Interview of a Christian Evangelist in India

The world today could have been a much better place for all of us, had we all refrained from trying to prove the superiority of our own religion………..

This is an interview of “Father Johnson’ after his award by the Government of India for his exemplary work in India in enlightening the people in the path of the ONLY God. Father Johnson returned to the USA after 10 years of service, to uplift the people of India in the name of God. The interview was taken in July 2005 by a journalist in Houston, USA……

Welcome home Father. You have been in India for 10 years, where “our mission’ is still going on. Tell me Father, how is India?

India is a fascinating country, a land of contrasts. Modern India is the largest democracy, the budding economic superpower, with the second-largest pool of scientists and engineers in the world. India is also the only surviving ancient civilization with over one sixth of the world population. At one time, not so long ago, when Europe was in the “dark ages’ and America was not even “discovered’, India was a far advanced and developed country with a contribution of over 25% of world GDP till the 17th century and far advanced in all aspects of life, be it knowledge, philosophy, science, mathematics, arts, astronomy or navigation.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, (1850-1919), American poet and journalist, wrote “India – The land of Vedas, the remarkable works contain not only religious ideas for a perfect life, but also facts which science has proved true. Electricity, radium, electronics, airship, all were known to the seers who founded the Vedas.”

Dick Teresi, American author of “Lost Discoveries’ mentioned “Some one thousand years before Aristotle, the Vedic people asserted that the earth was round and circled the sun….Two thousand years before Pythagoras, philosophers in northern India had understood that gravitation held the solar system together, and that therefore the sun, the most massive object, had to be at its center….Twenty-four centuries before Isaac Newton, the Hindu Rig-Veda asserted that gravitation held the universe together….. The Sanskrit speaking people subscribed to the idea of a spherical earth in an era when the Greeks believed in a flat one…..The Indians of the fifth century A.D. calculated the age of the earth as 4.3 billion years; scientists in 19th century England were convinced it was 100 million years…”

Despite all its riches, history says that India never invaded any country. On the contrary, India has been repeatedly assaulted and conquered by numerous invaders and has been ruled by “foreigners’, first the Muslims and then the British for over a thousand years. India, before the advent of the British rulers, was a rich and prosperous country.

Rev. Jabez T. Sunderland (1842-1936), Unitarian minister and reformer, wrote that “…when the British first appeared on the scene, India was one of the richest countries of the world; indeed, it was her great riches that attracted the British to her shores. For 2,500 years before the British came on the scene and robbed her of her freedom, India was self-ruling and one of the most influential and illustrious nations of the world ….. This wealth was created by the Hindus’ vast and varied industries.”

What about Hinduism as a religion?

Hinduism has a deep philosophical and spiritual heritage that has repeatedly mesmerized the world including western scientists, leaders and philosophers. Despite propaganda to the contrary, Hindus, like us, believes in one Supreme God but they do so in many forms, that helps to develop personalized relations. Hinduism is the oldest major religion in the earth with 900 million followers. Unlike monotheistic institutionalized, religions like Judaism, Islam or Christianity, it is not based on any single prophet or scripture, but allows its followers all the freedom to pursue God and Truth in their own way, while living harmoniously with all creation.

We know that the Hindus are tolerant of other religions. Recently, UNESCO pointed out that out of 128 countries where Jews lived before Israel was created, only one, India, did not persecute them and allowed them to prosper and practice Judaism in peace. Similarly the Zoroastrians, when driven out of Persia by Islam were given shelter by the Hindus in India and still coexist in India peacefully. Very recently, the Dalai Lama, driven from Buddhist Tibet, has been accepted with open arms. Such is the ethos of Hinduism and India.

I have heard that Mark Twain once said that “In religion all other countries are paupers; India is the only millionaire’. I have also read Arnold Toynbee’s writing “…at the religious level, India has not been a recipient; she has been a giver. About half the total number of the living, higher religions are of Indian origin’. What do you think about it?

We know India gave birth to religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Jainism. Hinduism, though the predominant religion, has, to quote Aldous Huxley, “never been a persecuting faith, have preached almost no holy wars and have refrained from that proselytizing religious imperialism which has gone hand in hand with political and economic oppression of colored people.’

What many do not know and I will not elaborate further for obvious reasons, is that there are researchers who think that the teachings of Jesus Christ have something to do with the ancient wisdom of Vedas. The Hindu concepts of “karma’, and “reincarnation’, which are part of the New Age Movement that we see today, were not unknown to Jesus.

