Posted by
Republiservative on Thursday, October 16, 2008 2:27:43 PM
I received the following email text from the HAF yesterday, said text being, to-wit:
"On October 13, 2008, the New York Times published a news article entitled "Hindu Threat to Christians: Convert or Flee" by Somini Sengupta. The full article can be found here.
This morning, the Hindu American Foundation submitted a Letter to the Editor as seen below. This Letter to the Editor is the third in three months submitted by HAF to the New York Times without a response or publication. Yet, HAF continues its persistence for accurate coverage for the Hindu American community. As Hindu Americans, we urge all of you as individuals to write to the New York Times and insist upon fair and balanced coverage.
Dear Editor:
Re: "Hindu Threat to Christians: Convert or Flee," by Somini Sengupta, October 13, 2008.
As Hindu Americans, we unequivocally condemn and repudiate all of the violence consuming Orissa today. That the New York Times would engage in blatant, inflammatory race-baiting with the front-page headline above is shocking. If the intention is to spuriously allege that marauding Hindus across India are contemporary actors emulating the Crusades or the Islamic conquests--then mission accomplished!
Telling are the omissions in Sengupta's reporting, that a) four others were brutally killed with Swami Laxmananda, including a female monk; b) Swami Laxmananda was more than a "preacher"--he was a Hindu social worker devoted to social upliftment in a neglected region; and c) all of the ostensibly Maoist assassins arrested in the killings of the Swami and his aides were Christian converts.
The tragedy unfolding in Orissa state results from the venomous amalgam of the Swami's murder, and Hindu radicals in the area inflamed by evangelicals blaspheming Hinduism as they seek to meet quotas of new converts in a wild west battle for souls. Pluralism and respect for the tribals' indigenous Hindu traditions became the first casualty that opened the door to the madness seen today." [End of material verbatim cited from HAF]
As a Causcasian Conservative and Christian, here is how I replied in comment to my friends at HAF:
"I read with interest your email re the issue of USA media making it look like Hindus are tag-teaming with all Islam or something to destroy Christians.
In a word, I understand your points and completely agree; and in this day and age, of Cheneys and Mushareffs and others of every kind occasionally being proven to have funded this or that situation ala State stagecraft, you can't always be sure of what you're really seeing at first blushes anyway...is this another one of those issues where political intrigue is a motivant yet the surplusage of religiosities, like the redundancy of saying "and they all breathe air, and had two feet,too!", suddenly is "of interest"?
In the USA right now, as articulated by The Becket Fund inter alia, all religion in the USA/West "needs"...Federally, State by State, both...to be regulated on grounds of alleged "national security"; a prime salient fraud in that, and one example only, is that Islam existed first, then Jews and Christians came along to kill Muslims, and Islam is a hater of Christ Himself...right there, of course, no speaker has ever read the Islamic Articles Of Faith, for instance, from Mohammed through 1406 et al....Christ is one of 25 Prophets "who must be named"!
I believe in isolating particular actors for acts they commit, when not a revolution or martial sovereign action; I have no rancor against Hindus or any whole group, and to my best awareness, certainly no Hindus or others are hunting ME down, e.g. .
What I would suggest as relevant to modern USA "religion/atheism" construction would be a reading of Ernst Bentz' work "The Eastern Orthodox Church: In Thought And Life"; I use the 1963 edition as same is taught in USA universities; particularly in the last chapter, "Greatnesses And Weaknesses Of Orthodoxy", Bentz lays out exactly how the Church in Soviet Russia had a synergy and alliance with atheism and the KGB; I would say it could be instructive to read his said work and compare to the chilling comparisons of "religious reforms for national State security" with those in the USA who would use Mushareff's 1999 UN proposal re Islam, and malignancies against non-violent Muslims and Hindus inter alia, to constrict the USA free speech and liberty traditions in lieu of delivering campaign promises...of course, at the same time signalling those behind torment of their own peoples abroad may they may carry on re-defined as "policing" whatever religion(s) THEIR leaders find expedient...and naughty critics thereof. Like not "pestering" Darfur's President Bashir and Janjaweed with Christian, Hidu, Jewish, or even Muslim "nosyness and busy-bodydom".
Again, I wish you a truly happy Diwali, and stand in complete confraternity with the Hindu American Foundation."
In closing, I respectfully reiterate I do not understand how Federal or State or Town "regulation" of this or that faith, or the labelling of atheism/non-practice of regulated faith, can be demonstrated to be per se tethered to USA national security needs.