Amen

"May the authorities grow like onions with their heads in the ground!" is an off-the-cuff curse tossed out by an Anatevka villager in Fiddler On The Roof.

The men stand in a group, around a wagon, talking. The news-bringing guy comes over with a long sheet -- "In a village called [something-or-other] all the Jews were forced to leave."

They stand in intimidated stressful awe.
"For what reason?"
"Doesn't say. Maybe the tsar wanted the land. Maybe a plague."

"May the tsar have his own personal plague!" one cries.
All together: "Amen!" And they all turn away and spit.

More discussion.
News guy: "I don't know any more than that. An edict from the authorities."

"May the authorities grow like onions, with their heads in the ground!"

"AMEN!"
Spit.

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F-O-T-Roof
takes place during the last gasp of tsarist Russia right before the communist revolution (1917...?)...
talk about out of frying pan & into fire...
Tsarist Russia was a lousy place to live for many of the people -- that's why they got the energy for a revolution -- then the communists were just as bad or worse...
when I was in elementary school my piano teacher told me that Russian music is often in a minor key because "the people over there haven't had very much to be happy about."

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I was thinking about the scene with these grown-up, hard-working, devoutly religious villagers -- cursing the "authorities" - ! (I was taught, "The policeman is your friend.") ...but in a society, and system, where the actual authorities misbehave and persecute, and it's the authorities you have to be afraid of more than actual criminals -- that's a whole dysfunctional & corrupt system.

Traditionally we think we're safe from that type of scenario in America, because we live in a democracy and the authorities are the "good guys."

-30-