Child exorcism is not an new thing. Until very recently it did go on in this country, and all over the 'civilised' world.
They are still unearthing the graves in some Catholic boarding schools.
Sorry, but this is not an issue which can be hitched up to another creaking call for forced repatriation. Neither is it a final confirmation that human beings can only coexist with other human beings who act and look the same. This is about the care of children.
And all religious faith abuses children. When it's not poisoning their minds, it's breaking their bodies. In fact, if it fails to do the first, it resorts to the latter. Our own glorious empire had a long tradition of beating the evil out of children.
In Victorian times, a child's life was cheap - as we all know. You only have to look at the gravestones of the time: 'Martha - Wife of the Above and two or three infants'. They didn't even bother to count them, let alone name them.
It's always the same in societies with a high infant mortality, and a correspondingly high birth rate. And when that culture is overlain with a world-beating monotheism like Christianity, it is easy for any local psychopath to assume the role of God and tell his flock to do what comes naturally.
And in a culture of conflict and harship, the thing that comes naturally is to inflict pain. Especially when your parents did exactly the same to you, because as we know, being beaten as a child NEVER does you any harm as an adult. The very idea.
All you're seeing in the Newsnight report was a return to - wait for it - 'Victorian Values'. I know a certain Baroness who's very happy with that state of afairs.
So in the short term, the only solution is a Scandinavian style ban on all smacking. They seem to be happy with it, what's wrong with us? Too far gone? Not a convenient notion to live harmoniously in the hang 'em and flog 'em and send 'em back where they came from brigade? A combination of both, probably.
In the long term, eradicating child abuse is about treating children as human beings, not property. But then we'd have to treat everyone as human beings, and that will surely be the end of civilisation as we know it.
It will be even worse than raising the minimum wage to £5.50 an hour, which will have us all murdered in our beds. [Complain about this post]
re: Child Exorcism David McD - 813th post - 25 Feb 2005 14:27
Mr Littlejohn,
"They are still unearthing the graves in some Catholic boarding schools". Perhaps you would like to give some examples.
"In Victorian times, a child's life was cheap..." If you had any knowledge of history, literature, medicine or Victorian engineering then you would know that nearly half of all children died their first year of life in the early Victorian area (generally much to the distress of their parents and siblings) but these figures were dramatically reduced during the Victorian era due to the advances in medical practice and sewage engineering, particularly the latter.
The programme concerned dealt exclusively with the practices brought in by recent immigrants from West Africa. The practises revealed had absolutely nothing in common with the Christian religion as practised in Britain or Western Europe.
If we import large third world minorities of unskilled uneducated people (why we should import them, many from countries that were never even British colonies, I cannot even begin to imagine) we should not be surprised if we also import their customs and their problems. The manner reported had absolutely nothing to do with the "reasonable chastisement" of children and this was quite obvious. [Complain about this post]
re: Child Exorcism Little Richardjohn - 840th post - 25 Feb 2005 15:23
"If you had any knowledge of history, literature, medicine or Victorian engineering then you would know that nearly half of all children died their first year of life in the early Victorian area "
Which is just what I went on to say: "It's always the same in societies with a high infant mortality, and a correspondingly high birth rate."
But the loss was NOT the dreadful loss you depict. It may have been among a sector of the genteel classes, generally, children were very very expendable, Any reading of virtually any relevant text of the period will confirm that. Your ignorance is stupendous, and totally baffling.
The Newsnight Report may have concerned itself with the practices of quasi Christian cults, but their attitude to children is not very different from the Victorian attitude, or that of any disciplinarian school until the mid fifties or so. Face up to it.
What we're seeing is our own past with a few exotic ribbons and feathers. And we are simply re-importing the message our Christian missionaries exported in the first place. By banning smacking, social services would be much more empowered to clamp down on these sects.
In general, the people attending them are law-abiding, so the culture would begin to change and with the natural increase in prosperity and education in the second generation, the ideological extremes would die out - as they have in every other immigrant wave with deeply ingrained world-views.
These practices are partly caused by persecution and alienation. By hijacking this issue and seeking to demonize an entire community, you are contributing to that hostility and playing into the hands of those ready and willing to exploit it. [Complain about this post]
re: Child Exorcism David McD - 814th post - 25 Feb 2005 16:26
Mr Richardjohn,
If you believe that only "a sector of the genteel classes" (whatever that may mean) mourned or cared for the death of their children then I fear you have little understanding of what it is to be a parent. Of course, when childbirth was common, people were more accustomed to it and recovered more quickly and, if poor, had to get on with their lives but that really does not mean that the great majority did not care.
