Slavery

The ambience of a dungeon is somewhat lacking without the stench of communal excrement and the occasional wail of despair. One must turn a blind eye to the fundamentals of human decency in order to operate a dungeon efficiently. The administrators of this particular venue had no such moral barrier between them and their profits. For the guests of the dank cells, the good news was that their average stay would be a short one; the bad news was that the only exit was aboard a ship to the New World. The coastal slave forts of West Africa brought wealth and misery in equal measure.

Slavery, as the saying goes, gets shit done. One look at the world’s largest economy demonstrates the benefits of free labour. Consider that most of the authors of the American Constitution owned their own slaves; men celebrated as some of the most progressive in history. Consider that when Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1861, that almost one in five Americans were owned by someone else. Consider that the slave trade was officially banned over thirty years earlier. Letting go of slaves is tough.

To be fair, we cannot hold the USA responsible for slavery; it worked equally well for the Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, Chinese, Romans and Arabs. Without slavery, we may not have had the Pyramids, the Parthenon or the Coliseum. In fact, most civilisations the world over had slaves, including native American and African cultures. Slaves were a sign of wealth and luxury, often prisoners or spoils of war. Feudal peasants were not entirely slaves, freedom of movement and employment were extremely limited, especially for the serfs in Russia. It was not until after Portuguese landed in West Africa in the 1460s did the slave trade really take off.

Europeans didn’t just show up in Africa and take over, trading slaves was common amongst existing empires through the Sahara to North Africa along with gold and ivory. In their efforts to outdo their Muslim rivals, the Portuguese sailed to modern day Ghana to tap into the wealth of the gold trade. As time passed, they saw the profits to be made in trading human cargo, especially to their freshly decimated and labour-lacking colonies in the Americas. Before long, the English, French, Swedes and Danes were in on the act, dotting the sub-Saharan coast with fortresses. While slavery was an African tradition, it took Europeans to make it a global business.

The heartless profiteering of the slave traders is hard to ignore, however it takes two to tango. The slave trade saw the rise of the Ashanti Empire, a warlike people who conquered neighbouring tribes to seize captives and sell them to the slave traders for horses and guns – which in turn were used to make more wars of human plunder. The prime of West African men were polished with oil and sold in American slave yards, older men had their heads shaved to appear younger, while pregnant women and the sick were disposed of overboard during the journey. From the Bahamas to Brazil, slaves were traded for sugar, tobacco and cotton as their owners returned to Europe to reap the rewards.

Britain tabled the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833. The European powers saw the error of their ways and instead decided to divide the African continent up between them in a wave of colonial fervour. A few nations still see the benefits of slavery. Mauritania’s slaves were only officially freed in the mid-80s, newly made citizens still struggle to make the change from slave to employee. Only the sex industry continues a regular trade in slaves worldwide, making effective use of the illiterate and disadvantaged. The shrewd US, on the other hand, still makes the most of slave labour, with over 2.5 million people incarcerated who are put to work across a variety of industries.

Khufu was a powerful Egyptian Pharaoh of the Old Kingdom. In the ancient world’s greatest cock-measuring contest, he ordered the construction of the largest slave-built structure ever known.* Today, most people don’t know the name of the man buried in the Great Pyramid of Giza any more than they know the names of the slaves that built it. Owning a fellow human being is mankind’s ultimate power and most despicable weakness. The status quo, greed and the Bible propped up slavery over the centuries, however it is a weight rightfully shrugged from the shoulders of our collective conscience.

* A useless one nonetheless as his grave was robbed.

Evangelists

A collective sway consumes the room with the ebb and flow of a sea vessel. The dull, continuous hum of the waiting crowd resembles an old refrigerator waiting to reveal its inner brightness. A creaky organ gradually warms up in the corner as divine feedback whines over the PA system. The last few plastic chairs slide across the wooden floor as the final stragglers take their places. The moment swiftly approaches, the hour is nigh.The flood lights illuminate the stage, the Holy Spirit is unleashed with a roar and the man of the moment appears on stage. Welcome to the realm of the evangelist.

Combining the authority of a priest and the illusory personal touch of the motivational speaker, evangelists are not just good shepherds, they’re exceptional ones. Unlike most shepherds, the garden variety preacher attracts his sheep with billboards and catchy slogans. He poaches the flocks of other shepherds and offers unique insights into being a happy lamb. A symbolic relationship exists between the charlatan and the sheep. The suspension of disbelief is aided by placing the word ‘Pastor’ in front of the name of any theatrical individual wearing a silver suit that the average sheep could never afford.

