Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Nowhere Man]

[SeoulFinn]

Am I missing something? I think you might've intended to post this somewhere else, right? Perhaps to some other thread as a comment to something/someone? If not, I have two questions:

1) How's this current event? Okay, these crimes might be (and probably still are) happening even today.
2) In what way the story you posted is different than what is happening in church-run orphanages and such?

But more to the point. These perverts, of all religious and non-religious denominations, that prey on kids should be put away for good/exterminated.

[Nowhere Man]

[SeoulFinn]

Am I going to heaven? Now I got it... at least I think I got it. As for your question, I must simply answer no. I won't be going to heaven or hell, nor to nirvana or limbo for that matter. I don't believe that there is a such a thing as heaven or after-life.

[Rteacher]

Yeah, there were some pedophiles and a few sadists (including some Bengali youths employed as "teacher assistants" who beat up on younger kids at a Hare Krishna school in India...) who were guilty of child abuse (in the late 70s and throughout the 80s...) Practically none of the regular devotees - including me - had any idea that it was occuring. (I wasn't aware of it till the mid-90s...)

When a big class-action law suite was enacted many years later hundreds of former students joined it, and all kinds of stories were circulated... The repercussions and devastating effect that the abuses and alleged cover-ups and organizational corruption (cronyism) have had on the society of Krishna devotees continues to play out ...

Of course, when a lot of money and lawyers are involved - and after a lot of time passed - it's likely, in my opinion, that a lot of the abuse was exaggerated if not fabricated...Here's one recent commentary on it in a devotee forum:

June 19, USA (SUN) � There is no denying that children were abused in ISKCON gurukulas and that severe punishments should be given to the offenders. However, trial by media often promotes exaggeration, quick, and sometimes unfair condemnation, and can cause damage not just to the defendant but to a whole society. The following true story illustrates this point very well. Moreover this is just one of many such cases, which one can find on the web today. We offer it as food for thought to the Vaishnava society.

The McMartin Case

"McMartin" was one of the first Multi-Victim Multi Offender (MVMO) child abuse cases. It lasted six years -- the longest US criminal trial in history. At a cost to the state of $15 million, it was also the most expensive. No convictions were obtained. The main evidence of abuse was based on what the children testified were memories of repeated, sadistic, ritual molestation. Years later, child psychologists realized that such memories can be easily implanted in children's minds by the interview techniques which were used at the time. Since psychologists and police investigators have changed their methods of interrogating young children, no more MVMO cases have surfaced in the U.S. and Canada. The children's testimony was supported by medical tests, which were believed at the time to be accurate. Years later, they were found to be useless.

The hoax adversely affected the lives of hundreds of children, who are now young adults. It has become the most famous MVMO case of its type. Many feminists and others still believe that the children were subjected to horrendous abuse at McMartin. Snippets from the McMartin case have been distributed around the world and incorporated into similar stories involving false memories. Underground tunnels are probably the most popular.

"...the kids involved in this hysteria have indeed suffered, but not at the hands of their teachers. And the abuse perpetrated against them by the child-protection movement gone mad are every bit as awful as the tyranny of incest." Debbie Nathan
"I felt everyone knew I was lying. But my parents said, 'You're doing fine. Don't worry.' And everyone was saying how proud they were of me." Kyle Zripolo, student at McMartin...
http://www.harekrsna.com/sun/editorials/06-06/editorials424.htm

(I think you've inadvertantly hit on a current event this time...and it's one that I've commented on myself about a month ago in either the "Off-Topic" or "General" forums relating to factors that can cause suicide or depression...)l

[Nowhere Man]

No. It's not really a current event. It's from several years ago.

Your McMartin Case doesn't really say much.

It's like a Catholic pointing out one perhaps fraudulent sexual abuse charge to distract from all the others.

As for trial by media, I don't think this made a lot of headlines. Feel free to correct me.

Rather, the Krishnas themselves got the foremost expert/outsider to comment objectively:

http://surrealist.org/gurukula/articles/rochford.html

[Rteacher]

It was revived as a current event (at least on devotee forums like www.chakra.org ) when a young man who had been abused as a kid at a Krishna boarding school in India committed suicide last month. (He was also a Gulf-war vet, like I mentioned earlier...)

There's a big effort to try to remove any leaders still in positions of authority who had been informed of incidents of abuse back then but chose to put more energy into covering it up than effectively stopping it...

[Nowhere Man]

OK. Maybe it is a current event.

Rochford has some interesting things to say about Krishnas and familial responsibility, does he not?

[Rteacher]

You might know more than me on that topic - I really haven't read enough of his writing - I've just skimmed some of it. He's a Professor of Sociology at Middlebury College in Vermont, and he's analyzed the Hare Krishna movement for about thirty years. Initially, he posed as a devotee and lived in a temple for a time to get sociological insights as a participant-observer. He's very sympathetic to the movement, and he's developed many friends among devotees. He frankly points out what he sees as major organizational and leadership failures within ISKCON.

Somehow, I never got involved in family life myself. Whenever I started contemplating getting married to a particular devotee girl (and there were some really attractive ones...) I would be ordered to go on extended travel-and- preach (mainly by distributing books all over the U.S.) missions for up to six months at a time - and when I got back I'd find that someone else had gotten "my" girl. I was always encouraged to stay single (brahmacari) until I got older (around 35) and temple authorities wanted me to marry a nice girl who was so tall that I'd practically need a ladder to see her face-to-face...(Friends advised me to escape by going to India for a while...)

It was overstressed by sannyasis (those who'd taken vows to renounce marriage and any intimate relations...) that householder life was for the less advanced, and that real devotees should completely shun family life. Even maintaining relations with parents was discouraged if they were not favorable to the Krishna consciousness... I think that over a nine-year period my only contact with my parents was a yearly phone call around Christmas time...

[Nowhere Man]