Then Father, why do we need to convert people in India?

You see, we in the western world, have the “white man’s burden’ of civilizing the rest of the world. We also have the need and desire to spread the message of Christ, since we believe that it is the ONLY way to salvation and all other nonbelievers will go to hell. The faith in Christianity is being eroded in Europe and America. That is why our Pope on his visit to India said, “Just as in the first millennium, the Cross was planted on the soil of Europe, and in the second on that of the Americas and Africa, we can pray that in the third Christian millennium a great harvest of faith will be reaped in this vast and vital continent.’

Why do you target India?

India is the right country because Hindu Indians are generally peace-loving tolerant, law abiding people who are truthful and virtuous. India”s devotion to being good rather than being clever comes nearer the heart of a true civilization, said W. J. Grant, in his book,

“The spirit of India’. The unsuspecting Indians have always welcomed everybody on their shore and still keep on doing so. You cannot say the same about a Muslim country or of communist China. You see Hindus are such naive – they go out of their way to say that “all religions are same – they all lead to God’. Christians and for that matter, no other religion, says that.

Where does your resource come from?

There are five major aid-giving countries, viz., USA, Germany, Britain, Italy and the Netherlands. According to the available data, in the last decade alone, foreign aid organizations received more than 2.5 billion dollars. This is only official statistics. According to the record and report of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, the statistics about the foreign aid being received by Indian Non Government Organizations shows that 80% of it is meant only for the Christian organizations that have been buying their ways into the Indian society and converting unsuspecting people under the guise of social service.

How powerful is Christianity in India?

Oh, though we are only 2.4% of the population officially, we have a large control over the country because of our economic invasion. You see, the present leader of the main political party-The Congress Party of India is a Roman Catholic with close contact with the Vatican. There are Christian Chief ministers in 5 out of 29 states. Because of the British rule of India, we have a large section of the leaders of India who look up to us. Believe me, we are the second largest land owners in India. We own and control 80% of the Indian media and newspapers .The best example is how these media made a huge hue and cry over the Gujarat riots. Riots have happened everywhere in India. But in case of Gujarat riots, the reports were deliberately inflated, stories were built up and a systematic, planned malicious and slanderous campaign was launched against the NDA government.

Inspite of the fact that India took giant leaps in progress in every field and there was a surge in National pride and self confidence for every Indian during their tenure,India’s Most Popular Government led by India’s Finest Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was made to suffer shock defeat. We overtly or covertly have alliance with key political associations. So it is very easy for us to influence the right people.

You must have a very organized system?

Yes, we do. Have you heard about the Joshua Project? It identifies and highlights the people groups of the world that have the least exposure to the Gospel and the least Christian presence and shares this information to encourage pioneer church-planting movements among every ethnic group. The Joshua Project has identified the North India Hindi belt as “the core of the core of the core” because of its population density (40% of the Indian population- the states of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh lies in this region); it is the religious hub of India; and it has the smallest Christian presence in India. Thus detailed plans have been drawn up to target India’s 75,000 Pin Codes.

The Seventh Day Adventists owes its Indian success to Canadian evangelist Ron Watts, President for the South Asian Division. When he entered India, in 1997, the Adventist Church had 225,000 members after 103 years of operations. In five years, he took it to 700,000.

Some methods used include the 10-Village and the 25-Village Programs, which involve five sets of laymen, under guidance from a regular pastor, who identify 10 or 25 villages in close proximity. Once the villages were selected, the teams would approach the leaders of each village and invite them to send two leaders to a 10-day seminar at a nearby resort, at the organization’s expense. It is before no time that the local leaders will then start working for our faith and organization. In 1998, there were seventeen 10-Village Programs and 9,337 were baptized. In 1999, forty programs were held and nearly 40,000 people baptized.

Under the Christian Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y. Samuel Rajashekar Reddy, the Adventists shifted to a 50-village plan. They began baptizing at the rate of 10,000 persons per month and have increased it to 5,000 persons per day all over India.

The US-based Maranatha Volunteers International provides buildings for the Seventh-day Adventist Church. They are committed to build 750 churches in 2 years in India. The Oregon based, Fjarli family have a goal to build 1000 churches at a rate of 1 per day.

How do you carry out conversion attempts?