The sordid co-existence of repressed urges and bouts of public ecstasy forms the keystone of evangelical architecture. Originating in US, these weekly emotional orgies are now multinational organisations, welcoming sinner after sinner to instant chequebook gratification. Transforming the dreary traditions of puritan Protestantism into musical and rhetorical masturbation, evangelical services never fail to result in a predictable therapeutic climax. Repent. Absolve. Repeat. By reducing the content of the holy book to choice one-liners, difficult moral and textual questions are avoided. Evangelism is to theology what the Abdoer-Twist is to regular exercise; reducing a complicated and difficult book into bite-size sugary chunks to ease digestion.

 "Your wallet is getting sleepy..."

The beauty of being a Pentecostal pastor is that anybody who can project their voice loud enough can do it. The task is made all the easier by a willing and enthusiastic audience who take peer pressure to a whole new level. Amongst a crowd of hyped-up worshippers, one can sense the impending repentance, the upwelling of tears and the loosening of various tongues. Right-minded people of gentle disposition become unrecognisable when miracles are approaching. An environment of infinite welcome radiates from the bleating flock. The lonely, the uncertain and the forgotten are thrust gently onto the stage by the tearful converted to be born again. There is nowhere else such a superficial display of human self-reflection and the abandonment of individuality.

Is there naught to be gained from such a display? Indeed, there is a multitude. Traditional churches can only gawp in envy at the dollars earned by the vanguard of Pentecostal Evangelists and Televangelists, driving heads and wallets into a frenzy with as much as 95 billion tax-free dollars raised each year in the US alone.* How about the suits? The stadiums? The private jets? According to purveyor of god’s word and global businessman, Benny Hinn, "God will begin to prosper you, for money always follows righteousness." Why do people listen then? The search for meaning in life is a difficult quest to be certain, and being told the answer is much easier than asking the question. All you need to do to make money is to dispense the answers at the pace of a Bold and the Beautiful plotline and the sheep will tune in every week.

In the meantime, the churches grow richer and the business model is catching on. Congregations in traditional churches are losing crowds to the glitz and glamour of evangelical churches and the US, as always, leads the way. Shameless miracle workers and prophets are popping up worldwide from Asia to Africa – with no shortage of silk suits and fine shoes. While witnessing a crowd speaking in tongues might make you question the power of the human mind, a packed stadium of forty year-old women crying to emotional rock ballads should remain Bon Jovi’s territory.

* A 2005 estimate based on GDP - churches need not declare financial statements.

Ireland

Before bursting the widget on this edition of DDW’s Complete Generalisations About Other Cultures, it must be noted that there is genuinely a Leprechaun Museum in Ireland. Being funny is serious business in the home of St. Patrick and taking the piss is the finest remedy against poor weather, potato famines or a thousand years of English bullying. After a few afternoon litres of Guiness, one can navigate the fine line between singy, jolly drunk and shouty, stabby drunk on the streets of Dublin – often before 6pm.

Calling pubs the centre of Irish culture would be an exaggeration; they are also places of learning, music halls, counselling centres and insane asylums. The local watering hole is the most effective method to escape the occasional sunny day. Irish pubs produce an elite class of barmaid, one who can reject the advances even the most committed middle-aged man and still leave him with a smile on his face. Dispensers of holy libations and warming stews, pubs are the next best thing to do in Ireland besides church.

Ireland is a nation on the move…out. The warm climate and sunny beaches – of Bondi – has made Ireland the only nation in the last two hundred years to decrease in population. This is odd considering the time taken to occupy Ireland by its neighbours throughout history. Vikings used the jolly green isle as a holiday resort to escape the Scandiwegian winters while later Norman conquerors sought to keep Irish lords weak and divided. Not until Henry VIII invaded in the late fifteenth century had a foreign power succeeded in taking complete control of Ireland, bringing his new divorce-friendly religion with him.

 

It sure is.

 

Unfortunately, for Henry, the Irish were quite fond of their own Gaelic-Catholic Church, introduced by St. Patrick long before in 383AD. After the puritanical Oliver Cromwell beheaded the Catholic English King Charles I, he retook Ireland for Britain in 1649 – needing only to kill a third of all Irishmen to do so. Thankfully, Ireland was no stranger to population decimation and there were plenty of Protestant English and Scottish settlers to take up the vacancies in the landed aristocracy. Combined with the selling of dissenting Irish into slavery in the Americas and famine-inducing tax laws, Ireland became the happiest province in the British Empire.

Irish independence saw no light until the twentieth century, culminating in the 1916 Easter Rising. While the bloody guerrilla war that followed resulted in a treaty with the British, the Irish Free State was such a long time coming, that the northern half of the country preferred remain a part of the United Kingdom. A cultural divide became a religious war in all but name, resulting in decades of bad blood and vengeance. Catholic vs. Protestant. Euros vs. Pounds. Kilometres vs. Miles. Guiness vs. Guiness.