To blame “Christian Missionaries” for the more violent and alarming cultural and tribal practices of some West African groups is a twist of post modernist thinking that leaves even me at a loss for words!
The second part of you post seems to imply, yet again, that to point out the problems of large numbers of unskilled, ill educated people, many from countries which have no historical relationship with the UK (and therefore no family ties etc.), is "racist". Well then, by your definition I am "racist" but so are the overwhelming majority of your fellow countrymen. [Complain about this post]
re: Child Exorcism Little Richardjohn - 842nd post - 25 Feb 2005 19:10
My countrymen? Who are they?
You have no understanding of what it was like to be a parent in the C19. Probably because you don't want to know.
When children are plentiful, they are are cheap, like anything else. The texts are just too numerous to refer to, even if I thought for a minute you'd pay any attention. Just Google yourself. It's not difficult. Failing that, read Jane Eyre or something similar.
Christian missionairies introduced monotheism and the concept of universal guilt. That is not reinventing history - that's your job. And with those constructs came the concept of universal power. That was a new thing to animists, whose dieties had previously been local and specialized.
The economic realities of the marketplace are inescapable. And their consequences for the mobility of labour and the role of the new labour market in a flexible social structure are unpleasant if you are an opponent of market forces, or on the recieving end of them.
Those priced out of jobs by new waves of immigration are always on the receiving end.
The whinge of those who oppose market forces is due to their being overtaken in the social scale by 'newcomers'. Well, they had their chance, and blew it.
The rule is, if you're still living in the slums when the new wave of immigrants move in, you haven't been trying hard enough, and deserve what you get. Ask Margaret Thatcher or Keith Joseph or anyone. After all, to her, riding on a bus after the age of 30 was a sign of a failed life. The sign that your bootstraps haven't been pulled hard enough.
Culturally, each new influx is the only positive side to the whole sordid bearpit. At least those influences, when blended with aspects of native culture, provide a degree of variety. But it's no use complaining when the child-care practices of our forefathers are served up to us a hundred years on.
And it's not as if those practices are dead in this country now. Until the morons stop screaming for blood every time a teenager steals a car radio, we have no moral high horse to ride.
All we can do is make bigotry and barbarism of all kinds less acceptable. And in practice that means squeezing all religions till the pips burst. It's time to put the old mare out of her misery. [Complain about this post]
re: Child Exorcism David McD - 819th post - 25 Feb 2005 20:31
RLJ,
"The rule is, if you're still living in the slums when the new wave of immigrants move in, you haven't been trying hard enough, and deserve what you get"
Thank you for so perfectly capturing your thought process and that of those who think like you. No wonder the abhorrent BNP grows and grows; a classic example of one evil philosophy feeding from another. [Complain about this post]
re: Child Exorcism Little Richardjohn - 845th post - 27 Feb 2005 17:31
Your thought processes – Unless I’ve become Thatcher overnight. Do read the post.
I know that the people who hate to have the rules of the market waved in their faces most are those who profess its' merits most loudly, but this is ridiculous.
Although the inability to detect irony is very typical.
The abhorrent BNP thrives on the rules of the marketplace. And your intolerance and ignorance and inability to acknowledge the sins of the British Empire, plus your yearning to return to those glorydays (irony again) only gives them more motivation.
It's therefore not unusual that you are unable to see the connection between labour costs and anti-immigrant feeling. Your economic system depends on cheap labour, and with that requirement come new populations and new cultures. You cannot escape that inevitability or the amorality of its consequences.
Instead you call for market forces to be flouted in a most uncharacteristically socialist manner, or you pretend it's a conspiracy against something called the 'British way of Life' which only you are allowed to define, and which always ends up being as racially pure as a Nuremburg Chorus Line.
And naturally, anyone who is able to invoke even a modicum of basic economic reality - your economic reality - is labelled EVIL. If I'm evil because I understand that the market is about making money and that it is not some kind of Sunday School Treat for the Poor of The Parish, then I'm guilty as charged. The genuine pathos is in the fact that you really do not know what is happening, and it is causing you so much pain.
The world must seem a supremely treacherous place when the wonderful Free Market, which is Nature's Friend and the Boon of Mankind - after all, Margaret Thatcher promised - turns round and bites you deeply in the gluteous Maximus.
That just wasn't supposed to happen.
