Word: messiahs
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Babis adopted the name Baha'u'llah (Glory of God) and proclaimed himself the Promised One, or Messiah, in 1863; his followers became known as Baha'is. He replaced the Babis' militant zeal with strict nonviolence. Baha'u'llah spent many of his final years in a Turkish prison or under house arrest near present-day Haifa, Israel. There the Baha'is built his tomb and established their world headquarters. This tenuous connection with Israel further inflames Muslim suspicions...
...last major split is between the very religious Jews and nearly everyone else. Some religious fanatics hold that there can be no Jewish state until the Messiah comes--thus the entire state should be returned to the Arabs. Other religious groups force weak governing coalitions to accede to demands for the inclusion of religious laws into the state Sometimes, though, religion is used as blackmail. For example, a religious group recently complained to the mayor of an Israeli city that the city was violating certain religious laws. But instead of asking that these violations cease, they asked the city...
...hero of this fearful fable, is a South African of unspecified color. A gardener in a Cape Town public park, he has a harelip and a reputation for feeblemindedness that mask his true nature: he is a man as meek and lowly in heart as a latter-day Messiah. Coetzee calls him "the obscurest of the obscure, so obscure as to be a prodigy." As his life and times unfold, it becomes clear that his prodigiousness lies in his ability to continue to celebrate life in the midst of the most malignant chaos...
...follow-up question is, what is a respectable civilized people, anymore? For "civilized," Oz places Israel somewhere on the continuum between Hitler and the Messiah." Israel is a kind of "intermission" between the drama played out at Hitler's behest and the morality play with the Messiah at center stage. The omnipresence of these two figures allows Israel, in Oz's opinion, some leeway in its search to define what "civilized" means to Israelis. Oz hints at his own definition in an interview, coolly allowing that "wars are only just when fought for survival and freedom...
...worked for the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, 54, South Korea's crypto-Messiah, who packed Madison Square Garden to overflowing last week. The happening, complete with numbers by the Korean Folk Ballet, kicked off an eight-city tour that climaxes his drive to build a base in the U.S. just seven years before the Messianic Age is to begin. Moon, through an interpreter, told the Garden-goers in guttural shouts, "The time of the Second Coming of Christ is near, and America is the landing site...