What in the World?

Burning the Qur'an -- the American response

2012-02-28T14:38:00.000-05:00

Many American just don't get it; they keep on insisting that the burning of the Qur'an in Afghanistan was an "accident" or a "mistake." This would not be catastrophic if those who said this were only ordinary people who had heard about this event and its bloody aftermath. Even the anger of Americans against those who killed US troops might be justified in their own eyes, since many know little about Islam and few have regular contact with Muslims. Moreover, their secularized worldview blinds them to any appreciation of why Muslims protested the burning, as well as confirming them in their dismissal of religion as the source of violence and the rest of the world's problems.

The ignorance of many American about Islam is often abysmal, as is, more ominously, that of their leaders. That is what concerns me especially in view of what happened last week. This is why I am returning to the topic of burning the Qur'an again, this time examining American reactions and trying to understand why so many responded the way they did. Let me be clear: I am not anti-American, but I do want to speak the truth in love to a people who still play an influential role in the world today.

More than 30 people have been killed thus far in clashes since it emerged last week that copies of the Muslim holy book and other religious materials had been thrown into a fire pit used to burn garbage at Bagram Air Field, a large US base north of Kabul. On Sunday protesters angry over the Qur'an burnings by American troops lobbed grenades at a US base in northern Afghanistan and clashed with police and troops in a day of violence that left seven international troops wounded and two Afghans dead. Many of the dead were Afghans. These protests have now spread to many other countries.

Some of the charred Qur'ans on display

The Pentagon keeps repeating this mantra about a "mistake," and thus it is not surprising that Americans echo what they have been told. The angry response of the military is also understandable,since they have lost soldiers who were probably innocent of any involvement in the burnings, and later happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Yet those officers who gave the orders must be held responsible for what they did. If no one gave those orders directly, then those who briefed the soldiers who did the actual burning about Islam were derelict in their duties, and should be disciplined as well.

President Obama quite properly apologized for the incident, but then made the apology virtually meaningless by once more calling it a "mistake." A more sincere apology in which the president took full responsibility for what happened and promised to discipline those who carried out the deed or gave the order to do so might have helped to defuse the situation. What the president said was too little too late. That was his "mistake."

It is very disturbing indeed when someone who has aspirations of becoming president of the United States repeats this line about the Qur'an burning being a "mistake." Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum not only criticized President Barack Obama's apology for the burning of Qurans in Afghanistan but added that Afghanistan should apologize to the US for the deaths of four US soldiers during six days of violence sparked by the incident.

Rick Santorum

The GOP presidential front-runner told a crowd that the burning of the Quran in Afghanistan by US troops was a “mistake” and people should not be upset over it. He also said that apologizing only encourages and “incites” those “evil” doers. He explained: “Our country respects all religions. Treats all religions with dignity and religious freedom. Unlike the people who are out killing our people in protests…” He characterizes the people of Afghanistan as “evil” and claims they have “no respect for life.”

Santorum, like many Americans, totally misconstrues the situation and assigns blame to Muslims exclusively:
"There was nothing deliberately done wrong here," he said Sunday on ABC television's "This Week." ''This was something that happened as a mistake. Killing Americans in uniform is not a mistake. It was something that deliberate."

"The response needs to be apologized for by (President Hamid) Karzai and the Afghan people for attacking and killing our men and women in uniform and overreacting to this inadvertent mistake," Santorum explained further on NBC's "Meet the Press". "That is the real crime here, not what our soldiers did. The president's apology suggests that there is blame and that the US did something wrong in the sense of doing a deliberate act."

Santorum adds that rather than saying he was sorry, Obama should have only acknowledged that burning copies of Islam's holiest book in a trash pit was wrong and taken responsibility for the incident, "but to apologize, I think, lends credibility that somehow or another that it was more than that."

Note the headline about the GOP candidates being united in their criticism of Obama

Santorum is merely the latest Republican presidential candidate to criticize the president for apologizing for burning the religious materials. Despite repeated apologies from many US officials for what they said was a "mistake," their regrets have not quelled the anger of Afghans, who viewed the Qur'an burnings not only as a sacrilege but also as an act of disrespect for their culture and religion.

For Muslims the Qur'an is the Word of God and must never be desecrated in any way. That is sacrilegious.
For Christians the best parallel is Jesus Christ, whose name should not be misused, although that happens regularly, even by many Christians. Yet Christians do not typically respond negatively when this happens, except perhaps to (very) mildly criticize those who take Christ's name in vain. And they would probably not get upset at all if someone would burn a Bible; their response might be, "So what!"

Most American Christians therefore cannot understand the reactions of Afghans after this incident. Hence their anger at the violence and especially the many killings, which they perceive of as murder, especially when US troops are involved. They do not understand the sacrilege, regarding it simply as "a mistake," as has been repeated in numerous apologies. Whether Muslims are correct in their belief is not the point, this is what they believe. Hence the accusation of sacrilege and the demands for punishment.

Non-Muslims should respect their belief and act accordingly, by treating the Qur'an properly. Muslims have many rules regarding the Qur'an: e.g. no other book should be placed above it, and it must be properly disposed when no longer useful, preferably by burial. That may seem extreme to non-Muslims, but those are the rules.

Muslims view this disrespect for the Qur'an as symptomatic of a wider disrespect for Muslims and their culture. They are rightfully proud of their history and culture and want others to recognize and acknowledge their culture. Why do Americans in particular find this so hard to accept?

Muslims do not separate their faith from the rest of life, thus such rules are very important for them. Religion is not a private matter but belongs in the public sphere. You may disagree, but that does not change their basic belief or their rules. Their plea for the role of religion in public life is not popular, as the controversy around Baroness Warsi, who is a Muslim, proves (see: http://hellemanworld.blogspot.com/2012/02/religion-and-public-sphere.html?spref=fb), but it not only deserves a fair hearing it is also the correct position in my opinion.

This plea should not be confused with the cries of some Muslim extremists who advocate theocracy or of those Muslims who want to see sharia implemented everywhere. These are "red herrings," issues have nothing to so with the plea for a proper role for religion in the public sphere.

Many Christians, in my opinion, have been so influenced by secularism that they no longer acknowledge the role that religion should play in public life. This is the position that prevailed in Europe for centuries until the Enlightenment. Instead, they have adopted a dualistic view of life in which the worship of God is reserved for Sundays or other private moments, while the rest of the week belongs to the public sphere where other, more worldly, rules apply. If I had more time, I would elaborate my argument further.

As long as Americans (and other Westerners) hold to this secular worldview, they will be incapable of understanding the beliefs and actions of Muslims, and they will continue to excuse the burning of the Qur'an as merely a "mistake." And they will continue to label religion as the source of the world's problems, and thus the solution is to eradicate religion or at least restrict religion to the private sphere, where it belongs in their opinion. Their refusal to understand Islam is consistent with their view on religion.

I do not condone the violence in Afghanistan. In fact, I am a proponent of active non-violence, the same belief that motivated Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. There is no excuse for the killings that followed the burning of the Qur'an. Those who committed these crimes must be punished, but so should those who are responsible in any way for the burning of these books. What they did is equally reprehensible, since they provided the spark that started the fire. Unfortunately, no court of human justice will ever be able to assign the appropriate punishments to all those involved. That we must leave in other hands.

I hope that the Americans may have learned a valuable lesson as a result of the burning of the Qur'an and its bloody aftermath, but somehow I doubt it. Rick Santorum clearly has not and many Americans probably did not either. How sad! Not only may the end of the war in Afghanistan have been delayed by this incident, but the Muslim world now has new evidence, if more were needed, that the West is waging a war against Islam. That may be the greatest tragedy of all.

"When will they ever learn?" Pete Seegers asked more than fifty year ago in his anti-war protest song, "Where have all the flowers gone?" These words are as relevant today as when they were first composed. Americans should now be asking themselves, when will we ever learn?

Burning the Qur'an -- how stupid!

2012-02-25T06:23:00.000-05:00

When I first heard about the burning of the Qur'an at the Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan, my first reaction was: How stupid! What I learned later confirms me in my harsh judgment. The daily protests and the multiple deaths thus far testify to the reaction of Afghans to the desecration of the Muslim holy book -- an action that is best described as stupid; any other judgment might be even worse.

President Barack Obama has apologized to Afghans for the ignorance of the two US soldiers who burned several copies of the Qur'an at this US airbase near the Afghan capital. It was the second abject American apology since the religious books were put in an incinerator at the airbase dump. The incident has rightfully infuriated Afghans, who are widely regarded across the Islamic world as among the most pious of Muslims.

Protesters throw stones at NATO soldiers

According to Afghan workers who witnessed the events, around 10 or 11 p.m. on Monday a dump truck escorted by a military vehicle drove up to the landfill at Bagram Air Base, where 20 or so Afghans work. Two uniformed NATO personnel, a man and a woman, began unloading bags of books from the back of the truck and throwing them into a pit for incineration. The Afghan workers described the pair as Americans.

Accounts from some of the workers at the landfill suggested that the two people were oblivious to the significance of what they were doing. They made no attempt to hide the books, instead appearing to be routinely carrying out their duties.“When we saw these soldiers burning books, we moved closer to see what was going on, and one of the boys said, ‘It is Holy Qur'an,’ ” said one of the laborers. Another of the laborers, said he and two friends had shouted at the two people: “Don’t burn our holy book! We will give it to our mullahs!” The two NATO personnel drew back, but two bags of books they had already thrown into the pit had begun to burn.

Protests began hours later, as Afghan workers who had seen the burning emerged from the base, one or two of them carrying damaged Qur'ans hidden in their clothes. Protests swelled through the morning and became violent as hundreds of infuriated Afghans set tires on fire and burned an external checkpoint at one of the entrances to the air base. Shouting “Death to America” and “We don’t want them anymore,” they closed the district government building and stopped people trying to go to the center of the town, witnesses said. Some in the crowd sang Taliban songs.

Protesters burn effigy of President Obama

An article in the Montreal Gazette asks the most pertinent question: "How can it possibly be, 124 months after invading Afghanistan and after at least 250,000 U.S. troops have rotated through Afghanistan and half a million more have rotated through Iraq, with many on their third and fourth tours, that there are still soldiers who have no clue as to the significance of the Qur'an to Muslims?"

The article observes further that there is no point saying that Afghans overreact to such incidents. The reality is that they do react this way. And there is no question that treating religious materials in such a manner is highly offensive and disrespectful, with inevitable consequences in a country as volatile as Afghanistan. Nor does it help that this follows a recent incident in which US Marines shot a video of themselves urinating on the corpses of several Taliban fighters.

The article continues by pointing out that, while fingers were pointed mostly at the two hapless soldiers at Bagram who dumped the Qurans in the fire, they are hardly the only ones to blame. The Americans who run Bagram's notorious detention center are certainly more culpable. They had collected the Qurans and sent them off to be burned because they were no longer needed as the number of Afghans and Pakistanis being held at the base has been declining. They should have consulted their army of Afghan interpreters on proper ways to dispose of Qurans, including burial in a Muslim cemetery.Clearly the easiest thing to have done if the Qurans were no longer required at the detention centre, would have been to give them to local mullahs who would have been duty bound to accept them and protect them. But the greatest fault lies with the men and women who devise and run the training programs that troops attend before deploying to Afghanistan.

One wonders why the US troops involved were not properly briefed before beginning their Afghan tours, briefings that should have included information about cultural and religious sensitivities as well as taboos and how to avoid running afoul of them. Either there were no such briefings before they left the US, which I find difficult to comprehend, or they should have been properly briefed upon their arrival in the country.

The actions of the troops involved, especially the officers, since they gave the orders, are not only insensitive, they are stupid. The mounting death toll, including that of two US soldiers, proves the point. The task of the remaining NATO troops in Afghanistan has been made immeasurably more difficult. How could anyone with even a smidgen of brains do anything so stupid?

After ten years of the war in Afghanistan, it is not surprising that Afghans, or everyone else for that matter, find it hard to understand why any member of the foreign forces in that country would not know how offensive desecrating the Qur'an could be, or recognize the potential for violence it could unleash in a country where news of the burning of a single copy of the Muslim holy book, by a preacher in Florida, provoked mobs to ransack a UN office and kill twelve people in April. Are these foreign troops so out of touch with reality?

The potential scope of the fallout from the burning of copies of the Quar'an by American military personnel became chillingly clear later in the week as a man in an Afghan Army uniform shot and killed two American soldiers. And seven Afghans were killed in three provinces and many more were injured, most in skirmishes with Afghan security forces. More deaths followed on Saturday when two American officers were shot dead inside the Interior Ministry building. NATO responded by immediately pulling all military advisers out of Afghan ministries in Kabul. Many more deaths are expected before these protests run their course.

The ISAF commander apologizing for the Qur'an burning

President Barack Obama had earlier sent a letter to President Karzai apologising for the "unintentional" burning of the Qur'ans. But this apology was not enough to satisfy many Muslims who consider the Qur'an to be the literal word of God and treat each copy with deep reverence. Desecration is considered one of the worst forms of blasphemy and needs to be punished.

Afghanistan wants NATO to put those responsible on public trial. One Afghan commander said in a TV interview that those who burned Qur'ans should be hung. In neighboring Pakistan, about 400 members of a hardline Islamist group staged protests and shouted, "If you burn the Qur'an, we will burn you."

Ahmed Khatami

Many did not accept Obama's apology. Iranian cleric Ahmad Khatami said the US had purposely burned the Qur'ans. "These apologies are fake. The world should know that America is against Islam," he said in a speech broadcast live on state radio. "It (the Qur'an burning) was not a mistake. It was an intentional move, done on purpose."

I doubt that the burning of the Qur'an was done on purpose in order to provoke riots . That would be more than stupid, it would be suicidal for the NATO coalition that wants to withdraw from Afghanistan as soon as possible. As I am writing this, the end of the protests and the ensuing bloodshed is not yet in sight. No doubt the soldiers who were involved have become aware by now of the consequences of their stupid action. Those who issued the order, however, are most responsible. They certainly need to be disciplined.

Even if these troops are never put on trial, they will have to live with the memory that many people, both Afghans and Americans, have died as a result. We all do stupid things, but the consequences are not always as enormous or as deadly. May God forgive them!

Religion and the public sphere

2012-02-20T15:55:00.000-05:00

Baroness Warsi has thrown fresh fuel on a fire that has raged furiously for decades in many countries by arguing loudly for the role of religion in public life. If you have not heard her name before, you will hear it more often, at least in the UK, where she has become a very controversial figure.

Sayeeda Hussain Warsi (born 28 March 1971) is a British solicitor and politician of Pakistani origin who was created a life peeress in 2007. Recently she became the co-Chairman, with Lord Feldman, of the Conservative Party, and was appointed a Minister without Portfolio in David Cameron's Cabinet. She is the third Muslim minister, following Shahid Malik and Sadiq Khan, and the first female Muslim to serve as a minister in the UK.

Official photo of Baroness Warsi

The minister wrote in The Telegraph: “My fear today is that a militant secularisation is taking hold of our societies. We see it in any number of things: when signs of religion cannot be displayed or worn in government buildings; and where religion is sidelined, marginalised and downgraded in the public sphere.

“For me, one of the most worrying aspects about this militant secularisation is that at its core and in its instincts it is deeply intolerant. It demonstrates similar traits to totalitarian regimes – denying people the right to a religious identity because they were frightened of the concept of multiple identities.”

She added that to create a “more just society” Britons must “feel stronger in their religious identities.”

Her comments came as a report conducted for the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (UK) suggested that almost three quarters (74 per cent) of Christians polled agreed that religion should not influence public policy, while only about one in eight (12 per cent) thought it should, the survey found. It also found that 92 per cent of Christians agreed the law should apply to everyone equally, regardless of their personal religious beliefs.

Just over a quarter (26 per cent) said they completely believed in the power of prayer, with more than one in five (21 per cent) saying they either did not really believe in it or did not believe in it at all. And almost half (49 per cent) admitted that they had not attended a church service in the previous 12 months, apart from on occasions such as weddings, funerals and baptisms.

For more details on the poll results of the Dawkins Foundation you may consult the following web site: http://richarddawkins.net/articles/644942-rdfrs-uk-ipsos-mori-poll-2-uk-christians-oppose-special-influence-for-religion-in-public-policy. The earlier poll on the views of British Christians on religion can be found here as well as their views on its influence on public policy which is the focus of the second poll..

Baroness Warsi and the Pope

Baroness Warsi lashed out at "secular fundamentalists" as she met the Pope and concluded an historic visit of British ministers to the Vatican, including Jeremy Hunt, the Culture Secretary, Michael Moore, the Scottish Secretary and Alan Duncan, the Minister for International Development. She expanded on the speech she gave earlier in Rome and in a newspaper article that British society was under threat from a rising tide of "militant secularisation" and that Europe needs to be "more confident in its Christianity".

She explained: "Secular fundamentalists are saying that people of faith shouldn't have a voice in the public sphere. I'm saying faith should be one of many voices, it should be part of the debate."

She also criticized the arguments of Richard Dawkins, the outspoken atheist, as "false". Asked if she was swimming against the tide in a country where faith appears to be diminishing every year, Baroness Warsi explained: "The fact that people don't go to church doesn't necessarily make them secular."

Evan Harris

The reaction to her comments was largely predictable and not entirely fair. The remarks of Evan Harris, the vice-president of the British Humanist Association and an honorary associate of the National Secular Society, are one example of such a reaction: "Baroness Warsi is wrong on every count. Secular liberal democracy, which involves the separation of Church and State and an end to religious privilege, is the best guarantor of religious liberty and free expression. The last thing the world needs is more theocracies or governments giving special status to religious laws. To talk of militant secularism is self-serving paranoia. What a pity that ministers are going to a totalitarian theocracy - the Vatican State - with a poor record on gay rights, women's rights and children's rights, to criticise those who peacefully campaign against sharia (law), sectarianism and homophobia as 'militant'."

Even the Queen intervened to defend the Church of England's role in Britain. Prime Minister David Cameron supported Baroness Warsi by stating that faith can make a positive contribution to society and affirmed that she has consistently made the case for a deeper understanding of faith in the British Parliament.

Richard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins, whose survey about Christianity in the UK helped to ignite the row, defends his position on secularism, faith and tolerance. Dawkins is the author of The God Delusion and an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford. Some of his observations include:

''In recent years Christian campaign groups have become increasingly vocal. Whether demanding special rights for Christians to be exempted from equalities legislation, strenuously opposing all attempts to review the law on assisted suicide, or campaigning against further social advances such as equal rights for gay people to marry, it is now clear that they are completely out of step not just with the population as a whole, but also with a significant majority of Christians."

''Britain is a secular society, with secular, humane values. There is overwhelming support for these values, even among those who think of themselves as Christian. Just as importantly, there is also deep opposition to the state promoting religion in our society. When even Christians overwhelmingly oppose the intermingling of religion and state policy, it is clearly time for the Government to stop 'doing God'.''

Poll results, he explains, have shown that religion was ''largely irrelevant even to those who still label themselves Christian.'' He added, ''When it comes to belief, practice or even the most elementary knowledge of the Bible, it is clear that faith is a spent force in the UK, and it is time our policy-makers woke up to that reality and stopped trying to impose beliefs on society that society itself has largely rejected."

