Photo By: Khaled Ghareeb https://unsplash.com/photos/QN507MdnxRQ?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditShareLink One of the things that make the poor and rich stand out from each other is how they dress. At school there was always that kid showing off with his brand new designer shoes and new clothes; and the kid with hand me downs, worn out and repaired clothes that did not fit well. Just a glance was enough to know who was who. In Sābanto I use fashion to differentiate the poor from the rich. I use clothes as one of the status symbols because textile manufacturing has a lot of history that is relevant to the Sābanto story. Let’s take a trip back to the Industrial Revolution (1760-1840). The textile industry is booming and producing clothes on a massive scale. Weaving is improved with the use of a power loom and the cotton gin is cleaning the cotton fibers; all to speed up the process of production. Humanity is making progress! Under all that triumph of the human mind there were people that worked long hours in terrible conditions. The families were torn apart where men and women migrated to cities to work in the factories under hard conditions and often risking their lives. Kids that were employed for their small hands lost fingers or whole arms while fixing the looms. Many of them were pulled into the machines and killed. The lost and broken lives were the cost of progress. Today there are unions and safety codes that help maintain safe conditions in factories in first world countries. That is not the case however in the developing world. Sweatshops continue to exist and are common in many parts of the world. The clothes we are buying might be made by underpaid workers working extremely long hours. Many women work in these factories and the low pay is often a reason they are unable to get out of poverty. Expensive fashion companies use that labour to increase their own profit, thus the rich are continuing to exploit the poor. I want Sābanto readers to stop and reflect before they chase another fashion craze or admire someone for their designer clothes. In order to change this system we should start from ourselves. References: https://www.historycrunch.com/textile-manufacturing-in-the-industrial-revolution.html#/ https://www.nationalgeographic.org/article/industrialization-labor-and-life/6th-grade/ https://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/item106751.html https://spartacus-educational.com/IRaccidents.htm https://www.oxfam.org.au/what-we-do/economic-inequality/workers-rights/are-your-clothes-made-in-sweatshops/ https://www.euronews.com/green/2020/07/10/exploitation-and-sweatshops-are-at-the-core-of-fast-fashion-it-s-time-to-dismantle-the-sys
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Photo by Elisa Calvet B. unsplash.com/photos/S3nUOqDmUvc?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditShareLink Sābanto has been written for adults who are open-minded and like being challenged by different views and perspectives. It is not suitable for younger readers and reader discretion is advised. In the book I tried to reflect on life and our relationships with each other. My goal was to be honest about the world around us. The book is rough, brutal and sometimes graphic. It is definitely not an easy, relaxing read and it touches on many sensitive subjects that might make some people uncomfortable or even shocked. My intention was to make readers reflect on what they read and I hope the book will bring the injustice and flaws of the world we live in to their attention. Sābanto tries to expose the issues many people face today that most of us are lucky to never experience. As I was editing, I was thinking about toning down the book but as I was making the changes, I felt that the book was becoming weaker. It felt like I was lying to myself by not facing the reality of how brutal the world is. It was like writing about a thug who never uses coarse language, a kid who has never cried in their life, or an adult who has never lied. Unrealistic. Here are some statistics and facts that relate to Sābanto and its content: “Women are generally more likely than men to be poor and to remain poor for longer periods of time.” https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3448820/ "Poverty is the primary driving force behind women becoming prostitutes." https://www.borgenmagazine.com/prostitution-poverty/ "The overwhelming majority of children who have sex for money do so out of economic need, particularly in the context of widespread rural poverty." