Month: June 2011

The GM genocide:

Thousands of Indian farmers are committing suicide after using genetically modified crops

 

By Andrew Malone

Last updated at 12:48 AM on 03rd November 2008

 

When Prince Charles claimed thousands of Indian farmers were killing themselves after using GM crops, he was branded a scaremonger. In fact, as this chilling dispatch reveals, it’s even WORSE than he feared.

 

The children were inconsolable. Mute with shock and fighting back tears, they huddled beside their mother as friends and neighbours prepared their father’s body for cremation on a blazing bonfire built on the cracked, barren fields near their home.

 

As flames consumed the corpse, Ganjanan, 12, and Kalpana, 14, faced a grim future. While Shankara Mandaukar had hoped his son and daughter would have a better life under India’s economic boom, they now face working as slave labour for a few pence a day.

 

Landless and homeless, they will be the lowest of the low. Shankara, respected farmer, loving husband and father, had taken his own life. Less than 24 hours earlier, facing the loss of his land due to debt, he drank a cupful of chemical insecticide. Unable to pay back the equivalent of two years’ earnings, he was in despair. He could see no way out. There were still marks in the dust where he had writhed in agony. Other villagers looked on – they knew from experience that any intervention was pointless – as he lay doubled up on the ground, crying out in pain and vomiting. Moaning, he crawled on to a bench outside his simple home 100 miles from Nagpur in central India. An hour later, he stopped making any noise. Then he stopped breathing. At 5pm on Sunday, the life of Shankara Mandaukar came to an end.

 

Human tragedy: A farmer and child in India’s ‘suicide belt’

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As neighbours gathered to pray outside the family home, Nirmala Mandaukar, 50, told how she rushed back from the fields to find her husband dead. ‘He was a loving and caring man,’ she said, weeping quietly. ‘But he couldn’t take any more. The mental anguish was too much. We have lost everything.’ Shankara’s crop had failed – twice. Of course, famine and pestilence are part of India’s ancient story. But the death of this respected farmer has been blamed on something far more modern and sinister: genetically modified crops. Shankara, like millions of other Indian farmers, had been promised previously unheard of harvests and income if he switched from farming with traditional seeds to planting GM seeds instead. Beguiled by the promise of future riches, he borrowed money in order to buy the GM

seeds. But when the harvests failed, he was left with spiralling debts – and no income. So Shankara became one of an estimated 125,000 farmers to take their own life as a result of the ruthless drive to use India as a testing ground for genetically modified crops.

 

The crisis, branded the ‘GM Genocide’ by campaigners, was highlighted recently when Prince Charles claimed that the issue of GM had become a ‘global moral question’ – and the time had come to end its unstoppable march. Speaking by video link to a conference in the Indian capital, Delhi, he infuriated bio-tech leaders and some politicians by condemning ‘the truly appalling and tragic rate of small farmer suicides in India, stemming… from the failure of many GM crop varieties’. Ranged against the Prince are powerful GM lobbyists and prominent politicians, who claim that genetically modified crops have transformed Indian agriculture, providing greater yields than ever before. The rest of the world, they insist, should embrace ‘the future’ and follow suit. So who is telling the truth? To find out, I travelled to the ‘suicide belt’ in Maharashtra state.

 

What I found was deeply disturbing – and has profound implications for countries, including Britain, debating whether to allow the planting of seeds manipulated by scientists to circumvent the laws of nature. For official figures from the Indian Ministry of Agriculture do indeed confirm that in a huge humanitarian crisis, more than 1,000 farmers kill themselves here each month.

 

Simple, rural people, they are dying slow, agonising deaths. Most swallow insecticide – a pricey substance they were promised they would not need when they were coerced into growing expensive GM crops. It seems that many are massively in debt to local money-lenders, having over-borrowed to purchase GM seed. Pro-GM experts claim that it is rural poverty, alcoholism, drought and ‘agrarian distress’ that is the real reason for the horrific toll.

But, as I discovered during a four-day journey through the epicentre of the disaster, that is not the full story.

 

Distressed: Prince Charles has set up charity Bhumi Vardaan Foundation to address the plight of suicide farmers

 

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11/6/2008

 

In one small village I visited, 18 farmers had committed suicide after being sucked into GM debts. In some cases, women have taken over farms from their dead husbands – only to kill themselves as well. Latta Ramesh, 38, drank insecticide after her crops failed – two years after her husband disappeared when the GM debts became too

much. She left her ten-year-old son, Rashan, in the care of relatives. ‘He cries when he thinks of his mother,’ said the dead woman’s aunt, sitting listlessly in shade near the fields.

 

Village after village, families told how they had fallen into debt after being persuaded to buy GM seeds instead of traditional cotton seeds. The price difference is staggering: £10 for 100 grams of GM seed, compared with less than £10 for 1,000 times more traditional seeds. But GM salesmen and government officials had promised farmers that these were ‘magic seeds’ – with better crops that would be free from parasites and insects.

 

Indeed, in a bid to promote the uptake of GM seeds, traditional varieties were banned from many government seed banks. The authorities had a vested interest in promoting this new biotechnology. Desperate to escape the grinding poverty of the post independence years, the Indian government had agreed to allow new bio-tech giants, such as the U.S. market-leader Monsanto, to sell their new seed creations. In return for allowing western companies access to the second most populated country in the world, with more than one billion people, India was granted International Monetary Fund loans in the Eighties and Nineties, helping to launch an economic revolution. But while cities such as Mumbai and Delhi have boomed, the farmers’ lives have slid back into the dark ages. Though areas of India planted with GM seeds have doubled in two years – up to 17 million acres – many famers have found there is a terrible price to be paid.

 

Death seeds: A Greenpeace protester sprays milk-based paint on a Monsanto research soybean field near Atlantic, Iowa

 

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Far from being ‘magic seeds’, GM pest-proof ‘breeds’ of cotton have been devastated by bollworms, a voracious parasite. Nor were the farmers told that these seeds require double the amount of water. This has proved a matter of life and death. With rains failing for the past two years, many GM crops have simply withered and died, leaving the farmers with crippling debts and no means of paying them off.

 

Having taken loans from traditional money lenders at extortionate rates, hundreds of thousands of small farmers have faced losing their land as the expensive seeds fail, while those who could struggle on faced a fresh crisis. When crops failed in the past, farmers could still save seeds and replant them the following year. But with GM seeds they cannot do this. That’s because GM seeds contain so- called ‘terminator technology’, meaning that they have been genetically modified so that the resulting crops do not produce viable seeds of their own. As a result, farmers have to buy new seeds each year at the same punitive prices. For some, that means the difference between life and death.

 

Take the case of Suresh Bhalasa, another farmer who was cremated this week, leaving a wife and two children.

As night fell after the ceremony, and neighbours squatted outside while sacred cows were brought in from the fields, his family had no doubt that their troubles stemmed from the moment they were encouraged to buy BT Cotton, a geneticallymodified plant created by Monsanto.

 

‘We are ruined now,’ said the dead man’s 38-year-old wife. ‘We bought 100 grams of BT Cotton. Our crop failed twice. My husband had become depressed. He went out to his field, lay down in the cotton and swallowed insecticide.’

 

Villagers bundled him into a rickshaw and headed to hospital along rutted farm roads. ‘He cried out that he had taken the insecticide and he was sorry,’ she said, as her family and neighbours crowded into her home to pay their respects. ‘He was dead by the time they got to hospital.’

 

Asked if the dead man was a ‘drunkard’ or suffered from other ‘social problems’, as alleged by pro-GM officials, the quiet, dignified gathering erupted in anger. ‘No! No!’ one of the dead man’s brothers exclaimed. ‘Suresh was a good man. He sent his children to school and paid his taxes.

 

‘He was strangled by these magic seeds. They sell us the seeds, saying they will not need expensive pesticides but they do. We have to buy the same seeds from the same company every year. It is killing us. Please tell the world what is happening here.’

