EC 454 © E. Anton Benjamins  3.12.2014
Declaration of A Hunger Strike
The People as Fur Torn Off Its Flesh

“Catching fur” has not gone out of style yet http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ck_WsJvAwDo . Humankind has declared Nature dangerous and appears to like it that way. Unless obliged to think, humankind prefers not to think. Perhaps only if modern society destroys itself, wildlife will again have a place on our planet. See a 300 year old wild apple tree in Latvia—showing thetear and wear of our times.

Please turn your head to view; lower branches torn off the trunk

But what if we were to think of human beings as hairless creatures, as de-furred animals? Strange as it may sound, I have not thought of myself or used the word ‘defurred’ when thinking of my appearance in the shower or bathtub. However, the other night, I had a strange dream: I saw a bunch of people naked, among whom were some political types who I knew by appearance, and one of them was myself.

I am not a political type in terms of being or wanting to be in political office.  I am a political type by inheritance:

Back around 1739, after Livonia had been devastated and its people demoralized by The Great Northern War (1700-1720), what was left of the German barons in the area realized that neither they nor anyone else would be able to survive without a moral reconstitution. The moral reconstitution they entrusted to Graf Zinzendorf (1700-1760), a Lutheran theologian, from the German region of Dresden, who gave shelter to a post-Hussite religious branch known at the time as Herrnhuters.

While the Herrnhuters receive little or no publicity in my native country of Latvia today, the Herrnhuters could trace their origins not only to the Jan Hus movement in Moravia, but through that movement could likely reach to the Catar movement of now French Languedoc, and through the Catars into the early Christian movement in the region of Bosnia, and then through Bulgaria to early Christian Byzantium. The Herrnhuters were contemporaries of such religious movements as led by Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), a Swedish scientist and theologian, and Quakers, a religious society that calls itself The Society of Friends and began in England in the 1650s. The Quakers believed that there is something of the Divine in everybody (a common belief of many if not all religious movements of the time), which is why they did not have a clergy. Yet another religious movement was known as the Shakers. The group used dance as a means to achieve religious ecstasy, and, one of their dancing songs “SimpleGifts” [lyrics written by Joseph Brackett (1797-1882)] had lyrics, which in my opinion expressed the general mood prevalent in all the above mentioned movements, including the Herrnhuters.

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free

'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gained,
To bow and to bend we shan't be ashamed,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come 'round right.

Because of their “true simplicity” sans a clergy to dictate to them what it is, the Herrnhuters quickly gained the trust of the remainder of Livonia’s inhabitants, especially in the countryside on the border of what is now Estonia and Latvia. By not being ashamed “to bow and to bend…”, the Herrnhuters achieved not only a moral reconstituon, but a new identity for what we know as the Estonian and Latvian people today.

Unfortunately, there was a problem due to the movement’s survival and remaining active well into the post-Westphalian peace season. The root of the problem was that while the Peace Treaty ended a thirty year long (and longer) religious war, it gave the upper hand to the Catholic interpretation of Christianity, which was shared in by the Lutherans of Scandinavia and northern Germany. It was the latter who insisted on interjecting its clergy between the Herrnhuters and the reconstructed communities. The Herrnhuters were forced underground and gradually disappeared. Religion began to be decreed from above and outside of the community.

This as if separation of church and state, yet with the state having the greater say in how separated it would allow the people to become, has by the 21^st century created a nation where the State of Latvia has presumed itself to be the religion of the community and the sole representative of the people. The Lutheran clergy did not envisage any further debate if this separation were to be or not be a success.

In the twenty-five years that the ‘renewed’ state of Latvia (1990-…) has taken control of what used to be the territory of the ‘First State of Latvia’ (1918-1940), the people, who used to constitute the community of the nation, have been pushed (through the power given the state by the power to tax) aside by the leadership of the State to cause numerous disasters, which begin with the economy, continue throughout the educational system (by demoralizing both teachers and students) and cultural institutions (information is effectively under the control of state and business interests), and what may be called ‘soft genocide’, which due to a failed economy has forced a half a million inhabitants of Latvia (an accurate figure is unknown due to various government subterfuges) to seek employment abroad. While business exerts its influence and vision through advertising, the state achieves similar ends by keeping the discussions in the media to government leaders and its bureaucracy). One example of the methods employed by the government is the virtual supression of literature, which consists mostly of translations (much easier done than to create anew) and regurgitations of political and post-modernist cliches.

An even greater disaster befell the Latvian community when the so-called Latvian government succumbed to pressures of outside institutions such as the European Union and NATO, the latter which is placing on the territory of former Livonia tanks and boots, which is to exact a 2% increase in the tax levy next year and subject the community to further dissolution than presently achieved.

For the above stated reasons, I, E. Antons Benjamins, have begun a hunger strike to bring adequate discussion of the damage done to the nation and its sovereign status by the leadership of the ‘renewed’ Latvian state, to demand a lifting of taxation from the Latvian people living in the countryside, and to reconstitute the deconstructed (by business and military interests) Biosphere of northwestern Latvia (see map below) by giving it the status as its own region.

 
As to my credentials, I am the descendant of many generations of Herrnhuters, who gave the Latvian people their identity, among which my grandfather Antons Benjamiņš was a major contributor as founder and editor of a major newspaper (Jaunākās Ziņas) during the ‘First’ Latvian nation, I am 81 yrs old, a citizen of Latvia (11+20 yrs) and the United States of America (46 yrs), and lay claim to the First President of Latvia, Janis Čakste http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C4%81nis_%C4%8Cakste , who through his son Mintauts Čakste, was to become my godfather, which honor was given me in the undreamt event of an emergency situation such as Latvia is facing today due to government neglect of the Latvian  people and Latvia’s interests.

E. Anton Benjamins
Kalnini, Braslavas pag., Limbažu raj., Latvia LV-4068

The Biosphere should include all the white areas within the green, and its outer borders should be the sea, the border with Estonia, and then in an arc from the upper right (Valka) s
weep down to the lower left.