Christian missionaries and tsunami relief. what could go wrong?

via Yahoo India:

Samanthapettai, Jan 16 (ANI): Rage and fury has gripped this tsunami-hit tiny Hindu village in India's southern Tamil Nadu after a group of Christian missionaries allegedly refused them aid for not agreeing to follow their religion.



Samanthapettai, near the temple town of Madurai, faced near devastation on the December 26 when massive tidal waves wiped it clean of homes and lives.



Most of the 200 people here are homeless or displaced , battling to rebuild lives and locating lost family members besides facing risks of epidemic,disease and trauma.



Jubilant at seeing the relief trucks loaded with food, clothes and the much-needed medicines the villagers, many of who have not had a square meal in days, were shocked when the nuns asked them to convert before distributing biscuits and water.



Heated arguments broke out as the locals forcibly tried to stop the relief trucks from leaving. The missionaries, who rushed into their cars on seeing television reporters and the cameras refusing to comment on the incident and managed to leave the village.



Disappointed and shocked into disbelief the hapless villagers still await aid.



"Many NGOs (volunteer groups) are extending help to us but there in our village the NGO, which was till now helping us is now asking us to follow the Christian religion. We are staunch followers of Hindu religion and refused their request. And after that these people with their aid materials are leaving the village without distributing that to us," Rajni Kumar, a villager said.

What bothers me most about this is the utter lack of Christian charity by these so called "missionaries". How can you look at a hungry child's outstretched hand and deny them the food they need?



The worst thing is that the Christian faith as a whole is maligned unfairly by this kind of behavior - especially since there has been a lot of this Christian fundamentalist intolerance on display recently.



UPDATE: I am surprised at the "it can't be true" denials I'm receiving in comments and via emails. Josh emails:

find the Yahoo India story somewhat suspicious, mostly because it mentions nuns, which strongly implies that the Christians in question were Roman Catholic. (You also get nuns in Christian Orthodoxy, but the likelihood that they're delivering aid in Indian is close to nil -- contrast with the rather strong presence of Catholic nuns in the country.) Suffice it to say that this just isn't something you'd typically see Catholics doing -- their aid and relief efforts are generally fairly professional and nondiscriminatory. Now, were these Protestants of a certain stripe, I'd be more inclined to believe it; however, you don't usually get those types very far out of east Texas, to say nothing of Tamil Nadu. Just my $0.02 -- it seems really fishy.

Andrew made a similar point in comments. Let me first point out that "nuns" is a generic term which of course someone froma Roman Catholic background (such as Andrew and Josh) would interpret in a specific manner. The words "priest" and "pastor" are interchangeably used (and translated) in comon speech. Given that there are hundreds of religious organizations operating in a relief capacity, each with their own legions of personnel, so some confusion is expected.



But more importantly, there's no reason to think that this behavior is beyond the pale of a Christian sect (as Joshua S. predictably implies in comments). This is hardly an isolated report. If an Indian-based news source is too suspect, then perhaps an Anglo source will be more palatable? Here's the Chicago Tribune:

AKKARAIPETTAI, India -- The Christian evangelists came in the morning, wearing fluorescent yellow T-shirts emblazoned with "Believers Church" on the back and "Gospel for Asia" on the front. They loaded up hundreds of villagers, mostly Hindus, in vans and trucks and drove them 6 miles away.



There, away from the eyes of village officials, each tsunami survivor received relief supplies--a sleeping mat, a plate, a sari, a 55-pound bag of rice and, in the bottom of a white plastic bag proclaiming "Believers Church Tsunami Relief," a book containing biblical verses warning against the dangers of alcohol.



"What do I do?" asked Muthammal, 35, who uses one name like many in southern India and wears the red bindi on her forehead showing she's Hindu. Like many here, she cannot read. "They are asking us to come all this way. It is so difficult."



