The Separation between State and Religion

In time we will realize that Democracy is the entitlement of individuals to every right that was in its times alloted to kings. The right to speak and decide, to be treated with decency, to serve and be served by people in a State of “love” that is, to serve with one’s work for the development of ‘life’. To belong to the Kingdom of Human Beings without racial, national, social or academic separations. To love and be loved. To die at the service of the whole and be honored in one’s death, for one’s life and work was legitimately valued. To be graceful and grateful. To have the pride and the humility of being One with the Universe, One with every realm of Existence, One with every living and deceased soul. To treat with dignity and be treated with dignity for One is dignified together with All others and Life itself. To walk the path of compassion, not in the sorrow of guilt but in the pride of being. To take responsability for one’s mistakes and sufferings and stand up again and again like a hero and a heroine and face the struggle that is put at one’s feet and in one’s hands. Millions of people, millions and millions of people might take many generations to realize the consciousness of our humaneness but there is no other dignified path for the human being.

The “work” as I conceive it is psychological and political. Psychology is the connection between the different dimensions within one’s self and Politics is the actualization of that consciousness in our practical lives. Religion is the ceremony that binds the connectedness between the individual and the Universe. The separation between religion, politics and science, the arts and sports is, in the sphere of the social, the reflection of the schizophrenia within the individual and the masses. The dialogue between individuality and the "human" belongs to consciousness. The tendency to develop cults resides in the shortcomings we’are finding in life as it is structured today. “Life” has become the private property of a few priviledged who cannot profit from it because as soon as it is appropriated it stops to be “life” or “life-giving”.

We are all the victims of our own invention and each one is called upon to find solutions. The only problem is believing our selves incapable of finding them. We are now free to use all Systems of knowledge objectively, sharing them without imposing our will on each other. To become objective about our lives means to understand that the institutions that govern its experience are critically important. That we are one with the governments, one with the religious activities that mark its pace, that the arena’s in which we move our bodies and the laboratories in which we explore our possibilities are ALL part and parcel of our own personal responsibility. That WE ARE ONE WITH EACH OTHER AND EVERYTHING AROUND US and acknowledge for ourselves a bond of love in conscious responsibility. That we human beings know ourselves part of each other and are willing and able to act on our behalf for the benefit of each and every individual. That we no longer allow governments, industries, universities or any other institution to run along unchecked by the objective principles of humaneness. That we do not allow gurus to abuse their power or governors to steal the taxes and use them to their personal advantage in detriment of the whole. That we do not allow abuse from anyone anywhere because life is too beautiful to do so and that we are willing to stop the rampant crime with the necessary compassion Conscious knowledge is every individual's right. Conscious action is every individual's duty.

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Friday 4 June 2010

Pavel Trofimovich Morozov


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavlik_Morozov
Pavel Trofimovich Morozov (Russian: Па́вел Трофи́мович Моро́зов; November 14, 1918 – September 3, 1932), better known by the diminutive Pavlik, was a Soviet youth glorified bySoviet propaganda as a martyr. His story, dated to 1932, is that of a 13-year old boy who denounced his father to the authorities and was in turn killed by his family. It was a Sovietmorality tale: opposing the state was selfish and reactionary, and state was a higher virtue thanfamily love. His story was a subject of compulsory reading, songs, plays, a symphonic poem, a full-length opera and six biographies. The cult had a huge impact on moral norms of generations of children.[1] There is very little original evidence related to the story, much of it a hearsayprovided by second-hand witnesses. According to modern research, the story (denunciation, trial) is most likely false, although Pavlik was a real child who was killed. Morozov's story was the basis of Bezhin Meadow, an unreleased film from 1937 that was directed by Sergei Eisenstein.

