religious affairs

Prophet Fred and the secret of cargo

An outbreak of religious violence on the Pacific Melanesian island of Tanna (belonging to the independent republic of Vanuatu) has been reported by various news media recently (see the BBC news story here). Christian followers of Prophet Fred have clashed with cargo cultists who are devout believers in John Frum. Thankfully, no fatalities were reported, though axes and knives were used.

Prophet Fred is attempting to lead his people to faith in Jesus Christ. The John Frums “are heathens”, according to one disciple. “They do not go to church and they do not send their children to school.”

Prophet Fred gained his spiritual authority by successfully predicting that a lake at the foot of the volcano which towers over the island would be swept into the sea. After the lake broke its banks and drained away, hundreds of followers left their village and joined him in a camp on the slopes of the volcano to sit around doing nothing, praying and listening to him preach.

As for John Frum - the mysterious John Frum appeared to an islander called Noklam Matua in the early 1930s, when Tanna was part of the joint UK/France administered New Hebrides. He told Noklam that the islanders should abandon the Christianity they were being taught by Australian missionaries and return to “kastom” (custom), the old traditions of their forefathers. So the islanders started drinking kava again and dancing, and stopped going to church. They burned their European clothes and pulled on their nambas (penis sheaths).

The Americans arrived in the 1940s to set up a base to fight the Japanese and impressed the islanders much more than the English, French or Australians had. Suddenly, an endless stream of cargo planes were disgorging equipment, machines, weapons and provisions onto the newly-built airstrips. Among the Americans were black GIs, on apparently equal terms with the whites, and with access to the munificent stream of cargo. John Frum was clearly American, and Jesus had nothing on him.

The war passed with no major military action on the island and the Americans departed as suddenly as they had arrived, bulldozing the airstrips and all the cargo into the sea. They left behind the John Frum movement, performing ceremonies wearing old US uniforms in the jungle in the attempt to attract the return of the cargo.

The John Frums were not the only movement of this type to attempt to discover the mystical secret of cargo. After the war, a Melanesian chief named Yali was taken to tour Australia as a reward for his loyalty to the Australians and the allies - most other chiefs had welcomed the Japanese as liberators.

There he was shown Melbourne museum, with its confiscated New Guinea gods kept in crystal cases, tended by scientists and worshipped by Australians who visited every day. He saw zoos where Australians kept animals and fed and treated them well. In a book on biology, he saw a picture explaining evolution, with little shrew-like creatures turning into monkeys and apes turning into men.

The Australians had stolen the kastom gods and were manipulating their power to their own ends! Clearly, too, the Australians believed that humans were descended from animals, wherefore they gave their animal ancestors such respect. Then the missionary Christianity that the islanders were being pushed back at home was a deception to prevent them from discovering the secret of cargo. The explanation for cargo given by the Australians, “hard work”, was obviously untrue, as none of the important Australians he met ever seemed to do any hard work at all.

Yali returned to the islands to bring more of the truth to his compatriots – that Christianity was perhaps even opposed to cargo - and contributed thereby to the strength of the “kastom” current. A good overview of Melanesian religious movements can be found here for those who are interested, and an eye-witness story from someone who visited Prophet Fred's camp here.

The John Frum faithful of Sulphur Bay still wait for his return, predicted to be on a February 15th. How long the dozen or so John Frum villages can hold out against the proseletysing zeal of Prophet Fred’s followers cannot be known.

war on terror

Court of Appeal rules on torture

The Court of Appeal ruled that British courts could use evidence extracted under torture, provided that British agents had not carried out the torture.

The story is reported here in the Guardian, Independent and Telegraph.

Three British former Guantanamo detainees say they admitted to meeting Osama after being subjected to severe ill-treatment, when in fact they hadn’t.

People with experience of this sort of thing say that information obtained under torture is often worthless anyway, as people will say anything at all to make it stop.

Socialist Wanker is anticipating the next development - the out-sourcing torture to countries with less stringent human rights laws – and will bring you the story as it happens.

(Meanwhile, Germany rejects the same evidence.)

gossip

Social Darwinist has mongoloid baby

This is an item from the industrial noise music scene. Boyd and Tracy Twyman, once of 80s band Suckdog, have become an item.

Tracy Twyman and Boyd Rice may be known to readers as producers of a documentary on the Merovingian / Holy Grail / holy blood connection for Fox, tracing the royal bloodline from Jesus, King of the Jews, and Mary Magdalene, his woman, to the French town of Rennes-le-Chateau.

They have since had a child together. Sources tell us the child has Down’s Syndrome.

That this should happen to the old social Darwinist was almost ironic enough to make SW columnist Dr Otter’s head implode. (Dr Otter is known for his preternatural sensitivity to irony.)

ufos

Romanian villagers flee alien invasion

A widely reported story described how villagers in Romania fled their village, afraid of alien invasion, on witnessing mysterious disturbing lights and loud alien sounds in the distance.

The strange phenomenon was actually what news reports have described as an “outdoor disco” and what we might possibly term a “rave” or “techno party”.

The locals' flight from the inconsiderate ravers is quite understandable, considering that they had had UFO problems in the area before.