Current Affairs
Last updated on March 27, 2003
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Iraq IQ Test
CNN. Do you know enough to justify going to war with Iraq?
Take the War on Iraq IQ Test:
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Q: What percentage of the world's population does the U.S. have?A: 6%
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Q: What percentage of the world's wealth does the U.S. have?A: 50%
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Q: Which country has the largest oil reserves?A: Saudi Arabia
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Q: Which country has the second largest oil reserves?A: Iraq
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Q: How much is spent on military budgets a year worldwide?A: $900+ billion
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Q: How much of this is spent by the U.S.?A: 50%
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Q: What percent of US military spending would ensure the essentials of life to everyone in the world, according the the UN?A: 10% (that's about $40 billion, the amount of funding initially requested to fund our retaliatory attack on Afghanistan)
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Q: How many people have died in wars since World War II?A: 86 million
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Q: How long has Iraq had chemical and biological weapons?A: Since the early 1980's.
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Q: Did Iraq develop these chemical and biological weapons on their own?A: No, the materials and technology were supplied by the US government, along with Britain and private corporations.
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Q: Did the US government condemn the Iraqi use of gas warfare against Iran?A: No
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Q: How many people did Saddam Hussein kill using gas in the Kurdish town of Halabja in 1988?A: 5,000
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Q: How many western countries condemned this action at the time?A: 0
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Q: How many gallons of Agent Orange did America use in Vietnam?A: 17 million.
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Q: Are there any proven links between Iraq and September 11th terrorist attack?A: No
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Q: What is the estimated number of civilian casualties in the Gulf War?A: 35,000
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Q: How many casualties did the Iraqi military inflict on the western forces during the Gulf War ?A: 0
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Q: How many retreating Iraqi soldiers were buried alive by U.S. tanks with ploughs mounted on the front?A: 6,000
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Q: How many tons of depleted uranium were left in Iraq and Kuwait after the Gulf War?A: 40 tons
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Q: What according to the UN was the increase in cancer rates in Iraq between 1991 and 1994?A: 700%
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Q: How much of Iraq's military capacity did America claim it had destroyed in 1991?A: 80%
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Q: Is there any proof that Iraq plans to use its weapons for anything other than deterrence and self defense?A: No
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Does Iraq present more of a threat to world peace now than 10 years ago?A: No
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Q: How many civilian deaths has the Pentagon predicted in the event of an attack on Iraq in 2002/3?A: 10,000
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Q: What percentage of these will be children?A: Over 50%
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Q: How many years has the U.S. engaged in air strikes on Iraq?A: 11 years
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Q: Was the U.S and the UK at war with Iraq between December 1998 and September 1999?A: No
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Q: How many pounds of explosives were dropped on Iraq between December 1998 and September 1999?A: 20 million
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Q: How many years ago was UN Resolution 661 introduced, imposing strict sanctions on Iraq's imports and exports?A: 12 years
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Q: What was the child death rate in Iraq in 1989 (per 1,000 births)?A: 38
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Q: What was the estimated child death rate in Iraq in 1999 (per 1,000 births)?A: 131 (that's an increase of 345%)
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Q: How many Iraqis are estimated to have died by October 1999 as a result of UN sanctions?A: 1.5 million
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Q: How many Iraqi children are estimated to have died due to sanctions since 1997?A: 750,000
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Q: Did Saddam order the inspectors out of Iraq?A: No
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Q: How many inspections were there in November and December 1998?A: 300
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Q: How many of these inspections had problems?A: 5
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Q: Were the weapons inspectors allowed entry to the Ba'ath Party HQ?A: Yes
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Q: Who said that by December 1998, Iraq had in fact, been disarmed to a level unprecedented in modern history.A: Scott Ritter, UNSCOM chief.
