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Canons were firing and missiles launched with a gush of fire, jet fighters attacked the target building. Family members watched the events on TV during dinner at home. The scenes of the attacks looked like fireworks or a nice computer simulation. This family scene is not unusual in our daily life. But they are not watching a computer game, it is real war. Today we take for granted this kind of war-front broadcasting during breakfast or dinner time. We just think that this is happening somewhere far away from us. Even though many citizens might be killed in the scene, no one cares about it when it's on the TV news.
In this final year of the present millenium, many unexpected things like this have happened in Asia. Almost all of them are bad news-religious conflicts, political turmoil, economic declines, and social instabilities-these have become common headlines in Asia. Two of these pieces of critical news in Asia have come from India and Indonesia since January, 1999. As we print in this issue, one of these issues is the continuous violence against the Christians in several provinces in India, and the other is on the violence in Ambon, Indonesia between Moslem and Christian mobs. In March, we have seen more violence, this time in Kosovo, on our home TV.
Few religious cases make the daily news headlines in our newspaper or TVs, however, the media has said that the main reason for the conflicts has been religious intolerance among extremists. In many cases I wonder if this is really an accurate analysis. Because belief is the core of spiritual activities for people anywhere, the core of such beliefs generates peace-loving people who are willing to accommodate their neighbors who adhere to other religionscI think, rather, the economic and political reasons might be the motivation inciting people to violence.
In many countries in Asia, I have observed that politics have not worked well. Because of the lack of effectiveness in the political sphere, citizens, educators, social workers, and religious leaders became the victims of paralyzed politics. They have been set up to act as an army in the place of politicians, and placed in a continuous fighting position, fighting meaningless fights, with other who are also only gactingh armies. The irresponsible politicians among us are good at finding a way to escape and to blur the real facts that people see. In almost any country, religions are one of the easiest tools for them to use. The National Christian Council in India, for it's part, demonstrated what the situation really was, to clarify the perspective of the Indian Christians with regards to the recent violence, as we have shown in this issue. Their stance gives other Christians an understanding of the perspectives and attitudes of the local Christians in India. I feel that this in-depth report is the best description of the Indian conflicts. Until I received the news reports from our Lutheran brother Chandran Martin of NCCI, our main sources had been secular news agencies. It is very unfortunate, however, that there was little news from our fellow Christians in Indonesia on the recent social instabilities and ethnic conflicts there.
There being little alternative information for those of us living outside the conflict area, we are easily manipulated by the stereotyped images coming through the mass media. We need to interpret the information we do receive with critical view points, but it is also helpful for our neighbors if people who do live in the conflict zones could disseminate their own perspectives to the outside world. We proclaim the Peace of the King through the Bible; taking a positive attitude in promoting justice and peace is our Christian role in this fragile Asian society. We need to realize that actual human lives are at risk in the fiction-like battle scene we see on TV, and we are compelled to reveal the real facts behind this masked reality of the media. 
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