By ARTHUR L. ALLAD-IW
www.nordis.net

A very interesting development internationally had evolved lately. USA President Barrack Obama urged US ally – Israel – to sit down and talk peace with the Palestinian Authority on (Israel’s) occupation of the West Bank. Israel, through its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, turned the table to USA and consistently repeated that they are ready for compromise but bullied “Israel will not return to the indefensible boundaries of 1967,” where Israel occupied the West Bank area allotted for the Palestinians.

We need to go back and review history to understand the un-peace between the Israelites and the Palestinians in the Middle East, including the roles of imperialist states.

In the 18th century and at the end of the 19th century, the Jews were discriminated against in Europe, particularly in Russia, Hungary, Romania and Poland. The Jews were persecuted through various programs such as anti-Jewish riots, harsh laws, ghettoes (or enforced slums) which institutionalized discrimination and inhuman acts upon the Jewish race.

This discrimination gave birth to Zionism, a worldwide movement to restore a Jewish state in Palestine as based on the Bible. By 1914, there were already 100,000 Jews who went to Palestine and took the lands of these Palestinians. As the Jews – Palestinian conflict heightened, the British, which had colonial mandate over Palestine, adopted a compromise known as 1917 Balfour Declaration.

This promised to the Zionist the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The Palistinians, who were never consulted, were against the move as they felt betrayed.

In 1921, however, the British divided what was then Palestine into two: Palestine and Jordan. The Jews-Palestinian tension heightened to a higher degree. As the British cannot contain the situation, they handed the problem to the newly created United Nations. On Nov. 29, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly approved, through a resolution, the partition of Palestine into two: One Jewish state and another Arab state with Jerusalem as the international zone.

With that as the legal basis, the Jews proclaimed on May 14, 1948 the Republic of Israel. Zionist leader David Ben-Gurion became their first Prime Minister.

The Arab states of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen, the next day after the proclamation, attacked Israel in their declared Jihad or Holy War. War followed between Arab states versus Israel in 1956, 1967 and 1973. Like the first, the latter wars were won by this newly established and tiny state of Israel, with the alleged support of the West. In the 1967 war, Israel was able to expand its territories by 200 percent into the Arab states, including the West Bank that it occupies up to the present.

The Intifada, uprising against Israel, was continued by the Palestinians. Yasser Arafat organized the Palestinian Liberation Organization for their struggle over their Palestinian homeland. In 1993, PLO entered in a peace accord with Israel. Here the parties (Israel and PLO) agreed the recognition by the PLO of the existence of Israel as a state; PLO renounced terrorism as a means of settling the conflict; Israel agreed to Palestine autonomy in the Gaza Strips and West Bank; and Israel will withdraw its military in those areas of Palestine that it occupied.

The PLO of Arafat has its political arm, the Fatah where he became the leader for the transformation of a Palestinian state. On the other hand, Hamas, the militant Palestinians, do not recognize Israel and wanted a Palestinian state including those of now Israel. Hamas entered elections in the Palestinian Authority (that body to supervise a Palestinian area based on the UN resolution of 1947). It controls the legislative body and at anytime can elect a President to change Pres. Mahmoud Abbas, who had succeeded Yasser Arafat who died in 2004.

From the above historical facts, it is clear that the division of Palistine into two – for Israel and another for the Palestinians – was imposed by colonialist Britain. It never considered the Palestinian interests by succumbing to the Zionist.

Even the partition based on the 1947 UN resolution is not being strictly followed by members of the United Nations if it really wanted peace in the area. In fact, their silence on the insistence of Israel for a 1967 boundary would support the expansionist policy of Zionist Israel. This is clear contradictory to the 1947 UN resolution. It is from this context that the Fatah agreed for a compromised settlement.

Of course peace between Palestine and Israel will not be realized without addressing the position of the militant Hamas for a pre-1947 Palestine. This group has a greater number of followers than the Fatah, as manifested by their control of the legislative body. For real peace, it must include the Hamas. Of course, they can only have the Fatah but compromise will not lead to peace, as in their case. Even with the military superiority of Israel, kudos to the imperialist west, it will not eliminate the aspirations of the militant Hamas. Hence, it must include them in settling the conflict towards peace.

But peace seems too elusive between Israel and the Palistinians. And the victors would be the imperialist. In a status quo where Israel is the regional power in the Middle East and with the allies in Arab states, the imperialist west will continuously exploit the vast oil resources in that region. # nordis.net

By LAYAD EKID
www.nordis.net

How can we protect the children from ways of our society that contradict the basic values we take so much pain to preach to them?

About a decade and a half year ago, I taught in a rural high school in Mountain Province. At one time I accompanied our school’s journalists to a province-wide student conference and competition on the different aspects of newspaper work which was held in the capital town of Bontoc.

