After Myanmar and Bangladesh
In which the Rohingya became the main content
of the papal trip, and the pope's messages
were 'too much about man, too little about God'
Translated from
December 2, 2017
In a few hours I will be joining the papal flight which, God willing, will return to Rome after the apostolic trips to Myanmar and Bangladesh. Let me toss forth some quick impressions and I apologize beforehand for what may seem to be superficiality, but I did wish to register these impressions.
In general, even with the determining contribution of us in the media,
the impression was that the principal content of the two trips were the Rohingya Muslims, and the entire narrative became a sort of crescendo building towards the pope's meeting yesterday in Dacca [the capital of Bangladesh],
with a group of Rohingya refugees from the Cox Bazar camp.
No one will dispute that the plight of the Rohingya is tragic in so many ways. There are just a little over a million of them, of whom more than 600,000 are packed in refugee camps across the border in Bangladesh, after having been chased out of Myanmar which does not recognize their right to citizenship because the government does not consider their tribe a national ethnic group.
The pope has taken their cause to heart, and arranged to meet with some of them in Dacca, where the Bangladesh government recognizes them as legitimate political refugees. The government in Yangon
[the Myanmar capital known to the West as Rangoon when Myanmar was still called Burma] has been responsible for brutal repression of the tribe, a repression which the world has stigmatized. But the Rohingya, too, have 'armed forces' which have likewise been guilty of violent acts.
This must be said not to fashion impossible and useless classifications but to underscore that the situation is more complex than it is seen and reported in the West. It must also be considered that Myanmar, in southeast Asia, is a Buddhist nation that fears Islamist 'contamination' and has been trying to protect itself from dangerous infiltrations.
However, the Rohingya situation (for two-thirds of this trip, the pope could not say the word in public in order not to displease his hosts in Myanmar) has catalyzed public attention to
the neglect of virtually every othe4r aspect of this two-nation apostolic voyage – first of all, the two tiny Catholic Churches in Myanmar and Bangladesh, where they are very much a minority in an overwhelmingly Buddhist and Muslim nation, respectively.
So the papal Masses celebrated in Yangon and Dacca, in the presence of tens of thousands of persons, many coming from neighboring countries, were quite moving.
It must not be forgotten what a papal visit means for Catholics who live in complex political and social situations. The joy and the emotion they display on such an occasion should compel us never ever to take the Catholic faith – theirs or ours – for granted.
The ordination of 16 new priests during the papal Mass in Dacca was the image of a small Church that is no longer kept alive only by missionaries from Europe. The Church in Pakistan has become largely autocthonous, and one that is dedicated in silent service to the spiritual care of the poorest.
As for the content of the papal messages during the trip, one could describe them briefly as
"very much about men, too little about God". By which I mean that the pope spoke mostly about the condition of peoples and their concrete situations, about respect for human rights and the need for justice, about the need of building peace through coexistence. He spoke much less about the faith and what it teaches, about the example of Jesus and the primacy of God.
I don't say he did not talk about this, only that he referred to them marginally.
This was most evident in his meeting with Aung San and his encounter with Buddhist monks, where at most, he spoke about transcendence in a generic way, and where his words on Buddha and St. Francis had a syncretic flavor.
[No surprise there, surely, from this anti-Catholic pope who has gone way past ecumenism and inter-religious dialog, towards forging Hans Kueng's ideal of 'one world religion' in which abstract values are 'deified' in place of God or a Supreme Being,and which values may all be subsumed under the rubric of 'secular humanism', the religion of Freemasonry. Oh yes, for Masons, as well as for non-Masonic ultra-liberals, Bergoglio represents the fulfillment of two centuries of 'deep-state' infiltration into the governments of the West to ultimately achieve the destruction of the Catholic Church.]
On a couple of occasions, the pope used technological metaphors to speak about God. He spoke of a 'spiritual GPS', a 'software' that God has somehow implanted into man to help him find the right path.
