Slave | Mende Nazer, Damien Lewis | Sad but excellent story of courage and the will to survive!

Slave | Mende Nazer, Damien Lewis | Difficult Subject - A call to action

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Slave

	Slave Mende Nazer, Damien Lewis, 2003 - 368 pages average customer review:based on 52 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Sad but excellent story of courage and the will to survive!

Mende's story is told in such a simple way. It's as though her emotional growth was put on pause at age 12 - in that she remains very child-like in her response to what's going on around her. Maybe this is what kept her from truly being consumed by hatred toward those who took the most precious thing from her - her family.

It's an excellent read and I'd definitely recommend it. What struck me most was Mende's comments about how she was a good Muslim and did not understand how other's who were supposed to be of her same faith treated her as or worse than the animals they kept as pets!

I think that it was her loving family and tribal life that probably played a great role in giving her the courage to continue on and finally seek means to escape - even though she often writes of her fears. This emotional armor kept her strong and proved to be a real life-line for her when things were the worst.

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Difficult Subject - A call to action

This is a tough book but one that you must read.

Mende grew up in the Nuba Mountains in Sudan. Her family and her tribe are black Africans who lived in peace until the government of Sudan (Arabs in contrast) raided her village and disrupted their peaceful and simple existence. While both followers of Islam, the Nuba were viewed as inferior due to their race and Mende was taken from her family and enslaved. She was stripped of her identity as a Nuba, forced to forgo her faith (one that she shared with those enslaving her), and treated as disposable.

Her story is remarkable in that she survived. Many of her friends taken captive with her did not. This is an unremarkable story in that there are an estimated 27 million slaves worldwide.

My suggestion: read this book and then find some way to help the 27 million Mende's of the world that are relying on you to put an end to slavery for good.

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Is there an end to shame?

This book explores a very uncomfortable truth: this is the 21st century and slavery still exists. Following a murderous raid in her native Nuba village in Sudan, Mende Nazer was kidnapped in 1994 with other native children from that area. Her simple tribal life surrounded by a loving, united family came to an end that night. Sold to an Arab family in Khartoum, she learned to survive by "simply" enduring her fate. She was stripped of dignity and humanity, her desperation worsened by the lack of information about the rest of her family, not knowing whether they had survived the raid. It all made her plunge into a deep depression. She was humiliated, beaten and psychologically abused to a devastating extent and for several years. She was later "passed on" to another family, related to the one in Khartoum. This second family lived in London and it was there, in the year 2000, that Mende's fate changed.

This story is a condensation of facts reported simply and clearly by Mende in first person, beginning with her childhood (a very happy one despite her painful female circumcision at a very young age) all the way through her life and up until the events leading to freedom in London. She was helped in this process by journalist Damien Lewis and the result is a compelling read, where all is pieced together in a very accessible way. Mende's young and sober voice emerges with a powerful resonance in its quiet simplicity, a sad reminder of contemporary slavery. It's like a blow knocking the air out of you.

I am omitting details as the reading would be spoiled (also, many reviews and the product description itself are clear enough). I abstain from commenting as the book comments itself and also because, no matter how "used" we are to hear about atrocities nowadays, it is difficult to convey in written words the outrage in the knowledge that such horrors still exist. Just one thing: this should be a compulsory read. It is not only informative and an eye-opener. It also goes to show that, thankfully, goodness still exists despite everything and it unites everybody, irrespective of race, religion, social background.

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The Nasty Truth Revealed!!!

Anyone that desires to get to the crux of the Sudanese abuses needs to look no further. This is a brilliant first-hand account of attrocities committed by the Sudanese government with active colaboration between the Sudanese army and the Janjaweed militia.

The only difference from the harsh realities laid out by this awesome work is that in the recent past, the Sudanese government has become more desperate since they discovered oil in the Western & Southern parts of the country. This has led to even further abuse, and so for anybody that thinks what happened in this book is bad, just imagine it 2 or 3 fold worse than it was in the period the book relates to.

Sudanese and other Arab societies have (prior to the western-world's involvement) and still actively engage in slavery as described in this book.

It's high time the world took a stand against such flagrant abuse of human rights in a more comprehensive & robust way. Mende is one of the lucky few who ever escape the cycle & she needs to be made the face and encouraged to give public talks & presentations in the fight against this canker of society.

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A tragedy with a happy ending

This book will not soon leave my thoughts, now that I have read it. Mende Nazer describes very vividly how she grows up in a poor but still happy environment, has a loving father and mother, and is able to have a happy childhood even in a third-world-environment. Then, at age 12, she is abducted by a stronger tribal force in Sudan and taken into abject slavery, torture, and mistreatment. She is degraded and humiliated, and nearly robbed of her humanity. It is not until she is taken as a slave to London that she manages to escape and see the free world again. As she makes her escape, she is back again in new heights of life, and once again can enjoy it. It also becomes evident that the horrible torture she undergoes as a slave does not break her spirit and resistance, and this then enables her to live a new life.
Prior to reading the whole book, I had become acquainted with it in the German translation while surfing through www.droemer-knaur.de, the publishing firm which published the German translation. The website of the publisher indicated that Mende Nazer, after escaping her captors, was facing deportation back to Sudan. People were asked to contact British authorities on Mende Nazer's behalf. I did that only to be told by them that "the Mende Nazer case is well known to us." No indication was made as to whether or not the government was going to help her and grant her residence in Great Britain. I was furious when I read this. Fortunately, Amnesty International was actively working on this case, too, and eventually, the British government granted Mende Nazer residence in Great Britain. I sincerely hope that the rest of her life will be happy. She nobly and truly deserves it. If she ever came to the United States, I sure would want to meet her.

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