Missionaries of Charity sisters stand over the body of Mother Teresa at the order's headquarters in eastern India September 6
CALCUTTA, Saturday, (AFP) - Mother Teresa, who dedicated her life to serving the world's poor and destitute, died in Calcutta on Friday aged 87.
The news slowly spread on this morning around Calcutta, where the Nobel Laureate was cherished as a living saint.
A spokeswoman for her Order Missionaries of Charity said the Nobel Laureate died following a cardiac arrest at 9:30 p.m. (1600 GMT) Friday.
She is due to be buried at Mother House, the headquarters of the order she founded here almost half-a-century ago, on September 10.
Sunita Kumar, closely associated with Mother Teresa for three decades, said she had complained of chest pains and breathing problems on Friday evening. Doctors were called immediately but were not able to save her.
The Roman Catholic missionary, who was due to take part in special prayers in memory of Diana, the Princess of Wales, on Saturday, had been suffering from serious heart problems.
Last August she had to be resuscitated after suffering heart failure. She later had a heart attack. Her condition was complicated by pneumonia and malaria and she continued to be given oxygen three times a day until her death.
Thousands of people gathered outside Mother House in the early morning drizzle on Saturday before filing past the body, which had already been embalmed before being laid out in the chapel.
Sunita Kumar said: "Mother will not leave Calcutta. She will be buried in Mother House."
She said the funeral would be on September 10, "the inspiration day of Mother Teresa's life."
She said it was on that date in 1946 that the nun was inspired to open her first home for the sick in Calcutta.
The body of Mother Teresa, regarded as a living saint by the city's 12 million Hindu-majority population, is to be displayed until Wednesday to allow people to pay their last respects.
Indian Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral led the official memorials.
"Words fail me to express my sorrow at the demise of the apostle of peace and love," he said.
"The world — and especially India — is poorer by her passing away. Her life was devoted to bringing love, peace and joy to people whom the world generally shuns."
The world's top political and religious leaders joined in the tributes.
Loking at a photo of Diana after attending prayers for the Princess
The Vatican said that Pope John Paul II was "deeply saddened" and would hold a special mass in her memory. US President Bill Clinton called her "an incredible person."
A message from Britain's Queen Elizabeth read: "At this time of mourning for us in the United Kingdom, it was with deep sadness that I learnt this evening of the death of Mother Teresa.
"Her untiring devotion to the poor and destitute of all religions has been touched by her selfless work."
Mother Teresa, awarded the Nobel Prize for her missionary work in 1979, was fitted with a pacemaker in 1989, died six days after Princess Diana was killed in a car crash in Paris.
A memorial service for the Princess of Wales, who met Mother Teresa on several occasions, had been planned at Mother House on Saturday.
Mother Teresa waves to the crowd with her successor Sister Nirmala
Mother Teresa launched her Order, now a worldwide organisation of around 2, 500 nuns backed by 400 brothers and thousands of volunteers working in around 126 countries, here in 1950.
She stepped down as its head in March due to ill health and was replaced by Sister Nirmala, a Hindu convert.
Mother Teresa was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu on August 26, 1910 in Skopje of Albanian parents. She became an Indian citizen in 1948.
Earlier this year she and Sister Nirmala met the Pope during a nine-week tour of Europe and the US.
1910: Born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu on August 26 in Skopje, of Albanian parents.
1928: Arrives in India to join a convent school in Calcutta.
1946: Is inspired to set up her own home to help the poor and sick of Calcutta.
1948: Becomes an Indian citizen.
1950: Sets up Missionaries of Charity.
1971: Awarded the Pope John Peace Prize.
1979: Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
1980: Bestowed India's highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna.
1989: Suffers heart trouble, fitted with pacemaker.
1990: Asks to stand down as head of the order but is voted back in as superior general.
1991: Undergoes heart surgery in the United States.
1993: Further surgery in Calcutta to clear a blocked heart vessel.
1994: Pope persuades her to continue as head of the order.
1996: Suffers heart failure on August 22. Her heart stops beating for around two minutes but she is resuscitated.
She later has a heart attack and undergoes further surgery to clear her heart arteries.