You see the local people are so simple and naïve that they do not have any clue as what out motive or means are. We target mostly the poor, illiterate, tribal people because they are the easiest to convert. We do that by various means – we establish schools, hospitals that overtly or subtly promote our faith, we allure them with money or goods to the needy when they convert, we “stage’ miracle cures, we use our influence on the media, we use our experts in propaganda, we promote the influential people and so on. We use the money sent to us by unsuspecting religious and faithful Christians from all over the world. We have numerous NGO and AID organizations to funnel the money into the country. There are a great number of missionaries of various denominations who are working there, all literally competing for the most number of converts. The Southern Baptists alone are a group that has nearly 100,000 career missionaries in North India, all working to spread our “good word.”

We convince the “natives’ by our appearances and even use their own culture. A native converted person will continue to use his Hindu name so as not to alienate himself. Some of the numerous Catholic priests in Southern India dress like “sannyasis’ (monks), and call their organizations “ashramas’ (hermitage). This is to make Christianity more similar to the Vedic traditions. Bharat Natyam, the classical dance of India, is also taught in the Christian schools, but with Christian symbols and meanings replacing the Vedic. This is all in the attempt to actively sway Hindus over to Christianity. The Evangelical Church of India (ECI), established in 1954, targets the slums, scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, in cities and villages. Its logo depicts a cross struck deep in a lotus, the seat of Hindu divinity.

Is the so called caste system in India an advantage?

The “Caste-ism in India’ is a boon to us. Though Varna or caste was once an essential part of the culture, based on occupation and vocational skills, which kept the civilization going for over 5000 years, caste-ism is a degenerated socio-political system now that has been declared illegal. However it is one big weapon against Hinduism. We have learnt from the colonial British that it is very easy to divide the population on the basis of caste and religion based politics and we use it to our own interest to the maximum. We join the anti-Hindu forces and help to keep the stigma of caste-ism alive for our own benefit. We target the “untouchables’ (the unprivileged people, that has so marvelously crafted to be a result of the Hindu religion and not the social system) and convert them in the lure of “liberating’ them. However I must confess that we maintain their “untouchability’ by not allowing them to mix with the general Christians, maintaining separate entry to churches and even giving them separate churches and cemeteries.

We also use opportunities that God gives us. During natural disasters like floods, earthquakes and the recent Tsunami, taking advantage of the need, we were able to convert successfully entire low caste villages in Tamil Nadu to Christianity with the lure of money and aid.

How successful are you in your conversion attempts ?

Oh we are doing a good job. The Northeast Indian states like Assam, Nagaland, and Manipur, have witnessed a surge of nearly 200% in their Christian population in the past 25 years. Their grasp is so strong now that practicing Hinduism is forbidden in some areas. Hindus can no longer do worship or “puja’ in the open because of our influence.

In another northeast state, Tripura, where there were no Christians at the time of India’s independence, 55 years ago, there are now over 120,000 today. The figures are even more striking in Arunachal Pradesh, where there were only 1710 Christians in 1961, but over 1 million today, along with over 780 churches. In the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, churches are coming-up every day in far flung villages and there is an attempt to set-up one near Tirupati, the world famous Hindu temple. Many of the North-East separatist movements, such as the Mizo or the Bodos, are not only Christian dominated, but also sometimes function with the covert backing of the missionaries. Christian Nagaland terrorists have been killing non-Christians for decades on end. More than 20,000 people have lost their lives to insurgency in Assam and Manipur in the past two decades. We understand that there are some social problems that crept up – the northeast states are the highest in India in terms of drugs and AIDS related problem – but we accept that as “casualties of war” –that should not deter us from our goal.

Do you face any resistance?

Of course we do. But we brand any resistance as “Hindu fundamentalism or militancy” and the media and our favorite leaders take care of the rest. We have set the mind of the unsuspecting population in a way, that whenever any of our people are harassed, attacked or killed, from any reason including their own faults, the blame automatically goes to these so called “Hindu fundamentalist and Communal Elements” and even though almost all of these instances are later proved to have nothing to do with these Hindu groups, the initial hue and cry that is raised makes sure the memories persist in the mind of the populace and the sympathy stays with us. There are instances when nuns have been proved to be raped by Christians, but the blames continues to stay with the Hindus.

Is there any legal barrier?

