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(Photo: Omar A./flickr)
Cross posted from Frederick Leatherman Law Blog
The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant is an Ancient Egyptian story about the relationship of Ma’at to justice. Written sometime during the Middle Kingdom in the 19th century BCE, it relates a story about an incident that occurred during the chaotic First Intermediate Period.
The main character is a farmer from the arid and desolate Wadi Natrum named Khun-Inpu, who loaded up his donkey with most of his barley and set off for an urban marketplace in the Nile River valley where he intended to trade the barley for goods to take back to his wife and children. Along the way, he came to a place where the path narrowed down to the width of a loincloth bordered by a stream on the low side and a wheat field on the high side. A wet cloak lay across the path.
Khun-Inpu stopped when he reached the cloak. A man stepped out of the wheat field and warned him not to move or touch it. He said his name was Nemti-Nakht and he claimed to be the overseer of the wheat field.
Khun-Inpu asked him to remove the cloak so that he could resume his journey, but Nemti-Nakht refused. Khun-Inpu then stepped into the wheat field pulling his donkey behind him intending to go around the cloak and resume his journey. The donkey flattened some wheat, however, and then decided to stop and eat some grain, notwithstanding Khun-Inpu’s entreaties to to the contrary.
Nemti-Nakht started screaming in protest. He accused him of trespassing on his master’s land, destroying part of the crop, and stealing grain to feed the donkey. Then he assaulted Khun-Inpu with a tamarisk and beat him unconscious.
When Khun-Inpu regained consciousness, Nemti-Nakht was nowhere to be seen. Neither was the donkey nor the load of barley.
Khun-Inpu decided to find the owner of the wheat field and plead his case for the return of the donkey and his barley. Upon reaching the next town, he soon discovered that Rensi, son of Meru, owned the land and he found him down by the riverside in the city.
Addressing him with praises according to the customs of the day, Khun-Inpu told him what had happened and respectfully asked for the return of his donkey and the barley. Rensi referred the matter to his judges, but they denied Khun-Inpu’s request because, according to the law, they could not grant it unless he presented witnesses to verify his claim against Nemti-Nakht.
Although he was a mere peasant and outlander lacking a formal education, the judges were greatly impressed by his presentation, which was not at all what they expected from a person from such humble origins. His honesty and passion for justice and his fearless yet polite and earnest way of expressing Ma’at, or good speech would have been exceptional, even if expressed by one of their own. Believing pharaoh might be also be impressed, if he were to hear Khun-Inpu’s literally divine speech, they convinced Rensi to refer the case to the pharaoh for his consideration. In short order the pharaoh agreed to hear the case.
Pharaoh listened politely but appeared unmoved. Nevertheless, he agreed to allow Khun-Inpu another opportunity to argue his case. And so it went. Hee prepared and argued eight successive petitions, but pharaoh remained unmoved. Finally, in desperation he prepared a final petition in which he really let it all hang out speaking truth to power. He told pharaoh that if he denied him Ma’at, he would seek it from Inpu himself in the Hall of Two Truths in the Duat. In pertinent part, he said the following:
nn sf n wsf(There can be no yesterday for the do-nothing)
nn xnms n sX mAat (There can be no friend for one deaf to Right)
nn hrw nfr n awn ib (There can be no festivity for the greedy hearted)
Pharaoh was so moved after reading Khun-Inpu’s three fundamental truths that are so essential to any understanding of Ma’at, that he ruled in his favor and ordered the donkey to be returned to Khun-Inpu and for him to be compensated with all of Nemti-Nakht’s property, including his job.
The Constitution, Bill of Rights, and the Rule of Law manifest our fundamental values and principles. Together they form the basic structure by which we define and should conduct ourselves. They are not mere words on a piece of paper. They are sacred. They are our Ma’at.
One of the most fundamental ideas expressed throughout those documents is the principle of equal justice under law. In other words, no matter who we are and what we do, we are all equal and entitled to the same rights and privileges as everyone else.
No one is entitled to special consideration, much less a lifetime exemption from having to comply with the laws and the unlimited use of a get-out-of-jail-free card to avoid suffering the certain consequences that any of us would suffer for the same misconduct.
Yet, despite this fundamental and defining principle of equal justice under law, we are witnessing and experiencing a different reality in which race, wealth and economic class increasingly set us apart and undermine our faith and trust in our laws and institutions to treat us fairly and protect us.
Ma’at is breaking down and like Khun-Inpu did 3,500 years ago in Ancient Egypt as recounted in the Tale of the Eloquent Peasant when a law was being used to wrongfully deprive him of his property and deny him justice, we have to speak truth to power to reclaim what we have lost and restore our faith.
We must give voice to Ma’at and together we shall overcome.
Please consider the following question:
Have we not been summoned one at a time from near and far by our empathy for Trayvon Martin and our desire to do what we can to restore justice in his case?
I believe there is a spirit that moves us and I choose to call her Ma’at as the Ancient Egyptians did.
Namaste
4 Comments
Thank you again for this diary.
