By Shadia B. Drury

Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI have adamantly opposed Turkey’s bid to join the European Union on the grounds that Turkey, a Muslim nation, does not belong in Christian Europe. They worry that the inclusion of Turkey, coupled with Muslim migrations into Europe and the declining European birthrate, will undermine the Christian character of Europe. They believe that Europe is in danger of losing its soul, because “the identity of Europe is incomprehensible without Christianity.”*

What is worse, they believe that Europe has lost its capacity to defend itself against the Muslim menace, because it suffers from a serious case of relativism that has paralyzed Europe and rendered it defenseless. Since relativism teaches that all creeds, values, and civilizations are of equal worth, Europeans are unable to affirm their heritage. They are unwilling to declare the superiority of their own civilization over others. Hobbled by relativism, Europe does not have the courage to declare that its civilization is better than Islamic civilization, that a liberal constitution is better than sharia, or that a sentence by an independent tribunal is better than a fatwa.

Apparently, the disease is so pervasive that it has infected Christian theology. Protestant theologians regard Jesus as one prophet among others and Christianity as a religion equal to other religions. Even Catholics are not immune; though the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) acknowledged that Christ is “the way, the truth, and the life,” it stopped short of saying that he was the only way, and it invoked parallel roads to salvation. For John Paul and Benedict, this is simply “contrary to the Church’s faith.” Moreover, this “widespread indifferentism” is a serious symptom of disease. It explains why Europe failed to acknowledge its Christian roots in the Preamble to the European Constitutional Treaty. In so doing, Europe has committed a “silent apostasy.”

Benedict blames the decadence of Europe on the servility of the Protestant churches, which were willing to accept subordination to the state. He contrasts these servile churches with the free churches of the New World. Like the Catholics, America’s evangelical churches refused to succumb to the pressures of secularism. They transcended all denominational distinctions to create a consensus that amounted to a Christian civil religion in the United Sates. Benedict attributes the “country’s sense of a special religious mission toward the rest of the world” to the freedom and power enjoyed by America’s evangelical Christians. He believes that they are the reason that America, unlike Europe, is willing to fight for its Christian values in the face of the Islamic threat.

Benedict informs us that a war against the West has been declared and calls on Europe to defend itself. He offers the following strategy. He thinks that Europe needs a united front of Christians and secularists to tackle the Islamic menace. Once secularists understand that the identity of Europe they cherish has its roots in Christianity—constitutionalism, rule of law, equality before the law, abolition of slavery, independent judiciary, freedom of religion—they will realize that secularists and Christians are not enemies, that they share a common interest in preserving the heritage of Europe against Islam, and that the only hope of securing Europe against the threat of Islam is to affirm Europe’s Christian heritage.

I would like to make four objections to this papal analysis of the political predicament of the West. First, the assumption that the Christian idea of equality before God is the basis of the secular idea of equality before the law, universal human rights, and the abolition of slavery is logically and historically false. Logically speaking, no supernatural revelation is necessary to realize that equality before the law is a necessary component of natural justice. If two people commit the same crime under similar circumstances—for example, stealing—they should be subject to the same punishment, even if one of them happens to be a “lord.” Historically speaking, the church was an implacable enemy of the rule of law. The Magna Carta, which the English barons forced King John to sign in 1215, making the king subject to certain laws and limitations, was vehemently opposed by Pope Innocent III. He regarded the king as the church’s most powerful instrument and had no intention of limiting that power with anything as inconvenient as the rule of law. So the Catholic Church cannot take any credit for the institutionalization of the rule of law and the limitation of arbitrary power.

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Vijay Tendulkar was one of South Asia’s finest playwrights. He also wrote screenplays. Last year he passed away.

Read the review of the one play performed during the Tendulkar Festival held in New York in 2004.

Sakharam Binder

By Gabrielle Mitchell-Marrell

Sakharam Binder has a well-developed system: By taking in women cast off by their husbands and unable to return to their families for the shame they would face, he gains a temporary housewife and bedmate. In the societal parameters of the town where this penetrating work by prominent Indian playwright Vijay Tendulkar is set, these castoffs are more like slaves than kept women, with the author suggesting that any other option would offer an even worse fate.

Binder (Bernard White) is a bookbinder who prides himself on his lack of regard for cultural dictates. He sees himself as progressive: smoking, drinking and laughing off the mockery and disgust of the villagers as they watch him lead these tainted wives to his home, a new one on the heels of each former woman’s departure.