Yes there are some rules and laws that sometimes impair our activities. The Indian Supreme Court had declared that: “The right to propagate religion does not mean the right to convert… Conversion done under allurement, use of force and fraud in which the poverty or ignorance of the individual is taken advantage of, is not only undemocratic but also unconstitutional…Respect for all religions is the foundation of secularism whereas the seeds of conversion lie in religious intolerance.”. Anti conversion laws have been passed in various states. But as I said, we have our ways.

Sometimes the law does get us though. We had some instances where members of our faith have been convicted with resultant imprisonment or expulsion. As in churches all over the world, some clergymen have been penalized for cases of sexual exploitation, including pedophilia. But that does not deter us from our goal and our almighty Lord takes care of our soul.

How satisfied are you with the progress of the missions?

It is really satisfying. We find enormous pleasure in converting the Hindu “pagans’. However I wish we could do more. I wish I could say like St Francis Xavier, during the Goa Inquisition in 1560, “When I have finished baptizing the people, I order them to destroy the huts in which they keep their idols; and I have them break the statues of their idols into tiny pieces, since they are now Christians. I could never come to an end describing to you the great consolation which fills my soul when I see idols being destroyed by the hands of those who had been idolaters.”

Thank you, Father for your time and honesty.

Thank you, my son. God bless you.

Epilogue

“Christianity offers nothing that is not already available somewhere in the many forms of Hinduism. Hinduism never rejected the teachings of Jesus. Those who have converted either agreed with a gun pressed at their skulls as in Goa, or because it provided an escape from caste tyranny, as well as a guaranteed professional advancement. Through its Vedic legacy, Hinduism respects all faiths. It clearly states that God is one, but has many forms”. (Paul William Roberts, author of, “Empire of the Soul: Some journeys in India’)

Appreciation

One young academically excellent person went to apply for a managerial position in a big company.

He passed the first interview; the director did the last interview, made the last decision. The director discovered from the CV, that the youth's academic result is excellent all the way, from the secondary school until the postgraduate research, never was a year he did not score.

The director asked, "Did you obtain any scholarship in school?" and the youth answered "none".

The director asked, " Is it your father who paid for your school fees?" the youth answered, my father passed away when I was one year old, it is my mother who paid for my school fees.

The director asked, "Where did your mother work?" the youth answered, my mother worked as a cloth cleaner. The director requested the youth to show his hand, the youth showed a pair of hand that were smooth and perfect to the director.

The director asked, "Did you ever help your mother wash the clothes before?" The youth answered, never, my mother always wanted me to study and read more books, furthermore, my mother can wash clothes faster than me.The director said, I have a request, when you go back today, go and help to clean your mother's hand, and then see me tomorrow morning.

The youth felt that as the chance of landing the job is high, when he went back, he happily wanted to clean his mother's hand, his mother felt strange, happy but mixed with fear, she showed her hands to the kid.

The youth cleaned his mother's hand slowly, his tears dropped down as he did that. It is the first time he found his mother's hands so wrinkled, and there are so many bruises in her hand. Some bruises incite pains so strong that shiver his mother's body when cleaned with water.

This is the first time the youth realized and experienced that it is this pair of hand that washed the cloth everyday to earn him the school fees, the bruises in the mother's hand is the price that the mother paid for his graduation and academic excellence and probably his future.

After finishing the cleaning of his mother hand, the youth quietly cleaned all remaining clothes for his mother. That night, mother and son talked for a very long time.

Next morning, the youth went to the director's office.

The director noticed the tear in the youth's eye, asked: “Can you tell what have you done and learned yesterday in your house?"

The youth answered, " I cleaned my mother's hand, and also finished cleaning all the remaining clothes'

The director asked, “please tell me your feeling."

The youth said :

Number 1, I knew what is appreciation, without my mother, there would not the successful me today.

Number 2, I knew how to work together with my mother, then only I can realize how difficult and tough to get something done.

Number 3, I knew the importance and value of family relationship.

The director said, " This is what I am asking, I want to recruit a person that can appreciate the help of other, a person that knew the suffering of others to get thing done, and a person that would not put money as his only goal in life to be my manager. You are hired.

Later on, this young person worked very hard, and received the respect of his subordinates, every employees worked diligently and in a team, the company's result improved tremendously.

A child who had been protected and habitually given whatever he did, he developed "entitlement mentality" and always put himself first. He is ignorant of his parent's effort. When he started work, he assumed every people must listen to him, and when he became a manager, he would never know how suffering his employee and always blame others. For this kind of people, he can have good result, may be successful for a while, but eventually would not feel sense of achievement, he will grumble and full of hatred and fight for more. If we are this kind of protective parent, did we love the kid or destroy the kid?