Doug Saunders

Doug Saunder's article in Canada's Globe and Mail, which first alerted me to Baroness Warsi's comments on the role of religion in public life, argues that the problem in public life isn’t Islam, but religion itself. He explains that in the West we are witnessing a showdown between two competing definitions of “freedom of religion.” In one definition, the public sphere is a wide-open space where, according to him "citizens are free to try to impose religion, to invoke their gods in legislation, to wear whatever symbols they like. It’s a marketplace of beliefs, and may the strongest prevail."

In the other definition, he argues that the public sphere is a neutral space: where "religion is private and public places are unencumbered by competitions for divine supremacy. This definition recognizes that freedom of religion depends on a strongly defended freedom from religion. And freedom from religion is just as important for non-believers, who don’t want public life to be corrupted with spiritualism, as it is for devout believers, who don’t want their sacred beliefs to be sullied by the vicissitudes of politics."

Nevertheless, Baroness Warsi’s intervention is a positive development for both sides, Saunders claims. "On the religious free-for-all side, she has shown that Muslims can join the other two Abrahamic religions in pressing for privileges without being accused of engaging in a 'clash of civilizations.' At the same time, she helps people realize that the problem in public life isn’t Islam but religion itself."

Baroness Warsi's comments make a lot more sense to me than that of her opponents, whose secularism blinds them to the positive role that religion can and should play in the public sphere. In this post I cannot refute the various arguments that have been presented thus far. Such a debate would probably be futile, since the gulf that separates the two views of religion that Saunders describes is so great that it is almost unbridgeable. The two universes of discourse are too far apart. In spite of this gulf, attempts at dialogue must continue. That will not be easy, as the comments in various British and Canadian newspapers make clear.

Religion does belong in the public sphere. Religion is not as dangerous as many secularists claim, but it is source of inspiration and hope for billions of people all over the world. It can also be a strong force for unity, as long as fundamentalists of whatever stripe are not allowed to set the agenda.

A militant atheist is perhaps more dangerous than as portrayed here

Obama and birth control: How NOT to introduce such a measure

2012-02-17T10:30:00.000-05:00

A perfect storm has been raging in the US for several weeks over a provision of Obamacare that compels the nation’s many Catholic hospitals, universities and other institutions to fund contraceptives and morning-after pills for their employees, despite these being contrary to fundamental Catholic doctrine on abortion and life.

In spite of this storm, which the White House should have seen coming, a strong majority of Americans continue to support the decision of the Obama administration. Sixty-five percent of registered voters said that they supported the administration’s birth control mandate, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll. This support, however, was not enough to save the measure as first proposed by the administration.

Many polls seem to indicate support for the administration's measure, except among evangelicals

Under fierce election-year fire, President Obama abruptly abandoned his stand that religious organizations must pay for free birth control for workers, scrambling to end a furor raging from the Catholic Church to Congress to his re-election foes. He demanded that insurance companies step in to provide the coverage instead. Obama's compromise means ultimately that women would still get birth control without having to pay for it, no matter where they work.

Conceding he wanted a resolution, Obama ordered advisers to find a middle ground in days, not within a year as had been the plan before the uproar. He said he spoke as a Christian who cherishes religious freedom and as a president unwilling to give up on free contraceptive care. "I've been confident from the start that we could work out a sensible approach here, just as I promised," he stated. "I understand some folks in Washington may want to treat this as another political wedge issue, but it shouldn't be. I certainly never saw it that way."

Obama clearly identifies himself as a Christian, yet as president he has to make decisions that benefit all Americans, even those who do not share his faith. I appreciate his honesty. Nevertheless, I question the way he introduced the measure in the first place, and then had to compromise in order to appease the opposition.

The original rule mandated that employers provide health insurance plans that include coverage for birth control, with an exemption for religious employers but not for religiously affiliated institutions like Catholic colleges or hospitals. The administration’s decision sparked a backlash from the Catholic Church that is almost unprecedented in its ferocity.

Not surprisingly, the Health and Human Services Department issued an altered rule that puts the onus on health insurance providers to pay for the cost of birth control. In spite of this change, the Conference of Catholic Bishops and other religious leaders continue to oppose the measure.

This compromise was--under these circumstances--a wise decision, if wise here is understood as politically sensitive. Politics is often defined as the art of the possible. This was therefore an example of politically-motivated wisdom. Having introduced this measure, Obama did the only thing he could do--compromise.

The administration's initial measure awakened the moral fervor of the institutional Catholic Church and its bishops.As opposed to the usual euphemisms that sometimes issue from the Catholic hierarchy, on this issue the bishops were clear and defiant: “[Obama] is denying to Catholics our nation’s first and most fundamental freedom — that of religious liberty. We cannot — we will not — comply with this unjust law.” There is not the slightest note of equivocation in this statement.

Archbishop Timothy Dolan, who wrote a letter to his fellow bishops blasting Obama's compromise

"The past three weeks have witnessed a remarkable unity of Americans from all religions, or none at all, worried about the erosion of religious freedom and government intrusion into issues of faith and morals," said Archbishop Timothy Dolan, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The bishops wrapped themselves in the flag of religious freedom, but is their stance fair to Catholic women who want to have the freedom to choose a method of birth control that the Catholic Church does not approve of? That many Catholic women have already chosen to disregard Catholic teaching on this matter proves that they have already made a clear choice, the bishops notwithstanding.

Nevertheless, it is astounding that the president did not anticipate the results of this controversial measure. Had the White House been more involved in the details of the enormous health care bill, it is hard to believe that someone on his staff would not have red flagged this potential disaster. The Catholic bishops' decision to reject the president's compromise should also have been anticipated. After all, the issue is not who pays for the process or where it takes place, it is the process itself that runs counter to church policy and was thus rejected. The compromise would never be enough for the bishops.

Obama should have known that virtually all Catholic women in the US ignore the church’s edicts when it comes to contraception when he introduced the measure initially. In fact, 98% of Catholic women practice some form of birth control. Then why should the federal government, as represented by the president, get involved in such a no-win issue? Why attack the Catholic Church with its entrenched view on contraception?

Obama's support for birth control has earned him the support of many pro-choice women's groups. This compromise will not diminish their support for the administration. Some Catholics support the compromise totoo : "Very pleased," was how Sister Carol Keehan, president of the Catholic Health Association, reacted in a statement distributed by the White House. Her trade group represents Catholic hospitals that had fought against the birth control requirement, and Keehan said the new arrangement addresses the concerns it had.

The religious right in the US reacted predictably in joining the Catholic bishops in their rejection of the compromise. The Republican candidates for the presidency have added their voices to the growing chorus of dissent. Mitt Romney's position is especially murky, dating back to when when he was the governor of Massachusetts Thus he should not accuse the president of an "attack on religion." That is hypocrisy.

Obama has made a blunder by introducing this measure the way he did, but he may yet recover before the election. After all there are more Catholic women voters than there are bishops. In spite of this, I hope that he has learned an important lesson and will not introduce any more measures the way he did this one.

It is easy for me (or anyone else) to second-guess the president. His must be the most difficult and thankless job in the world. He has umpteen advisers and countless back-seat drivers who will steer him in the direction they prefer, but ultimately the decisions are his, and he receives either the credit or the blame.

Pundits have for the most part attacked him mercilessly on this issue, often echoing the bishops' line on religious freedom. I do not want my name associated with such conservative pundits, but I do question the wisdom of the president in introducing this measure in the first place. Especially in an election year, he should have left it well enough alone. He will not lose the votes of many women, even Catholic women, but he will lose many evangelical voters. He should not have offered the Republicans additional ammunition to use against him and evangelicals more reasons to despise him than they already do.

During Obama's election campaign in 2008, I admit that I too was caught up in Obama-mania. But for the last year or two I have become disillusioned by his lack of leadership at both the national and international levels. In this case too he has not demonstrated the political acumen that one might expect of the president.

As a leader, Obama may have clay feet, but then what politician does not. However, all the Republican candidates that I have seen thus far are much more dangerous. The US does not need any more wars overseas, as some candidates seem to be urging against Iran. The current culture war is bad enough. Yet if I were an American, I would vote for Obama, in spite of the poor way he handled this issue. The alternatives are even worse.

A milestone for women in West Africa: the consecration of a new bishop in the Gambia

2012-02-10T09:44:00.002-05:00

The Right Reverend Hannah Faal-Heim

(Note: I am republishing this post from another blog that I have, although I have revised it somewhat and given it a slightly different focus.)

It is not every day that a bishop is consecrated, and certainly not in the Gambia, a small West-African country with a population less than two million. Earlier this week I had the rare privilege of witnessing the consecration of Hannah Caroline Faal-Heim as the Presiding Bishop of the Methodist Church in the Gambia.

The Right Reverend Hannah Faal-Heim, to give her proper title, is only the second Gambian to become a bishop in the Gambia and the first woman bishop in West Africa. The former is a major accomplishment already. The first Gambian to do so was the Reverend Dr. Tilewa Johnson, who has been the Anglican Bishop of the Gambia for more than twenty years.

During that time, his two counterparts from the Roman Catholic and Methodist Churches were non-Gambians. But that has now changed dramatically. With a new Bishop for the Methodist Church, only the Catholics have yet to choose a Gambian national to head their church in this country, which has been independent for almost fifty years. It is high time that Gambians occupy all these senior ecclesiastical posts.

She is also the first woman bishop in West Africa. This represents a enormous milestone for women in this part of the world. Although women clergy are not unknown in this reagion, no woman has until now been elected to such a senior post. In Africa, as elsewhere, women are not always accorded the recognition and honor that they deserve. (This is one of the reasons why I have republished this post in this blog.)

She was baptized and confirmed in the very same church building where she was also consecrated. After beginning her career in teaching in the Gambia, she moved to Great Britain where she became a nurse and a midwife. Later she taught midwifery in London. During one of her return visits to the Gambia she became convinced of her call to the ministry. After some thirteen years experience in lay ministry, and further training in theology, she finished her preparatory work with an MA in pastoral theology, while continuing to minister in various parishes in the UK.

Her colleagues in the Methodist church of the Gambia elected her formally as their new bishop only two days before her consecration. The service in Wesley Cathedral was packed--more than a thousand people attended. Because there was also Holy Communion, it lasted more than four hours.

The newly consecrated bishop

The outgoing bishop, the Right Reverend Professor Peter Stephens, officiated at the service. He was accompanied by the Reverend the Lord Griffiths (he is a member of the House of Lords in England), who was Hannah's pastor in the UK, and preached an inspiring sermon for the occasion. In attendance were several other Methodist bishops from the Congo and Ghana, as well as the Methodist prelate of Nigeria. The Anglican Bishop of the Gambia also participated in the service, which as truly ecumenical in nature. The Roman Catholic Bishop was in Rome and thus could not attend.

The new bishop and her husband flanked by her predecessors

We were happy to attend this celebration not only because we witnessed the very joyful ceremony of the consecration. As the Bishop of the Methodist Church, Bishop Hannah takes over from Bishop Stephens the position of chairing the Gambia Christian Council, the body which has been appointed by the Gambian government to oversee the Christian Studies program at the University of the Gambia. The Vice-Chancellor of the university has asked us to head up this new program. This program is why we are currently in this country, although we are also teaching courses at the Gambia Theological Institute, which trains pastors and lay leaders for the churches here.

During the dinner we briefly spoke with her and her husband (the Reverend Dr. Kurt Heim, a noted Old Testament scholar in the UK), and arranged to meet with them in the near future. We look forward to working together with her in order to make the new program in Christian Studies at the university a reality.

But we also want to extend our congratulations again to Bishop Hannah for reaching this important milestone in the the history of the Christian Church in West Africa. We also wish her God's blessing as she takes up the enormous challenge involved.

The new bishop blessing the people

Does food aid feed conflict?

2012-02-07T05:30:00.000-05:00

Does food aid feed conflict? That may seem like a strange question. I would have thought so too until I read an article recently in Canada's Globe and Mail. The question as it is phrased here is mine. I will discuss why food aid feeds conflict, and I would like to suggest one way in which such aid does not have to do that.

Humanitarian workers are stopped at roadblocks and forced to give up vital food aid as a “tax” for safe passage. Aid vehicles are commandeered by armed factions, then sold or used in battle. And supplies stolen from refugee camps are used to buy weapons for rebel armies. These are a few examples mentioned in this article that explains how foreign aid, food aid in particular, inadvertently can promote conflict in some parts of the world.

The article cites a new study from the London-based Centre for Economic and Policy Research which argues that the issue represents a systemic problem. Specifically, "an increase in US food aid increases the incidence, onset and duration of civil conflicts in recipient countries," is the claim that economists Nathan Nunn of Harvard University and Nancy Qian of Yale University make.

In a previous study, according to the Globe and Mail, Profs. Qian and Nunn had found that the flow of US food aid tends to increase because of surpluses in American markets, rather than because of any inherent need in recipient countries. Through a price support program for American farmers, the US government purchases surplus wheat, then ships it to needy countries as part of its massive food support program.

Nunn and Qian set out to determine in their recent study whether those surplus shipments of wheat had a consistent effect on armed conflicts in developing countries. After controlling for a variety of factors including shifts in US foreign policy, they compared 35 years of data on aid from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization with statistics on war from the Armed Conflict Dataset at Sweden’s Uppsala University.

Their finding was that following high production years in the US, regular recipients of aid experienced a jump in both the onset and duration of violent conflict within their borders. An increase in US food aid of 1,000 tonnes boosted the incidence of civil conflict by 0.38 percentage points. The same shipment also decreased the probability of an existing civil war ending in a single year by between 0.48 and 0.61 percentage points.

In other words, if a country is already experiencing conflict, the extra wheat shipped by the US in response to a bumper crop makes it more likely the conflict will continue, said Qian. "And if there isn’t already a conflict, the U.S. production shock makes it more likely a new conflict will begin," she added.

GIs distributing food aid

The effect was most pronounced in cases of small-scale civil conflicts involving governments. Aid made little difference to wars and large conflicts involving more than 1000 combat deaths a year. Interestingly, countries with limited road networks tended to fare the worst, supporting accounts from aid workers about food aid being seized at roadblocks, according to Qian.

The Globe and Mail notes that the study stopped short of offering policy suggestions. Its message is not that “aid is bad." Qian explains: "These are problems no one intended. But policy makers should know that we don’t want to be just randomly giving out aid. It should be targeted. It has to be."

I have no way of verifying this study, nor it that necessary. Prof. Qian's concluding remark is important, and it is where I want to add by two cents. Food aid may indeed feed conflict, under the conditions mentioned in this study, but food aid should not be terminated for that reason.

Prof. Qian

As she points out, food aid needs to be targeted appropriately. It should not be handed in a random fashion. And, I would add, it should not be given out for political reasons. Instead, it should be distributed through NGOs, which are often much better qualified to see that the food gets into the right hands and can avoid that politicization.

Especially in areas where there is conflict, NGO's are better suited to distribute aid, especially food, than are governments-related organizations. The likelihood of misuse that is made of such aid is much higher in the latter case. American aid is often used for propaganda purposes by the US government, while rebel groups are more easily tempted to steal that which the "Great Satan," or whatever other epithet is used locally, has provided.

Undoubtedly, NGO's can be victimized as well. As a foreigner, I have been stopped on many occasions even when I was not carrying food. When stopped, the rule I was taught in Nigeria was to wait as long as it takes; it is a game to see who blinks first. Admittedly, that is more difficult when one is driving a truck laden with tons of food, but even then one does not represent a government that is often widely seen as siding with the oppressors in many countries.

There are other, better ways to distribute surplus food than the way the US government has chosen to do. Let me use the example of Canada. No doubt there are many other examples as well.

Canadians can donate surplus crops to the Canadian Foodgrains Bank, which is a partnership of Canadian churches and church-based agencies working to end hunger in developing countries by increasing and deepening the involvement of Canadians in efforts to end hunger.

On behalf of its fifteen member agencies, the Foodgrains Bank, according to its webpage, collects grain and cash donations, provides funds and expert advice for projects submitted by member agencies and their partners, manages the procurement and supply of food commodities, and engages in public policy and education activities related to hunger and food security.

Each church group has partners in countries that require food aid. If a region requires food aid a partner there will contact a Foodgrains Bank member and assistance will be arranged. Where appropriate, grain will be shipped from Canada. More often the grain grown here will be sold and the money used to help in each unique situation.

For example, where rice is the staple of the diet there is no point in sending corn, but this corn can be sold and the money used to purchase rice locally, which helps the local economy in two ways. The Foodgrains Bank also encourages local development programs with food for work programs. This is another way to stimulate the local economy.

On Wednesday, October 5, 2011, 160 acres of soybeans were harvested by 120 combines in almost twelve hours. Thousands of people gathered to witness the event at a farm north of Monkton, Ontario. In all over $250,000 was donated to the Foodgrains Bank!

Church-based agencies that distribute this food internationally can do so much more effectively that any government-related organization. And, equally important, there is less chance that it will be misused the way this recent study indicates. While there still may be occasions when humanitarian workers are stopped at roadblocks and forced to give up vital food aid, these will be much less than when that aid is distributed directly by a government.

The study dealt with gross examples of injustice perpetuated on both sides. In striking contrast, the Canadian Foodgrains Bank and its member agencies seek to promote justice wherever the work of distributing food is being done. The goal clearly must be justice. The Foodgrains Bank is not perfect, but it is much better than the alternative sketched by this study.

The threat of Boko Haram and how best to tackle it

2012-02-01T12:07:00.000-05:00

The Nigerian militant group Boko Haram conducted a series of bombing attacks and armed assaults January 20 in the northern city of Kano, the capital of Kano state and second-largest city in Nigeria. The attacks, which reportedly included the employment of at least two suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIEDs), targeted a series of police facilities in Kano. These included the regional police headquarters, which directs police operations in Kano, Katsina and Jigawa states, as well as the State Security Service office and the Nigerian Immigration Service office. At least 211 people died in the Kano attacks, according to media reports.

The group carried out a second wave of attacks in Bauchi state on January 22, bombing two unoccupied churches in the Bauchi metropolitan area and attacking a police station in the Tafawa Balewa local government area. Militants reportedly also tried to rob a bank in Tafawa Balewa the same day. Though security forces thwarted the robbery attempt, 10 people reportedly died in the clash, including two soldiers and a deputy police superintendent.

In a third attack, Boko Haram militants attacked a police sub-station in Kano on January 24 with small arms and improvised hand grenades. This armed assault stands out tactically from the January 20 suicide attacks against police stations in Kano. The operation could have been an attempt to liberate some of the Boko Haram militants the government arrested following the January 20 and 22 attacks.

Boko Haram, Hausa for "Western Education is Sinful," is an Islamist militant group established in 2002 in Maiduguri, the capital of Nigeria's Borno state. It has since spread to several other northern and central Nigerian states. It is officially known as "Jama'atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda'awati wal-Jihad," which is Arabic for "Group Committed to Propagating the Prophet's Teachings and Jihad."

At first, Boko Haram was involved mostly in fomenting sectarian violence. Its adherents participated in simple attacks on Christians using clubs, machetes and small arms. Boko Haram came to international attention following serious outbreaks of inter-communal violence in 2008 and 2009 that resulted in thousands of deaths.

By late 2010, Boko Haram had added Molotov cocktails and simple improvised explosive devices (IEDs) to its tactical repertoire. This tactical advancement was reflected in the series of small IEDs deployed against Christian targets in Jos, Plateau state, on Christmas Eve 2010.

