DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE OF THE EUROPEAN SHRINE

So, I was reading a book recently that made me rethink why Europeans started the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine (A.A.O.N.M.S.) in 1870.

It was created by Walter M. Fleming, M.D., and William J. Florence (actor and Arab diplomat).  Florence supposedly got the idea from observing the Algerians and Egyptians.

But what caught my attention was studying a group of Africans called the Barbary.  The word Barbary is where the word barbarian comes from.

The Barbary culture is sometimes known as the Berber or Moors.  It just matters who is describing these powerful Africans.

They are also known as the Barbary Pirates.  They were located in the North African region, which became the countries of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya after the Berlin Conference of 1884-85.

During the period of the European Slave Trade (Trans-Atlantic), the Barbary would capture europeans traveling across the Atlantic Ocean and forced them to do hard manual labor.

Slavery was a big business.  In fact, the first commodity traded on the stock market was kidnapped Africans.

In the 1780s, the US wrote the Treaty of Peace and Friendship and the Treaty of Amity and Commerce which the North African leaders agreed to.  This was to stop the capture of european human capita.  Both treaties pertain to the sea.

Europeans had a GREAT FEAR of Northern Africans, especially in the US.

This brings me back to the Shrine.  It was developed to mock the Northern Africans.  By making fun of them, the goal was to lessen their fear. 

This is why the Shrine is known as the Play House.  They play dress-up while disrespecting the North Africans by creating characters to partially effeminize them.

It’s all a part of the game (the bigger economic picture).

My suggestion is to look at history from an economic view unveils some very interesting factors.

I will write about this in greater detail in a later blog.