The NEWS from 01.January.02

Confused Shepherds

Every year grand speeches are held at Christmas and New Years, which the press in attendance then reports when made by speakers whom it considers important. Aside from dignitaries and politicians in office, this honor is also granted to the leaders of the Church. Their houses of God may very well be practically empty during the year, but on Dec. 24th, many attempt to improve their Christmas spirit by going to the midnight mass on Christmas Eve. The spiritual leaders suddenly see people gathered around them again and use the opportunity to raise noble words.

They like to talk about the glad tidings of Jesus. These are even “irreplaceable,” proclaimed Cardinal Lehmann of Mainz, Germany, who also serves as chairman of the German Bishops’ Conference. He is right. But what did he do when a few weeks ago the talk revolved around war and peace? One must also have understanding for the use of the force of arms, said the highest Catholic in Germany. And some of his colleagues added that force of arms is even morally called for. What would these bishops say if they were to suddenly discover Jesus of Nazareth among their listeners? Would they also still pompously proclaim from their pulpits that the message of Jesus is irreplaceable, but when things don’t work out otherwise, then even bombs are allowed!?

The chairman of the German Lutheran Church, Manfred Kock, mourned that everything has gone back to the same old rut and instead of fighting for justice and conquering misery, people have become used to thinking that short-term success attained with targeted military force “is sufficient.” He is right. But what did the Synod of the German Luther Church decide at the beginning of the war? A lukewarm “the one as well as the other” – of course, we are for peace, but also for the force of arms. What one should think of this kind of Christianity can also be read in the Revelation of John: “So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth.” (Rev. 3:16)

What occurred to the arch-Catholic Lehmann during a dialogue between the religions was also interesting. This dialogue will attain “spice and strength,” as he said, only when each community contributes all its wealth. Often in non-Christian religions“uniquely beautiful and absurdly cruel” are linked with each other all the way to killing in the name of God, said Lehmann. Did we hear that right – from “killing in the name of God” in non-Christian religions? Has the theologian meanwhile totally put aside his own Bible, the so-called Old Testament, which in the Roman-Catholic Catechism is viewed as an irrevocable part of their faith and directly inspired by God? Does not one find again and again passages there in which God supposedly called upon His people or one or the other messenger of God to kill, to even carry out whole massacres against neighboring nations? In its bloodthirstiness, no one can surpass the Bible, upon which the Church Christians swear.

How comforting it is that Bishop Käßmann of Hannover called for reducing concepts of enemies. She is right. But what would she do when the so-called sect-watch agents of her Church were to year in and year out defame in the worst way those of different faiths in her own country? It is a good thing that heckling is not allowed during worship services.

In the Christmas edition of the newspaper Zeit, her fellow Bishop Jepsen of Hamburg advised that God should be conveyed to the youth like drugs. The All-Highest as a drug and religion as opium for the people? – as Karl Marx already mocked. Pharmacy instead of theology? Perhaps “high” will become merely another word for “holy.”

The helpless God-seeker turns away. Perhaps with such confusion from the spiritual leaders, he will finally come to the conclusion that God is found neither in Karl Lehmann’s tabernacle nor in Maria Jepsen’s pharmacy, but in his own inner being, in his divine self, in the very bottom of his immortal soul, as the light that streams through him and the whole world, invisibly, but inextinguishable, and at all times attainable for the one who is aware of the presence of God.

The Criticism of America Is Growing

The American president has proclaimed the new year as another year of war; and the German Marines have set out to sea for the largest operation since the second world war – in the direction of the Gulf of Aden, in order to there watch over sea routes and cut off possible connecting routes of terrorist organizations. Could it be that someone has already gone by way of the sea routes plotting terror in his wake? Meanwhile, in Afghanistan the bombs continue to fall and shortly before New Year’s Eve killed civilians again. For all this, there is now a new government in Kabul. The Taliban and their reign of terror have disappeared. This is progress and a chance for a democratic new beginning for the Afghans. But that was not the American goal for the war. The 30 billion dollar campaign was not for the collapse of the Taliban regime, but to find Osama bin Laden and his Al-Quaida Organization. But they have meanwhile disappeared.

The criticism of the military strategy of the United States is growing ever louder. Lately, it is also coming from conservative Europeans, who for decades have seen themselves as friends of the USA. One of them is a former member of the German Parliament, Jürgen Todenhöfer, who for nearly 20 years was a member of the parliamentary alliance of the Christian Democratic Union and the Christian Social Union and is presently first, the development, then disarmament political speaker of his party. In a whole page article of the Süddeutsche Newspaper, he subjects the military strategy of the USA to harsh criticism:

Since the leadership of Al-Quaida has disappeared, the anti-terror war has become a lottery. No one knows how many civilians have been killed in the hail of American bombs. Probably more than the 3000 plus people who were murdered in the World Trade Center. Todenhöfer asks whether America’s hatred for the instigators of the strikes on New York and Washington, who did not even come from Afghanistan, gave it the right to bomb Afghanistan cities. Did they really try everything to get hold of the terrorists without going to war? Did they perhaps squander the chance to test the Taliban government, which had declared it would surrender Bin Laden if America would provide convincing proof of his responsibility for the crime? What would have happened if they had offered a billion dollars to the Paschunes, the leading tribe of Afghanistan, for seizing bin Laden? Todenhöfer writes literally: “The USA has actually never seriously attempted to take a peaceful path leading to the collapse of the Taliban. For it, the war against Afghanistan was not its last resort, but its first ratio. It wanted – to calm down its own population – to make an example, cost it what it may.”

