Sunday 6 April 2008

Two tribes

The children of the Adams and the Eves have now grown and had children of their own and although they told them the stories of ‘The Garden’ the details changed in each telling - and each of the Eves remembered different details. Something I had not expected.

The children of Adams and Eves are largely nomadic and travel the land, following the seasons with a herd of animals to provide food. However, some of the third generation are developing new ideas for getting food and have attempted to stay in one place and grow their own crops and keep their livestock in the same location.

I haven’t been spoken to now for three generations, after Adam left for the last time I’ve had no further conversations or contact with my experiment. That’s not to say that they haven’t been busy – some rather odd practices have developed in my name, including but not limited to burnt offerings, it’s a well-intentioned gesture but I can’t say that it’s at the top of my wish-list. My other concern is that the experiment is not only worshipping me, but may be worshipping its own constructed idea of me instead of the ‘actual’ me.

So, in returning to the nomads that wander and the farmers that are settling, obviously this happened incrementally, it wasn’t as though the third generation were the first lot to think along these lines, but the blog would be insanely boring in terms of detail so I’ve condensed this somewhat.

I listened in on a conversation earlier today that could prove to be an interesting experience in the future. Obviously there have been rows and arguments between people and between some of the tribes and nothing that you wouldn’t see in animals but today there was something a little more organized about their emerging level of frustration.

It’s worth remembering that not all of the children of Adams and Eves have become settled, in fact a large majority are nomads and yet both believe they have me on their ‘side’ and not on the ‘side’ of the others. Apparently there’s not enough of me to go around! I don’t know what makes them think they are chosen – that they make these claims without speaking to me in three generations is also particularly makes their stake on me seem even more odd.

The source of the conflict between the nomads and the farmers is that when the nomads have exhausted their natural environment of resources and when they are desperate they bring their camps through the settlements and cause a fair bit of damage and of course their animals eat a lot of the crops.

So that is why I listened in to a conversation of some of the elder men and women from the settlement.

“We must do something to protect ourselves from these animals.” Said one person, another laughed and added “And their livestock.” The rest of the group laughed along with him.

Another voice added, “These people are feral, like their animals and we must keep them away from our camps, from our families and children. We should show them our skills in pest control.”

I continued to listen to the group as they continued to talk in this sinister manner ‘pest control’ and ‘animal management’. They were clearly scared, and it seemed to me, not of the nomads themselves but that without resisting these nomads way of life that they would somehow descend from their level of ‘civilisation’ and end up like the nomads again, scouring the earth for food.

“We shall form two groups, the first shall stay behind tomorrow and guard the settlement, if the nomads approach they should take every step to prevent them entering, if they do then they should kill them.” Said one, another explained the role of the second group, “The second shall come with me and we will leave the settlement in the early morning and seek out the nearest nomads to our setllement and send them a message. We shall kill as many as we can find.”

The men and women gathered agreed their course of action, as they got up to leave one of them called out, “In God’s name!”, the others turned to look and called out “IN GOD’S NAME!”

Not in my name

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