Monday, July 23, 2012

THE HUNGER GAMES & SHRINE SLAVERY

I've heard a lot of talk about The Hunger Games book & movie, so recently on my trip home from Ghana, I took advantage of the opportunity to watch the film on the plane.

All the way through, I kept being reminded of the situation we are facing in West Africa with ritual servitude or shrine slavery.  It has many forms and is called by many names--trokosi, fiashidi, worwokye, vaudonsi, yevesi, etc.

First, there was the devastating control of one group of people who had arbitrarily set themselves up over the others.  One of the most striking things about the film was the inhuman, callous way in which the rulers treated the others, the way in which they used them for their own amusement, disregarding the awful, devastating consequences, the suffering and senseless death which resulted.
I see those features played out today in real life in Ghana, Togo and Benin.  Priests and priestesses and shrine owners and elders set themselves up over others.  They send out spirits to hunt down and kill people.  When those same people resort to the shrines for help, they consult those same spirits they sent out to do such mischief and ask them how to stop the mischief they sent them out to do.  Surprise, surprise.  The spirits need another virgin girl to come and suffer in perpetual servitude as a sex slave of the priest who serves them. 

In the Hunger Games we see the callous, inhuman treatment of others, using them as pawn in a game for their own amusement.  In shrine slavery we see girls whipped, forced to kneel on broken glass with their arms raised high for hours, starved, forced to eat off the ground like a dog, stripped naked, forced to sleep on the bare ground stacked in like logs, cut with a razor, denied education and human companionship.  In the Hunger Games we see an MC laugh about every difficulty the victims face.  In shrine slavery we meet priests who repeatedly have sex with these young girls without ever managing to show them one shred of affection.
In the Hunger Games we see a deference to an ancient tradition that could not be questioned just because it was a tradition.  In modern-day West Africa, shrine slavery survives for that very reason.  Although it is illegal in Ghana, the government makes no attempt to enforce the law because it is an ancient tradition.  The Afrikania "Mission" brazenly argues that it should not be challenged because it is their tradition in Ghana.  (Sometimes.  At other times it argues that it is a dying practice and at other times Afrikania denies that it exists.)  But when it is upheld, it is always upheld on the basis of tradition.  Just like the Hunger Games.

The tradition itself is utterly destructive, but this is made palatable by garish costumes and empty, raucous laughter.  So the tradition of ritual servitude is made palatable by traditional costumes or royalty under giant umbrellas, pompous parades and annual festivals that rake in tourist dollars.

The tradition is sadly accepted by the masses.  It's too big to challenge.  The best one can do is to heroically deny the rulers their "winner" for one single year.  Ritual servitude is too widely accepted.  It is passed over too lightly.

In the Hunger Games, the annual victim  is made into a hero who supposedly saves the community for another year.  In trokosi and other forms of ritual servitude, the unfortunate victim is given as a sort of living sacrifice to the gods.  Some traditionalists extol her servitude and suffering as saving the family and the whole community from certain doom.  Yet she never chose to become a heroine or to give her life as an atonement for the sins of her ancestors or family.
In the Hunger Games, there is no evidence that anything dire will happen if the annual games are discontinued.  The need for them is solely in the minds of the rulers who profit from them.  Indeed, so very much like trokosi yevesi, vaudonsi, and other forms of ritual servitude.  The chains that bind the victims are not physical chains but they are perhaps more powerful and profound.  They are the chains of fear, the chains of control, forged tightly about their victims to the profit and pleasure those in control.
Do you think the Hunger Games are far-fetched?  Are you sure we'd never do anything like that, as intelligent, caring human beings?  Before you become too sure, I invite you to come to West Africa and let Every Child Ministries introduce you to victims of ritual servitude.  Listen to their stories.  Then watch the movie again and make your own comparison.