You can let your kid live in a big house, eat a good meal, learn piano, watch a big screen TV. But when you are cutting grass, please let them experience it. After a meal, let them wash their plate and bowl together with their brothers and sisters. It is not because you do not have money to hire a maid, but it is because you want to love them in a right way. You want them to understand, no matter how rich their parents are, one day their hair will grow grey, same as the mother of that young person.

The most important thing is your kid learn how to appreciate the effort and experience the difficulty and learn the ability to work with others to get things done.

Is Kerala being Talibanised ?

This is especially for my friends in India, a report on how the Taliban is setting up serious operations in Kerala, under the name of the Popular Front of India, to make it a Muslim majority state within 20 years. The police attribute to the Popular Front of India (PFI) at least 20 brutal murders in Kerala and countless other attacks, all carried out with jihadi precision. Police raids on PFI offices yielded campaign materials of Al-Qaeda and Taliban. Pamphlets seized in raids say: "No force can prevent the installation of Islamic rule in India". The Tareeqat sessions, projected as religious coaching classes, are fashioned on the models of terror conferences of the Taliban. Intelligence reports say that Sharia courts like those of the Taliban are functioning in several centres in Kerala.

The fact seems to be that until the Indian government takes a strong position and policy against such operations, the Indian people, especially Hindus, are going to experience an increasingly difficult time due to the rise of groups like this, as they spread across the country. If something is not done now, more will have to be done later to curb the tide of this kind of fear-based violence.

As a matter of fact, Indian government has never sorted any of the border issues, whether it is Jammu and Kashmir, Arunachal Pradesh, West Bengal and Tamilnadu. I should be ashamed to say that I couldn't anything productive towards the country's development, atleast I can spread the news across for a national awareness.

Following link is worth reading

Link

Shame on you Indian Government.

Sri Lankan navy again brutally attacked 50 Indians (Rameswaram Tamil fishermen) today. Meanwhile, Indian cricket team is enjoying their tour in Sri Lanka and IIFA North Indian cine actors and actresses celebrating their festival in Sri Lanka.

Will Indian cricket team tour to Pakistan while they attack and kill people in Mumbai? I would love to see the bolywood team going to lahore and dancing before those great peaceful gentlemen.

SHAME ON YOU INDIAN GOVERNMENT ! ! !

SHAME ON ME TOO, FOR NOT BEING USEFUL TO MY ETHNIC ORIGIN.

Link 1

link 2

Worried Mind's Scribbling

Who cares when I cry
were there is none that knows
what im going through
all others could see is only my smile
which is an outburst of my pain
a man with loads of stress
going through day by day
only can fool around myself
thinking its all the mind that matters
unfit to stay in this materialistic world
not even in its gaps,
where shall I head to ?

Is this world not for me
os is it for me to test my patience
what is the true value of this life
i should be definitely happy on comparison
which is just a consoling point
still don't wanna keep going this way
round in circles starting from the same place
unable to find a solution
how long am i gonna fight
always seen a problem as an opportunity
to prove that i can be the winner
but of what ?
am I still losing by winning
and its hard to realise that
I still stand a chance of winning
by losing the unwanted toxic

Suffering could only take me
to a better state of living
have I not suffered enough
having a bed but not sleep
a house but not home
can't act in this dramatic world
where nothing seems to be true
when things go wrong
with memories breaking me down
each and everytime I try to get up
i wish i could lose my memory
though the good ones might go
at least I can have a fresh start
is it not late for one ?
better late than never.

Sri Lanka - A Terrorist Nation

The lost continent of Kumari Kandam ( Lemuria )

I’m sure the science-fiction geeks amongst y’all know about the lost continents of Atlantis, Lemuria and Mu. These are the “missing continents” that were submerged in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans respectively.

[The story of Atlantis has its origin in the Platonic dialogues, while Lemuria was hypothesized in the late 1800s as an explanation for why there were Lemurs in both Madagascar and India but not in Africa or the Middle East. Both are now beloved of mystics and kooks. Nobody really cares about Mu, although it is sometimes confused with Lemuria.]

