Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site mit-athena.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!mcnc!decvax!mit-athena!martillo From: martillo@mit-athena.ARPA (Joaquim Martillo) Newsgroups: net.religion.jewish,net.politics Subject: Tutu Makes a DooDoo Message-ID: <95@mit-athena.ARPA> Date: Sat, 29-Dec-84 20:34:42 EST Article-I.D.: mit-athe.95 Posted: Sat Dec 29 20:34:42 1984 Date-Received: Tue, 1-Jan-85 00:16:25 EST Organization: MIT, Project Athena, Cambridge, Ma. Lines: 47 Xref: watmath net.religion.jewish:1164 net.politics:6507 In a rather disgusting address presented at the Jewish Theological Seminary, Desmond Tutu showed himself unfit to have received the Nobel Peace Prize. Tutu showed immense bigoted bias by ignoring the Arab Jewish dimension the Middle Eastern question. He was upset that Israel had to drive out some of the Muslims who fought to prevent the establishment of the state of Israel. Given the treatment which Muslims traditionally have given to Jews and other non-Muslims, the Muslims in Israel received much less than they deserved by Middle Eastern standards. Clearly, Tutu's racist bigotry lead him to address this issue rather than the multitudes of heinous acts which take place much too frequently in Muslim countries. Tutu cited the wall of separation between Jews and Gentiles at the temple in Jerusalem as a model for the racial separation in South Africa. This is simply just disgusting bigoted racial antiSemitism from the worst of the nineteenth century German critique of Judaism. Judaism recognizes that there are righteous non-Jews who wish to worship the one true God. However there is no obligation for such righteous non-Jews to adopt Jewish ways. If such a righteous non-Jew were to have come to Jerusalem 2000 years ago, as one of a few non-Jews worshipping at the temple, he could easily have felt himself under pressure to become Jewish. The wall of separation prevented such pressure. If he wished to become Jewish, he might do so and then worship on the other side but Judaism works hard to avoid pressuring non-Jews in this fashion unlike -- I should point out -- Islam or Christianity. The Jews of the Getto in Venice historically were forced to attend Catholic services so that they might be more susceptible to pressure to become Christian. This compulsory worship among the Christian congregation was an expression of bigotry. The wall of separation was an expression of tolerance and magnanimity. Tutu like Brutus before him then went on to express sympathy for Muslim nationalist causes. Anyone who has the slightest knowledge of Muslim nationalist causes realizes very quickly that a large part of Muslim nationalist causes is beating on non-Muslim minorities. After learning of Tutu's and Brutus' support of barbaric Islamic movements, I must suspect that perhaps they campaign for majority rule in South Africa in order to establish the right of the black majority to persecute white and asian minorities (as in fact has been the case in several nations in East Africa) just as Muslim majorities apparently inevitably persecute non-Muslim minorities. Therefore, while I find apartheid disgusting (in fact several of my family members have been refused entry to South Africa for constituting mixed marriages -- many South Libyan Jews are dark like Indians), I am beginning to feel that supporting people like Tutu and Brutus is inappropriate because deep down these people do not care for justice but wish instead to establish majority oppression to replace minority oppression.