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Q: In 1998 how much of Iraq's post 1991 capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction did the UN weapons inspectors claim to have discovered and dismantled?A: 90%
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Q: Is Iraq willing to allow the weapons inspectors back in?A: Yes
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Q: How many UN resolutions did Israel violate by 1992?A: Over 65
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Q: How many UN resolutions on Israel did America veto between 1972 and 1990?A: 30+
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Q: How much does the U.S. fund Israel a year?A: $5 billion
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Q: How many countries are known to have nuclear weapons?A: 8
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Q: How many nuclear warheads does Iraq have?A: 0
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Q: How many nuclear warheads does US have?A: Over 10,000
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Q: Which is the only country to use nuclear weapons?A: The US
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Q: How many nuclear warheads does Israel have?A: Over 400
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Q: Has Israel ever allowed UN weapons inspections?A: No
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Q: What percentage of the Palestinian territories are controlled by Israeli settlements?A: 42%
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Q: Is Israel illegally occupying Palestinian land?A: Yes
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Q: Which country do you think poses the greatest threat to global peace: Iraq or the U.S.?A: ?
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Q: Who said, "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter"?A: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr
Emailed to me by a fellow humanist. Thanks :)
Osama cartoon
Britain: Hotbed for Yuppie Jihadis
Among British Muslims a new type of fundamentalist is emerging: the yuppie jihadi. They come from well-to-do middle class families, are well educated, often university graduates, computer trained, familiar to newest hi-tech, professionally successful and highly paid. They prefer to spend their holidays in mountain camps on the Kashmir-Pakistan border, participating in training of terrorist war techniques from using Kalashnikovs to building bombs and meeting leaders of extremist groups like Lashkar-e-Toyba and Harkat-ul-Jehad-Islami.
According to estimates of the British internal security service M15, about half of the average 1,800 British citizens, who are visiting Kashmir every year, are highly motivated Islamic fundamentalists who come to join the terrorist training. About 10 per cent of them give in to their killer instinct and stay and fight. The others support the holy war back home by fundraising and recruiting of new warriors in their community.
London's Sunday Times published shocking excerpts from interviews with
educated young Kashmir jihadis, holding top jobs in London. They proudly
reported how they "eagerly awaited the opportunity to kill the enemies"
and how they took part in "wiping them out"
.
Islamic fundamentalism is not only being exported from Britain to Kashmir. According to secret British government documents, which came to public attention in January 1999 (we reported in Bulletin No.5), radical Islamic groups were running guerilla warfare training camps in Britain itself and militants were sent from there to trouble spots across the world, from Kashmir and Bosnia to Palestine. Today these camps may be still in full activity, since the British government, according to a secret foreign office document, revealed at that time, restricted itself to be a silent observer of the activities, which were found not to violate British law.
The new Terrorism Act, to be implemented in February this year, may finally help to handle the alarming developments.
Afghanistan: Death Penalty for Conversion
Taliban rulers of Afghanistan have imposed death penalty for anyone
who converts from Islam to another religion and for any non-Muslim
proselytizing. The pronouncement was officially made in the Taliban
run Radio 'Shariat' by its supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar.
"The enemies of Muslims are trying to eliminate the pure Islamic
religion throughout the world"
, he said on the radio.
Omar charged other faiths, especially Christianity and Judaism,
of trying to convert Muslims and of seeking to demonize pure
Islam practiced by Taliban. Claiming that it was part of
implementing pure Islam, the Taliban have earlier outlawed
women from working and stopped schooling for girls beyond the
age of eight. Men are not allowed to shave as it also is
against pure Islam.
About Dr Younus Shaikh
Dr M Younus Shaikh was born in 1955. He is a medical doctor (family doctor) and a teacher at a medical college in Islamabad. He spent several years in UK, but decided to go back to Pakistan. He is strongly committed to the idea of democracy and has deep knowledge about its history. He wishes ardently that his country may find its way to democracy and religious tolerance and that South Asia may become a region of peace and friendship.
In 1992, Dr Shaikh made the courageous step to found The Enlightenment, an organization that is committed to rationalist and democratic principles and stands for separation of state and religion. In public meetings and newspaper articles, Dr Shaikh raised questions about women's rights and about religion. While only few people dared to join his group openly, many watched him with keen interest and with great hope.
Another organization founded and lead by Dr Shaikh is the South Asian
Fraternity, which wants to promote understanding, goodwill and harmony
amongst the people of South Asia, religious tolerance, cultural harmony,
greater interaction, people to people contact and friendship.
