wfn.org | ACNS3525 Archbishop condemns "old and new forms of slavery"

["Anglican Communion News Service" <acnslist@anglicancommunion.org>]

ACNS 3525     |     LAMBETH PALACE	|     29 JULY 2003 

Archbishop condemns "old and new forms of slavery"

[ACNS source: Lambeth Palace] The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan
Williams, on a visit to a former centre of the West African slave trade,
has spoken of the continuing challenge of "overcoming slavery in old and
new forms". 

In remarks delivered after receiving the honorary freedom of Freetown in
Sierra Leone, Dr Williams said, "Even today we are not free from the
slavery of destructive patterns of human behaviour. 

"There is the slavery of poverty, the slavery of injustice, the slavery
of greed - both sexual and financial, the slavery caused by the HIV/AIDS
pandemic, and the slavery of violence in which bitterness and revenge
can be guaranteed to keep people captive forever, unless delivered by
truth and reconciliation. We must go on identifying and overcoming every
kind of slavery we encounter in our society. 

"In overcoming slaveries we learn to recognise one another as human and,
in this way, we learn to see in each other the face of Christ." 

Earlier, Dr Williams visited the Castle of Elmina, a centre of the
international trade which sent countless thousands of Africans to a life
of slavery. 

Dr Williams linked his remarks to Church thanksgiving for the life of
the anti-slavery William Wilberforce tomorrow (Wednesday). He said, "I
was asked some years ago who I thought had been the greatest Briton of
the last 1000 years. With all due respect to Winston Churchill and
William Shakespeare, my answer was someone whom the Church will be
celebrating this coming Wednesday. William Wilberforce did more to
change to the course of human history in his work to abolish slavery
than can easily be told." 

The Archbishop is in Sierra Leone as part of a visit to the Anglican
Communion Province of West Africa that also takes him to Ghana and The
Gambia.

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