slavery

"Money is a new and terrible form of slavery, and like the old form of personal slavery it demoralizes both slave and slave-owner, only much more, for it frees the slave and the slave-owner from personal, human relations with one another."

"For years, Beijing’s defenders insisted that testimonies from Uyghur, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, and Tibetan survivors were fabrications, that satellite images were misinterpretations, and that leaked documents were forgeries. They mocked the evidence as “Western propaganda.” But now the United Nations—an institution they once claimed as the ultimate neutral party—has confirmed the core truth: China’s labor transfer system is coercion on a massive scale. The experts detail how State-mandated “poverty alleviation through labor transfer” programs force minorities into jobs they cannot refuse, under such close surveillance that rejecting an assignment becomes unthinkable. Xinjiang’s own five-year plan projects “13.75 million instances of labor transfers,” a number that highlights the absurdity of claiming voluntariness. When millions are “transferred,” choice becomes statistically impossible."

"If Zoroastrian and idolatrous women are taken prisoner, they are coerced into Islam; if they embrace it, sexual relations with them are permissible and they can (also) be used as maidservants. If they do not embrace Islam, they are used as maidservants but not for sexual relations."

"We have also seen that according to the prevalent view of the traditionists, a female polytheist must be converted to Islam, by coercive measures if necessary, before any sexual relationship with her can take place... Conversion to Islam is not mentioned here as a necessary condition for sexual relations. In the opinion of Mujahid, the captive girl should shave her pubic hair, trim her hair and pare her nails. Then she should perform ablution, wash her clothes, pronounce the shahada and perform a Muslim prayer. But even if she refuses to do these things, her master is still allowed to have sexual relations with her once she has had one menstrual period in his house. And Safiıd b. al-Musayyab simply says that “there is nothing wrong in a man having sexual relations with his Zoroastrian slave-girl”... Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya observes, on the other hand, that: "they (i.e., the Prophet’s companions) did not make sexual relations with Arab captives contingent on their conversion; rather they had sexual relations with them after one menstrual period. God allowed them to do this and did not make it conditional on conversion." Summing up, Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya says that there is not a single tradition which makes sexual relations with female captives contingent on their conversion."

"Shafi‘i's treatment of the issue is slightly different. Speaking of grown-up Zoroastrian or polytheist women taken into captivity, he maintains that no sexual relations with them are allowed before they embrace Islam without bringing up the question of converting them forcibly. If the female captives are minor but were taken captive with at least one of their parents, the ruling is the same. If, however, the girl was captured without her parents, or one of her parents embraced Islam, she is considered a Muslim and is coerced into embracing it (nahkumu lahā bihukm al-Islām wa nujbiruhā ‘alayhi). Once this happens, sexual relations with her are lawful."

"The prevalent view of the jurisprudents is that sexual intercourse of any kind is not permissible with Zoroastrian or idolatrous women. According to some, a Muslim who has intercourse with such a woman is (from the religious view point) not better than the infidel woman herself. This being so, most fuqaha maintain that women belonging to these groups should embrace Islam before any intercourse can take place. If they refuse, they are used as servants, but sexual intercourse with them is not permitted. This is evidently not an optimal solution, and numerous traditions maintain that women who refuse to embrace Islam willingly should be subjected to coercion."

"There is nothing wrong in a man having sexual relations with his Zoroastrian slave-girl."

"The moment the slave resolves that he will no longer be a slave, his fetters fall. He frees himself and shows the way to others. Freedom and slavery are mental states."

"That state is a state of Slavery in which a man does what he likes to do in his spare time and in his working time that which is required of him."

"In a consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves: the prisoners of addiction and the prisoners of envy."

"Englishmen never will be slaves: they are free to do whatever the Government and public opinion allow them to do."

"The worker is the slave of capitalist society, the female worker is the slave of that slave."

"The life of an animal is misery and slavery: that is the plain truth."

"What! mothers from their children riven! What! God's own image bought and sold! to market driven, And bartered as the brute for gold!"

"We have the wolf by the ears; and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other."

"No more slave States and no more slave territory."

"Na he, that ay has levyt fre, May nocht knaw weill the propyrte, The angyr, na the wrechyt dome, That is cowplyt to foule thyrldome."

"Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ."

"We are told, that the subjection of Americans may tend to the diminution of our own liberties; an event, which none but very perspicacious politicians are able to foresee. If slavery be thus fatally contagious, how is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?"

