Child Sacrifice

We can all agree on one point I think, child sacrifice is probably one of the most inhuman and barbarous of acts. Thankfully a majority of its incidents belong in the distant past or in fiction or movies, and that’s where it stays. If only that were the case. What do we really know about child sacrifice other than what comes from horror films or novels? We might know that it performed to appease or please angry hungry spirits, some of us maybe aware that its referenced and discussed in the Old Testament and two psalms, and a few might remember the case nine ago when the body of a little boy (aged 4-7) was discovered floating in the Thames. It was difficult to specify his age since he had been decapitated, and his limbs had been removed. He couldn’t be traced, and therefore he didn’t have a name, and his killers have not been caught. The evidence that did emerge however was that he was tortured, then killed and finally his body was thrown into the Thames. Scientists and the experts suspected that one or both of parents were involved in this murder. This is an isolated incident in Britain (as far as we are aware), and it rightly created shock, disgust and sympathy when it happened, however in Uganda this isn’t the case. Evidence is certainly shaky, but what, is emerging are figures well into the hundreds of little boys and girls who are disappearing and being sacrificed. Oddly enough this is actually to do with increased prosperity in the region, and the ‘religious’ believe that having parts of a human body will boost the chances of wealth. A similarity with the incident in Britain is the fact that often it is the parents who will kill their own child, in their desire for money. It’s actually a system working here; there is a network of witch doctors, almost like the mafia, interlinked and solely interested in extorting cash. Yes, the gaining of wealth; not only costs the life of a child but will also set you back by about 500,000 Ugandan shillings (£160/$260). The authorities aren’t too interested in prosecuting the guilty; they just want it stop. Understandable sentiments but who exactly are they going to go about preventing this crime if they aren’t liking to arrest or convict the guilty. ‘To punish retrospectively would cause a problem... if we can persuade Ugandans to change, that is much better than going back into the past’ says James Nsaba Buturo, Uganda's Minister of Ethics and Integrity. The logic behind this statement is that it would be difficult to trace and discover those behind the murders of the uncountable disappeared and dead children. To a certain extent this makes sense. This becomes especially logical when some of the best that you have working on the disappearing children, and convincing current witch doctors to ‘retire’ and are actually those who use to practice these crimes. One good example of this is Polino Angela who has managed to convince roughly 2,400 other witch doctors to stop performing child sacrifices. And that’s great, but it doesn’t stop the truth, which is that Mr. Angela sacrificed his son as well as about 70 other children. He is a murder. I believe that forgiveness for crimes and retribution is possible in many cases, but the sacrifice of child, the removal of its body parts and the likelihood that throughout the process the child is awake, means that if I were in charge of Uganda I would find it impossible to forgive those who committed these crimes. It might have the backing of religion behind it. The mysticism of angry, exciting spirits and the allure of deep black magic, as well as the ancient links to the present Bible, but this is a murder. And in the cases in Uganda this is serial killing, with completely innocent victims dead centre. It is a crime, an atrocity against nature, and I’m not the one to work out what the sentence should be, but there definitely needs to be one. For a crime like this no one should be allowed to go unpunished.

Bloodlust

I’ll admit a certain loathing for films of that are gory. I’ll run a mile from the Saws and Hostels of this world. I am happy to say I am a complete wuss in these areas. And I try never to watch a horror movie; it’ll give me nightmares or guarantee a sleepless night. Although I’ll admit to recently seeing The Shining, which although not that violent, terrified me and made me keep the lights until my housemate very politely asked me to turn them off since it was four in the morning. There is just something rather unpleasant about axes, and even more so about Jack Nickelson.

All of this aside I have come to a rather strange and somewhat embarrassing admittance, given what I always considered normal for me. It is this – I suffer from bloodlust. I really like a good shoot them up, could sit through back to back Die Hards (maybe not the 2^nd one!), and now I have discovered 300. What is not to like (other than perhaps the rape part)? It has great battle scenes, your regular Hollywood historical inaccuracies and furthermore grown men parading around in loin clothes acting as though this is perfectly acceptable behaviour… how is this not great!? It also features many surreal and gruesome fight scenes, although my wimpy side forced me from the room for the more extreme bits, I did see some rather horrid decapitations and torture scenes. But this I now realise is an advantage – during a violent or bloody act I simply go and make tea. So I realise that this extreme and bloodthirsty action flicks are fast on their way to becoming my favourite form of entertainment, I get tea, skip the violent cuttings up, and still see half naked men. Thus combining a dash of blood, and a whole lot of lust… a rather great deal in my mind, and given it’s a Hollywood action movie, nipping out half way through, well I’m hardly going to miss the plot since there probably isn’t one. It a great shame this practice couldn’t be adopted in the cinema, although if it had been I would have spent most of Pirates of the Caribbean 3 sat in a tearoom somewhere hoping that just one of the over paid actors on the screen would find a script.

This introduction of a well-timed tea break into a violent movie also offers you, the scared amongst us, the chance to lift the mug to hide parts of the screen we’d rather not see. Handy that.

Finally, back to the inspiration behind the tea break – 300. My new almost favourite film, if only they’d got G. Butler to shave, because sadly all the cups of tea in the world can’t get rid of that vile beard.