However, I’ll bet you’ve never heard of the Tamil analogue, the lost continent of Kumari Kandam! Proponents say Kumari Kandam is Lemuria, different names for the same continent that once covered most of the Indian ocean:

Sri Lanka together with India, Indonesia and Malaysia were a part of this continent. Many islands in the Pacific and Indian oceans are remnants of this continent that in ancient time covered the whole area of today’s ocean. [Link]



It turns out that everything does not actually come from India, it comes from Kumari Kandam. And by everything, I do mean everything.

“Homo Dravida” first evolved in Kumari Kandam; it is the cradle of civilization; the birthplace of all languages in general and of the Tamil language in particular. This is where the first and second great ages (Sangams?) of the Tamils happened, not in India, but in the true Dravidian homeland, further south.

R. Mathivanan, then Chief Editor of the Tamil Etymological Dictionary Project of the Government of Tamilnadu, in 1991 … [produced] the following timeline …:

ca. 200,000 to 50,000 BC: evolution of “the Tamilian or Homo Dravida”,
ca. 200,000 to 100,000 BC: beginnings of the Tamil language
50,000 BC: Kumari Kandam civilisation
20,000 BC: A lost Tamil culture of the Easter Island which had an advanced civilisation
16,000 BC: Lemuria submerged
6087 BC: Second Tamil Sangam established by a Pandya king
3031 BC: A Chera prince in his wanderings in the Solomon Island saw wild sugarcane and started cultivation in Tamilnadu.
1780 BC: The Third Tamil Sangam established by a Pandya king
7th century BC: Tolkappiyam (the earliest extant Tamil grammar)… [Link]

The continent was destroyed by three large floods which wiped out most of the golden civilization with it:

It is believed by some Tamil scholars that the first academy existed at southern Maturai and was terminated by sea devouring the city. The Pandya king established a second academy at Kapadapuram. Again, the sea devoured the city. The Pandya king established the third academy in present Maturai (far away from sea coast). [Link]

What was left was later wiped out by the Aryan invasion that corrupted the remnants of the once great Tamil civilizations:

“After imbibing the mania of the Aryan culture of destroying the enemy and their habitats, the Dravidians developed a new avenging and destructive war approach. This induced them to ruin the forts and cities of their own brethren out of enmity”. [Link]

Non Violence in Parenting

Mr. Arun Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi and founder of the M.K.Gandhi Institute for Non-violence, in his June 9 lecture at the University of Puerto Rico , shared the following story as an example of "Non-violence in Parenting":

"I was 16 years old and living with my parents at the institute my grandfather had founded 18 miles outside of Durban , South Africa , in the middle of the sugar plantations. We were deep in the country and had no neighbors, so my two sisters and I would always look forward to going to town to visit friends or go to the movies.

One day, my father asked me to drive him to town for an all-day conference, and I jumped at the chance. Since I was going to town, my mother gave me a list of groceries she needed and, since I had all day in town, my father ask me to take care of several pending chores, such as getting the car serviced. When I dropped my father off that morning, he said, ' I will meet you here at 5:00 p.m. , and we will go home together. '

After hurriedly completing my chores, I went straight to the nearest movie theatre. I got so engrossed in a John Wayne double-feature that I forgot the time. It was 5:30 before I remembered. By the time I ran to the garage and got the car and hurried to where my father was waiting for me, it was almost 6:00.

He anxiously asked me, ' Why were you late? 'I was so ashamed of telling him I was watching a John Wayne western movie that I said, ' The car wasn't ready, so I had to wait, not realizing that he had already called the garage. When he caught me in the lie, he said: ' There's something wrong in the way I brought you up that didn't' give you the confidence to tell me the truth. In order to figure out where I went wrong with you, I'm going to walk home 18 miles and think about it.'

So, dressed in his suit and dress shoes, he began to walk home in the dark on mostly unpaved, unlit roads. I couldn't leave him, so for five-and-a-half hours I drove behind him, watching my father go through this agony for a stupid lie that I uttered. I decided then and there that I was never going to lie again.

I often think about that episode and wonder, if he had punished me the way we punish our children, whether I would have learned a lesson at all. I don't think so. I would have suffered the punishment and gone on doing the same thing. But this single non-violent action was so powerful that it is still as if it happened yesterday.

"That is the power of non-violence."

From the heart of a Muslim - Tawfik Hamid

"I am a Muslim by faith.... a Christian by spirit....a Jew by heart....and above all I am a human being." Dr. Tawfik Hamid.

Dr. Hamid is an Egyptian scholar and author opposed to Islam fundamentalism.

http://www.tawfikha mid.com/

I was born a Muslim and lived all my life as a follower of Islam.

