Slavery

Thought I'd do some blog posts about some of the themes I try and tackle in my books.  Now it might surprise some people that I made slavery such a central issue, considering that it is a science fiction novel.

Well, anyone who keeps an eye on the less explored corners of the news or should I say, the corners of the media where the real news is reported, knows that slavery is not an evil that disappeared with the Act of Abolishment.  It is still very much alive and killing.

I am not just talking about the Thailand fishing fleet who use 'indentured' workers , who aren't allowed to living the ships they work on for years at a time or the palm oil plantations in Indonesia where the workers are lured there by the promise of good pay, only to have their passports removed when they arrive.

There are also the girls, some as young as twelve who are trafficked from America, Russia and many other countries to work as women of the night.  So the next time you walk passed a curb crawler without sparing her a glance, it might be a good thing if you stop and have a wonder about where this woman of a hundred men came from and how she ended up turning tricks on her knees for dirty money.  Not all of them wanted to wind up where they are and some of them have no choice but to be there because they will most likely wind up beaten to death if they try and run from it.

Although I think the saddest story I ever read and I think it is the one that started my hatred of slavery has to be the one I read when I was in Middle School.  Unfortunately I cannot remember the title or the author, although I do remember the pictures in it and the fact that it was a true story from the 1990s.

It detailed the life of an Indian girl who was sold by her father to be a maid in a rich man's house but the head woman of the house decided that the new maid was too pretty so she sold her on to a sweat shop to stitch clothing.  However, the girl had, at some point in her childhood picked up the ability to read, so when they were given their merger pay, she spent it on a book instead of the sort of treats that the other girls buying to try and attract a husband.

When the shop owner saw her new book the owner said 'You can read?' to which the girl said 'Yes, ma'am.'  The shop owner, having ascertained that the girl could also count and had impeccable manners, put the girl to working on the shop floor to serve the customers, many of whom were very rich.

One day, one of their regular customers came in and when the girl had finished serving her, the girl realised that the lady had left her purse behind so the girl ran with it out of the shop to return it to its owner.  When she returned to the shop she was boxed round the ears for daring to leave the shop without permission.  However, the lady had followed her back and told the shop owner that if she didn't value an honest and compassionate worker then the lady would take her.

So the shop owner stuck out her hand and said 'I paid good money for this girl, I want it reimburse before I let her go' to which she received the reply 'Slavery is illegal in India, what were you doing paying money for her in the first place?'  As you can imagine, the shop owner was not having a good day.

As much as the story was a happy one because the young girl was rescued, it is also a horrid one because it starts with a father who is willing to sell his children.  As a grown up I can see where the young girl was very, very lucky.  She could have been sold to a brothel at which point she'd never have had the chance to get away.  She could have been sold to a family who didn't have a woman at its head who was still strong enough to sell off the pretty maid when she started wondering about her husbands behaviour.  How many of these child maids are also mistresses, I wonder.  The young lass in the story managed to avoid so many of the worst aspects of slavery but the truth is that she shouldn't have been there in the first place.

Now you could ask what sort of father would sell his daughter.  The answer - a poor and desperate one who couldn't wait for her dowry money to make ends meet.

Can you imagine being a parent that desperate that you have to choose between which children to keep and which to sell so that there will be enough food on the table to feed those that are left?  Can you imagine being that poor that you have a choose between either giving your children up or watching them starve?

When you stop and think of it, doesn't that make poverty a form of slavery?

That is why I made slavery such a central theme in my book.  It still exists, it is still a threat to the vulnerable and those that can't fight back.  I was also asking the question what would happen if someone started rallying those that are knelt in chains and convinced them that they had the right to fight back.  What would happen if they picked up their tools and used them to bash open the heads of those that oppressed them?  Would it stop there or would it keep running, would all at that misery and fear reach a flash point and turn to an anger that cannot be stopped until it has run its course?  And could you blame them if it did?

Could you blame those that have been beaten and broken, kicked and cursed when they rose up and struck back?  Could you blame them when it spilt over on to those not involved?

I cannot, for it is also the fault of those not directly involved in holding the lash because we do nothing to stop it.  We let our business poison a countries water with mercury and then we buy their products while we mouth on about how terrible it is.  We say that child slavery is wrong and then we sit by while supermarkets pay the families that produce our food next to nothing so they children are bullied at school for being poor and wearing second hand clothes.  We refuse to let a council build wind turbines in 'our backyard' so someone else's child has their lungs clogged with the soot from a coal powered electricity station.

Part of me wonders who is the more evil, the ones that hold the lash and admit to what they are or the ones that don't hold the lash and won't admit to their culpability?