On Saturday, 10 April 2010, the world was stunned to find out that the Polish President Lech Kaczynski and some of the country’s highest military and civilian leaders died, when the presidential plane crashed as it came in for a landing in thick fog in western Russia, killing all 97 people on board.
The delegation were on their way to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Katyn Massacre, wherein almost 22,000 Polish officers and intelligentsia were executed by Soviet troops in 1940, burying the victims in the Katyn forest. Somewhat ironically the executions were discovered by Nazis in 1943, (more…)
posted by Tony Mierzwicki @ 8:31 pm
filed under: Politics, Tonys Mishmash
email
this post | Comments Off
On December 10, 1948 the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly. It is the most widely translated document in the world (having been translated into at least 375 languages and dialects) and represents the first global expression of rights to which all human beings are entitled. The Declaration sets out 30 rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled. Article 18 is particularly important to the practice of paganism:
“Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”
The US has a long tradition of promoting religious freedom. (more…)
posted by Tony Mierzwicki @ 4:27 pm
filed under: Pagan Issues, Politics
email
this post | Comments Off
Patrick McCollum has been fighting for years to overturn the State of California’s “five faiths policy”, which limits the hiring of paid chaplains to Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, and Native American adherents. The lawsuit began with Patrick and a number of pagan inmates claiming that it was unconstitutional for the state to deny the pagan inmates their religious rights, their religious materials, and their religious services through a pagan chaplain.
The defense is arguing that “traditional” faiths are first tier faiths and that those faiths were meant to have equal rights and protections under the United States Constitution, but that all of the other faiths (including pagans) (more…)
posted by Tony Mierzwicki @ 4:35 am
filed under: Legal, Pagan Issues, Politics
email
this post | Comments Off
I have previously written about the controversy surrounding the Eurocentric definition of paganism proposed at the Parliament of World Religions (PWR) as reported by Ed Hubbard in his commentary on the PWR. Andras Corban-Arthen, who was at the centre of the controversy, provided a clarifying statement in The Wild Hunt. The matter has not died down, as those who have been left out of the definition are still bitter.
I had the privilege and pleasure of chatting to Patrick McCollum yesterday about the PWR definition (more…)
posted by Tony Mierzwicki @ 9:29 pm
filed under: Pagan Issues, Politics
email
this post | 8 Comments »
I had a recent conversation with a friend who is very prominent in the Australian pagan community about the issue of just who should represent pagans at events such as the Parliament of World Religions (PWR).
Organized mainstream religions have the benefit of hierarchies with clearly defined leaders. It is thus very easy for such religions to send either leaders or spokespersons to events, so that all their members can be spoken for. Would it be possible to have generally agreed upon leaders or spokespersons representing pagans in a similar fashion?
In my last couple of posts, I’ve discussed my displeasure regarding the Eurocentric definition of paganism proposed by the PWR, and have pushed my own idea of paganism being an umbrella term for the many small religious groups outside of the world religions. However, because the term pagan was initially one of derision, there are some people who I would consider to be pagans, who dislike the term and refuse to use it.
There are obvious advantages in terms of gaining recognition in being a part of a large group. Consider for instance the victory won by wiccans in the military who are now allowed to have pentagrams on their gravestones. This came about due to (more…)
posted by Tony Mierzwicki @ 3:54 am
filed under: Pagan Issues, Politics
email
this post | Comments Off
On 16 December, I wrote about the difficulties in defining paganism so that none of us were left out in the cold. The definition proposed at the Parliament of World Religions (PWR) was very Eurocentric. I would like to explore one of the issues I raised a little further.
Reconstructionists and those within rigidly defined orders, covens and other magickal groups have a set curriculum – a very structured system of lessons to assimilate. While it is true that many reconstructionists are self-taught, the reality is that they are largely poring over the same source texts.
There is, however, a rather large group of pagans, called eclectic solitaries (or solitary eclectics), who have the benefit of being totally flexible when cobbling together their personal magickal system from often disparate sources. While there was a time when eclectic solitaries (more…)
posted by Tony Mierzwicki @ 5:14 am
filed under: Pagan Issues, Politics
email
this post | 2 Comments »
The Parliament of World Religions (PWR) plays a vitally important role in facilitating interfaith dialogue. This year’s PWR had a strong emphasis on indigenous spiritualities.
The pagan contingent at the PWR sparked off controversy in allegedly proposing a very restricted definition of paganism. The information was provided by Ed Hubbard in his on-going commentary on the PWR:
http://paganmichigan.ning.com/forum/topics/updates-from-the-parliament-of
The core definition was:
“’Paganism’ is a collective term that most aptly defines Indigenous cultures of pre-Christian Europe, the Celtic and Germanic Tribes, The Balts, The Scandinavians, The Basques, The Slaves [sic] and many others.”
The problem with this definition is that it limits itself to reconstructionists and (more…)
posted by Tony Mierzwicki @ 6:29 am
filed under: Pagan Issues, Politics
email
this post | 9 Comments »