We are loyal nationals of Pakistan as well as patriotic citizens of the world
,
Dr Shaikh describes the South Asian Fraternity.
Dr Shaikh was in contact with Indian Rationalist Association since 1992 and kept sending all pamphlets and publications of The Enlightenment. In January 1999 he participated in the IHEU conference at Mumbai and spoke about his experiences. He had registered himself to attend the Second International Rationalist Conference held at Trivandrum in January 2000 and agreed to give a lecture there. But he could not attend the conference. He was aware of the danger of criticizing religion in Pakistan. Till the recent arrest, he had not been directly attacked, but he had lost two times his job and his old parents had been threatened.
When General Pervez Musharaff assumed power in November 1999, he promised to bring democracy to Pakistan and declared that he was committed to the principles of Pakistan's founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the founder of modern Turkey Mustafa Kamal Pasha. Though it was an undemocratic act that made General Musharaff the Chief Executive of Pakistan, Dr Shaikh supported him because of his claimed commitments. Immediately after the coup Dr Shaikh started a lecture series about the origins of democracy. Ironically, it is under this government that he is arrested now. Musharaff tried, by the way, to liberalize the blasphemy law, but gave up when he met with the fury of the clerics.
On 4 October 2000, Dr Shaikh has been arrested without arrest warrant by Islamabad police and booked under Section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code: blasphemy. He is currently held in judicial remand in Adyala jail in Rawalpindi. After two weeks in custody, he was presented before the court on 19 October. Dr Shaikh has no lawyer at this moment. Because of fundamentalist mob, lawyers are afraid to defend blasphemy accused. During the police custody, his reading glasses were broken, so that he is not in a position to read.
There are not many details known about the blasphemy case against Dr Shaikh, since the FIR or other documents are not accessible. One Maulana Abdur Rafoof registered the FIR in Margalla police station, Islamabad. He seems to be connected to the radical Majlis-I-Khatam-I-Nabuwat, which also attended the court hearing with about 20 clerics. Informer is allegedly a fanatic student of Dr Shaikh with the name Muhammad Asghar Ali Khan. Dr Shaikh is accused to have defied Mohammed with his statement that the Prophet did not become a Muslim before the age of 40 (until receiving the first message of God) and that his parents were non-Muslims. An Islamabad based Urdu language newspaper is carrying a campaign demanding death penalty for Dr Shaikh.
A letter campaign initiated by Rationalist International has mobilized hundreds of letters to General Pervez Musharaff pleading for the safety and release of Dr Shaikh.
If you did not write so far to the Chief Executive of Pakistan, please do it now. Please write letters to General Pervez Musharraf, Chief Executive of Pakistan asking for his intervention to release Dr Shaikh. While writing, please remember not to provoke the military ruler, but to use persuasive language, keeping in mind his position.
The e-mail address of General Pervez Musharraf, Chief Executive of Pakistan is: CE@pak.gov.pk.
Please send a copy of your letter to: HQ@rationalistinternational.net
The Enlightenment : A Statement of Principles
- We are committed to the application of Reason and Science to the understanding of the universe, and to the solving of human problems; and here we are engaged by Arts no less than by Sciences, by Environment no less than by Ethics, by Culture and Tradition no less than by Modernism and Rationality.
- We believe in an Open and Pluralistic Society; and that the Responsible and Accountable form of Democracy is the form of Government that guarantees the protection of Human Rights and Civil Liberties from totalitarian regimens and repressive majorities.
- We are committed to the principle of separation of religion and state {while precisely defining the limits of religion}.
- We believe in the cultivation of moral excellence for us and for our children; with special reference to moral decencies like Altruism, Integrity, Honesty, Truthfulness, Responsibility, and Civic sense.
- We believe in the Culture of Peace and Tolerance; and stand for Equal Opportunities, Social Justice, Respect and Dignity for all loyal citizens of a State, male or female, irrespective of race, religion, gender, nationality, color, creed, class or ethnicity.
- We affirm the Liberal way of life as an alternative to fundamentalism, dogmatism, narrow-mindedness, sectarianism, violence, and the political interference of organized religions. And believing in the fullest realization of the best and noblest that we are capable of as Human Beings, and in enjoying life here in this very world; and in developing our talent to the fullest.
