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11 January 2014
’12 Years a Slave’ should be an inspiration for modern slavery abolitionists.
’12 Years a Slave’ should inspire us to work against slavery today rather than simply reflect on past atrocities says Aidan McQuade, director of Anti-Slavery International.
Steve McQueen’s movie ’12 Years a Slave’ shows the struggle of Solomon Northup, a free black man, who was drugged, kidnapped and sold into slavery on a cotton farm. The film is based on Northup’s own memoirs and shows in disturbing detail the shocking realities of 19th century slavery in America. Anti-Slavery International was founded in 1839, two years before Northup’s kidnapping.
The movie is widely acknowledged as a masterpiece. It throws welcome light on slavery in the 19th Century in a way that hasn’t been done before. Along with films such as ‘Glory’and ‘Amistad’, it is a courageous repudiation of the racist myths perpetuated in much of Hollywood’s output on historical slavery, such as the execrable ‘Gone with the Wind’. Unlike that white supremacist fantasy ’12 Years a Slave’ shows the South as the archipelago of concentration camps that it was.
’12 Years a Slave’ is an important, vital reminder of the nature and intrinsic violence of historical slavery and the centuries deep scars that it left on the communities that suffered under these atrocities. Anti-Slavery International played an important role in ending this form of slavery, working with North American abolitionists in the 1840s and 50s and the US government in the 1860s.
However slavery in its modern forms is far from finished, and the violence of slavery shown in the film is still commonplace across the world.
The International Labour Organisation estimates that there are still at least 21 million people in slavery across the world. No region, from Europe to Asia to Africa and the Americas, is immune from this scourge.
Although set inthe past, ‘12 Years a Slave’ brings to mind parallels to slavery today. Scenes of slaves picking cotton reminds us of the tens of thousands of Uzbek citizens forced to pick cotton every year by their own government. The beatings and floggings depicted in the film are reminiscent of recent stories of Indian brick kiln workers having their hands chopped off for refusing to work in inhuman conditions, or of a 10-year-old child domestic worker beaten to death by her employers in Pakistan. Slaves struggling in extreme heat make us think of enslaved migrant workers building venues for the World Cup in Qatar.
And these are only some of the stories from the last few weeks.
But, just as we worked with North American abolitionists in the 19th Century, Anti-Slavery continues to work with courageous anti-slavery activists across the world today, from India and South East Asia to West Africa and South America.
Slavery remains a problem in the contemporary world primarily because governments lack the political will and the moral courage to address underlying causes of slavery: the vulnerability and social exclusion of those enslaved, as well as the lack of the rule of law protecting the vulnerable.
Even in the UK the problems with protecting the vulnerable from forced labour remain urgent. Many of those suspected to be trafficked to the UK simply get deported because of shoddy and inadequate systems of protection for them. Others, particularly migrant domestic workers, have their enslavement facilitated by UK immigration laws similar to the system of ‘Kafalah’ responsible for the enslavement of vulnerable workers across the Middle East.
Until the law makes protecting the victims of modern slavery a priority the UK will never again be the leader that it once was in the international struggle against slavery.
Everyone can help to end slavery today, and we need your help now more than ever. Please join our campaign and put pressure on the Home Secretary to ensure that the victims’ protection is at the centre of the new Modern Slavery Bill.
Let’s hope ‘12 Years a Slave’ inspires governments, businesses, unions, other non-governmental organisations and individuals to do more than simply wring their hands at past atrocities and instead renew their commitment to effective action that will eradicate contemporary slavery once and for all.
Aidan McQuade
Director of Anti-Slavery International
