Religion News regarding JW reputation during Rwanda's time of genocide and terror

[JW Insider]

https://religionnews.com/2020/02/26/genocide-survivor-tells-of-risk-rescue-and-religion-in-rwanda/

Rwanda’s descent into terror in April 1994 took an estimated one million lives in a mere 100 days. The Genocide against the Tutsi in this overwhelmingly Christian country was horrifying for its intimacy: Killers and victims were neighbors, friends, fellow churchgoers, workmates, even spouses. Murderers carried crude implements—machetes, hoes, nail-studded clubs—and lists of those doomed to die.

Gatineau, Quebec—Tharcisse Seminega was marked for slaughter. With all escape routes seemingly cut off, he, his wife, and their five young children sat helplessly awaiting death.

Seminega, a Tutsi and former Catholic seminarian, taught at the National University in Butare. Extremist Hutu faculty orchestrated the murder of Tutsi professors and students. But just minutes before a Hutu professor arrived with soldiers at Seminega’s house, Hutu friends helped the family flee.

The new memoir No Greater Love—How My Family Survived the Genocide in Rwanda relates how, during the next 75 days, Seminega and his family evaded the machetes with the help of about 20 Hutu rescuers who took unthinkable risks to hide and sustain them. These rescuers knew that if the génocidaires caught them, they faced an agonizing death as traitors to the Hutu cause.

Most of the rescuers belonged to the Jehovah’s Witness community, of which Seminega was a part. His wife, a former nun, feared to join him, knowing that the Witnesses had long been oppressed for refusing to take up weapons or participate in politics.

Because of this apolitical teaching, writes genocide scholar Rhoda Howard-Hassmann, “Hutu Witnesses were impervious to calls for patriotic Hutu to take part in mass killings”; and yet “to do nothing was also against their Christian principles.”

Professor Seminega says that his family’s rescuers and other Witnesses followed Jesus’ “new commandment”—To love one another just as he loved them, even to the death. They sheltered not only fellow believers but others who knew that Witnesses would not harm or betray them.

Of 2,500 Witnesses in Rwanda in 1994, about 400 were murdered, Tutsi as well as Hutu who tried to rescue Tutsi or who refused to kill.

After the genocide, researchers documented widespread complicity among church leaders and members. States one study: “All the churches active in Rwanda, with the exception of the Jehovah’s Witnesses” were involved in the genocide.

Now, Professor Seminega speaks with classes via Skype about his family’s story. In paying tribute to his rescuers, Seminega says: “Their selfless acts move me every day to ask, how far will my love reach?”

[TrueTomHarley]

I have downloaded this on Kindle. First impression very favorable. Much better than any of my ebooks, thoroughly professional grade and disciplined—none of the chattiness and meanderings that is me—much more on the order of good straight journalism—telling a story well that it’s about time somebody told.

[TrueTomHarley]

I am through chapter one of this book, enjoying it much. There is an African way to tell a story, a lilting way that emphasizes the land and the people of the land. I am reminded of ‘Cry the Beloved Country,’ another African book (a novel) that runs parallel in some respects, with both tragedy and redemption.

Do you know what is odd? Click on the link for RNS. Drop down to the list of faiths at the bottom. Every faith under the sun is listed. Not Jehovah’s Witnesses. Not under Protestant, Not under Evangelical. Not under ‘Unaffiliated. Not under Alternative. Not under Other.

Reflect upon the irony of that. The religion, as evidenced by the reviewed book ‘No Greater Love’, that most plainly evokes John 15:13......“No one has love greater than this, that someone should surrender his life in behalf of his friends”....is not even listed as a faith (unless it is so well-hidden that I could not find it, but considering the validation of John 15, you would think it would be emblazoned)

There is a lesson in this. I haven’t quite figured it out to put it into words, but there is a lesson. It may even be a good thing that it is as it is. Perhaps it is as though they say: “Here is a list of the religions of the world” and it is just as well that we are not on it.

 

[TrueTomHarley]

This is not exactly on topic, but since I included mention of my books along with his, it is.

You said you ‘cringed’ at reading the Pedo chapter of Dear Mr Putin. Can I ask at what, beyond the obvious? 

I’ve said that in my last two books that I am top-heavy with CSA content, because I allowed myself to be driven by what was trending. I may rewrite some things. Already I am prepping Tom Irregardless for audio and in doing so am cleaning some of it up—substituting some ‘they’s where the original has ‘we’. Bit player & one-time hero of mine for his interview skills, Charlie Rose, has been sent out to pasture too, since he turned out to be a perv.

