And I Thought Hindus Were Peaceful
It seems our illustrious Media have more pressing issues to report about these days:
There's the hot hockey mom who may be President someday who doesn't have enough experience (even though she has more than Obama) whose daughter is pregnant...
Then there's the story about how Hurricane Gustav missed New Orleans and all that didn't happen...
And of course, are American actors manly enough...?
But what I would think is a rather big story seems to be entirely ignored by the American media, and most of the global media: Hindus, supposedly known for their nonviolence, are torching thousands of homes and killing dozens of people in Orissa State, India. People killed with axes and machetes... burned to death... nuns being gang-raped.
How do I know this? A good friend of our church is an Indian national planting churches and building Christian schools and orphanages in Orissa, and he e-mailed us and others with a plea for help. So I checked the Web for evidence of Media attention to this and found mostly blogs.
Here's one:
http://blog.christianitytoday.com/ctliveblog/archives/2008/08/christians_in_i_1.html
Human Rights Watch actually has done some work on this crisis:
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2008/08/28/india19711.htm
There also seems to be some BBC coverage...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7160164.stm
But the BBC report is from DECEMBER 2007, When these problems in Orissa first started. It seems that Maoists have attacked some key Hindu nationalists in Orissa and the blame has been placed on the Christian minority. The Hindus have retaliated severely, with December's anger still seething, apparently.
So where is the NEWS coverage? Do you suppose if Christians were burning Hindu temples it might make the news? What about if Christians were gang-raping Hindu nuns?
I should stop whining, I suppose. The world is not fair. I just thought maybe the great Watchdog of Justice - the International Media - or at least UN or someone would squawk about this...
And where are the Hindu leaders denouncing the violence? Aren't these the people who won't eat beef because they deplore violence against cows?
Here are their main tenets:
5 PRINCIPLES
1. God Exists: One Absolute OM. One Trinity: Brahma, Vishnu, Maheshwara (Shiva) Several divine forms
2. All human beings are divine
3. Unity of existence through love
4. Religious harmony
5. Knowledge of 3 Gs: Ganga (sacred river), Gita (sacred script), Gayatri (sacred mantra)
10 DISCIPLINES
1. Satya (Truth)
2. Ahimsa (Non-violence)
3. Brahmacharya (Celibacy, non-adultery)
4. Asteya (No desire to possess or steal)
5. Aparighara (Non-corrupt)
6. Shaucha (Cleanliness)
7. Santosh (Contentment)
8. Swadhyaya (Reading of scriptures)
9. Tapas (Austerity, perseverance, penance)
10. Ishwarpranidhan (Regular prayers)
http://hinduism.about.com/od/basics/a/principles.htm
Good thing the cows are not Christians...
Nonetheless, "Pray for those who persecute you". We must pray earnestly for those in darkness - darkness is why they do what they do. So pray for the Hindu extremists and those they persecute.
There's the hot hockey mom who may be President someday who doesn't have enough experience (even though she has more than Obama) whose daughter is pregnant...
Then there's the story about how Hurricane Gustav missed New Orleans and all that didn't happen...
And of course, are American actors manly enough...?
But what I would think is a rather big story seems to be entirely ignored by the American media, and most of the global media: Hindus, supposedly known for their nonviolence, are torching thousands of homes and killing dozens of people in Orissa State, India. People killed with axes and machetes... burned to death... nuns being gang-raped.
How do I know this? A good friend of our church is an Indian national planting churches and building Christian schools and orphanages in Orissa, and he e-mailed us and others with a plea for help. So I checked the Web for evidence of Media attention to this and found mostly blogs.
Here's one:
http://blog.christianitytoday.com/ctliveblog/archives/2008/08/christians_in_i_1.html
Human Rights Watch actually has done some work on this crisis:
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2008/08/28/india19711.htm
There also seems to be some BBC coverage...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7160164.stm
But the BBC report is from DECEMBER 2007, When these problems in Orissa first started. It seems that Maoists have attacked some key Hindu nationalists in Orissa and the blame has been placed on the Christian minority. The Hindus have retaliated severely, with December's anger still seething, apparently.
So where is the NEWS coverage? Do you suppose if Christians were burning Hindu temples it might make the news? What about if Christians were gang-raping Hindu nuns?
I should stop whining, I suppose. The world is not fair. I just thought maybe the great Watchdog of Justice - the International Media - or at least UN or someone would squawk about this...
And where are the Hindu leaders denouncing the violence? Aren't these the people who won't eat beef because they deplore violence against cows?
Here are their main tenets:
5 PRINCIPLES
1. God Exists: One Absolute OM. One Trinity: Brahma, Vishnu, Maheshwara (Shiva) Several divine forms
2. All human beings are divine
3. Unity of existence through love
4. Religious harmony
5. Knowledge of 3 Gs: Ganga (sacred river), Gita (sacred script), Gayatri (sacred mantra)
10 DISCIPLINES
1. Satya (Truth)
2. Ahimsa (Non-violence)
3. Brahmacharya (Celibacy, non-adultery)
4. Asteya (No desire to possess or steal)
5. Aparighara (Non-corrupt)
6. Shaucha (Cleanliness)
7. Santosh (Contentment)
8. Swadhyaya (Reading of scriptures)
9. Tapas (Austerity, perseverance, penance)
10. Ishwarpranidhan (Regular prayers)
http://hinduism.about.com/od/basics/a/principles.htm
Good thing the cows are not Christians...
Nonetheless, "Pray for those who persecute you". We must pray earnestly for those in darkness - darkness is why they do what they do. So pray for the Hindu extremists and those they persecute.
Labels: Christian persecution, Hindus, India, Martyrdom, Media, Media Hypocrisy
posted by Steve at
7:06 AM
1 Comments:
(also posted on your Facebook note...)
The media might be "stacked against us" (see Facebook comment about media bias against Christians), but we sure do give them plenty of ammunition tohelp shoot ourselves in the foot. The U.S. Christians who should be in protest over India are too busy fawning over Sarah Palin.
While i do think there are a lot of good things about her, the pregnant daughter gives the world reason to mock abstinance education. Gov. Palin is a proponent for abstinence education, yet here it is not working for her daughter. Granted, she & her husband were pretty stressed out & occupied at the time, with the governorship PLUS (perhaps, if the timing is right) her son going to Iraq PLUS the news about the Down Syndrome baby PLUS
2 other kids.
Also, it also messes up her reputation on image of her leadership. As someone was quoted on NPR (or maybe CNN), (i am now paraphrasing), "If she can't control her own household, how can she control the nation?"
I haven't heard a thing negative about it on Moody Radio, but discouraged to hear Roland Martin on WVON saying that this is a public polict issue and that abstinance education doesn't work. And we have yet another case of a Republican showing how campaigning on morals seems to be fruitless. (Though i see it like Israel back in the day -- they had God's perfect law, yet kept screwing up time and again). (By the way, yes, Democrats are guilty too, but with Republicans there is arrogance and hypocrisy which magnify the problems).
Political Side note: i think Sarah Palin does NOT have the national/international political & general life experience Obama has (he probably has far more understanding of Indonesian culture than i do -- and i am genetically half-Indonesian!). i believe i *will* be interested in 8 years, if she decides to run for president. By then, she will have had that national/international experience to solidify her candidacy in 2016.
Steve, i know you are focused on more important things (and i say that NON-sarcastically) -- but i'd love for you and/or Chris Brooks writ a blog on it -- t's gotten me discouraged & confused. (With my current job, i should have probably not even commented on politics... ;)
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