Ernie:
For the most part I have dismissed charges about armed Christians made
by BJP people as exaggerations, maybe fiction, and utterly self serving.
Now I am not so sure, in fact, the opposite view, that Christians are
always blameless ( or 99% blameless ) strikes me as similarly
self-interested and not exactly objective.
Case in point is the article below which has nothing to do with BJP claims
or with Hinduism.
True, I think that the Christian armed resistance in the story is at least
partly justified. After all, the Burmese junta consists of de facto
fascists
who get their kicks attacking Christian minorities. But, which is VERY
important,
in this case, and I presume it is true in parts of India, Christian
feelings of religious
identity are tied to feelings of national / ethnic identity.
When that happens, as is still true in Lebanon with he Falangists, you get
Christian soldiers, and I don't mean metaphorically. Or think about the
Christian Serbs and their version of ethnic cleansing, or about
Protestant vs Catholic
campaigns of terror for 20 years in Northern Ireland, or . just yesterday,
Christians striking back at Muslims in Malaysia.
To be candid, in these kinds of confrontations my natural instinct is to
side with Christians, this is a fact. But now I understand with new clarity
that plastering over the all-too-human dimension of some Christians,
like ethnic minorities in Asia or disgruntled majorities in the Balkans,
is a really bad idea. It is dishonest even if the reason for the
untruthfulness
is The Good, protecting Christian faith.
Nor is this some sort of sermon from on high. Haven't we all done something
similar about other matters ? Like protecting the reputation of a
university, or of
a favorite non-profit organization, or a business ? Yes, let's protect
the reputation as much as possible, but up and down the line even when
there have been mistakes and downright bad things that have happened ?
I am as guilty about this as anyone else, --in my own domain-- about other
matters
and must tell you, I wish I had found a better way to deal with the
issues this
sort of thing raises. It is a question of conscience, of feeling right
when all is said,
and I can't feel right, no matter how much I want to side with Christians,
when some believers, including significant populations in various
countries,
do bad things. Anyway, to try and sweep this under the rug is easily seen
by critics of Christianity as "proof" of their excessive charges, and do we
really want to give opponents of Christian faith valid reasons to
make their charges ?
I still think that most accusations are overblown or even consist largely
of misinformation, but it isn't possible any longer to forget about
what can happen when you get Christians who use guns.
In a way, think of Operation Rescue, for all its good intentions, but
now at the scale of indigenous populations in the millions.
Not a comforting thought.
Billy
====================================================
Spike in Anti-Christian Violence Feared before Burma Elections
("Compass Direct News," January 21, 2010)
CHIANG MAI, Thailand, January 21 (CDN) — As Burma’s military junta gears
up for its first parliamentary election in two decades this year, observers
fear attacks on the Christian minority could intensify.
Mungpi Suangtak, assistant editor of a New Delhi-based news agency run by
exiled Burmese journalists, the Mizzima News, said the Burmese junta has “
one of the world’s worst human rights records” and will “definitely” attack
religious and ethnic minorities more forcefully in the run-up to the
election.
The military regime, officially known as the State Peace and Development
Council (SPDC), pledged to hold the election this year, and analysts believe
polls will be held after July in the country, also known as Myanmar.
Suangtak told Compass that the Buddhist nationalist junta would target
Christians particularly in Karen state, bordering Thailand, and in Chin State,
bordering India and Bangladesh.
Many Christians are part of the Karen National Union and the Chin National
Front, armed resistance groups that have been demanding freedom or autonomy
for their respective states for decades, and therefore the junta sees the
Christian minority as a threat, said Suangtak.
There are over 100,000 Christian Chin refugees in India who have fled the
junta’s attacks in the past two decades, according to Human Rights Watch.
Christians in Karen state are not safe. A Karen Christian worker living in
the Mae La refugee camp on the Thailand-Burma border told Compass that
ethnic Christians were facing human rights abuses by the junta “on a daily
basis.” Most recently, Burma army soldiers attacked a church, murdered a local
farmer and injured others in Nawng Mi village on Dec. 19, 2009, reported
Burma Campaign UK.
Parts of Karen state fall under the “Black Zone” – identified by the Burma
army as an area under the control of armed resistance groups where its
soldiers are free to open fire on anyone on sight – and the junta has been
launching indiscriminate attacks to take control of village after village,
said the Karen Christian.
“Those who are not able to flee across the border during such attacks are
either killed or forcibly relocated in and confined to temporary camps set
up by the junta,” the Christian said. “Since the army litters surrounding
areas with landmines, many local people die or get injured while trying to
run away from or coming to the camps to look for their relatives.”
Over 150,000 refugees from Karen and neighboring Karenni states of Burma
are living along the Thai side of the border, according to the United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees. More than half of them are Christian.
A representative of the Free Burma Rangers (FBR), which trains and sends
teams of local people to help victims of the junta’s attacks inside Burma,
said youths have been forced to become Buddhists in Chin state, where over 80
percent of the people are Christian.