Bear in mind with Pedo that I consider it impossible to appeal to a certain type of person (Butler would be an example) who has suffered it, and so I don’t try. It is like trying to persuade a Trump person on the virtues of Obama, or vice verse. It can so rarely be done that it is a fool’s mission to go there. We are not nearly so rational as we like to pretend that we are.

[JW Insider]

20 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

You said you ‘cringed’ at reading the Pedo chapter of Dear Mr Putin. Can I ask at what, beyond the obvious? 

If this was directed at me, it had little to do with specific things you wrote. (There were a couple of things, but not very important in the long run. And I recently addressed a couple of those types of things elsewhere, a few weeks ago.) The topic itself seemed like it should have been treated separately, as it was not a Russia-specific concern. And of course you have also treated this topic separately.

The most common sources of 'cringe' happen because it's too easy to say things that come across as one-sided bias, even if mostly correct.

The most cringe-worthy things we say are things in defense of our process and doctrine (our natural instinct) but which can still come across as insensitive to those who are still suffering. This might be the very reason you mentioned that you can't persuade certain persons who have certain beliefs or experiences, anyway. As you already know, the latter type will not be satisfied with ostensibly "good news" that the WTS has only a percentage of other organizations. Or, a defense that claims that a large percentage of cases were not as serious as rape, etc. 

[TrueTomHarley]

2 hours ago, JW Insider said:

If this was directed at me,

It was. Sorry. I should have made that clear.

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

On 3/4/2020 at 11:44 PM, TrueTomHarley said:

Perhaps it is as though they say: “Here is a list of the religions of the world” and it is just as well that we are not on it.

I always found it cringe worthy that we were listed in telephone phone books Yellow Pages, under "businesses"., but then again, so are other churches.

[TrueTomHarley]

4 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

I always found it cringe worthy that we were listed in telephone phone books Yellow Pages, under "businesses"., but then again, so are other churches.

It’s how it is with the overall world and JWs. You want some acknowledgement or recognition but then whenever that is granted they botch things up so spectacularly that you wish they’d just ignore you. It’s like when Hollywood decides to tackle a Bible topic—Moses gets the girl and pops Pharaoh in the nose.

[TrueTomHarley]

12 hours ago, JW Insider said:

The topic itself seemed like it should have been treated separately, as it was not a Russia-specific concern. And of course you have also treated this topic separately.

I didn’t know when I wrote that book that there would also be a TrueTom vs the Apostates, so I threw everything I knew or thought I knew into that chapter. For all the reasons that you say, I am going to revamp and truncate it for the next edition, on the fly.

[Leander H. McNelly]

What is the true story about “Rwanda” ethnic cleansing started by the support of the Belgian Military and the post colonel political revolution of the Catholic Church?

Can any witness, fake or not truly blame the Watchtower for witnesses being caught in the wake of politics and ethnic cleansing?

That would mean, the watchtower was to blame for the atrocities that were conducted against witnesses in World War 2 by Nazi’s wanting to purge themselves from Jews. Not all witnesses were Jews but loyal Christians. No different with that of Rwanda.

How disingenuous a witness would have to be to even consider blaming the Watchtower for the “actions” of others no matter how it might look? But, this is the life we live in since the Bethel Purge of the 80s. A long-lasting criticism of disgruntled members.

The Catholic Church and Political Revolution in Rwanda, 1959–1962 

“Aided by Belgian military and political officials, a Hutu-dominated one-party state replaced the former Tutsi oligarchy. The bloodshed, ethnic cleansing, and mass refugee movements profoundly destabilized Rwandan society and established the zero-sum ethnic logic that reaped such a terrible harvest in the postcolonial period, culminating with civil war and genocide in the early 1990s.” PAGE 121

 

In Context, more truthful research is recommended.

 

[TrueTomHarley]

1 hour ago, Leander H. McNelly said:

In Context, more truthful research is recommended.

What do these four new books that you have brought in out of nowhere have to do with anything? You have not stated a connection.

[Leander H. McNelly]

1 hour ago, TrueTomHarley said:

What do these four new books that you have brought in out of nowhere have to do with anything? You have not stated a connection.

Sarcasm, Well book writer, I quoted one of them, figure it out. I won't break copyright laws for you. 😉