I wonder why Christian churches don’t scrap the Old Testament. Much of it is an embarrassment. The Burning Bush, The Parting of the Sea, Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat... All of those are harmless fairy stories, but it’s all the gratuitous violence that compromises the message of the religion.
And the children of Israel took all the women of Midian captives, and their little ones. ..And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive? Behold, these caused the children of Israel to commit trespass against the Lord. ..Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man. But all the women children that have not known man, keep alive for yourselves. Numbers 31:9-18 KJV
Slaughtering prisoners of war, raping and killing their widows and sons, and keeping the little girls as sex slaves... Those sound rather like the NATO atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those atrocities, as we know, are committed by Christian troops and supported by most Christian congregations. Unless the Messiah was a psychopath, he would not have approved of them, surely.
Why don’t Christians and their priests and pastors publicly renounce the Biblical atrocities, and the psychopathic god that inspired them? The god that ordered those atrocities was a tribal god, and the role of every tribal god is to advance the interests of its tribe. Moses took an assortment of refugees and moulded them into a brutal military force – the Taliban of its day. He managed that force in what he reckoned were the interests of his new tribe; but it’s hard to see how his actions are relevant to modern Christianity.
All tribes need to have a heritage. Moses and his lieutenants cobbled one together in the wilderness from the various legends of the various communities of refugees. First they worked back to a supposed patriarch (Israel, formerly Jacob), then further back to the Abraham of regional legend, then back to Noah of the Flood, and eventually right back to the physical creation of the First Man by a non-tribal, universal god. The Bible tells us that this creator-god was the same god as Moses’s tribal god; and the two gods came in the Old Testament package sold to the early Christian church. The tale of Abraham’s readiness to murder his son was a constant reminder to the new tribe that the god of the universe has the same cruel standards as the god of the tribal atrocities. Wow.
..Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and offer him for a burnt offering. ..And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. Genesis 22:2-10 KJV
The third god of Christianity is the “prince of peace” – a wholly admirable person in whose name the reach of his personal ethics was extended to the rest of humanity. “Thou shalt not kill” applied to everybody, he said – no exceptions. Even the Midianites would be safe, and Abraham’s son. Slaughters, rapes and oppressions of tribal enemies might be okay by the tribal god – but they were not okay by the god of love. The god of love was worthy of worship, not the other. So why keep the other on the books?
There is a schism in the Christian religion that needs to be resolved. The meek of the community embrace the philosophy of love: the savages, the philosophy of cruelty. It’s the savages who recruit young men to slaughter and mutilate their way to political dominance around the world, and who relish their gruesome work. The meek... well, the meek go along to get along, I guess.
How can any decent person honour all three gods of the Christian Bible? Until the vicious tribal god is removed from the pantheon, what worth can “Christian ethics” possibly have?
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Checkpoint Charlie (T 1 - Berlin 1960s)
It’s a grandfather’s privilege, universally acknowledged, to bore his grandchildren with tales of his younger days. I miss out on that, because my granddaughters don’t speak English well enough to get the full benefit. All I can do is wait until they are fluent enough to read my memoirs. In the absence of memoirs, there are my blog postings. So I’m going to start slipping in occasional reports like the one below. Will they enjoy them, when they’re older? Ah well, that’s not my department. I deal in stories, not enjoyment...
It was 1965, at the end of a week’s driving through East Germany from Poland. It was 11.30 p.m., our visas would expire at midnight, and the East German border guards were refusing to let us cross into US-occupied West Berlin at Checkpoint Charlie. With the brashness of youth, and some experience of evading a few minor border formalities elsewhere in the Soviet Empire, I set out to change their minds. My smattering of German had served us well in similar negotiations. A smattering is sometimes much better than fluency; with a smattering, you aren’t expected to understand everything that’s said.
“It is forbidden to enter West Berlin except from West Germany.” (West Berlin was an enclave in East Germany, with access restricted to three long corridors.) I didn’t actually know that, though we had been warned by Westerners we had met along the way. Pitching up so close to midnight was a gamble.
“But two years ago I visited East Berlin for a day and crossed back at this exact place.”
“That was a day visit, sir. This time you want to formally enter the West from East Germany, and it is forbidden to exit East Germany here at this place. You must drive around to some authorised exit, cross into West Germany, and enter West Berlin on the autobahn. Is that clear?”
“Yes, it is clear, and thank you. But the nearest exit is sixty kilometres away, and I don’t have enough petrol to drive that far, and we have spent all our East German currency.”
“Then you must buy some. You cannot cross here. It is forbidden. Do you understand that?”
But no exchange was open at midnight in East Berlin, and no service station, and we were within ten minutes of being in East Germany illegally and subject to arrest. I explained this, and held out my crossed wrists with the most disappointed expression I could manage. Linda watched this pantomime in horror, and in another few seconds she would begin giving serious voice to her concern. The guards could see that as well as I could.
The crossing at that time was a sort of obstacle course of brick walls and sharp corners, with signs in German and English warning us to drive v-e-r-y slowly. We made it to the American checkpoint with two or three minutes to spare – to be greeted with the utmost suspicion. Sunglasses at night on soldiers with guns never indicate a warm welcome.
“Hey, buddy, you can’t enter here! You have to go round to the autobahn.” I shrugged, and let the situation speak for itself. How come they let you through? They never let people cross here. It’s forbidden. Jesus! This is crazy. Look at these passports, guys! Holy crap!
It was a Cold War first, we gathered. Maybe it was unique. Certainly, nobody has ever believed my story. “They could have shot you as you drove through”, the sergeant said. Well, maybe. But they were nice fellows, just doing their job. Maybe, too, they felt a guilty thrill in ignoring the rules and using their initiative for once. That occasionally happens in dictatorships.
The Berlin Wall lasted for another full generation. I’d like to have watched it being torn down, and I’d like to have a small piece of the hut at Checkpoint Charlie, for old times’ sake. I’m told the hut has been moved to a nearby museum now, where there are photos of the old obstacle course. One photo has a little white VW driving the course. The photo was taken in daylight, so I know it’s not my car. All the same...
It was 1965, at the end of a week’s driving through East Germany from Poland. It was 11.30 p.m., our visas would expire at midnight, and the East German border guards were refusing to let us cross into US-occupied West Berlin at Checkpoint Charlie. With the brashness of youth, and some experience of evading a few minor border formalities elsewhere in the Soviet Empire, I set out to change their minds. My smattering of German had served us well in similar negotiations. A smattering is sometimes much better than fluency; with a smattering, you aren’t expected to understand everything that’s said.
