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- Human Trafficking
by Nehez Meniooh
A couple months ago President George Bush and Secretary of Defense Condoleeza Rice unveiled the State Departmentšs Fifth Annual Trafficking in Personšs Report where they addressed the practice of human trafficking in other countries. They assured the American population that the US has taken a lead role in ensuring that this practice is abolished. Rice explained that in 2004 the US provided over ninety-eight million dollars in foreign aid to help other countries strengthen their anti-trafficking efforts, establish anti-trafficking legislation, train special forces agents, build shelters, and develop long term rehabilitation and vocational training centers.
George Bush stated that "Human Life is the gift of our Creator and it should never be for sale. Wherever the trafficking trade flourishes the rule of law erodes, corruption thrives, public health suffers and organized crime threatens the security of the entire community."
As most Americans know, slavery is a terrible thing. The Atlantic Slave Trade that the US participated in was the greatest crime the world has ever known, but it should be understood that there are many kinds of slavery. Slavery as defined in the dictionary is:
1. The state of being under the control of another person. 2. Someone entirely dominated by someone or some influence. 3. The condition of being subject or addicted to a specified influence.
Considering this, one can begin to imagine many forms of slavery: wage slavery, chemical slavery, etc. Chattel Slavery, the slavery of the Atlantic Slave Trade, is when one is bound in servitude as the property of a slaveholder or household, like cattle. The US Government abolished chattel slavery in 1865, and most slaves had been released back into the population by 1870. Most of these men, born slaves, saw no way of making a living outside of their former slave masteršs plantation because all of the resources had been usurped by "White America". They were forced to return to the their slave masters and ask for jobs.
Today, only 135 years later, the great, great grandsons and granddaughters of the men and women who had been enslaved enter the workforce under the same system that had enslaved their ancestors. It is the same system which captured and bound their ancestors and forced them (under the threat of death) to work for it that the descendents of the slaves embrace to receive a check and gain some legitimacy today. The reasoning behind this is that at least now we are paid for our work. The money we are paid with is the product of the slave master, which was acquired from the centuries of free labor that our ancestors gave. Today, for many of us, the descendents of slaves, it becomes our dream to get a well-paying job from the same system. There is no question that this duo of destruction (colonization and slavery) is a huge success for this country.
It would be wise to understand that the abolishment of slavery did little in providing the slaves with freedom. Freedom depends on onešs ability to sustains onešs own life. Strategically the emancipation proclaimation was signed only after all of the land and resources had been usurped by the colonizers, ensuring that the slaves would remain dependent on the government. Before, the slave masters had to spend their energy standing behind the slaves threatening them with their whip to make them work. They had to ring the bell or blow the horn at sunrise to force the slaves into the field. Today, the descendents of slaves set their own alarms and get up themselves, voluntarily rushing to their respective office/plantations to work for the money that symbolizes how successful the colonization has become. Considering that the system controls the printing of the money, regulates economic and tax laws, and is the sole beneficiary of the energy that is spent to acquire that money, can it really be said that the big picture of slavery has changed? It seems a closer examination would uncover a better strategy of the Master: getting the slaves to seek payment for their energy. Money is not only manufactured by the same system that maintains slavery in the U.S., but it is also just paper, validated only under the psychosis of the slave.
With the new society there has been an abandoning of the rural lifestyle in favor of the more modern capitalistic society. In a rural society the people live by working the land. The work is done according to the season. The farmers put in hard work during the planting, sowing and harvest times. Then they rest during the dormant season, giving attention to other aspects of their lives such as their spirituality until it is time to plant again next season. This is clearly a more natural system of economics and a much more natural way of living.
In the more modern lifestyle the majority of people work full time or part time jobs for a paycheck that barely sustains them until their next paycheck. The workforce is forced to constantly work to keep from slipping under the poverty line or even further into debt. In the wage slavery lifestyle that we live, it is almost unthinkable to be able to work for only a couple months and have it sustain you for the rest of the year.
The population of America is definitely in the position of being subjected and addicted to the colonial forces and way of life. This is especially true of the descendents of the acknowledged slaves of this country. We express our addiction every day by complaining about our position under this system, yet we still serve our oppressor for our daily work. We worship the God our oppressor has provided us. We wear our clothes in the style of our oppressor. We eat the food our oppressor provides us with. We go to our oppressor for our health when we are sick. And, we buy beauty products that make us look like our oppressors.
This must be addressed if we want to be able to call ourselves free. Freedom is not something that can be bestowed to someone by pens and signature through the legislation. Considering that modern slavery is the addiction to a specific influence, freedom from slavery must be reclaimed by the population who has lost it. Just as an addict must conquer his addiction, we must unbind ourselves from the monetary system and the workforce of the United States. We must discontinue our consumer mind frames and stand on our own two feet as producers, supported by our communities. The producer will always be richer than the consumer no matter how much money the consumer has in his pocket because the consumeršs wealth will ultimately end up going to the producer in exchange for his products. We must put more focus into our production, which will enable us to attract wealth regardless of the form, context or culture. We cannot afford to be lazy. It takes self-determination for freedom and survival.
Can we really call ourselves free considering we sacrifice our lives to another? Who can give up responsibility of their own livelihood to another and expect to be respected and not thought of as a slave or a lazy being? It is a false sense of security that we gain when we know that someone else is providing us our paycheck week to week. We tend to block out the consideration that they also have themselves and their families to provide for and that we come secondary. It would seem that to take charge of whether or not we will earn the money needed to support ourselves on a weekly basis would be safer than blindly trusting another. Even big companies and corporations are just the product of an individual or group who has succeeded at this aim for a period of time. We must stop selling ourselves short as if we cannot provide for ourselves. It is important for us to remember that the system of capitalism functions on the basis of capitalizing on others. As the majority of Americans become weaker and lazier those who look to capitalize on us become stronger.
Slavery is alive right here, under the noses and authority of George Bush, Condoleeza Rice and the US Government. It is no mystery that capitalism is slavery. The only thing that changed in 1870 was the transfer of ownership of the slaves from private property to the government's property. Maybe the cries of our politicians regarding slavery around the globe are voiced with the hope that we won't see their hands holding the reigns, just as they have done with the war on terrorism.
We must break this vicious cycle started by the theft of our ancestorsš labor. We cannot afford to continue to bow down to the paper tiger that has spread oppression, enslavement and colonization throughout the natural world. Power perceived is power gained. Let us turn our perceptions away from the maintenance of illegitimate power in this system to our survival and wealth in the natural reality.
