Unity

 

OK, this could be sensitive...

An imaginary conversation between a Christian and a supporter of the John Frum Movement.

Christian: John Frum is dead and buried. If he ever existed at all. I mean, what is the evidence?

John: Well, what is the evidence that Jesus ever existed?

Christian: The Bible of course. And an unbroken chain of Church tradition going back almost 2000 years!

John: Well, there is a tradition going back to John Frum´s first appearance in 1940. The White man came and interviewed the two eyewitnesses who founded our movement. The interview is available on something called “TV” (a special form of blessed cargo). Due to this cargo, we don´t need no scripture or “tradition”. It´s all on TV, bro!

Christian: TV is fake news. The apostles died for something they knew was true. They wouldn´t lie!

John: Our apostles spent 17 years in jail, bro. They suffered for what they knew was true.

Christian: Wait just a moment. You´ve been awaiting the return of John Frum for 100 years. Well, where is he? How long are you prepared to wait?

John: You´ve been waiting for the return of Jesus for 2,000 years. That´s 20 times longer than we´ve been waiting for John Frum. So how long are you prepared to wait?

Christian: We are awaiting a spiritual millennium. You are just waiting for cargo…

John: Maybe so, but many of *your* followers are Natives who just want cargo. You know, they join your Church and in return the British missionaries give them food, build shelters, dig wells, or fix them voting rights in UK by-elections. Sounds like cargo, dude. Fake cargo, obviously, but it seems to be working…

Christian: Absurd. Jesus was resurrected from the dead! John Frum was never resurrected!

John: That´s because Frum never died in the first place. So he didn´t have to resurrect. John Frum is a life-giving spirit. He lives in a volcano at the island of Tanna.

Christian: But how are you going to get your sins forgiven?

John: By following the injunctions of John Frum: grow your own potatoes, raise your own pigs, drink kava under ecstatic forms, raise the Star-Spangled banner next to the Australian Aboriginal flag, paint “U.S.A.” on our chests, that kind of stuff.

Christian: Sounds like work-based salvation!

John: Yeah, a bit like the Catholic Church. You know, the largest Christian grouping in the world. They came with the French. I suppose you are Anglican or Methodist, then?

Christian: Christianity is obviously true, since it changed the hearts and lives of millions, and has spread around the world. Your cargo cult only exists in one village!

John: We are the faithful remnant. If you search your scriptures diligently, it says that the Church in the last days will also be very small. Besides, what makes you think our lives haven´t changed after we returned to the customs of our ancestors?

Christian: No, your cargo cult can be empirically disproven. The United States exists and don´t want to help you. I mean, I can call Donald Trump or Kamala Harris right this moment, they will confirm it. No American soldiers will ever land here and give you “cargo”, whatever that even means. Refrigerators? Maybe gas stoves?

John: Ha ha ha, what makes you think they will never land? Are you even reading the newspapers? The geopolitical tensions are heating up and our volcano is right at that fault line…

Christian: Let´s just say the geopolitical tensions around Jerusalem are heating up too…

Custom and cargo

 

“Waiting for John”, retitled “Waiting for John Frum: Cargo Cult of the South Pacific. When God is an American Soldier” by this YouTube account, is a low-budget documentary about the John Frum Movement at Tanna, an island in the New Hebrides. Previously a joint (!) British-French colony, since 1980 the New Hebrides are independent under the name Vanuatu. The film crew spent some time in the small settlement of Lamakara, the last hold out of the Movement. There, a couple of hundred people led by one Chief Isak still await the return of their mysterious savior figure. They also interviewed members of a breakaway faction at Sulphur Bay (the quitters are actually the larger group) and Christian missionaries from Port Resolution.

The beliefs of the John Frum Movement are an eclectic mix of pro-American “modernism” and Melanesian traditionalism. Indeed, the cult members seem to live a more traditional lifestyle than many other people in Vanuatu. Frankly, the Movement comes across as very weird. The inhabitants of Lamakara are self-sufficient, grow their own food, raise pigs and try to stay out of the money economy (not entirely successfully). Ecstatic dances and kava drinking also form part of Custom, as they call their traditional ways. Apparently, Christian missionaries and the colonial authorities attempted to stamp out Custom.

At the same time, the Movement has quasi-apocalyptic expectations and hopes that America will bring them “cargo” (modern products). The main rituals of the cult include the hoisting of an American flag and a mock US army drill, during which Chief Isak dress in fancy uniform. John Frum himself is a composite character. On the one hand, he is seen as an American soldier, neither White nor Black, who speaks all languages in the world. He supposedly appeared in 1940 and prophesized the coming of the US military to the New Hebrides. On the other hand, John is seen as a spirit-being who can be contacted through visionary trances. Isak “spoke” to John in a cave at the top of a high hill. The documentary doesn´t say, but it´s easy to suspect a connection to native shamanic practices.

Like virtually all other religious movements, the John Frum Movement has experienced at least one split, perhaps due to the delay of the Parousia. When based at Sulphur Bay, most adherents decided to follow a certain Prophet Fred, who claimed new revelations from the spirits. His movement, called Unity, no longer believes in the return of John Frum in the flesh, instead preaching concord between cargo cultists and Christians. The few remaining stalwarts were forced to leave Sulphur Bay and build the new village of Lamakara in the hinterland, Lamakara meaning “outcast”. The Movement is also under pressure from Christian missionaries (who are ethnically Melanesian) and modernity in the form of the national capital Vila and its money economy.

I can well understand why cargo cultists have fascinated Western anthropologists and scholars of religion. The parallels to Christianity are obvious. The Christians at Port Resolution resolutely proclaim the return of Jesus, who rose from the dead and ascended to Heaven, while insisting that John Frum is dead and won´t return. But, of course, the John Frum-ites insist that John is very much alive in mint spirit condition. The eagerly awaited American aid is clearly the apocalypse of the cargo cultists, and even the peculiar combination of nativist traditionalism and modernity could be a subconscious Christian borrowing. Think this-worldly asceticism leading to a pie-in-the-sky reward in the afterlife. The crisis when the Messiah doesn´t show up on schedule is a classic. To a Christian, this simply means that the John Frum Movement are a bunch of Anti-Christs, but from a more secular viewpoint, the Melanesian cargo cult raises questions about Christianity itself. Isn´t it strange that the sociological dynamic of both “true” and “false” religions are remarkably similar?

With that reflection, I end this little review. 

Waiting for Tom Navy

 

The above is AI:s take on the arrival of John Frum and Tom Navy to New Guinea. The century seems to be wrong, though.

It struck me that perhaps our own predicament isn´t so far off from that of a cargo cult. Our rituals include demanding more money for CERN and fusion power research, building windmills, avoiding certain "offensive" words and symbols, and (I suppose) make dank memes about trans-humanism. Some of us probably worship AI in secret!

If we do this, it seems, a "Tom Navy situation" (or is it singularity) will apparently manifest itself and then...everything will go back to normal again. As in perpetual progress, and then some. 

Nothing like those stupid Melanesian Natives, naaah.  

The AI cargo cult

Melanesian cargo cultists
Credit: Charmaine Tham

Probably kind of true...

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