“It is forbidden to enter West Berlin except from West Germany.” (West Berlin was an enclave in East Germany, with access restricted to three long corridors.) I didn’t actually know that, though we had been warned by Westerners we had met along the way. Pitching up so close to midnight was a gamble.
“But two years ago I visited East Berlin for a day and crossed back at this exact place.”
“That was a day visit, sir. This time you want to formally enter the West from East Germany, and it is forbidden to exit East Germany here at this place. You must drive around to some authorised exit, cross into West Germany, and enter West Berlin on the autobahn. Is that clear?”
“Yes, it is clear, and thank you. But the nearest exit is sixty kilometres away, and I don’t have enough petrol to drive that far, and we have spent all our East German currency.”
“Then you must buy some. You cannot cross here. It is forbidden. Do you understand that?”
But no exchange was open at midnight in East Berlin, and no service station, and we were within ten minutes of being in East Germany illegally and subject to arrest. I explained this, and held out my crossed wrists with the most disappointed expression I could manage. Linda watched this pantomime in horror, and in another few seconds she would begin giving serious voice to her concern. The guards could see that as well as I could.
The crossing at that time was a sort of obstacle course of brick walls and sharp corners, with signs in German and English warning us to drive v-e-r-y slowly. We made it to the American checkpoint with two or three minutes to spare – to be greeted with the utmost suspicion. Sunglasses at night on soldiers with guns never indicate a warm welcome.
“Hey, buddy, you can’t enter here! You have to go round to the autobahn.” I shrugged, and let the situation speak for itself. How come they let you through? They never let people cross here. It’s forbidden. Jesus! This is crazy. Look at these passports, guys! Holy crap!
It was a Cold War first, we gathered. Maybe it was unique. Certainly, nobody has ever believed my story. “They could have shot you as you drove through”, the sergeant said. Well, maybe. But they were nice fellows, just doing their job. Maybe, too, they felt a guilty thrill in ignoring the rules and using their initiative for once. That occasionally happens in dictatorships.
The Berlin Wall lasted for another full generation. I’d like to have watched it being torn down, and I’d like to have a small piece of the hut at Checkpoint Charlie, for old times’ sake. I’m told the hut has been moved to a nearby museum now, where there are photos of the old obstacle course. One photo has a little white VW driving the course. The photo was taken in daylight, so I know it’s not my car. All the same...
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Town & Country (cruelty to animals)
Sometimes daily newspapers have to cast a wide net for their news, don’t they? Last week England’s Daily Mail reported that two men in a lamb-castrating speed-contest in Wyoming had become physically ill from removing lambs’ testicles with their teeth. I may have been one of a rather small number of readers whose immediate reaction was, “Gosh, Dad used to do that all the time, and it never made him sick.”
I mean, why should it?
There has always been a huge cultural difference between the customs of towns and countrysides. What counts as good, practical sense in rural settings is often frowned upon in urban ones, and vice versa. Until very recently, Cayman’s isolation made it “country” as opposed to urban. So one finds some significant differences in customs and attitudes, between native Caymanians and city-bred expats.
The political dominance of the native-born Caymanians more or less forces us immigrants to (pretend to) admire the old Island ways, and there is not much reciprocity. Caymanian community leaders are not the slightest bit interested in other places’ customs. If there were some meaningful reciprocity, the cultural divide would be a whole lot less than it is now.
Ever since the earliest settlements, Cayman has had sheep and goats. How did the old-time farmers castrate their lambs and kids, if not the way my father’s generation did it? Those things are too slippery to get a grip of, Dad reckoned. Around 1950, where we lived, the traditional method gave way to expandable rubber rings, by which means the expendable organs dropped off in the course of time - way too slow for speed contests like the one reported in the Daily Mail, of course, and probably not quite as certain.
Horses, too, fulfil different cultural wants in the countryside and in the towns. Town horses have riders with helmets on, leaping gracefully over formal obstacle courses. Country horses are vehicles for pulling ploughs or herding sheep and cattle. Older Caymanians, at least, will readily acknowledge the cultural gap the two usages reflect.
Dogs, too: workers in the country, pets and guard-dogs in towns. In the Caribbean, yard-dogs are a third category - neither pets nor guards, they’re encouraged to bark themselves stupid at all hours of day and night at anything that moves within half a mile. Immigrants from outside the region find yard-dogs an unpleasant novelty. We have one behind our house. It starts its mindless noise at five or six o’clock most mornings and continues for much of the rest of the day.
Country dogs are lucky not to get kicked into silence by their owners, whereas yard-dog owners exercise no control at all. They don’t make for good neighbours, in quiet middle-class areas. South Church Street is not quite as exclusive as Crystal Harbour, but it is middle-class enough for us residents to find a yard-dog a nasty cultural shock.
Cruelty to animals is not a universal constant. Tugging baby lambs’ balls out without anaesthetic seems cruel, to townies; leaving dogs alone to go mad with loneliness seems cruel by country standards. Forcing horses to jump the same hurdles over and over again is unnecessarily humiliating, from the country viewpoint; making them gallop unshod over rough ground and fallen trees while chasing breakaway cattle is disgracefully risky, from the urban viewpoint.
Which offenders most deserve the attention of a local Humane Society- my present neighbours and their lonely yard-dog, or my childhood neighbours and their dentally de-testefied lambs? Animal cruelty is defined by local judgments, I guess.
I mean, why should it?
There has always been a huge cultural difference between the customs of towns and countrysides. What counts as good, practical sense in rural settings is often frowned upon in urban ones, and vice versa. Until very recently, Cayman’s isolation made it “country” as opposed to urban. So one finds some significant differences in customs and attitudes, between native Caymanians and city-bred expats.
The political dominance of the native-born Caymanians more or less forces us immigrants to (pretend to) admire the old Island ways, and there is not much reciprocity. Caymanian community leaders are not the slightest bit interested in other places’ customs. If there were some meaningful reciprocity, the cultural divide would be a whole lot less than it is now.