[So many things wrong with that analogy, but let it be for now!] Thus he sought to address peoples who, despite being characterized by widespread poverty, are nonetheless quite advanced in information technology.
If I can be allowed some other fleeting impressions, I would say that on transferring from Myanmar to Bangladesh, I seem to have passed from a nation of smiling people to a nation of staring people. If in Myanmar one cannot but be struck by the serenity emanating from the faces in the crowd and their readiness to smile, in the part of once-Indian Bengal where Dacca is located, it is difficult not to observe the penetrating look the Bangladeshis fix on foreigners: dark eyes looking directly into yours with a mixture of fierce pride and even perhaps of reproof.
The two capitals, Yangon and Dacca, are similar in some ways. Both have lots of water and lots of traffic. Yangon is situated at the confluence of two big rivers, while Dacca developed around the Buriganga river, itself a major channel of the larger Dhaleshwari river. But traffic is the dominant element.
Whether it is Yangon (with 5 million inhabitants) or Dacca (with 16 million), to get into any motor vehicle means to get in a long barely moving ine, at least in the major roads. Not that public transport is lacking – I saw numerous buses in Yangon, and in Dacca, there wdre buses of every kind, including two-tier buses like in London. But public transport is overwhelmed because setting out in your own car is like going off to war.
Traffic congestion is unbelievable. I am told that the Japanese sought to study building a subway system for Yangon but it was not feasible because the city's subsoil is too acqueous. I do not know if Dacca would have the same problem, but traffic bottlenecks are 'normal', and travelling just a few kilometers may require Biblical time.
The other element I noted, compared to the West, is the presence on the streets of so many young people. And the absence of overweight or obese people! It is most likely genetic, but for many people in these lands, the Italian expression of 'being happy with just a handful of rice' is not a metaphor but daily reality. Let us not forget this about our brothers in the Third World.
I did not realize Valli was on the papal trip - but of course, he would have had to be, since he is the chief Vatican correspondent of Italian state TV RAI.
P.S. I have translated an earlier post by Valli from Myanmar about the Rohingya problem that is relevant to the above.
The pope in Myanmar:
The Rohingya problem and Chinese influence
Translated from
November 28, 2017
The generals running Myanmar wished to make things very clear from the start. By asking to be received by the pope just a few hours after his arrival, before any other meeting scheduled for him in Myanmar, they demonstrated that they still run the government here even if a transition to democracy has formally begun.
Five of them came to see the pope at the residence of the Archbishop of Yangon (where there is no Apostolic Nunciature pending the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Vatican and Myanmar). Papal spokesman Greg Burke tells us that it was precisely the transition to a more democratic system that was discussed at the center of the conversation which lasted 15 minutes, with a Burmese priest acting as interpreter.
Regardless of what was discussed, the meeting had great symbolic significance. In a way, the generals had 'marked out' their territory, at the very moment when Cardinal Charles Bo was suggesting to the pope never to say the word 'Rohingya' during his three-day visit.
The Rohingya are, of course, an ethnic tribe who profess Islam unlike the rest of this Buddhist country, and whose citizenship is not acknowledged by the government which does not even consider their tribe one of the 135 ethnic groupings in the country. The government considers them a terrorist group and 'refugees', most of whom (600,000 out of a million) have been chased out to neighboring Bangladesh where they live in refugee camps).
The pope is travelling next to Bangladesh, where, among other things, he wishes to see for himself the status of the Rohingya refugees and violation of their human rights. It is true that Myanmar and Bangladesh recently signed an agreement for the repatriation of these 600,000 refugees, but the Myanmar government is hampered by the 'nationalism' of anti-Islam Buddhist radicals.
Myanmar is 90% Buddhist. Muslims make up 4%, as do Christians in general (only one-fourth of them Catholics). 'Love and peace' is the official slogan for the pope's visit, but the way to 'love and peace' seems truly complicated, particularly because of the economic interests at stake.
