Showing posts with label Iain Buchanan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iain Buchanan. Show all posts

RMF Summary: Week of August 29 - September 4, 2011


August 29
JNU scholar becomes Nepals new MAOIST PM.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/south-asia/JNU-scholar-becomes-Nepals-new-Maoist-PM/articleshow/9771299.cms KATHMANDU: A slight, bespectacled...

[This is the first JNU has showed up in RMF. To learn more about this university, see this link].

August 30
More secessionist pressures
Here is an interesting article from Wharton's India newsletter titled "Are Smaller States the Answer in India?" ...


Blond Jesus from 1800s
Vijay shares a photograph:
Here is a link from within this forum in the photo section which I just uploaded....
I took this picture this summer at Hohen Schawngau Castle in Bavaria Germany. This castle was built or rebuilt around 1855. It clearly shows a 'Blond Jesus'. What is there for anyone to say. Jesus was a Jew so most likely a short man with black curly locks, but here the christians have created a Aryan baby Jesus. I took this picture because as soon as I saw this image, words of Rajiv Malhotra's Breaking India resonated in my ears.

Rajiv Malhotra's response:
"...I dont know when i will get around to publishing it [BI] in the full version because i have many other projects pending. One of the article I wrote (unpublished) was titled "How Jesus Became Blonde". All earlier art showed Jesus with Middle
Eastern features, and only in the past 200 years did Jesus start looking like a white man."

Ganesh shares a related link:
"....
Excerpt.
"LBI Institute says its version, Judith Christ of Nazareth, The Gospels of the Bible, Corrected to Reflect that Christ Was a Woman, Extracted from Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, takes Thomas Jefferson's edited Gospel one step futher by "correcting" the gender of Christ and God."

Shaas follows up:
"The Church is like a chameleon. It changes features, philosophies, approaches with only one purpose: to defeat her "competitors", i.e. cultures, religions, etc..... 

Different with Sanatan Dharm that is the expression of deepest natural law. Veda is knowledge and it will not and cannot be changed. Maybe expanded and brought in new words - but it is Natural Law, eternal. It deals systematically with the basis of life - consciousness - and as such is indispensable for any kind of educational system.

The past and present of Christianity are the clearest example how a religion, in absence of a real basis, can be again and again manipulated to be an instrument of power mongers."

Rajiv Malhotra makes an important point in his response:
"All religions change over time to respond to the needs of the context. We call this smritis. These are not fixed or else we would be frozen in time as often alleged. Even the aesthetics of how a deity is presented changes and is merely artist imagination. Not a single image of Krishna or Rama claims to be by an artist who saw the avatara at that time. There are no images surviving from that era assuming there were such images. So these are artist imaginations and such imaginations evolved over time".

August 31
Evangelical Christianity: Devils in high places
Rajiv Malhotra posts: 
I dont know where this review appeared [found a link in DNA] but it shows that the British author (who was featured in this thread in the early days) supports Breaking India's thesis.

Evangelical Christianity:Devils in high places
By Yogesh Pawar

In his explosive new book The Armies Of God: A Study In Militant Christianity,British-born, Malaysia-based academic Iain Buchanan blows the lid off a subjectthat most scholars and journalists tend to shy away from: the rise of US evangelism as a force in global affairs.

His book looks at how some of the powerful evangelical outfits operate — often asUS government proxies — in countries such as Indonesia, Thailand, and ofcourse, India, and the disastrous effects this has had on the relationship between the Christian West and non-Christian cultures, religious communities and nations..."

Raj shares another interview:
"
NPR interview with Rachel Tabachnick (whose www.talk2action.org site has plenty of info), discussing The New Apostolic Reformation ideology, end-time, Tea Party policies and controlling all areas of society and government. This group organized Rick Perry’s recent prayer rally, and it is connected to Sarah Palin’s church as well. Here is the intro, excerpts below:
The Evangelicals Engaged In Spiritual Warfare
An emerging Christian movement that seeks to take dominion over politics, business and culture in preparation for the end times and the return of Jesus, is becoming more of a presence in American politics. The leaders are considered apostles and prophets, gifted by God for this role. ..."
 
September 4

IGNOU constitutes awards promoting Christian Bishops
Desh Kapoor shares a link: 
Interesting, that a national body - IGNOU - is doing MOUs with religious institutions to start special Chairs in the University! ...

September 4
Soccer Missionaries!!
Please read about Soccer Missionaries http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,578716,00.html This is in context to the friendly football match between...

September 4 [Being Different book announcement]
My new book announced by HarperCollins, Planning the book tour
Some of you asked for a way to pre-order the new book in India. The publishwer's web site has announced this as a "Coming Soon" title: ...

September 4
New flood of datapoints for the Breaking India thesis...
More & more data points are getting added up to further re-confirm the BreakingIndia book's thesis...a testimony that the book can be a powerful resource to...

September 4
Ramayanas Conference at SMU
There is a Ramayana conference at SMU (Southern Methodist University) here in Dallas on Saturday, September 24: http://www.sarii.org/ramayanas.html   The...