"I never mean, unless some particular circumstances should compel me to do it, to possess another slave by purchase, it being among my first wishes to see some plan adopted by which slavery in this country may be abolished by law."

"They are slaves who fear to speak For the fallen and the weak; They are slaves who will not choose Hatred, scoffing, and abuse, Rather than in silence shrink From the truth they needs must think; They are slaves who dare not be In the right with two or three."

"Our fellow-countrymen in chains! Slaves—in a land of light and law! Slaves—crouching on the very plains Where rolled the storm of Freedom's war!"

"I say, Archbishop, what do you think I'd have done about this slavery business, if I'd had my own way? I'd have done nothing at all! I'd have left it all alone. It's all a pack of nonsense! Always have been slaves in all the most civilised countries; the Greeks and Romans had slaves; however, they would have their fancy, and so we've abolished slavery; but it's a great folly."

"Herren-Moral und Sklaven-Moral. [Master-morality and slave-morality.]"

"It [Chinese Labour in South Africa] could not, in the opinion of His Majesty's Government, be classified as slavery in the extreme acceptance of the word without some risk of terminological inexactitude."

"If my present theme were the institution of slavery in general, I should endeavour to show that it has been a mighty instrument not for evil only, but for good in the providential order of the world. Almighty God, in His mysterious ways, has poured down blessings even through servitude itself, by awakening the spirit of sacrifice on the one hand, and the spirit of charity on the other."

"One Cartwright brought a Slave from Russia, and would scourge him, for which he was questioned: and it was resolved, That England was too pure an Air for Slaves to breathe in."

"War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength."

"Are you a man? Then you should have an human heart. But have you indeed? What is your heart made of? Is there no such principle as compassion there? Do you never feel another's pain? Have you no sympathy? No sense of human woe? No pity for the miserable? When you saw the flowing eyes, the heaving breasts, or the bleeding sides and tortured limbs of your fellow-creatures, was you a stone, or a brute? Did you look upon them with the eyes of a tiger? When you squeezed the agonizing creatures down in the ship, or when you threw their poor mangled remains into the sea, had you no relenting? Did not one tear drop from your eye, one sigh escape from your breast? Do you feel no relenting now? If you do not, you must go on, till the measure of your iniquities is full. Then will the great God deal with you, as you have dealt with them, and require all their blood at your hands. And at that day it shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah than for you!"

"From the first dawn of life unto the grave, Poor womankind’s in every state a slave."

"Jove fix'd it certain, that whatever day Makes man a slave, takes half his worth away."

"Rule, Britannia, rule the waves; Britons never will be slaves."

"Corrupted freemen are the worst of slaves."

"Knock off the chains Of heart-debasing slavery; give to man, Of every colour and of every clime, Freedom, which stamps him image of his God."

"Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death."

"Is not this the fast that I have chosen: to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?"

"There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."

"Zosime, cursed with serfdom from the womb, Found Life in Death, and freedom in the tomb."

"If all men are born free, how is it that all women are born slaves?"

"Slavery they can have anywhere. It is a weed that grows in every soil."

"Slaves cannot breathe in England, if their lungs Receive our air, that moment they are free; They touch our country, and their shackles fall."

"The air of England has long been too pure for a slave, and every man is free who breathes it."

"Resolved, That the compact which exists between the North and the South is a covenant with death and an agreement with hell; involving both parties in atrocious criminality, and should be immediately annulled."

"If there breathe on earth a slave, Are ye truly free and brave? If ye do not feel the chain, When it works a brother's pain, Are ye not base slaves indeed, Slaves unworthy to be freed?"

"I didn't know I was a slave until I found out I couldn't do the things I wanted."

"A Christian! going, gone! Who bids for God's own image?—for his grace, Which that poor victim of the market-place Hath in her suffering won?"

"Cotton is King; or Slavery in the Light of Political Economy."

"I have always thought that all men should be free; but if any should be slaves, it should be first those who desire it for themselves, and secondly, those who desire it for others. When I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally."

"The man who gives me employment, which I must have or suffer, that man is my master, let me call him what I will."

"In the nineteenth century the problem was that God is dead; in the twentieth century the problem is that man is dead. In the nineteenth century inhumanity meant cruelty; in the twentieth century it means schizoid self-alienation. The danger of the past was that men became slaves. The danger of the future is that men may become robots."