#36 Anyone for tea? (Part I: The angry part)

I always fear that creation will expire before tea time.

-Sydney Smith.

On December 16th, 1773, tea time was interrupted for the British East India Company. Three shiploads of tea ended up in the Atlantic Ocean at the mouth of the Charles River - an event which became immortalised as the 'Boston Tea Party' (and, if I may say so, a crying shame - just because of the wasted tea, you understand).

For the previous two decades, opinion across the Thirteen Colonies had been fomented against 'taxation without representation'. The central tenet was that, since colonists (who were British citizens) had no elected representatives in Parliament, they shouldn't be subject to Crown taxes. Seems fair.

The repeal of most taxes on imports to the colonies in 1770 subverted the unrest, but a tax on tea (to the tune of thrupence on the pound) remained. However, the tax wasn't crippling and, since the colonists were pragmatists with little pretension to self-governance, it was swallowed.

In 1773, a new Tea Act was tabled. Did it restore the huge levies on tea imports? No. And, in fact, it made it easier and cheaper to sell British tea in America. A number of signatories to the Act - under the auspices of the East India Company - would be allowed to sell tea directly in America, with smaller levies. The trouble was, it made it much harder to sell illegal Dutch tea, and it debarred many 'unauthorised' British vendors - who until recently had been doing swift trade - from their trade. Essentially, the Tea Act created a monopoly.

'Taxation without representation' was still a prominent strain in (or at least a justification for) the ensuing civil unrest, but many of the instigators were tea merchants who felt hard done to. For all the calming influence of tea, it did start the most important independence movement in history.

The tea was blue touch paper. Sort of. Through various leaders and revolutionaries, from the mobbish to the principled, an independence movement arose, which eventually garnered the support of an estimated 40% of colonists. The movement was not without its detractors: Benjamin Franklin immediately ordered that the East India Company should be reimbursed for the tea. Several East Coast merchants sought conciliation with the Crown. Many colonists supported representation in Parliament, and few thought America could self-govern successfully, until well into the war. Like so many celebrated historical events, the Tea Party and ensuing War of Independence were less glamorous than posterity considers them.

Nevertheless, the Tea Party was clearly A Good Thing in terms of its achievements - the first government 'of the people, by the people, and for the people', as Jefferson later put it, that the world had ever seen.

The Boston Tea Party has come to the political fore again of late, because of the growing 'Tea Party' movement in America, that pushes a diffuse antigovernment, rightwing agenda under the vague justification of suffering the same executive injustice that the colonists did.

Well, maybe. The prima facie case is laudable - government has become bloated, unaccountable, and profligate. And it's true, to an extent. The problem with it is the problem with all causes cèlébres - it's not as simple as all that. The Boston Tea Party wasn't about high taxes stifling business - it was about trade restrictions harming business. And no American can claim taxation without representation, without paying a significant insult to the colonists.

Especially, Mrs. Palin, individuals hailing from states ranking 47th in terms of people per electoral college seat. Only individuals from Wyoming, North Dakota or Vermont can claim to have more representation than you. You are worth THREE Californians, and don't you forget it.

Government restrictions don't harm US businesses - they allow them to compete. America has been criticised again and again by international observers for its protection and subsidy racket. A smaller government would ravage America's farming industry, for example. Maybe that's no bad thing, but it's hard to imagine that that is what those invoking the Boston riots really want.

Personally, I think it's just rude to misread history to push a particular agenda. And talking of tea etiquette...

#10 Girl you have no Faith in Medicine.

Mary Baker Eddy, then. A 19th Century down-and-out that decided to form a church and only got bloody rich and famous. As L. Ron Hubbard, founder of Scientology, put it: 'The way to make a million dollars is to start a religion.'

I have confused things by bringing up Scientology, because the church Ms Eddy founded is known as the 'First Church of Christ, Scientist', or simply the Christian Science Church. But is totally unrelated to Scientology; indeed, it is built firmly on the bedrock of traditional Christianity, with added quackery thrown in.

As the story goes Mazzy Baker was deathly ill but manage to heal herself through rigorous application of faith in God and humanity, where the remedies of the day had done nada. (That the remedies of the day included homeopathy, magnetic healing and tapping doesn't seem to have been given much thought as a possible explanation.) Subsequently she wrote a book which tore through the American faith community, explaining how proper faith in Gawd and good honest Americanness would render you, and the world, endlessly and bountifully happy and healthy. Christian Scientists will probably argue I have paid lip service to their faith, but fuck 'em.

To her credit, she was exceptionally generous and charitable, and founded a faith based on much the same principles. She also valued journalism, and founded a now-major international paper by the name of the Christian Science Monitor, which has won much praise for its fair, balanced longview of international affairs.

She enters my narrative because she was a Bostonian, and I went to her church. More than to learn about her, though (sorry babes), I was interested in a beautiful structure known as the Mapparium.

To represent the global reach of the Christian Science movement, in 1935 they commissioned Chester Lindsay Churchill to build a three-story glass glove, onto the inside of which were painted, in resplendent hues, the nations of the world.

The Mapparium has been enhanced by a projection overlay to restore the faded colours to their 1930s lustre, and a fabulously kitsch 'we are the world' voiceover, but the map has not been redrawn at all. So, you can marvel at delights such as 'Italian East Africa', the lack of Pakistan, and muse on the fragility of nations, and the future of our planet. As the kitsch 80s voiceover heartily encourages you to do.



We are the world.