 

Monsanto has admitted that soaring debt was a ‘factor in this tragedy’. But pointing out that cotton production had doubled in the past seven years, a spokesman added that there are other reasons for the recent crisis, such as ‘untimely rain’ or drought, and pointed out that suicides have always been part of rural Indian life.

 

Officials also point to surveys saying the majority of Indian farmers want GM seeds – no doubt encouraged to do so by aggressive marketing tactics. During the course of my inquiries in Maharastra, I encountered three ‘independent’ surveyors scouring villages for information about suicides. They insisted that GM seeds were only 50 per cent more expensive – and then later admitted the difference was 1,000 per cent.

 

(A Monsanto spokesman later insisted their seed is ‘only double’ the price of ‘official’ non-GM seed – but admitted that the difference can be vast if cheaper traditional seeds are sold by ‘unscrupulous’ merchants, who often also sell ‘fake’ GM seeds which are prone to disease.)

 

With rumours of imminent government compensation to stem the wave of deaths, many farmers said they were desperate for any form of assistance. ‘We just want to escape from our problems,’ one said. ‘We just want help to stop any more of us dying.’

 

Prince Charles is so distressed by the plight of the suicide farmers that he is setting up a charity, the Bhumi Vardaan Foundation, to help those affected and promote organic Indian crops instead of GM.

 

India’s farmers are also starting to fight back. As well as taking GM seed distributors hostage and staging mass protests, one state government is taking legal action against Monsanto for the exorbitant costs of GM seeds.

This came too late for Shankara Mandauker, who was 80,000 rupees (about £1,000) in debt when he took his own life. ‘I told him that

 

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Find this story at www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1082559/The-GM-genocide-Thousands-Indian-farmers-committingsuicide- using-genetically-modified-crops.html

 

From: CRISPIN CATALAN <criscatalan@verizon.net>
Date: Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 8:12 AM
Subject: Fw: German View on Terrorism

..
Subject: FW: German View on Terrorism
As I mentioned once, our daughter-in-law (who’s father survived Bergen-Belsen) has long maintained
that without the silent majority of Muslims speaking out history will repeat itself. She sent this to me as
she feels it expresses her fears/concerns better than she can.
Sharon
This is by far the best explanation of the Muslim terrorist situation I have ever read. His references to
past history are accurate and clear. Not long, easy to understand, and well worth the read. The author of
this email is said to be Dr. Emanuel Tanay, a well-known and well-respected psychiatrist.
A German’s View on Islam
A man, whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II, owned a number of large
industries and estates. When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can
guide our attitude toward fanaticism. ‘Very few people were true Nazis,’ he said, ‘but many enjoyed the
return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the
Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it,
they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost everything. I
ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories.’
We are told again and again by ‘experts’ and ‘talking heads’ that Islam is the religion of peace and that
the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace. Although this unqualified assertion may be true,
it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow
diminish the spectre of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam.
The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history. It is the fanatics who march. It is the
fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. It is the fanatics who systematically
slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent
in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honour-kill. It is the fanatics who
take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape
victims and homosexuals. It is the fanatics who teach their young to kill and to become suicide bombers.
The hard, quantifiable fact is that the peaceful majority, the ‘silent majority,’ is cowed and extraneous.
Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian
Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were
irrelevant. China ‘s huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a
staggering 70 million people.
The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a warmongering sadist. Yet, Japan
murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the
systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel, and bayonet.
And who can forget Rwanda , which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of
Rwandans were ‘peace loving’?
History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason, we often miss
the most basic and uncomplicated of points:
Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence.
Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don’t speak up, because like my friend from
Germany , they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will
have begun.
Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians,
Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak
up until it was too late. As for us who watch it all unfold, we must pay attention to the only group that
counts–the fanatics who threaten our way of life.
Lastly, anyone who doubts that the issue is serious and just deletes this email without sending it on, is
contributing to the passiveness that allows the problems to expand. So, extend yourself a bit and send
this on and on and on! Let us hope that thousands, world-wide, read this and think about it, and send it
on – before it’s too late.
Emanuel Tanay, M.D. 2980 Provincial St. Ann Arbor , MI 48104 734-997-0256

 

Some Events in Christian History

From ancient to modern times

 

Events that solely occurred on command of church authorities, or were committed in the name of Christianity. (List incomplete)

 

Ancient Pagans

 

*As soon as Christianity was legal (315), more and more pagan temples

were destroyed by Christian mob. Pagan priests were killed.

 

*Between 315 and 6th century thousands of pagan believers were slain.

 

*Examples of destroyed Temples the Sanctuary of Aesculap in Aegaea,

the Temple of Aphrodite in Golgatha, Aphaka in Lebanon, the

Heliopolis.

 

*Christian priests such as Mark of Arethusa or Cyrill of Heliopolis

were famous as “temple destroyer.” [DA468] *Pagan services became

punishable by death in 356. [DA468]

 

*Christian Emperor Theodosius (408-450) even had children executed,

because they had been playing with remains of pagan statues. [DA469]

 

According to Christian chroniclers he “followed meticulously all

Christian teachings… ”

 

*In 6th century pagans were declared void of all rights.

 

*In the early fourth century the philosopher Sopatros was executed on

demand of Christian authorities. [DA466]

 

*The world famous female philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria was torn to

pieces with glass fragments by a hysterical Christian mob led by a

Christian minister named Peter, in a church, in 415.

 

Mission

 

*Emperor Karl (Charlemagne) in 782 had 4500 Saxons, unwilling to

convert to Christianity, beheaded. [DO30]

 

*Peasants of Steding (Germany) unwilling to pay suffocating church

taxes between 5,000 and 11,000 men, women and children slain

5/27/1234 near Altenesch/Germany. [WW223]

 

*Battle of Belgrad 1456 80,000 Turks slaughtered. [DO235]

 

*15th century Poland 1019 churches and 17987 villages plundered by

Knights of the Order. Victims unknown. [DO30]

 

*16th and 17th century Ireland. English troops “pacified and

civilized” Ireland, where only Gaelic “wild Irish”, “unreasonable

beasts lived without any knowledge of God or good manners, in common

of their goods, cattle, women, children and every other thing.” One of

the more successful soldiers, a certain Humphrey Gilbert, half-brother

of Sir Walter Raleigh, ordered that “the heddes of all those (of what

sort soever thei were) which were killed in the daie, should be cutte

off from their bodies… and should bee laied on the ground by eche

side of the waie”, which effort to civilize the Irish indeed caused

“greate terrour to the people when thei sawe the heddes of their dedde

fathers, brothers, children, kinsfolke, and freinds on the grounde”.

 

Tens of thousands of Gaelic Irish fell victim to the carnage. [SH99,

225]

 

Crusades (1095-1291)

 

*First Crusade 1095 on command of pope Urban II. [WW11-41]

 

*Semlin/Hungary 6/24/96 thousands slain. Wieselburg/Hungary 6/12/96

thousands. [WW23] *9/9/96-9/26/ 96 Nikaia, Xerigordon (then turkish),

thousands respectively. [WW25-27]

 

*Until Jan 1098 a total of 40 capital cities and 200 castles conquered

(number of slain unknown) [WW30]

 

*After 6/3/98 Antiochia (then turkish) conquered, between 10,000 and

60,000 slain. 6/28/98 100,000 Turks (incl. women & children) killed.

[WW32-35]

 

Here the Christians “did no other harm to the women found in [the

enemy’s] tents – save that they ran their lances through their

bellies,” according to Christian chronicler Fulcher of Chartres.

