Refuting
An Allegation of Anti-Semitism
Date: 08-01-05
By: Barry Pittard.
Email:
bpittard@optusnet.com.au
A pro Sai Baba writer has
stated that I deliberately posted my article ‘SATHYA SAI BABA EXPOSÉ: AN
UPDATE’ on a holocaust denial website. In fact, I did not, and would
never have done so. This article is an overview of the Exposé of Sathya
Sai Baba and his international cult. It was first posted to Exbaba.com
in September 2003.
Since I wish to focus the issue and not deal in personalities, I choose
not to name the individual involved. Former devotees who have spoken out
about the allegations against Sathya Sai Baba and the cover-up by many
of his foremost leaders and successive Indian governments commonly
attract slander, distortion of our views, and false attributions
regarding our motives. In my own case, because I will not trade ill for
ill, I have constantly let many vicious attacks pass (and, for many
months, including this one) but colleagues have persuaded me not to let
an accusation of anti-Semitism pass.
In fact, my life has at all times been absolutely free from any taint of
racism or anti-Semitism and from any knowing association with those who
hold such evil views. I may add that one of the great attractions of
Sathya Sai Baba to most of us, now former devotees, was his emphasis on
non-discrimination on the basis of race, caste or creed. I gave no
permission to put writing of mine on this website, of which I did not
then know, and which contains views that I find profoundly repugnant.
Because an author’s article appears on a website it does not mean that
he or she has therefore been consulted. It is difficult not to conclude
that a writer who claims falsely that I was consulted has an agenda to
hurt, harm and destroy my cause by means of linking me with an
emotion-charged issue like the holocaust and the denial of it.
Before success in getting the webmaster of the offending site to take
the article off, I made several attempts, both by email and phone to get
him to do so. Much later, I discovered that yet another article of mine
was posted on the site. I find that the postings occurred because
another individual, with whom I had briefly corresponded on an entirely
unrelated matter, who equally is no associate of mine, had passed my
material along to this webmaster. That my attacker should assume that an
author’s material cannot pass into other hands without his knowledge,
would suggest either thoughtlessness or deliberate intention to
discredit no matter what risk of injustice and the hurting of a person’s
good name.
An Exbaba.com worker, who was at some stage combing the Internet for Sai
Baba related items relevant to exposing him, copied the page in question
to Exbaba.com entirely without my knowledge. Again, my assailant leaped
to a worst-case, conspiratorial interpretation, not acknowledging that
this occurrence can happen without an author’s knowledge. Since the
original posting of my update article was on Exbaba.com, this copying
was superfluous. If the worker who copied it had actually read it before
posting it he would have seen extraneous Adelaide Institute material on
the same page that does not even belong to my article. Furthermore, the
offending website’s spin on my article was evident in the title it put
above it: “Parallels with Holocaust Believers is Striking.” Still
further was the post mindless because the extraneous material on the
same website had utterly no thematic (or moral and ethical) purpose to
appear on Exbaba.com. The Exbaba.com staff member has since granted that
it was a serious oversight that it was posted, and has apologised to me,
conceding the importance (indeed courtesy) of seeking an author’s
permission, not to mention taking more than a cursory glance at what on
earth they were copying!
Indeed, my own radio programme, “Collective Spirit,” reflected timeless
values inherent in the great moral and ethical traditions, and won
friends from many faiths, including leaders in the Jewish community. On
one occasion, I heard two fundamentalist Christian presenters make an
anti-Semitic reference on the community radio station I worked for. I
made strong and immediate protests to the Management, and the offenders,
who were unrepentant, were made to leave. Indeed, the then leader of the
local Jewish community and her husband were complementary of my
programme, and she had appeared on it at my invitation. What is more,
they graciously had me in their home to share in a Jewish celebration
during Pesach (Passover), and we are in touch to this day, as I am with
other close Jewish friends, many of whose families perished in the
holocaust, as did so very many families of my co-students at University.
Over the years, I have similarly been drawn into a circle of friendship
and sharing of Jewish ceremonies by those Sai devotees from Israel with
whom I enjoyed such loving relationships. I dwell rather on such happy
occasions than give further thought to my antagonist’s cruel and
outrageous slander, but wish especially that those newly coming out of
the Sathya Sai Baba cult will not be misled by the ugly and persistent
slanders.