Scientology's®
Claims
Scientology makes a lot of claims about South Africa for some reason.
Perhaps it is hoped that making claims about difficult to contact
places would make those claims unverifiable. With the advent of the
Internet, however, few places on Earth are truly inaccessible these
days and once-difficult-to-verify claims can now be verified.
When Time Magazine ran its exposure of the Scientology crime syndicate
Cult of Power and
Greed the organization came out with a public relations effort
which stated, in part:
In later years the claim grew in the telling. In the 1993 issue of
"What is Scientology?" the organization started claiming:
Along with that text is a photograph of a "classroom," which
has the caption:
So the organization is apparently claiming that an additional half a
million African children were "taught" using "Hubbard
technology" some time between the 1991 Time Magazine exposure of
their criminal enterprise and the 1993 release of this claim. That
claim is repeated on Scientology web sites, among them being:
Also on that page is a photograph with the caption:
After a while, the organization started adding to their claims to
include countries beyond South Africa:
Sound too good to be true? Yes, it does, so human rights activists and
freedom of speech activists started checking in to these claims. In
April of 1992, a letter from a South African Embassy offered a response
to a question by a human rights activist. Here is the response:
ac 8/74 7 April 1992
MR Tony McClelland
Dear MR McClelland,
Church of Scientology
Your fax ref. tm0506 dated 5 June 1991 regarding possible Church of
Scientology school education in South Africa.
The matter has been taken up with the Department of Education and
Culture as well as the Department of Education and Training who are
responsible for school education in South Africa.
Both denied any knowledge of the Church's involvement in formal
education in South Africa.
According to the Department of Education and Training, the Church of
Scientology tried to use a front organization in 1989, the so called
"Education Alive" but was not allowed to get involved in
the Department's schools.
I am afraid their claim of teaching 1.5 million children in South
Africa to read is just another fabrication.
Yours sincerely
Johan Klopper
http://www.solitarytrees.net/cos/racism/racism.htm
So what we see is that the claims are most likely false. At most the
Scientology organization may have tried to sneak Scientology into the
country under their usual policy of "Suitable Guises"
however they were unsuccessful at getting anyone in South Africa
suckered enough to actually succeed at the scam.
This doesn't mean that Scientology didn't actually get some
of their mad messiah's bizarre "tech" introduced to a number
of African children. Scientology would like people to believe its
constant public relations efforts to try to make people think that
Hubbard's freakish "tech" is in wide use and widely accepted
outside of the Scientology organization and these claims about having
helped to educate South African children are almost certain to be
"more of the same." We'll probably never know the whole
truth of the facts of the matter yet what remains is undeniable: The
South African government's education facilities not only don't accept
the Scientology organization's bizarre "tech," the official
educational agencies noted that the crooks tried to sneak in previously
through another one of their many fake front groups.
Do real religions engage in this level of dishonesty?
"The Church is a vital force in education. Scientologists have
taught some 1.5 million children in South Africa how to read and learn,
based on the educational technology developed by L. Ron Hubbard."
"Education Alive, for instance, the Applied Scholastics affiliate
which delivers L. Ron Hubbard's study technology in South Africa and
other parts of the continent, was established in 1975 and since then
has trained more than 2 million students."
"In South Africa, L. Ron Hubbard's study technology has
been taught to 2 million underprivileged children."
"Education Alive, the Applied Scholastics affiliate which utilizes
L. Ron Hubbard's study technology in educational programs in South
Africa and other parts of the African continent, was established in
1975, and since then more than two million students have been introduced
to study tech through seminars and workshops."
http://www.whatisscientology.org/html/part10/chp31/pg0526-a.html
"Since 1975, Education alive has introduced more than 2 million
African students such as these from Zimbabwe to L. Ron Hubbard's study
technology."
"Mr. Hubbard's study technology is used in many countries to help
students and teachers alike. In South Africa, these programs have helped
over two million underprivileged black Africans to improve their ability
to study, well before their fate became a popular cause and the walls of
apartheid came down."
http://faq.REMOVEscientology.org/page22.htm
South African Embassy
Canberra [Australia]
[Private address withheld]
Second Secretary
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