This attack paradigm was shattered June 16, 2011, when Boko Haram launched a suicide VBIED attack against the headquarters of the Nigerian national police in Abuja. Though not overly spectacular (security measures kept the device away from the headquarters building and it exploded in a parking lot), the successful deployment of a large VBIED and a suicide operative represented a dramatic leap in Boko Haram's capability. That it skipped a step prompts experts to believe reports of Boko Haram members receiving training from al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in northern Africa or from al Shabaab in Somalia.

The Foreign Minister of Niger, Mohamed Bazoum, confirmed these reports. "There is no doubt that there is confirmed information that shows a link between Boko Haram and AQIM (al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb), and it consists primarily of the training given to elements of Boko Haram," Bazoum said at a regional security summit in Mauritania's capital. "One group has been received in AQIM bases here in the Sahel and another group got training, based on information we've gotten, with the Shabaabs in Somalia," he added.

The group apparently has split into three factions, according to a diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity. One faction remains moderate and welcomes an end to the violence, while another wants a peace agreement with rewards similar to those offered to a different militant group in 2009. The third faction, though, refuses to negotiate and remains the most radical. This is the faction that is in contact with al-Qaida's North Africa branch and with the Somalia-based terror group al-Shabaab.

If what this diplomat says is true, this is the faction that continues to conduct bombings in many parts of the country, although largely in the north-eastern states, although it has also bombed the national capital.

Boko Haram conducted its second suicide VBIED attack in Abuja on Aug. 26, 2011, this time targeting a U.N. compound in the city's diplomatic district. This attack proved far more deadly because the driver was able to enter the compound and reach a parking garage before detonating his device near the building's entrance. The attack against the U.N. compound also marked a break from Boko Haram's traditional target set of government and Christian facilities.

These recent attacks tell us that before the group can become a real threat to the Nigerian government -- or a legitimate transnational threat -- it will need to develop the ability to deploy its IEDs and suicide operatives to the point that it successfully can attack hardened targets. It will also need to develop the ability to work beyond its traditional areas of operation. Until it can master those skills (and display an intent to use such skills), it will remain a regional, albeit deadly, threat. That is the good news.

The bad news is that these increasing waves of Boko Haram attacks are causing disquiet among politicians, especially those from the North. There is growing fear of attack. "Nobody seems safe with these attacks. I am really scared of this twist of events," said a politician who has had to tackle more than his fair share of security challenges in the recent past. "My worry is that right under our nose the situation is slipping out of control and it appears no one yet can solve this problem," the politician explained.

"The level of insecurity is alarming, and having soldiers and policemen out on the streets isn’t making it any better," adds Angela Olofu-Adeoye, assistant lecturer at the Centre for Conflict Management and Peace Studies at the University of Jos. Instead, she advises the government to invest in intelligence gathering, and get better insights in the modus operandi of Boko Haram. "Nobody really knows what Boko Haram wants. They talk about implementing Sharia law in the north, but details are unclear. Also, one would expect that after receiving N100 million in compensation money for the death of their leader Yusuf, Boko Haram would keep quiet for a while. But the violence has only increased. There’s no logical reasoning to be found."

"A lot of prominent people have already condemned Boko Haram’s actions. Nigeria is a secular state and will remain that way," she adds. "But now, we’re living in a state of fear. Nobody knows when the next bomb will detonate. However, I believe this current violence is just a phase. It came, and it will pass again as well. How and when though, I don’t know."

A prominent politician has accused politicians, especially immediate past governors of some northern states, of preparing the fertile ground for this sort of unfortunate insurgency as they encouraged their security outfits which terrorised people in their various states. Some have also bought off attacks by Boko Haram by paying them substantial sums. Their maladministration created the room or metamorphosed into the insurgency now rocking the country, the politician said.

Though media reports said serving and incumbent security chiefs are putting their heads together with a view to facing this challenge, there are fears among some politicians that even the presidency appears helpless or unable to tackle the problem .But officials say the presidency appears to be working on the strategy which will emphasize dialogue rather than violence. What is certain is that the nation is facing an unusual security challenge now.

"I think we have been lying to ourselves in this country for years;the politicians the media and all, everybody kept avoiding the truth.People would tell lies to get into power. Now we are all in trouble," a politician who expressed concern over Boko Haram said under the condition of anonymity. What appears certain now is that just like the Niger Delta crisis, a tactically reassuring strategy perhaps emphasizing constructive engagement with the group is needed in order to stem the tide of sorrow, bloodletting and death emanating from the growing Boko Haram attacks.

More than 35,000 Nigerians reportedly have left their homes to avoid the Boko Haram violence. With thousands of Christians leaving their homes in northern Nigeria, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Abuja has called upon the government to initiate talks with the Boko Haram terrorist group.

"Sooner or later someone will have to talk to the Boko Haram,” said Archbishop John Onaiyekan, “and I think those who can talk to them are those who share their own expectations, but not their methods.” The archbishop said that it is unrealistic to think that the government can provide adequate security to protect all citizens against active terrorism, and that a political solution is required to end the Boko Haram attacks.

The archbishop said that the Nigerian government must take a more active role, rather than making half-hearted responses to the terrorist threats. He observed that the majority of Nigeria’s people do not support the campaign for an Islamic state, and hinted that the government should be more forthright in confronting the militant threat.

A military solution is not possible. Violence only breeds more violence. It becomes a snake swallowing its own tail. Diplomacy and negotiations are the only way to achieve peace with Boko Haram. Nigerians for the most part want security, but they realize that the army and the police are incapable of protecting each and every Nigerian adequately.

The Secretary-General, Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA), Dr AbdulLateef Adegbite, has said the Federal Government must adopt a carrot-and-stick policy to resolve the Boko Haram challenge. He explained: "The moderates among them can be accepted as the constitution and the law may permit. Those hard-line Boko Haram elements that are bent on pursuing violent agenda should be sought out and dealt with according to the law."

"The scourge of violence as perpetrated by Boko Haram has become dreadful and frightening and seemingly uncontrollable. The need has obviously arisen to seek divine intervention. We call on peace -loving Nigerian Muslims to collaborate with their Christian counterparts in embracing peace and dialogue to enhance national security."

"Religious leaders should educate their followers against negative preaching, practices and behaviour. Religious education should focus on authentic texts of every faith devoid of exaggeration that feed extremism," Adegbite added.

He concluded: "It is now crystal clear that these hard–faced rebels have declared war on all Nigerians. This is why it is misguided for some Christian leaders to call for reprisal against Muslims just because Boko Haram targeted a church near Abuja on Christmas Day last year, irresponsibly killing many worshippers. Is it not now evident that with the sad massacre in Kano, and killings elsewhere in the North, an over whelming number of Muslims have been wasted by Boko Haram?"

Adegbite puts his finger precisely on the greatest threat to Boko Haram's continued existence: their killing of fellow Muslims. As long as Boko Haram focussed almost exclusively on attacking Christians, most Muslims ignored them, but now every Muslim, at least in the North, feels personally threatened.

One illustration of the weakness of Boko Haram is that the recent spate of bombing were concentrated in the North, and more specifically, the North-East. Other regions of the country have largely been spared. The Muslim spiritual leader of Nigeria, the Emir of Sokoto, has arrested members of Boko Haram, and they in turn have threatened to attack Sokoto, which is in the North-West of Nigeria.

As Adegbite and others have noted, Muslims must join the negotiations that will ultimately lead to peace in Nigeria. I would add that Muslims must take the lead in such negotiations, since they are better able to understand their co-religionists.

Christians and Muslims who want peace must work together so that this goal may be achieved. Boko Haram must not be allowed to tear Nigeria apart. As Nigeria goes, so does the rest of Africa. This saying is as true now as when it was first uttered.

Pray for peace in Nigeria. I have written several times already about Nigeria, since even though I no longer live there that large and important nation remains close to my heart. Also, I abhor violence and want to promote non-violence wherever I am.

(Note: Because of the length of this post, I have not included as many pictures in relation to the text as I often do. Also the horrific nature of the destruction wrought by Boko Haram made it difficult to choose appropriate photos. Thus I have selected several photos of some of the people that I quote.)

Year of the Dragon

2012-01-26T14:57:00.001-05:00

The first day of the 2012 Chinese New Year was on January 23, 2012 (in China's time zone). This day is a new moon day, and is the first day of the first Chinese lunar month in the Chinese lunar calendar system.

The Chinese New Year's Day on January 23, 2012, is actually 12 days before the first day of the astrology calendar this year. There is a common misconception that the astrological animal signs begin on the Chinese New Year's Day. In reality, these animal signs mark the Start of Spring, the first day of the astrological year.

For example, if a baby was born after the Chinese New Year Day in January 2012, then its animal sign is the Rabbit, not Dragon, because the birthday is before the Start of Spring. In the China's time zone, the Start of Spring this year is on February 4. This may sound confusing, and it is for many people, myself included.

I know very little about this system, but do want to share the little that I have learned about it. In Africa, where I am at the moment the Chinese new year is not very important, but in many parts of the world it is because of the growing influence of China on the world stage, and the increasing pervasiveness of Chinese culture. Chinese people can be found everywhere.

Toronto, where I live most of the year, has many China towns to accommodate a burgeoning Chinese population. In Africa, there are now an increasing numbers of Chinese working here, and thus the Chinese new year will become more important here too as time goes on.

According to the Chinese zodiac, 2012 is the Year of the Dragon, which began on January 23, 2012 and ends on February 9, 2013. The dragon is the fifth sign of the Chinese zodiac, which consists of 12 animal signs. The dragon is a mythical and legendary creature. In ancient China, the celestial dragon represented both the emperor and power. Today, it is the ultimate auspicious symbol signifying success and happiness.

The year 2012 is the 4709th Chinese year. The Chinese believe that the first king of China was the Yellow King (who was not the first emperor of China). He became king in 2697 BC, and therefore China entered the 4709th year on January 23, 2012 (although some people contend this is the 4710th year).

In all stories about Chinese dragons, they come from the sky, which means heaven in China. The image of dragon is blurred, misty, mystic, occulted, noble and untouchable. For China, it is the symbol of power from heaven. The Chinese emperor was considered the son of heaven. An emperor alone has the authority to send a command to dragons.

One Chinese story mentions an emperor who killed a dragon in his dream. After 581 AD, emperors in China began to wear imperial robes with dragon symbols. During the Ching Dynasty (1644-1911 AD), the dragon can be seen everywhere on the roofs, doors, pillars, bridges, utensils in the forbidden city. The most powerful dragon is the five-clawed dragon. It appears only on the yellow imperial robe. Because of this, the dragon is one of most auspicious animals in China.

The dragon is the only mythological creature in the Chinese zodiac; it epitomizes yang (male/warm) energy. Those born in the year of the dragon are considered to be lively people who are straight to the point, proud, full of enthusiasm and possess a great passion for life. They are also dynamic and stand out in a crowd, since they are flamboyant and tend to leave a blazing trail behind them, igniting passion in some but scorching others. Dragons are profoundly loyal to family and friends, and think nothing of laying their lives down to protect them. Although sincere and honest, dragons are known to act first, think later and suffer as a result.

Dragons also can never keep their mouths shut, indulge in idle gossip and tend to believe they can take on just about anything. They can be eccentric and egotistical, demanding others to laugh at their jokes or laud that their actions. Intelligent and charismatic, but the dragon seldom applies its wisdom carefully and chooses to flirt with imagined grandeur instead.

There are many more descriptions of people born in the year of the dragon; all of them assume that these people will resemble dragons in character and temperament. This is as likely, in my opinion, as the signs of the zodiac in the West are said to determine the future of those who are born under that sign.

Personally, I am not a believer in astrology. Our fates are not determined by the stars or by animal signs. God alone determines the future of each and everyone of us. Our future is in God's hands, and is not written in the stars. We may perhaps play with these various types of astrology, as long as we do not take them too seriously. My comments may offend those who do believe in astrology; if so, I am sorry, but I disagree.

The year of the dragon is important for many Chinese or for those who share the Chinese heritage, and we should not denigrate them in any way. On the contrary, we must respect their beliefs, even if we disagree. I do not ridicule people who consult horoscopes either, even though I never do so myself.

Stamps of Azerbaijan commemorating the Year of the Dragon

Do you want to know what's in store for 2012? Who will win the US election? Will the eurozone implode? China's feng shui masters tackle some of these issues with their predictions for the Year of the Dragon.

Many Chinese take such predictions seriously and adjust their lives accordingly. Feng shui, the ancient study of the forces of chi, or life energy, is a daily part of life in the Chinese world. If they want to build a house or renovate it, they will consult experts in feng shui.

A feng shui chart

Chinese astrologers have already predicted that the Year of the Dragon will bring natural disasters and financial volatility, especially to crisis-hit Europe. "The world economy will be unstable in the Year of the Dragon, because the economies in Europe and the US are still suffering from the effects of the recession," Hong Kong feng shui master Anthony Cheng says.

Celebrity astrologer Peter So says the United States will provide some good news late in the year, but his charts for Europe make grim reading. "Europe will not recover so soon -- it is expected to suffer at least until 2014. But what I can say is this, a recovery for the US economy is possible in 2013," he says.

If you're prepared to ride the dragon and invest in 2012, Russia and China could be your best bets. The two emerging markets will be the best performers in a volatile year, says Cheng. But be prepared for surprises, especially out of China where the Communist Party will hold its 18th Congress to select a new generation of leaders. "In the second half of the year, a scandalous corruption case will be exposed in China," warns Cheng, but refuses to elaborate about who will be implicated.

I don't put any more stock in such predictions than I do in the prediction made in some magazines at the checkout counter. Nor do I accept the predictions made by those who say that the world will end in December this year, according to an ancient Mayan calendar. The future is in God's hands; only he knows what will happen and when.

Is capitalism evil?

2012-01-23T06:01:00.003-05:00

Is capitalism evil? Yes, contends US documentary maker Michael Moore in his latest movie, "Capitalism: A Love Story," where he proves that capitalism is evil. The idea for this post came as I was flying across the Atlantic and was able to watch this movie, which comes with a warning that it is not intended for children. I would add that it is not intended as entertainment either. Instead, it is a hard-hitting attack on capitalism, which blends his trademark humor with tragic individual stories, archive footage and publicity stunts.

Moore argues that capitalism benefits only the rich while condemning millions to poverty. He explains, "Capitalism is an evil, and you cannot regulate evil," he concludes. "You have to eliminate it and replace it with something that is good for all people and that something is democracy."

Big banks and hedge funds gambled with investors' money, using complex derivatives that few, if any, really understood. Meanwhile, large companies have had laid off thousands of staff despite boasting record profits. Moore also sees an uncomfortably close relationship between banks, politicians and U.S. Treasury officials. With official connivance, regulations were changed to favor the few on Wall Street rather than the many on Main Street.

Moore says that by encouraging Americans to borrow against the value of their homes, businesses created the conditions that led to the crisis, and with it homelessness and unemployment. The film features several priests, including a bishop, who say capitalism is anti-Christian by failing to protect the poor.

"Essentially we have a law which says gambling is illegal but we've allowed Wall Street to do this and they've played with people's money and taken it into these crazy areas of derivatives," Moore told an audience at the Venice Film Festival. "They need more than just regulation. We need to structure ourselves differently."

Moore on Wall Street trying to make a citizen's arrest

Moore is hardly the first person to preach this message, but he does so in a hard-hitting way that some, and not only the very rich, may regard as offensive. Even those who would stand to benefit most from him may not appreciate his in-your-face attack, such a when he goes to Wall Street and some corporate head offices to make a citizen's arrest.

Yet the story he tells is simple enough even for the most committed couch potato to understand: the rich are getting richer at the expense of the poor. This message was the one that motivated Occupy Wall Street and the other occupy movements all over the world. The 1 % through their manipulation of the political and economic levers of society are enriching themselves without any concern for the untold suffering that results for the rest, the 99%. Quite frankly, the rich don't care for what happens to the rest. Moreover, they blame everything, except the capitalistic system.

That the very rich critique Moore so bitterly is understandable, but that some of the 99% do so as well can only be explained by the successful media attacks prompted by the rich. Moore has been accused of being a hypocrite, since he is a multimillionaire--his net worth is reputedly $50 million. Such ad hominem arguments, however, miss the point that both Moore and the Occupy Movement are making: this is an issue of the heart.

Some critics (see http://4simpsons.wordpress.com/2009/10/07/fallacies-r-us-michael-moore-tells-us-about-jesus-and-economics/) charge that Moore takes verses out of context to match his view of the Bible and his version of God. They also charge him with making major errors in his understanding of capitalism. What these critics fail to grasp is that definitions, such as that of capitalism, are not neutral and objective, but are shaped by subjective attitudes which are matters of the heart.

These critics are also blind to the influence and power that capitalism already has, and that it is prepared to use whatever means are necessary in order to increase that influence and power. Today capitalism has become virtually unstoppable, unless enough people wake up and start protesting, as the Occupy Movement is doing. This movement is not dead, in spite of being evicted from parks and public places everywhere by the powers that be. That eviction illustrates the power of capitalism.

The Bible never condemns wealth as such. Abraham, for example, was a very wealthy man. Thus the Bible does not regard money as evil. Instead, as we read in 1 Tim. 6: 10: "For the love of money is at the root of all kinds of evil." Unfortunately, there are people who crave money. They are addicted to it. And thus to all and sundry they explain that the only purpose of doing business is to make money. Money! Money! That is all there is for them. What a sad existence for them, and even more so when this attitude is used to justify greed at both the individual and corporate level--a greed that blinds them to their extortionist practices.

Capitalism is evil, if by capitalism we mean more than the mere possession of capital; instead, it expresses an attitude to money that the Bible describes simply as greed. Capitalism is evil because it is marked by greed and does not concern itself with the poor.

Moore may be rich, but that does not make him a capitalist, nor does this movie make him a hypocrite because he belongs to the 1%. On the contrary, his heart is with the 99%. That is why he has produced movies such as "Roger & Me" and now "Capitalism: A Love Story."

His gruff persona may put some people off, but it expresses his identification with the victims of capitalism. For that I want to thank him. It made my flight more enjoyable, even if it was somewhat disturbing. That, of course, is Moore's intention. I hope that more people will be disturbed and will join the protest, otherwise soon protest itself will be controlled.

Does Canada need an Office of Religious Freedom?

2012-01-15T16:04:00.001-05:00

The proposal by the Canadian government to establish an Office of Religious Freedom is politically motivated. It fulfills a promise made in the 2011 federal election. The Conservatives won this election handily, in part by attracting votes in many ethnic communities, especially in Greater Toronto Area, which according to the United Nations is the most cosmopolitan urban area in the world. Nearly every nation and language on earth is represented here, as are most religions. This forms part of the context in which this proposal was made.

Does Canada really need an Office of Religious Freedom, or is it largely a political ploy, as is my impression?

The Conservatives needed the support of various ethnic groups, which represent many different religions, in order to win the election: Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists, are only a few of them.

The most important of these religious groups, although not identifiable as a single ethnic category, were evangelical Christians. They tend to vote Conservative, are well organized, and have been persecuted in many different countries, especially during the last few years.

In fact, Christians are persecuted more than any other religious group today. There are many reasons for this. There are also many organizations, such as Freedom House, that keep careful track of instances of the persecution of Christians. Many Christians certainly support the creation of an Office of Religious Freedom.

The Conservatives also attracted the Jewish vote through their unqualified support for the State of Israel. Canada is now one of Israel's most faithful friends and supporters. The existence of the State of Israel is rooted in the Holocaust. Canadian Jews do not want a repetition of this, very understandably, and thus they too would support such an office.

