Christopher Hitchens on Mother Teresa and Michael Moore

I was going through the archives of jivha (unfortunately jivha has been (end-of-life)eol'ed) and found some material on Mother Teresa. And as I crawled from there on I came upon some articles by Christopher Hitchens. He offers some very compelling information about things that the Mother did the wrong way and did it in the name of religion. The whole world according to him accepts it unquestioningly that she did indeed help a lot of people and did it well and selflessly. Very few journalists have actually examined her work and its effectiveness from close quarters. He even alleges that the funds that were gathered in the name of the poor and destitue were mostly siphoned off for building convents in around 120 countries when they could have been used for building better hospitals, schools etc.

I went through the following articles. Most of them are long (and at times repetitive) and going through all of them will take you some time but it makes some interesting reading.

There are about 4 articles at Atanu Dey on Mother Teresa.

Hitchens has written a book The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice. This is a review of the book.

Hitchens has also criticised the Oscar winning documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 for presenting a misleading picture. Micheal Moore offers some "factual back-up" which I have not yet gone through exhaustively but some of the points there like "FAHRENHEIT 9/11: Nearly seven minutes passed with nobody doing anything." have been questioned by Hitchens as being one edge of an opportunist's double edged sword (Had Bush indulged in frantic activity he would have been accused of acting in haste etc etc..)

All in all interesting reads..especially on one of those days that you get tired of work and want a break :)