The Taliban are in the news again. This time they are being chastised for arresting eight members of an aid agency, including two Americans, for their attempts to convert Afghans to Christianity. I applaud this action of the Taliban.
There is no doubt that Afghanistan under the harsh religious rule of the Taliban is suffering. Its economy is in shambles, education system a mess and health care almost non-existent. They had inherited a devastated country and have made it more barren and poor by their policies and in the process have alienated most of the Western world. And now because of Afghanistan’s refusal to hand over Osama bin Laden, an avowed enemy of the United States, the UN Security Council, over the strong objections of Secretary General Kofi Anan, has imposed the most stringent economic sanctions on the country. The most vulnerable of the population-women and children- are suffering and dying of famine, disease and a prolonged drought. In such conditions humanitarian help of any kind is needed and is welcomed.
Most of this help, unfortunately, comes with strong religious strings attached. Aid agencies, mostly Christian missionaries disguised as aid workers, arrive on the scene with a loaf of bread in one hand and a Bible in the other expecting to barter bread for their souls.
This is how it works. While the UN (read US) forbids the outside world to deal with Afghanistan, aid agencies can get in the country on humanitarian grounds. And most of them enter the country with their own agenda to proselytize and convert. It is, in simple words, an unholy blackmail on a grand scale.
Christian missionaries have a long history of preying on the most vulnerable people in the world. For centuries these self-anointed purveyors of salvation have been trampling the far corners of the world to convert the poor to their brand of true faith. In the colonial era they worked under the protection of the occupying armies. Today they go about their business as teachers, health care workers and agriculture experts. The intent and the message is the same, only the methods have changes. Underlying all this celestial panhandling is religious freedom, a buzz word that appeals to the secular Western mind but in reality has no relevance to the subject at hand.
In all fairness Christian missionaries are not the only ones that indulge in conversions but they are the most organized and well funded. Muslims and Hindus have fought each other over conversions that have led to communal bloodletting and together they have fought the advances of Christian missionaries. The protest rallies in India on the eve of the Pope John Paul’s visit to India two years ago underscored the deep- rooted resentment people have towards such practices. In an apparent departure from Vatican Council II declaration that gave a measure of recognition to other religions, Pope John Paul announced in unambiguous terms that his church will continue the practice of conversions since salvation of mankind can only be achieved through his church. Afghans are no strangers to such overtures. As early as the early 19th century Anglican missionaries set up missionary hospitals and schools along the turbulent western frontier of British India. A missionary surgeon by the name of T. L. Pennell spent twenty years dispensing medicines with a hefty dose of his religion to the tribes. He called his effort ‘extraordinary Christianizing, civilizing and pacifying influence into some of the darkest abodes of cruelty and superstition on the face of God’s earth’. To him ancient Hindu practices were nothing but ‘superficial philosophies and dogmas; rites and ceremonies from the hoary Vadic ages’. Upon his retirement he lamented that in twenty years he was able to convert only one Afghan to his religion.
It was one convert too many.
Just compare Dr. Pennell’s self-righteousness and of those of other missionaries with the selfless mission of Mother Teresa of Calcutta. She gave comfort to the faceless street people at the end of their life without any attempts to re-direct their departing souls to a different destination.
Religion is a personal choice and one should be free to practice any religion one prefers or none at all. It should not be shoved down the throats of desperate hungry people when they are most vulnerable. Freedom of religion and conversions under duress are not the same. To say otherwise is to turn sublime into profane.
The West owes a debt to the Afghans for their efforts in defeating a super power and starting the process of disintegration of what Ronald Reagan called the Evil Empire. Today the country lays waste as a direct result that struggle. What Afghans desperately need is food, medicines and assistance to build their country. They do not need proselytizing by a bunch of zealous missionaries.