The play opens with seventh wife, Laxmi (Anna George), following Binder to his door. He informs the dainty, suffering woman of the rules of the house, and of his requirements. It almost seems he is bluffing when he animatedly warns in his practiced orientation speech that he is hotheaded and likely to revert to violence.

“Maybe I’m a rascal, a womanizer, a pauper. Why maybe? I am all that. And I drink. But I must be respected in my own house. I’m the master here,” Binder tells Laxmi. And he ends with one final requirement: “You’ll have to be a wife to me, and anyone with a little sense will know what to make of that.”

To his credit, Binder is forthright in his self-portrait and doesn’t leave anything out, and we witness him doing unto the poor woman all that is promised and warned. But this is our antihero, and as cruel and crude as we watch him be, Binder as inhabited by the transfixing White is our master as well.

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And his interview:

February 25, 2009 By Howard Friel

Howard Friel is coauthor with Richard Falk of The Record of the Paper: How the New York Times Misreports US Foreign Policy (Verso, 2004), and with Falk of Israel-Palestine on Record: How The New York Times Misreports Conflict in the Middle East (Verso, 2007).

Suppose you are the president of a small college in the United States, or chairman of the board of trustees at the same school, and a prominent professor from the most powerful and prestigious university in the United States unfairly attacks a group of your students with baseless accusations of anti-Israel bigotry and political extremism. Do you first and foremost stand by your students—if indeed the charges are baseless and inflammatory—or do you submit an open letter to a newspaper in Israel, addressed to the university professor in question, and plead for mercy, knowing that this one professor can go a long way in ruining the reputation of your college with allegations of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel bigotry?

The college in question is Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, the college president is Ralph Hexter, the board of trustees chair is Sigmund Roos, the prominent out-of-town professor is Harvard Law School’s Alan Dershowitz, and the students belong to a Hampshire College branch of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). Whether the students inappropriately announced that the college had narrowly divested from investment funds that benefit Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories is not addressed here, though it is a key component of the controversy that has unfolded on the Hampshire campus and in the Jerusalem Post. Rather, the concern here is that Hexter and Roos neglected to defend the underlying motivation of the Hampshire students against the McCarthy-era allegations of Alan Dershowitz, and instead engaged in a sycophantic and unprofessional public effort to distance themselves from the legitimate political and humanitarian concerns of the students.

In his “Double Standard Watch” column in the Jerusalem Post on February 15, 2009, Dershowitz referred to the SJP students at Hampshire as “a rabidly anti-Israel group,” “the virulently anti-Israel group called Students for Justice in Palestine,” “the anti-Israel group,” “the anti-Israel students,” and “the anti-Israel student group.” Meanwhile, Dershowitz invoked “bigotry” six times as the underlying motive of “the anti-Israel students,” while demanding that the college punish the SJP students for their “bigotry.” Here is what Dershowitz wrote in this regard: “There must be a price paid for bigotry”; “singling out only Israel for divestiture is bigotry plain and simple”; “this bigoted resolution” (describing the Hampshire students’ divestment initiative); “Students and faculty [at Hampshire] too must understand that bigotry has its cost”; “decency cannot survive with the kind of double standard bigotry directed only against the Jewish state”; and:

Hampshire is a small college without much influence. But those who are conducting the national [divestment] campaign see their “victory” at Hampshire as an opening wedge with which to get other more influential universities to follow suit by adopting similarly bigoted proposals. This is a cancer that is threatening to spread around the world, and it must be stopped where it began—at Hampshire.

The “cancer” here is the nonviolent SJP campaign to divest from businesses that contribute to Israel’s four-decade occupation of Palestinian territories in violation of international law.

Rather than defend the Hampshire College students from the charge of anti-Israel bigotry to which they were subjected, Hampshire’s Hexter and Roos began their letter to the Jerusalem Post as follows: “Dear Alan: We begin by affirming our high esteem for you, both as a legal scholar and a powerful voice against anti-Semitism.” And in response to Dershowitz’s incitement against the students—stating that “there must be a price paid for bigotry”—Hexter and Roos sought to reassure Dershowitz that the Hampshire administration will take “disciplinary action” against the students:

But we are also clear, and urge you to understand us clearly, when we say that students do not speak for the college and may not willfully misrepresent the school. It will be, and must be, the college’s task to undertake any disciplinary action, according to its established rules and procedures. Discipline is an internal process that is not shared with the public.