Both Christians and Jews are somewhat ambivalent in their attitude to Muslims, however. The Palestinian cause is hardly popular among many of them, and Muslims are often viewed as terrorists. Both have for centuries been persecuted for various reasons, but they are often unwilling to extend protection to Muslims.

Muslims too need the protection of an Office of Religious Freedom. They have been vilified and demonized more than any other religious group, especially since 9/11. But will they get that protection this way?

In a year-end interview, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird denies that his department’s new Office of Religious Freedom will become a vehicle for playing domestic politics in Canada’s immigrant communities. He also dismissed criticism that the new office could lead to an uncomfortable mix of religion and politics.

“Freedom of religion is one of the first things in the (Canadian) Charter, it’s one of the first things in the (Canadian) Bill of Rights, it’s front and centre in the UN Declaration of Human Rights -- it’s an essential human right; I don’t see any concern about that at all,” the minister explained.

Baird has high hopes for the new office, even though it will come with a modest $5-million price tag. That includes a minuscule $500,000 budget for operations, so it won’t be a major drag on already thin resources for a government, like governments elsewhere, that is currently focussed on reducing the deficit.

But this office may not have the positive benefit the government is looking for. Alex Neve, the head of Amnesty International Canada, says that while religious persecution “is a serious human rights concern right around the world,” he is not confident about the government’s approach to the new office. Religious freedom can have a “contentious relationship” with other crucial human-rights concerns such as women’s equality, the equality rights of gays and lesbians, and freedom of expression, he explains.

The various human rights must be interpreted so that religious freedom and women's rights are both given their proper due. Communal and individual rights must be carefully balanced. In addition, for years I have reminded my students that rights are not absolute, but carry with them duties as well that can restrict these rights out of respect for others.

There are other problems as well. The governments needs to be careful that it does not -- either intentionally or unintentionally -- convey a message that some religions are preferred over others. The consultations that Baird organized with religious groups in October seem to indicate otherwise. These consultations were not open to the public. Amnesty International and other rights groups were excluded, but more crucially, so were many religious groups.

Panellists invited to closed-door consultations on the new Office of Religious Freedom were drawn almost exclusively from western religions, primarily Christianity. Six official panelists were invited to help lay out parameters for the proposed office during a half-day meeting with the minister.

The official panelists were:

Thomas Farr, first director of the U.S. Office of International Religious Freedom.

Father Raymond De Souza, Roman Catholic priest and columnist.

Anne Brandner of the Global Peace Initiative and formerly of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada.

Don Hutchinson, vice-president with the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada.

Frank Dimant, CEO of B'nai Brith Canada.

Susanne Tamas of the Baha'i Community of Canada.

Islam was not represented on the panel, nor were the major Eastern religions, all of which have suffered religious persecution: Hinduism, Sikhism, Taoism, Buddhism, and others. The choice of panelists completely ignored the Canadian reality of multiculturalism, which is different from the American situation.

Pressed on what exactly the office will do, Baird replied in the interview: “It will be promoting religious freedom.” He said it would involve “persuasion, lobbying, putting light ... promoting.” The Tories note that the concept of such an office is not entirely new. They point to the fact the U.S. State Department has its own religious freedom office that was created in the late 1990s under the administration of Bill Clinton.

There are three priority areas for the new office: protecting and advocating on behalf of religious minorities under threat: opposing religious hatred and intolerance; and promoting the Canadian values of pluralism and tolerance abroad.

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird with the Papal Nuncio

Baird said he had consulted internationally on the creation of the new office meeting with the Holy See, the Aga Khan, the head of the Greek Orthodox Church in Turkey, and the American ambassador at large for international religious freedom. But, he added, “ours will be a made-in-Canada approach.”

He cited persecution of Baha’i practitioners in Iran, Coptic Christians killed in Egypt, and Roman Catholic priests who have been forced underground in China. “Sometimes tough things need to be said. It’s really uncomfortable, I think, for the Egyptian government when you talk about the plight of Copts,” he explained

As the Tories mull their final roll out for the new office, religious violence is sparking the usual time-honoured response of Canadian governments, whether Liberal or Conservative: a written denunciation in the minister’s name condemning the perpetrators and an expression of solidarity for the victims.

That’s what happened on Christmas Day after a radical sect called Boko Haram claimed responsibility for a series of attacks on churches that killed at least 42 people in Nigeria. Mr. Baird’s statement that day said: “Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their loved ones. These people died practicing their religion -- a basic human right. Canada strongly denounces such cowardly attacks without reservation.”

The Conservatives are unapologetic about making a defense of the right to worship a central objective of Canadian foreign policy, noting, as a recent Pew Center study found, that assaults around the world on religious freedom have increased in recent years. This stance is in response in part to some bureaucrats in the Department of Foreign Affairs who, because of their belief in the separation of church and state, have tended to ignore the issue of religious freedom.

Shahbaz Bhatti

The Tories explain that it was a charismatic Pakistani foe of religious persecution who helped clinch their decision to create the office. Shahbaz Bhatti had visited with Prime Minister Stephen Harper only weeks before he was shot dead in Islamabad. A Catholic, he was the first Pakistan minister for minority affairs and the only Christian serving in the Islamic state’s cabinet when he died on March 2, 2011. A militant Islamist group claimed responsibility for killing Bhatti, who had been urging reform of that country's blasphemy laws.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, who’s also the party’s point man for outreach to new Canadian voters, said Bhatti made a major impression on Harper when they met in early February, 2011. “The Prime Minister was deeply affected by this as was everyone who had the chance to meet him,” the minister said. “His visit to Canada shortly before his assassination helped to galvanize within the government the reality of this kind of persecution.” Kenny said he counselled Bhatti against returning home -- to no avail.

Former Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, for one, offers qualified support for the new office. He said it can “turn a Canadian spotlight on people in danger” and can provide the persecuted “with the protection of visibility and concern.” But he adds it should not become be a tool for pressure groups the Tories hope to appease in Canada.

He advises that the office defend all cases of religious persecution, not just those that are bothering domestic constituencies at home, and that it does not ignore other human-rights violations, which usually accompany religious persecution, like limits on freedom of the press, denial of democratic rights and persecution.

The American office once headed by Farr has been criticized from several quarters, including from within the US State Department, for being Christian-centric, and primarily dedicated to protecting and promoting Christianity overseas. They contend that US officials tend to recognize and emphasize violations of the rights of Christian minorities and Christian evangelical groups to proselytize, rather than using the term "religious freedom" to cover the religious freedom of all communities.

In other words, in the US not all religions are equal and not all enjoy the same rights.

The Conservatives responded by saying that the office will take a multi-faith focus that is representative of Canada. Whether they will or not is debatable, especially if the October panel is any indication.

There is too much about the proposed Office of Religious Freedom that smacks of politics. If this office does succeed in defending religious freedom for all religious groups and not just some of them, and if it can untangle the various human rights that are implicated in issues of religious freedom, then it may yet prove to be a blessing for everyone, and not just a cheap ploy to buy votes from strategic religious communities.

In the previous post, it was obvious how complex the issue of religious freedom is. When politics is added to this already potent brew, the mixture becomes potentially explosive. Thus the government should be very careful in what it does with the new Office of Religious Freedom. It is a good idea, but it can be abused in many ways. No one who is serious about religious freedom wants that to happen.

I don't want Christians to hijack the very important issue of religious freedom. It does not belong to any one religious group. If it did, religious freedom would be a contradiction in terms. All religions must enjoy the same rights, if this term is to have any meaning whatsoever. Religious freedom belongs to all of us or to none.

PS. I am leaving tomorrow for Africa in order to teach there for four months. I hope to continue blogging from the Gambia, but I may have to reduce the frequency of my posts. Time will tell, but I hope to be able to write frequently about the many exciting things that are happening in our world today.

The nature of religious freedom as seen from an international perspective

2012-01-09T11:08:00.002-05:00

Recently the Canadian government proposed to establish an Office of Religious Freedom within the Department of Foreign Affairs. This is to fulfill a campaign promise made in the 2011 federal election. The proposal prompted me to reflect on the nature of religious freedom in our world today. This topic is so complex, however, that I thought I would start this time with the international context, and then in the next posting look at the Canadian proposal more closely.

Religious freedom is a fundamental human right, but it is at the same time highly disputed. Religious freedom can be defined as the right to practise the religion of one's choice, or to be a non-believer, and by extension, to change one's religion. That this freedom is not universally acknowledged is demonstrated by the long history of religious persecution that persists even today.

Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations (1948) states:

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

This right is closely linked to the right to free expression and the right to free association:

Eighteen years later the Declaration became a convention, which became binding and had an enforcement mechanism. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) was adopted by the United Nations in 1976 and extends the specific protection to religion in Article 18:

Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right shall include freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice, and freedom, either individually or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching.
No one shall be subject to coercion which would impair his freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice.
Freedom to manifest one's religion or beliefs may be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary to protect public safety, order, health, or morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others.
The States Parties to the present Covenant undertake to have respect for the liberty of parents and, when applicable, legal guardians to ensure the religious and moral education of their children in conformity with their own convictions.

In 1981 this Covenant was further amplified in The UN Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination based on Religion or Belief. This Declaration sets out in considerable detail what the international community regards as basic standards for the protection of religious freedom. This Covenant did not become a convention, however, because the international community was unable to agree on issues such as the freedom to change religion. For example, Islamic nations do not consider this to be a part of religious freedom. That is why "apostasy," or conversion from Islam, can result in the death penalty in some countries.

The reason for this impasse is not due to the desire of these nations to be ornery, but lies in a fundamentally different approach to human rights, one that the individualistic West finds difficult to understand and accept. The following Venn diagram may help to illustrate the difference.

This split into individual versus community rights is often interpreted in terms of liberalism and conservatism, but that is a mistake, in my opinion. The spit actually occurs between Western individualism and the rest of the world. Even this statement needs a further qualification, since not everyone in the West is individualistic when it comes to human rights.

Unfortunately, human rights have been interpreted in an individualistic way for a long time, especially in the Anglo-Saxon world. Even the United Nation's documents governing human rights have sometimes been interpreted in this way. Thus one can understand the frustration of Muslims when it comes to a fundamental aspect of their beliefs and for their unwillingness to budge when it comes to further interpretations of these rights, especially when it comes to religious freedom.

Muslims are not alone in this frustration. In Canada, the conflict between English Canadians and French Canadians about language rights in Quebec is another example of this split. The question that both Muslims and French Canadians ask, together with many other groups, is this: Do individual rights always have to trump community rights, or are there times when the rights of the latter should be emphasized so that the community does not suffer?

The United States has a great problem with community rights. The American emphasis on individual rights is expressed already in the Declaration of Independence. In contrast, the UN Declaration of Human Rights has a more community orientation, although I would contend that this is still not strong enough. Some of the differences are described in the following table:

American readers will no doubt object by asserting that an emphasis on community rights eliminates the rights of the individual, but that is precisely the issue. Should individual and community rights be played off against each other, or should they both be allowed to play a role? Community rights have been neglected too much and too long, and only now are they coming to the fore again, where they belong. It is not a matter of either/or, but of recognizing both where appropriate and helpful.

By asserting this, I do not want to excuse the killing of people who leave a certain religion in order to adopt another. Yet Muslims, among others, should be allowed to maintain their beliefs, except for the killing, even if they seem grossly unfair to others. In Quebec, similar objections about unfairness can be made, but French Canadians should be allowed to take the necessary measures to ensure the survival of their language.

In both cases, I personally disagree with their positions, but I must respect the rights of these communities to take measures that will help preserve them. If that seems unfair to the rest of us, then so be it. We are just revealing our own bias. While they too recognize the importance of human rights, especially as they have been encapsulated in the UN documents I mentioned, the rights of communities to express a contrary opinion should not be diminished, otherwise there will not be any community rights left at the end of the day.

The ICCPR recognizes this limitation when it states, as we already noted: "Freedom to manifest one's religion or beliefs may be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary to protect public safety, order, health, or morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others."

Freedom of religion must not proscribe any beliefs as long as these beliefs do not limit the rights of others, in this case the right to life. Thus Islamic countries should not be allowed to pass laws that prescribe the death penalty for apostasy. But Muslims should have the right to condemn apostasy, even if we might disagree.

The situation in Quebec is different, since freedom of religion is not an issue, but a similar argument can be made to justify laws that protect the French language, again as long as the lives of others are not endangered. The preservation of French is necessary for people who are drowning in an English ocean.

There are many more issues involving freedom of religion that could be discussed, but this will have to suffice this time. The topic is large enough to justify writing a book or indeed many books. I am not alone in raising the issue of individual versus community rights; in fact, many articles have already been written on it.

My contention is that community rights need to be protected, not just the rights of individuals. I am more sensitive to this than many people, perhaps, because I have lived in Asia and Africa for many years. In Africa, for example, one's identity is determined by the community. Whereas in the West we say, "I am, therefore we are." In other words, the individual precedes the community. In Africa, the reverse is true; Africans say, "We are, therefore I am." The word ubuntu is often used to describe this. This expresses the essence of being human; it declares that my humanity is caught up and inextricably bound up in yours.

The Bible cannot be understood apart from community. God created us to live in community. Even salvation must be understood communally, and not just individualistically, as we are often inclined to do. The dignity of human beings, the chief reason for human rights, arises from the idea of persons being created in the image of God; the dignity of communities proceeds from the notion of human beings being created in relation to God the Creator. Thus, community first and foremost means being in community with the Creator. By extension, therefore, we exist in community with each other.

If we lose sight of the community, we fall into the trap of individualism, as so many Christians have done, especially in the West. Then our individualistic understanding of human rights becomes an idol that blinds us to the communities that we see all around us. A false ideology has blinded us to reality. Let us, therefore, break away from the individualism that permeates Western thinking, and look instead at the picture that the Bible presents and that is expressed in many non-Western modes of thinking.

There are many different kinds of communities. The following wheel illustrates only some of them:

This international perspective that I have have sketched briefly provides a background to an examination of the proposal by the Canadian government to establish an Office of Religious Freedom. That is where I intend to go in my next posting.

Please feel free to respond to my observations about the nature of religious freedom. My emphasis on the rights of the community may not please everyone, but I do hope that I will cause people to think about this important topic. I am searching for the truth, as we all are. Let us therefore respect each other when we debate this controversial issue.

January 1, a renewing time

2011-12-31T13:21:00.000-05:00

January 1 is a renewing time--a time for new beginnings. The old year has gone and a new one has started. This month is named, appropriately, after the Roman god, Janus, who had two faces—one looking forward and the other backward.

We look backward at the old year, perhaps with a dash of regret for what we should have done, perhaps with sorrow for the loss of loved ones, perhaps with joy and thankfulness, or perhaps with a sigh of relief that we survived the year.

A further retrospective is not necessary--the litany would be too long and unbearable. That we have been able to survive is due to grace--God's grace, which also comforts us as we look back on 2011.

Thus we look forward to the new year. Some of us, however, may be afraid of what the new year may bring. If it brings more of the same as last year, we don’t want it. We don't need more fighting, more violence, more death than in an already turbulent 2011. That was more than enough, thank you!

Many of us want change, starting with ourselves. In North America, people make New Year’s resolutions, although most of them probably will not survive the first 24 hours. But all of us are waiting for a better world.

We want a new world that is marked with new beginnings. We eagerly anticipate it now already. In fact, we are ready to leap there, if only we could. January 1 is such a new beginning--an entrance to a new world. Let us make use of it, and celebrate the occasion.

But how should we celebrate January 1? Should we look backwards, or forwards, or both? What sort of celebration is appropriate? Obviously not a drunken party, as some tragically assume.

What about God: if you are a believer, what role will you allow him to play in your hopes and plans for the new year? And what part does he play in your celebration?

The first day of the seventh month was the Jewish New Year. Jews call that day “Rosh Hoshanah” or “Head of the Year.” It was a harvest festival that marked the start of the civil year. It marked the new year for people, animals and legal contracts, and was set aside for calculating the calendar, sabbatical and jubilee years.

According to the Jews, this was also the day that God created humanity, as well as “the day of judgment” when the fate of the wicked and the righteous would be determined and the names of the righteous inscribed in the book of life. It was a day of rest, marked by the blowing of the shofar or ram’s horn.

In Old Testament times, animal sacrifices were regularly made to atone for sin, but in later Judaism this was replaced with prayers, often near a stream of water, which included the symbolic throwing of one’s sins into the water. Although this day was never expressly called New Year’s Day in the Old Testament, evidently it was regarded as such by Jews from a very early date.

The Hijri or Islamic new year (Arabic: رأس السنة الهجرية‎ Ras as-Sanah al-Hijriyah) is the day that marks the beginning of a new Islamic calendar year, and is the day on which the year count is incremented. This day moves throughout the Gregorian calendar year that most of us use.

There are too many other new years, including of course the Chinese, that I don't have time to mention now.

January 1 universally marks the beginning of the new calendar year. This continues an old Roman practice. But this date was not widely accepted in Europe until the 16th century, while Britain and the British Empire did not accept it until 1752.

The ecclesiastical year begins on the first day of Advent in many Christian churches; while for the Eastern Orthodox it begins on September 1, and for some churches, especially in North America, it seems to begin when school opens in September.

The first of January is a good time to reflect on what God is doing. This is indeed a renewing time, when he is renewing all of creation. Just as January marks the beginning of the new calendar year, it is also a sign of God’s renewal of his creation.

Revelation 21 reveals God’s plan for this renewal. The old world with all its evils will be gone--gone forever. The Lord of the universe explains what he is doing until then: “I am making all things new!”

Everything is being made new. God will not destroy everything that he has made, including people, but he is renewing his creation. That means the environment, for example.

Global warming is not a hoax. God has appointed humans as stewards of creation, which means that we are to take care of this world. It is a garden; thus we must not treat it as a place to dump our industrial waste.

This renewal also means bringing an end to warfare. In the nuclear age, wars are no longer justifiable. The just war theory is not relevant any more, if it ever was entirely. Whether in Afghanistan, Iran, Nigeria, the Middle East, or wherever, non-violence is the only viable alternative.

God is also working in people like you and me, making us more able to love others and thus to love him better. That is not easy, as I can testify by looking at myself. Improvements are sorely needed, as my own list of New Year's resolutions mutely testifies.

My hope and prayer is that 2012 may be a better year for all of us. May this new year indeed be a time of new beginnings, and may it be truly peaceful as well as filled with countless blessings for you and your family.

Our violent world and the Prince of Peace

2011-12-26T18:19:00.000-05:00

On Christmas Day there were several bombings in Nigeria of at least three churches. These bombings are a sad commentary on the world where we live -- a world that is filled with violence. These bombs punctuated the worship of people, some of whom were just leaving church.

In a town near Abuja several families were entirely wiped out. While in Jos, where I lived for many years, another bomb exploded, but no one was killed. Another church in Damaturu, about five hours northeast of Jos, was also attacked. It is sad to think that so many people who only wanted to worship on Christmas morning have lost their lives through needless violence.

St. Theresa's Catholic Church near Abuja was the scene of the first bombing

Yet Christmas is the day that Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, who is the Prince of Peace that Isaiah had prophesied many centuries before. He lists many impressive titles, of which this is the final and perhaps greatest one. Peace on earth was the song of the angels who first announced the birth of Christ. Christ came into this world to bring peace: peace among all peoples and nations.

