It’s April 15 and it’s snowing! But no matter, it won’t
last. Yesterday we had balmy spring and in another two days it will find its
way back to us. Spring in Toronto often seems like this: a little winter, a
little pleasant weather, a bit more winter, and then suddenly: it’s full blown
hot and summery! So much to complain about.
Last night Mark and I made our way over to our
neighbouring Bloor Cinema to watch a documentary screened as a money-raiser for
PEN, an organization that works world-wide to draw attention to and agitate for
the release of writers imprisoned for positions unpopular to their political
masters. Each film in the series has been chosen and is presented by a Canadian
writer; the film is followed by an interview of the writer by a PEN rep and an
audience Q & A. Linwood Barclay chose Sons of Perdition. My interest in the
film stems from the reading of and reporting on Sally Denton’s book about the
Mountain Meadow Massacres by Mormons that I posted in my earlier blog A Winter in
Puerto Vallarta. The link: www.awinterinpuertovallarta.blogspot.com
This film focuses on a present-day off-shoot of the Mormons that left the main
branch in 1913. Late in the 19th century in order to accommodate themselves
to the strictures of the federal government, the main Mormon Church had officially
banned polygamy.
This group, the FLDS (Fundamental Latter Day Saints)
has received considerable notoriety in the past decade with the arrest,
prosecution, and incarceration of its leader, Warren Jeffs, on charges of
statutory rape. Inheriting his status of “prophet” and absolute leader from his
father, Jeffs exploited the considerable freedoms of his location,
concentrating wealth and power ever more in his own person. Girls and women,
the precious commodity doled out as wives to men who obeyed his dictums, were
maintained in extreme physical and intellectual isolation. The local school
which previously took students to a grade nine level began to teach only
religion and household or technical skills. Boys would work as early as age
eight often in the businesses pursued by their fathers, developing capabilities
for example, in several aspects of home construction. These boys were allowed
greater latitude than their sisters, freedoms that for some allowed a
recognition that there could be alternatives to their lives of constant
obedience to fathers and the community hierarchy. The documentary’s title Sons
of Perdition refers to a handful of these boys who chose to escape from the
community near Colorado City, Utah, locally titled “The Crick.” Since early
childhood all were taught that they had been especially chosen by God to
partake in a holy church, to be part of the few elect who would be allowed into
heaven. All others were in Jeff’s words, sinners and adulterers, doomed to an
eternity in hell. The same fate lay in waiting for any who turned away from the
teachings of the prophet – himself – and sought a life of independence.
Between 2001 and 2006 Jeffs expelled over 400 men and
boys from the community because of disobedience to his orders. Boys and girls
were forbidden to think of one another as possible mates. Rather they were to
await God’s decision, mediated through the person of Jeffs, about their
designated spouses. In practice girls, sometimes as young as 13 or 14 were awarded
to men as old as their fathers or even grandfathers. Young boys and men were
viewed by the hierarchy and the lucky winners of this marriage roulette as
potential rivals for women and girls. Flirting with and especially attempting
to date girls was sufficient cause for expulsion for the community. Married men who incurred the leader’s displeasure
were not only expelled: their wives, children, and homes were awarded to others
more in Jeffs’ favour. Most of the expelled members moved to the close-by town
of Colorado City, often floundering because of their extreme lack of
preparation for the modern world.
This documentary does not focus on those who have been
expelled, however. Rather it follows three boys who themselves decide to leave
the community at about the ages of 15 or 16 because of their growing
frustration with the constraints of FLDS life. Over a three or four year period
the boys attempt to find new lives in a broadened universe, hampered by their
lack of experience and education, struggling with views of themselves as doomed
to hell fire, with the painful loss of connections with mothers and siblings,
and, with insufficient structures available to them in the local community.
Housing is a major problem as is education. Without a permanent address they
are disallowed from registering in Colorado City schools. Perhaps assisted by
the interest taken in them by the documentary crew over these years, the boys
do eventually find their ways, one even assisting the emancipation of his
mother and siblings from the abusive thrall of his father.
According to internet sources, some things have changed
in the area since the initial screening of this documentary in 2010. The
federal government initiated civil rights proceedings that eventuated in a
change of jurisdiction from the local police, who clearly had taken orders from
the FLDS hierarchy (still controlled by Jeffs from prison), giving county
officers control of “The Crick” area. A charter school has been started (though
it is not clear if there is legislation in place which enforces schooling of
all children), and, some fathers banished by Jeffs have sued and won custody of
their estranged children. However, many still live boundaried by fear of
temporal or eternal reprisal, not just in the cocoon of this particular cult
but of others around the world.
In the discussion that followed the film, I was
reminded of the way that every culture presents to its people certain “facts of
life” viewed through its own lens. These FLDS children growing as do we all
like weeds within our cultures took entirely for cash the “fact” that unless
faithful to the “prophet” they were doomed to an eternity of hell fire.
Extricating themselves from this idea was one of the major difficulties for the
boys who left their origins behind. As a child attending a Catholic school and
learning my catechism with the others, I took in as “fact” the ideas presented.
Consider my amazement when at the age of 12 I heard a tent-mate at Girl Guide
camp say casually that she didn’t believe in hell! Astonishing! What had been
entirely perceived as every bit as factual as the presence of the sun or the
moon, suddenly became, like Santa Claus or the tooth fairy, a question of “belief.”I
doubt that this experience threw into me into immediate apostasy but it was
something that I never forgot. Even the name of the girl remained with me, so
revelatory was her comment.
Well, that's all for today. Cheers and happy spring!
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