From: kes...@cyberpass.net (keshet)
Subject: WIS? observations
Date: 2000/02/13
Message-ID: <886q0f02akt@enews2.newsguy.com>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 585403435
Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology


Thumbing through the 1998 edition of _What Is Scientology?_, I
was noticing how nicely Co$ had photographed various Orgs around
the world. All the biggies are there: Clearwater, Los Angeles (I
love that Celebrity Centre photo), Washington, Boston, Toronto,
Sussex.

There are few included, though, that puzzle me because they are
rarely, if ever, mentioned on the newsgroup. 

What's the size of the Org in Tokyo, for instance? Are there any
Japanese critics? Is anything happening at the Miami Org? Did they 
get into this photo collage simply because they have photogenic 
buildings?

My personal favorite is the photo of the Org in Durban, South
Africa. It's nice, but rather nondescript and unimpressive 
compared to the others. It makes me curious about the condition 
of the churches in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth and 
Pretoria that excluded them from WIS?.

The interesting thing is that the Scientologists in the picture, 
chatting out front on a lovely sunny day, are conspicuously white 
(and blonde!). I assume that Durban has a good-sized white 
population but given that blacks greatly outnumber whites in the 
KwaZulu-Natal region and Durban is home to the largest Indian 
population outside India, I wonder why there are no people of 
color in the photo? Especially troubling because Scientology
claims "that all men [but not women??] of whatever race, color 
or creed were created with equal rights." A nice concept, surely, 
but there's little evidence of its application in the cult.

	Keshet

-- 
Kes...@cyberpass.net * http://thingy.apana.org.au/~fun/scn/racism/
Where prejudice exists it always discolors our thoughts. -M.Twain