Posted by Perry on August 24, 2004 at 14:18:35
In Reply to: What Can Bonobos Tell Us about The Family & Its Leadership? posted by Carol on August 22, 2004 at 23:16:02:
Carol, I think your observation about "the caste system of leadership versus rank-and-file, e.g., WS, CRO & other selah homes versus the mission
homes" is right on. I would just add as clarification that the caste system of leadership versus rank-and-file also existed within the WS unit I was in for a few months, as well as other selah homes I was in. In other words, a person's
caste is determined by where they are in TF hierarchy, not by whether they are in a selah home or a mission home. I think my experience is a perfect example of that.
I was never in a position of leadership the entire time I was in TF and so I always identified with the rank and file members, even during the considerable amount of time I spent in selah units or even in leadership homes that weren't selah [I'm thinking here of the early “pioneer” days in Japan, when I was taken off the road because I was a lousy litnesser and became a servant to the top leaders there]. In every case, I was the lowest ranked member of the home, with no power or authority whatsoever. My tasks were no different than one would expect from a domestic servant. In fact, over the years I've followed the plight of Filipino migrant workers and have read many horrific accounts of the exploitation and human rights abuses suffered by Filipino domestic servants in places like Hong Kong and Saudia Arabia. Their stories are not dissimilar to what it was like for me at some of the selah units, particularly Isaac Number's (Ike) WS unit in Hong Kong. They tell of long working hours, mundane tasks, physical or emotional abuse, indebted servitude, unpaid wages, physical confinement, being stuck in a foreign country with no money and no way of escape, etc.
Although I may have had a few priveleges that members in missions homes didn't have (though I'm hard pressed at the moment to think what they might be), I think the effects of living a very restricted life, being in a constant state of high security alert boardering on paranoia, being under the constant scrutiny of top leadership, and having every aspect of your life open to constant, capricious criticism really took their toll on me. In a way that was good, because a lot of that treatment I received directly led to my eventual departure, but that doesn't detract from the fact that living in a WS unit could be brutal. My experiences are limited, yet had a
very negative impact on me, so I can just imagine what it must have been like or is like for children growing up in that kind of environment. So I think your observations about TF caste system are right on, and this is an issue that is worth further study.