1997: On March 13 Sister Nirmala is elected to succeed Mother Teresa as head of the Missionaries of Charity.
On May 16 Mother Teresa sets off on a nine-week tour of Europe and the United States to introduce her successor to the Pope.
Becomes embroiled in a dispute over a television film of her life which she says glamourises her work.
Sept 5: Dies in Calcutta aged 87.
"We had fed the hearts on fantasies
The heart's grown brutal from the fare"
-W.B. Yeats
Was it a fantasy or was it the most hopeful sign in many years that a negotiated settlement to the longest conflict of its kind, the Irish, was possible?
The British and the Irish governments have agreed to set up an international commission to oversee the handing over of "terrorist weapons" during the peace talks on Northern Ireland. What's more Mo Mowlam, the Northern Ireland secretary had announced that this independent body would be in place before the negotiations begin. And yet most commentators on both sides of the battlelines have observed a new urgency and commitment.
It all began of course with the Irish Republican Army's declaration of a ceasefire. And the IRA did fix a date, July 19. And it kept its word.
There was a snag though. What would the Ulster Unionists do? Would they agree to a face-to-face exchange with Sinn Fein, the IRA's political wing? Remarks attributed in the press to David Trimble, the Ulster Unionist leader, raised some doubts. Evidently he preferred "proximity talks", that is no face-to-face encounter but a dialogue. "My reaction to proximity talks", said Mitchell McLaughlin, Sinn Fein's chairman, is a "flat no". He was responding to a question in a program on BBC's Radio Ulster. Right to the end, he did not retreat from his demand for "face-to-face negotiations".
But there is another more important dimension - Britain and Ireland, two independent states, with relations shaped by geography and history, race and religion. There are few relationships more complex than the one between these two countries separated by the Irish sea, says reporter Kieran Cooke who argues however that attitudes are changing, from the days when the Prime Minister of Ireland crossed swords with his British counterpart, Harold Wilson. He had told Mr. Lynch that the "trouble with you, Irish, is that you never forget". Mr. Lynch shot back: "The trouble with you British, is that you never remember". But that was a polite retort.
The early 19th century writer Sydney Smith held that" the moment the very name of Ireland is mentioned, the English seem to bid adieu to common feeling, common prudence, and common sense and to act with the barbarity of tyrants and the fatuity of idiots".
There is room for such ill-temper and inherited hatred in the twilight of the twentieth century when mass communications, trade, and other shared interests argue strongly for a sensible policy that serves the interests of all parties.
Gerry Adams visited the United States before the formal peace talks which begins on September 15. As the President of Sinn Fein, the IRA's political wing, Mr. Adams has made a strong case for Sinn Fein participation in the peace negotiations. When James F. Clarity of the New York Times interviewed him in Belfast, Mr. Adams told him that the IRA's unilateral decision on a ceasefire on July 20 was not only the clearest evidence of the bona fides of the Republican Army but also an opportunity that should not be missed. But Sinn Fein was disappointed. "When we met the British the other day, we argued that the pattern and concentration and intensity of British military patrols in Republican areas were provocative".
What did he hope to gain from the visit? "The US trip is about enlisting support for a democratic peace settlement, for the notion of Irish unity, for an end to the British occupation of Northern Ireland which was left to Britain under the 1921 treaty that gave Southern Ireland independence".
President Clinton will not be in Washington but US officials have evidently advised Mr. Adams not to raise the question of the IRA's right to collect funds in the US.
The Irish-American community, a useful vote-bank for any American politician with an eye on high office, will organise fund-raising meetings. The Irish-American lobby as well as the Irish vote do strengthen the hand of Sinn Fein supporters in America. On his last visit to the US that can now claim the title of "the sole superpower," Mr. Adams was given VIP treatment, with the influential American media recognising him as a "celebrity".
The Irish lobby may not have the clout of the pro-Israel Jewish lobby but it does operate quite confidently. Former US Senator George Mitchell is now chairman. At home too, the Sinn Fein has done well. It can claim to be the third strongest party with 17% of the vote. What would happen if the peace initiatives collapse? It was not by accident that he chose to quote President John F. Kennedy, a loyal supporter of the Irish cause." Never negotiate from fear but never fear to negotiate".