Violence is not something new today; on the contrary, it has been with us since the very beginnings of human history. We have become inured to violence, it seems. Violence sells newspapers and it dominates our TV screens. We witness multiple killings and beatings on news programs on a daily basis, and are fed murders and stabbings as entertainment, with only a brief warning beforehand that this may be offensive to some viewers. Many of the computer games that are so popular today involve violence,

Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for these bombings. This tiny militant group that has ties to Al-Qaeda has attacked police stations, banks and churches for many years. Since 2009, when its leader was captured and summarily executed, it has intensified its violence.

Boko Haram, whose name in Hausa means "Western education is forbidden or sinful," wants to implement a radical form of Islam in Nigeria. By settings off bombs, it is seeking to spark a war between Christians and Muslims, knowing that Christians are likely to retaliate. But its use of violence has increasingly alienated it from most Muslims, so now Muslims and Christians are on the same side.

Christians have not retaliated for a long time, unlike some occasions in the past. This peaceful response is due in part to the hard work that is being done by a number of peace organizations. Muslims and Christians are working side-by-side for peace. This is as it should be.

An attitude of active non-violence has produced amazing fruit for many years, as I experienced personally in the Philippines in 1986, with the "People's Revolution," where virtually no deaths were recorded. There have been many more examples since then, such as the collapse of the Soviet Union. Even the Arab Spring, in spite of some deaths, is part of this fruit.

The Nigerian government has used military force against Boko Haram, but that is doomed to failure. Peace cannot be ushered in at the point of a gun. Only negotiations will be able to accomplish that. The only weapons that Christians may rightfully use is the power of God.

As the following graph illustrates, the number of deaths world-wide has declined for many decades. There have been many wars, but the deaths have less numerous. There have been very few so far during the 21st century. But this does not mean that violence has ended.

Violence still installs fear in many people. Even though war has become increasingly rare, violence has not. There is violence everywhere, even in our homes, though it is not necessarily on the increase. In fact, nearly everywhere the crime rate is dropping, especially violent crime.

Sometimes governments seek to use that fear to gain political advantage. In Canada, a new bill in Parliament proposes building more prisons and implementing stiffer sentences. People should not live in terror, but this is not the way to do it. Such legislation does not bring about peace.

A friend in Nigeria, who wrote about these bombings, reminded me: “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12).

In his note he added: "The people who perpetuate these and other horrible atrocities around the world are as much victims as others—deceived by the one who is the liar and the father of liars. They are not to be hated but to be pitied and prayed for that God will open their blinded eyes to the truth."

Peace comes from knowing that our lives are in God's hands. Peace is God's gift to us, through the activity of the Holy Spirit. As Christ promised: "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid" (John 14:27).

Thus we should not let Boko Haram or other groups that use violence to achieve their goals of making us afraid. The US experienced such fear during 9/11, and the consequences are still with us today. The wars in Iran and Afghanistan are now officially ended, but peace has not yet come to that troubled region.

Peace is more than the absence of war. Thus military means will never be able to achieve peace, whether in Nigeria, Iran, Afghanistan, or any other part of the world. That will only be possible through the work of the Prince of Peace.

As this year quickly draws to a close, let us pray for peace throughout the world for the new year 2012. May each one of you experience that peace in your own life and that of your families.

The deification of dictators

2011-12-19T19:35:00.001-05:00

Kim Jong-il was a dictator. His death was unexpected, although he had a history of health problems, and was not announced until two days later. In the first reports that I heard, sorrowful cries could be discerned in the background.

Kim was 69, although there is some dispute about the year of his birth. It is expected that his youngest son, Kim Jong-un will succeed him. He has already been labeled the "Great Successor."

This mournful reaction was not surprising, since Kim Jong-il had been treated as a demigod immediately after taking over as supreme leader of North Korea upon the death of his father, Kim Il-sung, on 8 July 1994.

Kim Jong-il was revered. He was called the "Supreme Leader" in the constitution. He was also referred to as the "Dear Leader," "our Father," "the General" and "Generalissimo." The cult of personality that he inherited from his father involved their deification. It is claimed that through his moods he could control the weather, and that through his distinctive style of clothing he set world-wide fashion trends.

His cult, however, was probably attributable more to the respect that the nation had for his father and for fear of punishment than for any genuine hero worship, as government officials claim. They point to a song, "No Motherland Without You," that was specially created for him.

His photo, along with that of his father, who was revered even more, was omnipresent, also during elections. It is expected that after the funeral service on 28 December Kim Jong-il will be buried beside his father in the enormous palace that serves as a mausoleum.

My purpose in this posting is not to dwell too long on the details of the lives of Kim Jong-il or his father. Rather I want to reflect on how political leaders have been deified, especially during the 20th century.

Kim often appeared with other political leaders who enjoyed a cult of personality. Vladimir Putin is one example. While Putin's star is diminishing lately, for many years he projected a style of leadership that accented his machismo.

Putin, however, was never able to achieve the deification that some other Communist leaders have enjoyed, especially Mao Zedong and Joseph Stalin. The reason for this, as will become apparent in a moment, is the resurgence of organized religion, specifically the Russian Orthodox Church, since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The cult of personality in his case has not been as successful.

Chairman Mao, deified. Xinyi Temple, Shandong, China

Chairman Mao was treated as larger than life even before his death. The forged photo of him swimming the Yellow river is classic. After death he was deified, just as Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, and many others before him.

Lenin merited a mausoleum in Red Square, which I have visited several times. Unfortunately, his corpse encased in its glass coffin does not make him very god-like. In fact, it is rather pathetic. The debate about whether his body should be moved to St.Petersburg to lie beside that of his mother has still not been resolved. Maybe there is a bit of supposed deity left in the old man.

Stalin when he died in 1953 was briefly buried beside Lenin, but his body was moved to a grave in the wall of the Kremlin. But during his life he wanted to be deified. The propaganda machinery complied, although not everyone accepted his deification.

An elderly Jewish couple in Moscow, whom my wife and I knew very well, told us that on the day Stalin died they practiced in front of a mirror putting on a sad face rather than the joyful one they preferred, otherwise they would have been arrested. They were not the only ones who were happy that day.

George Orwell, in Animal Farm, satirizes Stalin's deification in his description of "our Leader, Comrade Napoleon." In the officially atheistic state, the leader replaced Czar and Patriarch. Huge portraits of Stalin were hung on walls and banners throughout the Soviet Union, much like those for Lenin before him, and after him for Mao in China.

In Animal Farm, Moses, who represents religion, is driven out, just as Stalin had done. Stalin promoted atheism. Like Lenin, he regarded religion as the opiate of the people. In 1939, he could have abolished the Russian Orthodox Church, when only four bishops were left. But he relented, and later in order to get ROC support for the war effort he made an agreement that spared it and led to its official recognition of the government.

Why do dictators want to be deified? They realize that people need to worship something or someone. When an official religion is oppressed or even abolished, a substitute is needed. Nature abhors a vacuum and so does religion. God created human beings to be religious. We are thus inherently religious.

Not everyone will agree with the positive role that I assign to religion. It assumes a much wider definition than is often used. For me, religion is as wide as all of life. This will resonate with many Africans and Asians. Religion is not restricted to only the organized forms thereof but it also includes the motivation for everything we do. Sometimes we may not be aware of our motivation, yet it functions as part of our world view and can thus be described as religious. Even secularism is a religion.

When political leaders want to be deified, that process of deification can proceed much faster if organized religion is weak or non-functioning. Our innate religious nature makes us search for something to worship. As Augustine expressed, "Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee [God]."

Dictators may try to drive out our religion, but their efforts are less successful when organized religion is strong and even stronger when that is matched with an awareness of the extensive nature of religion. Then we are most sensitive to these efforts to displace the true God with false gods.

Deification is idolatry and needs to be exposed as such. But only those who worship the true God will be fully conscious of the pernicious nature of idolatry and will be able to expose it.

Kin Il-sung, the father of Kim Jong-il, was raised in a Presbyterian home. This makes the idolatrous nature of deification that much more evil. He turned against the true God and put an idol, himself, in God's place. That sin has carried over to the next generation, and future generations as well, if the past is any indication.

Tertullian (AD 150-220), the North African theologian and philosopher, described idolatry as the chief sin from which all other sins stem. This is how serious he regarded idolatry. So should we.

That is why we must always be ready to expose and condemn deification, whether intended by politicians or others. As Christians we must not tolerate it, even in distant countries like North Korea. The sins of the Kim's, both father and son, extend far beyond starving their own people and other heinous crimes. They have committed idolatry and for that they stand condemned.

I am not so naive as to think that accusing the Kims of idolatry is enough to stop this practice in North Korea, now that the third generation of that family has been appointed as successor. I am only doing this to indicate the source of the enormous crimes this family has committed over the years. By exposing the source, we are much better prepared to understand their behavior and the awful consequences that resulted.

Was the Durban climate change conference a success?

2011-12-13T15:53:00.002-05:00

The Durban climate change conference is finally over. A 36-hour marathon extension was necessary before an agreement was hammered out and signed by the 194 nations that attended this conference, which is properly called the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 7th Session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties (CMP7) to the Kyoto Protocol. This is a mouthful, which I prefer to label instead as the Durban conference.

It was originally scheduled to meet 28 November-9 December 2011, but by the final days it became clear that an extension would be required; otherwise there would have been no result at all.
The Durham agreement, however, is less than it seems on the surface. It is actually an agreement to make an agreement by 2015. It is too little too late to help deal effectively with climate change.
Durban was not the success that many delegates tout it to be. Environmentalists are very disappointed.
This agreement will probably not be sufficient to prevent a global temperature rise of more than 2°C, and might easily allow a 4°C rise. Yet the deal was as much as could have been expected from Durban.

Applause greeted the finalization of the agreement

The deal renews the Kyoto Protocol, the fraying 1997 emissions agreement that sets different terms for advanced and developing countries, for several more years. But it also begins a process for replacing the Kyoto agreement with something that treats all countries, including the economic powerhouses China, India and Brazil, equally.
The delegates also agreed on the creation of a fund to help poor countries adapt to climate change, although the precise sources of the money have yet to be determined. The fund will also enable these countries to take pay for the preservation of tropical forests and the development of clean-energy technology.

The reserve, called the Green Climate Fund, would help mobilize a promised $100 billion a year in public and private financing by 2020 to assist developing countries in adapting to climate change and converting to clean energy sources.

Further details are available in your daily newspaper, so I will not elaborate, except to raise some questions about the supposed success of the conference.
Many nations left the conference feeling that they had won, but the real losers are the developing nations who have contributed very little to global warming in the past, but are now being asked to help fight climate change.
The Green Climate Fund, even if all the promised money were forthcoming, would still not be enough to defray the costs to these largely poor countries. According to this agreement. China and India will be treated equally with the more developed countries. They now contribute to climate change in a major way, but claim they are not yet ready to bear the burden. Thus they got an exemption until 2020.

Skepticism about climate change continues, especially in the US

The US played a quiet role at Durban, which is understandable in the run-up to next year's elections. For the US it was thus a good meeting. President Barack Obama could only lose through having his delegation in the public eye. Give too much away, and the president would be pilloried for being soft, especially if the parties being favored included China.
But to stand out against a tide of other countries trying to move forward on climate change, as happened at the UN meeting in Bali four years ago, Obama would have risked alienating more of the supporters, who reportedly are already too disillusioned to bother volunteering for his campaign this time round.
The "quiet man" tactics worked perfectly. Canada took most of the heat early on. After the ministers arrived, the US was barely visible, and if anyone appeared "hard-line," it was India and China.

Canada, instead, got much of the blame, and deservedly so. Because of the Alberta tar sands, it has much to lose if it were to try to meet the commitments that it made in Kyoto.

According to some critics, the expectations of what the Durban talks would achieve were already low, but what was achieved was even less. Canada contributed to this by its irrelevance.

The critics said that Peter Kent, the Canadian Minister of the Environment, played little role in the talks. He did not take the floor in the final session, and he was not a member of the select group of ministers who did the final preparatory work on Saturday. Instead, in the last day of meetings, he was seen repeatedly in discussions with US negotiators.
“It shows that Canada has become irrelevant on the international scene,” said Canadian environmentalist Steven Guilbeault. “We’re not a player any more. The US is the only country we’re talking to and listening to.”
Mr. Kent said he “didn’t want to be a distraction” by speaking publicly in the final session. The Canadian negotiators were “deeply involved” in many key issues at the Durban talks, and were talking to many countries, he explained.

Thus Canada rightly deserves a large share of the blame for the lack of success of the Durban conference.

Canada did not help its cause by its decision the day after the conference to withdraw from the Kyoto protocol, which Mr. Kent announced as soon as his plane arrived back in Ottawa.

The decision to do so will save the government an estimated $14 billion in penalties, Kent said. The Conservative government says it has no choice given the economic situation. "Kyoto for Canada is in the past. As such, we are invoking our legal right to formally withdraw," Kent explained.

The Kyoto Protocol, which expires next year, committed major industrial economies to reducing their annual CO2 emissions to below 1990 levels, while providing financial supports to developing nations to encourage them to follow suit eventually. Canada ratified the accord in 1997 but was not on track to meet its legally binding targets.

The reaction of many countries to Canada's decision was overwhelmingly negative, with the notable exception of Australia, another resource-rich country, which had already argued at Durban that it would not be part of a second commitment period under Kyoto until a broader agreement was reached covering all major emitters including both developed and developing countries.

Durban confirms in the minds of many people in the world that most nations are only interested in pursuing their own narrow interests on the world stage, rather than help to save the planet.

These nations are doing everything they can to avoid telling the truth about the sad state of the world which we share. Their actions therefore deserve the label that I am assigning to it: "Climate Gate."

Thus it is incumbent upon us to speak the truth in love and denounce these lies and distortions. The Durban conference was not the success that many nations tout it to be. Seen from the perspective of our suffering globe, it was a failure. Durban, I repeat, is too little to late.

Another conference is sorely needed to help rescue our planet.

The great cover-up, aka "Climate Gate"

Elections in Russia

2011-12-06T15:03:00.001-05:00

Elections in Russia are not noted for being democratic, in spite of attempts by propagandists to argue the contrary. The elections for the State Duma (Gosudarstvennaja Duma), held on December 4, prove this once again. The Duma has 450 members, elected for five-year terms.
The presidential election will be held on March 4, 2012, when it is expected that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will be elected president again, after being out of office for four years. This time he is eligible for two six-year terms.
These were the percentage results for each party when they first became available the next day:

United Russia, the party of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev, obtained 238 seats in the 450-seat Duma, down sharply from the 315 seats it won in the last polls in 2007. United Russia only managed to win 49.35 per cent of the vote, down sharply from over 64 per cent in the previous election.
Its biggest opposition will be the Communist Party with 92 seats. It was followed by the A Just Russia party with 64 seats and the ultra-nationalist Liberal Democratic Party with 56 mandates. Turnout was just over 60 per cent.
A more detailed breakdown of the election results is as follows:

**Summary of the 4 December 2011 State Duma election results**
Parties and alliances	Seat composition			Popular vote	%	± pp swing
Parties and alliances	Seats	±	%	Popular vote	%	± pp swing
United Russia	238	77	52.88%	32,331,244	49.29%	15.01%
Communist Party	92	35	20.46%	12,594,232	19.20%	7.63%
A Just Russia	64	26	14.21%	8,689,147	13.25%	5.51%
Liberal Democratic Party	56	16	12.45%	7,659,657	11.68%	3.54%
Yabloko	0	0	0%	2,249,990	3.43%	1.84%
Patriots of Russia	0	0	0%	638,735	0.97%	0.08%
Right Cause	0	0	0%	392,507	0.60%	new party
Total	450	0	100%
Valid ballot papers
Invalid ballot papers
Voter turnout					60.20%
Sources Preliminary outcome of the State Duma elections (6 December 2011) Central Election Commission

The opposition claimed the results would have been even more dramatic in clean elections. They argue that the Kremlin controls the entire electoral structure. Moreover, they charge that the Duma is a tool of the executive.
The country’s only independent elections watchdog, Golos, which means "vote" or "voice" in Russian, has come under an unprecedented attack from a Kremlin that fears losing its grip on power and was, once again, overreacting.
On Friday night, the state-controlled NTV television channel aired a blistering report that depicted Golos as a US-funded group whose chief mission is to discredit and destabilize Russia.
Golos, which openly accepts funding from USAID and the European Union, has not done anything remarkable this election cycle. As during previous elections, it has compiled reports of violations of election law--which topped 7,000 by Sunday--and dispatched scores of grassroots observers to polling stations across the country.
When I lived in Russia during the nineties, NTV was noted for its independence, which is what its name means, until the Kremlin took it over several years ago to join the other government-controlled channels.

Critics say the picture of a functioning multi-party democracy that the governing party has projected does not match the reality. Real opposition, they say, does not exist, claiming that Putin's notion of a "managed democracy" has also extended to "managing" the opposition.
These critics charge that the opposition has been tamed by the Kremlin and it is only allowed to exist with its approval. They call the parliamentary parties in the Duma the "systemic opposition" or part of the system created by Putin. So they call themselves, the "non-systemic" or "the real opposition" in Russia.

The slogan of the Communist Party was "It is time to change power"

These critical voices include Boris Nemtsov, a former Russian prime minister and a co-leader of the Party of People's Freedom. In June this year, Russian election officials rejected the party's registration documents, effectively barring it from contesting the poll.

All the parties that are allowed to participate in these elections are not independent, writes Nemtsov in his blog.
His fellow opposition leader, former world chess champion Garry Kasparov, agrees: "All these parties are 100 per cent under Kremlin control. We know these people, they are not newcomers, they have been around for 20 years. It is clear they are no longer in the position to challenge the Kremlin. Voting for them is to vote for puppets in this theatre of the absurd."
Mikhail Gorbachev has now added his potent voice to the growing protest against this election. Because of the extensive fraud, he is calling for a new election.
Amid growing international alarm, Gorbachev said the results of Sunday's poll should be invalidated and new elections held due to "numerous falsifications and rigging."
"The results do not reflect the will of the people," stated Gorbachev, who was president when the Soviet Union collapsed two decades ago.
"Therefore I think they (Russia's leaders) can only take one decision--annul the results of the election and hold new ones."

This anti-United Russia poster says, "Definitely come and cast your vote, and vote for any party except United Russia," which it describes "as the party of swindlers and thieves"

But Nemtsov and others say the strategy exemplified in this poster is naïve, and the only way to protest against Putin's United Russia is by spoiling ballot papers and actually putting a cross in boxes next to the titles of all seven parties.

"To vote for any party--those who will get into the Duma and those who won't-- is to give legitimacy to the disgusting farce that these elections have become," writes Nemtsov.

And as if to support these assertions, just three days before the vote, a high-ranking election official told the English-language daily The Moscow Times that United Russia had struck a deal under which the other three parliamentary parties (the Communists, the LDPR, and A Just Russia) are "pretending to play the opposition" in exchange for guarantees that they will secure seats in the next Duma.

"They want to preserve the status quo," this official added. "And to achieve that they have agreed to play the roles the Kremlin has given them in this farce." The offical asked for anonymity for fear of reprisal.

Nemtsov has even created a group, with other fellow opposition-minded liberals, that have even come up with a series of online cartoons, dubbed "Common Adverntures of the Piglet Nah-Nah in Putin's Russia".

