Category: Frontiers

Claire Ly, a philosophy teacher who grew up as a Buddhist, met the God of the West in Cambodian dictator Pol Pot’s “re-education” camps. She found Him after the Khmer Rouge regime killed her husband and brother during the madness that led to 2 million deaths between 1975 and 1979, in a country with a population of 8 million. The Cambodian exile was at the Vicenza Bible Festival in Italy, to talk about faith in dialogue and to be a bridge between cultures. Her presentation, titled “Fede in dialogo: io, ponte tra le culture” took place at the Vicenza’s Palazzo delle Opere Sociali building.

“Each destructive typhoon season costs us 2% of our GDP, and the reconstruction costs, a further 2%, which means we lose nearly 5% of our economy every year to storms. We have not seen any money from the rich countries to help us to adapt … We cannot go on like this. It cannot be a way of life that we end up running always from storms,” he said. He later told the assembly: “Climate change negotiations cannot be based on the way we currently measure progress. It is a clear sign of planetary and economic and environmental dysfunction … The whole world, especially developing countries struggling to address poverty and achieve social and human development, confronts these same realities.” Saño could not be reached because phone lines to Manila were down, but he was thought to be on his way to Warsaw for the U.N. talks, which resume on Monday. This time, his country has been battered by the even stronger super-typhoon Haiyan, one of the most powerful ever recorded anywhere – 25 miles (40km) wide and reaching astonishing speeds of possibly 200mph (322km/h). We don’t yet know the exact death toll or damage done, but we do know that the strength of tropical storms, such as Haiyan or Bopha, is linked to sea temperature. As the oceans warm with climate change, there is extra energy in the system. Storms may not be increasing in frequency but Pacific Ocean waters are warming faster than expected, and there is a broad scientific consensus that typhoons are now increasing in strength. Typhoon Haiyan, like Bopha, will be seen widely in developing countries as a taste of what is to come, along with rising sea levels and water shortages. But, what alarms the governments of vulnerable countries the most is that they believe rich countries have lost the political will to address climate change at the speed needed to avoid catastrophic change in years to come. From being on top of the global political agenda just four years ago, climate change is now barely mentioned by the political elites in London or Washington, Tokyo or Paris. Australia is not even sending a junior minister to Warsaw. The host, Poland, will be using the meeting to celebrate its coal industry. The pitifully small pledges of money made by rich countries to help developing countries, such as the Philippines or Bangladesh, to adapt to climate change have barely materialized. Meanwhile, fossil fuel subsidies are running at more than $500bn (£311bn) a year and vested commercial interests are increasingly influencing the talks. As the magnitude of the adverse impacts of human-induced climate change becomes apparent, the most vulnerable countries say they have no option but to go on alone. The good news is that places such as Bangladesh, Nepal, the small island states of the Pacific and Caribbean, and many African nations, are all starting to adapt their farming, fishing and cities, to the situation. But, coping with major storms, as well as sea level

Claire Ly, a philosophy teacher who grew up as a Buddhist, met the God of the West in Cambodian dictator Pol Pot’s “re-education” camps. She found Him after the Khmer Rouge regime killed her husband and brother during the madness that led to 2 million deaths between 1975 and 1979, in a country with a population of 8 million. The Cambodian exile was at the Vicenza Bible Festival in Italy, to talk about faith in dialogue and to be a bridge between cultures. Her presentation, titled “Fede in dialogo: io, ponte tra le culture” took place at the Vicenza’s Palazzo delle Opere Sociali building.    Ly’s painful past made her a bridge between cultures in the sense that, when she found Jesus, she didn’t snub her Buddhist roots but began an ongoing dialogue between the faiths. She discovered Christianity in France, where she has been living since 1980. At the Vicenza Bible Festival, Ly presented her latest book in French, “La Mangrove – À la croisée des cultures et des religions,”  a story about the imaginary journey of two Cambodian women, Ravi and Somaya, who live in exile in France and return to their country after many years.  Ravi stayed a Buddhist and Somaya embraced Catholicism. The two women began a dialogue and let their shared tragic experience ask the questions. Here, the link with Claire Ly’s personal experience is obvious. The mangrove, a tree which grows in the border area between freshwater and saltwater, acts as a perfect metaphor in the book.  The author sums up her experience like this: “In the midst of absolute evil, the God of the West has become present for me. Closed in suffering, I could not make room for others. Until He made me aware that I was still a part of humanity.” “For two years I would spend my time insulting the God of the West because I connected Him to the Marxism that devastated my country: He was an ideology that was born in the West not in the Buddhist world. Then, when the Khmer Rouge regime’s “re-education” program ended, they decided I had finally changed from a middle class woman to a working class comrade and I said to the God of the West: “I am standing here in silence, waiting for You to applaud.” But it was right at that moment that I started to realize that silence was, in fact, inhabited by Someone.”  It was this discovery that led to her baptism in 1983. But Ly never let go of her Buddhist roots, an experience she does not see as merely accidental. “In my Christian life in France, I have come across many words and a lot of noise,” she says. “So my Buddhist soul told me: Go back to silence, because Jesus Christ is beyond our words.” About the image of the mangrove, she says: “I think it’s an image that also speaks to us of the meeting and the intersection of cultures in terms of hope. Like