After the barbaric terrorist attacks done by the hands of my fellow Muslims everywhere on this globe, and after the too many violent acts by Islamists in many parts of the world, I feel responsible as a Muslim and as a human being, to speak out and tell the truth to protect the world and Muslims as well from a coming catastrophe and war of civilizations.

I have to admit that our current Islamic teaching creates violence and hatred toward Non-Muslims.

We Muslims are the ones who need to change. Until now we have accepted polygamy, the beating of women by men, and killing those who convert from Islam to other religions.

We have never had a clear and strong stand against the concept of slavery or wars, to spread our religion and to subjugate others to Islam and force them to pay a humiliating tax called Jizia. We ask others to respect our religion while all the time we curse non-Muslims loudly (in Arabic) in our Friday prayers in the Mosques.

What message do we convey to our children when we call the Jews "Descendants of the pigs and monkeys".. Is this a message of love and peace, or a message of hate?

I have been into churches and synagogues where they were praying for Muslims. While all the time we curse them, and teach our generations to call them infidels, and to hate them.

We immediately jump in a 'knee jerk reflex' to defend Prophet Mohammed when someone accuses him of being a pedophile while, at the same time, we are proud with the story in our Islamic books, that he married a young girl seven years old (Aisha) when he was above 50 years old.

I am sad to say that many, if not most of us, rejoiced in happiness after September 11th and after many other terror attacks.

Muslims denounce these attacks to look good in front of the media, but we condone the Islamic terrorists and sympathise with their cause. Till now our 'reputable' top religious authorities have never issued a Fatwa or religious statement to proclaim Bin Laden as an apostate, while an author, like Rushdie, was declared an apostate who should be killed according to Islamic Shariia law just for writing a book criticizing Islam.

Muslims demonstrated to get more religious rights as we did in France to stop the ban on the Hejab (Head Scarf), while we did not demonstrate with such passion and in such numbers against the terrorist murders.

It is our absolute silence against the terrorists that gives the energy to these terrorists to continue doing their evil acts. We Muslims need to stop blaming our problems on others or on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. As a matter of honesty, Israel is the only light of democracy, civilization, and human rights in the whole Middle East .

We kicked out the Jews with no compensation or mercy from most of the Arab countries to make them "Jews-Free countries" while Israel accepted more than a million Arabs to live there, have its nationality, and enjoy their rights as human beings. In Israel , women can not be beaten legally by men, and any person can change his/her belief system with no fear of being killed by the Islamic law of 'Apostasy,' while in our Islamic world people do not enjoy any of these rights.. I agree that the 'Palestinians' suffer, but they suffer because of their corrupt leaders and not because of Israel .

It is not common to see Arabs who live in Israel leaving to live in the Arab world. On the other hand, we used to see thousands of Palestinians going to work with happiness in Israel , its 'enemy'. If Israel treats Arabs badly as some people claim, surely we would have seen the opposite happening.

We Muslims need to admit our problems and face them. Only then we can treat them and start a new era to live in harmony with human mankind. Our religious leaders have to show a clear and very strong stand against polygamy, pedophilia, slavery, killing those who convert from Islam to other religions, beating of women by men, and declaring wars on non-Muslims to spread Islam.

Then, and only then, do we have the right to ask others to respect our religion. The time has come to stop our hypocrisy and say it openly: 'We Muslims have to Change'.

Tawfik Hamid

Let it go, if it needs to go

All these days of struggle
hardly had a chance to fight against
having a polite state of mind
always had let it go, if it was to go
does that mean that i dont have the fighting spirit in me
what's the point in fighting for something
which is not destined to be there for you.
doesn't that mean that im the man of no determination
cosmic law is confusing me
Im meant to be someone who I ought to be
and not who I need to be

If that is the case
where should i go
where should I head to
jump in to the woods and be alone
throw away all social pleasure
for nothing to be stable in this funny world
and none to be in the same status
can't i just get along with something
which has always been offered to me
rather than fighting for something
which I very well deserve.

We all know where we came from
But do not know where we are going,
until we realise why we are here for
one should be lucky to have pain in his life
for this to be realised
and for me, the pain is a funny joke
which has been a part of my life


Of all the people who have marked the pages of history
some have to leave so that the pages get rewritten
over, over and over again
Nature and time being the best teachers
it takes a bit of time to understand
why such things keep happening in a similar fashion

Treating life as a trading business
accounting all births as income
and deaths as its expense
If all the people who came here,
Decided to stay here in this land,
Where is the place for all of us to live?
If this is the time to say bye to this world
pretty well say it quick and
Let it go, if it needs to go.

