wfn.org | Former missionaries to Pakistan comment on current crisis

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

Oct. 12, 2001 News media contact: Thomas S.
McAnally7(615)742-54707Nashville, Tenn.     10-21-71B{466}

A UMNS Report
By Tom McAnally*

Two former missionaries who have given major portions of their lives to
Christian service in Pakistan are viewing unrest in that country and the
region with special concern.

Pakistan is a strategic location for the United States and its allies as
they try to rout out terrorists in neighboring Afghanistan. It is also one
of the few countries that continues to have diplomatic relations with
Afghanistan's Taliban government following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in
New York and Washington. 

Aileen Williams and her husband, David, of Rochester, Minn., served as
United Methodist missionaries to Pakistan between 1965 and 1974. He was a
doctor at the United Christian Hospital in Lahore, and she taught at Forman
Christian College and at the hospital's school of nursing. They returned for
a visit in 1979 and keep in touch with friends and colleagues there. 

"This is a very difficult time for everyone in Pakistan," she said. "For
Christians, in a country that is 97 percent Islamic, there is a great
feeling of danger. They have always been considered second-class citizens in
an Islamic republic, but since we were there the situation has worsened with
the rise in radical Islamic fundamentalism."  

Laws have been passed that make life difficult for Christians, she said.
"Individuals are put in prison, accused of saying something against Islam.
They wait a long time for trial." The stress against Christians increases
because the nation is extremely poor and it is being buffeted by radical
elements internally and externally, she said.   

Max and Mary Lowdermilk of Mesa, Ariz., served as missionaries in Pakistan
and India from 1957 to 1975.  

An agricultural specialist, he worked mostly in the Stuntzabad area. While
in the region, he visited Afghanistan and remembered the people as friendly
and hospitable.    

But much has changed in the intervening years, capped by what he described
as the "recent insane and evil mass murder of innocent Americans and
citizens of many countries in the World Trade Center and at the Pentagon."

Because of his experience in Pakistan and India, Lowdermilk said he is
receiving a lot of questions in the wake of the terrorist bombing. Central
among them is why and how these attacks grew out of one the poorest
countries in the world.  

To answer, he traces the history of Afghanistan, a landlocked, mountainous
country about the size of Texas. He notes that the British, on two
occasions, and the Russians more recently were driven out of the country. He
also points out the United States' role in the region.  

"It is seldom realized that the U.S. government, through the CIA working
with Pakistan, assisted the Afghan resistance groups with weapons, food and
logistics to the tune of over $3 billion," he said.

During the Cold War, he noted that the United States had special forces in
Afghanistan helping defeat the Russians. After two decades of war, the
country was left impoverished and destitute.

Lowdermilk said the United States left Afghanistan too quickly after the
defeat of the Russians, without helping with programs of agricultural,
educational and rural development. In that vacuum, tribes began fighting,
and the Taliban, a group of fanatical religious fighters, took over most of
the country, he said.

"Most of their followers came from the fundamentalist religious schools
operating in Pakistan, refugee camps under the teaching of extremist
Pakistani and Afghan Islamic clerics," he explained. "There, young people,
many of whom had lost parents and relatives in the war with Russia, were
taught -- or rather brainwashed -- to hate and in turn became extremists
ready to fight the opposition in their country and the so-called 'satanic'
West."

Williams also points to these schools as a source of Islamic fanaticism.
"Few schools exist, and families are anxious to have their children
educated," she explained. "Radical elements have taken young boys and taught
them radical ideas such as martyrdom. If you die for Islam, not only will
you go to heaven, but your whole family will as well. ... The ingredients of
poverty and misery create the circumstances under which such radical
elements take hold.

"Unfortunately, the Western world has discounted the value of these
countries except for oil," she said. "Pakistan has no natural resources, no
oil, but it has a strategic location. We courted Pakistan through the Cold
War because of the fear of China and Russia, but the Pakistanis feel that
since the Cold War the Western world is not interested in their problems.
They feel used."

Pakistanis want a partner to work with them and help them develop, she said.
"We must see development not as Western development but help them discover
in their culture and way of life how to bring stability, democracy and
sustainable lifestyles that have integrity for them. That is a stretch for
us. We don't know how to do it. The majority in Pakistan want respect for
their nation, democracy, education, clean water...They don't know how to get
there with all the problems and pressures." 

The government took over many of the Christian hospitals and other
institutions in the 1970s, but Williams said some are being returned.
Methodists today are part of the United Church of Pakistan.

Lowdermilk has several suggestions for Christians and other concerned people
who want to respond to the historical tragedy. One is to help remove the
root causes of terrorism around the world.  

"There are many causes for terrorism, and there are certain environments in
which it flourishes," he explained. "If you look at refugee camps, in the
Middle East especially, there are adults today who have spent their entire
lives there. Refugee camps started in Pakistan 20 years ago.

"The Taliban was born in the refugee camps of Pakistan, and these people
were taught to hate the West and especially America, which is the primary
target of Bin Laden and other terrorist groups," he said. "There is no doubt
that that this great country could do much more in technical assistance in
such situations than we have in the past."  

Williams expressed hope that Christians would seek to understand the
tensions and struggles going on within Islam. Among these, she cites the
impact of the scientific world, warring sects within the faith, and the
reality that most followers live in extreme poverty. Responding to these
influences, she said, leaders are saying, "We are not living as the Koran
says. We must go back to a time when everything was under Islamic law and
rid ourselves of those things from the West contaminating Islam. Then we
will find harmony and be able to be the great nation or nations we were
intended to be."

When she lived in Pakistan, she said newspapers were full of stories about
the distant past, the heyday of Islam. "These stories were in such sharp
contrast to what one could find in the Western press, where there were
stories about new discoveries and the future. Unfortunately, the kind of
creative leadership hasn't developed that can envision how Islam might move
into a modern or post-modern era and retain its identity and its clarity and
how life is to be lived."  

Great confusion exists in the Islamic world about how to relate modern
experiences with the teachings heard in the mosques, she said. "In many
Islamic countries, most of those in the mosques have never been outside of
their own area. They have been educated in schools that teach only the
Koran. They don't have a system like we have in our seminaries, where clergy
are encouraged to have broad knowledge."

People in the United States have always understood the divide between
government and religion, Williams said. "It is very hard for us to
understand the Islamic stance that the two shouldn't be divided. Throughout
history, the way they have looked at it is that religious leaders are the
heads of government, like the ayatollah in Iran. The problem has often been
that when we interact, we don't take into consideration the forces of
religion."

What next? Lowdermilk hopes U.S. Christians will help their government
focus. "If this situation should calm down and we can control the Taliban
and have some options, we need to spend a lot of years helping these people.
They need welfare services, education, and an awful lot could be done in
agriculture." He recognizes that his suggestion might not be "politically
popular" but adds, "I think the church has a continuing voice to present to
our decision makers." 

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*McAnally is the director of United Methodist News Service.

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United Methodist News Service
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