thirdwitness,
You never answered any of my questions about the similarities between the Malawi issue, and the UN issue. You just picked up one point from a long post and spoke about Nazis. You completely ignored 98% of the rest of what I wrote.
For your convenience, I'll post it again:
Having a Party Card, does NOT mean that you support the Party.
You support a Party by VOTING for it, or doing other things that HELP the Party. The Witnesses in Malawi had to carry a Party Card by law. They did NOT have to vote for a party. There should be nothing wrong with this. As I already stated:
"I’m on the voting register, I’m eligible to vote, I’ve never voted though, as it doesn’t mean I have to vote, but credit card and loan companies may look at the voting register to help them decide whether or not they want to give you loans or cards, so it’s useful to be on there, and the Society don’t say that you can’t do this, I asked an elder if it was ok, and he said it was fine. In some countries you have enforced voting. The Society doesn’t tell you to go to prison and refuse to go to polling stations, they let you go to the polling stations, but ask that you don’t actually vote, just spoil the ballet or something, so why was a Party Card so bad?"
The Party Card was just a symbol. Similarly, a Heil Hitler is just a symbol. Every person who did it, did not necessarily support the Nazis.
I also said:
"A Party Card may have convinced the Party that they showed support for them, but it didn’t necessarily mean that the individual carrying the card supported them, as they didn’t vote for them. Similarly, the Society had to submit articles to the UN that had to convince them that they supported them. Even if this did not necessarily mean that did support the UN as you believe it didn’t, surely you can agree the purpose was to convince the UN that they supported them?
Do you realise that some Organisations have had applications to become DPI associates rejected? This isn’t a recent thing, this has been happening since 1991/2 when the Society joined. Why do you think they were rejected? There MUST be a reason. The UN/DPI aren’t just going to be picking the names out of a hat, if they are rejecting Organisations, it would seem like they would only want associates who they believe are going to be of benefit to them. So, surely the articles the Watchtower Society provided the UN/DPI with, convinced them that the Watchtower Society would help them to spread information about their charter, and thus be a support to them?" THIRDWITNESS - IF you do not agree that the UN/DPI rejected some applications from NGOs who they did not think were beneficial to them, then please could you offer another reason why the UN/DPI would reject some applications.
What did the Party Card actually mean? As Steve posted, a quote from a 1976 Watchtower said this about Malawi:
There all citizens have been required to become members of the country’s only existing political party, the "Malawi Congress Party." A membership card costing about twenty-five cents (U.S.) identifies the bearer as ‘acquiescing to the principles of the ruling political party,’ especially to the Life President, Dr. H. Kamuzu Banda. How are the people of Malawi to view the purchase of a "Party Card"? An official circular issued on August 27, 1975, says: "This is the one way in which we people of this country can show appreciation to our Life Leader, the Ngwazi [Dr. Banda] for developing this country of Malawi."
A membership card, like a library card, shows suggests that the members agree with the principles of the people who issued the card. If there was nothing wrong with the library card suggesting that they supported the UN, why was having a Party Card which suggested they supported the Party so wrong? If having a library card did not mean that the Society agreed to support the principles of the UN, why does having a Party Card?
Fact is that these issues are very similar. SO, the Society were either wrong to associate with the UN/DPI, they were wrong about how they dealt with the Malawi issues, or they were wrong about both. Which is it Thirdwitness?
Please could you address these issues. And can I also ask you why Witnesses in Mexico were not allowed to pray at or sing Kingdom songs at meetings, or use the bible in preaching work, at the same time Jehovah's Witnesses in Malawi were being sent to prison or killed for refusing to buy a party card?
In fact Thirdwitness, once you are finished with the UN debate, I challenge you to get into a debate about the Mexico/Malawi issues. If you accept, I will start a thread about it, and you can post in there and try to defend how the Governing Body dealt with these issues, but I don't think you will, because, unless you are completely stupid, you will realise, that the Mexico/Malawi ordeal can NOT be defended.
Zico