[EC60]

 

*Marra (Maraat an-numan) 12/11/98 thousands killed. Because of the

subsequent famine “the already stinking corpses of the enemies were

eaten by the Christians” said chronicler Albert Aquensis. [WW36]

 

*Jerusalem conquered 7/15/1099 more than 60,000 victims (jewish,

muslim, men, women, children). [WW37-40]

 

(In the words of one witness “there [in front of Solomon’s temple]

was such a carnage that our people were wading ankle-deep in the blood

of our foes”, and after that “happily and crying for joy our people

marched to our Saviour’s tomb, to honour it and to pay off our debt of

gratitude”)

 

*The Archbishop of Tyre, eye-witness, wrote “It was impossible to

look upon the vast numbers of the slain without horror; everywhere lay

fragments of human bodies, and the very ground was covered with the

blood of the slain. It was not alone the spectacle of headless bodies

and mutilated limbs strewn in all directions that roused the horror of

all who looked upon them. Still more dreadful was it to gaze upon the

victors themselves, dripping with blood from head to foot, an ominous

sight which brought terror to all who met them. It is reported that

within the Temple enclosure alone about ten thousand infidels

perished.” [TG79]

 

*Christian chronicler Eckehard of Aura noted that “even the following

summer in all of palestine the air was polluted by the stench of

decomposition” . One million victims of the first crusade alone. [WW41]

 

*Battle of Askalon, 8/12/1099. 200,000 heathens slaughtered “in the

name of Our Lord Jesus Christ”. [WW45]

 

*Fourth crusade 4/12/1204 Constantinople sacked, number of victims

unknown, numerous thousands, many of them Christian. [WW141-148]

 

*Rest of Crusades in less detail until the fall of Akkon 1291

probably 20 million victims (in the Holy land and Arab/Turkish areas

alone). [WW224]

 

Note All figures according to contemporary (Christian) chroniclers.

 

Heretics

 

*Already in 385 C.E. the first Christians, the Spanish Priscillianus

and six followers, were beheaded for heresy in Trier/Germany [DO26]

 

*Manichaean heresy a crypto-Christian sect decent enough to practice

birth control (and thus not as irresponsible as faithful Catholics)

was exterminated in huge campaigns all over the Roman empire between

372 C.E. and 444 C.E. Numerous thousands of victims. [NC]

 

*Albigensians the first Crusade intended to slay other Christians.

[DO29]

 

The Albigensians (cathars = Christians allegedly that have all rarely

sucked) viewed themselves as good Christians, but would not accept

roman Catholic rule, and taxes, and prohibition of birth control. [NC]

 

Begin of violence on command of pope Innocent III (greatest single

pre-nazi mass murderer) in 1209. Beziérs (today France) 7/22/1209

destroyed, all the inhabitants were slaughtered. Victims (including

Catholics refusing to turn over their heretic neighbours and friends)

20,000-70,000. [WW179-181]

 

*Carcassonne 8/15/1209, thousands slain. Other cities followed.

[WW181]

 

*subsequent 20 years of war until nearly all Cathars (probably half

the population of the Languedoc, today southern France) were

exterminated. [WW183]

 

*After the war ended (1229) the Inquisition was founded 1232 to search

and destroy surviving/hiding heretics. Last Cathars burned at the

stake 1324. [WW183] *Estimated one million victims (cathar heresy

alone), [WW183]

 

*Other heresies Waldensians, Paulikians, Runcarians, Josephites, and

many others. Most of these sects exterminated, (I believe some

Waldensians live today, yet they had to endure 600 years of

persecution) I estimate at least hundred thousand victims (including

the Spanish inquisition but excluding victims in the New World).

 

*Spanish Inquisitor Torquemada alone allegedly responsible for 10,220

burnings. [DO28]

 

*John Huss, a critic of papal infallibility and indulgences, was

burned at the stake in 1415. [LI475-522]

 

*University professor B.Hubmaier burned at the stake 1538 in Vienna.

[DO59]

 

*Giordano Bruno, Dominican monk, after having been incarcerated for

seven years, was burned at the stake for heresy on the Campo dei Fiori

(Rome) on 2/17/1600.

 

Witches

 

*from the beginning of Christianity to 1484 probably more than several

thousand.

 

*in the era of witch hunting (1484-1750) according to modern scholars

several hundred thousand (about 80% female) burned at the stake or

hanged. [WV]

 

*incomplete list of documented cases

 

The Burning of Witches – A Chronicle of the Burning Times

 

Religious Wars

 

*15th century Crusades against Hussites, thousands slain. [DO30]

 

*1538 pope Paul III declared Crusade against apostate England and all

English as slaves of Church (fortunately had not power to go into

action). [DO31]

 

*1568 Spanish Inquisition Tribunal ordered extermination of 3 million

rebels in (then Spanish) Netherlands. Thousands were actually slain.

[DO31]

 

*1572 In France about 20,000 Huguenots were killed on command of pope

Pius V. Until 17th century 200,000 flee. [DO31]

 

*17th century Catholics slay Gaspard de Coligny, a Protestant leader.

After murdering him, the Catholic mob mutilated his body, “cutting off

his head, his hands, and his genitals… and then dumped him into the

river […but] then, deciding that it was not worthy of being food for

the fish, they hauled it out again [… and] dragged what was left …

to the gallows of Montfaulcon, ‘to be meat and carrion for maggots and

crows’.” [SH191]

 

*17th century Catholics sack the city of Magdeburg/Germany roughly

30,000 Protestants were slain. “In a single church fifty women were

found beheaded,” reported poet Friedrich Schiller, “and infants still

sucking the breasts of their lifeless mothers.” [SH191]

 

*17th century 30 years’ war (Catholic vs. Protestant) at least 40% of

population decimated, mostly in Germany. [DO31-32]

 

Jews

 

*Already in the 4th and 5th centuries synagogues were burned by

Christians. Number of Jews slain unknown.

 

*In the middle of the fourth century the first synagogue was destroyed

on command of bishop Innocentius of Dertona in Northern Italy. The

first synagogue known to have been burned down was near the river

Euphrat, on command of the bishop of Kallinikon in the year 388.

[DA450]

 

*17. Council of Toledo 694 Jews were enslaved, their property

confiscated, and their children forcibly baptized. [DA454]

 

*The Bishop of Limoges (France) in 1010 had the cities’ Jews, who

would not convert to Christianity, expelled or killed. [DA453]

 

*First Crusade Thousands of Jews slaughtered 1096, maybe 12.000

total. Places Worms 5/18/1096, Mainz 5/27/1096 (1100 persons),

Cologne, Neuss, Altenahr, Wevelinghoven, Xanten, Moers, Dortmund,

Kerpen, Trier, Metz, Regensburg, Prag and others (All locations

Germany except Metz/France, Prag/Czech) [EJ]

 

*Second Crusade 1147. Several hundred Jews were slain in Ham, Sully,

Carentan, and Rameru (all locations in France). [WW57]

 

*Third Crusade English Jewish communities sacked 1189/90. [DO40]

*Fulda/Germany 1235 34 Jewish men and women slain. [DO41]

 

*1257, 1267 Jewish communities of London, Canterbury, Northampton,

Lincoln, Cambridge, and others exterminated. [DO41]

 

*1290 in Bohemian (Poland) allegedly 10,000 Jews killed. [DO41]

 

*1337 Starting in Deggendorf/Germany a Jew-killing craze reaches 51

towns in Bavaria, Austria, Poland. [DO41]

 

*1348 All Jews of Basel/Switzerland and Strasbourg/France (two

thousand) burned. [DO41]

 

*1349 In more than 350 towns in Germany all Jews murdered, mostly

burned alive (in this one year more Jews were killed than Christians

in 200 years of ancient Roman persecution of Christians). [DO42]

 

*1389 In Prag 3,000 Jews were slaughtered. [DO42]

 

*1391 Seville’s Jews killed (Archbishop Martinez leading). 4,000 were

slain, 25,000 sold as slaves. [DA454] Their identification was made

easy by the brightly colored “badges of shame” that all jews above the

age of ten had been forced to wear.

