Halo Halo / Tiny Tips
Halo, halo
In the sixth century Pope Gregory the First sent monks to Britain to convert the pagans. The pagans worshipped nature and believed that animals, plants, trees and other things in nature had souls and a protective god. The pagans were not so readily seduced by snake-oil salesmen. Greg, not wanting to miss out on the corporate opportunities offered by expanding the business and potential for increasing cash flow through tithes, land ownership and so forth, sent another vanguard across the channel a little while later.
This time, through guile, the pesky pagans were placated with the promise that pagan festivals would basically remain but under the new ownership of Christianity. Over a few hundred years the takeover was complete and Christianity was now top dog.
The Venerable Bede, Anglo-Saxon monk and historian, wrote in the eighth century, De Temporum Ratione, of Eostre, pagan goddess of Spring, fertility and renewal, and noted that feasts were held in Eostur-monath which was the equivalent of April. Eggs and hares were associated with her.
With Eostur-monath on the horizon the question is, what does it mean to people in the UK anymore? For a child brought up in a strictly non-religious household it offered a break away from school, hot cross buns, and lots of sugar-addictive chocolate. The Easter Bunny didn’t put in an appearance at all, or it would have found itself in the cooking pot in no time. Neither was time wasted having to hunt for eggs.
Fast forward to adulthood and the realisation that features of Easter, were, like many other Christian festivals, knock-offs from the previous various faiths which had been… expropriated. And the recognition that despite the ‘goodies’ associated with that ‘celebration’ there were various elements that should have been withheld from children for a very, very long time.
Learning that hot cross buns symbolised crucifixion and embalming fluids, the spices and dried fruit occasioned a distaste for that food which has long lasted. If you’re okay with Catholic communion and transubstantiation, the belief that bread and wine is transformed into the actual body and blood of JC, then nothing probably strikes you as distasteful.
Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s writings were the basis for Krafft-Ebing coining the word masochism. Might not even Leopold have found the actions of modern-day penitents in places like the Philippines, southern Italy, Mexico and Spain who engage in self-flagellation and ritual crucifixion, a case of going a bit too far?
In the internet market place there are thousands of children’s religious books for sale. These cover a multitude of faiths. Grab a bundle, such as a child’s first bible, something about Noah’s Ark and JC’s disciples. A wide taste is catered for, including colouring books, sticker books, and Easter story books. But at what age is the ‘cuddly’ stuff ditched in favour of learning of punishments imposed by the Romans and what a cross really represents?
One wonders whether the works of Donatien Alphonse François, aka the Marquis de Sade, wouldn’t be less harmful?
DC
Tiny Tips
A youth panel at the conference examined how Germany’s political establishment is pressuring young people into the armed forces not only through direct reforms, but also through policies that attack livelihoods. The situation imposed onto young workers and students today amounts to ‘economic blackmail’ for those without wealthy families to support them, argued Max Radtke of the trade union ver.di…The reintroduction of conscription should be understood as a question of class interests, added David Christner of Junge Linke (Young Left). He emphasized the need for a sharper analysis of ‘who is being sent to kill and die, and for whose interests’, saying that the political imperative at this point is to develop a ‘practical alternative to repression and militarization’ (peoples dispatch, tinyurl.com/mr3a4dv3).
How Does Yoga Alleviate Child Poverty in India? Yoga classes can offer several benefits, particularly for children living in poverty. They: 1. Provide mindfulness and resilience. These sessions provide a break from daily life, where minds are taken off of hardship outside. Students gradually develop inner strength and willpower that they can take home with them. 2. Build a community. Children feel safe making friends and coming out of their shells. They will feel less alone and it makes the day-to-day that little bit easier. 3. Improve physical health. By building physical strength, students are less likely to contract illnesses and injuries, thereby increasing attendance at school and reducing stress on health care systems (The Borgen Project, tinyurl.com/55rjww2u).
Wide-scale desertions and 2 million draft-dodgers are among a raft of challenges facing Ukraine’s military (AP, tinyurl.com/4rac8b5w).
People are now openly confronting the authorities, with a few lucky ones escaping conscription. Sadly, other videos show men being forced into vehicles by recruiters or beaten to death. This past summer, József Sebestyén, a Hungarian from Transcarpathia, died during his forced conscription. The Ukrainian authorities tried by all means to cover up his case. In the video, recorded in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine, a crowd of civilians surrounds a police car in which a man has been placed. In the recording, people can be heard protesting, standing in front of the car, and preventing the vehicle from leaving the scene. Ukrainians are fed up with war and even more fed up with having to see their loved ones die for it. They are now openly speaking out against family members, friends, and neighbors being dragged away (ZeroHedge, tinyurl.com/yhfv4m8u).
…one of Beckert’s more arresting contentions is that for most human beings, through most of history, the idea of working full-time, not for their own provisions but for cash, was utterly alien: the proletariat almost always had to be forced into being. Sometimes this involved slavery or indentured labour, but just as often it was accomplished by undermining the traditional basis for subsistence production. By enclosing, for example, common lands in Georgian England, or indeed through more recent restrictions on access to the plains of Ethiopia or the forests of Indonesia (Prospect, tinyurl.com/y332abzs).
(These links are provided for information and don’t necessarily represent our point of view.)
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