Slavery in Sudan

Thank you for running “In Sudan, a 12-Year-Old Girl Can Be Bought for $50,” by Charles Jacobs (Commentary, Dec. 28). I am a Holocaust survivor and am very often asked whether I think that it could happen again. I respond that it is happening again, all over the globe, in areas that are not covered by the media and, therefore, unknown to most Americans. As an example, I usually bring up contemporary slavery in the Sudan and elsewhere and ask whether anyone had ever heard of it. I think that no more than two individuals out of the thousands I have addressed have ever raised their hand.

Slavery must be eradicated forcefully just as good people tried to do--successfully to a great extent--a century and a half ago. This can only be done through public awareness that there is a problem to be corrected.

SI FRUMKIN

Studio City

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Jacobs made several inflammatory and unsubstantiated allegations. His description of the civil war in Sudan as a Muslim “ ‘holy war’ on the African population in the South” in order to “Islamize and Arabize Sudan’s Christians and tribalists” plays into the hands of those who incite racial hatred against Arabs and religious hatred against Muslims. The Sudanese civil war is not in essence about race or religion, but rather about the political status of southern Sudan. On the government side, several dozen members of parliament are Christians of various denominations. Some of the main official human rights watchdogs are Christian ministers. Several state governors in the south are Christians. This is remarkable in a country where Christians make up just 4% of the whole population and only 15% of the southern population.

On the race issue, as anyone who has studied or visited Sudan will know, there is very little, if any, physical difference between the people of the north and the south. Reporting on this sensitive issue is not an easy task, but those who engage in it must rid themselves of unacknowledged agendas, anti-Muslim stereotyping or cultural bias.

HUSSAM AYLOUSH, Exec. Dir.

Council on American-Islamic

Relations in Southern California

Anaheim