Well. We tried to explain. But as usual when money is involved, you simply stuck your fingers in your ears and went La La La La - as you're doing now. [Complain about this post]
re: Child Exorcism Lord Lucan - 1154th post - 25 Feb 2005 14:17
Little Richardjohn
This is'nt about victorian values (whatever they might be) it's about ignorance and fear. People from central & west africa have to be educated, they have to be taught that juju, black magic and witchcraft dont exist exept in the mind of the frightened and ignorant parent listening to the local tower hamlets witch doctor.
Victoria Climbie was not murdered because her guardians simply felt like beating her, they thought thanks to the local witch doctor that the poor girl was possessed by evil spirits. This level of fear and ignorance is difficult for us (for me anyway) to understand, but understand we must and these people must be educated [Complain about this post]
re: Child Exorcism Little Richardjohn - 839th post - 25 Feb 2005 15:05
This is'nt about victorian values (whatever they might be) it's about ignorance and fear.
Ignorance and Fear. As I said, Victorian values.
Education how? You're dealing with a culture which is self-isolating, and feels threatened anyway (boo-hoo) but more than that, is essentially criminal.
How many so-called churches are really just money-laundering operations for drug money we will never know for sure. But we'll never find out until churches are liable to the same fiscal scrutiny as other businesses.
If I was a succesful crack dealer, I would be looking for a nice respectable sideline, preferably dealing in voluntary donations of cash.
So we have to end tax breaks for all religions to drive out the criminals and open the cults up to the rest of society before we can hope to educate anyone. Otherwise any education will be treated as intrusion, and merely reinforce the spiral of insularity and abuse. [Complain about this post]
re: Child Exorcism trueblue - 207th post - 25 Feb 2005 13:57
I agree it is shocking. Would all those who believe in the multi-cultural society (which of course can never work) like to comment? Presuambly, this is okay as these people form a 'culture' or 'minority' or 'community' that has its own rights. [Complain about this post]
re: Child Exorcism peter fluck - 5073rd post - 25 Feb 2005 15:56
But yesterday, Mr Trueblue, you told us that your believe children may indeed be possessed by demons. I would have thought these muti obsessed Africans would have been people after your own heart? [Complain about this post]
re: Child Exorcism trueblue - 207th post - 25 Feb 2005 13:58
I agree it is shocking. Would all those who believe in the multi-cultural society (which of course can never work) like to comment? Presuambly, this is okay as these people form a 'culture' or 'minority' or 'community' that has its own rights. [Complain about this post]
re: Child Exorcism the hidden paw - 1st post - 25 Feb 2005 14:14
This sort of behaviour is known in many religious sects - not only African ones. Jeanette Winterson, the author, wrote of her bleak Lancashire childhood in 'Oranges are not the only Fruit' and described a beating the central character got from the pastor of the local chapel for being gay. The beating was administered by people who 'loved' the girl and wanted her to be saved.
And doesn't the adage 'spare the rod and spoil the child' originate in Christianity?
There will always be some for whom evil spirits and beatings are a reality.
The police needs to gather intelligence about these practices, wherever they occur in this country, and to take appropriate action against those who would abuse their children through their mistaken beliefs. [Complain about this post]
re: Child Exorcism Lord Lucan - 1155th post - 25 Feb 2005 14:25
I agree, Paddy Doyle's "The God Squad" is a remakable true story of how he was shockingly treated by nuns in an "Industrial school" in 1950s Ireland. In Paddy Doyle's own words: The book is about society's abdication of responsibility to a child.
It's an incredible story. [Complain about this post]
re: Child Exorcism Rosie T - 1571st post - 25 Feb 2005 14:32
A school friend of mine was put in a Catholic children's home when her widowed father went to prison for Manslaughter. My mum wrote to her and sent her parcels regularly, and considered fostering or adopting her. Suddenly her replies stopped coming. After writing several times to both her and the Mother Superior and receiving no replies, my mother came to the conclusion that she had moved on, been adopted or whatever.
Years later, she returned to our town as a grown woman. She told my mother what had happened: a girl had been found to be corresponding with a boy, so the nuns decided to immediately cut off all contact with the outside world for all the girls. [Complain about this post]
re: Child Exorcism Samantha Girl - 110th post - 25 Feb 2005 14:20
Children are used and abused on a daily basis in this way. A certain establishment are begging for money so that this sort of thing can be stopped, on top of brutal behaviour from the parents. And what about those children in Africa (especially girls) who have to go through circumcision without any anesthaetic. This sort of thing has no place in our modern society. But it still goes on..... [Complain about this post]
re: Child Exorcism Lord Lucan - 1156th post - 25 Feb 2005 14:32
Samantha Girl
Young girls being forceably circumcised happens quite a lot in this country, places like London & Bradford in particular. It's closed secretive societies & minority groups that ensures this sort of abuse still flourishes. [Complain about this post]
re: Child Exorcism Little Richardjohn - 841st post - 25 Feb 2005 15:43
"It's closed secretive societies & minority groups that ensures this sort of abuse still flourishes."
