Re. COMMUNIQUE to the EU-INDIA SUMMIT, 2008. Anthony Wedgewood Benn passed away this week. Reprinted in his honour. I am releasing this as an honour to Anthonys long life of service, and for others who taught me much about that, each in his or her own way. I have done NGO work for 25 years in the area of interfaith understanding. This is perhaps one of 3 or 4 times I have drawn attention to my own faith communities. I rarely do that. I concentrate on the meeting ground, where interaction takes place, and the nature and structures, theoretically, of these, so that the dialogue is meaningful, and to mutual benefit. Several months after the Summit, the European Union Parliament passed a resolution condemning the violence against Christians in India. I had previously contacted the Governments of France (Sarkozy) and Italy (Berlusconi), who brought the matter before the EU, and I stated that Western powers (including in a substantial way the US and Canada) were complicit in supporting fundamentalist movements and supporting them in power with military and surveillance systems to destabilize Third world countries, and the EU needs to examine the dynamic to apportion responsibility and correct the grievous harm and injustice so that there is a fair and equitable distribution of wealth when free trade and other agreements are made. Anthony Wedgewood Benn, and others like him (though he was one of a kind, literally) would have understood that. The communique is below. I hope it helps to understand some of our predicaments in life. And what we can do about it. A few suggestions are in the last (section) pages. This communiqué is addressed to the European Union & Indian delegations, at the EU-India Summit, Marseille, France, September 29, 2008 It is done in the spirit that Mahatma Gandhi would have liked, and in the spirit many of our religious leaders unknown to many & working and having worked, historically, in their parishes, temples, mosques, gurdwaras, and synagogues, in India and in other parts of the world. So, in a sense, we are NOT on the other side of the table of the delegations of the EU and of India represented here, and we are not on the same side either, as we do not have the same responsibilities that brought you here. 1. We are addressing you here and pleading with you to do what you can to end the violence against Christians in India, the humiliations, desecration of sacred buildings, the economic loss, and uncertainty. It has been three to four weeks now, and the Central government of India and the Indian States have been relatively silent, engaging in a war of words and accusing Christians of ‘forced conversions’, and condoning the violence, as if the one should end (and that is a very false accusation) for the other to stop. 2. As Indian Christians and Third world Christians, we have always been ‘other-directed’ in our work and community work, and have almost never drawn attention to our own challenges in life to the exclusion of others. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Government of India acknowledged that there were two institutions in India present in outlying villages where the Indian Government did not have a presence, i.e., Christian institutions doing social work, providing schooling & orphanages, and running medical dispensaries, and Lever Brothers. That is why Lever Brothers were given the contract by the Government of India to distribute birth control to the poor in outlying areas. In the disastrous Asian Tsunami of 2005, Indian troops were sent to many of the islands very badly hit. Their maps did not coincide with the terrain, as it was badly damaged. It was primarily the Indian Christian support system that reached these people affected, as they had already been providing medical and other care. Furthermore, the accusation is that Western institutions are providing the money for Indian Christian relief work. In the last many decades, the proportion of foreign fund-raising is less than 25%, and most of the fund-raising and actual work is done by local Indian Christian institutions. Most of foreign relief efforts are independent of the Indian Christian communities. 3. We are also troubled that since about 1986 and beyond, the agreements of the WTO, and other agreements, the disparity of income, the policies of ‘inequality’, the total neglect of the poor in India, across faith communities, are alarming. Last year, the Prime Minister of India held a press conference with much fanfare. He announced that $10 billion would be provided toward eradication of poverty and programs for the poor. Social services agencies at the press conference were elated. Some said it was less than they asked, but a good start. Two days later, when the actual figures and program were printed, it showed $100 million a year for ten years. The Prime minister was not available for comment. 4. Christian social services agencies, orphanages, etc., have found themselves carrying a bigger load, and for this they are being scapegoated and attacked. 