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By URI AVNERY

“ACTA ALEA EST” – the die is cast – said Julius Caesar and crossed the River Rubicon on his way to conquer Rome. That was the end of Roman democracy.

We don’t have a Julius Caesar. But we do have an Avigdor Liberman. When he announced his support the other day for the setting up of a government headed by Binyamin Netanyahu, that was the crossing of his Rubicon.

I hope that this is not the beginning of the end of Israeli democracy.

* * *

UNTIL THE last moment, Liberman held the Israeli public in suspense. Will he join Netanyahu? Will he join Tzipi Livni?
Those who participated in the guessing game were divided in their view of Liberman.

Some of them said: Liberman is indeed what he pretends to be: an extreme nationalist racist. His aim is really to turn Israel into a Jewish state cleansed of Arabs – Araberrein, in German. He has only contempt for democracy, both in the country and in his own party, which consists of yesmen and yeswomen devoid of any identity of their own. Like similar parties in the past, it is based on a cult of (his) personality, the worship of brute force, contempt for democracy and disdain for the judicial system. In other countries this is called fascism.

Others say: that is all a façade. Liberman is no Israeli Fuehrer, because he is nothing but a cheat and a cynic. The police investigations against him and his business dealings with Palestinians show him to be a corrupt opportunist. He is also a friend of Tzipi. He cultivates a fascist image in order to pave his way to power. He will sell all his slogans for a piece of government.

The first Liberman would support the setting up of an extreme Right government by Netanyahu. The second Liberman could support a Livni government. For a whole week he juggled the balls. Now he has decided: he is indeed an extreme nationalist racist. As the Americans say: if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck.

For appearances’ sake he told the President that his proposal to entrust Netanyahu with the setting up of a government applies only to a broad-based coalition encompassing Likud, Kadima and his own party. But that is just a gimmick: probably such a government will not come into being, and the next government will be a coalition of Likud, Liberman, the disciples of Meir Kahane and the religious parties.

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(Xinhua)

BEIJING — A government think tank said China had to invest 5.74 trillion yuan (US$839.35 billion) by 2020 in constructing an all-round social welfare system to enhance people’s livelihood.

The figure is estimated in a report released Thursday by the China Development Research Foundation, an organization set up in 1997 by the Development Research Center of the State Council to support and promote policy consultation and academic research in China.

The report said the country should increase funds to expand the social welfare system to cover all aspects including pension, education, health care, housing, employment and others across the nation by 2020. It could benefit the whole population, especially rural residents and migrant workers.

The report said the amount needed by 2020 includes 1.37 trillion yuan for pension security, 1.03 trillion yuan for health care, 1.96 trillion yuan for education, 700 billion yuan for housing, 120 billion yuan for employment, 270 billion yuan for minimum living standard security, and 280 billion yuan for people in need of special aids.

The paper also set goals for these aspects over the three years to 2012, which need 2.6 trillion yuan in total.

For example, 830 billion yuan is needed for pension, 450 billion yuan for health care, 750 billion yuan for education, 260 billion yuan for housing and 60 billion yuan for employment.

The foundation’s chairman Wang Mengkui said the social welfare system should keep pace with the the country’s economic development, which was essential to “solve the problem” of the imbalance between urban and rural areas and among regions and to benefit the whole population.

The paper said rapid economic development put China in a good position to establish an all-round social welfare system for its population.

The report recommends increasing the proportion of spending on social welfare in the fiscal revenue from the current 27 percent to 35 percent over the coming 12 years.

Fiscal revenue reached 6.13 trillion yuan last year, accounting for about 20 percent of 2008’s gross domestic product, up from 11.7 percent in 1995.

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CANBERRA (Reuters) -– Staying married is better for the planet because divorce leads the newly single to live more wasteful lifestyles, an Australian lawmaker said.
Senator Steve Fielding told a Senate hearing in the Australian capital Canberra that divorce only made climate change worse.

When couples separated, they needed more rooms, more electricity and more water. This increased their carbon footprint, Australian Associated Press (AAP) quoted Fielding as telling the hearing on environmental issues.

“We understand that there is a social problem (with divorce), but now we’re seeing there is also environmental impact as well on the footprint,” AAP quoted him as saying.

Such a “resource-inefficient lifestyle” meant it would be better for the planet if couples stayed married, he said.

During the hearing, the senator read out quotes from a U.S. report that advocated his stance.