Ever since the earliest settlements, Cayman has had sheep and goats. How did the old-time farmers castrate their lambs and kids, if not the way my father’s generation did it? Those things are too slippery to get a grip of, Dad reckoned. Around 1950, where we lived, the traditional method gave way to expandable rubber rings, by which means the expendable organs dropped off in the course of time - way too slow for speed contests like the one reported in the Daily Mail, of course, and probably not quite as certain.
Horses, too, fulfil different cultural wants in the countryside and in the towns. Town horses have riders with helmets on, leaping gracefully over formal obstacle courses. Country horses are vehicles for pulling ploughs or herding sheep and cattle. Older Caymanians, at least, will readily acknowledge the cultural gap the two usages reflect.
Dogs, too: workers in the country, pets and guard-dogs in towns. In the Caribbean, yard-dogs are a third category - neither pets nor guards, they’re encouraged to bark themselves stupid at all hours of day and night at anything that moves within half a mile. Immigrants from outside the region find yard-dogs an unpleasant novelty. We have one behind our house. It starts its mindless noise at five or six o’clock most mornings and continues for much of the rest of the day.
Country dogs are lucky not to get kicked into silence by their owners, whereas yard-dog owners exercise no control at all. They don’t make for good neighbours, in quiet middle-class areas. South Church Street is not quite as exclusive as Crystal Harbour, but it is middle-class enough for us residents to find a yard-dog a nasty cultural shock.
Cruelty to animals is not a universal constant. Tugging baby lambs’ balls out without anaesthetic seems cruel, to townies; leaving dogs alone to go mad with loneliness seems cruel by country standards. Forcing horses to jump the same hurdles over and over again is unnecessarily humiliating, from the country viewpoint; making them gallop unshod over rough ground and fallen trees while chasing breakaway cattle is disgracefully risky, from the urban viewpoint.
Which offenders most deserve the attention of a local Humane Society- my present neighbours and their lonely yard-dog, or my childhood neighbours and their dentally de-testefied lambs? Animal cruelty is defined by local judgments, I guess.
Friday, December 9, 2011
The 16 Days (Violence against women)
About this time every year, Cayman honours “16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence”. There are a couple of marches, and a couple of speeches, and that’s it for another year. It has long disappointed me, that our community’s supposed concern for the safety of women is concentrated on such a brief period. Shouldn’t it be longer? It’s also disappointing that the concern seems to focus only on women who are Caymanian. Shouldn’t it cover ALL Cayman’s women?*
We don’t exclude black women or white women or brown women; why shouldn’t we extend our concern to the migrant women who work among us? (“But we do!” Oh, but we don’t!) Last month the Philippines government put Cayman on a blacklist for failing to grant adequate protection to its nationals in these Islands. How did our authorities react? Did our Immigration bureaucrats investigate the work-conditions of Filipino women in domestic service, and announce their findings to the public? Maybe they did and I missed it; more likely, they couldn’t care less what happens to migrants.
What kind of message does discrimination of this kind send to men who abuse women? Don’t rape Caymanians, but your migrant helper is fair game? Must be.
At an international conference I was at a few years ago, some female judges from several African nations spoke on the difficulty of enforcing the “right” of African wives not to be beaten by their men. International human-rights standards were fiercely opposed by tribal tradition, which verged on sacred. The battered wives invariably pleaded in court for their men’s freedom: babies would starve without their fathers’ work, they cried, truthfully. The men claimed it was their human right to beat their wives - just as some men do everywhere. Some Caymanians claim the right to exploit their migrant employees, on the grounds that it is their (the employers’) human right to do so. Well, what can you do with tribal traditions?
For many men in the civilised West, violence against women is still an equivocal topic. A joke from my schooldays, for illustration: Viking warriors! This is your captain speaking! Tomorrow we raid England. Here are my orders. Boat #1: you will do the looting! (“Hooray!!”) Boat #2: for you, the pillaging! (“Hooray!!”) Boat #3... (Groans and protests: “Oh, come on, chief! Not the bloody raping again!”)
Male violence against women is strong-versus-weak persecution. Rape is almost always about power and bullying, rarely about sex. Even in civilised societies it’s a kind of war, and every war is about strong-versus-weak. The motivation for wars is the reward you get for winning. In The Good Olde Days the prospect of rape and loot was what kept the troops in the field - and from what we read about the West’s occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, it still is.
A great many TV shows contain jokes about the prospect of male-on-male rape in prisons. Strong versus weak, again. For as long as the jokes about violence continue, our society is bound to limit its disapproval to sixteen days a year.
* This criticism is NOT directed at the Estella Scott-Roberts Foundation, but at our community as a whole. To the best of my knowledge, the Foundation’s work is beyond reproach.
We don’t exclude black women or white women or brown women; why shouldn’t we extend our concern to the migrant women who work among us? (“But we do!” Oh, but we don’t!) Last month the Philippines government put Cayman on a blacklist for failing to grant adequate protection to its nationals in these Islands. How did our authorities react? Did our Immigration bureaucrats investigate the work-conditions of Filipino women in domestic service, and announce their findings to the public? Maybe they did and I missed it; more likely, they couldn’t care less what happens to migrants.
What kind of message does discrimination of this kind send to men who abuse women? Don’t rape Caymanians, but your migrant helper is fair game? Must be.
At an international conference I was at a few years ago, some female judges from several African nations spoke on the difficulty of enforcing the “right” of African wives not to be beaten by their men. International human-rights standards were fiercely opposed by tribal tradition, which verged on sacred. The battered wives invariably pleaded in court for their men’s freedom: babies would starve without their fathers’ work, they cried, truthfully. The men claimed it was their human right to beat their wives - just as some men do everywhere. Some Caymanians claim the right to exploit their migrant employees, on the grounds that it is their (the employers’) human right to do so. Well, what can you do with tribal traditions?
For many men in the civilised West, violence against women is still an equivocal topic. A joke from my schooldays, for illustration: Viking warriors! This is your captain speaking! Tomorrow we raid England. Here are my orders. Boat #1: you will do the looting! (“Hooray!!”) Boat #2: for you, the pillaging! (“Hooray!!”) Boat #3... (Groans and protests: “Oh, come on, chief! Not the bloody raping again!”)
Male violence against women is strong-versus-weak persecution. Rape is almost always about power and bullying, rarely about sex. Even in civilised societies it’s a kind of war, and every war is about strong-versus-weak. The motivation for wars is the reward you get for winning. In The Good Olde Days the prospect of rape and loot was what kept the troops in the field - and from what we read about the West’s occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, it still is.