 

*1492 In the year Columbus set sail to conquer a New World, more than

150,000 Jews were expelled from Spain, many died on their way

6/30/1492. [MM470-476]

 

*1648 Chmielnitzki massacres In Poland about 200,000 Jews were slain.

[DO43]

 

(I feel sick …) this goes on and on, century after century, right

into the kilns of Auschwitz.

 

Native Peoples

 

*Beginning with Columbus (a former slave trader and would-be Holy

Crusader) the conquest of the New World began, as usual understood as

a means to propagate Christianity.

 

*Within hours of landfall on the first inhabited island he encountered

in the Caribbean, Columbus seized and carried off six native people

who, he said, “ought to be good servants … [and] would easily be

made Christians, because it seemed to me that they belonged to no

religion.” [SH200]

 

While Columbus described the Indians as “idolators” and “slaves, as

many as [the Crown] shall order,” his pal Michele de Cuneo, Italian

nobleman, referred to the natives as “beasts” because “they eat when

they are hungry,” and made love “openly whenever they feel like it.”

[SH204-205]

 

*On every island he set foot on, Columbus planted a cross, “making the

declarations that are required” – the requerimiento – to claim the

ownership for his Catholic patrons in Spain. And “nobody objected.” If

the Indians refused or delayed their acceptance (or understanding) ,

the requerimiento continued

 

“I certify to you that, with the help of God, we shall powerfully

enter in your country and shall make war against you … and shall

subject you to the yoke and obedience of the Church … and shall do

you all mischief that we can, as to vassals who do not obey and refuse

to receive their lord and resist and contradict him.” [SH66]

 

*Likewise in the words of John Winthrop, first governor of

Massachusetts Bay Colony “justifieinge the undertakeres of the

intended Plantation in New England … to carry the Gospell into those

parts of the world, … and to raise a Bulworke against the kingdome

of the Ante-Christ. ” [SH235]

 

*In average two thirds of the native population were killed by

colonist-imported smallpox before violence began. This was a great

sign of “the marvelous goodness and providence of God” to the

Christians of course, e.g. the Governor of the Massachusetts Bay

Colony wrote in 1634, as “for the natives, they are near all dead of

the smallpox, so as the Lord hath cleared our title to what we

possess.” [SH109,238]

 

*On Hispaniola alone, on Columbus visits, the native population

(Arawak), a rather harmless and happy people living on an island of

abundant natural resources, a literal paradise, soon mourned 50,000

dead. [SH204]

 

*The surviving Indians fell victim to rape, murder, enslavement and

spanish raids.

 

*As one of the culprits wrote “So many Indians died that they could

not be counted, all through the land the Indians lay dead everywhere.

The stench was very great and pestiferous. ” [SH69]

 

*The indian chief Hatuey fled with his people but was captured and

burned alive. As “they were tying him to the stake a Franciscan friar

urged him to take Jesus to his heart so that his soul might go to

heaven, rather than descend into hell. Hatuey replied that if heaven

was where the Christians went, he would rather go to hell.” [SH70]

 

*What happened to his people was described by an eyewitness

 

“The Spaniards found pleasure in inventing all kinds of odd cruelties

… They built a long gibbet, long enough for the toes to touch the

ground to prevent strangling, and hanged thirteen [natives] at a time

in honor of Christ Our Saviour and the twelve Apostles… then, straw

was wrapped around their torn bodies and they were burned alive.”

[SH72]

 

Or, on another occasion

 

“The Spaniards cut off the arm of one, the leg or hip of another, and

from some their heads at one stroke, like butchers cutting up beef and

mutton for market. Six hundred, including the cacique, were thus slain

like brute beasts…Vasco [de Balboa] ordered forty of them to be torn

to pieces by dogs.” [SH83]

 

*The “island’s population of about eight million people at the time of

Columbus’s arrival in 1492 already had declined by a third to a half

before the year 1496 was out.” Eventually all the island’s natives

were exterminated, so the Spaniards were “forced” to import slaves

from other caribbean islands, who soon suffered the same fate. Thus

“the Caribbean’s millions of native people [were] thereby effectively

liquidated in barely a quarter of a century”. [SH72-73] “In less than

the normal lifetime of a single human being, an entire culture of

millions of people, thousands of years resident in their homeland, had

been exterminated. ” [SH75]

 

*”And then the Spanish turned their attention to the mainland of

Mexico and Central America. The slaughter had barely begun. The

exquisite city of Tenochtitlán [Mexico city] was next.” [SH75]

 

*Cortez, Pizarro, De Soto and hundreds of other spanish conquistadors

likewise sacked southern and mesoamerican civilizations in the name of

Christ (De Soto also sacked Florida). *”When the 16th century ended,

some 200,000 Spaniards had moved to the Americas. By that time

probably more than 60,000,000 natives were dead.” [SH95]

 

Of course no different were the founders of what today is the US of

America.

 

*Although none of the settlers would have survived winter without

native help, they soon set out to expel and exterminate the Indians.

Warfare among (north American) Indians was rather harmless, in

comparison to European standards, and was meant to avenge insults

rather than conquer land. In the words of some of the pilgrim fathers

“Their Warres are farre less bloudy…”, so that there usually was “no

great slawter of nether side”. Indeed, “they might fight seven yeares

and not kill seven men.” What is more, the Indians usually spared

women and children. [SH111]

 

*In the spring of 1612 some English colonists found life among the

(generally friendly and generous) natives attractive enough to leave

Jamestown – “being idell … did runne away unto the Indyans,” – to

live among them (that probably solved a sex problem).

 

“Governor Thomas Dale had them hunted down and executed ‘Some he

apointed (sic) to be hanged Some burned Some to be broken upon wheles,

others to be staked and some shott to deathe’.” [SH105] Of course

these elegant measures were restricted for fellow englishmen “This

was the treatment for those who wished to act like Indians. For those

who had no choice in the matter, because they were the native people

of Virginia” methods were different “when an Indian was accused by an

Englishman of stealing a cup and failing to return it, the English

response was to attack the natives in force, burning the entire

community” down. [SH105]

 

*On the territory that is now Massachusetts the founding fathers of

the colonies were committing genocide, in what has become known as the

“Peqout War”. The killers were New England Puritan Christians,

refugees from persecution in their own home country England.

 

*When however, a dead colonist was found, apparently killed by

Narragansett Indians, the Puritan colonists wanted revenge. Despite

the Indian chief’s pledge they attacked.

 

Somehow they seem to have lost the idea of what they were after,

because when they were greeted by Pequot Indians (long-time foes of

the Narragansetts) the troops nevertheless made war on the Pequots and

burned their villages.

 

The puritan commander-in- charge John Mason after one massacre wrote

“And indeed such a dreadful Terror did the Almighty let fall upon

their Spirits, that they would fly from us and run into the very

Flames, where many of them perished … God was above them, who

laughed his Enemies and the Enemies of his People to Scorn, making

them as a fiery Oven … Thus did the Lord judge among the Heathen,

filling the Place with dead Bodies” men, women, children. [SH113-114]

*So “the Lord was pleased to smite our Enemies in the hinder Parts,

and to give us their land for an inheritance” . [SH111].

 

*Because of his readers’ assumed knowledge of Deuteronomy, there was

no need for Mason to quote the words that immediately follow

 

“Thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth. But thou shalt utterly

destroy them…” (Deut 20)

 

*Mason’s comrade Underhill recalled how “great and doleful was the

bloody sight to the view of the young soldiers” yet reassured his

readers that “sometimes the Scripture declareth women and children

must perish with their parents”. [SH114]

 

*Other Indians were killed in successful plots of poisoning. The

colonists even had dogs especially trained to kill Indians and to

devour children from their mothers breasts, in the colonists’ own

words “blood Hounds to draw after them, and Mastives to seaze them.”