One shows the piglet who goes to a polling station and sees Putin's face everywhere, even on the ballot paper. Engraged, the piglet puts a cross in all boxes next to all parties. "Put a cross on the crooks in power," urges a voice at the end of the clip. "Vote against all! Vote for Russia!"

Another shows the piglet trying to get on a merry-go-round--with faces of the same Russian politicans, leaders of parliamentary parties, who simply change places as Putin sits atop the fairground ride.

This sign can be translated as "I am for Russia without Putin"

The Russian opposition are not the only ones to charge electoral fraud.

The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), said that this election was not fair, but it refrained from blaming any party. OSCE monitors explained that the polls were slanted in favour of United Russia and marred by "frequent procedural violations" including ballot stuffing.

Several thousand people took to the streets of central Moscow for several days to protest against alleged fraud and voting irregularities after Vladimir Putin's United Russia retained power, albeit with a greatly reduced share of the vote.

The growing disillusionment of Russians with United Russia is concentrated among the country's intellectual elites, young professionals, urbanites and internet users. Their grievances vary from the stifling of freedoms to Putin's growing authoritarianism and the calcification of Russia's political life.

"Our votes have been stolen long time ago," writes Garry Kasparov. "They've been stolen together with our freedom of choice and with our right to express a point of view that is different from the one promoted by the official media."

But a growing majority of Russians say they are unhappy with the ruling party because it has failed to lift their standard of living, despite years of high oil and gas prices, over which Putin presided.

"Our pensions are still low and our roads are still bad," says one Moscow resident.

"The party of power could have done so much more in the ten years it's been in power," says another.

Low salaries, small pensions, soaring inflation, a crumbling infrastructure and unreliable healthcare are the main points of dissatisfaction for most Russians.

As a result, Putin's popularity has plummeted. His approval rating is 61 per cent, his lowest rating since August 2000, when he was dogged by the sinking of the Kursk submarine, which killed all 118 crewmen aboard.

Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin

One way that Putin may be able to survive is by fixing the blame for this election fiasco squarely on Medvedev, who headed the party list for United Russia. Since Putin and Medvedev have agreed to trade jobs again in March, the loss of Medvedev conveniently removes him as a rival to Putin. Of course, this is just a guess on my part.

For the record, I should disclose that I did not forecast Putin's meteoric rise to power in 1999. In my discussions with my political science students in the Faculty of Philosophy at Moscow State University at the time, Putin's name never came up. We did discuss many other potential candidates for the presidency.

No one forecast his rise, to the best of my knowledge, in the year or two before it happened.

In the recent election, United Russia resorted to many administrative tactics to win. Whether they will be able to win in March does not seem in doubt as long as Putin has control of the levers of power in the Kremlin.

Putin is a strong leader. Precisely the sort of man Russians are fond of. A man in the mold of Stalin, the man of steel, who ruled Russia with in iron fist for many decades. Time will tell.

Stopping corruption

2011-12-03T15:59:00.001-05:00

I was shocked the other day to read that Canada had slipped from sixth place to tenth place on Transparency International’s 2011 Corruption Perceptions Index. Many people assume that their own country does not suffer from corruption the way so many countries do.
I have taught in many countries in the world, and in my experience each new country where I have lived for long periods of time was even more corrupt than the previous ones. Was Canada now to join their ranks?
Not yet. Transparency International still considers Canada to be among the least corrupt nations in the world.
The corruption index scores 183 countries and territories from 0 (highly corrupt) to 10 (very clean) based on perceived levels of public-sector corruption. It uses data from 17 surveys that look at factors such as enforcement of anti-corruption laws, access to information and conflicts of interest.
While two-thirds of ranked countries scored less than 5, New Zealand ranked first, followed by Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Singapore, Norway, Netherlands, Australia, Switzerland and then Canada. Last year Canada ranked sixth with a score of 8.9 compared to this year’s 8.7.
If one examines earlier reports, Canada's score is now the same that it was for several years previously. Last year's score was among the highest that Canada has received; only in 2003 was it higher (9.0).
In the past year several cases of corruption in Canada were revealed, including the case of Calgary oil and gas company, Niko Resources, paying nearly $9.5 million in fines and penalties after admitting in court that it had bribed a Bangladeshi government minister.
In addition to the Niko case, there has been new information about corruption in Canada: an inquiry into former prime minister Brian Mulroney’s business dealings with lobbyist Karlheinz Schreiber, as well as the RCMP investigations of a number of companies, many of which the public knows nothing about.
But there have been no prosecutions for international corruption in Canada up until this past year for all intents and purposes. Thus it is significant that Canada did not slip any further in the new rankings.
The 2011 rankings can be read here. The page is too long and detailed to publish on this post.

The 2010 report showing the degree of corruption around the globe

In philosophical, theological, or moral discussions, corruption is a form of spiritual or moral impurity or deviation from an ideal. In economics, corruption is payment for services or material which the recipient is not due, under law. This may be called bribery, kickback, or, in the Middle East, baksheesh.

The word ‘corrupt’ has Latin origins. When used as an adjective, it means "utterly broken." Corruption occurs when people abuse a position of power, whether as a policeman, a politician or a businessman.
Forms of corruption vary, but include bribery, extortion, cronyism, nepotism, patronage, graft, embezzlement, and electoral fraud. Worldwide, bribery alone is estimated to involve over 1 trillion US dollars annually.
In the US alone, corruption costs more than 100 billion dollars . This money could be put to much better use as, for example, for education or housing. Through predatory lending, consumers end up taking out loans that they cannot afford, have deceptive or unclear terms in them, or which cost more than necessary and may ultimately lead to the loss of their homes.
Governments are often complicit in corruption by not properly regulating these practices. As I mentioned in a recent post, the 1% control who control the government use this power to line their own pockets, while the 99% suffer. The rich get richer at enormous cost to the poor.

For this reason, governments can no longer occupy the moral high ground in the fight against corruption, even when they are forced to do something. At the risk of sounding anti-American, the US is probably the worst offender in this regard, since it controls so many international institutions.

The Bible does not use the word corruption, but it roundly condemns bribery, extortion, nepotism and many other form of injustice. They are all form of stealing; they are sins.
Contemporary society tries to whitewash these sins, however. The greedy people of this world, who thrive in a corrupt atmosphere, are only too glad to receive absolution, so that they can continue with their nefarious deeds unimpeded.
Unfortunately for them, but fortunately for everyone else, much of the world is waking up to the consequences of corruption. Many countries have organized campaigns against corruption. India is just one example. Corruption carries enormous costs for everyone.
This Chinese poster, even if one cannot read it, cleverly illustrates the benefits of fighting corruption.

Corruption prevails wherever there is money involves, especially large sums of money, as in sports, for example.
Attempts to clean up the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (International Federation of Association Football), commonly known by the acronym FIFA, have largely been window dressing, intended to achieve the recent reelection of Joseph Blatter as the head of the federation.

The judiciary in many countries is suspect when it comes to corruption. In many countries where I have worked, it was common knowledge that the winner in any judicial dispute was the person who paid the judge the most. Justice is for sale, which is something the Bible also condemns.

Corruption is rampant in many developing countries. In countries like Nigeria, the rent from natural resources such as oil ends up in private pockets rather than government coffers. Sometimes, unfortunately, they are the same. Moreover, corruption can destroy any progress that reforms make.

Most people in the world realize that corruption is wrong. They can see it destroy their families and their communities. But these people feel powerless.

They need the help of people in the developed world, where corruption also exists, but is minimal in comparison. They need the moral support of all those who realize that corruption is wrong and are willing to fight in order to stop it.

But corruption is difficult to eradicate. Surrounding it, and defending it, is a culture of corruption. This culture can take different forms.

In Nigeria, for example, people expect politicians to bring financial benefits to the communities that elected them. A politician who does not do that is a poor politician, in both senses of the word.

Government officials who do want to behave honestly are either posted to some remote hamlet where they can no longer upset the apple cart of their greedy superiors, or they are eliminated permanently.

Corruption is practiced by every level of society. Nigeria is noted for its infamous "nail boys," who stop vehicles on the road and extort money for contrived offences. The best way to avoid them is to drive on Sundays, when these boys are in church.

These boys, as well as all the corrupt people in Nigeria, do not realize the disconnect between their faith on Sunday and their behavior the rest of the week.

In the universities there it is well known that officials often use their positions to enrich themselves, while the rest of the country winks at their malfeasance.

Business is conducted in the same unethical way. One cannot succeed without such nefarious practices, it is claimed. Those who do want to remain honest are victimized until they too give in.

Corrupt and unethical companies, universities, and individuals thrive in the darkness of public ignorance and apathy.

What people in developing countries can do is first of all take back the power in their own country, and educate themselves with information on how corruption can be exposed, and excised.

Then they can help those in other countries to do the same. No man is an island; we live in communities, also as nations. We must help each other; otherwise corruption is never going to stop.

I will conclude with a selection of quotations about corruption. I could add many more, but these should help to motivate us, I hope.

Corruption has its own motivations, and one has to thoroughly study that phenomenon and eliminate the foundations that allow corruption to exist. Eduard Shevardnadze

Corruption is like a ball of snow, once it's set a rolling it must increase. Charles Caleb Colton

Corruption is nature's way of restoring our faith in democracy. Peter Ustinov

Corruption is worse than prostitution. The latter might endanger the morals of an individual, the former invariably endangers the morals of the entire country. Karl Kraus

Corruption never has been compulsory. Anthony Eden

Corruption, the greatest single bane of our society today. Olusegun Obasanjo

Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty. Edward Gibbon

Stopping elder abuse

2011-11-28T17:30:00.000-05:00

Elder abuse is very common, but it is under reported. Just like sexual harassment, which I dealt with last week, it needs to stop. This is why I want to raise this issue in my blog today.
One of the more commonly accepted definitions of elder abuse is "a single, or repeated act, or lack of appropriate action, occurring within any relationship where there is an expectation of trust, which causes harm or distress to an older person. This definition was adopted by the World Health Organization.
Anyone who is 65 or older can become a victim of elder abuse. Since I have already passed that threshold, this topic is of immediate concern to me.
In addition, my mother, aged 91, is in a nursing home, where she receives good care, in spite of her complaints that the staff do not come quickly enough when she calls for them.
But some nursing homes, unfortunately, do practice abuse, as many reports on elder abuse indicate. For example, see http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d02312.pdf in the US. And, similarly, in Canada, see http://elder-abuse-spotlight.blogspot.com/2011/11/nursing-home-residents-abused-canada.html. It also occurs in many other countries.

Elder abuse should concern everyone, since abuse happens in every society, even those where the elderly are valued more than in Western ones.
In my research for this post I read about a grandmother in India whose family put her out with the garbage. It seems that the new demands made on families in India made it difficult for her family to continue to support her, in spite of the traditional respect accorded the elderly in that society.
Education is an important step in dealing with elder abuse. Thus through this post I want to add my small voice to those who want to stop it.
The WHO definition focuses on harm that occurs where there is an "expectation of trust" of the older person toward their abuser. Thus, it includes any harm done by people the older person knows or with whom they have a relationship, such as a spouse, partner or family member, a friend or neighbor, or people that the older person relies on for services.
The following graph illustrates who the most likely perpetrators are.

There are many different types of elder abuse:

Physical elder abuse is non-accidental use of force against an elderly person that results in physical pain, injury, or impairment. Such abuse includes not only physical assaults such as hitting or shoving but the inappropriate use of drugs, restraints, or confinement.
Emotional or psychological senior abuse occurs when people speak to or treat elderly persons in ways that cause emotional pain or distress. Verbal forms of emotional elder abuse include intimidation through yelling or threats, humiliation and ridicule, or habitual blaming or scapegoating. Nonverbal psychological elder abuse can take the form of ignoring the elderly person, isolating an elder from friends or activities, or terrorizing or menacing the elderly person.
Sexual elder abuse is contact with an elderly person without the elder’s consent. Such contact can involve physical sex acts, but activities such as showing an elderly person pornographic material, forcing the person to watch sex acts, or forcing the elder to undress are also considered sexual elder abuse.
Elder neglect, failure to fulfill a caretaking obligation, constitutes more than half of all reported cases of elder abuse. It can be active (intentional) or passive (unintentional, based on factors such as ignorance or denial that an elderly charge needs as much care as he or she does).
Financial exploitation involves unauthorized use of an elderly person’s funds or property, either by a caregiver or an outside scam artist. An unscrupulous caregiver might misuse an elder’s personal checks, credit cards, or accounts; steal cash, income checks, or household goods; forge the elder’s signature or engage in identity theft. Typical rackets that target elders include announcements of a “prize” that the elderly person has won but must pay money to claim, phony charities, or investment fraud.
Other types of abuse may involve healthcare fraud perpetrated by unethical doctors, nurses, hospital personnel, and other professional care providers. Examples of healthcare fraud and abuse regarding elders include not providing proper healthcare, but charging extra for it or double-billing for medical care or services; getting kickbacks for referrals to other providers or for prescribing certain drugs; overmedicating or undermedicating; or recommending fraudulent remedies for illnesses or other medical conditions.

Although slightly dated, the next chart uses somewhat different categories to map out the incidence of domestic abuse.

It is widely acknowledged that many non-professional caregivers--spouses, adult children, other relatives and friends--find taking care of an elderly person to be satisfying and enriching. But the responsibilities and demands of elder caregiving, which escalate as the elder’s condition deteriorates, can also be extremely stressful. The stress of elder care can lead to mental and physical health problems that make caregivers burned out, impatient, and unable to keep from lashing out against elders in their care.
Among caregivers, significant risk factors for elder abuse are an inability to cope with stress, depression, a lack of support from other potential caregivers, the caregiver’s perception that taking care of the elder is burdensome and without psychological reward, or even substance abuse.
Even caregivers in institutional settings can experience stress at levels that lead to elder abuse. Nursing home staff may be prone to elder abuse if they lack training, have too many responsibilities, are unsuited to caregiving, or work under poor conditions.

In the US, the 500,000 to 1,000,000 reports of elder abuse recorded by authorities every year (the vast majority of which are proven to be true) are only the tip of the iceberg. According to data from different states, for every case of elder abuse reported, another 12 or 13 are not.

Accordingly there’s a great need for people to report suspected abuse. This is an important step in stopping elder abuse. All of us can help reduce the incidence of elder abuse.
We can begin preventing elder abuse by listening to seniors and their caregivers, intervening when elder is suspected, and educating others about how to recognize and report elder abuse.

One type of elder abuse is easily overlooked but is the most severe of all: doctor assisted suicide. While its proponents argue that elderly and other incapacitated or severely ill people should be allowed to end their own lives, the danger that assisted suicide can be used by caregivers and others to remove the burden posed the elderly or make it possible for those who want to gain their inheritance sooner is only too real.

Euthanasia is a huge topic that I hope to tackle soon, but I did want to mention it now in the context of elder abuse. In a truly caring society, we must be cautious in not permitting some of the weakest members to be potentially victimized in this way.

I will conclude with a poem penned by an old woman in Scotland who is known only as "Anonymous."

What do you see, people, what do you see?

What are you thinking, when you look at me?
A crabby old woman, not very wise.
Uncertain of habit, with far-away eyes,
Who dribbles her food and makes no reply.
When you say in a loud voice, "I do wish you'd try!"
Who seems not to notice the things that you do.
And forever is losing a stocking or shoe.
Who, unresisting or not, lets you do as you will.
With bathing and feeding, the long day to fill.
Is that what you're thinking, is that what you see?
Then open your eyes--you're not looking at me.

I'll tell you who I am as I sit here so still!
As I rise at your bidding, as I eat at your will.
I'm a small child of 10 with a father and mother,
Brothers and sisters, who loved one another.
A young girl of 16 with wings on her feet,
dreaming that soon now a lover she'll meet.
A bride soon at 20 -- my heart gives a leap,
Remembering the vows that I promised to keep.

At 25 now I have young of my own
Who need me to build a secure, happy home.
A woman of 30, my young now grow fast,
Bound to each other with ties that should last.
At 40, my young sons have grown and are gone,
But my man's beside me to see I don't mourn.
At 50, once more babies play around my knee,
Again we know children, my loved one and me.
Dark days are upon me, my husband is dead,
I look at the future, I shudder with dread.
For my young are all rearing young of their own.
And I think of the years and the love that I've known.
I'm an old woman now and nature is cruel,
'Tis her jest to make old age look like a fool.

The body is crumbled, grace and vigor depart.
There is now a stone where I once had a heart.
But inside this old carcass a young girl still dwells,
And now and again my battered heart swells.
I remember the joy, I remember the pain,
And I'm loving and living life over again.
I think of the years--all too few, gone too fast--
And accept the stark fact that nothing can last.
So open your eyes, people, open and see,
Not a crabby old woman--LOOK CLOSER, SEE ME!

These are the people who need our care. They are the reason why we must help stop elder abuse. They need a helping hand: our hand.

Stopping sexual harassment

2011-11-18T15:47:00.007-05:00

Sexual harassment must stop, whether at school, in the workplace, or wherever else it may occur. It is chronic today, if our newspaper headlines are an accurate indication.
It happens in every country of the world, every society, and among all classes of people. No one is entirely immune, whether as perpetrator or victim.
For many years sexual harassment was largely ignored, but now more and more victims are coming forward and accusing perpetrators of of long-ago deeds. Increasingly harassment is no longer acceptable.
This is a healthy development, but it is not enough. Sexual harassment has to stop, and each of us must do what we can to stop it.
But we first must answer this question: What constitutes sexual harassment?

Although not everyone agrees on what sexual harassment includes, I find the explanation of the Ontario Human Rights Code helpful.
It defines sexual harassment as “engaging in a course of vexatious comment or conduct that is known or ought to be known to be unwelcome.” In some cases, one incident can be serious enough to be sexual harassment.

And it explains that sexual harassment can include any of the following:

asking for sex in exchange for something, like offering to improve a test score, offering a raise or promotion at work, or withholding something like needed repairs to your apartment
asking for dates and not taking “no” for an answer
demanding hugs
making unnecessary physical contact, including unwanted touching
using rude or insulting language or making comments that stereotype girls, women, boys or men
calling people unkind names that relate to their sex or gender
making comments about a person’s physical appearance (for example, whether or not they are attractive)
saying or doing something because you think a person does not fit sex-role stereotypes
posting or sharing pornography, sexual pictures, cartoons, graffiti or other sexual images (including online)
making sexual jokes
bragging about sexual ability
bullying based on sex or gender
spreading sexual rumors or gossip (including online).

The code adds that sexual harassment does not have to be sexual. It can also mean that someone is bothering you because they think that you do not act, look or dress in the way that a man (or boy) or woman (or girl) should. And people may also harass you because you are LGBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender).

Sexual harassment can also be more subtle: for example, an employer who talks to an employee by discussing her physical appearance, saying things like “Oh, don’t you look pretty today." This often stems from sexism and is highly inappropriate.

Sexual advances or comments often come from people in authority: for example, a teacher, using a false name, who harasses a student though email by describing what she had been wearing that day, what route she took to school, and making sexual suggestions.
Another example is a supervising police officer who makes sexual advances towards a younger female member of the force.
This is what made the news recently in Canada when a former high-profile Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) spokeswoman says she suffered from years of sexual harassment on the job, which resulted in post-traumatic stress disorder.
I will briefly describe this case for the sake of those who may not yet have heard about it.

