The faith of the oppressed can topple the worst tyrants

[muriel_volestrangler]

(an interesting piece, similar to the "religion as a force for good" one also in this forum; I had not heard about the East German church involvement before)

The conviction of the monks could still oust Burma's generals, just as a congregation was the catalyst for the end of East Germany

Religion poisons everything, says my friend Christopher Hitchens. Looking at the Buddhist monks being clubbed and shot on the streets of Rangoon, Mandalay, Sittwe and Pakokku in Burma I thought, well, not quite everything, Christopher.

Until the monks were seized or held prisoner in their monasteries by General Than Shwe's troops last Thursday night, they led the heroic demonstrations in Burma, proving a trend of modern times that organised religion is very often the only means people have of challenging a dictatorship and bringing about the enlightened political values that Hitchens holds dear.

He will know that among the many things forgotten about the neglected miracle of the uprising in East Germany in 1989 is that it all began in a Lutheran church - the Nikolaikirche in Leipzig - when a pastor called Christian Fuhrer inaugurated prayers for peace after the Monday evening service. It was a small gesture of defiance but through September 1989, the crowds swelled in the square outside the church. Many carried candles to show that they planned no violence or vandalism, the idea being that you cannot throw a brick when you're shielding a candle in the night air. The vanguard of barefoot monks in Rangoon denoted the same peaceful intention.

The turning point in Germany came on 9 October when 400,000 people filled the centre of the city. From then on, the communist regime in the GDR, among the most repressive in Eastern Europe, was doomed, although no one could have predicted that 31 days later the Berlin Wall would fall and the regimes in Czechoslovakia and Romania would follow quickly.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2180325,00.html

(side note: "Christian Fuhrer" wasn't the most auspicious name for starting to free people, was it? :evilgrin: )