September 4
Church giving incentives to larger families
Ganesh shares a link: Church giving incentives to larger families 02/09/2011 00:28:43 PNS | KOCHI Worried over the...

RMF Summary: Week of March 29 - April 4, 2011

March 29
Commentary on Breaking India on Indian Realist
*Authors of the just released book *Breaking India *allege that Christian organizations are engaged in a divisive program to expand in countries like India ... Here is the link.

March 29
Asian Studies Review paper on Rajiv Malhotra in 'Mythology Wars'
A draft of McComas Taylor's paper on Rajiv Malhotra in 'Mythology Wars' can be seen here [pdf]. This thread elicited a lot of responses, with Taylor's work generally receiving a lot of rotten tomatoes.


Karigar was the first to comment on the contents:
"..The 30+ page paper seems like a scholarly trivialisation of the critiques offered to Wendy & her childrens' works. The author essentially contradicts himself, when he titles his tract "Mythology Wars", thereby classifying the subject under discussion (Hindu texts & practices) as "mythology", and then proceeding to defend western academia for creating fresh overlays of mythology on top of traditional "mythology"..."

N.S.Rajaram does not beat around the bush and gets to the point:
"The author also makes no mention of the fact that Indology including what its present day practitioners are putting out is steeped in racism. In language and spirit it is similar to the anti-semitic literature of the Nazi era.

I plan to do a couple of columns on it highlighting both the racism and the anti-science of these Indologists. I will not engage in their kind of abusive, pornographic language but it will be no holds barred. Western Indology must be destroyed."

Meanwhile, Koenraad Elst adds:
" ..Taylor never really addresses the truth claims in the Hindu criticism of the truth claims by Wendy c.s. Thus, Vishal and Venkat's "fault-finding" with Courtright's Sanskrit translations does not question his integrity as a scholar (though that has been done too, but on other grounds), but his *competence*.
Views, which in Taylor's view are outside the scope of criticism, are inevitably related to data, and it makes a big difference if an academic is shown to have no proper command of the data. V & V have also dug up virile Ganesha references from the literature that completely refute Courtright's limp image of Ganesha. So, before  psychologizing the critics, Taylor ought to have acknowledged that they have proven Courtright's thesis *wrong*. If people insist on maintaining a thesis demonstrated to be wrong, one might start looking for psychological motives...


... most Westerners don't care one way or the other, and this includes many India-watchers and most of the old Orientalists, to whom, in their study in Vienna or Leiden, Hinduism was just a museum object on a par with ancient Greek religion. Courtright's book is of just that type ...

... It is like the Christian missionaries: when I was asked, during a lecture at Balagangadhara's conference on Religion in India (Jan. 2009), why the missionaries are out to destroy
Hinduism, I had to answer in truth: "Because they love you." With their limited knowledge, they believe that by converting you, they are freeing you from evil spirits and opening the road to salvation for you ....

... Subjectively, their love for Hindus (though not for Hinduism) is genuine and heartfelt. At the same time, its objective quality is indeed best summed up in Vishal's spot-on quip that "Wendy saying she loves Hinduism is like a pedophile saying he loves childen".

Vjiaya Rajiva has the final word in this thread:
"The Hindu diaspora is concerned with the effect this type of garbage has on their children. One of the books, I believe it is Courtright's work, is not just being delicately discussed in the genteel halls of the academy. It was being used as the basis of a textbook for children.

Secondly, although both Jewish and Christian authors have attacked their tradition, none of this is brought out to the schools, where the tradition is held up as pious and righteous thinking. Clearly a double standard where the Hindu faith is concerned."
 
April 1
Iain Buchanan - The Role of Evangelicals in U.S. Imperialism

Iain Buchanan - The Role of Evangelicals in U.S. Imperialism from TV Multiversity on Vimeo.

Iain Buchanan's presentation on 'Unholy Crusaders: The Role of Evangelicals in US Imperialism' at the International Meeting on Resisting Hegemony held 2-5 August 2010 in Penang, Malaysia.

April 1
Breaking India: Fire works start at Tamil Net world


In a discussion about the latest book on Gandhi, I introduce 'Breaking India'to the group members. I show how people like Jaffrelot have tried to depict Gandhi in a bad light and how 'Breaking India' shows such deconstruction of Indian
culture and state icons is an institutional activity in the west in order to depict Indian culture as inherently deficient or flawed seeking western intervention. (http://www.jeyamohan.in/?p=13680)

Kumar reacts: He states that the book has distorted the facts. It has slandered the Berkeley Tamil chair. He denies any Western influence or support. (http://www.jeyamohan.in/?p=13757) He also produces the related portion from the book.

I respond: I give the full context as well as the related citations. Comparing Thiruvachagam with Mormon scriptures by one of these 'professors' who adorned the Tamil chair, the Telugu chair of the South Asian Studies of the University being given to a declared evangelist etc. are also mentioned by me in the passing. Puncturing George Hart who has been paraded by Dravidianists as a great authority on Tamil literature, reallys hurt their agenda. http://www.jeyamohan.in/?p=13821