Cpl. Catherine Galliford was often the public face of the RCMP between 2001 and 2007. Galliford, who has been on sick leave for the past four years, said the sexual harassment took place during most of her 16-year career.
In a 115-page transcript, Galliford alleges that one supervisor told colleagues they were intimate, and he once exposed himself to her.
She also alleges that another supervisor took her on unnecessary trips on the pretext of sharing information with victims’ families. She said the trips were a ruse to get her out of town and attempt to have sex with her.
“[Some bosses] were using their position of authority to try to get in my pants,” Galliford said in an interview.“ I could not get away from harassment.”
She recounts how she was sexually harassed by an RCMP officer even before she entered the force. She alleges the officer told her he would prevent her from getting in if she did not have sex with him. So she did. “So, that was the start of my lovely career.”
The newly appointed commissioner of the RCMP, Bob Paulson, has initiated an investigation of allegations of sexual harassment in the RCMP, but its term of reference are limited to the last six years, and thus do not include the period when Galliford and some other women claim they were harassed.
The RCMP is a quasi-military police force that is notorious for its sexism and bullying, and more lately of ineptitude. Moreover, it is an "old boys club" that does brook dissent. Thus its sorely tarred reputation of late is not entirely undeserved.

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, who is responsible for the RCMP

In the US, everyone is probably aware by now that the political career of businessman Herman Cain ended very shortly after it began because of the accusations by several women that he sexually harassed them. Cain has denied these allegations; whether or not he did harass them, he is history.
He joins a long list of American politicians who have been accused of sexual harassment. Some, like President Bill Clinton, survived politically, but many did not.

Herman Cain

The American sports and entertainment worlds are rife with similar allegations of sexual harassment. Just think of Gerald Sandusky at Penn State. While Hollywood for decades has been synonymous with sex in all its permutations, including harassment.

Pedophilia is an especially obnoxious form of harassment. The Boy Scouts in Canada are now dealing with such allegations, with new revelations coming out almost daily, of scout leaders who misused their authority and trust.

Sexual harassment is almost endemic in our world. There are many examples: the so far unproven charges of rape by a Guinian woman against Dominique Strauss-Kahn have nevertheless effectively terminated his career as head of the IMF and dashed any hope of him becoming the president of France.
Harassment can also take the form of bullying, in schools and in many other settings. Thus a girl may start a rumor that another girl is sexually promiscuous and performs sex acts on boys behind the school. Or, a disgruntled employee may spread rumors about his female director, stating that she is having an affair with the company president and that she is only successful because she “slept her way to the top.”
Sexual harassment can take place not only between men and women but also between people of the same sex.
The key word in determining harassment is "unwelcome." Any activity that is unwelcome to someone else can be a form of sexual harassment: an off-color joke, for example, may be offensive to some people.
What can you and I can do? Educate ourselves, for one thing. Another is to become more empathetic by putting ourselves into the shoes of the other person: to imagine how he or she would feel.

There are some other things you and I can do:

If you or someone you know is being harassed, you can ask the person to stop and you can ask someone in authority to take steps to stop it from happening.
Employers, housing providers and educators and others who provide services have a legal duty to take steps to prevent and respond to sexual harassment and they must make sure that human rights are respected, even if no one has raised human rights issues.
Employers, housing providers, educators and others can protect human rights and prevent claims by: 1. putting procedures in place to deal with discrimination and harassment; 2. responding quickly to human rights issues as they come up and taking complaints seriously; 3. making resources available to deal with the issue/complaint; and 4. telling the person who complained the actions taken to deal with the issue.
If the harassment continues or is not being dealt with appropriately, you can file a human rights claim.
If you feel the harassing behavior is getting worse, or that your safety is threatened, you can contact the police.

You and I must put a stop to sexual harassment. Sometimes I feel ashamed to be a man, since men are most often accused of harassment. Yet, deep down, all of us must recognize that we are capable of harassment, and we may even have engaged in it, even if unintentionally.

Sexual harassment is a crime and it must stop. That is also our job.

Global warming is real

2011-11-15T11:00:00.011-05:00

Global warming is real, in spite of what many people believe, especially in the US. It is real and is already happening all over the world, even in your community.
Global warming refers to the rise in average temperatures of the Earth's oceans and atmosphere during the last 100 years, with two-thirds of that increase occurring during the last few decades, as the following table illustrates.

Thus the refusal of many people to accept the reality of global warning is puzzling. Why this denial? Even when these people do admit that global warming is happening, they deny human involvement. They offer a multitude of rationalizations, such as, "It's not bad" or "It's the sun" or "There is no consensus."
On the last claim, the US public appears to be unaware of the extent of scientific consensus regarding the issue. In fact, climate experts almost unanimously agree that humans are causing global warming.
That humans are causing global warming is the position of the Academies of Science from 19 countries plus many scientific organizations that study climate science. More specifically, around 95% of active climate researchers actively publishing climate papers endorse the consensus position.
The following chart notes the distribution of the number of researchers who are convinced by the evidence of human involvement in climate change and those who are unconvinced by the evidence by comparing the number of total publications on climate by each (Anderegg 2010).

To justify their continued denial, an overwhelming majority of Americans believe that scientists have falsified the evidence for global warming, as the next graph shows. Is this the result of willful ignorance or are these people being swayed by the popular media?

People in other countries also have difficulties accepting global warning. A September 2011 Angus Reid Public Opinion poll found that Britons (43%) are even ess likely than Americans (49%) or Canadians (52%) to say that "global warming is a fact and is mostly caused by emissions from vehicles and industrial facilities." The same poll found that 20% of Americans, 20% of Britons and 14% of Canadians think "global warming is a theory that has not yet been proven." It also discovered that global warming skepticism has been rising for many years.
The question remains: Why this denial?

An example of how deniers twist the truth about global warming

A Canadian Broadcasting Corporation documentary called "The Denial Machine" cites a 2006 British report which estimated that the projected costs of global warming could be as costly as both world wars and the Great Depression added together.
In spite of this enormous cost, which may well be understated, or maybe because of it, many people deny that global warming is happening. If nothing is done about global warming, there are indeed enormous cost involved.
But there are other costs which help to explain this denial as well. We should also ask the question: "Cui bono?" This legal principle questions who benefits, in this case from the denial of global warming.
"The Denial Machine" investigated the roots of the campaign to negate the science and the threat of global warming and it discovered that fossil fuel corporations kept the global warming debate alive long after most scientists believed that global warming was real and had potentially catastrophic consequences.
The program showed how companies such as Exxon Mobil are working with top public relations firms, which use many of the same tactics and personnel as those that were employed by the major tobacco companies to dispute the cigarette-cancer link in the 1990s.
Exxon Mobil sought out those who were willing to question the science behind climate change and provided funding for them, their organizations, and their studies.
"The Denial Machine" also explored how the arguments supported by the oil companies were adopted by policymakers in both Canada and the US and helped form government policy.

This is another example of the 1% at work. If global warning is a hoax, they will not be obligated to pay the cost.

The fact is that fighting global warning is going to hurt the bottom line of many more "dirty" corporations, not just oil companies. That cost will also be enormous, but weigh it against to cost of doing nothing.

The 1% always want to privatize profits, but they are only too eager to socialize costly debts. Hence, a campaign of fear and misdirection: according to them, global warning is a hoax.

"In the denial of global warming, we are witnessing the most vicious, and so far most successful, attack on science in history.” Those strong words are from James Lawrence Powell in his recent book The Inquisition of Climate Science. This book chronicles the campaign of denial which has resulted in the widespread failure of public understanding of climate science and the long delay in addressing what is now an urgent and pressing threat to the human future.

This book reveals that the US media have played a key role in aiding the denial industry. Right-wing outlets like Fox News and the Wall Street Journal make no bones about their plain espousal of denial, but media pillars, the Washington Post and the New York Times, are also guilty of complicity by their failure of understanding or their laziness or by a misguided attempt to be balanced.
Powell insists that there are no research findings that falsify global warming. The denial industry is built on discredited claims and ultimately can only resort to the ridiculous notion that a global community of thousands of scientists have joined a vast international conspiracy without precedent in human history – “a corrupt criminal enterprise to dwarf the Mafia”, to quote him.

The claim of falsification is absurd, Powell adds, yet it is openly entertained by prominent US politicians and voiced by eager propagandists.

Global warming is not a scientific theory, it’s a scientific fact. The time for debate has ended. People can still argue over tipping points and minutia -- like when the arctic will become ice-free during the summer months, or how much world sea levels will rise by 2050 -- but the core truth is as solid as the rock of Gibraltar. Global warming is a scientific fact. It is real. It is not a hoax.

Most Canadians, for example, believe that their country is getting warmer, but they seem to think the real problems are a century away, or that technology will solve the issue before it gets out of hand.
On the contrary! What we do in the next five years will determine the fate of humanity. If we fail to convince governments in North America to tackle climate change with the same steely resolve that we displayed during WW II, then we are putting the health of our bank accounts before the physical and emotional well being of our children and grandchildren.

There are many things that we can do, many of which cost very little and will even save you money. Do not let big corporations fool us into thinking that fighting global warming is prohibitively expensive. It may be costly for them, since they will somehow have to curb their carbon dioxide emissions as well as other chemicals that contribute to global warming.

Check this final chart and do what each of us can to help deal with global warming.

As a Christian, I believe that this world belongs to God. God made it, and he has appointed us stewards of it. He gave us the responsibility of taking care of the world, including the environment. Global warming is a reality, and thus we must do what we can to help deal with this problem. God has placed this world in our hands. Let us take good care of our world--it is the only one we have.

The ninety-nine per cent and poverty

2011-11-09T10:52:00.010-05:00

In many cities where the Occupy movement is protesting homeless people have joined the protest. They do that not because of the food and shelter that they receive, but because they more than the rest of the 99% are most aware of the enormous disparity in wealth between the super rich and the poor.
Many of the protesters are often comfortably well off, thus they can afford to skip school or work in order to protest. They can bring the amenities they need with them, including libraries.
The real poor in the world do not enjoy the luxury of protesting. If they do not work for a day, they and their families will starve.
I define poverty as an absence of choice. As long as you can decide whether to do A or B, you have a choice. Many people in the world live in absolute poverty: they have no choice whatsoever.
Absolute poverty refers to a set standard which is consistent over time and between countries. The World Bank defines absolute poverty as living on less than US $1.25 per day. This is determined not by the exchange rate with the US dollar, but by purchasing power parity--how much local currency is needed to buy the same things that this amount could buy in the US.
The following chart maps the percentage of people in various countries that live on only $1 per day.

Many regions of the world have insufficient food, but some have experienced setbacks and thus more people did not receive even $1 per day in both 1990 and 2001, as the next tables show.

There is also relative poverty, which views poverty as socially defined and dependent on the social context, hence relative poverty is a measure of income inequality. Usually, relative poverty is measured as the percentage of population with income less than some fixed proportion of median income.
Sometimes a specific figure is used: everyone whose income lies below that figure is considered poor. This figure is then the poverty line.
The next table illustrates the levels of poverty in the world, using different poverty lines.

According to the US Census Bureau, in October 49.1 million Americans or 16% of the population live below the poverty line of about $24,000 per annum for a family or S5,500 for an individual.
This is a sizable increase from the previous month, but a revised and more accurate measure was used in October. Another indicator of the level of poverty is that 15% of Americans now receive food stamps.

From the previous tables it is readily apparent that much of the world's population would be happy to receive $2,000 per month. This shows how relative poverty can be.
This does not diminish in any way the terrible nature of poverty in the US. Millions are suffering every day, especially Hispanics and Afro-Americans. The US is a very expensive country in which to live. But it is criminal that so many Americans have to suffer in this way.
The cause of the Occupy movement is legitimate. The disparity between the rich and the poor in the US is higher than in most of the developed world. All countries have disparities.
One way to measure this disparity is the Gini coefficient, which is a measure of the inequality of a distribution, a value of 0 expressing total equality and a value of 1 maximal inequality. The Gini coefficient does have some weaknesses, but it is nevertheless useful and offers a simple comparison between countries, as the following chart illustrates.

In particular, the growing disparity between the 1% and the rest of the population, as well as the inordinate influence of that 1%, is what motivates the Occupy movement. The middle class is shrinking in the US. Canada and most European nations are more egalitarian than the US, with Sweden the most egalitarian of all.
But the 99% are not equal either. There is also a wide disparity both within the middle class and between them and the steadily growing under class that lives in poverty. All have made a common cause in the protests that have now spread over much of the world, but the gap between them is enormous.
It is thus simplistic to lump all the 99% together. They all suffer at the hands of the 1%, but in their suffering they are not equal.
This inequality is even greater when the 99% in North America and Europe are compared with those in Africa and Asia. The Occupy movement has not yet reached the shores of those continents, at least not in the form of massive protests as in the richer countries.
The inequality is greater there than anywhere else in the world, but few Africans or Asians can afford the luxury of joining the protests. Increasingly voices are being raised of prominent individuals who signal the inequality of their societies, but there are not yet any massive protests.
In Africa, the exceptions so far have been Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, where dictators have been removed, but these were primarily political movements to rid their countries of tyrants. Economic inequality has played a lesser role. In the future, as more tyrants are removed, it will become more important.
The Arab Spring inspired the Occupy movement, but the latter has so far not led to any revolutions, even though the goals are revolutionary. It may yet become a political movement that will change the world as we know it today.
I hope that the powers that be will not evict the protesters but allow them to herald a new age. In many cities evictions have already started or are threatened. In the northern hemisphere, there is also the threat of winter.
The Occupy movement will not necessarily end because of these threats. The cause is too important to let that happen. It is spreading and will continue to spread, although it may soon take other forms.

The protests in North America, Europe, and elsewhere may yet inspire more Africans and Asians to join them. These continents certainly need it. Their people are among the poorest in the world.
Sub-Saharan Africa especially is ripe for revolutions. Many people are clamoring for change, but until the protests achieve a sufficient critical mass, little will happen. The tyrants who rule these countries remain firmly in control. Yet there too the winds of change are beginning to blow.
Blow hard winds!

Wall Street: the deification of greed

2011-11-04T16:32:00.010-04:00

The main message of the Occupy Wall Street protest is crystal clear: Wall Street is synonymous with greed and this greed must stop. But this message is not new.
The Bible describes greed as the worship of Mammon (see image below). In Dante's Purgatory, the greedy penitents were bound and made to lie face down on the ground for having concentrated too much on earthly thoughts. Thomas Aquinas calls greed "a sin against God." Greed is indeed sin, although the modern world rejects that term and the idea that greed is therefore wrong.

Karl Marx called high finance "the Vatican of capitalism." He was probably thinking of London, which was at that time the financial center of the world, just as New York City is today.
The financial center of Canada is located on Bay Street in Toronto. The City and Bay Street are just other versions of Wall Street. There are many more "Wall Streets" all over the world. If something walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck.
Wall Street is not merely synonymous with greed but it has deified greed. Greed has become a god. Thus it is assumed to be good.
Ivan Boesky, who is infamous for insider trading, defended greed in a well publicized commencement address on May 18, 1986, at the School of Business Administration at the UC Berkeley. "Greed is all right, by the way. I want you to know that. I think greed is healthy," he famously declared. "You can be greedy and still feel good about yourself."

His speech inspired the 1987 film Wall Street, which is noted for the well known lines: "Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind."

The 2010 sequel, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, followed on the heels of the 2008 financial crisis and tries to put this crisis into context by reducing it to the personal level. Yet this film too, as its predecessor, is built on the greed of the main characters. Greed is still perceived as a god, a good god, one in whom people place their trust.

The Occupy Wall Street demonstrators have tapped into is a long and vibrant tradition that culminated in the Great Depression. Then, as now, there was no question in the minds of "the 99 per cent" that Wall Street was principally to blame for the country's crisis.

"Stop the Greed" aptly expresses the mood of "the 99 per cent" today, but it was equally appropriate many decades ago. Little has changed.

During the past decades many more stories have accumulated of Wall Street greed and arrogance, and astonishing tales of incompetence and larceny. The economy slowed and has now stalled. People have lost their homes and jobs. No wonder people are frustrated and have taken to the streets in protest.

Meanwhile, the political system has proved to be as bankrupt as the big banks. A bipartisan consensus has emerged, but only around the effort to save the "too big to fail" financial goliaths, while nothing was done about the legions of victims their financial manipulations had left in its wake.

This was true not only during the Great Depression but also today. History is repeating itself.

Then the political class prescribed what people already had plenty of: another dose of austerity, plus a belief in a "recovery" that, for 99 per cent of Americans, would never be more more than an optical illusion.

This is happening again. In the Depression the hopes of ordinary people for a chance at a decent future withered and bitterness set in. People today too are suffering "a hangover" from the shenanigans of the one percent.

The American people elected President Obama because of his promise of change. But on Wall Street little has changed. The arrogance and corruption have continued unabated. Wall Street tycoons received their bonuses while millions lost their homes.

These millions and others like them have now cried, "Enough!" They want to storm the bastion built on greed and tear down its walls.

People are enraged that only a handful of executives of major corporations have been sent to prison. The majority have escaped even a slight rap over the knuckles. They have purchased the services of the best lawyers and accountants so that their financial shenanigans are hidden from public purview.
When exposed, however, they can still avoid any legal repercussions for their morally reprehensible actions through their political influence.
They control the levers of power at every level of government everywhere, as the Occupy protesters are quick to point out. They finance the Tea Party movement, and manipulate it to serve their own ends. Why else do Republicans resist all attempts to raise taxes, especially on the rich?

Greed is a sin that all people are heir to, not only the rich. The people who bought homes with sub-prime mortgages were just as greedy as the bankers who lent them the money. They wanted to purchase something that would ordinarily have been beyond their means. Their behavior, of course, does not excuse the excessive zeal of these bankers to lend money to them.
While greed is endemic, the actions of the one percent who personify Wall Street are reprehensible and merit moral if not legal condemnation. This is what the Occupy movement is doing not only in NewYork City but in cities all over the world.
The powers that be are using every tool at their disposal to evict protesters from their venues. So far the protesters have refrained from using violence. Non-violence is the only way they can retain the moral high ground, even when the police resort to violence.
In the US the Occupy movement has called, among other things, for a constitutional convention starting on July 4, 2012, to propose many changes to the current system. That seems a reasonable demand.
None of the changes suggested thus far will eliminate greed, but they would help to restrain the major excesses that are currently on display. The movement is striving for a more egalitarian system which will aid all the people and not only the rich. Let us pray that will happen soon.

Protest sign in Ghent: "Save us, not the bank"

Seven billion and counting

2011-10-29T17:10:00.013-04:00

As of October 31 seven billion are living on this earth, according to the UN Population Division. This is only twelve years after the world's population reached six billion.
The website of the UN Population Division admits that there is the possibility of error by as much as twelve months. The US Census Bureau says the most likely date the world's population will reach seven billion is between March and April next year. Thus there is a great disparity between the various forecasts.
In my own lifetime the population of the world has tripled. In the year 1500 there were only 500 million people in the world, while in 1800 there were one billion.
Seven billion and counting. The population of the world is expected to hit eight billion by 2025.
The UN estimates that the population of the world will reach nine billion by 2042 and stabilize at just over ten billion by 2100. As the following table shows, even the UN's own estimates vary greatly, depending on the rate of population growth.

The current annual rate of increase is only 1.2%. The global population growth rate peaked at 2.1 % in 1970 and has steadily declined since then, due largely to smaller family size.

Where you fit into the seven billion? See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-15391515.
Watch the world population clock. See http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/.