5. Regarding the larger historical perspective, since WW11, i.e., 1945, Christians of the Third world have witnessed a great reduction in their numbers in many Third world countries, almost eliminated from the Middle East with dwindling numbers, because of many reasons we will not go into here, and in East Timor, virtual massacre of hundreds of thousands in the first two weeks of Indonesian invasion there, more than the deaths in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. President Ford and Henry Kissinger were in Honolulu, Hawaii, in transit from a ‘successful’ trip to Indonesia. A couple of days later, Henry Kissinger in replying to a question from an East Timorese journalist that the American Government gave a ‘green light’ to the invasion, said that he was busy with affairs of state of ‘the most powerful nation on earth’, and was busy with negotiations with Pakistan over a visit to China, and had no time for a small place like East Timor. President Zia al-Haque, during the war in Afghanistan against Soviet occupation, infiltrated and ‘nationalized’ the institutions, schools, etc., of the Christian community for absolutely no reason at all. Two senior American Generals were with him always, including on the fateful helicopter ride when they got killed. As far as we know, they did not veto the decision to destroy Christian institutions. As late as 1998-1999, the Clinton Administration gave military aid to Indonesia, which specifically stated in the Clinton Administration’s memo, ‘for use in East Timor’. Another memo from the Department of State states clearly that ‘pluralism’ is to be discouraged for the business at hand. In Africa, Rwanda, Daffur, Central Africa, East Africa (as the European documentary, ‘Darwin’s Nightmare’ depicts), some of the issues are mind-boggling. The European delegation filmed in the film seemed to feel that the wretched conditions people were living on the coast of Lake Victoria were okay, as long as the fish factory was run along the ‘European standards’. ‘Security’ takes many forms: good will toward the peoples of the earth and ‘pluralism’ are among them. 6. The examples above are just a few, with no malice intended to anyone. Some of the policies of members of the EU are similar in vein, as you all know, or should know. So, we need a genuine new beginning. Another very disturbing trend is that people of some communities as immigrants to the West are becoming very successful & wealthy economically, something we do not grudge, but what we find unusual is that they have no better skills than those of our communities, and for some unexplainable reasons, they have good political connections. The end result is a destabilizing of our communities in India, and money poured into fundamentalist schemes & parties, new banks that are parochial and regional, etc.. This phenomenon is particularly evident from North America and Great Britain. It is a contributing cause of the present malaise, and you need to examine why this is the case, the dynamic, and why it is happening. 7. We live today in a global economy. Many things are inter-related, and our cultures intertwine. Many people from the Third world are in fact becoming more Western, in business practices and in ‘cultural’ traditions, while keeping their own intact, which is a good thing. Yet, they are scapegoating us for being Western, or being tied to Western interests in conflict with ‘the country’s interests, which is totally a false accusation ! If one follows the teachings of the ‘historical Jesus’, these transcend ‘culture’, and allow people to live in the many cultures of the world, as many of the myriad of faiths are doing. We do not comprehend, and our young are in deep pain & perplexed, about why we are being scapegoated in what many world decision-makers who support this new process, i.e., of opening Third world markets to the West and a fledging Third world business (except for China & India) to compete in the West, are claiming is a new process of building and sharing wealth, with new agreements on ‘business compliance’ and ‘human rights compliance’ (the latter practically non-existent), so that we all have it right world-wide, and that it is fair. It isn’t, it is unequal, it condones human rights violations & greed and covers up these, and we would like you to look into that. 8. We would appreciate very much that a statement of purpose be made at this summit, that in the agreements and treatises between the EU and India have ‘clauses’ that ensure the beneficiaries of wealth generation, and beneficiaries of cultural and scientific agreements are for all members of the peoples of Europe and India, and that some mechanisms will be in place to ensure that this is the case. Agreements on human rights should be pro-active, meaning that activities be monitored so that agreements are fair to all communities, and that we are not forced to come here again after the fact, in this instance so timely and so related to the matters at hand. So, we see here a chance for hope and good will, and a chance to build a truly more just and better world. IN CONCLUSION: The EU and INDIA here can certainly make sure the violence comes to the end immediately, and also all the other forms of intimidation, inequality, and injustice, done in the name of the peoples of the European Union and the peoples of India. - in peace, Ivan D. Pereira (Montreal & Ottawa, Canada)
Posted on: Sun, 16 Mar 2014 19:10:49 +0000