Word: civilizing
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Besides logistical problems, officials in Boston, Philadelphia and Washington had to contend with lawsuits brought by civil libertarians, abortion advocates and atheists, including Madalyn Murray O'Hair, who won the Supreme Court ruling in 1963 that banned prayer from public schools. Opponents argued that public spending on the platforms constructed for the Pope's Masses, or even the use of public land, would violate the Constitution's separation of church and state. Complained Boston Plaintiff Bill Baird: "What do you think would happen if the Ayatullah Khomeini were coming to Boston Common to conduct a Muslim service...
...Philadelphia, a similar suit brought by the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union proved so unpopular that former Ambassador Walter Annenberg donated $50,000 to help pay for the platform on Logan Circle for the Pope's Mass. Members of local construction unions offered to do the work free. The judge came up with a solution: a hearing on the suit was put off until Oct. 9, five days after the Pope leaves town...
...social reform and land redistribution. The policy met with violent resistance from the country's Islamic tribesmen, who make up some 85% of Afghanistan's 17 million people. Loyal to their old feudal leaders and enraged by the new, "godless" regime in Kabul, Muslim guerrillas launched a civil war that has kept the Soviet-backed Khalq government tottering on the brink of collapse ever since. Western diplomats in Kabul estimate that the rebels control 22 of the country's 28 provinces...
...bitterness of the civil war was illustrated last March by violent riots in Herat, where Muslim peasants and 2,000 defecting Kabul troops went on a bloody rampage, killing hundreds of Khalq officials, army soldiers and foreigners, including at least 20 Soviet advisers and their families. Kabul responded with an all-out attack by helicopter gunships and jets, leaving some 20,000 Afghans dead in the streets. Though it crushed the riot, the massive retaliation reinforced the tribesmen's conviction that the Khalq regime is an atheistic puppet of the Soviet Union. Said one unrepentant factory business manager...
...Civil rights leaders on a "divinely mandated"mission...