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12288929/ "Women and girls living in poverty are more vulnerable to sexual exploitation, including trafficking. And those who experience domestic or intimate partner violence have fewer options to leave violent relationships, due to their lack of income and resources." https://www.unwomen.org/en/news/in-focus/end-violence-against-women/2014/poverty "Numerous studies have shown that children growing up with violence are more likely to become survivors themselves or perpetrators of violence in the future." https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/socialsustainability/brief/violence-against-women-and-girls "Several risk factors have been identified that increase the likelihood that a teen will join a gang including the presence of gangs in the neighborhood, having gang members in the family already, histories of sexual or physical abuse, growing up in poverty, having access to weapons and drugs, and a lack of success in other areas of life, such as school." https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/talking-about-trauma/201308/poverty-broken-homes-violence-the-making-gang-member "There is a close connection between illiteracy and poverty at all levels--global, national, and subnational; the countries with the lowest levels of literacy are also the poorest economically. Poverty breeds illiteracy by forcing children to drop out of school to work, and these illiterate people are forced to stay on the lowest levels of the work force and thus remain in poverty." https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED321032 “Thousands of children are serving as soldiers in armed conflicts around the world. These boys and girls, some as young as 8 years old, serve in government forces and armed opposition groups. “ https://www.hrw.org/topic/childrens-rights/child-soldiers And to end on a more positive note - The Onion! “Our Street Gangs Are Probably Using Bad Language” https://www.theonion.com/our-street-gangs-are-probably-using-bad-language-1819583297 Sābanto is an English loanword into the Japanese language, written phonetically. Japanese doesn't have a natural V or a hard R. The macron over the A means it's an elongated sound, imitating an R. The word means a ‘servant’. The word maid - maido - is more popular in Japan to describe a servant. However, I found a use of Sābanto in the context of the book more effective. What does it symbolize? To answer that question we need to go back and look at hierarchies and caste systems in human history. There is little evidence that social levels existed before the Neolithic period. However, starting about 7500 years ago, the first farming cultures showed signs of division. For example, some people were cultivating less fertile soil than the others. In Mesopotamia, 5500 years ago (3500 BC) society was already categorizing its people into groups based on socioeconomic factors like wealth, income, race, education, ethnicity, gender, occupation, social status, or derived power (social and political). That is also when the first mention of slavery is documented. This divide between people continued through the ages of Ancient Greece, Egypt, the Roman Empire and the Middle Ages. What is worth noticing is that society always has groups at the bottom of the hierarchy. Even with the abolition of slavery, this divide continued to exist. There was no longer a master and a slave but there were still wealthy and beggars. This dynamic was existent up to and including the industrial revolution, when human life was expendable in the name of chasing cheaper production and maximizing profits. Today there are still people at the bottom of the social hierarchy. Homeless, addicted and mentally ill, to name a few. Many times we go about our lives and we forget that they exist. We race to be part of the world of the better off - those standing higher than us - as an ultimate reward. We work on our education and careers. We gamble, hoping to make that jump up one day, kick up our feet and finally relax, enjoying the new reality. Many examples in history show that the chances of becoming extremely wealthy are close to none. However, a single unfortunate event in our lives might make us poor and homeless. That is why it might be better for us to look down and prepare for our fall, rather than chase the unattainable. What kind of help would we like to receive when we hit the rock bottom of society? If we bring that bottom higher, maybe the fall wouldn't be that long and painful? Will we ever be able to remove the lowest level in our society and ensure that no one is homeless or ever goes hungry or cold? Can Sābanto finally be the real answer? Can Sābanto serve humanity? Sābanto is an IDEA.
Sābanto is HOPE. Sābanto is a REVOLUTION. I had an idea; a short story that was following me for some time. When the world went into lockdown in March 2020, due to Covid-19, I sat down one evening and I wrote the first draft.
I then put it away. After a few weeks I looked again at what I wrote and I realized that this was a start of something much bigger. My flight to Europe was cancelled that year and I had two weeks in June with nowhere to go and nothing to do. I sat down and I started to write. After two weeks I had a blob of tangled words that made sense only to me, but it was a start. A year later I’m looking at the almost 95,000 words I have written and rewritten. Countless hours of editing and polishing the story. The days of frustration when I couldn't get the scene the way I wanted. The morning realizations that the 3000 words I wrote the night before are just garbage. Self-doubt, that I won't be able to finish it. Impatience, that the process is taking so long. The constant feeling that I am not good enough. As the manuscript is now sent to an editor, I am at point of no return. It is time to stop hiding and face the truth. I wrote a book and IT IS getting published. Sābanto is almost here! I hope you join me and my characters for this incredible journey. |