News and Reviews
2010
News and reviews of publications relating to peaceful societies—and sometimes to related topics—are normally posted here on Thursday mornings (U.S. time) and are kept on this page for one week. Older news and reviews for 2010 are listed below, and ones from previous years are listed on the News and Reviews 2004-2005 page, the 2006 page, the 2007 page, the 2008 page and the 2009 page. All stories are also included in the News and Reviews Subject Listing. Recent ones are listed at the bottom of each society entry in the Encyclopedia of Selected Peaceful Societies, after the heading: Updates: News and Reviews. News and reviews about peacefulness in general are referred to from the bottom of the Facts page, while news stories about this website are linked from the About This Website page. News and Reviews can also be found with the Google search bar.
Current News and Reviews
March 11, 2010. UN Expert Condemns Treatment of G/wi
Survival International reported last week that James Anaya, UN Special Rapporteur for Indigenous Peoples, has issued an advance report condemning Botswana’s treatment of the San. Over ten years ago, the government of that country exiled the G/wi and the G//ana, two of the San peoples, from their homes in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve and forced them into squalid resettlement camps, where many have since died due to poverty and diseases.
The San peoples appealed to the High Court of Botswana, which decided, in 2006, in their favor and gave them the right to return to their homes. But the government has closed the borehole that provided water to the San communities and has denied their pleas to reopen it. It has also refused to grant them permits to hunt—essentially, denying them access to food.
Prof. Anaya visited Botswana last March, reviewed the situation, and concluded that the government’s systematic harassment of the San people clearly violates the spirit of the 2006 court decision as well as international standards of human rights. He especially condemns the fact that the government denies them access to water.
Furthermore, he dismisses the government’s claim that it is only seeking to preserve the conservation objectives of the CKGR—to manage the land effectively for wildlife. The government, after all, is encouraging a large diamond-mining project in the reserve, which will have a much greater impact on the natural ecology of the desert than the traditional, small-scale, hunting, gathering, and herding of the G/wi and G//ana people, which have only minimal impacts on the ecosystem.
He urged the government to “fully and faithfully implement” the High Court ruling of 2006 and to allow all those who wish to return to their former homes to do so. It should permit the people to resume their traditional hunting and gathering, and to have the same access to water, from boreholes, that they had before they were resettled.
Mr. Anaya is an unpaid expert reporting to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. This coming September he will issue his final report.
March 11, 2010. New TV Movie About Amish Forgiveness
The Lifetime Movie Network has prepared a film version about the murders of five Amish girls in a Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, schoolhouse and the forgiveness the families showed for the killer and his wife. Unfortunately, the made-for-television movie, due to be shown on Sunday, March 28, at 8:00 PM Eastern time (U.S.), misrepresents the real story, messes up some of the details, and, most unfortunately, distorts Amish beliefs about forgiveness.
Herman Bontrager, an Amish man from Akron, also in Lancaster County, was critical of the film. He had acted as a spokesman for the Amish immediately after the tragic shooting three and one-half years ago. “It didn’t happen that way,” he said after watching the brief movie trailer on the film website.
The press release for the movie from LMN says, “Deeply conflicted and unable to forgive the gunman and his family, Ida [the mother of one of the murdered girls] is tempted to leave the only life she's ever known before re-embracing her faith.” While the families of the victims were, of course, devastated by the tragic losses of their daughters, none were tempted to leave their faith. Ida, in the movie, also confronts the wife of the killer and denies that she can forgive what has happened.
Such actions would contradict the essence of Amish beliefs. Of course, faith-shaking crises and questioning core beliefs make far better movies than would an accurate depiction of the ways the Amish really reacted to the events. The forgiveness that so caught the attention of the world had to be remade by Hollywood—corrupted.
The movie was based, at least in theory, on the book Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy, by Donald B. Kraybill, Steven M. Nolt, and David Weaver-Zercher. The three prominent authorities on Amish society researched their book quickly after the tragedy and it was published a year later, to many positive reviews. However, the three scholars have distanced themselves from the movie. The publisher of their book, Jossey-Bass, owns the movie rights, so they had no control over its resale for the production of the film.
The three authors released a statement last week that indicates their disapproval about exploiting the tragedy in a movie. They, of course, know that the Amish do not approve of movies or television, and that the ones living in the Nickel Mines area would be extremely sensitive about the subject. The scholars refused to cooperate with the production company. Evidently, their share of the proceeds from the sale of the movie rights, like their royalties from the book, will go to the Mennonite Central Committee for its programs providing aid to children who suffer from wars and natural disasters.
“Out of respect to our friends in the Amish community and especially those related to the Nickel Mines tragedy, we declined the producer's requests to consult and assist in the development of a film,” they said in their statement. The producers also contacted Mr. Bontrager seeking his assistance, but he too refused to consult with them. After he looked at the film website, Bontrager disagreed with the statement that the media was critical of the Amish stance about forgiveness. He found, over three years ago, that reporters were “in awe” of their beliefs, taken straight from the Sermon on the Mount, that people must forgive others if they hope to have God forgive them.
He admitted that some of the Amish did have to struggle with their feelings of grief after the tragedy, as any normal individuals would do after the murders of their family members. They did not deny their emotions, and they were all aware of the normal processes of dealing with tragedy like that. “But I am not aware of anyone, to me or anyone I've talked with, who almost left their faith,” he said.
He noted that the actors playing the Amish people are dressed incorrectly in the movie, but the bigger issue, for him, is that the film doesn’t portray their gentleness accurately. He said that, in addition, the Amish believe in telling the truth, and fictionalizing or distorting what actually happened disturbs them. Furthermore, they don’t like to be depicted in photographs or films, and they really dislike publicity, particularly about such a tragic, recent event.
Presumably the Amish forgive the movie producers for having made still another exploitative movie about them, though it must be difficult. Twenty five years ago, the movie “Witness,” which was filmed in Lancaster County, offended them because of its inaccuracies and attempts to make money off of them. Hollywood patterns have not changed.
March 2010
March 4, 2010. Ladakhi Film Industry Portrayed in New Documentary
March 4, 2010. Alberta Hutterites Solve Photo ID Problem
February 25, 2010. Kadar Village To Be Spared
February 25, 2010. Protecting Zapotec Corn
February 18, 2010. Death of Last Bo Speaker Worries Birhor
February 18, 2010. Semai Celebrate the Year of the Tiger
February 11, 2010. Missionary to the Buid Honored Again
February 11, 2009. Nubian Elders Still Miss the Old Life
February 4, 2010. Nubian Connections to the Nile Remembered
February 4, 2010. Inuit Throat Singer Performs in Vancouver
January 28, 2010. Mbuti Seek Designation as Indigenous People
January 28, 2010. G/wi Take Case to International Court
January 21, 2010. Tristan Policeman Has Quiet Job
January 21, 2010. Amish Exempt from Health Care Insurance
January 14, 2010. Athirappilly Hydroelectric Proposal May Be Halted
January 14, 2010. Hutterites Cheer the Olympics
January 14, 2010. Major Threat to Semai Ecotourism
January 7, 2010. Semai Tourism Develops Sophisticated Outreach
January 7, 2010. Building Glaciers in Ladakh