The Church and Terrorism
Mr Dudley Au, in today's ST, questions the involvement of lobby groups and the Catholic Church in pressuring Arroyo to withdraw troops from Iraq and capitulate to the terrorists. He asks:
1) What was the agenda of the lobby groups? Were they trying to gain political mileage?
2) Why was the Catholic Church involved in government affairs, where a democratically elected government had to make a stand against terrorism?
3) Were the public, lobby groups and church ruled by emotion or reason in pushing for comliance with the terrorists demand?
I'm to lazy to compose a full reply, so here's just some points I have:
1) Religions have an important right to a political voice. I think certain moral and human truths are too easily discarded by secular governments. Anyway, the Catholic Church has a legitimate democratic right to speak as it represents the majority of Philipinos, who happen to be Catholic.
2) There is no moral high ground when it comes to losing human lives, there is only choosing between lousy choices. Yes terrorism is wrong, but we shouldn't polarize the issue too much by saying that it is evil and that we should never give in to terrorism. We dehumanise the terrorists and end up dehumanising ourselves. We make ourselves pawns in the game of winner kills and losers are killed. We play them with their rules, yes, but let's not forget that our ultimate aim is to change the rules of the game - I suppose to one of love.
3) Don't belittle emotion next to reason.
1 Comments:
[the original letter as a reference]
Seoul did the right thing; Manila didn't
I REFER to the article, 'Iraq hostage crisis: Manila starts pullout' (ST, July 15). It was said that President Gloria Arroyo was under intense pressure from the public, lobby groups and the Catholic church.
Political analyst Benito Lim said: 'She was forced to choose between the Philip-pines' national interest and the interest of the US. In the end, she decided to protect the interests of overseas Filipino workers.'
The questions that need to be asked are:
What was the agenda of the lobby groups, were they using the unfortunate affair to gain political mileage?
Why was the Catholic church involved in government affairs, where a democratically elected government had to make a stand against terrorism?
Were the public, lobby groups and church ruled by emotion or reason, in pushing for compliance with the terrorists' demand?
Mr Lim said Mrs Arroyo had to choose between national interest and US interest and she chose national interest and the protection of overseas citizens. This in no way protects national interest or its citizens (overseas or at home). It opens the door to further kidnappings, threats and demands.
Does anyone believe terrorist groups are that muddle-headed that they cannot spot weakness? Do the lobby groups and the Catholic church really believe the pullout will satisfy terrorism per se and end the danger to their citizens?
An invitation has been sent not only to terrorism overseas but also to indigenous terror-ism, and the Muslim frater-nity fighting for autonomy, that the picking is there for the taking. All one has to do is to kidnap a citizen and make the demand and the lobby groups and the Catholic church will do the rest, by twisting the arm of the government until there is acquiescence.
The choice, therefore, was not between US interests and national interests. The choice was to stand up to terrorism or to give in to it, and this had nothing to do with the US, Britain or the rest of the world.
South Korea understood this and the understanding did not mean it did not grieve for its beheaded citizen. It had, however, to put the nation's interest before that of the individual. It could not allow itself to be manipulated so that, anytime, anywhere, its citizens would never be safe, because it will be seen as exploitable.
DUDLEY AU
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