Fielding, who leads the independent Family First party, grew up in a family of 16 children and has been married for 22 years, his website says.
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(Submitted by a reader)

He’s won $10,000, a Dell laptop powered by Intel™, and a trip to Boston to see his design built.

Meet Max!

About his invention:
The Home Dome is a makeshift dwelling in the shape of a Mongolian yurt. Made of packing peanuts stuffed into plastic grocery bags, it gives a new use to bulky and difficult-to-dispose of packing peanuts. The Home Dome includes a built-in bed that anchors the structure to the ground using the weight of the person inside. To learn more about Max’s invention, click here.

About Max:

Favorite subjects:

Overall: Science, because I love doing experiments and I know that the more science I learn, the better inventions I will be able to create.

In school: History, because I have the best history teacher imaginable, and he makes everything so interesting.

Extracurricular activities:
Physics Club, History Club, Latin Club

Reason for entering the Trash to Treasure competition:
I consider myself an inventor—I’ve been inventing since I was six years old. I also enjoy entering competitions.

Favorite invention of the last 100 years:
Computers. They make information so much more readily available.

Most important engineering feat:
Modern plumbing. I think more lives would be saved in third world countries by using funds to improve their plumbing systems.

Future job or career aspirations:
I’d like to be a biomedical engineer or a geriatric psychiatrist.
http://pbskids.org/designsquad/special/contest/winner.html
or
http://pbskids.org/designsquad/

(Submitted by a reader)

By John Augustine Emojong
Tororo

President Yoweri Museveni has said that Ugandans should not despise drunkards because they are useful in the development of the country’s economy.

“When a drunkard buys a bottle of beer, the beer is taxed and from the taxes, government earns revenue which is used to provide a number of services like paying you salaries which you use to buy those shoes and suits you are putting on,” said Mr Museveni.
Mr Museveni was on Wednesday speaking at Tororo Youth Centre when closing a three-day workshop for secondary school teachers from Bukedi Region under the theme; “Patriotism Building in Schools.”
He was responding to the issue of over-taxation of salaries which was raised by the teachers who argued that over-taxing their meager salaries was suffocating them.

The teachers in their Memo complained that over taxing their salaries was making them fail to meet their domestic, school fees and other demands.

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(Submitted by a reader)

by Neil Walter

Isabel Allende is the famous and successful Latin-American author of over 16 books who fled to Venezuela for 13 years after receiving death threats due to a mis-guided perception by the government.
Isabel has seen some of the best and worst acts of human-kind with her own eyes. Her books have contributed greatly to Latin-American literature – she talks regularly to audiences about her experiences and perceptions of events growing up.

But what are her passions?
What drives her?

In this passionate talk – Isabel Allende discusses not just her experiences, but also her interpretations of society as a whole – including women, feminism, children – and conflict.
Watch Isabel describe her vivid experiences and interpretations of society and its attitudes.

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/204

The arrival of women at top positions in Ghana’s government and security forces has highlighted the question of whether such milestones will translate into concrete benefits in women’s lives.
For many, the greatest boost not only for women but for all Ghanaians would come from empowering women economically.

For the first time women hold the posts of speaker, police inspector general and attorney general. Nearly two months after President John Evans Atta Mills came to power, promising a strong presence of women in government, Ghanaians IRIN spoke with are guardedly optimistic.

Hajara Usif, who sells tomatoes in the capital Accra, said she is pleased with the new government’s attention to women. “But it must reflect in my life too – and very soon.”

Usif and women like her might get a hand from Akua Sena Dansua, the new minister for women and children’s affairs and one of eight female ministers, who told IRIN a top priority will be women’s economic empowerment.

Usif, a widow and mother of four, told IRIN: “I am not asking government to take pity on me and take care of my children for me.” What she would like from the government is help for women eager to work, including credit schemes and literacy programmes.
Learning to read, she said, “is important for my work and I believe for the country’s development.”

For Baah Boateng, senior economist at the University of Ghana in Accra, any scheme that helps women would help Ghana. “Women control the Ghanaian economy. Women are absolutely vital to the success or failure of the country’s poverty reduction drive.”
He added: “Because of their contribution I will support any day any initiative that aims to improve the lot of women and give them the necessary support.”

Boateng cited statistics, confirmed by Ghana’s Finance Ministry: 70 percent of farmers and 90 percent of people working in agricultural processing and marketing are women.

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