A great many TV shows contain jokes about the prospect of male-on-male rape in prisons. Strong versus weak, again. For as long as the jokes about violence continue, our society is bound to limit its disapproval to sixteen days a year.
* This criticism is NOT directed at the Estella Scott-Roberts Foundation, but at our community as a whole. To the best of my knowledge, the Foundation’s work is beyond reproach.
Thursday, November 24, 2011
True Democracy (in ancient Athens)
WARNING! This post contains some speculations on matters of history and etymology. I find that sort of stuff very interesting, but it’s not for the squeamish.
We don’t always know what we mean when we say “democracy”. It signifies different things in different contexts. There is “representative” democracy, in which voters elect a limited number of oligarchs to pass laws and hire bureaucrats to interpret those laws and security personnel to enforce them. And there is “pure” or “direct” democracy, in which all licensed electors vote for or against specific propositions.
It was the city-state of Athens in Greece 2500 years ago that gave us the concept of democracy. In their usage it was a liberal kind of representative democracy - a reform imposed by a popular dictator who set out to break the power of the City’s hereditary rulers - property-rich native families whose clannishness had long inhibited the development of the City’s full economic potential.
Hitherto, all eligible citizens could vote for members of the governing Assembly: no problem there. But each family always voted together as a bloc, for its own relatives. The liberal dictator’s new constitution created artificial groups with the authority to elect representatives to the Assembly. Think of school “houses” with elected leaders to represent the members in matters involving the governance of the school.
Each “house” had its own meeting-place called a deme, where the voting took place. Hence deme-ocracy, -cracy being the standard English transliteration of the Greek word meaning “rule”. The members of each deme were a carefully chosen cross-section of the citizenry; social classes and families were so mixed that none of the traditional factions could gain dominance. That was the innovation.
There were occasions in ancient Athens when the entire electorate voted as a bloc, but only ever on issues, not on candidates for the Assembly. Athens’s democracy never meant “rule by the people”, especially in the sense of the direct voting we associate with Switzerland.
By 500 B.C. the franchise was the monopoly of male hereditary (bloodline) citizens. The rest of the population- women, slaves and long-term residents, could not vote. This situation particularly irked the immigrants, who at that time dominated commercial life, and were nearly as numerous as the citizens. Giving them the vote was deemed necessary to prevent an exodus of foreign investors and their skilled foreign workers, which might have seriously damaged the local economy.
Sound familiar? Immigrants in Cayman who benefitted from the mass Status grants of 2003 may well owe their good fortune to FCO clerks who remembered their school history lessons. What a thought! In Athens, mass grants of citizenship happened more than just the once. The occasional merging of immigrants and bloodline natives is what set Athens above and apart from its more village-oriented neighbours. Will bloodline Caymanians have the gumption to do the same? Doubtful, I’m afraid.
Incidentally, the demes would not have been specially created for the purpose, merely adapted for it. Brand-new places would never have been able to override family loyalties. It’s far more likely that they had existed in some form or other for some respectable traditional purpose. For me, the most likely original purpose would be religious shrines to a highly respected god. My candidate for that honour is Themis, one of the earliest recorded Greek gods, who was associated with the divine law and custom-law, which in England is called common law.
It would have been a stroke of genius to choose that god’s traditional holy places as venues for the casting of votes under the new constitution. Themocracy, democracy: potato, potahto.
We don’t always know what we mean when we say “democracy”. It signifies different things in different contexts. There is “representative” democracy, in which voters elect a limited number of oligarchs to pass laws and hire bureaucrats to interpret those laws and security personnel to enforce them. And there is “pure” or “direct” democracy, in which all licensed electors vote for or against specific propositions.
It was the city-state of Athens in Greece 2500 years ago that gave us the concept of democracy. In their usage it was a liberal kind of representative democracy - a reform imposed by a popular dictator who set out to break the power of the City’s hereditary rulers - property-rich native families whose clannishness had long inhibited the development of the City’s full economic potential.
Hitherto, all eligible citizens could vote for members of the governing Assembly: no problem there. But each family always voted together as a bloc, for its own relatives. The liberal dictator’s new constitution created artificial groups with the authority to elect representatives to the Assembly. Think of school “houses” with elected leaders to represent the members in matters involving the governance of the school.
Each “house” had its own meeting-place called a deme, where the voting took place. Hence deme-ocracy, -cracy being the standard English transliteration of the Greek word meaning “rule”. The members of each deme were a carefully chosen cross-section of the citizenry; social classes and families were so mixed that none of the traditional factions could gain dominance. That was the innovation.
There were occasions in ancient Athens when the entire electorate voted as a bloc, but only ever on issues, not on candidates for the Assembly. Athens’s democracy never meant “rule by the people”, especially in the sense of the direct voting we associate with Switzerland.
By 500 B.C. the franchise was the monopoly of male hereditary (bloodline) citizens. The rest of the population- women, slaves and long-term residents, could not vote. This situation particularly irked the immigrants, who at that time dominated commercial life, and were nearly as numerous as the citizens. Giving them the vote was deemed necessary to prevent an exodus of foreign investors and their skilled foreign workers, which might have seriously damaged the local economy.
Sound familiar? Immigrants in Cayman who benefitted from the mass Status grants of 2003 may well owe their good fortune to FCO clerks who remembered their school history lessons. What a thought! In Athens, mass grants of citizenship happened more than just the once. The occasional merging of immigrants and bloodline natives is what set Athens above and apart from its more village-oriented neighbours. Will bloodline Caymanians have the gumption to do the same? Doubtful, I’m afraid.
Incidentally, the demes would not have been specially created for the purpose, merely adapted for it. Brand-new places would never have been able to override family loyalties. It’s far more likely that they had existed in some form or other for some respectable traditional purpose. For me, the most likely original purpose would be religious shrines to a highly respected god. My candidate for that honour is Themis, one of the earliest recorded Greek gods, who was associated with the divine law and custom-law, which in England is called common law.
