The Structure of The Village of Hope
In the comments section, Mona reports that the parents did teach the children the basic tenets of Islam. In response to my question about culture, she points out that the structure of The Village of Hope allowed for constant interaction with both Moroccan and foreign culture. The orphanage was divided into a series of houses that could hold up to 10 children each with one set of foster parents. So in each of the individual houses, the Moroccan children spoke the language of the foster families, whether Dutch, English, or French. But it seems that in the communal areas they engaged with the other children and Moroccan staff in Arabic.
The Role of Radical Islam
As I sift through the news coverage of this event, I have noticed that a continuous strand in some Christian coverage is to credit some current of radical Islam in Morocco for the raid. Take this quote from CBN News which follows a purely descriptive report:
The expulsion of foreign Christians could be linked to the rise of radical Islam in Morocco-- a threat that CBN News has reported for years.
"I think we should be very concerned about the continued operation, cultivation, support and probably growth of al Qaeda cells in North Africa," radical Islam expert Steven Emerson told CBN News in 2005.
These sort of comments show a profound ignorance of the political situation in Morocco. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has absolutely nothing to do with these expulsions!
The Moroccan king has suppressed both far leftists and hard core Islamicists for decades now because they are both a threat in some form to the more moderate monarchy. Events in January further demonstrated the royal hand in politics when the king replaced a significant number of ministers. Those in Morocco seem aware of this, pointing out that the raid order came from the newly installed Minister of Justice Mohammed Naciri. He is not from the popular Islamicist PJD party, which is necessarily a moderate Islamicist party in order to even operate in Morocco. What Westerners must realize is that there has never been the same sort of separation of church and state in the Arab world that we have. So even the moderate parties recognize the primacy of Islam at least in name. Being exclusively Muslim does not mean being radically Muslim.
This ignorance in evangelical Christianity of the basic dynamics in other countries and of their most important news items is one of the things I have always struggled with. Anyone who took the time to talk with someone a bit from one of these countries, read a book, or follow the news would not make these blatantly false insinuations. An organization claiming to give "Christian news" should take the time to actually learn about the people and nations it is trying to love and serve, let alone report on.
On the positive side, the coverage by World magazine has been fair and factual.
Volunteers vs. Families
Mona further notes that there is a difference between the families, who maintained a continuous presence in the country, and volunteers, who would come for short stays. She alludes to the possibility that the volunteers engaged in proselytizing. If this is the case, the case against expelling the families is weaker still.
The Human Toll
A number of responses to my post, as well as much of the online outpouring of emotion, deals directly with the human aspect of this raid. The Village of Hope was probably the best thing that ever happened to these children. Some families had been there for a decade, loving and caring for these orphans. While that bond could not be legally legitimated because of the parents' Christian faith, it was as close as you come to real parenthood.
Now the children will go without the only group of people who ever really showed them love. The parents' emotional attachment to these children was strong, and so their bereavement will also be strong.
On the response page to the World Magazine news coverage, Ralph had this to say:
I’d just like to correct some of the information here. I know one of the families concerned personally, a wonderful family, and have just spent this evening with them as they try to process the shocking events that came upon them like a whirlwind. Their work was progressing well, all conditions and expectations of a home for children were satisfied and a recent inspection was fully supportive. Then, in the space of a few hours they were forced to board a bus and leave screaming and desperately upset children who couldn’t understand why the only people who had given them love and care were cruelly being forced to abandon them once more. And this was supposedly done in their own interests!
Just to clarify – Village of Hope has functioned for years as a place that Morocco has been happy to place children for fostering, with the Christian ethos and basis always clear and never hidden. What has happened is a shame on Islam and the government minister who sanctioned it, for Jesus is also recognised as a prophet in Islam. All love and care given to these children has been given by people devoted to Jesus who simply wanted to follow his example in caring and loving those rejected and abandoned by this world. They knew well enough not to proselytise in the community – but freedom of religion is constitutionally permitted in Morocco – or was until these recent events. My friends are a family with their own children who obviously have Christian books – the presence of which is the supposed “evidence” of law-breaking and criminality!
Please pray for the children left behind, one of whom is only 19 months and disabled, others of whom had to be reassured that they were not to blame for their parents being thrown out.
Going Forward
For those of you who believe in the power of Facebook groups, one has been started here. There was a Twitter feed, but it has been shut down, at least here in Morocco. When I tried to access it, I received the warning, "Hold up! Sorry, the profile you were trying to view has been suspended due to strange activity." I do not know what this means.
Articles appear to be in the works at The New York Times and at Tel Quel. The Moroccan Dispatches will link to them if they are indeed published.
Finally, if you are Muslim, I ask you to think and talk about your relationship with Christians, on a personal and national level. While we may disagree on many fundamental points, surely we can agree on certain humanitarian principles and consistency in the application of national laws.
Christians, let us take time again to contemplate our own faults, our own sins, even as we have striven to do God's work. We are not perfect, and the means does not justify the ends, even in Christian work. Let us take time to learn and respect other cultures.
And if, as it seems the case at The Village of Hope, this has occurred, let us take refuge in prayer, supplicating for justice and love for all those involved.
Posts
An erroneous link is constantly being made on both the VoH website, and in the recent 'hype', between the Village of Hope and the previous occupants of the land on which it has been built. These two American ladies (Miss Doran and Miss Coats) brought up their family of children there as a normal family. They did not advertise or request financial support. They lived a simple lifestyle quietly and discreetly in premises comparable to those of their Moroccan neighbours. They were loved and respected by those around them, and in all their decades of bringing up their children in Ain Leuh they were never troubled by the authorities, who also respected them. They wanted their home to remain available to their children after their death. This did not happen (for various reasons, some practical, some apparently not very admirable). However they had nothing to do with either the planning or the inception of the Village of Hope, and would not have been very happy at being termed its 'pioneers', and having plaques of themselves put up there, certainly without the approval and permission of their children. They had an absolute trust in the Lord to protect them and supply their needs, and although they spent most of their long lives in Morocco, they were always conscious that they were guests of that country and its king and government. They would not have approved of the kind of frenetic and often critical and distorted 'hype' which is being bandied about in this distressing situation. They would never have subjected their children to the kind of exploitative publicity which has latterly caused to be posted on Facebook and elsewhere a video of the Village of Hope children crying and screaming as their foster parents left.
ReplyDeleteThere has been a lack of dignity displayed, and that, together with the fact that VoH in any case seemed to have distanced itself from the children of the godly ladies it claims to have 'pioneered' its work, has caused distress and a degree of indignation to their now very adult family. It may also bring them into posthumous disrepute with the country they loved.
The servants of the Lord should not 'strive' - but should be 'as wise as serpents and as gentle as doves'.
That having been said, the original Ain Leuh residents feel for the little children caught up in this (perhaps with more understanding than most.....).
Ok, thank you for that clarification.
ReplyDelete