Members of the Believers Church also have handed out Bibles to tsunami survivors on the streets and in relief camps. They set up an orphanage for 108 children, including many Hindus, and asked the children to recite Christian prayers six times a day. The Protestant church did not register the orphanage with the government, authorities said. K.P. Yohannan, the leader of Believers Church and Gospel for Asia, said the church had tried to get government permission.

The article goes on to detail a number of other groups, but the basic point here is clear: there most certainly are Christian aid groups that are taking advantage of tsunami victims. This is undeniable. Whether the Vatican is involved or not is irrelevant; my own affinity for the Roman Catholic organization (which is the best analogy in Christianity to my own religious hierarchy) actually makes me sympathetic to Andrew and Jish (T)'s defense, but I did not lambast the Catholic Church in my original post. In fact, I think of "nuns" in a generic sense myself and basically assumed it was a Protestant group. Protestants right here in the US are quite transparent about their intentions:

In an e-mailed weekly newsletter called "Falwell Confidential," which was obtained by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the evangelist said: "Hundreds of thousands are in dire need of medical attention and personal counselling. And in this heavily Muslim part of the world, millions have never even heard of Jesus Christ."



The newsletter, which is distributed by Jerry Falwell Ministries, said donations would be used to distribute food and Gospel tracts in the region.

We can have a legitimate debate about whether prosletyzation is in fact wrong, for a group that believes its ministry is as important a salvation of the sufferer's soul as the food is for their body. But what gets my goat is the denial of food outright. Pretending that Christian missionaries don't have ulterior motives is pure denial, and there's no reaon to discount the report, given that the actively pro-prosletyzation agenda of many such groups is hardly a secret.

Oh My God

Today is Eid ul Adha, or "Bakri (goat) Eid". It commemorates the willingness of the prophet Ibrahim (Abraham) to sacrifice his son for God's command. Jews and Muslims differ whether it was the son Isaac or Ismail - but to me that difference only underscores the brotherhood of faiths under the patriarchal figure of Ibrahim Nabi AS.



A father, asked to sacrifice his son - says yes, because of total submission to his Creator. As with Job, it was a test of faith.



While NPR and all local radio today is obsessed with the spectacle of the 40m inauguration of President Bush's second term, something happenned that hasn't been covered in Iraq, something which all the painted schools can never make up for. That something is a horror which I can barely bring myself to even link to. let alone describe: a family in their car is fired upon by soldiers, the parents killed instantly, the children largely unharmed but covered with their parents' blood. It is beyond imaginging. The tsunami tragedy was different not for its scale but for its agency - those of weak faith asked themselves about what type of God could unleash such a horror upon so many innocents. The agency here however is all too human, the self-inflicted wound that mankind visits upon itself with disturbing and grim frequency.



To the goats, the Eid may well be a tsunami of sorts, but they do not understand the higher purpose behind it. Perhaps the Iraqi people can relate. Our purpose in Iraq is as unlikely to be defined clearly in Bush's second term as in his first.



Look at this girl's face and try to comprehend - but do not linger, because it will gnaw at your soul. I've looked at it already for too long.



much better commentary from Jim and Steve.

Eurabia debunked

Randymac has a great post at GNXP about why the concerns about a demographic takeover by muslims in Europe is as false and racist as the "Jew York City" argument that jews control America's foreign policy. Key point:

Racism is, then, a critical element--perhaps a dominant concept--relative to these concepts. If European Muslims or New York City Jews are inherently subversive, undermining legitimate decisionmaking processes in political and social life, how can anyone who belongs to either category be allowed to participate at all? Eurabia and Jew York City are, at their roots, concepts which demand the ghettoization of the groups from which they take their names, their exclusion from any non-subordinate role. These terms' use is a good marker for some sort of highly exclusionary racism.

Moral argument aside, the demographic argument is nicely skewered by Randymac earlier in the post and then finished off by Zachary Latif in the comments:

Cognitive bias skews perception and Randy makes the very good point, that all things being equal, a population of 15mn isn't exactly going to overwhelm 480mn in the forseeable future. As for forecasting to 2100, it's futurology and in the same manner how my 1970's books commented on the 90's.



