Last year (June 4, 2009) President Obama made a widely-publicised speech to the Arab world in Cairo.

He said that “for centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation”.

What he did not say was that Muslim countries in the Middle East and north-central Africa lead the world in human trafficking — not only in past centuries, but today.

A more recent U.S. State Department report shows that most of the 17 countries listed as the world’s worst offenders regarding slavery are Muslim-majority nations, among the most spectacular being Iran, Saudi Arabia and Syria.

* * *

Nobody seriously disputes the fact that the prophet Mohammad himself sold Jewish and other women and children into slavery.

Islam is a powerful force in the world. But is it a religion? That depends on how you define the word.

Islam deals primarily in power.

But with the western ex-Christian nations now at such a low ebb — with prostitution legal and divorce and de facto relationships leaving children exposed to exploitation of all kinds — the non-Muslim world isn’t in a very good position to criticise Muslims for slave trading or anything else.

A groundswell of desire for moral justice and the protection of the innocent and poor from spiritual corruption would be very handy.

But where is it to come from?

* * *

Don’t wait for somebody else.

Make it start inside your own head, and inside your own house.

Do whatever you can at the local level to fight drugs, pornography, alcohol, television, gambling and blasphemy.

Pray to God. He can make the world better, and he will — one way or another.

If you want your prayers to count for something, abandon self-indulgence. Live for God alone.

Turn your back on the low standards surrounding you.

Distrust the secular media.

Never watch television – otherwise your mind will be enslaved like almost everybody else’s.