(This was inspired by spanish methods of the time)

 

In this way they continued until the extermination of the Pequots was

near. [SH107-119]

 

*The surviving handful of Indians “were parceled out to live in

servitude. John Endicott and his pastor wrote to the governor asking

for ‘a share’ of the captives, specifically ‘a young woman or girle

and a boy if you thinke good’.” [SH115]

 

*Other tribes were to follow the same path.

 

*Comment the Christian exterminators “God’s Will, which will at last

give us cause to say How Great is His Goodness! and How Great is his

Beauty!”

 

“Thus doth the Lord Jesus make them to bow before him, and to lick the

Dust!” [TA]

 

*Like today, lying was OK to Christians then. “Peace treaties were

signed with every intention to violate them when the Indians ‘grow

secure uppon (sic) the treatie’, advised the Council of State in

Virginia, ‘we shall have the better Advantage both to surprise them, &

cutt downe theire Corne’.” [SH106]

 

*In 1624 sixty heavily armed Englishmen cut down 800 defenseless

Indian men, women and children. [SH107]

 

*In a single massacre in “King Philip’s War” of 1675 and 1676 some

“600 Indians were destroyed. A delighted Cotton Mather, revered pastor

of the Second Church in Boston, later referred to the slaughter as a

‘barbeque’.” [SH115]

 

*To summarize Before the arrival of the English, the western Abenaki

people in New Hampshire and Vermont had numbered 12,000. Less than

half a century later about 250 remained alive – a destruction rate of

98%. The Pocumtuck people had numbered more than 18,000, fifty years

later they were down to 920 – 95% destroyed. The Quiripi-Unquachog

people had numbered about 30,000, fifty years later they were down to

1500 – 95% destroyed. The Massachusetts people had numbered at least

44,000, fifty years later barely 6000 were alive – 81% destroyed.

[SH118] These are only a few examples of the multitude of tribes

living before Christian colonists set their foot on the New World. All

this was before the smallpox epidemics of 1677 and 1678 had occurred.

And the carnage was not over then.

 

*All the above was only the beginning of the European colonization, it

was before the frontier age actually had begun.

 

*A total of maybe more than 150 million Indians (of both Americas)

were destroyed in the period of 1500 to 1900, as an average two thirds

by smallpox and other epidemics, that leaves some 50 million killed

directly by violence, bad treatment and slavery.

 

*In many countries, such as Brazil, and Guatemala, this continues even

today.

 

More Notable Events in US history

 

*Reverend Solomon Stoddard, one of New England’s most esteemed

religious leaders, in “1703 formally proposed to the Massachusetts

Governor that the colonists be given the financial wherewithal to

purchase and train large packs of dogs ‘to hunt Indians as they do

bears’.” [SH241]

 

*Massacre of Sand Creek, Colorado 11/29/1864. Colonel John Chivington,

a former Methodist minister and still elder in the church (“I long to

be wading in gore”) had a Cheyenne village of about 600, mostly women

and children, gunned down despite the chiefs’ waving with a white

flag 400-500 killed.

 

From an eye-witness account “There were some thirty or forty squaws

collected in a hole for protection; they sent out a little girl about

six years old with a white flag on a stick; she had not proceeded but

a few steps when she was shot and killed. All the squaws in that hole

were afterwards killed …” [SH131]

 

*By the 1860s, “in Hawai’i the Reverend Rufus Anderson surveyed the

carnage that by then had reduced those islands’ native population by

90 percent or more, and he declined to see it as tragedy; the expected

total die-off of the Hawaiian population was only natural, this

missionary said, somewhat equivalent to ‘the amputation of diseased

members of the body’.” [SH244]

 

20th Century Church Atrocities

 

*Catholic extermination camps

 

Surpisingly few know that Nazi extermination camps in World War II

were by no means the only ones in Europe at the time. In the years

1942-1943 also in Croatia existed numerous extermination camps, run by

Catholic Ustasha under their dictator Ante Paveliç, a practising

Catholic and regular visitor to the then pope. There were even

concentration camps exclusively for children!

 

In these camps – the most notorious was Jasenovac, headed by a

Franciscan friar – orthodox-Christian serbians (and a substantial

number of Jews) were murdered. Like the Nazis the Catholic Ustasha

burned their victims in kilns, alive (the Nazis were decent enough to

have their victims gassed first). But most of the victims were simply

stabbed, slain or shot to death, the number of them being estimated

between 300,000 and 600,000, in a rather tiny country. Many of the

killers were Franciscan friars. The atrocities were appalling enough

to induce bystanders of the Nazi “Sicherheitsdient der SS”, watching,

to complain about them to Hitler (who did not listen). The pope knew

about these events and did nothing to prevent them. [MV]

 

*Catholic terror in Vietnam

 

In 1954 Vietnamese freedom fighters – the Viet Minh – had finally

defeated the French colonial government in North Vietnam, which by

then had been supported by U.S. funds amounting to more than $2

billion. Although the victorious assured religious freedom to all

(most non-buddhist Vietnamese were Catholics), due to huge

anticommunist propaganda campaigns many Catholics fled to the South.

With the help of Catholic lobbies in Washington and Cardinal Spellman,

the Vatican’s spokesman in U.S. politics, who later on would call the

U.S. forces in Vietnam “Soldiers of Christ”, a scheme was concocted to

prevent democratic elections which could have brought the communist

Viet Minh to power in the South as well, and the fanatic Catholic Ngo

Dinh Diem was made president of South Vietnam. [MW16ff]

 

Diem saw to it that U.S. aid, food, technical and general assistance

was given to Catholics alone, Buddhist individuals and villages were

ignored or had to pay for the food aids which were given to Catholics

for free. The only religious denomination to be supported was Roman

Catholicism.

 

The Vietnamese McCarthyism turned even more vicious than its American

counterpart. By 1956 Diem promulgated a presidential order which read

 

“Individuals considered dangerous to the national defense and common

security may be confined by executive order, to a concentration camp.”

 

Supposedly to fight communism, thousands of buddhist protesters and

monks were imprisoned in “detention camps.” Out of protest dozens of

buddhist teachers – male and female – and monks poured gasoline over

themselves and burned themselves. (Note that Buddhists burned

themselves in comparison Christians tend to burn others). Meanwhile

some of the prison camps, which in the meantime were filled with

Protestant and even Catholic protesters as well, had turned into

no-nonsense death camps. It is estimated that during this period of

terror (1955-1960) at least 24,000 were wounded – mostly in street

riots – 80,000 people were executed, 275,000 had been detained or

tortured, and about 500,000 were sent to concentration or detention

camps. [MW76-89].

 

To support this kind of government in the next decade thousands of

American GI’s lost their life.

 

*Christianity kills the cat

 

On July 1, 1976, Anneliese Michel, a 23-year-old student of a teachers

college in Germany, died she starved herself to death. For months she

had been haunted by demonic visions and apparitions, and for months

two Catholic priests – with explicit approval of the Catholic bishop

of Würzburg – additionally pestered and tormented the wretched girl

with their exorcist rituals. After her death in Klingenberg hospital –

her body was littered with wounds – her parents, both of them

fanatical Catholics, were sentenced to six months for not having

called for medical help. None of the priests was punished on the

contrary, Miss Michel’s grave today is a place of pilgrimage and

worship for a number of similarly faithful Catholics (in the

seventeenth century Würzburg was notorious for it’s extensive witch

burnings).

 

This case is only the tip of an iceberg of such evil superstition and

has become known only because of its lethal outcome. [SP80]

 

*Rwanda Massacres

 

In 1994 in the small african country of Rwanda in just a few months

several hundred thousand civilians were butchered, apparently a

conflict of the Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups.

 

For quite some time I heard only rumours about Catholic clergy

actively involved in the 1994 Rwanda massacres. Odd denials of

involvement were printed in Catholic church journals, before even

anybody had openly accused members of the church.