The Irish lobby organised three fund-raising dinners in New York, Chicago and San Francisco.
Devolution exercise
And so to Scotland. The Blair government has now turned to Scotland, and offered it a parliament with much larger legislative powers. Recently, the Scottish Secretary, Donald Dewar, presented a White Paper to the House of Commons which will be the main issue in a referendum to be held on September 11. The proposals, Mr. Dewar told parliament "recognises Scotland's distinctive identity and strong ties which bind us together as one united kingdom". In short, devolution does not weaken the centre.... a familiar thesis. It strengthens unity.
There was evidently some resistance in the Blair cabinet, particularly on the more nationalist language". After a protracted cabinet debate, the more provocative phrases were dropped. The Tory opposition was quick to attack the proposed changes, describing some of the proposals as "damaging, dangerous and dishonest". At least some of the Tory critics were so alarmed that they warned parliament and public that the new powers would "fan the flames of independence" meaning separatist revolt! A minister told parliamentary correspondent John Kampher, "This last election led to a huge re-alignment of Labour towards England, with so many new English MPs and the Scots going to have to realise they won't get it their own way any more."
The new funding formula gives Scotland more per capita than England. One of the issues on which Prime Minister Blair intervened was abortion. Westminster will retain control of legislation on abortion and some other controversial questions. Will he clash with powerful lobbies, women for instance?
Stripping off all the layers - the drunkenness of the driver, the tortured ambiguity towards the press of the victim -the death of Diana still deeply challenges those in the media courageous enough to face up to the moral and philosophical dilemma with the same scrupulousness and sanity that Enylish Einstein applied to the invitation to participate in the Manhattan project. You can say no.
The human conscience is the most supreme and sublime element in creation. It embraces and embodies the impulses of both the animal and the divine. This is the switching mechanism that determines whether the individual will advance towards civilization or regress towards barbarism. It is the spring, the tension, that everyone lives with every day, in small things and in big.
Ideology that allows the individual conscience to be subsumed into a greater collective cause simplifies the individual's choices, hence its attractiveness, particularly in a time of turmoil, ultra competitiveness, stress and anxiety. Unemployment and national humiliation drove Germany and much of Europe into the arms of National Socialism and the world's single most destructive war. Poverty and its bed-fellows greed and gross maldistribution of income, drove Russia into Bolshevism and the dictatorship of the proletariat, a soul-destroying form of governance that still in China dominates the lives of one fifth of humanity. In America an ideology of national hubris, allowed the "defence of liberty" to be taken to the extremes of Armageddon.
The Manhattan project's atomic bomb, while perhaps shortening the war with Japan by a couple of months, left humanity with a legacy whose evil consequences hover over us every moment. Nuclear war with the Soviet Union may have just been avoided, but we know that accident and misjudgement nearly triggered it half a dozen times.
This is the human animal-pulled always towards the abyss yet saved time and time again by good men and women who pull it back.
We are progressing. Late twentieth century liberal society is, on balance, more successful than its predecessors. There is less poverty, greater life expectancy, more democracy, a greater application of the rule of law and less war than any previous generation has experienced. The liberal, civilized, impulse has never been more in the ascendancy than it is today.
The danger, as the millenium's midnight approaches, is that this prevalent ethos becomes too captivated by its success, too beholden to the creation of free-wheeling liberty, to the point when the rational preservation and conservation of ancient time-tested core values becomes secondary.
Liberty of speech and the liberty of the market have indeed brought us bountiful rewards. There have been those on the left, in particular, who have waged a tireless battle to constrain the market place. That battle has been largely lost. Most of us now see that Adam Smith's perception of the golden hand was largely right. But the battle against liberty of speech continues.
This battle for liberty of speech, however, is not to be as easily won as that for the liberty of the market, for one very good reason. It is still very unclear if this total freedom, especially when combined with the might of the market, is always a very good thing. Both the free market and free speech on their own are sanctionable. Together, however, they are a combustable, often destructive, mixture, as we have now witnessed in all its highlights.