(First published by The Enlightenment, Pakistan. January 2000)
Educating with hot knife!
Sister Nirmala, the Superior General of Missionaries of Charity, facing irrefutable evidences, at last admitted it. She said that one of the nuns of the charity founded by Mother Teresa was guilty of hurting four street children. The incident came to light when a rag picker, father of one of the injured children complained that the Sister-in-charge of the Mahatma Gandhi Welfare Centre (a shelter run by Missionaries of Charity in central Calcutta) had burnt his daughter's hand with a hot knife. On the basis of the complaint, a case was registered against the nun at Bowbazar police station on September 13. On September 18, the accused was granted bail by the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate of Alipore Court, where Sister Nirmala appeared in person. In a signed statement, Sister Nirmala explained that the nun's intention was to "correct" the children for stealing some money. Sister Nirmala claimed that the nun had given whole hearted and free service to the poor and the sick and their families and "the poor are grateful to her." Since the case is in the court now, while admitting the guilt "with great sorrow", she agreed that the nun "definitely overstepped the limits," though the intention was good.
A mistaken nun stepped out of her way? An isolated case of cruelty in an
ocean of goodness? We do not know yet if it is a single case or the tip of
an iceberg. But anyway: it is nothing but the consequent realization of the
missionaries' philosophy. Sister Nirmala is a straight-jacket and expresses
her ideas simple. In a press conference immediately after taking charge as
the Superior General of Missionaries of Charity following the death of
Mother Teresa, she asserted without an iota of hesitation: "The poor should
remain poor ... Without them, we will lose our jobs."
(The Pioneer, 21 September 1997)
The appearance of Agnes Gonxa Bojaxhiu alias Mother Teresa was different and deceiving. Already during her lifetime, the "Mother" was venerated as the "Saint of the Gutter". As a symbol for total dedication and selflessness in the service of the poorest of the poor in the world, she became a living legend. She enjoyed immense respect and adoration not only within the flock of faithful Catholics, but all around the world among Christians and non-Christians alike. Only few like Christopher Hitchens dared to sharply look behind her halo.
Mother Teresa's "services" did not aim at improving the situation of those
who hoped for her help - at least not in this world. She had quite different
designs. She allowed the dying to die and did not bother to provide them
with any professional medical treatment or send them to a hospital. As many
witnesses, especially sisters of her order Missionaries of Charity,
reported, she did not even find it fit to distribute pain relievers. She
would see to it that injection needles were used again and again till they
became blunt, just to keep the victims of her services in the right spirit.
She celebrated their sufferings. Mother Teresa said: " I think it is very
beautiful for the poor to accept their lot... the world is being much helped
by the suffering of the poor people."
Sounds like the words of a bitter
cynic or a mentally disturbed pervert?
That earth is a vale of tears we have been told by the Early Fathers of the Church. To show us the beauty of misery, Mother Teresa had to come. She came and found the slums of Calcutta an ideal place to stage her play. It was not enough of "beautiful" poverty for Mother Teresa, to get the poor accept their fate and remain poor. She made them sink deeper and deeper into the swamp of poverty, unable to ever raise their heads again, by promoting the greatest enemy of progress in the developing countries: over population.
Progressive forces try on different levels and with different means to improve the economical, social and educational status of those at the bottom of the society. They provide education about preventive healthcare measures, nutrition, sex, family planning and income generation. They offer training and try to develop their skills. They support small savings schemes and encourage people to set up their own small-scale business. They give assistance to enable them to help themselves to better their life and build their future. There are thousands of people in India, professionals and volunteers, who are working with efficiency and enthusiasm in progressive programs for the uplifting of the living standards of the unprivileged.
Mother Teresa dedicated her life and motivated Missionaries of Charity to fight on the other side of the battle line. She fought relentlessly against birth control. She propagated reproduction without limits, the more the better. Abortion was for her the "worst evil and the greatest enemy of peace."
"God always provides"
, was Mother Teresa's favorite slogan, and not caring
for tomorrow was the approach which she powerfully cultivated. Missionaries
of Charity carry forward this campaign. But hungry children of poor rag
pickers in Calcutta do not understand. They steal a small amount to buy
food. Nuns, beholders of Christian ethics, have to correct and educate them!
