What Do 19th Century African Statues Have to Do with COP21? - a podcast by Laura Flanders

The heads of 19th century African states, when they found their authority bypassed by colonial traders and their land and people savaged by powers beyond their control, sought to reassert their authority by erecting scary little statues with the community's rules literally nailed into their chest.

"Thou shalt not kill", "thou shalt not steal". Every pledge made by the Kongo people was marked by a spike for all to see. The gods would punish transgressors, the priests of the Chiefs promised, and the magic potion used to summon the spirits was buried in the statue's stomach.

Some of those statues, called minkondi have been on display at the Metropolitan Museum this fall, and I couldn't help thinking of them as the UN meets for the 21st time to draft an agreement to defend the climate. Like those long-ago Kongo chieftains, the leaders of today's nation-states are finding their countries colonized by corporations, and they're doing their best to re-assert their authority. But if, after 21 meetings, they finally agree on a document will it be any more effective than the Minkondi?

Determined, muscular, with knees bent, ready to jump, those little guys looked scary and protective too, but they weren't. They marked the desperate last gasp of an old way of life - and now they're behind glass.

When we paid homage to the Minkondi at the Met recently - I couldn't help noticing that the magic potion in their bellies was all dried up, but the source of their power lay not in the priests or the chieftains or that potion, but in the people - specifically in the traditional belief that anti-social behavior was wrong and would be punished.

As my partner on that visit said, the first time a transgressor got away with injuring the group without incurring consequences, the jig was up.

All these years on, two centuries of no-consequences have brought us to the brink of climate catastrophe. Can we learn from the Kongo? Nail as many hammers and spikes as you like into our chest - nothing substitutes for a living, breathing social contract.

You can watch my interview with Los Angeles organizer and educator Eric Mann this week on The Laura Flanders Show on KCET/LINKtv and TeleSUR and find all my interviews and reports at LauraFlanders.com. To tell me what you think, write to Laura@LauraFlanders.com.

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