Review by Kevin Baldeosingh
There have been several scholarly studies since this book was published 21 years ago, and a longer more in-depth examination by Aroup Chattejee of Mother Teresa, who was declared a saint by the Catholic Church this month. But Christopher Hitchens was the first to describe Agnes Bojaxhiu as "a religious fundamentalist, a political operative, a primitive sermoniser and an accomplice of worldly secular powers."
The process of canonisation began with John Paul II who, as Hitchens notes, had in 16 years created five times as many saints as all of his 20th century predecessors. "Sainthood is no small claim," writes Hitchens, "because it brings with it the power to make intercession and it allows prayer to be directed at the said saint."
But the canonisation of Mother Teresa, Hitchens argues, really began in 1969, with a documentary by journalist Malcolm Muggeridge, followed by a 1971 book, in which Muggeridge claimed to have seen the nun perform a miracle. The supposed miracle was a very clear photograph of the interior of a dimly lit building they visited, which Muggeridge felt was accounted for by divine light rather than Kodak.
Hitchens' basic criticisms of Mother Teresa and her charity have formed the basis of further investigations and polemics–that her hospice did not provide proper medical care for the dying, not even painkillers; that she consorted with crooks and despots, and that she did not follow her own principles.
He writes: "Mother Teresa's global income is more than enough to outfit several first-class clinics in Bengal. The decision not to do so, and indeed to run instead a haphazard and cranky institution which would expose itself to litigation and protest were it run by any branch of the medical profession, is a deliberate one. The point is not honest relief of suffering but the promulgation of a cult based on death and suffering and subjection."
Mother Teresa, he added, during her bouts with heart trouble and old age, used the finest and costliest hospitals in the West.
In 1984, when the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal spilled toxic chemicals in an explosion which killed 2,500 people and permanently injured thousands more, Mother Teresa flew to Bhopal immediately and enjoined angry relatives of the victims to forgive the company.
She also had a Caribbean connection, giving support to Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier. In respect to conman Charles Keating, for whom she wrote a testimonial during his trial, she was asked in a private letter by the Deputy District Attorney of Los Angeles to return monies Keating had given to her charity which he had obtained through fraud. She never replied. "By no word or gesture has she ever repudiated any of these connections or alliances," wrote Hitchens.
The Missionary Position is on the surface an indictment of Mother Teresa but, more importantly, it is an expos� of the failure of a credulous media, which so willingly spread the myth that even the Nobel Prize Committee gave her its cherished Peace Prize. It is therefore hardly surprising that, despite the unpalatable facts exposed by Hitchens two decades ago, sainthood has been conferred on her.
?BOOK INFO:
The Missionary Position.
Christopher Hitchens.
Verso, 1995.
ISBN 1-85984-929-6; 98 pages.