The Irish may not have all of Ireland, but they have conquered the world. Irish generals fought for Napoleon and fought each other in the American Civil War. The lobstered skin of Irish can be seen from the Caribbean to the beaches of Sydney. Closer to home however, a bad climate creates warm hearts and friendly faces – with endless conversation and hospitable folk. Local legend and tall stories cover landmarks and museums, taking rightful precedence over dull historical fact. The narrow, meandering roads are wonderfully kept, striking the perfect balance between quality workmanship and blind-corner terror.

One cannot help feel suspicious at the mystical, postcard-like nature of Ireland and even your humble author had reservations when standing before a perfect rainbow over a lush green valley with stone walls and cottages dotting the landscape. Conversely, the ancestral hum you feel after purchasing the handmade coat-of-arms of your Irish family name from a quaint shop in a country town loses its lustre when the very same souvenirs can be found in the fridge-magnet section of any petrol station. Perhaps they put something in the Guiness, perhaps they are all actually lovely. Either way, the Irish have a skill at making the rest of the world weak at the knees and we fall for it every time.

The Nativity

There comes a time in the life of any young boy when the magic of the festive season is reduced to an ill-fitting pair of socks and a Tupperware container of leftovers. It is the childhood moment when the whole Christmas-Santa-Reindeer thing suddenly implodes, crumpling into nothingness like a used party hat. Frosty the Snowman cartoons lose their mystery and the significance of carols becomes questionable when that sniffling fat kid at school tells you that the whole Christmas story is a myth.

The road to adulthood not only brings resentment at the sight of Christmas joy in the face of young children, it unloads the burdensome realisation that the whole celebration is one big cynical sales pitch that starts earlier and earlier with every passing year. Yet, as you elbow your way out of a crowded shopping centre on Christmas Eve, that little wooden nativity scene on the street corner gives some conciliation that, once upon a time, this December day was not about consumerism and credit card debt – it celebrated the birth of a special baby boy.

Sadly, this is just another serving of bullshit mince pies.

Without hesitation, mums and dads tell their children that Santa is real – retrofitting the reindeer courier story with pseudo-scientific explanations to keep up with a barrage of ever-probing questions. The story of Jesus’ birth – known to believers and non-believers alike – was constructed in exactly the same way and is as much of a myth as Rudolf’s sex-toy workshop ever was. But what about the census? The baby in the Bethlehem manger? The three wise men? All baubles I’m afraid.

Mmmm, sacrelicious...

Two of the gospels mention the birth of Jesus, Matthew and Luke. Both of them tell a similar tale, but make enough mistakes to suggest the whole nativity story was conceived to tie up loose ends. Jesus was big on fulfilling prophecies. The Book of Micah foretold the messiah would come from the house of David and be born in Bethlehem. Matthew and Luke went to great lengths to show that Jesus was descended from the Goliath-killing King David; the problem being his name was Jesus of Nazareth, not Bethlehem. An oppressive Roman census was the solution.

After comparing their stories, clearly the two gospel writers relied on Wikipedia as much as your author. Luke asserts that the Roman Governor in Syria, Quirinius, issued the census while Matthew says that Jesus was born during the reign of Jewish king, Herod the Great. Ancient historians like Josephus support Quirinius issuing a census in Syria in 6AD, however Herod died nine years earlier in 4BC. In addition, there is nothing to suggest in Roman records that people had to migrate back to their town of origin during a census or whether client kingdoms, like Judea at the time, were included in censuses at all.

These discoveries are nothing new and, like parents patching up the holes in the Santa Claus story, scholars have attempted to explain away the creative application of history employed by the gospel writers. Like most biblical errors however, centuries of dispute is preferable to admitting that that Jesus of Nazareth might be Jesus of Nazareth. In perspective, this is nothing compared to the Christian takeover of a pagan festival to subdue a recently converted populace. That, my friends, is a slow-boiled pudding best saved for next Christmas.

Witches

Most men are rightfully terrified of women. He that says otherwise has yet to meet that special someone who can read his thoughts, reduce his motor skills to naught and dictate his every action through various hexes. To call such women witches, however, is unfair and inaccurate as most witches are simply females whose subversive powers have been clearly identified. Persecuting the worst of them can provide temporary security from dark forces that men can barely comprehend let alone defeat.

When it comes to witches, it is important to look at the facts. Even though all women have some level of demonic power – seen through their regular bleeding and ability to do more than one thing at a time – not all women are ‘witches’. If history has taught us anything, it is that witchcraft often rides in tandem with independent thought and the inability of women to know their place. Fearing what we do not understand and muffling talkative females is mankind’s best defence against the concubines of Satan.

