slavery has been called parasitic and in this form the master or owner exploits the slave for his own advantage and pleasure. Here there is inhumanity, brutality and vice in both masters and slaves.

This form of slavery has always been diametrically opposed to the spirit of Christianity and history shows condemned by the Catholic Church. 

 

Hmmm...I don't know about that. The Apostles didn't intend an immediate change in social institutions as theirs was a religious message with the primary intent on making converts obedient to God's revelation in Christ.  With Christ, there was a new concept of human dignity. The idea of one human being belonging to another as a piece of property was always repugnant to the Christian concept of human dignity.

Slavery was legal and a very much accepted part of the Roman Empire when the Catholic Church came into existence in the first century. The Church never opposed the symbiotic form of slavery but sought to transform it from within.

The beginning of these efforts is seen in St.Paul's letter to Philemon about a runaway slave named Onesimus who had converted to Christianity. St.Paul told Philemon to welcome Onesimus back as "no longer a slave but more than a slave, a brother in Christ " and "to do even more than I say", which implies giving Onesimus his freedom. 

Christ and His Apostles didn't give new legislation to oppose the system of existing slavery, but preached principles that would logically lead to its abolution. The teaching then and today, is if all are children of the same Father, no essential distinction can remain between slave and free man.

The Church's efforts to better the lot of slaves by emphasizing their human dignity led to its virtual eradication by the fifth century although slavery returned when the barbarians swept through Europe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don't know about that. Several popes held (Muslim) slaves, as far as I know. And while the Catholic Church has consistently opposed slavery officially, it has never actually excommunicatied the Spanish and Portuguese rulers who enslaved Africans and Indians in South-America.

 

Serfdom was abolished in Europe around 1800.

Slavery was abolished in Israel when the Persians liberated Jerusalem from Assyrian rule. Zoroastrianism prohibited slavery and deems it a great sin.

Before that Jewish law allowed slavery within limits. But the Zoroastrians were right and we were wrong. G-d told us to treat slaves well and told them to abolish it. We got both messages.

After the fall of the Persian Empire to Alexander (may his name be cursed) there existed no Israeli authority until the conversion of the Turkish Khazars to Judaism. As far as I know they didn't have legalised slavery although the Christian and Muslim empires bordering their state did.

(Jerusalem was taken back by a Jewish-Sassanid army from the Christians just before the Muslims came. But I don't think the ten years or so Jews held the city would give us a fair assessment of their ultimate position towards slavery. Also, the Christians took the city back and expelled all the Jews again before Umar came and allowed the Jews back in.)

The next Israeli authority was created as the Zionist organisation which became a local authority in the British mandate of Israel and ultimately the Israeli government. Neither the mandate Jewish parliament nor the independent Israeli government ever endorsed or allowed slavery although their Arab neighbours did and do.

 

The issue is not ancient slavery, nor is it relevant.  I would expect everyone has slave owners and slaves in their ancestry.  That the world woke up to the evils and now universally (almost) condemns it is the foundation for this revelation.  That some still maintain a barbaric and malevolent mindset to slavery is the issue.

You are right of course about the history of slavery.

However, I don't think the problem currently is that some still maintain the mindset because those that do are really powerless to force that view on the rest of us.

The problem are their western supporters who make it impossible for us to act.

And make no mistake, a bloody war might be necessary to end slavery in the Arab world and many people will die. Because that's how slavery ends.

But isolationalists and "progressives" are against those wars.

Isolationists are not concerned with the suffering of others (fair enough) or do not believe that acting can change anything to the better (which is a good point). But they forget that injustice tends to spread, although quite possibly not to them.

Progressives are very concerned, but with the potential suffering of the masters. They do not take into account the suffering of the slaves because those are usually class B human beings anyway. (Class B human beings are those who fate is simply not reported by the media. And progressives only care about those whose story they are told by their opinion leaders.) Often progressives even make ideological alliances with slavers because of a common enemy, usually the Jews^H^H^H^HZionists who are understood to be much much worse enemies of justice than slave holders and genocidal dictators. (The proof for that is the fact that the media obviously underreport on atrocities committed by Israel because the Jews control the media.)

But slavery never ends without violence. Slave owners do not suddenly decide to let a black family go because it is "wrong" to "own" other people or because black people are "equal" to whatever master race the slave owner belongs to.

Finally I want to make an interesting point about the equality of man. I thought about this long and finally discovered why I have so much respect for Simon Deng and other escaped slaves.

Simon Deng said that there is no shame in being a slave, there is only shame in being a master. And it is true that being a master makes one a worse human being, akin to being a murderer or rapist and possibly even worse. But Mr Deng didn't notice something equally important, probably because he is too humble an individual to realise it.

Every man (of either sex and any race) is worth the same because human life is sacred. And each of us got one human life from G-d.