Torturing by inflicting pain with hot knives is the order of the day! After
all, we should appreciate, the intentions are good!!
Encounter in Makkanpur
Scenes from the ongoing anti-superstition campaign of the Indian Rationalist Association.
Makkanpur is a village in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, right in the middle of the so-called cow-belt. Flat houses cluster in a vast green plain around a little pink temple. It is a sleepy Sunday afternoon during monsoon season, the sun burns down with all of its dwindling power. Some old men sit in front of the village shop in the shadow of neem tree playing cards and drinking tea. Suddenly they raise their heads. Two unusual guests are slowly coming down the main street. The old men stand up, fold their hands and bow their heads in respect. Clad in shiny saffron robes, a sadhu comes nearer, followed by his disciple. His eyes under thick eyebrows wandering along the horizon, his wild black hair moving lightly in the wind, he looks quite frightening. Barefoot through the mud the holy man and his companion move with measured steps in direction of the village center where women in colorful sari sitting at the water pump washing dishes and children play marmels. The sadhu lifts his hand for a blessing and enters the premises of the sarpanch's (village head's) house. Some young men run and bring a charpoi (traditional bed) and place it under a big neem tree in the center of the courtyard. The holy man sits down in the middle of it and folds his legs ceremoniously. Eyes fixed in the clear blue afternoon sky, he does not move anymore. He seems to be in deep meditation.
The news of the sadhu's arrival spreads fast. Children come from all directions and sit noiselessly down on the boundary wall surrounding the sarpanch's courtyard. They sit close together, and still more are coming. Meanwhile the adults, too, are gathering respectfully in a wide semicircle in front of the charpoi. After some minutes the whole village population is present. Who did not get a good place in the courtyard, climbs up the staircase and sits on the flat roof of the sarpanch's house. Among the people who are silently waiting for the sadhu to end his meditation there are also some strangers. They are noticed, but don't attract much attention. All eyes are fixed on the holy man on the charpoi.
The sadhu arises. Through his disciple he lets the villagers know that a curse is lying on Makkanpur.
To remove all doubts, he makes them see the bad omen with their own eyes. He takes a coconut and throws it down on the stony ground: when it breaks, blood squirts out of it and splashes all around. The audience is awestruck. He has come here, the sadhu lets them know, to use his magical powers to free them from threatening disaster and misfortune. After chanting mantras for a while the holy man breaks another coconut: out come flowers. The audience sighs in relief. Flowers are a symbol of Lakshmi, the goddess of affluence. A child tiptoes forward and takes one of the flowers from the ground, others follow. With this miracle the sadhu has deeply impressed the villagers. He is going to amaze them with more miracles. Sitting in front of a big vessel full of charcoal he chants mantras till flames blaze up, evoked just by his mental powers. He keeps fire on his hands and he eats fire. Between the pages of a big book of Vedic scriptures, he fingers out yellow flowers and green chilies. And he produces lemons from his mouth, one by one eleven lemons appear between his lips and are taken by his disciple and put on the ground in a row. The audience is spellbound. Meantime a TV team has arrived without anybody's notice and has fixed cameras and microphones and sunfilters. This may be the first ever TV recording in Makkanpur, but nobody cares much about it. The sadhu lies down on a dangerous looking nail bed. He pierces a silver trident through his cheeks. And then he levitates: lying down, covered with a cotton sheet, he slowly raises one meter above the ground and stands there in the air. People hold their breath, there is pindrop silence.
Stop! says a loud voice. A man comes out of the crowd and goes up to the flying sadhu.
"This is no holy man!"
he tells the shocked audience, "He has no supernatural powers!
He cannot do any miracle!"
With these words he tears down the cotton sheet.