Have you ever wondered how many people have ever lived on the earth? The following table is an educated guess:

How Many People Have Ever Lived On Earth? 108 Billion

Year	Population	Births per 1,000	Births Between Benchmarks
50,000 B.C.	2	-	-
8000 B.C.	5,000,000	80	1,137,789,769
1 A.D.	300,000,000	80	46,025,332,354
1200	450,000,000	60	26,591,343,000
1650	500,000,000	60	12,782,002,453
1750	795,000,000	50	3,171,931,513
1850	1,265,000,000	40	4,046,240,009
1900	1,656,000,000	40	2,900,237,856
1950	2,516,000,000	31-38	3,390,198,215
1995	5,760,000,000	31	5,427,305,000
2011	6,215,000,000	23	2,130,327,622

NUMBER WHO HAVE EVER BEEN BORN	107,602,707,791
World population in mid-2011	6,987,000,000
Percent of those ever born who are living in 2011	6.5

Source: Population Reference Bureau estimates

Other guesses range between 75-110 billion. For the sake of convenience, let us assume 100 billion. In that case, no more than 7% of the people who have ever lived are alive today. Seven billion and counting, but this is a very large number, as is the percentage.
The following video may also be helpful in understanding how these figures are calculated: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WTctr5kviA&feature=player_embedded#!.

Of the seven billion currently living on this earth, how many people and what percentage belong to the world's major religions? The following table illustrates this:

Religion	size	%
Christianity	2,234,770,118	33.32%
Islam	1,409,139,261	21.01%
Hinduism	889,347,292	13.26%
Buddhism	391,688,400	5.84%
Sikhism	23,474,476	0.35%
Judaism	15,426,084	0.23%
Bahá'í	8,048,392	0.12%
Other (incl. non-religious & atheists)	1,735,099,128	25.87%
Total	6,706,993,152	100%

Source: The CIA World Fact Book, 2008 ed.

The growth rate of these religions is shown in the next table:

Religion	Total	Natural (births)	Conversions	Growth
Christianity	25,210,195	22,708,799	2,501,396	1.36%
Islam	22,588,676	21,723,118	865,558	2.13%
Hinduism	12,533,734	13,194,111	-660,377	1.69%
Buddhism	3,687,527	3,530,918	156,609	1.09%
Sikhism	392,638	363,677	28,961	1.87%
Judaism	124,515	194,962	-70,447	0.91%
Bahá'í	143,491	117,158	26,333	2.28%
Confucianism	44,305	55,739	-11,434	0.73%
Jainism	34,951	74,539	-39,588	0.87%
Shinto	-31,993	8,534	-40,527	-1.09%
Taoism	25,242	25,397	-155	1.00%
Zoroastrianism	58,471	45,391	13,080	2.65%
Global population	78,860,791	78,860,791	-	1.41%

Source: Britannica Encyclopedia

From this table it is apparent that all the major religions in terms of size are experiencing a growth rate that exceeds the current growth rate of 1.1% of the world's population. Islam's growth rate is higher than that of Christianity, but in absolute numbers the increase of Christianity is greater.

The five fastest growing religions in terms of new adherents per year are:

1. Christianity 25,210,195

2. Islam 22,588,676
3. Hinduism 12,533,734
4. Chinese folk-religions 3,715,548
5. Buddhism 3,687,527

The main reason for the higher percentage increase of Islam as compared to the other major religions is its higher fertility rate, but that is declining decade after decade, as one can see from the following tables:

1989	1990	1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999
Avg. world fertility	3.50	3.40	3.30	3.30	3.20	3.10	3.10	2.90	2.90	2.90	2.80
Avg. Christian fertility	3.26	3.14	3.08	2.95	2.87	2.84	2.84	2.66	2.62	2.63	2.61
Avg. Muslim fertility	5.17	5.25	5.05	4.92	4.78	4.75	4.60	4.28	4.18	4.05	3.81

	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010
Avg. world fertility	2.80	2.73	2.70	2.65	2.62	2.60	2.59	2.59	2.61	2.58	2.56
Avg. Christian fertility	2.62	2.55	2.54	2.51	2.49	2.46	2.50	2.52	2.60	2.58	2.56
Avg. Muslim fertility	3.69	3.62	3.56	3.56	3.52	3.47	3.44	3.37	3.30	3.23	3.00

Source: CIA World Fact Book, 2010 ed

These figures for the world's major religions suggest that they will continue to remain constant in relation to each other and to the population of the world as a whole, with perhaps a slight overall growth for the major religions. The next billion or two will probably divide in a way that is similar to what we find today.
In other words, religion is not dying, as some secularists believe. If anything, secularism may be declining. God is not yet dead. Far from it.

This does not mean that evangelism work by whatever religion is not useful. On the contrary, it contributes to the relatively higher conversion rate of some of them, but the percentages of the world's population for the various religions will remain more or less constant.

Conversion of St Paul

I have one concluding question which is theological and may stir up a few objections. Of the 100 billion or so people who have ever lived or are still living, how many were or are or will be saved? Is it only a small percentage of that vast number, as an analysis of these figures might suggest?

Personally, I am inclined to conclude that this may not be the best way to state the question. But if it is acceptable, then I suggest that God did not create 100 billion people in order to assign most of them to hell, which I interpret as a total separation from God.

On the contrary, God loves his creation so much that all his creatures, including all or most of the 100 billion, experience his love and can enjoy his presence.

This may seem a controversial assertion, but it follows I believe from this brief study of the world's ever increasing population and the world's religions.
Lest I be accused of universalism, let me deny that claim. There is a lot of biblical warrant for my assertion, but I do not want to dredge up texts on both sides of this debate. I want to avoid biblicism, and yet I do want to remain true to the Christian scriptures.
There may be some people who are not saved, but many, even most, are. Otherwise, what sort of a God do we worship? Our God is a loving God! He does not want any to perish!
The question of who is saved and how many are saved is not ours to answer. God alone knows. He alone decides. Or do we claim to be wiser than God?
I am convinced that this number is much greater than many of us are willing to acknowledge.
God's love is much greater than anything we can imagine. It reaches out to each and everyone of us. That some may reject that love is a whole other issue that I do not want to address right now.
I want to leave you with an image of God's love reaching out to each of us as well as to each person who has ever lived. If you deny this by limiting his love, your God is too small.
Seven billion and counting. And more than a 100 billion people in all. What an amazing God! What amazing love!

End of a tyrant. End of tyranny?

2011-10-24T17:29:00.007-04:00

Muammar Gaddafi (1942-2011) is the first ruler in the Middle East to die as a result of the Arab Spring. He may not be the last. That is the hope of many in the world who are still suffering under tyrannical rulers.
To judge by photos and video clips, Libyans are overjoyed at the demise of the man who had ruled them with an iron fist for 42 years. Some may have preferred to see Gaddafi put on trial, but most are relieved that he is gone for good. Thus the transitional government could finally officially announce the liberation of the country.

Corpse of Gaddafi stored in a meat locker

While there are still many questions about the manner of his death, Libyans from all walks of life lined up to see his corpse. But, as I am writing this, no decision has been announced yet about the disposition of the body.
The celebration of the liberation of Libya continued for days after his death, with flags and fireworks taking the place of bullets. Libyans marked the end of a tyrant.

Crowds celebrate their new freedom

What lies ahead for Libya? The future is uncertain. Amid exuberant cries for democracy and rule of law, other more conservative voices can be heard.
Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the leader of the National Transitional Council, took the stand in the celebration on Sunday and promised to uphold Islamic law. "We as a Muslim nation have taken Islamic sharia as the source of legislation, therefore any law that contradicts the principles of Islam is legally nullified," Jalil told the crowd.
This is not to suggest that Islamic law is opposed to democracy, but only that many diverse forces are already coming to the fore, and more will do so as democracy takes root in the new Libya.
Aside from the issue of Islamic law, which may not be fully adopted, there is the unresolved question of tribalism. Gaddafi managed to play the tribes off against each other, but now that he is gone what will happen?

A warehouse filled with captured weapons

Another danger threatens from the huge stocks of weapons that Gaddafi's forces left behind. NATO managed to destroy some of them during the last few months, but much remains that can be used to foment further domestic strife.
"No one seems clear" how many of the estimated 30,000 anti-aircraft rockets, and other stockpiles still remain after six months of pounding by air strikes, according to a U.S. official who has been following the Libyan events.
Democracy is a tender plant that does not thrive in every soil. Tunisia and Egypt, the two countries that bracket Libya, and which both ousted tyrants earlier this year, are prime examples.
The elections this past weekend in Tunisia are a hopeful promise, but the situation in Egypt appears dismal at the moment, with the military there behaving much like the former ruler, Hosni Mubarak, did.
Other tyrants in the Middle East have watched events in Libya closely, but there are no indications that they will step down soon or be removed from power by Western forces. They now know the price they will have to pay if they do lose power.

Bashar-al-Assad, President of Syria

The end of one tyrant does not spell the end of tyranny. It would be naive to believe otherwise.
There are many countries in the Middle East and elsewhere that are ruled by tyrants. Some countries have already experienced the first tremors of Arab Spring uprisings: Syria, Bahrain and Yemen.
Will their rulers meet the same fate as Gaddafi? Probably not. At least, not immediately.
Gaddafi played many roles during his life: firebrand, philosopher, clown, tyrant, pariah, statesman, and outlaw, to name just a few. He was treated as a pariah for years after Lockerbie, but Gaddafi reincarnated himself a a statesman after he promised in 2003 to get rid of all weapons of mass destruction.
Soon Western leaders flocked to Libya. Former British prime minister Tony Blair made several visits to Tripoli, where he signed deals on behalf of Shell and BP. The Americans. French, Italians and Canadians, among others, followed suit.

Tony Blair with Gaddafi

Early this year, after his newfound friends deserted him, it was almost inevitable that Gaddafi would end up dead. He had already promised that he would fight to the last bullet.
Ironically, he was found in a hole, much like Saddam Hussein was. Shortly afterwards, Gaddafi was dead.
Western countries had supported him almost to the end. Western leaders did not question his record on human rights, at least not publicly. And Western arm manufacturers had provided whatever arms he wanted.
Although NATO helped the Libyan people regain their freedom, they do not owe a debt of gratitude to NATO for destroying the weapons bought with their own oil money.
Similarly, Western nations have many ties to many tyrannical regimes in the Middle East. As long as these ties continue, these tyrants will remain in power.
Realpolitik by definition trumps morality. With realpolitik tyrants can feel protected from the winds of change, unless they like Gaddafi outlive their usefulness. Then they too might end up like he did.

Celebrating the end of Gaddafi

The end of a tyrant like Gaddafi does not mean the end of tyranny. That will require the end of realpolitik. That is unlikely to happen.
Expressed more positively, nations should strive to support the efforts of people everywhere who are trying to escape from under the yoke of tyranny. Then and only then will there be an end to tyranny.
Will this happen someday? I hope so. The wind of the Arab Spring is now blowing throughout the Middle East. The cries for democracy can be heard in many countries. Let us heed these cries and help to eradicate tyranny.
The end of the final tyrant will mark the end of tyranny.

Occupy Wall Street and beyond

2011-10-18T14:14:00.007-04:00

Adbusters poster calling for protest

Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment (1 Timothy 6:17).
I read this text as I watched the news broadcasts during the last few weeks, beginning with New York and then spreading elsewhere, including Toronto, where I live. I would have joined the protesters here last weekend except that I am hampered by a broken arm (see previous post), which also restricts my typing.

Occupy Wall Street has become a global movement since it first began on September 17. It was inspired by the Arab Spring and conceived by Adbusters, a Canadian-based anti-consumerist magazine, which in mid-2011 proposed a peaceful occupation of Wall Street in order to protest corporate influence on democracy, address a growing disparity in wealth, and the absence of legal repercussions behind the recent global financial crisis.

Although there is no official list of demands in any of the cities where this movement has appeared since then, the protests in the US especially have a common theme of government corruption and the excessive influence of big business and the wealthiest people on the US government.

The use of the slogan "We are the 99%" is significant. The name is a reference to the disparity in wealth between the top 1% and all the remaining citizens of the US. The slogan became popular on the internet in the format of a picture of a person holding a piece of paper with their story on it, ending with "we are the 99%." For more on this, see http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/.

This graph shows how the number of posts to this site has grown

In other countries, other themes have come to the fore. Surprisingly, there has been little violence by the protesters, except in Europe where recent government austerity programs have enraged many.
This movement is ostensibly non-violent. Whether it can stay that way after the arrest of some protesters, as happened in Chicago last weekend, remains to be seen.

The Occupy Toronto protest (October 17)

In Toronto the protest started on October 15. So far it has been a largely peaceful protest against economic inequality, corporate greed and the influence of corporations and lobbyists on government. Other protests were held in Vancouver and many more Canadian cities for similar reasons.
Canada is not the US. There are many differences, but Canada is moving in a similar direction as its southern neighbor. Thus similar issues to those in the US have been raised in Canada as well.
In the biblical text the Apostle Paul is writing to his assistant, Timothy, and giving him some final advice. These are words that we also need to heed today. At that time there was economic disparity as well--probably even greater than now. But this command applies to us today too.
I do not want this post to sound like a sermon. My motivation is simply to show that the issues that these protests raise are old ones, yet they should not be dismissed for that reason. Ever age has to address them again, using whatever tools they have at their disposal.
Today we have the social media. The Arab Spring was made possible through the use of social media. Occupy Wall Street has been described as the first true internet movement.
This movement, whether locally or globally, is leaderless. Decisions are made not by a charismatic leader but democratically, in fact, by consensus. That this movement has become global is a testimony to the widespread nature of the issues that it signals but also the willingness of so many people, predominantly younger, but not exclusively, to come out onto the streets and brave the elements to protest especially the growing gap between the rich and the poor and the grip that the rich have on the levers of power also in democracies.
The Arab Spring was motivated by the desire for democracy. The Occupy Wall Street movement is motivated by the hope of taking back democracy.
Democracy, as I have pointed out in earlier posts, is under attack. This new movement is a way of vocalizing issues that have been voiced previously, but only softly. Too softly.
Now many people all over the world are crying for change. The need for change is urgent. If you do not realize that yet, then I suggest that you read http://www.businessinsider.com/what-wall-street-protesters-are-so-angry-about-2011-10.

Occupy Wall Street has been compared to the Tea Party, There are indeed similarities. The most striking difference, however, is in the political orientation. The former is left of center, for lack of a better term.
The Tea Party has, unfortunately, become the tail that is wagging the Republican dog. Whether Occupy Wall Street will achieve achieve a similar role among Democrats is debatable. I hope not, because that would only increase the already wide gulf separating the two parties.
But I do hope that the voice that Occupy Wall Street represents will be heard in the corridors of power in Washington and elsewhere, especially in financial centers and corporate offices. And then beyond that to wherever democracy is under attack, or where this tender plant needs to nourished so that it will grow.
How that will happen, no one knows at this moment, but I am glad that it is taking place. The Apostle Paul would no doubt applaud it as well.

Today too we must command the rich not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth. This is what the
Occupy Wall Street movement is all about.
If the rich refuse to listen, as they no doubt will, we will at least have voiced our grievances. Much more will be required, of course, than protests in parks all over the world. Who knows what form that will take? Time will tell.
From little acorns giant oaks grow. Remember what happened after some colonialists dumped tea into the harbor in Boston.
Think too of the impact that the Occupy Wall Street movement can have globally. A new revolution may have started, one that is quickly spreading all over the world.

Inside a Cuban hospital

2011-10-11T13:54:00.015-04:00

I have seen the inside of a Cuban hospital the hard way--as a patient. There is a story attached that helps to explain why I have not made a posting for more than two weeks. And like all stories, it has a beginning.

Santa Clara is in the middle of Cuba

Wendy and I badly needed a break (no pun intended). Also, our 40th wedding anniversary was coming up, so we wanted to treat ourselves. Thus we booked a trip to Cuba. We had never been there before and we wanted to experience that country. We got a little more than we bargained for.

The causeway can be seen in left of map

Our resort was located on Cayo Santa Maria, an island on the northern coast, connected to the mainland by a 48-km causeway. The nearest major airport is in Santa Clara, almost 120 km from the hotel.
Our flight did not arrive until about 8 pm, and it was almost 11 when we got to the hotel. We then had to find our cabin. The resort was not well lit. And then we discovered our key did not work. In the dark, right near the lobby, I fell flat on my face. It had been raining and everything was slick.

A satellite view of Cayo Santa Maria with is many resorts

The people in the lobby called a doctor and I was soon brought to the International Clinic about 3 km away. After an x-ray revealed that my arm was broken right near the shoulder, it was decided that I would have to be brought to the hospital in Santa Clara by ambulance, since the clinic was unable to set the arm.
Wendy went along and we arrived at the hospital at about 2:30 in the morning. There it was decided to immobilize the arm and wait until the displaced bone could be set under a general anesthetic later that day.
Another x-ray followed, together with a blood test and an ECG. These procedures required knocking on doors and waking up the technicians, who were sleeping in these rooms. The equipment was old, but it still worked. This typified the hospital.
Then I was brought to my room in the international wing. The room was clean, although it was in disrepair. The TV worked, after a fashion--there were only four channels, all in Spanish and very snowy. I had no reading material with me, and thus I had a lot of time to reflect and pray.

Our resort--we stayed in cabin 16, with an ocean view

Surprisingly, I was not angry. I regretted that my vacation was starting in an inauspicious way, but I was stoical during that first day. About 1 pm I was brought to surgery. In order to separate the clean surgery from the rest of the hospital, a ladder had been placed on its side in the hallway, my gurney was put on one side and another gurney on the other, and I was shifted from one to the other.
In the recovery room, where I went before and after the surgery, there was a wall clock that did not work and was upside down to boot. Yet the hospital was remarkably clean.
It was not really surgery; the bone in my arm was aligned better, although not perfectly. There was a team of ten doctors and nurses. A few bulbs in the lamp over the surgical table were broken. The arm was then put into a cast that covered not only the arm but also half my chest. I noticed that right away when I woke up.
Soon I was brought back to my room, where I later enjoyed a good meal. Wendy had gone back to the resort, where she slept briefly and then sent emails to our children. She was unable to reach the insurance company, but our daughter did and initiated the claim procedure. Wendy came back to the hospital that evening by taxi--about 120 km--and stayed the night. She too received a plate of food.
The next morning, after arranging funds to pay for the hospital and the clinic, we took another taxi back to the resort. I had missed only about 36 hours of our vacation.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed our stay there. The beach was beautiful, even though I was unable to enter the water to swim because of my cast. We were able to walk for many kilometers. And the food was reasonable--after all, this is Cuba. We have lived in many countries and the food in Cuba compares well with that elsewhere.
The hospitals do too. I grew to appreciate the Cuban medical system. The doctors and nurses are among the best in the world, even if their equipment was old and obsolete. They are well trained and in high demand elsewhere in the world. For example, Cuba exports them to Venezuela, in return for oil.
At the resort I learned that while the hotel staff receive tips in hard currency or the convertible peso, doctors and nurses only receive a minimal salary in ordinary pesos. My stay in the hospital meant that the hospital was able to earn some money. Whether the doctors and nurses received any of it, I do not know. I hope they did.
Medical care is free for Cubans. It is basic, but adequate, according to reports. Some people allege that only foreigners receive good care in Cuba, but that is not true. We have to pay, but the fees are minimal as compared to what American hospitals charge.
Would I go back to Cuba again? Definitely! But next time I hope to avoid Cuban hospitals.