But escaped slaves are better than we, you and I, because they have two lives.

They got one life from the creator, as we all did, and the master who took it from him never had a right to it. But the escaped slave, by freeing himself (or by being freed) acquired another life, a life owed to him by the master.

I don't think anyone could impress me more than by stating that he had been a slave once. Anyone who went through that fate is a better man than I, literally.

 

 

 

That exacerbates the problem, but there would be no exacerbation if the root problem did not exist.

not always.  There are instances - many recent (as in the last 300 years) where it was ended peacefully.  But in this case, I fear you are correct.

Not better, but more fortunate perhaps.  It is like the movie Overboard where Roddy McDowell tells the heiress that she is lucky because she has seen life from both stations.  Simon Deng and his contemporaries have a renewed (not new) gift of life as you indicate.  And that makes them more fortunate than most of us.

This is news to me. I'd like to know the names of those popes so I could research that. 

I know that from the time the Apostles went out to all nations to establish Christ's universal Church, slavery was very common as manual labor was beneath the dignity of the citizens of ancient Rome and in all parts of the known world. I also know that that the early Church through employing the principles of Christ, slaves were liberated to the point that while the Church was living in the catacombs an Order was established for the redemption of slaves being effected by outright purchase and by working of the liberators as substitutes for them.

This lasted until the 4th century when after the conversion of Constantine and Justinian, the Church was successful in getting the civil powers to remove legal restrictions against the slaves. It was at that point they recognized that slaves were also men, made in the image of Almighty God and they were no longer branded with hot irons, nor were they anymore thrust into the gladiator contests with wild animals for the enjoyment of the pagans.

From that time on, under the influence of the Church, all individuals, high or low, was held equally responsible for upholding the moral law. The chastity of slaves was safeguarded by special legislation, their marriages were considered binding, as was the marriage of a slave to a free person. In short, the foundation of European civilization was being laid in the recognition of the family as the moral body as a unit of civil society. 

The main consequences that resulted from the acceptance of the State of these Christian principles that held up individual human dignity was the life of the family was stablilzed, woman's place was recognized, and slavery was softened into serfdom with the promise of final emancipation.

During the period of serfdom, the Chruch insisted on the mutal rights and duties between serf and master, just as in our times she insists upon the mutual rights and duties between employers and employees. 

Christ came and founded His Church not in order to usher in new social and ecomomic or political order, but rather to change the hearts of men, one at a time.The Church then, as she does now, takes mankind and society as she finds them and does her utmost to transform them to the likeness of Christ. 

St.Paul gave the most instructive case of the Church's constant attitude ever since toward the master-slave relationship which later transformed to the employer-employee relationship.

 

 

Yes, the Church unreservedly condemned slavery everywhere as inhuman and immoral. There are numerous documents as far back as 873 that attest to this fact.

There is no denying that racial slavery surfaced with the Spanish and Portuguese expeditions in the 15th and 16th centuries. Racial slavery was the new phenomenon of capturing native peoples to sell them into slavery. This differed greatly from slavery resulting from capture in war and the idea of servitude.  The Popes in those and succeeding centuries including Eugene IV in 1432, Pius in 1462, Paul III in 1537, and Urban VIII in 1639, Benedict XIV in 1741, Gregory XVI in 1839, and Leo XIII in 1890 all recognized the evil of slavery and didn't hesitate to condemn it. The Popes stood together reinforcing the condemnations issued by their predecessors. 

Pope Eugene protesting the capturing for slavery the natives of the Canary Islands said that if all the slaves were not set free within 15 days of his letter, their masters would "incur the sentence of excommunication ipso facto." Pope Paul III was just as stern a century later, condemning all slavery as evil and stating that the "indians and all other people who may later be discovered by Christians are by no means to be deprived of their liberty or the possession of their property, ....nor should they be in any way enslaved."

In 1890, Pope Leo XIII went one step further and started the tradition of collecting monies from Catholics around the world that would be divided among the missions for the express purpose to eliminate slavery in Africa.

 

Doesn't the Qur'an permit these?

Leauki writes

 "Human rights" is a political invention that nations use to further their agenda and in the case of the UN in an attempt to create a one world global order. Abortion is a sin against the baby in the womb, yet nations say abortion is a "human right". The same thing with "gay marriage".

Where do our rights come from? What is their foundation? Since man didn't make himself he certainly didn't make that which is less than himself, his rights.  The foundation of these rights is ALmighty GOd the Creator and Author of all morality.

Every sin supposes the violation of the rights of another. Rights and duties go together. Every sin against our fellow man is a sin against God. My point is without God man has rights with no assignable title and no real sanction.

 

 

DrG posts:

I think it is relevant to understand ancient slavery if we are to ever eradicate it.

We must understand slavery from the Christian viewpoint which teaches that trafficing in human beings (slavery) is a sin against the intrinsic dignity of our fellow man and therefore a sin against God.