And everybody sees: the sadhu is not flying in the air, he is simply sitting on the
ground and holding two hockey sticks in his hands! Spontaneous laughs, the audience
gets alive. Before they really understand what is going on, the wrong sadhu is stripped
of his wick and his beard. "We are rationalists and we have come here to show you how
sadhus and godmen are using some simple tricks to cheat you "
, explains the man who
has interrupted the show and gets spontaneous applause. He is Sanal Edamaruku,
secretary general of Indian Rationalist Association. The sadhu and his disciple are
Sunny and Samkhya, two of the many rationalist activists who have been trained to
perform all famous "miracles" of gurus and godmen in order to debunk them. The
encounter with the people of Makkanpur is part of an anti-superstition campaign
in rural Uttar Pradesh, which is already going on since several weeks. It was
selected for a documentary film on the work of Indian Rationalists and Sanal had
been requested to personally participate in it. He does it with great pleasure,
as one sees.
Sanal explains the basics of scientific thinking and the scientific principles that are creating the illusion of some miracles. The fire, evoked by mental powers, was nothing but a chemical reaction that takes some time. If there is a sadhu concentrating and chanting mantras or not: after some time the prepared mixture of chemicals in the vessel is simply bound to burn. And the blood in the coconut? And how could you get all these flowers into the other coconut? One by one the miracles are explained. Sunny produces seven more lemons till everybody understands that all the time there is only one single lemon in his mouth while his assistant drops all the others out of his sleeve. And where is the holy ash kept, which is produced out of thin air? The holy ash has to be prepared with starch and kept in form of little balls, which are to be powdered between your fingers while "producing" them. Sanal distributes some of these little balls and a group of young people starts exercising with them. Did you know that the holy ash is made from cow dung? People laugh. There is an atmosphere of relief and happiness all around. An old lady looks right and left and carefully lifts her veil to see better what is happening. A young man is testing the nail bed, after Sanal explained why it hurts far less to lie on it than to stand on it. People don't want the rationalists to go before everything is explained and tried out. Many people wish to express their thanks to Sanal. He shakes many hands this afternoon. An elderly man with wrinkled face embraces him. The cameraman from San Francisco is near sunstroke but does not want to miss any of the exciting and moving scenes. He zooms over smiling faces, takes a close up of the nearly 2000 two-inch long sharp nails of the nail-bed and a bird's view from the roof top. It is a long afternoon that nobody will easily forget. For many people from Makkanpur is may be a turning point of their life. They had the opportunity to experience that there is nothing behind the authority of holy men but simple tricks and that watching and critical thinking is better than bowing one's head.
In India, gurus, godmen and astrologers have still an enormous influence on the life of a major section of the population, especially among the 80 per cent living in rural areas. the authority of the supernatural with its many faces keeps them deadlocked in fatalism and resistant against all social changes. Projects like the ongoing campaign in one of the most backward Indian states are the heart piece of the work of Indian Rationalists. Sanal Edamaruku, since two decades leading anti-superstition campaigner, has personally trained hundreds of young rationalists in miracle debunking. He has developed special techniques and strategies to help people to free themselves from the shackles of superstition and blind belief.
Selected photograph: Samkhya, student activist of Indian Rationalist Association, relaxing on a bed of nearly 2000 two-inch long sharp nails.
Atheism Central for Secondary Schools
The introduction to this impressive site points out that the needs and concerns of atheist and agnostic students are not being addressed by religious education in the United Kingdom. Worse, they are often the subject of active religious discrimination.
The site accordingly aims to provide support for atheists and for the parents of atheist secondary school students attending religious studies courses in secondary schools in the United Kingdom (age range 11-18). The text suggests that younger students may need some parental, or teacher, support.
The authors hope that the site will also be of interest to atheists and agnostics in general. It will undoubtedly be found useful by Australian readers.
Astonishing Items on the Web
The faithful no longer have to pray in person - for a small fee a computer will do this task for them. A service called Prayerwheel advertises thus:
"Have our computers assist you in your daily prayers to God. The computers will say your prayers daily for one year and you can dedicate them to whomever you choose; a sick relative, the Souls of the departed, your children, the unborn, for Peace in the Mid-East or for Peace on Earth."
For example, three Catholic prayers (Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be) will be said three times each day for $US19.97.
Spanish prayers cost less per prayer: Four Catholic Spanish prayers (La Salve, Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be) will be said three times each day for $US19.97.
Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu and Islamic prayers are also available.
To be fair, the promoters also provide this disclaimer:
"We make no warranties or guarantees, or implied guarantees, that the prayers said will be heard or granted by God."
