Urge Pope Francis to abandon the canonization of Junipero Serra.

I signed a petition initiated by the The California Indian Environmental Alliance with the following statement:

I am a Hindu Indian.

A member of a non white, non Abrahamic, Dharmic civilisation that has made immeasurably rich contributions to guide and inspire humanity.

However, it has also suffered immensely from mercenary and racist invasions, enslavement, loot and pillaging for which both Islam and Christianity have provided religious cover.

Noteworthy, that these actions of unspeakable insanity were rationalised by the vandals as civilising missions.

Even as they looted and attempted to destroy a magnificent civilisation, they presented themselves as saviours.

Indians were in the words of a popular writer of his time, "The White Man's Burden".

As a survivor of successive holocausts of invasion and colonialism, I have a solemn moral obligation, to my wise and heroic ancestors and to our beloved children, to ensure that such horrors would never engulf humanity again.

Alas, the powerful Roman Catholic Church with its immense illegitimate wealth, its multi national organisation and its mesmerising religious cachet appears to suffer no such scruples.

Motivated by a shockingly myopic, parochial and divisive political intent and displaying a most disturbing madness, it seeks to abuse its immense power by brushing aside and trampling over the dignity and humanity of those valiant and vital few who have survived its depredations.

What an obscene picture !

This corrupt and ugly behemoth that has in one stroke revived memories of some of the most vicious cruelties of White Christian Supremacist savagery.

The Vatican cannot by any enlightened standard of ethics and morality be allowed to prevail.

All conscientious citizens must consider this savage obduracy of this putatively religious organisation as a personal affront to their dignity and to the safety, sanity and fearless, loving essence of their children.

They must do everything in their power to stop this brutality in its tracks and show Vatican a way out of its noisome mental cloisters.

Junipero Serra belongs in a dark and forgettable dustbin of history. And there he must be allowed to lie.

He has little to offer the future.

The following is an invitation to you to sign the petition.

Hi, 

As Native Californians, descendants of Mission Indians, we ask Pope Francis to abandon his plan to declare Junipero Serra a Saint. Pope Francis has indicated that he "Values Human Life" yet our people were suppressed, dominated and enslaved by Serra and considered collateral damage to the Church. This plan will not celebrate Hispanics (since Serra and his Soldiers were foreign invaders), welcome Native Peoples back to the Catholic Church, or honor our ancestors. It will re-awaken the post Inquisition, Doctrine of Discovery; a very dark, and brutal time in the history of the Catholic Church and Civilization. 

The passage of time has not made the reality of dominations and genocide of Indigenous Californians go away, nor has it made the Mastermind of the brutal Mission system a Saint. We respectfully ask you to urge the Pope to vacate this plan and open a meaningful dialogue with California Nations. We do not want an apology, rather, we need tangible policies from the Church to abandon the Papal Bulls the Doctrine of Discovery and to recognize the inhumane treatment of our ancestors. Abandoning the canonization of Junipero Serra is the first step. 

That's why I signed a petition to His Holiness, Pope Francis, which says:

"Pope Francis is coming to Washington, D.C., to canonize Junipero Serra as a Saint. It is imperative he is enlightened to understand that Father Serra was responsible for the deception, exploitation, oppression, enslavement and genocide of thousands of Indigenous Californians, ultimately resulting in the largest ethnic cleansing in North America. 

The reality of the California Mission system has yet to be accurately taught in California schools or recognized by the Catholic Church. Elementary school children tour mission grounds and are taught that native people were "docile and child-like savage pagans, saved by the kind and benevolent padres". In reality, the human remains of thousands of indigenous people are scattered beneath the grounds of the Missions that were built by Indian slaves as garrisons for the church and Spanish crown. Indigenous people died of rape, beatings and diseases introduced by the Spanish conquistadors in California. Spanish Priests did little to recognize indigenous people as humans and did not come to their rescue when women were raped by soldiers and settlers. With an over 90% indigenous mortality rate, Serra hardly "saved many souls". 

" 

Will you sign the petition too? Click here to add your name: 

http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/urge-pope-francis-to?source=s.fwd&r_by=13040488 

Thanks! 

My comment on Roger Cohen's brazen PLUS defense that the New York Times would not accept.

I must have submitted the following comment about twenty times yesterday.

Usually the good moderators at the NYT are subtle. They put my comment into the cooler and let it out when they think  the traffic has waned  and nobody's around.

But this time, it was returned with a "Technical problems, try later."

Here it is. 

I have put in a little more than the prescribed 1500 characters, because my blog, thank heavens, does not have any issues with me.

I am astounded by Mr Cohen's gushing sentimental defense and unabashedly one sided, "politically incorrect" lament for someone  he describes as an " an honorable, talented, crusading journalist. "

Such hogwash in the face of damning evidence.

Why had these champions of  the rule of law and gender justice neglected to constitute a Visakha committee ?

It is that critical act of arrogant omission that revealed the entire Tehelka enterprise as a grotesque farce.

Cohen accuses the BJP government  of " respond (ing) with rare zeal smacking of political vendetta " but in the interest of balance he ought also to have referred to Tejpal's craven, nauseating missive to Sonia Gandhi.

Tejpal was no I F Stone, pursuing journalism as a vocation and independently 'crusading' for the public good.

The Tejpal groupies were only the front desk. Tejpal appears to have had friends in all sorts of  places. Tehelka became only one of his variegated money spinning enterprises. 

And they all catered to the plummy set. 

Oddly enough, for somebody who got his second wind as a wielder of spy-cams, in his latest and most ballyhooed venture, he sought to sell "intimacy" to a chosen few.

To prop up his fallen idols, Mr Cohen has sanitized the crime scene.