A few years ago Barbara Kralis wrote a report about slavery that is worth mentioning. She claims slavery is flourishing in the 21st century  with at least 27 million men, women and children are enslaved. She wrote of the horrific assault on human dignity this way. 

"Despite centuries fighting the scourge, slavery is readily found on the farms of India, the inheritable debt-bondage brick making kilns of Pakistan, and the cocoa plantations of Cote d'Ivoire. It thrives in the rug room sheds of Nepal, the sex slavery brothels of Manila, Thailand, Japan, and the US. Among the water carrier chattel in Mauritania, and in the charcoal making camps of Brazil. In child prostitution in Ecuduar and the child camel jockeying for the wealthy sheikhs across the Mideast. Migrant trafficing exists for sexual labor throughout Canada and into the US and labor in the garment manufacturing sweatshops of Los Angeles, NY and Paris and London. 

She writes, "No government in the world today officially endorses slavery, yet banned worldwide, slavery thrives in every nation becasue of organized crime, corruption, and insatiable greed."

 

 

I suppose so, just as the Bible does, both yours and mine.

However, both Bible and Qur'an were written at a time (and in regions) slavery was common and accepted. Hence G-d's law as supposedly written in those works was expressed such that the existing system must be reformed. It is an error to assume that if G-d tells us that slaves must be treated decently it means that G-d permits us to keep slaves. He does not. But perhaps only the Zoroastrians got that message. Only the Persians were civilised enough for G-d to tell them the whole truth about slavery.

 

I agree with you. "Human rights" as the term is used to day is a political tool. This is why "human rights" are used against some but ignored in other cases. Heck, the UN even fill their "human rights council" with the worst offenders for some reason.

However, human rights do exist and they come from the creator (and lacking faith in one, from each man's ability to defend himself). It was Cyrus the Great who first formulated human rights as a principle. 2500 years he was the UN, except without the genocides and corruption.

 

That may be so and I agree, but what does that mean? Since different religions believe different things about what G-d wants, rights created by G-d mean as much as rights created by whoever invented those religions.

Personally, I believe in the truth of Judaism for Jews and Zoroastrianism for the rest.

 

True enough. But who gets to speak for G-d?

 

 

 

How so?  We have eradicated it in the civilized world and most do not even realize the truthfulness of my statement.  Clearly we do not have to try it to condemn it (the oldest argument in the book, and the most specious).  That some barbaric cultures still practice it relies not on understanding past slavery or its relevancy, but on the simple truism of lack of self esteem.

No, you are trying to argue against dead people - which is your right, but like all the race hucksters, serves no useful purpose about the issue today.

Slavery is the most vicious crime and the least talked about.

It doesn't fit into the world view of progressives, not only because it is a crime usually committed by those progressives see as fighters against imperialism but also because it is practices where journalists cannot live in luxury hotels and hence never cover.

And its victims are not valuable allies for whomever acts on their behalf and eradicating slavery is hence an act without reward. Indeed, expect condemnation from the elite when you even address the issue and point the finger at the guilty parties.

"Israelis oppress Palestinians" is legitimate criticism of Israel.

"Arabs enslave Africans" is racism.

 

By whom?  The perpetrators?  or those refusing to cover the issue?  Or (IMHO) both?

Regarding slavery, we can't equate the Qur'an with the Jewish and New Testament Scriptures.

First for the simple reason there is only one revealed truth....only one absolute truth.

Second, because what the Qur'an permits is vastly different from the Scripture regarding the treatment of slaves. 

From the Old to the New Testament, we see a clear moral development regarding the intrinsic dignity of the human person being taught...that all men, no matter their station in life, are equal before Almighty God. 

Which is basically what you said in post 13:

And this is the genius of Christian liberty that St.Paul taught..."For all you have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither slave nor free man; there is neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus."

The Christian principles as taught in Sacred Scriptures antagonize slavery and employing them in the culture was the way that the evil of slavery was at first mitigated then eradicated in the past and the only way it will be eradicated today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lula posts:

DRG posts:

Perhaps we should define "the civilized world". Did you not read post 18 and the quote from Barbara Kralis?

 

I first learned about Simon Deng when my freshman son was given a writing assignment and chose to write about the plight of the Nuba people in the Sudan. It was quite an eye-opener. Everyone knows about all the diseases and having no clean water, but we learned that Christians and tribal Africans have been persecuted, starved and the women and children raped and enslaved by Islamists for years. He didn't know that modern slavery existed and I didn't know it existed to that degree. Needless to say, our family has been giving to Bishop Gassis Sudan Relief Fund ever since. 

 

 

 

Very good!

I myself give to organisations helping the Muslim tribes of the west. (They are closely related to the tribes in the south.)

The plain fact is that the world has ignored what the Islamists have been doing for decades.