The maths don't work and one would have to build certain stereotypes to conclude that it could ever happen; i.e Muslims inherently have large families and part of their cultural self-awareness.



Well Iran, the Islamic theocracy, has a plunging TFR (total fertility rate) as Iranian women are encouraged, by Mullahs no less, to use contraception and limit their family size. Surely there is some truth in that Dutch Muslims would have interact in a more liberal environment than their Iranian co-religionists?

Some time ago, Randy had made a more detailed demographic analysis of muslims in France using actual census figures. Also see Scott Martens' comments in followup. The main point is that muslims represent such a tiny minority that any talk of conquest-from-within is fear-mongering driven by anti-muslim hate rather than any legitimate concern about borders, language, and culture.



However, this is not to deny that minority groups can often wield disproportionate political power. My observation, however, is that the political influence they wield is directly proportional to their perceived persecution complex. The perception of persecution (whether valid or not) is the single greatest impetus towards political activity.



The Jewish community has been historically active, politically speaking, because their history of persecution is tragically well-documented. The ADL serves an essential watchguard role. On the foreign policy front, the AIPAC lobby derives most of its urgenyc of action from the perceived existential threat to Isreal's existence (a threat which, unlike the domestic case, is now largely moot in my opinion given Israel's complete air and ground superiority).^[1]



Note that the importance of CAIR, and the increased political posture of Muslim-Americans, has also grown in direct response to 9-11 and the infringement of civil liberties. I believe that the political influence that the Euro-muslim community wields will follow similar lines, especcially if the reactionaries continue to overstep their bounds with regard to demanding cultural assimilation at the expense of religious freedom - such as coercing muslim schoolchildren to eat pork meals at school with the threat of expulsion (original article in french).



It is the right of the Jewish community in America and the muslim communities in America and Europe to press via the political system for their rights. What is not right is participation in that system as a means to dismantle it, of course, but anyone who claims that the mainstream muslim community on either side of the Atlantic truly seeks an overthrow of civil law and institutionalism of extremist Shari'a has a substantial burden of proof. Ultimately, the muslim and jewish communities will find it impossible to prevent significant cultural cross-pollination as their numbers grow (as can already be seen in the high rate of crossover marriages in the Jewish community here in the US). So by the time muslims reach numerical mass significant enough to pose a potential threat to the established order, if ever, the question will be largely moot. Only racists can argue otherwise.





[1] I think that the actual influence over foreign policy is not as great as AIPAC imagines. There is a considerable influence over foreign policy by the neocon cabal, but that derives from their fundamentally Cold War mindset of proxy nations. The entire Iraq adventure is to create another Israel, a proxy nation for regional influence.

discourse unchained

The debate at RedState has been remarkably well-composed in the face of a seeming invasion by extremist trolls from the far right of the spectrum. Some long-term commentators are routinely unpleasant, but recently there has been a spike in egregiously stereotypical wingnut commentary. Examples: a snit about the GOP tent being too big, a viciously-timed racist attack on the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. (which I troll-rated and now appears to have been deleted, thankfully), and the suggestion that we nuke Iran. These are growing pains which I am sure the admin team will eventually recognize need to be be dealt with proactively. The regular commentators at RS responded admirably to these events as well, so there certainly is enough community policing. For now. Without a consistent set of guidelines for using the ratings system (example), however, as RS grows further it will be harder and harder to manage the crapflood.

ends and means

In a nod to the pre-LGF civility of the past, Joshua left a thought-provoking comment:

In his previous post, Aziz takes the position that no matter how flawed the leaders of CAIR are, their work is needed and so CAIR must be supported. And in these posting I'm taking the position that no matter how flawed Daniel Pipes is, his work is needed and so must be supported.