The wage of sin is death, declares the Holy Bible (Romans 6:23). The innocents – most of them living in slums – are paying the sin of the chosen few rich in the past! In December 2011’s “Sendong,” vast sections of Northern Mindanao, an area previously thought to be away from the path of storms, were laid to waste. The typhoon killed more than 1,500 people. Also in December, “Pablo” left almost 400 people dead and hundreds more injured as it slowly exited the country. More than 300 are still unaccounted for. Most of the fatalities – some of them still unidentified – died from flash flood and mudslide. “The root cause is the denudation of our forests,” commented one environmentalist. “This is a sin of the past that we are paying now.” Harold R. Watson, a former American agriculturist who had been helping the locals in Mindanao, agreed. “When man sins against the earth, the wage of that sin is death or destruction,” he explained. “This seems to be a universal law of God and relates to all of God’s creation. We face the reality of what man’s sins against the earth have caused.”  It is impossible to exaggerate the ecological debacle. More than 90 years ago, the Philippines was almost totally covered with forest resources distributed throughout the 30 million hectares. These resources provided income, employment, food, medicine, building materials, and water as well as a healthy environment. In the 1950s, only three–fourths of the archipelago was covered with forest, according to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR). By 1972, the figure had shrunk to half and, by 1988, only a quarter was wooded and just one tiny fraction of this was virgin forest. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said about 7,665,000 hectares of the country are forested. Between 1990 and 2010, the country lost an average of 54,750 hectares per year. According to environmentalists, logging operations – legal and otherwise – are mowing down the country’s remaining forest cover. Rev. Peter Walpole, executive director of the Ateneo de Manila University’s Environmental Science for Social Change, said the Philippines “trusted” logging companies to cut down trees and manage the forest. “But they did a very bad job,” he decried. “That started the problem that we have now.” DENR, the lead agency responsible for the country’s natural resources and ecosystems, is virtually powerless in stopping rampant illegal logging. It has no guns, no radios, no boats, and only few men to roam the jungles where they are usually terrorized by armed men or rebels. Another culprit of the rapid disappearance of forests in the country: mining operations.  Other causes of deforestation include forest fires, volcanic eruptions, geothermal explorations, dam construction and operations, fuelwood collection, and land development projects (construction of subdivision, industrial estates, and commercial sites). The country’s surging population has likewise contributed to the problem. At least a fourth of the total population lives in the upland areas where most trees are located.

Lou Xiao Ying’s youngest adopted son, Zhang Qilin, now aged just seven, was found in a dustbin by Lou when she was 82. “Even though I was already getting old, I could not simply ignore the baby and leave him to die in the trash. He looked so sweet and so needy. I had to take him home with me,” she said. “I took him to our home, which is a very small, modest house in the countryside and nursed him to health. He is now a thriving little boy, who is happy and healthy. My older children all help look after Zhang Qilin; he is very special to all of us. I named him after the Chinese word for rare and precious.” She continued: “The whole thing started when I found the first baby, a little girl, back in 1972 when I was out collecting rubbish. She was just lying amongst the junk, in the street, abandoned. She would have died had we not rescued her and taken her in.  Watching her grow and become stronger gave us such happiness and I realized I had a real love for children. They are all precious human beings. I do not understand how people can leave such vulnerable babies on the streets.” Now suffering from heart and kidney failure, Lou is finally being recognized for her years of quiet service, with many in her community stepping forward to lend a hand in her final days. According to the Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua, Lou is still thinking of her beloved children even after becoming so ill that she has almost lost the ability to speak and move. “I don’t have many days left, but what I want to see most of all is for my 7–year–old Qiling to go to school. That way, even after I am gone, there will be no regrets left in my life,” she told Xinhua from her hospital bed.    Strict birth control China’s controversial ‘policy of birth planning’ was introduced in 1978 to reduce the strain on the country’s burgeoning population and reduce the strain on resources. It officially restricts married, urban couples to having one child and those who break the rules have to pay a fine or fee. Those who stick to the rules are usually awarded a certificate and can benefit financially, such as receiving an additional month’s salary every year until the child turns 14. The policy allows exemptions in some cases – including rural couples, couples without siblings on either side, and ethnic minorities. Residents of Hong Kong and Macau are exempt from the policy, as are foreign nationals living in China. In certain rural parts of the country, couples are allowed to have a second child if the first born is a girl but many parents feel pressured to produce an heir and end up abandoning the females. If the second child is also a girl, no more children are allowed. It is extremely rare to find a family

The wage of sin is death, declares the Holy Bible (Romans 6:23). The innocents – most of them living in slums – are paying the sin of the chosen few rich in the past! In December 2011’s “Sendong,” vast sections of Northern Mindanao, an area previously thought to be away from the path of storms, were laid to waste. The typhoon killed more than 1,500 people. Also in December, “Pablo” left almost 400 people dead and hundreds more injured as it slowly exited the country. More than 300 are still unaccounted for. Most of the fatalities – some of them still unidentified – died from flash flood and mudslide. “The root cause is the denudation of our forests,” commented one environmentalist. “This is a sin of the past that we are paying now.” Harold R. Watson, a former American agriculturist who had been helping the locals in Mindanao, agreed. “When man sins against the earth, the wage of that sin is death or destruction,” he explained. “This seems to be a universal law of God and relates to all of God’s creation. We face the reality of what man’s sins against the earth have caused.”