Analysis of Kevin Bales's Speech about Modern Slavery at Ted Global

While listening to Kevin Bales’s talk about slavery at Ted Global, one thing that stuck me most is that he seem to be passionate about his the issue that he is in hope of dealing with. He does not only know about the situation of slavery from others, he does the research himself and gets involved in helping the slaves. For instance, he has done research by visiting several countries around the world and meeting the slaves and even slaveholders.(1:25) Also, he has helped a woman in Nepal(15:45). He does not only tell people to help stop slavery and he himself is in action as well.  It makes what he is talking about convincing since he is making himself a role-model to the audience by doing what he wants them to do. Another moment that struck me is when he asks the audience if they are willing to live in a world with slavery(16:31). This is a rhetorical question that he expects the audience to have only one answer - no. It might sound no point of asking it since the answer is obvious but this is also why we must help stop slavery- since we all think the answer is “no”. Here, the question Bales suggests acts as a motivation to the audience in getting involved in stopping slavery. I have been to China over 5 times and I have experience about modern slavery. Every time I went to China, it was common to see slaves on streets. These slaves include children and adults or even elderly. Slaves do not work like how Bales suggests(labor work), though. Most of them were disabled physically(limbs chopped off) and they were forced to beg money from pedestrians on the streets. They were probably controlled by a group who allured/abducted people and force them to earn money for them(by begging). I think this kind of slavery is worth concerning about since it is common in China and is not easy to tackle with(slaves are disabled themselves, it is hard to help them find their skill and build economic autonomy since they are unable to work without limbs and it is likely they will fall back into slavery). 

Despite the content of the speech, Kevin Bales is a skilled speaker who is successful in making the speech interesting to hear and interacting with the audience. He provides the right amount of humour during his speech. For instance, at the beginning, he suggests that slavery today is not like poor marriages and jobs we have(jokes that many people would make)[2:10). Moreover, as the speech goes on, he stops making jokes and this lets the audience know it is time for them to pay attention to and respect what he is talking about. He raises questions such as “are we willing to live in a world with slavery?”(16:31) and “are we truly free?”(16:57) and this way the audience can not ONLY LISTEN to what he says but to form introspection(reflection). It is seen that Kevin Bales appeal to the audience mostly by a sense of fairness. Throughout his speech, as mentioned, he supposes the audience agree to what he is saying(we do not want to live with the existence of slavery) by the rhetorical question. In addition, he never directly mentions WHY the audience should help stop slavery. For instance, he does not suggest what benefits we will get by helping to stop slavery. He only supports his ideas by telling the audience to ask themselves “are we truly free?”. He supposes since we are all humans, we all have human rights to be free and there is no way slavery should exist. If slaves are not free, neither are we since we are all humans and we should be seen as a group.  

Bales contention is that we should help stop slavery by liberation. For instance, to help slaves build up a stable life with self-sufficiency so that they will not have to depend on others nor get back into slaves anymore. Although Bales has clear claims about his ideas, his fails to provide reasons and refutation to his claims. Starting 4:19, Bales suggests that slavery is supported by corruption from the local governments. However, he fails to tell the reasons why governments have to corrupt. For instance, what makes the government corrupt. In fact, most of the governments that corrupt are less developed countries that need money to build up a good social structure. They sell slaves to those more developed countries because they do not want the uneducated people to be their burden(since they can not earn money) and they want to make profits. If Bales suggests this fact to his speech, the audience can easily think of more ways to help stop slavery. For instance, the more developed countries can set up factories that only require labor work(suitable for less developed countries) and hire the local people. By doing so, there is a win-win situation where the more developed countries will have the locals produce goods for them while the locals have job opportunities. In long term, the less developed countries will become richer(people have paid work) while the more developed countries benefit. Let me suggest a counter argument to this. Some may say that more developed countries might exploit the locals by providing them poor working condition, low wage and excess workload. However, there are always contracts factories and workers can make and factories will risk being penalised if they offend the laws. Also, we as consumers can always protest against the producers by not buying their products so that they are pushed to treat workers well. Bales also fails to suggest refutation to his idea that we can stop slavery with our sufficient intellectual power. He should not assume every intellectual person is willing to help stop slavery since there are always lazy people and people who have weak sense of belonging to the society. Instead, Bales can persuade the intellectual people to help by offering good reasons why they should help. Bales fails to give a direction about immediate actions the audience can do. For instance, he only suggests how liberation can help slaves but not how we can practice liberation such as through what organisations can we donate the money and other specific ways we can help(what work to do). Even if the audience want to help slaves after his talk, it is unlikely that they can get involved since they do not know where and how to start.  Bales offers examples about the bad situation of slavery(boys from Nepal) and case studies about how the effectiveness of liberation to slaves(16:16 where ex-slaves have hope about their lives). However, his evidence might not be credible since we do not know it is not from experts. Bales offers evidence from his own research but he does not tell why should the audience believe his statistics since he might not be an expert in researching. He may have introduced more about himself to build up a credibility. For instance, where he is graduated and what success has he come with. 

There is an introduction(how Bales comes up with the topic), body and a conclusion in Bales’s speech except the thesis is not in the introduction part. Instead the thesis is in the middle of the speech(12:11). Bales does not provide effective transitions to sequence or list his ideas. For instance, the beginning of each paragraph are mostly with words “and” and “now” or no transition words at all. Transitions are important as they tell the audience/readers how his ideas are connected/replying to each other so the they can understand more clearly and easily. Even if his ideas are really connected, Bales should assume the audience are not as smart as him and do not know about his ideas at all and provide transitions for them to understand more easily.  

Bales’s speech reminds me how serious slavery is today and how it is neglected. Now I understand that to stop slavery, we can not just buy slaves back(short term solution). Instead, we can help slaves to help themselves by providing them a chance of building up a stable life and dignity so that they will be unenslaveable. Also, he tells us that how easy slavery can be stopped. However, Bales does not provide specific ways we can help. We should keep in mind that liberation can only be done by local people who are part of the local culture, speak local language and know how to protect themselves and slaves. As foreigners, it is illegal for us to liberate people.(limitation). Perhaps we can donate money to liberators to support them.(This is one specific way we can help that Bales does not mention). If we take action blindly, we may end up suffering ourselves as Bales suggests(getting threatened by slaveholders[10:35, 15:45]). Overall, the speech is a good motivation for us to help but not a good guidance to help. 

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