A week earlier, I chanced upon two acquaintances that were into environment activism. They were having their time in the town where I taught. I invited them to have better things to do – give my fourth year students a one-hour and thirty-minute lecture-discussion on the environment. They gladly obliged and provided a very good lecture on climate change and what little things the students could do to help heal the earth.

At the student conference in Bontoc, we were served food in styrofoam plates. The fourth year students who became environment-conscious asked: Were we not told that styros were dangerous to the body and the environment?

I do not remember how I responded. But I know then that those teachers and other education officials (whom our children look up to for guidance) also need environment education. Or perhaps they know, but knowing and putting into action what they know were two different things.

I remember I was relieved that they did not ask me further questions.

Since the conference venue was near the Chico River, we decided to find a spot in the river where we could enjoy our lunch. After eating, some students complained that two of their colleagues turned their styro plates into boats and launched them down the stream. I told the two students they were behaving like nothing seeped into their brains in last week’s lecture.

“Something seeped in there, sir,” said one with a naughty smirk. “But what is the point? If we place them in the garbage can, it will end up just the same downstream where Bontoc dumps its waste,” he said.

In instances like that, it did not help to behave like a teacher. I just made the student feel I was proud that he had such a good insight. I also acknowledged the others who were disturbed by an irresponsible waste disposal by their classmates.

That was almost fifteen years ago. Bontoc’s garbage dump along the Chico river bank is still there. It caught the attention of media several times, but it is still there.

Then sometimes in 2007, the province of Kalinga formally raised a complaint through the Regional Development Council (RDC). The former RDC Chairman Governor Maximo Dalog of Mountain Province, a lawyer, said that anybody could indeed hail the municipal government of Bontoc to court. He never said anybody could drag the provincial government with its capitol located in Bontoc to court.

Bontoc later responded by saying that even Kalinga communities were dumping their waste into the Chico River. DENR confirmed this allegation but tried to behave it was not an environment agency. Bontoc even tried to come up with pathetic excuses that the dump did not affect the river because the town constructed a concrete barrier. Downstream however, children get scolding from parents because they went swimming in the Chico River.

Bontoc accordingly has identified an alternative open dump, but it still has to perfect documents before it can leave the Chico River in peace. The act will just transfer the pollution from the river to the land. But at least Bontoc will not be projected as discourteous to its neighbors downstream. In the future, it will have to deal with its own people when they begin to complain that they are getting sick from the stink.

Meanwhile, teachers can talk of reusing, reducing, recycling and segregating to their students. Some would rather keep their children in the dark and start counting the days to doomsday October 21. # nordis.net

By KATHLEEN T. OKUBO
www.nordis.net

Joe Mol was harangued by two ladies when he commented that a proposed bill for a national land use act was “good”. When Joe says “good” about a proposed legal document like any lawyer, you’d better ask him what he means.

Like any proposed bill identified as urgent by Malacañang it must be well written else people would suspect it is not really favored or important to Malacañang and may simply be declared a forgery. After all, what are “all the kings men and all the kings horses” there for? Joe must have meant that.

The provisions of the proposed bill that was presented may not necessarily be advantageous to the indigenous peoples struggle in the country but nevertheless it was in good English, true to form and style, the kind of form that makes it look passable in both houses. If it is truly proposed in behalf of the nation, any development worker loyal to the masses would guard against “judging a book by its cover”, it is best that the proposed act be well scrutinized from the point of view of the progressive Filipino masses. And, not only from the revenue it may generate when the land is defined to be capital for generating profits for the government by the ruling elite.

Oh, Joe was honored after all the ladies throwing their reactions at him at the “Seminar-workshop on the national land use act, Implications for indigenous peoples” at the University of the Philippines last Tuesday, was lawyer Chit Daytec and former miss Philippines Maita Gomez. I am sure he enjoyed the position of being harassed that time.

Even if this proposed act was written with provisions to recognize and respect the indigenous peoples rights and ownership to their ancestral lands and ancestral domains, it has to also provide a guarding clause as “in accordance to the provisions of the Constitution and RA 8371…”. And, like the RA 8371, the application or the implementation of the law can be a completely different story. It may actually work against the interests of the people it professes to serve and draws mandate from.

It is still first and foremost that the citizens addressed by this proposed law have access and capacity to draw free and prior information about legal instruments, agreements and treaties that somehow will have or has bearing on their everyday lives before they can decide to support or amend any proposal intelligently.

Maybe because of the limited invitations, late access to copies of and better information on the proposed act, and limited background on the act, sponsors and speakers, this seminar workshop missed its target. It turned out for those present, to be more of a first encounter with the proposed act that has made participants ask for more information and background. Being a first encounter with the proposed act it is no wonder participants looked more concerned about the form, language, style and very general points than details of its provisions.