It would have been a stroke of genius to choose that god’s traditional holy places as venues for the casting of votes under the new constitution. Themocracy, democracy: potato, potahto.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Our Latest Blacklist (Filipinos in Cayman)
In the end, it wasn’t even a nine-days’ wonder. Three days’ attention was all our local media gave to the Philippines Government’s sudden broadside against Cayman’s mistreatment of migrant workers. It can’t have taken the Philippines authorities years and years to acknowledge the slavery-like aspects of our indentured-servitude program, so we are left asking ourselves what the purpose of the broadside might have been. I think it probably had three objectives, each of which was at least partly achieved.
First, it was a general warning- notice to the whole world not to exploit Filipino citizens working abroad. There are several millions of them at any one time, and the forty-one nations and territories on the published blacklist are all very minor importers of Filipinos. How many of them could there be working in Zimbabwe, for goodness sake, or Tuvalu, or Haiti? If the home bureaucrats were working strategically, it would make sense for them to start their threats with the smaller importers and work their way up to the majors. The two or three thousand Filipinos in Cayman comprise a miniscule proportion of the total working overseas.
The second purpose of the blacklist might be the political one of assuring domestic voters that the governing Party is looking after their sisters, daughters, mothers and brothers, sons and fathers labouring in strange lands thousands of miles away. It’s always a scary move (and sometimes a dangerous one) for young people, to head off to parts unknown. We should all- especially native Caymanians- have the greatest respect for the bravery of those who make that move. All native Caymanians have forebears who made it, after all.
Thirdly, all but the most heartless of bureaucrats in Manila must feel genuine disgust at our immigration system that gives local employers a licence to cheat and exploit migrants held on bond-service. They must also wonder what kind of people we are, to be practising such a departure from civilised behaviour. Of course we know that most of the devisers and enforcers of our system are nice people on the surface. We see their photos in the paper and think, well, he or she looks pleasant enough. But a lot of us are discerning enough to see, behind some of the smiles, personalities that lack compassion. They are people from whom we should withhold our respect, however high and mighty their positions.
In my mind, endorsing servitude is not all that much less offensive than endorsing gang culture. Individuals are intimidated into silence in both cases. Filipinos in Cayman (like all migrant workers) risk having part of their wages and pensions stolen without recompense, and risk being assaulted in public places by thugs who are never brought to trial.
Ah well, Filipinos are a resilient people, and they have a strong support-network here in their fellow-nationals. They will survive, as exploited migrants everywhere survive. Ultimately, they and their families are better off being exploited in Cayman than unemployed back home. Any moral equivocation is ours, not theirs. We Caymanians should feel shame for our community, that it refuses our guest workers the full protection of the law. In many ways, Cayman is a paradise; so how can we live in paradise and not be on the side of the angels?
First, it was a general warning- notice to the whole world not to exploit Filipino citizens working abroad. There are several millions of them at any one time, and the forty-one nations and territories on the published blacklist are all very minor importers of Filipinos. How many of them could there be working in Zimbabwe, for goodness sake, or Tuvalu, or Haiti? If the home bureaucrats were working strategically, it would make sense for them to start their threats with the smaller importers and work their way up to the majors. The two or three thousand Filipinos in Cayman comprise a miniscule proportion of the total working overseas.
The second purpose of the blacklist might be the political one of assuring domestic voters that the governing Party is looking after their sisters, daughters, mothers and brothers, sons and fathers labouring in strange lands thousands of miles away. It’s always a scary move (and sometimes a dangerous one) for young people, to head off to parts unknown. We should all- especially native Caymanians- have the greatest respect for the bravery of those who make that move. All native Caymanians have forebears who made it, after all.
Thirdly, all but the most heartless of bureaucrats in Manila must feel genuine disgust at our immigration system that gives local employers a licence to cheat and exploit migrants held on bond-service. They must also wonder what kind of people we are, to be practising such a departure from civilised behaviour. Of course we know that most of the devisers and enforcers of our system are nice people on the surface. We see their photos in the paper and think, well, he or she looks pleasant enough. But a lot of us are discerning enough to see, behind some of the smiles, personalities that lack compassion. They are people from whom we should withhold our respect, however high and mighty their positions.
In my mind, endorsing servitude is not all that much less offensive than endorsing gang culture. Individuals are intimidated into silence in both cases. Filipinos in Cayman (like all migrant workers) risk having part of their wages and pensions stolen without recompense, and risk being assaulted in public places by thugs who are never brought to trial.
Ah well, Filipinos are a resilient people, and they have a strong support-network here in their fellow-nationals. They will survive, as exploited migrants everywhere survive. Ultimately, they and their families are better off being exploited in Cayman than unemployed back home. Any moral equivocation is ours, not theirs. We Caymanians should feel shame for our community, that it refuses our guest workers the full protection of the law. In many ways, Cayman is a paradise; so how can we live in paradise and not be on the side of the angels?
Thursday, November 10, 2011
The Parishes of England
It’s an ancient English tradition that every parish look after its own natives. Parishes used to have the right to expel “foreigners” back to their home parishes. Most of those expelled were poor people, since some parishes had more money in the kitty than others. “Foreign” workers brought in to help with the harvests acquired no right of residence no matter how long or frequent their visits. In general, the only foreigners accepted as residents were men who married into one of the parish families. There was no rollover policy as such.
The natives themselves, of any and all parishes, were subject to arbitrary transplantation by decree of the king or the local lords of the manor. In the 1700s, tens of thousands of parishioners from England, Scotland and Ireland were unwillingly “planted” in the British Caribbean and North American colonies as indentured servants, and in the preceding Century King James implemented the mass transfer of villagers from his realm to what is now Northern Ireland.
One can see the link between the old British customs and the practices Britain includes in its current colonial rules. Cayman is an example of a parish’s autonomy; the deportation of the Chagossians in the 1960s illustrates a British monarch’s legal power to override that autonomy. Both examples are consistent with the old customs. If the United States had wanted Cayman Brac handed over to it instead of Chagos, all the Brackers would have been expelled without a moment’s hesitation.
It would pay native Caymanians to study British history in more detail than is done at present. It would pay their MLAs to study and understand the distinction between a nation and a parish-sized territory, too. One day those studies might come in handy.
It’s very tiresome hearing and reading comparisons between Cayman and large nations. “How would Britain like it if two thirds of its population were immigrants?” or “America’s Presidents have to be born in that country, so it’s only right that all our MLAs be born in this country.” Utterly stupid comments, deriving from a deep ignorance of the world around us.