 

Then, 10/10/96, in the newscast of S2 Aktuell, Germany – a station not

at all critical to Christianity – the following was stated

 

“Anglican as well as Catholic priests and nuns are suspect of having

actively participated in murders. Especially the conduct of a certain

Catholic priest has been occupying the public mind in Rwanda’s capital

Kigali for months. He was minister of the church of the Holy Family

and allegedly murdered Tutsis in the most brutal manner. He is

reported to have accompanied marauding Hutu militia with a gun in his

cowl. In fact there has been a bloody slaughter of Tutsis seeking

shelter in his parish. Even two years after the massacres many

Catholics refuse to set foot on the threshold of their church, because

to them the participation of a certain part of the clergy in the

slaughter is well established. There is almost no church in Rwanda

that has not seen refugees – women, children, old – being brutally

butchered facing the crucifix.

 

According to eyewitnesses clergymen gave away hiding Tutsis and turned

them over to the machetes of the Hutu militia.

 

In connection with these events again and again two Benedictine nuns

are mentioned, both of whom have fled into a Belgian monastery in the

meantime to avoid prosecution. According to survivors one of them

called the Hutu killers and led them to several thousand people who

had sought shelter in her monastery. By force the doomed were driven

out of the churchyard and were murdered in the presence of the nun

right in front of the gate. The other one is also reported to have

directly cooperated with the murderers of the Hutu militia. In her

case again witnesses report that she watched the slaughtering of

people in cold blood and without showing response. She is even accused

of having procured some petrol used by the killers to set on fire and

burn their victims alive…” [S2]

 

*As can be seen from these events, to Christianity the Dark Ages never

come to an end.

 

http://notachristia n.org/christiana trocities. html

 

 

Hindu Fundamentalism: What Is It?
by David Frawley (Vamadeva Shastri),
Santa Fe, NM

 Fundamentalism is an easily discernable phenomenon in belief-oriented religions like Christianity and Islam which have a simple and exclusive pattern to their faith.  They generally insist that there is only One God, who has only one Son or final Prophet, and only one true scripture, which is literally God’s Word.  They hold that belief in this One God and his chief representative brings salvation in an eternal heaven and disbelief causes condemnation to an eternal hell.  Muslims daily chant ‘there is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his (last) prophet.’  Most Christians, whether Catholic or Protestant, regard belief in Christ as one’s personal savior as the only true way to salvation.

Fundamentalists are literalists in these traditions who hold rigidly to their beliefs and insist that since their religion alone is true that other religions should not be tolerated, particularly in the lands where members of their religion are in a majority.  Fundamentalists generally hold to their religion’s older social customs and refuse to integrate into the broader stream of modern society which recognizes freedom of religious belief.

Fundamentalism can usually be discriminated from orthodoxy in these traditions, but tends to overlap with it, particularly in the case of Islam.  Most orthodox Christians and many orthodox Muslims tolerate those of other religious beliefs, though they may not agree with them, and are not involved in the militancy and social backwardness of fundamentalist groups.  They usually have little trouble functioning in modern society, though they may keep to themselves in matters of religion and still regard that their’s is the only true religion.  The strictly orthodox in these religions, however, may not be very different than the fundamentalists and often support them.

While the news media of the Western World, and of India itself, speaks of Hindu fundamentalism, no one appears to have really defined what it is.  Is there a Hindu fundamentalism comparable to Islamic or Christian fundamentalism? Using such a term merely assumes that there is, but what is the evidence for it? Are there Hindu beliefs of the same order as the absolute beliefs of fundamentalist Christianity and Islam? It is questionable that, whatever problems might exist in Hinduism, whether fundamentalism like that found in Christianity or Islam, can exist at all in its more open and diverse tradition which has many names and forms for God, many great teachers and Divine incarnations, many sacred books, and a pursuit of Self-realization that does not recognize the existence of any eternal heaven or hell.  There is no monolithic faith called Hinduism with a set system of beliefs that all Hindus must follow which can be turned into such fundamentalism.

Fundamentalist groups insist that their’s is the only true God and that all other Gods or names for God are wrong.  Islamic fundamentalists insist that the only God is Allah, and will not accept Hindu names like Brahman or Ishvara, even though these also refer to a Supreme Being and Ultimate Spiritual Reality such as Allah is supposed to be.  Christian fundamentalists will not accept Allah or Brahman as names for God as they conceive Him to be.  Hindus with their many names and forms for God don’t mind accepting the Christian name God or even Islamic Allah as referring to the same reality, though they may not use these names in the same strict or exclusive sense as Christians or Muslims.  A belief in God is not even necessary to be a Hindu,?? as such non-theistic Hindu systems as Sankhya reveal.  For those who speak of Hindu fundamentalism, we must ask the question: What One God do Hindu fundamentalist groups insist upon is the only true God and which Gods are they claiming are false except for Him?  If Hindus are not insisting upon the sole reality of the One Hindu God, can they be called fundamentalists like the Christians and Muslims?

Islamic fundamentalists consider that Islam is the only true religion, that no true new faith can be established after Islam and that with the advent of Islam all previous faiths, even if they were valid up to that time, became outdated.  Christian fundamentalists hold that Christianity alone is true, and that Islam and Hinduism are religions of the devil.  Even orthodox people in these traditions may hold these views.
Hindus are not of one faith only.  They are divided into Shaivites (those who worship Shiva), Vaishnavas (those who worship Vishnu), Shaktas (those who worship the Goddess), Ganapatas (those who worship Ganesh), Smartas and a number of other groups which are constantly being revised relative to modern teachers around whom new movements may be founded (like the Swami Narayan movement, the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda groups, or the followers of Sri Aurobindo).  Those called Hindu fundamentalists are similarly divided up into these different sects.  What common belief can be found in all these groups which constitutes Hindu fundamentalism? What common Hindu fundamentalist platform do the different sects of Hinduism share?  Is it a Shaivite, Vaishnava, or other type fundamentalism?  How do such diverse groups maintain their harmony and identity under the Hindu fundamentalist banner?  While one can make a code of belief for Christian or Islamic fundamentalism, what code of belief applies to Hindu fundamentalism of all different sects?

No Hindus – including so-called Hindu fundamentalists – insist that there is only one true faith called Hinduism and that all other faiths are false.  Hinduism contains too much plurality to allow for that.  Its tendency is not to coalesce into a fanatic unity like the fundamentalists of other religions, but to disperse into various diverse sects and fail to arrive at any common action, historically even one of self-defense against foreign invaders.

Fundamentalist groups insist upon belief in the literal truth of one book as the Word of God, which they base their behavior on.  Muslim fundamentalists insist that the Koran is the Word of God and that all necessary knowledge is contained in it.  Christian fundamentalists say the same thing of the Bible.  Again even orthodox or ordinary Muslims and Christians often believe this.  Hindus have many holy books like the Vedas, Agamas, Bhagavad Gita, Ramayana and so on, which contain a great variety of teachings and many different points of view and no one of these books is required reading for all Hindus.  Hindus generally respect the holy books of other religions as well.  What single holy book do Hindu fundamentalists hold literally to be the word of God, which they base their behavior upon? Christian and Islamic fundamentalists flout their holy book and are ever quoting from it to justify their actions.  What Hindu Bible are the Hindu fundamentalists all carrying, quoting and preaching from and find justification in?

Fundamentalist groups are often involved in conversion activity to get other people to adopt their beliefs.  They frequently promote missionary efforts throughout the world to bring the entire world to their views.  This again is true of ordinary or orthodox Muslims and Christians.  Fundamentalists are merely more vehement in their practices.  What missionary activities are Hindu fundamentalists promoting throughout the world? What missions in other countries have Hindu fundamentalists set up to convert Christians, Muslims or those of other beliefs to the only true religion called Hinduism? What Hindus are motivated by a missionary spirit to discredit people of other religious beliefs in order to convert and save them?