It is not right to just say better luck next time but maybe more appropriate to note that an activity like that adds more to the miseducation of the people than it is to inform, and that is terribly unfair, as in a top to bottom move. # nordis.net

By REV. LUNA DINGAYAN
www.nordis.net

“The Lord is not slow to do what he has promised, as some think. Instead, he is patient with you, because he does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants all to turn from their sins.” — II Peter 3:9

Harold Camping

When the supposed doomsday did not happen last Saturday, May 21, 2011, as expected, Harold Camping, the self-proclaimed “prophet of doom” who scheduled the end of the world for the second time, was quick to quote II Peter 3:9 and explained to disappointed followers and unbelievers that God did not bring the world to an end simply because He is still giving chances to others to be ready for the real end on October 21, 2011. People, therefore, should not relax, but be ready for the coming of the real end few months from now.

Unlike Harold Camping, Apostle Peter did not schedule the Second Coming of our Lord. Rather he was simply responding to the sentiments of those who were growing weary and tired waiting for the Lord’s return. Thus, he wrote, “The Lord is not slow to do what he has promised, as some think. Instead, he is patient with you, because he does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants all to turn away from their sins” (II Peter 3:9).

The doctrine of the last things called eschatology tells us that there are several things that would happen in the end times, namely: the tribulation, rupture, resurrection of the dead, judgment, reward and punishment, millennium, and the establishment of the Kingdom of God. All these things would constitute what we call the Christian hope. While it is true that all these things are supposed to happen in the future, no one except God alone knows exactly when these things would really happen (cf. Mt. 24:36). Hence, all those in history who attempted to play God and scheduled the end times, like Harold Camping, had miserably failed.

Function of Eschatology

While it is true that eschatology is emphasized by small Christian sects more than the mainline Christian churches, it is not without a significant function especially in critical times. Actually, eschatological doctrines developed in times of persecutions, sufferings and hopelessness, wherein people feel that history is controlled by evil forces, and that salvation and hope comes only by God’s intervention.

In the Old Testament, Prophet Isaiah envisioned a “new heavens and a new earth” (cf. Isaiah 65: 17-25) after the Israelites had gone through a difficult time under the Empires of Assyria and of Babylon. The Assyrian Empire destroyed the Northern Kingdom of Israel in 721 BCE, while the Babylonian Empire devastated the Southern Kingdom of Judah in 586 BCE. The Holy City of Jerusalem was in ruins, while the people were exiled to a foreign land. The future was dark and gloomy, and the people were living in hopelessness and despair.

And so, Prophet Isaiah’s proclamation was a message of hope in the midst of hopelessness.

Similarly, the vision of a “new heavens and a new earth” in the Book of Revelation (cf. Rev. 21:1-8) in the New Testament also emerged out of the context of state persecution of Christians under Emperor Domitian of the Roman Empire. The Early Christians were persecuted for refusing to worship the Emperor which was tantamount to rebellion. While the Empire declared the Emperor as Lord, the Christians firmly believed that Jesus Christ alone is Lord.

“The sea will be no more” says John the writer of the Book of Revelation (21:1), which means that the forces of evil will be overcome in the end with God’s intervention. The “sea” was believed to be the seat of evil powers. People believed at that time that the forces of evil were living in the depths of the sea. This was shown by the storms and big waves coming out of the sea which were believed to have been caused by evil forces living there. Of course, we have to understand that this is not a scientific explanation, but rather a mythological explanation of the world in the Biblical times.

Significance for our time

It is unfortunate that Harold Camping’s failed prediction had made the serious eschatological doctrines into a laughing stock of both believers and non-believers. The events of the end times should not be taken literally, but rather they should serve as our overriding vision in our efforts to make our world a better place to live in. They should motivate and challenge us to do more than what we are doing in overcoming the evil forces of graft and corruption, of judicial and extra-judicial killings, of injustices, poverty, and environmental degradation.

If we would like to hasten the coming of a new world and put an end to this evil world in which we live, then we have to take our mission work seriously. It is God who will bring the new world into a reality. But we are called upon to participate in this mission of God. God’s mission should be our mission.

We have to learn our lessons from the experiences of the Thessalonians. They thought that waiting for the Lord coming means lying idle and doing nothing. In fact, this was what Harold Camping and his followers did. They stopped working and sold their properties. And so, Apostle Paul had to correct these misimpressions and wrote to the Thessalonians saying, “Whoever refuses to work is not allowed to eat” (cf. 2 Thessalonians 3:6-15). # nordis.net