Albertus Minimus

Hard labour for Comrade Stalin

I'm reading Anne Applebaum's history of the Soviet labour camps, "Gulag" and among its many fascinating, if horrifying, insights into human nature is the strong implication that the Church's teaching on the fallen nature of mankind is all too true. For as the author points out, the Gulags were not, apart from a rare few exceptions, extermination camps after the manner of Auschwitz-Birkenau, but labour camps, were the Soviet regime used forced labour to achieve economic ends. (Of course, the incarceration of supposed enemies of the state was also useful from Stalin's point of view.) But the point is that cruelty was not a requirment of the system. In fact, inspectors from Moscow often inveighed against the brutality in the camps. Yet cruelty and brutality were not merely commonplace, but the overwhelming rule, such that examples of kindness and humanity stand out the more clearly.

...(O)nce they were inside the system, the employees of the Gulag did have choices, far more than their Nazi counterparts, whose work was more rigidly defined. They could choose to behave brutally, or they could choose to be kind. They could choose to work their prisoners to death, or they could choose to keep as many alive as possible...

More often, cruelty was not so much sadism as self-interest. Guards who shot escaping prisoners received monetary rewards, and could even be granted a vacation at home. Guards were therefore tempted to encourage such 'escapes'...

Most of the time the cruelty of Soviet camp guards was unthinking, stupid, lazy cruelty, of the sort that might be shown to cattle or sheep. If guards were not explicitly told to mistreat prisoners, neither were they taught to consider prisoners, particularly political prisoners, as fully human either.

I think you'd be hard put to find better examples of the inertia towards evil that is humanity's fallen condition.

The Child in the east

Here's an extraordinary story of how Christianity came to Cebu, one of the islands in the Philippines. Or rather, how Jesus got there first, and Christianity arrived some forty years later.

When Ferdinand Magellan discovered the islands for Spain in 1521, he had with him a little statue of the Child Jesus. Perhaps it was still an unusual image of Christ at the time, because the chaplain who quickly began to preach to the native Cebuanos did not think to bring it down to them, as he had brought a crucifix, until much later. By this time, the King of Cebu and several of his subjects had asked for baptism, though the Queen was still holding back. Then the little statue was shown to them . . . and to everyone's surprise, the Queen was moved to tears. On that very day she, too, begged to be baptised--and she was.

Queen Juana (who has not yet been beatified, though I know not why) remained so attached to the statue that she held on to it even after the Spanish expedition had fled the archipelago, their leader Magellan having been slain in a bloody battle with another tribe. Indeed, the image remained among the Cebuanos for 44 years, worshipped in their pantheon of anitos.

Revered as a rain god, the image was annually borne to the sea by devotees, who then dipped it in water while pleading for rain. They also offered sacrifices and flowers to it, anointed it with oil, and developed a wild hopping dance in its honour.

Nick Joaquin comments: "As the Child Jesus sojourned in Egypt, unrecognised, so the Sto. Nino sojourned in pagan Cebu, unidentified. But its fame spread to the neighbouring islands, from whence came pilgrims curious to see the strange new god of the Cebuanos."

In fact, so popular did this little foreign statue become among the Cebuanos and neighbouring tribes, that in a little over four decades it had superseded every other pagan god in the pantheon--to the distress and frustration of the native priestesses.

If you want to know what happened when the Spanish returned, some forty years later, to find Our Lord there before them, then click on over to Sancta Sanctis.

Cortez the Cuddly

I wonder how many other people, growing up in the 1970s, had their view of South American Aztec culture indelibly influenced by listening, very LOUD, to Neil Young's 'Cortez the Killer'. For years I had this idea of Montezuma as a gentle emperor of a peaceful people, occasionally sending a brave volunteer to an early meeting with the gods. And then, from over the sea, as violent and unexpected as a thunderstorm, the bloodthirsty Europeans arrived and shattered paradise in a paroxysm of blood and fury. And then there's the guitar solo...

Think I'm exagerating? Here are the lyrics:

He came dancing across the water
With his galleons and guns
Looking for the new world
In that palace in the sun.

On the shore lay montezuma
With his coca leaves and pearls
In his halls he often wondered
With the secrets of the worlds.

And his subjects gathered ’round him
Like the leaves around a tree
In their clothes of many colors
For the angry gods to see.

And the women all were beautiful
And the men stood straight and strong
They offered life in sacrifice
So that others could go on.

Hate was just a legend
And war was never known
The people worked together
And they lifted many stones.

They carried them to the flatlands
And they died along the way
But they built up with their bare hands
What we still can’t do today.

And I know she’s living there
And she loves me to this day
I still can’t remember when
Or how I lost my way.

He came dancing across the water
Cortez, cortez
What a killer.

I now suspect that my view of Montezuma as a gentle, kindly figure, and of Aztec culture as a prolongation of Edenic perfection, may have been a little, ah, naive.

Would you like a coffee?

Mrs Minimus, a most learned lady in the fields of history and theatre, suggested an illuminating analogy for the blogs of today: the coffee-houses of Restoration London. The analogy holds with respect to the explosive growth of both phenomena: the first coffee-house opened in Holborn in in 1650 and by 1663 there were 82 of them in London. But what was the function of a coffee-house, apart of course from being a place to drink a cup of java?

The London coffee-houses provided a gathering place where, for a penny admission charge, any man who was reasonably dressed could smoke his long, clay pipe, sip a dish of coffee, read the newsletters of the day, or enter into conversation with other patrons.   At the period when journalism was in its infancy and the postal system was unorganised and irregular, the coffee-house provided a centre of communication for news and information.  Runners were sent round to the coffee-house to report major events of the day, such as victory in battle or political upheaval, and the newsletters and gazettes of the day were distributed chiefly in the coffee-house.  Most of the establishments functioned as reading rooms, for the cost of newspapers and pamphlets was included in the admission charge.  In addition, bulletins announcing sales, sailings, and auctions covered the walls of the establishments, providing valuable information to the businessman who conducted much of his business from a table at his favourite coffee-house.

Another similarity can be found in the charge often levelled at the blogosphere: that it is an echo chamber for those of like minds to convince themselves of the truth of their own ideas. While there is some truth in this, it's worth remembering that these coffee-houses, from which so many of our modern ideas sprang, shared similar characteristics. Thus Whigs would sip their drinks in St. James while the Tories frequented the Cocoa-Tree. Although these establishments later became members-only clubs, they were for many years open to anyone who wished to visit and was prepared to pay the admission. In a like manner, anyone is free to visit Instapundit or the Daily Kos, although I suspect few people read both regularly.

Of course, one real difference is that in day's past the patrons of coffee-houses were required to be 'reasonably dressed' whereas the denizens of today's blogosphere are notorious for their pyjama wearing proclivities. Still, apart from this, there do seem to be some fascinating comparisons between the two phenomena.