Fundamentalist groups not only condemn those of other beliefs to an eternal hell, they may even make death threats against those who criticize their beliefs.  The fatwa of the Ayatollah Khomeni against Salmon Rushdie is one example of this, which many Muslim groups throughout the world, perhaps the majority, have accepted.  What Hindu has ever condemned non-Hindus to an eternal hell, or issued declarations asking for the death of anyone for merely criticizing Hindu beliefs? Where have Hindus ever stated that it is punishable by death to criticize Krishna, Rama or any other great Hindu leader? There are certainly plenty of books, including many by Christians and Muslims, which portray Hinduism in a negative light.  How many of such books are Hindu fundamentalists trying to ban, and how many of their authors are they threatening?

Fundamentalists are usually seeking to return to the social order and customs of some ideal religious era of a previous age.  Fundamentalists often insist upon returning to some traditional law code like the Islamic Sharia or Biblical law codes, which are often regressive by modern standards of justice and humanitarianism.  What law code are Hindu fundamentalists seeking to reestablish?  Which Hindu groups are agitating for the return of the law code of the Manu Samhita, for example (which incidentally has a far more liberal and spiritual law code than the Sharia or the Bible)?

Fundamentalists are usually opposed to modern science.  Many Christian and Islamic fundamentalists reject the theory of evolution and insist that the world was created by God some 6000 years ago.  Even in America Christian fundamentalists are trying to have this theory taught in the public schools and would like to have the evolution theory taken out.  What scientific theories are Hindu fundamentalists opposed to and trying to prevent being taught in schools today?

Fundamentalism creates various political parties limited to members of that religion only, which aim at setting up religious dictatorships.  What exclusively Hindu religious party exists in India or elsewhere in the world, and what is its common Hindu fundamentalist platform? Who is asking for a Hindu state that forbids the practice of other religions, allows only Hindu religious centers to be built and requires a Hindu religious figure as the head of the country.  This is what other fundamentalist groups are asking for in terms of their religions and what they have instituted in a number of countries that they have taken power, like Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Fundamentalism is often involved with militancy and sometimes with terrorism.  What Hindu minorities in the world are violently agitating for their separate state? What planes have Hindu fundamentalists hijacked, what hostages have they taken, what bombs have they planted? What terrorist activities are Hindu fundamentalists promoting throughout the world? What countries are stalking down Hindu fundamentalist terrorists who are plotting against them? The Ayatollah Khomeni is regarded in the Western world as a typical example of an Islamic fundamentalist militant leader.  Many Western people consider him to be a terrorist as well.  What Hindu fundamentalist leader has a similar record?

Saudi Arabia is usually regarded as a pious or orthodox Islamic country, and is usually not called fundamentalist even by the news media of India.  No non-Islamic places of worship are allowed to be built there.  No non-Islamic worship is allowed in public.  American troops in the Gulf War had to hide their religious practices so as not to offend the Saudis.  Traditional Islamic law, including mutilation for various offenses, is strictly enforced by a special religious police force.  If we apply any standard definition of fundamentalism, Saudi Arabia is a super-fundamentalist country.  What Hindu community is insisting upon the same domination of one religious belief, law and social practices like that of Saudi Arabia?  Which Hindus are more fundamentalist in their beliefs and practices than the Saudis whom few are calling fundamentalists?

Hence we must ask: What are Hindus being accused as fundamentalists for doing?  Is it belief in the unique superiority of their religion, the sole claim of their scripture as the Word of God, their savior or prophet as ultimate for all humanity, that those who believe in their religion go to an eternal heaven and those who don’t go to an eternal hell, the need to convert the world to their beliefs – these views are found not only in Christian and Islamic fundamentalism but even among the orthodox.  There are no Hindu fundamentalist statements of such nature.  Can we imagine any Hindu swearing that there is no God but Rama and Tulsidas is his only prophet, that the Ramayana is the only true scripture, that those who believe differently will be condemned by Rama to eternal damnation and those who criticize Tulsidas should be killed?

Hindus are called fundamentalists for wanting to retake a few of their old holy places, like Ayodhya, of the many thousands destroyed during centuries of foreign domination.  Several Hindu groups are united around this cause.  This, however, is an issue oriented movement, not the manifestation of a monolithic fundamentalism.  It is a unification of diverse groups to achieve a common end, not the product of a uniform belief system.  Even the different groups involved have often been divided as to how to proceed and have not spoken with any single voice.  Whether one considers the action to be right or wrong, it is not the manifestation of fundamentalism.  It may be the awakening of a number of Hindus socially and politically, but it is not the assertion of any single or exclusive religious ideology.  If it is fundamentalism, what is the fundamentalist ideology, belief, and practice behind it?  Hindus, alone of all people, have failed to take back their holy sites after the end of the colonial era.  If they are fundamentalists for seeking to do so, then what should we call Pakistan or Bangladesh who have destroyed many Hindu holy sites and were not simply taking back Islamic sites that the Hindus had previously usurped?

Hindus are called fundamentalists for organizing themselves politically.  Yet members of all other religions have done this, while Hinduism is by all accounts the most disorganized of all religions.  There are many Christian and Islamic parties throughout the world, and in all countries where these religions are in a majority, they make sure to exert whatever political influence they can.  Why shouldn’t Hindus have a political voice even in India?  The Muslims in India have their own Muslim party and no one is calling them fundamentalists for organizing themselves politically.  There are many Islamic states throughout the world, and in these states Hindus, if they exist at all, are oppressed.  What Hindu groups are asking for India to be a more strictly Hindu state than Muslims are doing in Islamic states?

There are those who warn that Hindu rule would mean the creation of a Hindu theocratic state.  Yet what standard Hindu theology is there, and what Hindu theocratic state has ever existed?  Will it be a Shaivite, Vaishnava, or Vedantic theocracy?  What Hindu theocratic model will it be based upon?  Is there a model of Hindu kings like the Caliphs of early Islam to go back to, or like the Christian emperors of the Middle Ages?  What famous Hindu king was a fundamentalist who tried to eliminate all other beliefs from the land or tried to spread Hinduism throughout the world by the sword?  Does Rama or Krishna provide such a model?  Does Shivaji provide such a model?  If no such model exists, what is the fear of a militant Hindu theocratic rule based upon?

Traditional Hindus do exist.  There are Hindus who are caught in conservative or regressive social customs, like untouchability or mistreatment of women, which should not be underestimated.  There are serious problems in Hindu society that must be addressed, but these should be examined as per their nature and cause which is not some uniform Hindu fundamentalism but wrong practices that are often contrary to real Hindu thought.  To lump them together as problems of Hindu fundamentalism fails to examine them adequately but, rather, uses them as a scare tactic to discredit Hinduism as a whole.  There are some Hindus who may believe that their religion is superior and want to keep it separate from other religions.  In this regard they are no different than orthodox Christians and Muslims.

The fact is that there is no monolithic fundamentalism possible among Hindus who have no uniform belief structure.  A charge of social backwardness and discriminatory attitudes can be made against a number of Hindus but this is not the same as the blanket charge of fundamentalism, which misinterprets Hinduism as a religion of militancy which it nowhere is.  The charge of fundamentalism is usually made against various Hindu groups like the VHP (Vishwa Hindu Parishad) who do not support the caste system and other such backward customs anyway.

What is called Hindu fundamentalism is in fact generally a reaction to Islamic, Christian and Communist fundamentalisms, which are all organized according to an exclusive belief system and a strategy to take over the world.  These three fundamentalisms are attacking India from within, as well as threatening it from without.  Islamic terrorist activity continues in India, particularly in Kashmir.  India is now surrounded by self-proclaimed Islamic states where Hindus have become second class citizens.  Under this circumstance why should it be so wrong for Hindus in India to consider creating a state that defends them?  What other country is willing to defend the rights or traditions of Hindus?  Christian and Islamic missionary activity continues strongly in many parts of India.  Do these missionary groups portray Hinduism as a valid religion in its own right?  They are sometimes not even teaching respect for India as a nation as the separatist agitation they create once their members become a majority in a region reveals.

