When summer comes, we throw open our doors and windows. Flies love us. Especially when I neglect to close a screen door behind me.
The other day, I spotted a house fly feasting on crumbs of breakfast cereal left on a kitchen counter. He seemed pre-occupied with his meal. I found the flyswatter, sneaked up on him, and whap! One flat housefly!
Then immediately I felt guilty. I remembered – or vaguely thought I remembered – that 50 years ago Mao Tse Tung had decreed that the Chinese people should kill flies. And they did. So effectively that they almost caused the extinction of tree swallows.
I wondered if I might be similarly harming some Canadian species when I swatted that housefly.
Misplaced commitment
My memory was incorrect, it turns out. The near-extinction of China’s tree swallows was not a by-product of the fly-killing campaign. Rather, Mao defined swallows as one of the “Four Pests” for extermination n 1958.
The Chinese Communists came to power after half a century of civil war. As an article in Discover magazine put it, “China was saturated with infectious diseases” -- tuberculosis, plague, cholera, polio, malaria, smallpox, schistosomiasis, and hookworm. Infant mortality ran as high as 30 per cent.
Mao singled out four pests: mosquitos that transmitted malaria, rodents that spread plague, and houseflies that spread everything.
And swallows. Mao reasoned that swallows ate grain. Eliminating swallows would mean more grain for people.
He reasoned wrongly. Sparrows, it turned out, ate more than rice. They also ate insects.
But by then the obedient masses had ganged up against China’s sparrows. Villages, the military, school children, made such a commotion wherever sparrows gathered that the sparrows could not settle. People banged pots and pans. They fired guns and set off firecrackers. The unfortunate birds had to keep flying until they died of exhaustion.
And the locusts, freed of their natural predators, gobbled up far more agricultural produce than the sparrows ever did.
Tampering with nature’s balance
In China, it is still called the Great Famine (although officially it never happened). An estimated 36 million people starved to death – six times as many as died in the Nazi Holocaust. People ate anything – tree bark, roots, animal feces… Some sources claim they even resorted to cannibalism.
In one sense, Mao’s solution to China’s public health crisis worked. Discover estimated that, along with one billion sparrows, “1.5 billion rats, 100 million kilograms of flies and 11 million kilograms of mosquitos” were destroyed… Some infectious diseases were eradicated; others had their incidence reduced.”
It was, Discover summed up, “one of the most successful public health campaigns in history – in terms of establishing a goal and clearly achieving it… [But it] came at an extraordinarily grave cost for the Chinese, ecologically and demographically.”
The truth that emerges seems to be, “Tamper with nature’s balance of prey and predator at your peril.” There will be, there will always be, unexpected consequences.
I still have no compunctions about swatting flies when they trespass into our house. But I’m certainly not going to launch a campaign to kill off all flies. Or wasps. Or mosquitoes. Mao’s mistake teaches me that all things – even pests – have their place in the natural order.
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Copyright © 2017 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups, and links from other blogs, welcomed; all other rights reserved.
To comment on this column, write jimt@quixotic.ca
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YOUR TURN
Perhaps Isabel Gibson took my thought, that no one in my dominant civilization has ever asked the indigenous nations of Canada how they think we would need to change, most seriously: “Umm. I take your point, but it's a tad sweeping. How ‘we’ might change [is] a tricky construct given that the pronoun includes a lot of diversity.
“In ‘From Treaty Peoples to Treaty Nation,’ Greg Poelzer and Ken Coates document some of the answers and try to map a way ahead ‘for all Canadians’.”
Steve Roney scoffed at the idea of asking Canada’s indigenous nations how white society should change: “You think it is proper for the indigenous people now to colonize the rest of us? Typical Canadian colonial mentality.”
Steve also clarified my casual reference to 1867: “The BNA Act changed Canada from separate colonies to a federation of colonies. And not even the first federation of colonies: Ontario and Quebec were already ‘The United Provinces of Canada.’ So it did not change anything ‘from a colony to a nation.’ Canada ceased being a colony only gradually, in the years before and since. Representative government in the 1840s and the Statute of Westminster in 1931 were more important in that regard.”