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[edit]The propaganda story

The most popular account of the story is as follows: born to poor peasants in Gerasimovka, a small village 350 kilometers north-east ofYekaterinburg (then known as Sverdlovsk), Morozov was a dedicated communist who led the Young Pioneers at his school, and a supporter of Stalin's collectivization of farms. In 1932, at age 13, Morozov reported his father to the political police (GPU). Supposedly, Morozov's father, the Chairman of the Village Soviet, had been "forging documents and selling them to the bandits and enemies of the Soviet State" (as the sentence read). The elder Morozov, Trofim, was sentenced to ten years in a labour camp, and later executed.[1]However, Pavlik's family did not take kindly to his activities: on September 3 of that year, his uncle, grandfather, grandmother and a cousin murdered him, along with his younger brother. All of them except the uncle were rounded up by the GPU and convicted to "the highest measure of social defense" - execution by a firing squad.
Thousands of telegrams from all over the Soviet Union urged the judge to show no mercy for Pavlik's killers. The Soviet government declared Pavlik Morozov a glorious martyr who had been murdered by reactionaries. Statues of him were built, and numerous schools and youth groups were named in his honour. An opera and numerous songs were written about him. Gerasimovka's school, which Morozov attended, became a shrine and children from all over the Soviet Union went on school excursions to visit it.
During the investigation of Trofim Morozov's case his wife Tatyana Morozova, Pavel's mother, stated that Trofim Morozov used to beat her and bring home valuables received as payment for selling forged documents. Pavel, who was only 13 at that time, just confirmed evidence given by his mother.

[edit]Later research

Evidence has emerged since the collapse of the Soviet Union of the fabrication of the Pavlik Morozov legend.
In the mid-1980s Yuri Druzhnikov, a dissident writer expelled from the Soviet Writers' Union, performed an investigation, met with surviving eyewitnesses, and wrote a documentary book about Pavlik. Originally circulated in samizdat, it was published in the U.K. in Russian (Юрий Дружников, Доносчик 001, или Вознесение Павлика Морозова) in 1988 and soon thereafter translated into several languages. The first English translation appeared in 1996 under the title "Informer 001: The Myth of Pavlik Morozov." In his book, Druzhnikov disputes every aspect of the Soviet propaganda version of Pavlik's life. For example, different sources in Soviet literature listed different ages for Pavlik, when he was killed; in the Soviet textbooks, there were differing photographs of Pavlik all showing different boys; the fact that Pavlik was not a pioneer when he was killed. According to the Soviet source, Pavlik's grandfather was responsible for his murder; according to Druzhnikov, the grandfather was heartbroken about the death of Pavlik, organized the search when the boy went missing, and maintained his innocence during the trial. While not saying it outright, Druzhnikov hints that Pavlik was killed by a GPU officer, with whom Druzhnikov met while doing his research.
Catriona Kelly in her 2005 book Comrade Pavlik: The Rise and Fall of a Soviet Boy Hero agrees with Druzhnikov that the official version of the account is almost wholly fictional, the evidence sketchy and based mostly on second-hand reports by alleged witnesses, and that Pavlik did not snitch on his parents and was murdered after a mundane squabble. Kelly also shows how the official version's emphasis shifted to suit the changing times and propaganda lines: in some accounts, Pavlik's father's crime was not forging the documents, but hoarding grain; in others, he was denounced not to the secret police, but to the school-teacher. In some accounts, the method of Pavlik's death was decapitation by saw. The one surviving photograph of him shows a malnourished child, who bears almost no resemblance to the statues and pictures in children's books. It has also been said that he was nearly illiterate and was coerced to inform on his father by his mother, after Pavlik's father deserted the family.
Kelly, who had access to the official archives of the case, states that Druzhnikov's theory that Pavlik was killed by the GPU is unlikely. Druzhnikov accuses Kelly of extensive plagiarism from his book, and also of "dependence on those who have admitted her to archives", i.e. from employees FSB - successors of GPU.[2]
According to most recent research, Gerasimovka was described in the Soviet press as "kulak nest" because all villagers refused to join thekolkhoz, a state-controlled collective farm during the collectivization. Pavlik informed on neighbours when they did something wrong, including his own father who left the family for another woman.[1] Pavlik was not a Pioneer, although he wanted to be one. There is no evidence that the family was involved in the murder of the boy, which was probably a work of other teenagers with whom Pavlik had a squabble over a gun. [1]

[edit]References

  1. ^ a b c d Orlando Figes The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia, 2007, ISBN 0-08050-7461-9, pages 122-126.
  2. ^ Журнальный зал | Вопросы литературы, 2006 №3 | Ю. ДРУЖНИКОВ - Катриона Келли, Павлик Морозов и Лубянка. at magazines.russ.ru

[edit]External links

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