"An unconscionable and criminal act may well have occurred on that elevator."

Yes.

And Mr Cohen's repine like those of Mr Tejpal/Chaudhury's water bearing "friends" are unconvincing to the point of being a nuisance.

You want hounded, Mr Cohen ? I'll give you hounded.

My 24yrs continuing sathyagraha Vs corruption in India

When several judges misbehaved . Kingpin serving in SC

India is a very big country, Mr Cohen  and it has a lot of people.

A lot more than your "liberal" "politically incorrect' buddies in Lutyens' Delhi.

India is a very dangerous place for real journalists, Mr Cohen.

You do them all a singular disservice.

You ought to be ashamed.

The Wall Street Journal Finds the language of my comment objectionable. Huh ?

Mr Henninger's heart is probably in the right place - who's isn't - but his perspective is musty and cockeyed.

In this day and age, one doesn't have to jump to Africa, the moment one thinks of corruption and poverty.

There is plenty of both in the West.

The way, I read the evidence it is the  force of Western greed and moral idiocy - The Price of Offshore Revisited and Inequality Underestimated  - that has straitjacketed the rest of the world to conform just to survive.

Corruption is not just about handing out little keychains come festival time.

The forces of corruption, as anybody familiar with the work of Mario Puzo or Francis Ford Coppola will tell you, make a "reasonable" offer that may not be refused.

They say,"Take my money, or I'll have your life."

Your hosannah to the Pope - This pope, with every waking hour, cares about the shafting of the world's poor- may have warmed some powerful, old hearts, but the Pope is not the only messiah in waiting.

My own "no excuses", ultra peaceful, non partisan, individual sathyagraha against corruption and for the idea of the rule of law in India, now in its 23nd year, has seen Presidents, Prime Ministers and Popes come and go.

Your readers may want to acquaint themselves with my sathyagraha here. 1. Excellence Vs Perversity  2. The Handclap That Triggered The Avalanche

Can't say for sure, but I get a feeling you, Shri Henninger, may already be acquainted with my thoughts.

I know the tenacity and passion with which my grandfather, the late Shri T S Swaminathan, MA, FIA, FCII
resisted corruption. The Prithvi connection

He too was isolated and almost broken till his massive, versatile abilities saw him rehabilitate himself. He was professionally active till well into his nineties.

In India, one often hears of a courageous citizen, usually an "RTI activist" or officer of the government who has been butchered or put to crushing travails by the forces of corruption.

Chinua Achebe was a tireless campaigner against the abuse of power in Nigeria. I would be interested to know whether he has ever inspired the WSJ to rapture ?

The abuse of power and predatoriness is universal and pervasive, thanks to the insouciance of the West.

Till it hatches out of its narcissistic shell and gets real, I find it difficult to see any hope for the survival of the planet.

That was my reply to Daniel Henninger's latest column  Capitalism's Corruptions . 

Obviously, I had invested precious time on the exercise. Imagine my surprise when my comment was rejected with this admonition.

Huh ? 

Case closed. The marvelous moderators at WSJ appear to have seen the reason in my bafflement and have published my comment. Now, when are you sending your reporter, Editor saa'ab ?

Rape is only nominally a gender issue. It is substantially an impunity issue.

We pass laws. We imagine and sometimes create leviathan bureaucracies. We scream on television. Yet India and the world keeps rotting.

Why ?

Because of our casual attitude to pervasive corruption.

Because of pervasive corruption or the culture of buying impunity for a price, an entire syndrome of malevolence has materialised, an aspect of which is the worship of the monied and the powerful and a corresponding suspicion and contempt of the powerless, a manifestation of which is the casual abuse of women and children.

Corruption is the domination and control, rape, of the very idea of rule of law and makes a mockery of and cripples the authentic psychological evolution of the human race.

Corruption is fascist. And that is why, even in the 21st century, “the more things remain the same.”

Democracies have frittered away their immense moral advantage due to corruption and the people from top to bottom have all but given up on making the system function.

The problem is as humongous as the stash of illicit money reportedly circulating in India and in the planet.

This, by all credible accounts, gargantuan supply of illicit money, is the premium that helpless citizens pay for crime and insanity.

It is an awful reminder of how societies have stopped to function for you and me.

A relevant question is, can a Non Privileged Indian rely on any institution of governance, not to sell her to the highest bidder ?

How are we going to rein in this monster of impunity ?

How do we make India and the planet safe for civility and sanity ?

How can ordinary citizens demand and achieve transparency and accountability on tap, as it were ?

Only by understanding the depth, dimensions and ramifications of pervasive corruption in India and in the world.

If we are resigned to corruption as part of our DNA, then we must resign ourselves to inequality and injustice.

To a society of a few fat predators and the rest as bakras; prey.

A society in which the powerless will be reviled, hounded, starved, enslaved and consumed.

 Rape is only nominally a gender issue. It is substantially an impunity issue .

As a grateful father of a wonderful girl child - now a thriving professional woman - I have to exhort all lovers of life to not tolerate any encroachment of their right to equality under the rule of law.

There can be no question that even so called advanced countries are shot through with an almost comical patriarchial bias. But the gender is incidental.

The real issue that all humanity and all life on the planet is groaning under is the collusive impunity of the powerful.

Some of them may even be caring, charitable people. But that is cold comfort.

And hence my stand against corruption, which is now a “no excuses”, ultra peaceful, non partisan, individual sathyagraha against corruption and for the idea of the rule of law in India.

In its 25th year. 

I request your solidarity and support.

Any struggle against a predatory authority is humanity’s struggle to honour the gift of life.

You may also look in on me on @divakarssathya on @twitter.