In recent years, the Chinese have made remarkable investments in Rakhine, the region native to the Rohingya in western Myanmar, considered strategic by the Chinese in their project to have a new 'Silk Road' through Asia by land and sea, in order to obtain commercial footholds and conquer new markets along the way. For this reason, the Chinese present themselves as mediators because to protect their investments, they want the area free of ethnic-religious tensions and consequent confrontations.
The Chinese foreign minister on a recent visit here called for an immediate ceasefire in Rakhine [between government forces and the armed Rohingya guerrillas]; for concrete negotiations with Bangladesh to resolve the refugee problem; and for economic development of Rakhine to address the problems of poverty and social rest that is at the root of the Rohingya uprising. The Myanmar government responded positively, and we shall see what happens. At this delicate stage, every move made by the pope will be carefully observed and evaluated.
The Rohingya have an armed group called the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army which the Myanmar government considers terrorist because it has been responsible for attacks against police and army positions. The government has taken repressive measures to neutralize them, including the destruction of entire villages affecting innocent civilians.
The Holy See has been aware of this humanitarian crisis, and last August 27, in his Angelus message, the pope said: "We have received sad news about the persecution of a religious minority in Myanmar, our Rohingya brothers. I wish to express my closeness to them. Let us all ask the Lord to save them and inspire men and women of goodwill to come to their aid, and that their human rights be granted to them. Let us pray for our Rohingya brothers".
The Rohingya problem is rooted in Myanmar's colonial past and has various components, including the religious, because being Muslim, they have been the target of armed Buddhist groups. Which is why for many of them, fleeing the country became obligatory. They have fled towards Bangladesh, Thailand, India, Malaysia and Indonesia, but most of these countries have refused to accept them, and in Bangladesh, they live in refugee camps that are deprived of resources.
What will China do to help out? For now, Beijing supports the Myanmar government's actions against 'extremist terrorists' and has therefore blocked any possible UN resolution against Myanmar for violating the human rights of the Rohingya.
One will better understand Beijing's position by looking at the map. The state of Rokhine adjoining the Bay of Bengal, is a strategic route for the transport of petroleum, oil and other products. Moreover, large deposits of natural gas have been found in Rokhine. So is the fate of the Rohingya and their human rights tied up to the production and transport of profitable resources? It would not be unprecedented.
China also has strong commercial ties with Bangladesh, which China has given aid in behalf of the Rohingya refugees that the country now accommodates.
But many observers think that the poor and discriminated Rohingya have little to expect from the Chinese – because any economic development projects in their native state would benefit foreign investors and the privileged Myanmar classes (Buddhists and nationalists).
It is a very complex game with numerous players, including the pope – who purports to bring 'love and peace' to a land which needs these badly but for realistic reasons must listen to other messages.
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Rohingya here, Rohingya there, I hope the pope has paused to say words of consolation for the families of the 43 men and one woman
who were on board the Argentine submarine missing for two weeks, until the Argentine Navy announced on December 1 that it has
"officially ended operations to search for possible survivors of the 43 men and one woman who were aboard the Argentine submarine
which disappeared two weeks ago in the South Atlantic." At Angelus prayers on Nov. 22, one week after the sub disappeared,
the pope called on the faithful to pray for the safety of the crew.
On Beatrice's site, Carlota linked to this photograph
from the website of the Spanish daily ABC, showing the only female on board the ill-fated sub. The picture of Lt. Eliana Krawczyck
was taken in the sub Ara Salta which she served in before being transferred to the San Juan. She was the first woman to have been
assigned to an Argentine submarine.
Carlota notes that the image of the Virgin Mary is prominent behind her on the Salta. "I do not know if there was also an image
on the San Juan, but I hope that the Navy crew - whose names are mostly Hispanic, with some Italian, and only Lt. Krawcyzk
with a Polish name - had Our Lady's support during their ordeal and that their end was not too painful. Our prayers, too, for the
families they leave behind."
AMEN!
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 05/12/2017 17:53]