I can certainly see how my position can be interpreted thusly, but it's not exactly a parallel analogy. CAIR's leaders are flawed, but in harmless ways. There is absolutely no way in which CAIR's leadership can endanger the national security of the United States in a metrial sense, or undermine the fabric of a free society that we take all too much for granted (all the more fragile in the wake of the Bush Administration's various stances on domestic political propaganda, secrecy, torture, and arbitrary incarceration of "enemy combatants"^[1]). For all theirfaults, the CAIR leadership is primarily a civil rights organization, and this places them on the side of the Founders.



Pipes, with his advocacy of a strongman in Iraq rather than a freely elected government, and his apologia for Japanese internment^[2], stands firmly on the other side. Even his attempt to define the "good guy muslims" required that muslims such as myself eschew the basic tenets of our belief - a standard whose ludicrousness is self-evident when applied to Christianity^[3].



Are Pipes' writings useful? No. They paint a one-sided picture of a non-existent fifth-column threat, and thus undermine liberty not just for muslims but for all citizens. Is CAIR a useful organization? Yes, because they defend those liberties (and not alone - they have even fought alongside the ADL in common cause). There is a line in the sand, and I choose my side without hesitation. Pipes can stand upon the other side with the likes of Mubarak and Putin.



[1] A term that can even be applied to US citizens without due process. At least Lincoln formally suspended Habeus Corpus, on the record. The present Administration prefers subvert civil liberties via more indirect means.

[2] Pipes has repudiated the concept of muslim internment, and distanced himself from even the mandatory registration issue - but remains in denial that such policies are the natural policy extension of his own arguments.

[3] The argument that only Islam is responsible for terror is nonsensical. The Oklahoma City bombing and the anthrax attacks were borne of the fabric of the culture of right-wing "Christian Identist" white supremacy, a proto-fascist movement whose rise David Neiwert has ably chronicled in his landmark essay on fascism. McVeigh's ties to the Identists are well-documented and thus refute the claim that his "atheism" can be separated from these groups' ideologies.

Brass Crescent Award Winners

On behalf of both alt.muslim and City of Brass, we'd like to thank everyone who voted (over 250 validated ballots cast!) in the First Annual Brass Crescent Awards. Voting was very close in most categories, and we would like to be the first to congratulate our winners and Honorable Mentions, as well as extend our thanks to all the nominees and voters for helping make this celebration of the Islamsphere a success. We also would like to thank Crooked Timber, A Fistful of Euros, Ideofact, Head Heeb, Amygdala, Left Edge North, Liberals Against Terrorism, Velveteen Rabbi and all the others (including the nominees) who linked to us and helped publicize the Brass Crescent Awards.



We'll keep a permanent list of nominees for the Brass Crescent Awards available, as they represent a dynamic, creative, and powerful cross-section of Muslim thought on the web. We fully expect next year's crop of nominees to be just as interesting, if not more so, than this year's candidates. We plan to run the Awards again next year, inshallah, so start bookmarking posts, series, comments, and blogs now!



Winners and Honorable Mentions may email us or leave a comment below to receive HTML code to display a badge announcing their achievement if they desire.



Let's not keep you waiting any longer - listed below are this year's winners and Honorable Mentions. (In cases where the second place candidates were tied, we jointly awarded Honorable Mentions):



BEST BLOG:

Winner: avari/nameh

Honorable Mentions: Abdusalaam Al-Hindi and veiled4Allah



BEST WRITING:

Winner: Haroon Moghul (avari/nameh)

Honorable Mentions: Thabet (Muslims Under Progress) and Zack Ajmal (Procrastination)



BEST POST:

Winner: Haroon Moghul (avari/nameh),

Explaining the Mideast to the Midwest

Honorable Mention: Abdusalaam Al-Hindi, Driving while menstruating



BEST SERIES:

Winner: Leila M on Muharram

Honorable Mention: Zack Ajmal on Marriage



BEST IRAQI BLOGGER:

Winner: Riverbend (Baghdad Burning)

Honorable Mention: Aunt Najma (A Star From Mosul)



BEST NON-ENGLISH BLOG:

Winner: Asif Iqbal (Asif Iqbal's Multi-Lingual Blog)

Honorable Mention: Zack Ajmal (Procrastination)



BEST GROUP BLOG:

Winner: Muslims Under Progress

Honorable Mention: HU



MOST DESERVING OF WIDER RECOGNITION:

Winner: Chapati Mystery

Honorable Mentions: Ethnically Incorrect and Mere Islam



BEST NON-MUSLIM BLOG:

Winner: Juan Cole (Informed Comment)

Honorable Mention: Abu Aardvark



BEST NEW BLOG:

Winner: Malo's Adventures

Honorable Mention: PakPositive



BEST COMMENTER:

Winner: Silent Spring

Honorable Mention: Al Muhajabah (veiled4Allah)



BEST THINKER:

Winner: Silent Spring

Honorable Mention: Razib Khan



BEST FEMALE BLOG:

Winner: A Dervish's Du'a

Honorable Mention: Sister Scorpion



Mubarak to all winners and nominees! Please let us know your comments about the Awards, suggestions for new/obsolete categores, etc in the comments below.

Daniel Pipes not renominated to USIP

This is a huge victory for American muslim interests:

President Bush has failed to take any action to renominate Middle East scholar Daniel Pipes to the board of the United States Institute of Peace.



Bush appointed Pipes, a conservative Middle East analyst and syndicated columnist who has drawn the ire of some Muslims, to the publicly funded institution on August 23, 2003, after a Senate hearing on the matter ended without the presence of a quorum necessary for a confirmation vote. The controversial recess appointment ended in early December with the closing of the previous Congress. The institute has removed Pipes's name from the list of board of directors posted on its Web site.



Pipes told the Forward that he has not asked to be renominated by the president and that he had not queried the White House about its intentions. [...] Pipes said that he "tried to be helpful to the USIP," but he acknowledged that "at certain times I was frustrated."



The nomination of Pipes, who has made a career out of identifying and denouncing what he sees as radical Muslim penetration of American institutions, was opposed by senators Edward Kennedy, Tom Harkin and Christopher Dodd, all Democrats; Arab and Muslim groups, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations as well as the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, and Middle East analysts Judith Kipper of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and William Quandt of the University of Virginia. Many conservative-leaning newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal, the New York Post and The New York Sun, supported it. Several Jewish communal agencies, including the American Jewish Committee and the Zionist Organization of America, supported Pipes.

[...]

Pipes did not have a peaceful tenure at the institute, which was created by Congress "to support the development, transmission, and use of knowledge to promote peace and curb violent international conflict," according to USIP's mission statement. Last March, he clashed with the organization, lambasting it in his column for hosting a conference with a group, the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy, that Pipes charged employs personnel who are Muslim "radicals."



The institute's director of congressional and public affairs, Kay King, responded to the criticism in a letter that Pipes posted to his Web site, danielpipes.org.



"The Institute was aware of and took seriously the accusations made against CSID and some of the speakers at the event," King wrote. "These allegations were investigated carefully with credible private individuals and U.S. government agencies and found to be without merit. The public criticism of CSID and the speakers was found to be based on quotes taken out of context, guilt by association, errors of fact, and innuendo."

(go to bugmenot for login access to the full article)



Kudos to President Bush for recognizing that Pipes was an affront to the stated goals of the USIP. The damage, however, has been done - notably with the denial of entry to Tariq Ramadan, against whom Pipes led a successful jihad to paint as an extremist, despite his moderate views of assimilation and unity of muslims with their adopted western homelands.



Note that The Forward paints the decision as "an apparent victory for radical Muslims and the left wing of the American foreign policy establishment," but that is of course their singular perspective from the extreme right Likud flank of Jewish politics. I would be interested to know if teh Forward shares Pipes' view of Tariq Ramadan as an extremist - if so, you can safely conclude that the Forward has more interest in opposing muslims in general rather than any promotion of a moderate muslim mainstream.