From the Shocking to the Surreal...

[StormHammer]

With a lot of people focusing on the Middle East and related countries lately for obvious reasons, I could hardly believe my eyes when I read this in SFX magazine #83 (a monthly focusing on SF and Fantasy)...

 

<STRONG>Hobbit Hurt</STRONG>

 

Police in Kazakhstan are cracking down on the activities of JRR Tolkien fans. The population of the Central Asian country harbours a disproportionately large number of Tolkien fanatics who the infamously brutal police of Almaty, once Kazakhstan's capital, regard as subversive.

 

"We are perfectly legal," said one Tolkienist, Vitaly. "In fact we spend most of our time in the mountains. We only hold conventions in the city twice a year. It's our lifestyle. The police don't like it, but we aren't going to stop. It's our entire life."

 

Along with buskers, rock bands and other undesirables, the Tolkienists are said to be tortured in a "water tank", a cell about four feet six inches high that is half filled with cold water. In it you cannot stand up straight as the roof is too low and you cannot sit down as the water level is too high.

 

Kazakhstan is a ways north of Afghanistan (and not really part of the Middle East).

 

Assuming the story is true (the mag is usually pretty good), it beggar's belief. I don't know whether I'm more amazed that a large number of people there want to live like Hobbits - or that the police treat them as subversives.

 

Even more strangely, they went on to say that a large number of people in the Urals actually built a huge fortress, and it sounds like they re-enacted the final battle.

 

With the current debate on belief systems et al, it made me wonder exactly what people will be worshipping in the future.

 

Will Lord Of The Rings become the New Testament of the future? Will there be real Jedi Knights? One can only wonder.

[OnlyOneCanoli]

I love LOTR (who doesn't?), but that is taking it just a bit too far.

 

Anyway, that water thing is pathetic. It's hard to believe.

[Guest Kurgan]

Well it is kinda of goofy that people would worship something that is clearly intended to be fiction, and can be proved to be fiction.

 

However, with the power of myth, just about any story that teaches you something powerful or important can become part of a culture or religion and I don't see anything odd or strange about that.

 

But if true, the government reaction is pretty sad. Although if they built huge armies.. nah.. people armed with swords and spears and arrows vs. tanks, machine guns, bombs.. no contest.

 

Kurgan