Bad News Filters Out

I am reading about the effects of Typhoon Nargis. Unbelievable. They’re saying 22,000 dead and 40,000 missing. And in Myanmar, my guess is that “missing” means “probably dead.”

I looked up the wind speed. It topped out at 120 miles per hour. In Miami, that’s three days without power and one or two deaths. It’s amazing how different things are in other countries.

Interesting passage from Wikipedia:

The Christian populations do, however, face religious persecution and it is hard, if not impossible, for non-Buddhists to join the army or get government jobs, the main route to success in the country. Such persecution and targeting of civilians is particularly notable in Eastern Burma, where over 3000 villages have been destroyed in the past ten years.

Here’s something from Persecution.org:

Christian persecution is occurring because it is an ethnic issue. Two of the main minority groups are predominantly Christian while the majority of Burma and the majority of the other five minority groups are Buddhist. The government, afraid of the growing collaboration between the minority states, is currently attempting to use religion to re-divide the minority groups. The army offers soldiers 6,000 kyats (their currency) worth of rice to marry a Christian Karenni woman to try to dilute the ethnic group and destroy the culture of the Karenni, which is Christian.

Playing the religion card politically, Buddhism is slightly more tolerated than Christianity. However, Burmese expert, Benedict Rogers told a story of a Burmese army commander, after leading many attacks on Karen villages, summed up the junta’s philosophy when he said, after urinating on the head of a Buddhist monk: “I do not respect any religion. My religion is the trigger of my gun”. (Catholic Herald Jan. 24, 2003).

Anyway, World Vision is helping. If you want to donate, here’s a new link.

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Some hope that Christian relief money will help reduce hostility to Christianity in Myanmar.

Last year, the government there embarked on an official campaign to eradicate Christianity.