Different faces of ‘Missioners’
by
ORHAN KEMAL CENGİZ

In this piece, though, my intention is not to analyze Turkey’s so called “missionary problem.” I just want to share with you a few snapshots from a different take on “missionaries.” First of all, let me tell you that I like missionaries. This term is mostly used for Christians. However, every religion has their own “missionaries,” though they may call themselves by other names. These people, Christians, Muslims and others, have a very solid belief in their religion and just want to spread it. I know Christian missionaries; I know Muslim missionaries, and they are very much alike. They are honest people. Their devotion to their beliefs and the sacrifices they make have always greatly impressed me.

After the Malatya massacre in 2007, I questioned many things, but I felt a very deep admiration and respect for Suzanne Geske, who, in spite of the barbaric murder of her husband in that city, preferred to stay in Malatya. I asked myself what else other than a very deep religious belief and devotion to God could hold a German woman in this city after such a tragic incident? I believe no other thing could.

My brother Emir was in Africa recently and I read his memoir about a specific incident, and I feel that every religious person who tries to disseminate their religious beliefs should read this carefully. My brother, unlike me, is a religious person and is involved in a lot of charities in Turkey and abroad. He told me that he drew some lessons from what he called a bad example. Let’s read his memoir together:

“We’re headed towards a hospital in Niamey; our jeep blazes forth on the sand roads of one of Africa’s poorest nations, Niger, leaving behind a trail of dust.

“The hospital operates in an old building, built in an architectural fashion peculiar to the French colonies in Africa, offering care to AIDS patients and children with nutritional disorders. As soon as we enter the building, a Catholic nun greets us. Every place we visit and with every step we take, we are met by the cross.

“The sight of Mother Theresa’s face, contracted with unhappiness, in a hospital in Africa is surprising. Whenever I see that image, I can’t help but think that volunteering for charity work exhausts one and makes one unhappy.

“The nun is an Indian woman. It surprises us that our friend, working as an interpreter by our side, speaks Hindi, engaging in a conversation with the woman. It turns out she hasn’t been to her country, India, for 12 years. She shares this with us smiling and an apparent great deal of pride.

“We see children who have been reduced to bones -- identical to the images we are accustomed to seeing on television, generally when watching footage of refugee camps in Africa. Many rooms are filled with children who are suckling from their mothers, or are trying to suckle -- about to die.

“The other rooms are jam packed with women who are AIDS patients, whom everyone runs away from as though they have leprosy, and particularly in a Muslim country, where so many other health problems exist, they are neglected and not associated with. There is an incredible atmosphere of misery inherent in the hospital. More than the faces of exhausted and depleted people alongside the healthy and hygienic state of the disheveled building, it’s the sight of these people, living in the dark, far away in dimly lit rooms, that the cause the human mind to blur. I think that when the charity one works for involves deep self-sacrifice and the people whom you are assisting are helpless, one can find oneself equally arrogant, careless and disrespectful in imposing one’s own religious thoughts and lifestyle. You are met with tens of crosses in each room, playground, above the chalkboards where children are taught and everywhere imaginable.

“Alongside the images of the pope and Mother Theresa, some images in comic book style have been stuck onto the walls of playgrounds and other visible areas. Every corner of the hospital was exclaiming the following at the top of its lungs: ‘Look, you were in a helpless state, but we took you under our wings. Your so-called Muslim society pushed you around and tossed you aside. And then you came here, abandoned and wretched. Now you must take something of ours with you; it will cost you something. You will also listen to the religious lectures that we will occasionally subject you to. And there will be three free meals a day.’ Charity can only be shoved in one’s face to such an extent. As repulsive as it is for a doctor who has just tended to his patient or who faces his patient after a near-death medical emergency to impose their own religious beliefs the moment that patient opens his or her yes, what I witnessed in that hospital was equally disturbing.”

As we talk about this memory, Emir adds that this reality is not unique to Christians; Muslims also do it a lot. Devout people all over the world can cross the dangerous line between doing charity work and disseminating religious propaganda by exploiting the vulnerable situation of people in need.

There is no white and black, always gray, and some lines we should never cross. Have a good Sunday.