Amazing Grace, Modern Slavery, Easter Triduum

Dear Stan,

I was delighted to see your review of "Amazing Grace" posted on the Internet Movie Database www.imdb.com, alongside all the "big name" movie reviewers from the LA Times, Chicago Tribune, etc. I hope you become a regular presence on what must be the best movie site on the Web.

[Thanks, Bill. All my reviews from the Moral Premise blog have been submitted to imdb, but it takes weeks sometimes for them to appear.]

I saw "Amazing Grace" last night and loved it. Apart from anything else, it reminded me of a lecture on drug abuse I attended years ago, where the speaker pointed out that just about every "problem" drug on the illicit market today was originally prescribed by the medical profession as a wonder cure for some ailment or other. Poor Wilberforce was yet another victim of the 18th century quacks who were so wonderfully caricatured in "The madness of King George".

Also, it reminded me of the comments of the makers of "Chariots of Fire" on the character of Eric Lidell, the Scottish missionary and Olympic gold medalist who was so memorably immortalized in the movie. (I was willing to forgive the countless liberties the filmmakers took with the facts). It was so difficult for everyone (writer, director and actor) to portray a truly good person without making him slightly unreal and unworldly in the eyes of a cynical modern audience. The makers of "Amazing Grace" do not fully escape that problem. I felt that their William Wilberforce had too much of the innocence of the lamb and not enough of the cunning of the serpent which would be necessary to push through such a radical change in the snakepit of British politics.

Also, as people in the UK have been very loudly celebrating the 200th anniversary of Wilberforces's triumph, others have pointed out that there are more slaves in the world today than in the 18th century. The modern slave trade is back in Britain with a vengeance; only instead of being centered on the great seaports, such as Liverpool and Bristol, it is based at the major airports such as Heathrow. The modern slaves are mainly female, often from Eastern Europe and tend to be coerced into the sex trade. One estimate claimed that up to 80% of prostitutes in the UK are from Eastern Europe and are as mercilessly bound to their vile masters as the plantation workers in the 18th century. One aspect of the recent serial murders of prostitutes in Ipswich, which surprised me was that all five victims were British girls, born and raised within a small radius of the town. Not surprisingly, all five were victims of another slavery - drug addiction- and plied their desperate and dangerous trade to feed their habit. Unlike Wilberforce, they lacked the strength to break their addiction. The modern British police have the legal powers to pursue the modern slavers, but they seem to lack the resources or the political will to hound them out of business.

One possible suspect in the Ipswich case was Volker Eckert, a German long-distance truck driver suspected of killing up to 19 women across Europe between 1974 and 2006 before the Cologne police arrested him last November. His victims in France and Spain were not French or Spanish girls, but East European sex workers, yet more modern slaves. Half the police forces in Europe are dusting off their unsolved murders and queuing up to question him. The Ipswich police have arrested a local man and no more murders have happened, which suggests that they caught the right guy. I can only hope that the ferocious media pressure to catch someone has not lead to yet another miscarriage of justice; we have a grim collection of those already to the discredit of various British police forces and prosecuting authorities.

On a happier note, I have been going to the Easter Triduum services at our wonderful local Benedictine Abbey, Douai, which is about 10 miles west of Reading. The abbey bears the name of the northern French town from which the monks were exiled in 1903 as a result of anti-clerical legislation. The French loss was our gain, as the music (under Doctor John Rowntree) is sublime and the monks offer huge spiritual enrichment to the diocese, with retreats, lectures and wonderful liturgies galore. The abbey has recently reestablished a foothold in Douai by sending two monks to live for the long term in a house in the town. This "mini-monastery" has been warmly welcomed by local people and the two "anglais" monks are making heroic efforts to preach and pray in French.

Happy Easter to all your family

Bill