Cayman’s proper comparisons are with British parishes or towns, not Britain itself. Why is that so hard to understand? The FCO did our Islands a great disservice when it re-titled our Leader of Government Business as Premier and our ExCo (Executive Council) as Cabinet, and set up a Protocol Office. How many English parishes have Protocol Offices, for goodness sake? Those titles just gave our local rulers ideas above their extremely modest stations. A place of our size needs Parish Councillors, not Cabinet Ministers.
Dear God, the FCO does get some cockamamie ideas into its woolly head! The junior clerks assigned to watch over the flyspecks of Empire must be laughing themselves sick, watching the ridiculous posturing of our Protocol-obsessed village aldermen. It would be nice if the aldermen would plant their feet back on the ground and bring a sense of perspective to their foolishness. Yes, maybe they don’t see their actions as foolish, but the rest of the world does.
The natives themselves, of any and all parishes, were subject to arbitrary transplantation by decree of the king or the local lords of the manor. In the 1700s, tens of thousands of parishioners from England, Scotland and Ireland were unwillingly “planted” in the British Caribbean and North American colonies as indentured servants, and in the preceding Century King James implemented the mass transfer of villagers from his realm to what is now Northern Ireland.
One can see the link between the old British customs and the practices Britain includes in its current colonial rules. Cayman is an example of a parish’s autonomy; the deportation of the Chagossians in the 1960s illustrates a British monarch’s legal power to override that autonomy. Both examples are consistent with the old customs. If the United States had wanted Cayman Brac handed over to it instead of Chagos, all the Brackers would have been expelled without a moment’s hesitation.
It would pay native Caymanians to study British history in more detail than is done at present. It would pay their MLAs to study and understand the distinction between a nation and a parish-sized territory, too. One day those studies might come in handy.
It’s very tiresome hearing and reading comparisons between Cayman and large nations. “How would Britain like it if two thirds of its population were immigrants?” or “America’s Presidents have to be born in that country, so it’s only right that all our MLAs be born in this country.” Utterly stupid comments, deriving from a deep ignorance of the world around us.
Cayman’s proper comparisons are with British parishes or towns, not Britain itself. Why is that so hard to understand? The FCO did our Islands a great disservice when it re-titled our Leader of Government Business as Premier and our ExCo (Executive Council) as Cabinet, and set up a Protocol Office. How many English parishes have Protocol Offices, for goodness sake? Those titles just gave our local rulers ideas above their extremely modest stations. A place of our size needs Parish Councillors, not Cabinet Ministers.
Dear God, the FCO does get some cockamamie ideas into its woolly head! The junior clerks assigned to watch over the flyspecks of Empire must be laughing themselves sick, watching the ridiculous posturing of our Protocol-obsessed village aldermen. It would be nice if the aldermen would plant their feet back on the ground and bring a sense of perspective to their foolishness. Yes, maybe they don’t see their actions as foolish, but the rest of the world does.
Friday, October 28, 2011
The Right to be Born
What is called “the right to life” in anti-abortion circles is actually the claimed right of a non-viable foetus to be born. (Both sides agree on the right of a viable foetus.) The doctrine is espoused by some religious denominations as an article of faith rather than of logic or science. Morality comes into the equation, but only as the stepchild of a belief in Original Sin and a supernatural creator-god. The same faith sometimes opposes artificial (pro-active) methods of contraception, which leaves the moral position up in the air. If a creator-god forbids birth-control pills, spermicidal pills and morning-after pills, in what order of priority does he or it disapprove of them?
When does life begin? If the answer were “at conception”, why on earth should it be sinful to prevent conception? And, why delay it until after an approved marriage ceremony in an approved church? (Approved by the agents of the creator-god of the moment, that is.) Well, it’s because the agents themselves say so, they being uniquely qualified to know the mind of the god they inherited. Any debate quickly descends into a battle based on false premises. I myself claim to believe in Loki the old Norse god of luck and caprice. You can probably guess what his opinion is on this whole matter.
If life does begin at conception, there are practical problems that need to be addressed, and not just the problem of when to have one’s birthday parties. Every conception would require formal registration, lest a life be lost and not accounted for. Since conception is not immediately evident, every act of sexual congress would need to be reported. Of course that is something the average boy and girl are reluctant to tell their mothers, never mind some faceless bureaucrats in a Ministry (or Church) for the Preservation of God’s Children. Anyway, where would registration leave sperm-banks and their clients?
In the movie Legally Blonde, Reese Witherspoon faced down the argument that a sperm-donor might legally be entitled to parental rights over a baby conceived using his sperm. Logically, she said, it would follow that “all masturbatory emissions, where his sperm was clearly not seeking an egg, could be termed reckless abandonment”. That’s one for the church fathers to ponder!
It’s a nice paradox, that liberals (in the British sense of the word) tend to be pro-abortion and anti-war, whereas conservatives generally oppose abortion while being pro-war. A child once born must be protected from hardship and poverty in the soft liberal world, but left to take his chances in a laisser-faire conservative society. It’s relatively rare to find a consistent opinion on the sanctity of life, however defined. Perhaps all anti-war pacifists ought to be anti-abortion, and all supporters of wars ought to be pro-abortion. The latter set doesn’t usually mind bombing a baby the minute it’s born; the former would ban the bombing while frustrating the birth. Go figure.
The famous satirical book 1066 and All That reported the English Civil War as being a struggle between the Cavaliers (“Wrong but Romantic”) and the Roundheads (“Right but Repulsive”). The descriptions could easily be applied to the parties in the debate on the right to be born. But which is which? Hmmm. My old Norse god of caprice has just told me, “It all depends...”
When does life begin? If the answer were “at conception”, why on earth should it be sinful to prevent conception? And, why delay it until after an approved marriage ceremony in an approved church? (Approved by the agents of the creator-god of the moment, that is.) Well, it’s because the agents themselves say so, they being uniquely qualified to know the mind of the god they inherited. Any debate quickly descends into a battle based on false premises. I myself claim to believe in Loki the old Norse god of luck and caprice. You can probably guess what his opinion is on this whole matter.
If life does begin at conception, there are practical problems that need to be addressed, and not just the problem of when to have one’s birthday parties. Every conception would require formal registration, lest a life be lost and not accounted for. Since conception is not immediately evident, every act of sexual congress would need to be reported. Of course that is something the average boy and girl are reluctant to tell their mothers, never mind some faceless bureaucrats in a Ministry (or Church) for the Preservation of God’s Children. Anyway, where would registration leave sperm-banks and their clients?