Chris Duxbury wrote from Australia, “In January every year we celebrate Australia Day. The day marks the anniversary of the 1788 arrival of the First Fleet of British Ships at Port Jackson, New South Wales, and the raising of the Flag of Great Britain at Sydney Cove by Governor Arthur Phillip. In other words, the day when Australia was invaded by the ‘whites’. There seems to be a growing angst about Australia Day being celebrated on this date. As part of the ‘invaders’ group, I think of the day as a day that celebrates Australia now, and it is a celebration that we can all join in. However, there are those who want it on another date altogether to move us away from a day that our indigenous brothers and sisters find painful.”
John Shaffer responded to the previous week’s column, and letters, about unused churches: “Some of the biggest battles of my ministry were over allowing ‘outside’ community groups to utilize church space that was [otherwise] not used more than one hour per week. I honestly do not know the basis for the opposition, but I was not at my best in dealing with some of the attitudes.
` “It was sadly ‘funny’ when problems motivated us to lock a church in Juneau, Alaska. No one had a key to the church. We had to change the locks in order to secure the building. The sanctuary had not been locked for decades.”
Frank Martens also had thoughts about unused churches: “I notice here in my community that the Baptist church, which appears to have grown substantially in the last 40 years, is open seven days a week, perhaps because it has become a community centre for a lot of people beside the Baptists. They have a children’s pre-school program, they have games during the days -- even a place for paddle tennis -- and a regular Sunday service. I know it’s locked during the time it is not in use, but that doesn’t appear to be too often.
“The other churches in my community are rarely open except for. Yet they are large edifices with huge parking spaces (except for the Anglican church, which uses the parking lot of a seniors’ centre when they have services.”
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PSALM PARAPHRASES
All of us have had mentors, people who took us under their wing in many ways. Appreciation for those mentors seems to be the point of Psalm 119:105-112.
105 For years, you have been like a parent to me;
I have followed your advice faithfully.
106 I listen to your word.
I try to do your will.
107 But right now, my life is a mess.
I need your help.
108 Who else could I turn to?
Who else can I trust?
109 Like a billiard ball, I bounce from crisis to confrontation,
But still I try to measure up.
110 The world tests me with temptations.
They attract me, I cannot deny it;
But I do not give in.
111 I have learned well your precepts and principles;
they matter more to me than passing pleasures;
they are the foundation of my life.
112 I only yield to one temptation,
the temptation to do your will.
For paraphrases of most of the psalms used by the Revised Common Lectionary, you can order my book Everyday Psalms from Wood Lake Publishing, info@woodlake.com.
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YOU SCRATCH MY BACK…
· Ralph Milton’s most recent project, Sing Hallelujah -- the world’s first video hymnal -- consists of 100 popular hymns, both new and old, on five DVDs that can be played using a standard DVD player and TV screen, for use in congregations who lack skilled musicians to play piano or organ. More details at www.singhallelujah.ca
· Isabel Gibson's thoughtful and well-written blog, www.traditionaliconoclast.com
· Wayne Irwin's "Churchweb Canada," an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. <http://www.churchwebcanada.ca>
· Alva Wood's satiric stories about incompetent bureaucrats and prejudiced attitudes in a small town are not particularly religious, but they are fun; write alvawood@gmail.com to get onto her mailing list.
· Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” -- ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at twatson@sentex.net
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TECHNICAL STUFF
If you want to comment on something, send a message directly to me, jimt@quixotic.ca.
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My webpage is up and running again -- thanks to Wayne Irwin and ChurchWeb Canada. You can now access current columns and about five years of archives at http://quixotic.ca
I write a second column each Sunday called Sharp Edges, which tends to be somewhat more cutting about social and justice issues. To sign up for Sharp Edges, write to me directly, jimt@quixotic.ca, or send a note to sharpedges-subscribe@lists.quixotic.ca
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