The Village...

Straight after completing his year 12 studies, this white man studied for one semester in a Bachelor of Arts degree at Monash University in 1990. It only lasted a semester before I quickly realised that I was in no fit state to study, especially studying at a tertiary level a course that I felt no resonance with at that time. But one of the subjects I did briefly attend was anthropology. This is the study, literally of humankind...especially in regard to living together in community. So this offering today is somewhat anthropological in kind. But if you have seeing eyes and a perceiving mind then you will know exactly what I'm about to describe.

I share with you some thoughts about a village I knew of. It's a small village that tended in nature to be very cautious and highly conservative. It demanded of it's villagers that they conform to a particular standard of conduct and allegiance in accordance with the demands of the village deity. And the wishes and desires of that deity were transmitted through the village chieftain - most of the villagers accepted this reality and slavishly drank his words without question, like children nursing at a mother's breast. And he knew this...and unfortunately, due to an innate shade of grey within his soul the chieftain took advantage of this. And so this meant that he could effectively control the villagers like children, for children usually are the easiest to control. Controlling what they could say, do and know about life in the village. Even trying to control what they could know and learn about the deity. That knowledge should only ever be imparted by him he reasoned, for different knowledge or, heaven forbid, greater knowledge could be dangerously subversive to the village itself and to his position. Controlling the villagers understanding and their knowledge was key, for the chieftain understood well that knowledge is power and that was a commodity he claimed mostly for himself and perhaps apportioned a little to those closest to him, only to serve his purposes. It wasn't that the chieftain just controlled for control's sake, for he did believe that this aligned himself with the village deity's expectations of him. For he WAS the chieftain - his villagers needed to be controlled for their sakes and for the deity's sake. It was in their best interests that they all commit their allegiances to the deity and the manner by which this manifested itself was through their devotion to him as the chieftain - the deity's especially anointed representative in that village.

And so, for the most part, village life meandered along a predictably comfortable and relatively uneventful way. There were occasional bumps and bruises on the road of life in the village and this would see the chieftain quickly act to impose his will, usually acting through his closest village sychophants. Ideally though, the chieftain would pride himself in 'troubleshooting' issues in the village even before they became potential issues. All for the sake of control. But every community, society or even a village has an underbelly. That village was no exception. But differences and disagreement in the village would always be branded as disunity and would be dealt with cruelly and ruthlessly. For example, any villagers straying from the collective village mentality were dealt with in either of two ways. Either they were silenced immediately by threats of village exclusion and by the scorn of their fellow village counterparts, to which they would normally bend and comply. Or otherwise, if they were resolute in their grievances against village life and/or the chieftan, they were slowly isolated from the village. They would be stared at by 'concerned' villagers but never spoken to...acknowledged as existing within the village from a distance but regarded as nothing better than lepers, only fit to be treated as village pariahs. And so, cold and frozen out of the greater village community they would eventually lose heart and hope and do either of two things; unable to bear the isolation of the village they would accept their fault at ever having the 'audacity' to question the village or the chieftains ways and come crawling back to the fold with contrite heart hoping to be accepted back. Or alternately they would just eventually leave the village quietly...inoffensively vaporising into the collective amnesia of the village that they ever existed. The most earnest hope of the chieftain was that 'dissenting anarchical' villagers would just 'disappear' and do it in silence so that the village would hear or know as little as possible of their reasons for departing.

The village lived, breathed and functioned on fear. Fear of what the deity might see...fear of what the deity's divine enemy was up to...fear of what the chieftan might do...fear of what other villagers might think or even worse, say to the chieftan or those close to him. Fear of being seen with other 'suspect villagers' that could be interpreted as dissention and advocating village disunity. Fear of being branded 'guilty' by association. Fear of ever being isolated from popular village cliques and/or the community at large. Fear of contemplating what life would be like without or outside of the village. And all of this fear was ultimately perpetrated by the village chieftain for fear was his greatest weapon. A means of control...a means of pleasing himself and, in his mind, pleasing or worshipping his deity. But most certainly a means of establishing his own position as head of the village. Because even for the chieftain, outside of that small village he was a nobody. Inside he was king...outside he was 'king nothing'. Nothing more than an anonymous small man whose importance ceased at the borderline of his own shadow. So his own ego demanded that he be elevated to the position of grandeur he enjoyed within the village. And he would employ fear and control in any measure to ensure that his status quo could not be threatened or taken away.

And so village life continues on...but the village is shrinking in numbers. Not that this concerns the chieftain too much as he would be far happier having a small village community that completely aligns their devotion to his position and the village deity as opposed to a larger village of divergant views that could, in his eyes, potentially destabilise his position and the village itself. The older senior village members, perhaps feeling too tired to think or care too much about the future direction of the village simply prepare themselves to pass away and leave their legacy to their village families. Some younger villagers resign themselves to the fact that they are pretty much confined to the village until they might, one day, if brave enough choose to leave. The chieftain had spoken of abdicating his village throne in times past, because of his growing years, but in reality this has been nothing more than a peacemeal offering to a village nervous at times for the village's future. He still remains chief and no evidence is immediately obvious as to why he wouldn't stay in that position for as long as he humanly could. For ultimately he is a selfish chieftain whose personal needs outweigh the greater needs of the village. Of course that is a fact he would never confess to and would vehemently disagree with (most definitely he would brand you a dissenter with poisonous views intending to harm the village) but all practical evidence points to the contrary.

And so there the village remains...Perhaps in perpetuity, perhaps at least until something calamitous happens that causes the villagers to disband or perhaps until a larger village one day swallows that village up. But for now the village remains and it's remains remain in me...

"Fear has a large shadow, but he himself is small."