War crimes in Sri Lanka

A leading United Nations expert called yesterday for a war crimes inquiry in Sri Lanka after his investigation concluded that a video showing soldiers summarily killing Tamil prisoners last year was authentic.

In a damning report citing top scientific experts, Philip Alston, UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Killings, dismissed the Sri Lankan Government’s claims that the footage shown by Channel 4 had been fabricated. He urged Colombo to allow UN experts to investigate “persistent” allegations of war crimes in the final stages of its three-decade civil war.

“In light of these conclusions and of the persistent flow of other allegations concerning alleged extrajudicial executions committed by both sides during the closing phases of the war,” Professor Alston wrote, “I call for an independent inquiry to be established to carry out an impartial investigation into war crimes.”

Professor Alston said that the best option was for Sri Lanka to co-operate and invite in UN investigators as part of an independent commission of inquiry. Human rights officials told The Times that Sri Lanka would be given an ultimatum to co-operate or face more decisive action.

The appointment of a commission would allow the UN to begin gathering forensic evidence required for an investigation or even future prosecution. There is already grave concern over the degradation of evidence in the nearly nine months since the conflict ended. No independent observers have been allowed into the former battle zone since May.

Sam Zarifi, the Asia-Pacific director at Amnesty International, told The Times: “Once again the available evidence has indicated that serious human rights violations and possible international crimes took place, and the Sri Lankan Government has to allow an independent inquiry. Now that the security situation has stabilised there’s no excuse left.”

The Sri Lankan Government vehemently denies that its military committed war crimes during the final offensive against the Tamil Tigers which obliterated the rebels last May.

Last month, however, the former army chief turned presidential challenger, Sarath Fonseka, lent further credence to allegations of war crimes when he said that Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the Defence Minister, ordered that surrendering rebels should be killed rather than taken prisoner as the conflict drew to a close.

Sri Lanka avoided censure by the UN Human Rights Council in May last year after recruiting foreign allies to defeat a Western-backed resolution condemning its conduct during the offensive. Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, was roundly criticised for failing to take a harder line with Sri Lanka. Mr Ban said last night he was giving detailed consideration to appointing a Commission of Experts on alleged atrocities in Sri Lanka.

The 15-nation Security Council has the power to refer Sri Lanka to the International Criminal Court but Professor Alston said he doubted that would happen “given the constellation of political support Sri Lanka has”. That was an apparent reference to China, which has veto power on the council and is Sri Lanka’s most powerful ally and key investor.

Professor Alston began his investigation into the execution video after the Sri Lankan Government first dismissed it as a fake. It eventually caved in and conducted its own inquiry, only to arrive again at the same conclusion.

The UN investigation, carried out by three experts in video technology, ballistics and pathology, systematically demolishes Sri Lankan claims that the footage was faked and upholds the findings of The Times’s investigation of the footage last month.

The video of the alleged battlefield executions, which was broadcast on Channel 4 in August, shows a naked man, bound and blindfolded, being made to kneel.

Another man, dressed in what appears to be Sri Lankan army uniform, approaches from behind and shoots him in the head at point-blank range. “It’s like he jumped,” the gunman laughs. The camera then pans to show eight similarly bound corpses.

Sri Lanka denied claims that the video was shot in January last year by soldiers using mobile phones, saying that it had been “established beyond doubt” that the footage was fake.

The UN report concluded that “most of the arguments relied upon by the Government of Sri Lanka to impugn the video have been shown to be flawed”. The experts “found no evidence of breaks in continuity in the video, no additional video layers and no evidence of image manipulation”.

Peter Diaczuk, a firearms expert, “concluded that the recoil, movement of the weapon and the shooter, and the gases expelled from the muzzle in both apparent shootings were consistent with firing live ammunition, and not with shooting blank cartridges”, as the Sri Lankan investigation claims.

Daniel Spitz, a pathologist, “found that the footage appeared authentic, especially with respect to the two individuals who are shown being shot in the head at close range. He found that the body reaction, movement, and blood evidence was entirely consistent with what would be expected in such shootings”.

“Together, the reports by these experts strongly suggest that the video is authentic,” the report concludes.

*-courtesy www.voicetamil.com