And these factors are the direct result of prejudice, lies, regular hate campaigns by the gutter press, alienation, and the poverty required to produce the cheap labour we need to keep Canary Wharf nice and sparkly.
The hypocrisy of the right on this is quite staggering. Not to mention its selective memory - or doublethink, as it's otherwise known - about colonial and domestic British history and culture.
The reversal of cause and effect is almost neolithic in its totality. It has much more in common with the world view of the Witch Doctor than Isambard Kingdom Brunel or Alexander Fleming. [Complain about this post]
...
re: Child Exorcism Lord Lucan - 1159th post - 25 Feb 2005 15:01
fretslider
I'm shaking my head with frustration as I read you post! Education is the key I assure you. Kids from Senegal to Cameroon who live in this country believe in witchcraft, because their parents believe in witchcraft because their parents etc etc. The only way of breaking this very ignorant and destructive chain is by educating people, children and adults. [Complain about this post]
re: Child Exorcism Rosie T - 1576th post - 25 Feb 2005 15:11
What sort of education, Fretslider? A friend of ours, a philosopher, took up a post in an African university. They were very fussy, only an Oxford or Cambridge graduate was considered good enough.
During his first year there a colleague in his department died, after which he noticed a strange atmosphere in the office, people were avoiding him, funny things were appearing on his desk, etc. He finally discovered to his horror and bewilderment that he was generally suspected of having caused his colleague's death by witchcraft. He fled the country!
Similarly, in Indonesia the highly educated also believe in witchcraft. They have a western legal system borrowed from the Dutch model, but have made provisions in it to prosecute those who have caused damage to others by placing curses on them. [Complain about this post]
re: Child Exorcism Lord Lucan - 1163rd post - 25 Feb 2005 16:25
peter fluck
I dont think you can ever overestimate the power of education, although I realise as I chip away at this, the more I find out about it the less I understand, however.
I appreciate it will be difficult if not impossible to change minds and attitudes in west africa, but it should not be as difficult to do that in the UK, after all, witch doctors are not widespread in this country and that is where education has to play a part surely. [Complain about this post]
re: Child Exorcism Little Richardjohn - 844th post - 25 Feb 2005 19:49
Education don't mean squat if you've got an empty stomach or work a 14 hour day.
Education needs the soil of leisure to grow in. That means improving standards of living. Without that the seedling of education withers and dies.
So it is all too easy to overestimate the powers of education, especially as a single strategy. [Complain about this post]
re: Child Exorcism Lord Lucan - 1167th post - 25 Feb 2005 20:01
I'm assuming you think I was talking about education in West Africa, (nice Idea for a different thread perhaps) but no I was talking about education in this country. From what I saw on Newsnight yesterday social services, local authorities, the police and schools all need educating on this subject. Child sacrifice (The Adam Case) and abuse (Victoria Climbie) on this scale is not the norm in this country, so people wouldn't in normal circumstances look for it, but thanks to our much vaunted multi-cultural society it's here and thriving, and that has much to do with our own ignorance. [Complain about this post]
re: Child Exorcism Harry Seldon - 84th post - 25 Feb 2005 16:42
Even now, most Americans -- including the Bozo-in-Chief -- seem to believe that the world was created by JC the Elder on October 22, 4004 BC, just before tea-time (He hadn't created coffee yet, silly). [Complain about this post]
re: Child Exorcism Claire Watkins - 38th post - 25 Feb 2005 15:22
Hi,
I read a posting about some Boxing Day event being banned because it was likely to offend our sensitive people as the blacked up their faces. We have a law and even a department to investigate such things. Then this is discovered - what kind of barmy system have we gor here?
So many people get all heated about immigrants being asked to adopt our culture such as it is but at least we know about it and what it should produce. We need to be very careful about multi-culturalism. [Complain about this post]
"We need to be very careful about multi-culturalism."
Then we need to start 2,000 years ago.
Multi-culturalism is normal in many countries. It is a natural bi-product of trade and always has been. And in a global market place, there will be diverse customers. There is absolutley nothing you can do about it.
Britain is no longer an island, so stop trying to drive back the tide, unless of course you mean that you want some sort of isolationist Stalinist state like North Korea - and look what happened to them.
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