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?
