Exodus and Deuteronomy

Chapter 19. Slavery and “Beyond Slavery”: Then Is Still Now

305 Mende Nazer with Bernadette J. Brooten ChAPtEr 19 slavery and “Beyond slavery” Then Is Still Now Mende Nazer, internationally known antislavery activist, was enslaved for six years in the Sudan as a young girl and later escaped in London, after having been sent there by her Khartoum owner to the owner’s sister. Slave: My True Story (2003), which Nazer cowrote with journalist Damien Lewis, opened the world’s eyes to slavery in the Sudan.1 Before speaking out about her ordeal, Nazer had to weigh potential reprisals by the repressive Sudanese government against her relatives still living there versus the fate of the countless enslaved persons to whom her book might draw attention. Fortunately, the intense international media attention to the book has thus far protected Nazer’s family. In 2005 I asked Mende Nazer to join the Feminist Sexual Ethics Project at Brandeis University to inspire others to work to end slavery, both in the Sudan and worldwide, and to help scholars better understand the dynamics of slavery . Articles that grew out of this project were published in 2010 under the title Beyond Slavery: Overcoming Its Religious and Sexual Legacies (Bernadette J. Brooten, ed., with editorial assistance of Jacqueline L. Hazelton [New York: Palgrave Macmillan). The scholars, activists, and artists in that volume finely delineate the historical , geographical, and religious differences among the varying forms of the 1. The narrative of Nazer’s return in 2006 to visit her family in the Nuba Mountains of the Sudan has appeared in German, but not yet in English, in 2007. 306 Exodus and Deuteronomy enslavement of girls and women. Exceedingly few slave narratives by women have come down through history, and even today very few women escape slavery and have the opportunity to tell their story. Although Mende Nazer’s enslavement differs in numerous respects from some of slavery’s past forms, her insights can sharpen both our historical and our moral imagination. I asked Nazer to share her reflections on the various contributions to the Beyond Slavery volume. What follows is her response my questions. English is Nazer’s third language, learned as an adult; her first is that of the Nuba Mountains where she was born in central Sudan, and her second is Arabic. Thus, although now fluent in English, Nazer needed help in formulating her thoughts on this volume in English. As with her collaboration with Damien Lewis in writing her two books, the thoughts are Nazer’s own. As we worked together, Nazer always insisted on finding just the right phrase; she is both parsimonious and precise in her speech. This piece is reproduced, with minor modifications, from its original location , as the epilogue to Beyond Slavery. —Bernadette J. Brooten Brooten: As a woman who was enslaved for six years in the Sudan, how do you respond to the content of Beyond Slavery? Nazer: I am disturbed that Muslim, Jewish, and Christian texts allow slavery and that Jewish, Christian, and Muslim people practiced slavery for so many hundreds of years. In everything that I have learned from the authors of the volume, I have not found a form of slavery that was better than others. That includes the religious forms of slavery in the Jewish Bible, the Christian Bible, and the Qur’an. Among those texts, there are some differences, but the differences do not change what it is to be enslaved. I understand that some Jewish, Christian, and Muslim people believe that their religions made slavery more humane. But I don’t think that any form of slavery is humane. As a Muslim, I totally disagree with Muslims who say that Islamic slavery was not harsh. I want to know what experience those people have had with slavery. Have they even spoken to anyone who has been enslaved? People who say that their religion’s form of slavery is not as harsh as other forms are trying to cover up the real situation. Before working on this project, I did not know that the Qur’an allows slavery. I was also troubled to learn about the history of slavery in Muslim communities. Kecia Ali writes that people in these communities also held 307 Slavery and “Beyond Slavery” slaves before Islam, which makes me wonder where human beings ever got the idea to enslave other human beings in the first place.2 If there had never been slavery in the world, people would...