If there is one great outstanding liberal dilemma this is it. It involves not just privacy, but child pornography and the incitement to violence too. The conscience of the media and the entertainment industry is now pricked by great tragedy to think at last of saying "no". The media and the entertainment world have a choice. They can listen to their own conscience. Or society can do the job for it, by law, preferably international law, sufficient to make sure that media cultivation of pornography, violence and sensationalism no longer can be rewarded in the market place.
PARIS — The New York Times devoted 40 percent of its general news space on Monday to the death of the Princess of Wales. The Times of London, once the august journal of Britain's rulers, gave it 26 of 28 news pages. The Daily Mail, a middlebrow paper with a midd1eclass audience, gave the subject 8O pages. The hysteria and hypocrisy of the London tabloid press was beyond description.
The BBC cancelled virtually everything else on Sunday, as did CNN, most of the rest of American television and that of much of Europe, and indeed of the world. By Sunday night there probably were drummers in the rain forests of New Guinea relaying debates on the responsibility of paparazzi in Diana's death.
The world's magazines were stopped in the presses and remade with the princess on the cover. Special publications will be on newsstands everywhere by the time of the funeral on Saturday, in Westminster Abbey, carried live by television worldwide.
What is going on here? Diana was an attractive young woman whose accomplishment in her life was to have been chosen to marry the Prince of Wales, be betrayed by him, make this betrayal public in a calculated bid for public sympathy, divorce him and subsequently figure in an international demimonde of film stars, fashion junkies and the nouveau riche.
She made undoubtedly wellmeant excursions into the promotion of good causes, which in turn reflected well upon her. She had several lovers and died in the company of the last of these. He, too, had apparently done nothing with his life, other than survive Sandhurst, put money into a few movies and hang out in Malibu with starlets.
A comparison has been made to Evita Peron as well as to Jacqueline Kennedy. Evita Peron was someone serious. She began as an actress, and married power, but she then genuinely threw herself into a political struggle on behalf of workers, women and the poor, in defiance of powerful interests.
The difference between Diana and Jacqueline Kennedy is that the latter never courted or wanted publicity.
One explanation for what is happening, as The Wall Street Journal said earlier this week, is that Diana "was the center of an industry — a diversified, multinational, multimillion-dollar one . . . and, though many won't talk about it, her death could well expand the industry." It is a wholly parasitic industry. She profited from it simply because she was its subject.
People also explain the attention given her death by saying that stars like Diana lend themselves to the fantasies of ordinary people. This seems very condescending.
The people who followed Diana's adventures were not vicariously living her life. They simply were fascinated by it, and why not? It was a great story. It was better than the movies or television. It was entertainment.
Harder to understand is why people like Diana wish to reveal the details of their lives to the rest of us. It is clear why we are interested, but why do they want to tell us? They seem to need the public's attention more than the public needs them. It is not, as some psychologists and social commentators say, that the star brings glamour and vicarious romance into the humdrum lives of ordinary people like us. It is the opposite. The public figure's life would be empty without the public's attention and love.
Jacqueline Kennedy resolutely insisted upon remaining a private person despite John Kennedy's assassination and the notoriety of her marriage to Aristotle Onassis. She sued photographers to keep them away from her, protected her children and found a useful job and conventional life in New York.
Diana seemed compelled to seek attention. She announced more than once that she was giving up public life and wanted to be let alone. Each time she indirectly arranged a return to the limelight. She wanted to have it both ways.
The narcissistic personality experiences not only an extreme love of self but an extreme need to have that love validated by evidence that others also love the narcissist. The lives of such people are dominated by the need to please others, so as to win others' attention and approbation. And even when they have that, it is never enough.
The narcissist as politician makes a great campaigner and a terrible leader. Narcissists are not autonomous persons. There is no core; they are unprincipled because they can't afford principles. They have to please others to feel alive.That, I suggest, was the actual tragedy of Diana. Her belief in her own worth depended upon public attention. That attention was indirectly responsible for her death, so that one can say that she lived by publicity, and died by it. It is that which excites our pity and our terror.
– LosAngeles Times
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