As a News Editor Sees It​—Report from Argentina

JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES in Argentina continue to be under government ban. But not everyone agrees with what the government is doing.

Some members of the federal judiciary have gone on public record in behalf of the Witnesses. And on February 14, 1980, an editorial by James Neilson in the Buenos Aires Herald gave evidence that he was not afraid to state how he felt about the situation. He wrote:

“If official propaganda is to be believed Argentina is blessedly free of the religious problems that plague much of the rest of the world. This, however, is a highly questionable assertion. While it is true that the Argentine people is, on the whole, tolerant enough where religion is concerned and there is little danger of members of one faith sallying forth to massacre the members of another, the country is not without its bigots who do what they can to make life miserable for the denominations they dislike. . . .

“But even though the situation here is by and large fairly good by the dismal standards prevailing in some parts of the world, . . . it comes as a distinct shock to see the government taking such pride in it. It is not, after all, as though the government had made any contribution to the removal of religious discrimination. On the contrary, ever since assuming power it has done its considerable best to inject the dangerous virus of religious intolerance into the national bloodstream, devising compulsory confessionally-oriented indoctrination courses for the schools and energetically persecuting small and for the most part inoffensive dissident sects, Christian and non-Christian, for motives that have never been satisfactorily explained.

“Among the principal victims of the regime’s crusading zeal are the Jehovah’s Witnesses, of which there are thought to be about 30,000 in the country and over a million in the world as a whole. The Witnesses are not very popular anywhere. They form a prickly, indigestible denomination which is widely regarded as a public nuisance because its adherents persist in taking some biblical injunctions completely literally, a most disturbing thing to do from the viewpoint of those who think religion is a very fine thing as long as it does not affect people’s behaviour very much. When it does it gets labelled religious mania and is ridiculed. But although the Witnesses have an irritating habit of buttonholing others to lecture them on what they should believe they are generally tolerated. Certainly they live strikingly honest, abstemious, and hard-working lives and by all usual criteria can be regarded as model citizens.

“They would escape attention if only they took as flexible a view of their principles as most other people but, needless to say, they do not. They think the sixth commandment, ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ means what it says and is applicable in all circumstances. They also welcome Micah’s prophecy that ‘nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more’. And they are absolutely adamant in refusing to render homage to such quasi-religious symbols as flags, preferring to obey God’s demand that they reserve their worship for Him alone. Such intransigence is unusual in the twentieth century where apparently straightforward principles can be stretched enough to encompass virtually everything and it has inevitably brought the Witnesses into many collisions with the secular authorities, who have their own very definite ideas about what is right and what is wrong.

“The Witnesses’ combination of pacifism and a refusal to do anything they think implies worship of national symbols naturally infuriates superpatriots who are professionally dedicated to cultivating the art of war. Their anger is understandable. What even full-time apologists for the government must find hard to understand, however, is the singleminded fervour with which the authorities hound the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Open season on the Witnesses was declared with the publication, on August 31, 1976, of decree number 1867 which pronounced their beliefs ‘contrary to the national character,’ whatever that may mean. Since then the government has subjected the Witnesses to a systematic campaign of persecution that has no parallel in the civilized West since the end of the Second World War, a campaign that has brought discredit to the nation and will be remembered with shame by later generations.

“Hundreds of Witnesses have been arrested for such ‘crimes’ as holding prayer meetings or Bible-study sessions. Many of them have been roughed up in the process and mothers have been forcibly separated from their infants. Hundreds of children have been expelled from school because they have obeyed their parents and refused to render homage to the flag, and they have been denied the right to sit for their examinations even after they have studied at home for them. Their literature, which consists of such doubtful works as the Bible or collections of biblical stories, has been seized. Provincial governments have rapaciously taken advantage of the situation to confiscate their property, which will, no doubt, be returned when Constitutional rule is restored. Young Witnesses have rotted in military jails for years on end, often in the company of thieves and vagabonds, because they have courageously refused to abandon their pacifist convictions. Foreigners, despite their lack of any criminal antecedents whatsoever, have been thrown out of the country for nothing but their religious beliefs. At present a young Peruvian, Pedro Brousset Massey, [is] fighting a lonely legal battle in Córdoba so he can stay and marry his Argentine fiancé[e]. Like so many other Witnesses, he is being deliberately given the runaround by the government departments with which he must come into contact. Not surprisingly the hapless Witnesses, most of whom are working or lower middle class, are comparing their plight to that of the early Christians in the pagan Roman Empire.

“This quite incredible regression into the past is taking place with hardly a word of protest coming from the press or from any other of the country’s representative institutions. None of the political parties, so gleefully willing to denounce the government’s economic policies, has bothered to raise its voice in defense of this small and unloved sect. The Church, despite the Pope’s unequivocal calls for religious tolerance, has remained silent, even though many will take it for granted that the driving force behind the persecution of the Witnesses is conservative Roman Catholicism and the main members of the government like to identify themselves as fervent practicing Catholics. The Church as such, however, appears to have nothing at all to do with this sorry affair. The Witnesses, of course, are not very numerous, not very rich, and not very influential, so there is precious little to be gained from trying to help them. But the wrong that is being inflicted is so evident, and the harm it is doing to the country is so great, that it would have been reasonable to expect some citizens at least to have the decency to speak up on their behalf.

“The government’s objective in treating the Witnesses in this shameful manner is hard for a rational mind to grasp. It cannot seriously expect to convert them. So far not one single Witness has renounced his beliefs as a result of the government’s heavy-handed campaign and, indeed, they are accustomed to outfacing far tougher and far more unpleasant enemies than the present authorities. The Jehovah’s Witnesses, a stiff-necked people if ever there was one, have survived the attentions of the likes of Hitler and Stalin and they will no doubt survive whatever President Videla has in store for them. Elsewhere they have gone to their deaths singing the praises of the Lord and they will be quite prepared to do the same here should it ever become necessary.

“If the government has no hope of converting them, what then? Perhaps it is seeking to discourage others from joining their ranks. If so it is going the wrong way about it, because the steadfast way in which the Witnesses have stood by their principles, a rare phenomenon these days, can only win them new adherents. It would not be at all surprising if their numbers actually grew as a result of the government’s efforts rather than the reverse.

“There is hardly a state in the Western world which has not had trouble with the Witnesses at some time or other. Everywhere else, however, supreme courts have eventually ruled in their favour. And the Argentine Supreme Court too has ruled that it is unconstitutional to prevent the children of Witnesses from attending school even though they persist in standing quietly still while homage is being rendered to the national flag. Throughout the world, moreover, military tribunals have come to the conclusion, despite their inevitable misgivings, that special consideration should be given to those who, like the Witnesses, harbour genuine conscientious objections to military service, and even the most blimpish have agreed that whatever else pacifists may be they are certainly not cowards: many have preferred the firing squad to the violation of their beliefs.

“Human nature being as belligerent as it is real pacifists will always be a minority but a resilient one, and seeking to transform them at bayonet point into militarists is an exercise in futility that does far more harm than good to national security. . . .”