This morning I took a bus downtown instead of riding directly to work so that I could go to the downtown public library. I love our public library. It is modeled after the acropolis, and it is beautiful and full of books. I went to the library to retrieve a book on the history of sugar by Elizabeth Abbott.
The reason I wanted to read this book is because this weekend I watched Amazing Grace, a (mediocre) movie (on DVD) about the eventual abolition of the British Empire’s slave trade, directed by Michael Apted of the incredible Up series of films (7 Up, 14 Up, etc.). Still, despite the general mediocrity, the movie was worth seeing, and not just because it featured actors with fabulous names like Sylvestra Le Touzel, Ioan Gruffudd and Benedict Cumberbatch. (Benedict Cumberbatch!!!!!!!). Now, where was I? Oh, yes, so even though I didn’t love the writing or acting in the movie, I was fascinated by the story about the political struggle, over 15 years, to end the British slave trade.
One of the characters in the story, a young abolitionist woman, doesn’t take sugar in her tea to protest the slave trade. That sparked a whole series of ideas for me:
- imagine if this character could see how much sugar we (ahem, I) eat now;
- sugar was such a luxury item then that if one was to boycott sugar, it would more or less just be to boycott sugar from tea (or so it seemed, from the script); and
- I wonder what the politics and ethics of sugar production are now.
So I decided to look up information on the sugar trade and on modern slavery — especially because in the conversation my friends and I had after watching the movie, someone mentioned that they read that there are more slaves in the world today than at any other time in history. I have requested Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy by Kevin Bales from the library — we’ll see how long it takes to reach my turn to read it — and I await with baited breath and a sense of impending horror.
And then in looking for information on the sugar trade, Elizabeth Abbott’s book popped up. Very timely: if I had been searching for a book like this even just one year ago, I don’t think I would have found one. It’s a 2008 book, a Canadian author and press, and a book about sugar, both in terms of its role in history and in health. I can’t wait to read it.
I expect that I may be so disgusted that I’ll elect to renounce sugar forever.
Just a teaspoon of self-interest in a cup of moral indignation, no?
Hi, thanks for an interesting post. There has been a great new documentary film about sugar from the Dominican Republic, it is called “The Price of Sugar” (http://www.thepriceofsugar.com/about.shtml). It certainly gives a good view of the ethics of modern sugar.
Meanwhile, I am a strong believer in the idea that no one should have to wait to read Disposable People. That fact about more slaves today comes my book. And I understand how coming to grips with the size of modern slavery can leave people feeling overwhelmed. But there’s an interesting paradox about the 27 million slaves in the world – yes, it is a huge number, the largest ever in human history, but it is also the smallest fraction of the human population to ever be in slavery. Likewise, the amount of money slaves pump into the world economy is big, around $50 billion a year, but it is also the smallest fraction of the global economy to ever be represented by slave labor.
If you would like email (bales@freetheslaves.net) to me a mailing address for you, I’ll have a copy of Disposable People sent along to you (Merry Christmas!).
All best wishes
Kevin Bales
http://www.freetheslaves.net
Adam Hochschild’s brilliant, and quite disturbing King Leopold’s Ghost remains on my top-ten-books-ever list, years later. It’s focused on the rubber trade in the Congo, but was my first encounter with the names of the early abolitionists. Hochschild wrote a later book (which I’ve not read) about the slave trade specifically: Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire’s Slaves.
And two biographies by William Hague (former leader of the Conservative Party), which I read in the past year before moving to the UK: William Pitt the Younger: A Biography, and William Wilberforce: The Life of the Great Anti-Slave Trade Campaigner.
Thank you, thank you, Kevin and C., for the suggestions and reflections.
C.: I didn’t know that you had read so deeply in this area. I’ll check out your suggestions.
And Kevin: Thank you so much for your generous offer, and I will email you! I looked up The Price of Sugar, and it is available locally, so I will definitely rent it.
So much to learn. This morning on my run I was thinking about this, and wondering about the reaction in North America to the abolition of the slave trade in Britain. And then I thought, “Wow, I am finally genuinely curious about history, not because I know I ’should know more’ about it, but because I am interested in how the stories have played out!”
Oh, I admit it, I am a Philistine when it comes to history. I know it is important, I appreciate it, I respect history, but I have so rarely been engaged with the learning of it.
Strange, isn’t that, when history is just our human stories?