Printing of Bibles is restricted, and churches are destroyed on a regular
basis in the state, the source told Compass on condition of anonymity.
Access for foreign visitors to Chin state is, with some exceptions,
prohibited, and the state is widely acknowledged to be the poorest part of the
country, said Rogers.
“According to one Chin, the reason Chin state is denied resources, and
foreigners are denied access, is specifically because the overwhelming majority
of Chins are Christian,” stated a 2009 report by London-based advocacy
group Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW). “The SPDC has, it is believed,
taken a deliberate decision to discriminate against Chin Christians.”
The report cited a Chin Christian man who had served in the Burma army who
faced discrimination.
“I had a colleague who was a Chin who became a Buddhist and he was promoted,
” the Christian says in the report. “I was told to change my religion if
I wanted to get promotion. I refused to convert.”
The report also quoted a Chin Christian as saying that students from a
Christian youth fellowship at a university in Kalaymyo, in Chin state’s Sagaing
Division, collected funds among their own community to construct a small
church.
“However, in 2008 and again in 2009, ‘extremist Buddhists’ destroyed the
church building, and when the students reported the incident to the local
authorities, the youth fellowship leaders were arrested, detained and then
released with a warning,” he said.
Religious Pretext
Suangtak said successive governments in Burma have promoted Buddhism since
General Ne Win took power in 1962, leaving Christians insecure.
“There is a general feeling in Burma that the state represents Buddhism,
and most Christians, particularly from conservative sections, cannot trust
the regime,” said Suangtak.
Benedict Rogers of CSW said the junta doesn’t differentiate between
individual Christians involved in armed struggle and ordinary Christians who
have
not taken up arms.
“And when it attacks villages in conflict zones, churches and pastors are
often among the first to be attacked,” Rogers said.
A Christian worker from Burma’s Mandalay city, however, told Compass that
thus far he has heard no reports of any major anti-Christian incidents
there. He said he was hoping the junta would try to woo people with peace
rather
than violence.
“But nothing can be said about the unpredictable junta,” he said, adding
that it was difficult to receive or send information in Burma. “Even in
cities, the information infrastructure is limited and expensive, phones are
tapped and e-mails are monitored. And the press is owned by the state.”
Rogers, deputy chairman of the human rights commission for the U.K.’s
Conservative Party, said the Buddhist nationalist regime “distorts and perverts
Buddhism for political purposes and is intolerant of non-Burman and
non-Buddhist ethnic and religious minorities, including Christians and
Muslims.”
Of the 56 million people in Burma, around 89 percent are Buddhist, with
only 4 percent Christian.
Given that the junta merely uses religion for political power, it doesn’t
target Christians alone, Suangtak said.
“The junta has no respect for any religion, be it Christians or Buddhists,
and anyone who opposes its rule is dealt with harshly.”
Burma was ruled by military regimes from 1962 to 1990; at that point the
National League for Democracy party, led by Nobel Laureate Daw Aung San Suu
Kyi, won the parliamentary election. But the regime seized power again by
imprisoning members of parliament after the election.
Rogers, who has co-authored a soon-to-be-published biography of SPDC
chairman Senior General Than Shwe, said that while the armed groups are not
perfect, they are essentially fighting to defend their people against a
“brutal
regime” and are “not in any way terrorists.”
“The armed groups have sometimes launched pre-emptive attacks on the
military, but they have never attacked non-military targets and have never
engaged in indiscriminate acts of violence,” he said. “Even the pre-emptive
acts
are conducted for defensive, rather than offensive, purposes.”
Rogers added that resistance groups were fighting to defend their people.
“Individual Christians who have joined the armed ethnic groups do so out of
a perfectly biblical concept of just war, the right to defend your people
from gross injustice.”
Added an FBR source, “In Burma, no one protects except the pro-democracy
resistance groups, and all relief inside the country is only possible because
of them.”
International Disrepute
The 2009 annual report of the United States Commission on International
Religious Freedom states that Burma’s military junta had “one of the world’s
worst human rights records.”
“Burma’s Christian populations face forced promotion of Buddhism and other
hardships in ethnic minority areas where low-intensity conflict has been
waged for decades,” the report states. “In addition, a new law passed in
early 2009 essentially bans independent ‘house church’ religious venues,
many of which operate because permission to build church buildings is
regularly denied.”
The report also pointed out that in January 2009, authorities in Rangoon
ordered at least 100 churches to stop holding services and forced them to
sign pledges to that effect. Burma, which the ruling junta describes as “The
Golden Land” on its official website, has been designated as a Country of
Particular Concern by the U.S. Department of State since 1999.
Even after the 2010 election, little is expected to change.
The FBR source said the election was not likely to be free and fair,
pointing out that the new constitution the junta adopted after an apparently
rigged referendum in 2008 virtually enshrined military power.
“However, having an election is better than not having one at all,” the
source said.
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