This system of Ma’at as you express it has been breaking down for different classes of people for a long time in this country. The disparate sentencing of people of color is but one example. The disparate sentencing of people of wealth is another.
Just a point for discussion: federalism vs states rights when it comes to crime and punishment. I have a real issue with the issues of all the different state laws regarding the variety of charges and punishments for a particular crime. Although I am not a lawyer and also am not familiar with the laws in every single state, I have lived in several different states and have seen the disparate sentences handed down to defendants for what looks like the same or at least very similar crimes.
It seems to me at least that if we are going to live in a “united” country, at least we claim to anyway, that there should be more of an attempt to make the laws from one state to the next more consistent with one another. Why does a person get sentenced to probation in one state and to five years in prison in another state for doing the exact same thing? (FYI – just a mock example but not totally out of line)
BTW – this also could apply to lots of other issues as well, not just the justice system.
I’d really like some comments…
Excellent and most timely diary, Mason.
As you suggest, right behavior is fundamental to civil society, to sane and healthy interaction among individuals.
The “system” is, indeed and in fact, being deliberately broken, and torn down.
And it may only be raised, not from the top, but from the bottom.
While you properly point out that the Constitution is the basis of our legal system and the Rule of Law, let it also be understood that its manifestation is not simply what the “government” or those with wealth and power might do. It is also incumbent upon individual human beings in civil society, to act, to behave, with conscience, evidencing clear consciousness of right behavior and the meaning of a codified system which describes and delineates those behaviors, those which are acceptable and those which are not. Further, it requires of those individuals, of ALL individuals who comprise a civil society, the courage to insist that those right behaviors obtain in all situations of presumed trespass and failure to abide BY the tenets of right behavior, OF following those “rules” of proper conduct, which fully apply to those “classified” as wealthy and as powerful as well as those “classified” as Not wealthy and NOT powerful, as well as those in the “middle” …
When certain “classes”, and it historically is the wealthy and the powerful who choose, deliberately, to procure the means, one way or another, of placing themselves above and beyond the reach and purview of the Rule of Law and common decency. However, as we are too often witness, inculcated hatred and taught prejudice may impel some, who are neither wealthy nor especially powerful, to choose to violate, feeling or “believing” themselves justified in doing so, those rules and understandings of right behavior.
At the very “top” of our “system” of “justice” of “government power”, we find that, currently, the Rule of Law is given lip-service but deliberately traduced and completely ignored, to the extent that the highest official of the land claims the power to kill or indefinitely detain ANYONE whom he so chooses. That same official has also protected the most blatant criminal fraud which which this society has yet experienced. Now, we also know, that it matters little which ever of the two controlling “parties”, which are private entities wishing to control public policy, seeking to position their champion in that “top” place, will continue the same destructive and undemocratic “policies”, for it is rewarding to those parties and their members to do so.
Beyond that, deceit is now commonplace in the land, which the ruling class has now deemed should be called the “Homeland”, that they may better control, though they claim to “protect” it … through secret waging of wars and keeping hidden, by appeals to “security”, the nature and intent of what is being done in the name of the people who inhabit the land, the nation, who comprise “society”. The powers of government, for example, have passed laws which prohibit the people from gathering together to seek the redress of just grievance … and these “laws” are a massive affront, cynical and calculated, to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights therein contained, as you mention.
In the comment @1, lokywoky makes mention of other very serious problems which confront humanity and defy clear reason and universal justice.
The solution will require MUCH more than voting for more of the same, which course, it is evident will obtain, at least in this election, which some have begun to understand is dishonest and undemocratic … as only candidates from the two controlling parties may be permitted to be heard and broadly considered.
As lokywoky says, the issues you raise apply to many other “system” and aspects of our common plight and dilemma.
Mason, your very considerable efforts to educate and to enlighten, your delightful use of ancient understandings and similarities as your stories provide, are all most powerfully important and extremely potent.
Thank you for the conscience, the courage, and the humanity which you consistently model and encourage.
There is great and pressing need of such things.
And I have not yet even mentioned the degradation of the environment, the world upon which we all depend for our survival and very existence.
Your love for this world, for this species, for this time and for this society, shine brightly from each and every one of your words.
Namaste
DW
Ma’at is incompatible with La Bourgeosie. Ma’at is the pharaoh’s reciprocal duty for the obedience of his subjects. La Bourgeosie’s competition for market bounty subverts their responsibility to justice. For one, they are anarchic in that there is not one responsible for the behavior of many. Second, La Bourgeoisie are engaged in a race which requires losers. Third, their “economics” is not economic; it is rather an excuse for fraud and hoarding.
Please do not compare La Bourgeoisie’s fraudulent religion with the Pharaoh’s.
Mason, I think you would enjoy reading Christopher Dawson.
Christopher Dawson – Wikipedia
Christopher Dawson – Amazon
His basic contention is that Religion is the cohesive force for civilisation. He’s unfashionable now but he knew his stuff and his writings – particularly those I disagree with, have always made me think. With any luck your local library might some of his works.
mfi