Watch the video on Ruth Gledhill's weblog

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has made his debut on YouTube.

In what will be the first of many broadcasts, Dr Williams is filmed with the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, at the former slave market in Zanzibar, now the Anglican Cathedral.

The two archbishops did a joint reflection on slavery during the recent Primates' Meeting in Tanzania to mark the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade in the UK, being celebrated this year.

The pair were shown two small preserved slave pits, where up to 175 men, women and children were held in appalling conditions, chained and in darkness, often without food and water. Dr Sentamu spent some time at a memorial to the slaves which features some of the original chains used when the market was operating.

In the film, Dr Williams says that the experience brought home the reality of the trade:“You see there the fetters that were used for slaves, the fetters used to bring slaves in convoy, so that they could barely stand and walk, they were so closely shackled together and to see some of the real, the actual shackles that were used until really very recently in this part of the world as part of the paraphernalia of the slave trade, it’s a reminder that it really happened, it really happened not very long ago.”

He says that the instinct to enslave is still very much present in the modern world: “It’s as if slavery is a kind of compulsion for human societies, people go back again and again to treating people as objects, as possessions, and I don’t think we can simply sit back and say ‘it’s a thing of the past and no more’.

All those modern forms of slavery, economic slavery, debt slavery in effect, the slavery of sex trafficking; these things are still with us.”

Dr Sentamu says that holding the original chains was a harrowing experience: “I found the whole experience heart-rending … When I went outside and actually saw those figures – how slaves were tied together – and touched the actual chains that were used, I was rendered absolutely speechless. I felt I was going back in history, but I was also in the present where still slavery in some parts of the world still happens.

“Every person is made in the image and likeness of God, of great worth and of great value and to be treated with great dignity. In that place was almost I felt, almost like an altar where you couldn’t but take off your shoes … you were on holy ground – holy ground.”

The video has been released in the run-up to the Church's Walk of Witness, to be held in London on March 24. The walk will be led by both archbishops and will culminate in an act of public worship in Kennington Park, where the church leaders will offer further reflections on the nature of the slave trade and its modern legacies. More details of the walk can be found at www.makingourmark.org.uk .

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