Concern in the abstract; Love in the concrete
Institute on Religion and Democracy, March 16, 1999
Dear friends: There is an ongoing debate about the morality of redeeming Sudanese slaves. No one, Charles Jacobs, Baroness Caroline Cox, Christian Sudanese lawyer Abel Alier – would say that buying children and women out of slavery is the perfect solution, that it is totally without ambiguities – but what is the alternative at this point in time?
One friend said that it is like the story of the man saving the starfishes stranded on the beach – one at a time. Read the Charles Jacobs’ feisty response to the UN below, and also, remember that the main reason why Sudanese Christian and animist children, women are enslaved is not to raise money – it is to decimate and demoralize the Christian presence, and the anti-National Islamic Front presence in Sudan. Come on now. Do you really think the Government of Sudan is financing the war by selling slaves? They’re selling oil to China, and Canada, and probably making deals with the Clinton administration, too. The train that runs from north to south in Sudan with Islamic militia and their horses and their Kalishnakovs, goes to strike terror and commit murder.
Those brave and willing-to-be-misunderstood abolitionists who work to return children to their families and tribes work with slave traders who are also endangering their lives by selling the children back, but who are not sympathetic to the NIF government and want to, in their own small way, work against them.
You can still argue, in the abstract, that this is a very bad thing, and that it promotes the slave trade, but if it were your daughter that Christian Solidarity was buying back, you’d think more concretely.
Episcopal human rights attorney and former Vice President of the Republic of Sudan, the Honorable Abel Alier, and Roman Catholic Bishop of El Obeid, Sudan, The Most Rev. Macram Gassis don’t say don’t buy back slaves. They say it is an intolerable and unspeakable situation that should not be taking place, but while it is, if we have the opportunity, we must save as many as we can.
(The above convictions are those of the author, and do not reflect the policy of IRD)