In the movie Legally Blonde, Reese Witherspoon faced down the argument that a sperm-donor might legally be entitled to parental rights over a baby conceived using his sperm. Logically, she said, it would follow that “all masturbatory emissions, where his sperm was clearly not seeking an egg, could be termed reckless abandonment”. That’s one for the church fathers to ponder!
It’s a nice paradox, that liberals (in the British sense of the word) tend to be pro-abortion and anti-war, whereas conservatives generally oppose abortion while being pro-war. A child once born must be protected from hardship and poverty in the soft liberal world, but left to take his chances in a laisser-faire conservative society. It’s relatively rare to find a consistent opinion on the sanctity of life, however defined. Perhaps all anti-war pacifists ought to be anti-abortion, and all supporters of wars ought to be pro-abortion. The latter set doesn’t usually mind bombing a baby the minute it’s born; the former would ban the bombing while frustrating the birth. Go figure.
The famous satirical book 1066 and All That reported the English Civil War as being a struggle between the Cavaliers (“Wrong but Romantic”) and the Roundheads (“Right but Repulsive”). The descriptions could easily be applied to the parties in the debate on the right to be born. But which is which? Hmmm. My old Norse god of caprice has just told me, “It all depends...”
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
The Right To Life
My last blog noted that without freedom of speech, no other rights can be defended. I have been reminded that without life, no rights at all can be defended, so there must exist an inherent right to defend oneself. Sounds fair to me. Most human-rights professionals, though, say not. They take governments’ deprivation of human life as an abuse of the most fundamental right of all, on the grounds that without life, no other rights can possibly exist.
Enemies of state can be locked away in dark holes and tortured daily, while awaiting enough Amnesty International letters to set them free. Foreign troublemakers can be deported beyond the reach of all human-rights organisations, and even beyond their concern. But when you’re dead, you’re dead. No Amnesty letters can set you free, and no indignant lawyer can stop your expulsion. Punishment camps may be a living death, but they’re not the real thing.
The standard list (bill) of “human rights” appears in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by a voting majority of the United Nations General Assembly in 1948 as an ideal for all nations to aspire to. Not just aspire to, but actually work towards achieving: each member-nation of the UN within its own boundaries, and each keeping its fellow-members up to the mark.
The Declaration was drafted in the wake and aftermath of Germany’s recent wars of aggression, and was therefore supposed to be universal, not tribal -- supposed to apply to all humans, not just certain nationalities. In future, all nationalities were supposed to be equally protected. Aggressive wars were to be outlawed, since each nation had agreed not to take the lives of any humans, including nationalities not its own. The chief indictment at the Nuremberg War Trials of the Nazi defendants was not for the slaughter of the Jews, or Russian POWs, but for waging wars of aggression.
How ironic, then, that wars of aggression have become so common among the nations that provided the original prosecutors, and that their current governments despise the now-forgotten context in which the original bill of human rights was composed. If the Nuremberg laws were applied today, most NATO politicians and generals would risk being hanged. The changed circumstances make it difficult to argue for the right to life any more. It seems grotesque to criticise the application of “the death penalty” for domestic murderers in nations that have embraced the practice of mass-murdering unwitting foreigners without remorse.
The argument (for the right to life) has reverted to a tribal relevance. Our national governments may slaughter whom they like, but not their own nationals. Libyan civilians YES, local killers NO. For as long as we condone that policy, it seems trivial and unnecessary to try to protect the lives of local thugs. If we applaud the killers of innocent wogs and dagoes and rag-heads in faraway places, why not issue guns to every householder and tell him to take out every guilty mugger he can find. Watch the 1970s movie Death Wish, a model of encouragement for vigilante justice. “Go, and do thou likewise.”
Some ethnic communities are inherently more valuable than others. Our soldiers are heroes, theirs are cockroaches. We have the right to defend our lives and they don’t, even while we are breaking into their homes. Might is right. Right? Well, if might is indeed right, why can’t it be applied against an armed burglar in our homes? Hey, maybe he’s a Muslim. Then what? They don’t have rights, do they?
Enemies of state can be locked away in dark holes and tortured daily, while awaiting enough Amnesty International letters to set them free. Foreign troublemakers can be deported beyond the reach of all human-rights organisations, and even beyond their concern. But when you’re dead, you’re dead. No Amnesty letters can set you free, and no indignant lawyer can stop your expulsion. Punishment camps may be a living death, but they’re not the real thing.
The standard list (bill) of “human rights” appears in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by a voting majority of the United Nations General Assembly in 1948 as an ideal for all nations to aspire to. Not just aspire to, but actually work towards achieving: each member-nation of the UN within its own boundaries, and each keeping its fellow-members up to the mark.
The Declaration was drafted in the wake and aftermath of Germany’s recent wars of aggression, and was therefore supposed to be universal, not tribal -- supposed to apply to all humans, not just certain nationalities. In future, all nationalities were supposed to be equally protected. Aggressive wars were to be outlawed, since each nation had agreed not to take the lives of any humans, including nationalities not its own. The chief indictment at the Nuremberg War Trials of the Nazi defendants was not for the slaughter of the Jews, or Russian POWs, but for waging wars of aggression.
How ironic, then, that wars of aggression have become so common among the nations that provided the original prosecutors, and that their current governments despise the now-forgotten context in which the original bill of human rights was composed. If the Nuremberg laws were applied today, most NATO politicians and generals would risk being hanged. The changed circumstances make it difficult to argue for the right to life any more. It seems grotesque to criticise the application of “the death penalty” for domestic murderers in nations that have embraced the practice of mass-murdering unwitting foreigners without remorse.
The argument (for the right to life) has reverted to a tribal relevance. Our national governments may slaughter whom they like, but not their own nationals. Libyan civilians YES, local killers NO. For as long as we condone that policy, it seems trivial and unnecessary to try to protect the lives of local thugs. If we applaud the killers of innocent wogs and dagoes and rag-heads in faraway places, why not issue guns to every householder and tell him to take out every guilty mugger he can find. Watch the 1970s movie Death Wish, a model of encouragement for vigilante justice. “Go, and do thou likewise.”