Hinduism is a super-tolerant religion.  No other religion in the world accepts such a diversity of beliefs and practices or is so ready to acknowledge the validity of other religions.  The idea of the unity of all religions was practically invented by modern Hindus like Ramakrishna, Vivekananda and Gandhi.  As Hinduism is a super-tolerant religion, even a little intolerance among Hindus is regarded as Hindu fundamentalism.  And the charge of intolerance can be used to discredit Hindu groups, who are extremely sensitive to such a negative portrayal.

Throughout history Islam and Christianity, owing to the exclusive nature of their beliefs, have been generally intolerant religions (though there have been notable exceptions).  They have not accepted the validity of other religious practices, and contain in themselves little diversity as compared to Hinduism.  What Christian or Muslim leaders proclaim that all religions are one or that Hindus and Buddhists have as valid a religion as they do (and therefore do not need to be converted)?  As these religions are generally intolerant, their members have to be super-intolerant to be called fundamentalist.

Hindus often have a double standard in religion that works against them.  They try to tolerate, accept or even appreciate exclusivism, intolerance and fundamentalism when practiced by those of other religious beliefs.  For example, which Hindus are criticizing the far more obvious fundamentalism and exclusivism among Christians and Muslims? Meanwhile any criticism by Hindus of other religions, even when justified, may be regarded by other Hindus as intolerance.  In addition, many Hindus, particularly of the modern socialist-communist variety, brand even pride in Hinduism as fundamentalism.

Another related term that we meet with in the Indian press today is that of Hindu chauvinism, though terms such as Christian chauvinism or Islamic chauvinism do not occur in either the Indian or the Western press.  Chauvinists believe in the special superiority of their particular group.  This term is used mainly relative to white chauvinists, those who think that whites are genetically better than dark-skinned people, or in the case of male chauvinists or those who think that men are inherently better than women.  Hindus may praise their religion, and Hindus often use flowery and exaggerated language to praise things, but few if any Hindus are claiming that Hindus own the truth and that those of other backgrounds or beliefs cannot find it.  Christians and Muslims routinely believe that only members of their religion go to heaven and everyone else, particularly idol worshipping people like Hindus, go to hell.  Which Hindu chauvinists have similar ideas?  The Vatican recently told its monks and nuns not to experiment with Yoga and Eastern forms of religious practice which it branded as selfish, false and misleading.  Should we not therefore call the Pope a Christian chauvinist religious leader?  Yet Hindus who are more tolerant than this may be designated in such a manner.

Hindus are not only not chauvinistic, but they are generally suffering from a lack of self-esteem and an inferiority complex by which they are afraid to really express themselves or their religion.  They have been beaten down by centuries of foreign rule and ongoing attempts to convert them.  The British treated them as racially inferior and both Christians and Muslims treated them as religiously perverted.  (The fact) that some Hindus may express pride in their religion is a good sign, and it shows a Hindu awakening.  Unfortunately the groups who may be challenged by this awakening have labelled this pride chauvinistic.  Naturally some Hindu groups may express this pride in an excessive way, just as happened with the Black pride idea in America during the civil rights movement, but this is only an attempt to counter a lack of pride and self-respect.  It is hardly the assertion of any enduring cultural militancy and does not have the history like the fundamentalism of Christianity and Islam which goes back to the early eras of these faiths.

Such terms as ‘fundamentalist’ and ‘chauvinist’ are much less applicable to Hinduism than to other religions and generally are  great exaggerations.  They are a form of name calling, and do not represent any clearly thought out understanding.  It is also interesting to note that many of the people who brand Hindus in this light are often themselves members of more exclusivist ideologies which have an agenda to gain world-domination and to take over India.

This does not mean that Hindus should not be criticized.  Certainly they can be criticized for many things.  They have to really look at who they are and what they are doing, because in most cases they are not living up to their inner potential or their heritage.  On a social level many Hindus are trapped in backward social customs, but those who are not backward are usually caught in the corruption or materialism of modern society.  On an inner level, Hindus suffer from lack of creativity, initiative, and original thinking.  They want to imitate either their own older thinkers whose teachings may not be entirely relevant today, or, if modern, they imitate the trends of Western culture which are unspiritual.  As a group, Hindus mainly suffer from passivity, disunity, and a lack of organization, and they are very poor at communicating who they are to the world as a whole.  Relative to their own religion, their main problem is that they fail to study, practice or support it, or to defend it if Hindu teachings are misrepresented or if Hindus are oppressed.

These are not the problems of an aggressive or militant fundamentalism but the opposite, that of people who lack faith and dedication to themselves and their traditions.  Hindus are not in danger of being overly active and militant but of remaining so passive, resigned, and apologetic that they are unable to function as a coherent group or speak with a common voice about any issue.  They have been very slow even to defend themselves against unwarranted attack, much less to assert themselves or attack others.  There is no danger of a monolithic or dictatorial fundamentalism in India like in Iran or Saudi Arabia.  The danger is of a divided and passive religion that leaves itself prey to external forces and thereby gradually disintegrates.  A little more activity among Hindus, almost whatever it might be, would be a good sign as it shows that they are not entirely asleep!  To brand such activity, which is bound to be agitated at first, as fundamentalist because it causes this sleep to be questioned is a mistake.

In this regard Sri Aurobindo’s insight may be helpful (INDIA’S REBIRTH, pg.  177).  He said, ‘The Christians brought darkness rather than light.  That has always been the case with aggressive religions – they tend to overrun the Earth.  Hinduism on the other hand is passive, and therein lies its danger.’

It is time Hindus stopped accepting wrong designations and negative stereotypes of their wonderful religion.  Certainly aspects of Hinduism need to be reformed, and Hindus are not all required to agree with each other or accept any set religious dogma, but there is very little in this beautiful religion that warrants such debasing terms as fundamentalism and chauvinism.  If we look at the aspects which are commonly ascribed to religious fundamentalism, we find little of them even among so-called Hindu fundamentalists.

Hindus who accuse other Hindus of being fundamentalists should really question what they are saying.  What is the fundamentalism they see, or is it merely a reaction to the oppression that Hindus have passively suffered for so long?  Are the people making the charge of fundamentalism themselves following any religious or spiritual path, or is it a political statement of non-religious people against religion?  If Hindus are becoming intolerant and narrow-minded, they should be criticized for being poor Hindus, (they should) not (be criticized) for being fundamentalist Hindus; as true Hinduism has a universal spirit.

As long as Hinduism is devalued and misrepresented, we must expect some Hindus to take a stand against this in one way or another.  Other Hindus should not simply criticize them if the stand they take may be one-sided.  Hindus must try to defend Hinduism in a real way, not simply condemn those who may not be defending it in a way that they think is not correct.  This requires projecting a positive Hindu spirit, the yogic spirit, that can attract all Hindus and turn their support of the tradition in a spiritual direction.  It requires not condemning other Hindus who are struggling to uphold the tradition as they understand it to be, but arousing them to the true spirit of the religion.

To routinely raise such negative stereotypes as fundamentalist or even fascist relative to Hindu groups, who may only be trying to bring some sense of unity or common cause among Hindus, is a gross abuse of language.  What Hindus need is to wake up and unite, to recognize their common spiritual heritage and work together to manifest it in the world today, just as modern teachers like Vivekananda and Aurobindo encouraged.  Such teachers did not speak of Hindu fundamentalism.  They recognized Hindu backwardness but sought to remedy it by going to the core of Hindu spirituality, the spirit of unity in recognition of the Divine in all, not by trying to cast a shadow on Hinduism as a whole.