Francis Bok : Escape From Slavery

"As a seven-year-old boy growing up in the southern Sudan, Bok was caught up in a raid on a regional market center when marauders from the north set upon the market, killing the men and kidnapping the women and children to work as farm slaves. He went from a loving and supportive extended family to the brutality of slavery in a strange land and culture, dominated by Muslims who considered him a Christian infidel. After enduring 10 years of slavery, Bok escaped to freedom in Cairo, where he became a U.N. refugee, eventually making his way to the U.S. at the age of 21. Having learned Arabic in Northern Sudan and English in America, Bok, with incredible determination, became involved in the antislavery movement, speaking around the country while seeking to earn a high-school degree. Yet it is his simple account of being a child cut off from his family and culture that shows the inhumanity of slavery."
--Booklist's review

I must add though, that having read this book about a year ago, one shocking aspect to it is that Francis was called by his new family of "owners" only "abeed". This word is the same in Arabic for "black African" as well as "slave". Can't get much more to the point than that. His "insult" and crime to the Northern Sudanese Arabic raiders? He was black, not Muslim, not Arab. Sometimes not being Arab can be "the ultimate insult, as we have seen on other occasions. It astounds me that the plight of the Dinka has been ignored since my childhood. I always figured adults would "fix this problem" by the time I grew up. Yet it STILL continues. My highest praise for Francis Bok (formerly Buk) who endured things I cannot begin to imagine.

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