The author also indicated that the Afghanistan civilian population is less guilty of the existence of the Al-Quaida and the Taliban than the USA itself. Both organizations are co-productions of the USA and Pakistan. Both were built up by the American Secret Service, the CIA, and the Pakistani Secret Service, the ISI, and then smuggled into Afghanistan and brought to power there. Todenhöfer literally writes: “With its bombardments of Afghanistan cities, the USA is thus punishing the Afghanistan people for a deed that it itself committed. The culprits as executioners – how is it that the general public hardly utters a word about this?”

At the end of his analysis, the former CDU member of parliament pleads for a political solution, which is unfortunately not in sight. Some key words: lasting developmental help for such Islamic countries that show terrorists out the door; respect for the religion and culture of the Islamic world in a partnership dialog of cultures. Literally: “It is not without reason that the Moslem world has the impression that the USA measures their foreign policy with two kinds of criteria, applying different measures to Afghanistan as to Saudi Arabia. That they try their military enemies for war crimes, but award military allies like General Dostum, who had hundreds of helpless prisoners massacred, with minister posts. Above all, the USA must engage itself in the Middle East conflict much more strongly than up to now. It is high time that the entire Arabic world accept the Israel’s right to exist. But it is also high time that the USA help the Palestinians attain their own viable state.

Finally, the former politician Christian Democrats demands that Germany act more confidently toward its American friends: “In central points, European interests are identical with those of the USA. We belong to the same community of values; we have the same ideals. But there are also important interests and differences of opinion, as in environmental politics, in missile defense or with the death penalty. It is not anti-Americanism when one addresses this openly. True friends are never servile toward each other.”

Nothing can be added to this. Hopefully this is also clear to the German Chancellor and his Secretary of State.

Abolishment of Hunting as a Topic in the Election Campaign

Did you know that according to survey results about 70% of the German population is against hunting? Meanwhile, some people remember the first President of the Republic of Germany, who once said: “Hunting is merely a cowardly definition of an especially cowardly murder of our helpless fellow creatures. Hunting is another form of human mental illness.” Theodore Heuß must have known this, because for years as part of his official duties, he accompanied diplomats from all possible nations on the hunt – to his disgust, as we learned later.

“There are a total of about 300,000 hunters in Germany, who kill 5 million animals every year. Often by terrible and cruel means: rabbits with buckshot, which makes them scream in pain like little children; deer and wild pigs with so-called expansion bullets, which press blood and intestines out of the severely wounded animals, as signs, so that while fleeing they leave behind traces for those who are tracking them down. Among other things, martens and foxes die in traps, which cause the animals a wretched death struggle. Young wild pigs go into panic when their lead sow is shot dead. Fawns watch helplessly as their mothers bleed to death. What brought tears to the eyes of the public in Bambi films, is part of the daily cruelty in our forests.”

This can be read in a press release of the Initiative for the Abolishment of Hunting, which has caused a stir for some months now. Every first Saturday of the month, they demonstrate in Berlin and march from Adenauer Square to the Memorial Church – under the motto: “Abolish hunting!” The initiator is biologist and Director of Studies Kurt Eicher from Heilbronn, Germany. These monthly Saturday demonstrations could become dangerous for Germany’s hunters, if the stubborn opponent of hunting and his followers keep it up. And it does look like they will. Recently, they even wrote a letter to two ministers of the Green Party, Renate Künast, who is responsible for hunting, and Jürgen Trittin, who is responsible for environmental protection. The demand of the hunting opponents: “Make the abolishment of hunting a topic in the coming election campaign!” Literally, the hunting opponents write: “The farewell to the bloody tradition of hunting is long overdue. What is possible in other countries must also become possible in Germany.” Kurt Eicher refers here to the paper of the work group Man and Animal by the Alliance 90 of the Green Party in July 1998, in which it expressly takes a position, saying: The work group champions on a long-term basis the abolishment of hunting.” At the same time, short-term measures were suggested. They include:
• The limitation of the hunting seasons
• The reduction in the numbers of animal species that can be hunted
• The forbiddance of all kinds of trapping
• The abolishment of buckshot
• Making optional the presently compulsory membership in a hunting club

The opponents of hunting want to see these important political demands put into practice on a short-term basis, without letting go of their goal to completely abolish hunting. In a letter to the ministers, they give voice to their program: “Good politics for man is not possible without good politics for nature and the environment ... As long as we do not make peace with our fellow creatures, we will not attain peace among people.”

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