Some ethnic communities are inherently more valuable than others. Our soldiers are heroes, theirs are cockroaches. We have the right to defend our lives and they don’t, even while we are breaking into their homes. Might is right. Right? Well, if might is indeed right, why can’t it be applied against an armed burglar in our homes? Hey, maybe he’s a Muslim. Then what? They don’t have rights, do they?
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Freedom Of Speech (censorship in Cayman)
It’s disappointing to read of McKeeva’s lawsuit against Cayman News Service for defamation. The action makes no sense, and could well cause enormous damage to our Islands’ image overseas. Cayman is a much more sophisticated place than it was a generation ago when I had to fight censorship for criticising the ExCo of the day in the Chamber of Commerce Newsletter.
Ezzard called me “obnoxious” in the Legislative Assembly; Benson called the Chamber “a subversive organisation”. Dr Edlin pulled my Work Permit, and the Chamber had to scramble to prevent being closed down by the political establishment.
It was a serious dispute- but nobody sued. Presumably, the political heavies thought it would be too embarrassing, although it turned out to be embarrassing enough even without a lawsuit. Our criticism was robust but warranted. We called the new Labour Law “a lurch towards socialism”- which sounds hopelessly tame today but was inflammatory then.
Jim Graves, the Editor of the Nor’Wester magazine, had been expelled at the instigation of Jim Bodden a few years earlier. There was a big fuss over his Editorials, too - but nobody sued. Later, Jim Graves and I shook our heads over the irony that the very people who had brought him back to Cayman, after a few years of exile, were the ones now trying to get rid of me. “Well, that’s just what they’re like”, Jim said - meaning, Caymanian MLAs in general. “You today, me yesterday; who knows who they’ll go after next?”
There have been a couple of other victims along the way - and now it’s Nicky and Wendy, Daphne and Randy. Critics of our politicians can never relax, it seems. The faces change, but the censorship lives on.
The Protection Board, later the Immigration Board, was always the censors’ weapon of choice. Traditionally it was packed with anti-expats; as a general statement, all the immigration-related Boards still are. I’m surprised Randy’s Work Permit employees weren’t targeted for deportation, instead of the radio station being sued. Dear oh dear: no respect for tradition!
My persecution in the late 1980s was reported by the Jamaica Gleaner (“A Climate of Censorship”) and Offshore Alert (“ExCo Hillbillies”). Selected English newspapers were being lined up when the FCO quietly stepped in and called off the dogs. There was no coverage by Cayman’s mass media, of course. The Caymanian Compass shrank even further into its “see no evil” shell; the Chamber of Commerce was gradually subverted by political cronies and reduced to the lap-dog it is now.
CNS is pretty much all we have, today. CaymanNetNews prints my weekly columns (several of which are politically incorrect, though not all) as well as its own sometimes very critical Editorials; Knal and I do our blogs. Otherwise it’s just the Wendy & Nicky show, and all the contributors to their forums.
I don’t believe the general public can afford to let their website be neutered. Cayman is a much more prominent target than it used to be, and censorship by what Offshore Alert is bound to call “Hillbillies” will become a hot topic internationally, sooner or later. If someone close to the citadels of power can get these lawsuits withdrawn, he or she would be doing Cayman a wonderful service.
It’s an axiom of human-rights activism that without freedom of speech no other freedoms can survive. As we know, human rights are as yet unrecognised by Cayman’s authorities. All the same, the sight of a human-rights-inspired Gender Equality Law being debated in the same month as an act of blatant censorship is way too bizarre to pass unremarked by many of our international critics.
Ezzard called me “obnoxious” in the Legislative Assembly; Benson called the Chamber “a subversive organisation”. Dr Edlin pulled my Work Permit, and the Chamber had to scramble to prevent being closed down by the political establishment.
It was a serious dispute- but nobody sued. Presumably, the political heavies thought it would be too embarrassing, although it turned out to be embarrassing enough even without a lawsuit. Our criticism was robust but warranted. We called the new Labour Law “a lurch towards socialism”- which sounds hopelessly tame today but was inflammatory then.
Jim Graves, the Editor of the Nor’Wester magazine, had been expelled at the instigation of Jim Bodden a few years earlier. There was a big fuss over his Editorials, too - but nobody sued. Later, Jim Graves and I shook our heads over the irony that the very people who had brought him back to Cayman, after a few years of exile, were the ones now trying to get rid of me. “Well, that’s just what they’re like”, Jim said - meaning, Caymanian MLAs in general. “You today, me yesterday; who knows who they’ll go after next?”
There have been a couple of other victims along the way - and now it’s Nicky and Wendy, Daphne and Randy. Critics of our politicians can never relax, it seems. The faces change, but the censorship lives on.
The Protection Board, later the Immigration Board, was always the censors’ weapon of choice. Traditionally it was packed with anti-expats; as a general statement, all the immigration-related Boards still are. I’m surprised Randy’s Work Permit employees weren’t targeted for deportation, instead of the radio station being sued. Dear oh dear: no respect for tradition!
My persecution in the late 1980s was reported by the Jamaica Gleaner (“A Climate of Censorship”) and Offshore Alert (“ExCo Hillbillies”). Selected English newspapers were being lined up when the FCO quietly stepped in and called off the dogs. There was no coverage by Cayman’s mass media, of course. The Caymanian Compass shrank even further into its “see no evil” shell; the Chamber of Commerce was gradually subverted by political cronies and reduced to the lap-dog it is now.
CNS is pretty much all we have, today. CaymanNetNews prints my weekly columns (several of which are politically incorrect, though not all) as well as its own sometimes very critical Editorials; Knal and I do our blogs. Otherwise it’s just the Wendy & Nicky show, and all the contributors to their forums.
I don’t believe the general public can afford to let their website be neutered. Cayman is a much more prominent target than it used to be, and censorship by what Offshore Alert is bound to call “Hillbillies” will become a hot topic internationally, sooner or later. If someone close to the citadels of power can get these lawsuits withdrawn, he or she would be doing Cayman a wonderful service.
It’s an axiom of human-rights activism that without freedom of speech no other freedoms can survive. As we know, human rights are as yet unrecognised by Cayman’s authorities. All the same, the sight of a human-rights-inspired Gender Equality Law being debated in the same month as an act of blatant censorship is way too bizarre to pass unremarked by many of our international critics.
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