Saturday, May 8, 2010

Mother Teresa - the other side

India has no reason to be grateful to Mother Teresa  

by Sanal Edamaruku

India, especially Calcutta, is seen as the main beneficiary of Mother Teresa's legendary 'good work' for the poor that made her the most famous Catholic of our times, a Nobel Peace Prize Winner and a living saint. Evaluating what she has actually done here, I think, India has no reason to be grateful to her. 

Mother Teresa has given a bad name to Calcutta, painting the beautiful, interesting, lively and culturally rich Indian metropolis in the colors of dirt, misery, hopelessness and death. Styled into the big gutter, it became the famous backdrop for her very special charitable work. Her order is only one among more than 200 charitable organizations, which try to help the slum-dwellers of Calcutta to build a better future. It is locally not very visible or active. But tall claims like the absolutely baseless story of her slum school for 5000 children have brought enormous international publicity to her institutions. And enormous donations! 

Mother Teresa has collected many, many millions (some say: billions) of Dollars in the name of India's paupers (and many, many more in the name of paupers in the other "gutters" of the world). Where did all this money go? It is surely not used to improve the lot of those, for whom it was meant. The nuns would hand out some bowls of soup to them and offer shelter and care to some of the sick and suffering. The richest order in the world is not very generous, as it wants to teach them the charm of poverty. "The suffering of the poor is something very beautiful and the world is being very much helped by the nobility of this example of misery and suffering," said Mother Teresa. Do we have to be grateful for this lecture of an eccentric billionaire?  

The legend of her Homes for the Dying has moved the world to tears. Reality, however, is scandalous: In the overcrowded and primitive little homes, many patients have to share a bed with others. Though there are many suffering from tuberculosis, AIDS and other highly infectious illnesses, hygiene is no concern. The patients are treated with good words and insufficient (sometimes outdated) medicines, applied with old needles, washed in lukewarm water. One can hear the screams of people having maggots tweezered from their open wounds without pain relief. On principle, strong painkillers are even in hard cases not given. According to Mother Teresa's bizarre philosophy, it is "the most beautiful gift for a person that he can participate in the sufferings of Christ". Once she tried to comfort a screaming sufferer: "You are suffering, that means Jesus is kissing you!" The man got furious and screamed back: "Then tell your Jesus to stop kissing." 

When Mother Teresa received the Nobel Peace Price, she used the opportunity of her worldwide telecast speech in Oslo to declare abortion the greatest evil in the world and to launch a fiery call against population control. Her charitable work, she admitted, was only part of her big fight against abortion and population control. This fundamentalist position is a slap in the face of India and other Third World Countries, where population control is one of the main keys for development and progress and social transformation. Do we have to be grateful to Mother Teresa for leading this worldwide propagandist fight against us with the money she collected in our name? 

Mother Teresa did not serve the poor in Calcutta, she served the rich in the West. She helped them to overcome their bad conscience by taking billions of Dollars from them. Some of her donors were dictators and criminals, who tried to white wash their dirty vests. Mother Teresa revered them for a price. Most of her supporters, however, were honest people with good intentions and a warm heart, who fall for the illusion that the "Saint of the Gutter" was there to wipe away all tears and end all misery and undo all injustice in the world. Those in love with an illusion often refuse to see reality.

13 comments:

Deshabhakta said...

great one! Appreciate your courage to speak truth on Theresa. She got money from smugglers and criminals and used it for conversions here in India. Thanks for a frank write up on an overrated catholic conversionist nun who was hyped up to be a saint. She damaged the image of India worldwide.

Anonymous said...

Check out my ongoing report against this fraud of a charity: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=326098194662

Anonymous said...

I am not writing this because I disbelieve you, or because I am trying to show that you are wrong, but because I want to learn more about the subject of your entry.

Can you give me the name of any books or articles that deal with specific evidence concerning Teresa? There are many claims on both sides of this issue and I don't know where to begin trying to look into the facts.

Erik Jensen said...

Maybe I'm missing something here, but I'd say that damaging the image of India is the least of her crimes. Depriving people of painkillers and fighting against non-coercive birth control are truly awful things. Maybe these claims are common knowledge in India, but it would be great if some of these were cited.

Anonymous said...

Unbelievable. But then, not really. Imagine how much suffering could be relieved if religions didn't dictate how the help they give must be delivered or how much of their cultic garbage must be forced down the suffering unbelievers's throats.

And "believers" claim that the only way humanity can have a moral conscious is through belief in God/god/gods. Seems such a belief isn't the morality silver bullet.

Sorry for the anger, but I'm still fighting the effects of my fundamentalist (in my case, Christian) upbringing,

Radhika Rao said...

Very interesting. Will circulate

Design Stupendous said...

Wait a second-- you're still blogging? I thought a witch doctor killed you on TV a few years ago.

Keep fighting the good fight.

Anonymous said...

@ Anonymous: A good book to read would be "The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice" by Christopher Hitchens. He also created a television documentary "Hell's Angel: Mother Teresa" It's a bit biased, but does have specific facts on the subject: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WQ0i3nCx60

harish said...

Charity always comes at a prize,there's always a hidden agenda behind there polished faces.Christian charity organisations have a plan 'B' for conversion.The babas,swamis,ammas,mayhas all are becoming immensely rich.

പാലക്കാടൻ said...

All religions are used money from criminals smuggles and abroad..etc behind their charity.and black money become white. that we know! but no speak! congratulation

പാലക്കാടൻ said...

all religion are used money from criminals smugglers and abroad..etc on behind their charity.and also black money become white. we know that! but no speach! congratulation

Anonymous said...

"Hell's Angel: Mother Teresa by Christopher Hitchens"
http://www.badreligion.co.uk/modules/news/article.php?storyid=635

VetProf said...

I read some where that Mother Theresa felt joy at seeing ill and dying children. Not sure the context though but I wonder about her own motivations.