The fight against witches is a long one, some say eternal. Science may provide us with a reassuring blanket of reason, yet bad things continue to happen and we can be certain that witches are involved. The Egyptians, Babylonians and Romans all knew this and dealt with women responsible for drought, famine and disease in their own fashion. While the Old Testament is specific in its treatment of witches, it took those meddlesome new-age Christians to label witch-hunts as superstitious, with Charlemagne even outlawing the persecution of heathen women in 794.

Sometimes, you have to be cruel to be kind.

Not until the end of the Middle Ages was there a resurgence in the study of witches and for many centuries they had walked free amongst the populace. With the backing of Pope Innocent VIII, the first field guide to witches was published in 1487 by two German monks. Known as Malleus Maleficarum (‘The Hammer of Witches’)*, this beautifully presented book was a true product of the European Renaissance. Packed with handy hints, it was widely used to identify those women who had bedded Beelzebub and described the most effective methods to prosecute them.

The next two hundred years saw a Golden Age in witch-trials across much of Europe and the American colonies. In the midst of constant religious struggles caused by the Reformation, God-fearing folk could cast aside the shackles of political correctness and put witches back in their place. Right-minded people agreed that magic was not superstition and witches could even, at times, do positive things. What people needed protection from were witches who did harm or maleficium. Tell-tale signs included women dancing naked, men’s penises disappearing and orgies which involved eating your own babies.

Historical estimates suggest that 40,000-100,000 women were executed for witchcraft in early modern times – a good start by any reckoning. Sadly, the politically correct pendulum swung back in favour of witches, witchcraft laws were gradually phased out and the last execution in Europe took place in Prussia in 1811.

Despite this, there are encouraging signs of a revival. Many African nations have professional witch-finders and an estimated 200 women are put to death as witches in rural India each year. As recently as 2006, Fawza Falih was sentenced to beheading in Saudi Arabia based on the testimony of a man who accused her of causing his impotence. Unfortunately, she died last year in her prison cell before the sentence could be carried out.

* Known as Die Hexenhammer in German – possibly the coolest book title in history.

Jury Duty

Twelve strangers charged with the justice of the realm gather together at the round table. Sworn to secrecy, bound by honour and cloaked in chivalry, they shall not rest until their mission for the truth is complete. Armed not with swords of bows, these servants of her Majesty twiddle well-forged biros in their fingers and sip from goblets of Styrofoam. Their round table lies not in halls of Camelot, but deep within the bowels of the Downing Centre local court.

A great way to meet people from all walks of life, jury duty brings citizens together in an engaging and constructive manner...whether they like it or not. There are few certainties in life, however sooner or later the day will come when you find a jury summons in your letterbox. For some, jury duty is an inconvenience. For others, it is a much welcomed holiday. Yet for everyone, it is a test of patience as you fight the urge not to throttle the loudmouth troglodyte opposite you who demands an explanation as to why he cannot SMS his toothless, mutant girlfriend while in court.

Forced participation brings out the best in each of us; facial expressions around the room suggest the average person takes jury duty about as seriously as they do elections. The terrible inconvenience of the whole experience is quickly confirmed: “How will the salon cope without me?”; “What about my Zumba class?”; “Does this mean we can’t watch Kerry-Anne?” Depending on the crime, jury duty can be long and tedious; some trials last years with no verdict. Compared to the alternative, however, contributing to this system of justice seems the saner choice.

The people at Chum never saw it coming.

Prior to modern juries gaining popularity, methods of determining guilt could hardly be described as impartial. Medieval courts relied on god to determine the guilt of an individual. This was done by subjecting the accused to a horrible experience – such as retrieving a rock from a pot of boiling water – known as Trial by Ordeal. If the wounds began to heal in a few days, god had intervened. If the wound putrefied, then it’s into the pond with you. There was also Trial by Combat, in which god supported the winner of a holy bar fight – being weak and innocent was not so common.

Henry II – an English king none too fond of the church – created a whole new system of law in the 12^th century that was based on local customs and evened the odds a bit for the everyday man. Known as ‘Common Law’, he revived an old custom which involved using twelve men from each village to identify beefs between the locals when royal judges made their regular visits. Known as juries – from the Norman French juré or ‘sworn’ – these groups did the investigating, gathered evidence and were often directly involved with the crimes committed.

Today, juries have no involvement with investigating crimes, sitting only in judgement - the only ordeal being the week-old sandwiches. Juries are no longer exclusively wealthy landowners; they are snapshots of the community, whose decisions (hopefully) represent the values important to society as a whole. In turn, they illustrate how the biggest mouth in a group of twelve people is generally attached to the thickest skull. Despite the initial frustrations of being forced to compromise and to tolerate your fellow humans, jury duty is a satisfying experience which can enrich citizens as well as inconvenience them.