REMEMBERING MADALYN MURRAY O' HAIR

Sanal Edamaruku

In September 1995, Madalyn Murray O' Hair, then president of American Atheists, her son Jon Garth and her grand daughter Robin fell victim to a gruesome murder. The three atheist leaders disappeared on 4^th September 1995 and have never been seen again by their friends and colleagues. For five and a half years there have been various rumors, some of them absurd and obviously invented to make the victims appear to be the villains. Only in March 2001, their remains have been identified and their death was finally confirmed. They had been murdered in September 1995 itself, after short captivity. Their murderer and two others involved in the crime have been convicted, but the circumstances of their end remain mysterious. Many questions are yet to be answered. For example: Who is behind the firm in California which allegedly paid one of the most expensive lawyers to defend the murderer? What was the secret deal between the authorities and the murderer that saved him from the electric chair?

There are two huge white boxes in one of the bookshelves in my studio. They contain letters from Madalyn Murray O' Hair. Most of these several hundred letters she wrote in the late seventies and early eighties to me and to my father. These years have been a phase of intense communication between us, over months we would receive two or three letters a week from Madalyn, sometimes even every day one. Our answers were little less in number, because at those times a daily airmail letter from India to USA would eat up quite a lot of money. In April 1997, I heard the shocking news that Madalyn and her children had disappeared without any traces 19 months before. I opened these letterboxes after many years for the first time again and spent many hours reading since then.

We met Madalyn in 1978. Together with Jon and Robin she visited India and spent several memorable weeks with us. At that time our family had just moved to New Delhi and occupied a new house, still without any furniture and with no washbasins fixed. Madalyn did not bother about the lack of comfort and decided to stay with us in our improvised new home. Sleeping on mattresses on the floor and sharing bravely our hot Indian food, the three of them became family members. This was the beginning of a great friendship.

We discussed for long hours about our work in so different countries as America and India, about our experiences, our plans, our hopes, future prospects. Madalyn was excited that she had discovered birds of the same feather, people with great commitment, energy and fantasy who had dedicated their lives to the fight against obscurantism and religion like she and her children. Our exchanges have been so open hearted, so inspiring and encouraging for all of us, that we continued them in an intense and unconventional correspondence.

I was a research scholar at the School of International Studies in Jawaharlal Nehru University in 1978. After having been the founder convenor of the Rationalist Student Movement in Kerala (1973-1977), I had become the secretary of the Delhi Rationalist Association. I was passionately absorbing everything that would equip me theoretically and practically to become a powerful rationalist. I had read many books of the Thinkers Library of the Rationalist Press Association, which my father collected, and was inspired by the works of Thomas Paine, Ingersoll and Joseph McCabe. Madalyn shared these traditions, she was breathing and living in their spirit. Her lectures and letters have been invaluable eye openers for me. Her sharp observations and clear analyses of the mechanisms which dominate organized religion on one side and organized atheism on the other, have developed my understanding and prepared me for things to come. She has broadened my horizon and initiated me to the international movement by sharing insider knowledge and the fruits of her long experience with me. Only today, after having years of experience by my own, I am able to fully value her precise and sometimes hard-hitting characterizations of organizations and personalities in the field. Madalyn was well known for her blunt and merciless criticism, which would not spare anyone - including herself. Getting their dose of it, many people felt offended and turned forever her enemies. What most of them could not imagine was that she did not criticize them with the intention to damage but to point out mistakes for everybody to understand and overcome them. Her letters give many examples for her kindness and fairness vis a vis people who considered her their enemy. There are also examples for her incorruptible, sometimes damning judgements about people who commanded great respect in the movement.

In April 1979, Madalyn invited my father and me to Austin, Texas. My father, Joseph Edamaruku, was a scheduled speaker at the American Atheist Convention that year along with British rationalist Nicolas Walter and abortion activist Bill Baird. Madalyn suggested we visit her much earlier to the Convention and we spend one full month with the O' Hair family, living in their house and working in the headquarters of American Atheists. The preparations for the Convention were in full swing, and there was plenty of work. Most of the days we would return home only late in the evening, completely exhausted, improvise a little cooking together and talk till late in the night. At six o'clock in the morning Madalyn would invariably call us for breakfast and discuss the program for the day. She was untirable and indefatigable. If she had decided about something, nothing and nobody could stop her. One day she needed urgently a printed note for the conference, but the printer refused to work overtime. So she stood four hours at the small offset press and printed the note personally. I was given the responsibility for folding and stapling, and we finished the work well in time. Another day we had scheduled an internal meeting to discuss an important project, but the meeting place was closed and no key available. Madalyn fixed her boot and kicked out an expensive glass door through which one could enter and open the house. Our meeting took place as planned.

The Convention was a memorable event for us. Father received the World Atheist Award. Despite our close involvement in the preparations, this information had been kept secret from us and we were completely surprised and overwhelmed. Father's speech about the Indian movement was well received, it was a cordial atmosphere, and we felt being among good friends. We met Gerald and Gloria Tholen and Lloyd and Pam Thoren. And we spent interesting and pleasant hours with Nicolas Walter of Rationalist Press Association, who was the editor of New Humanist then.

During our time at Austin, "United World Atheists" was born. It had been Madalyn's dream since long to create an umbrella, under which atheists from all over the world could unite. Meeting us, she felt encouraged to make this plan reality. In my little room in the headquarters, I drafted the constitution, and we all discussed every detail till late in the nights. Madalyn was the founder president, my father, Nicolas Walter from UK and Lavanam from India were named vice-presidents, and I became the treasurer. Over the next years we worked to establish the organization and planned to formally launch it during the World Atheist Meet at Helsinki in 1983, which was organized by Madalyn together with Erkki Hartikainen. But things came differently. The new world organization fell victim to hyenas, which ganged up to sabotage its take-off. The analysis of their operation became an important part of our correspondence during the next years, and gave us new insights about the camp of our enemies. Many years later, when I organized the first International Rationalist Conference in December 1995, I wished Madalyn to come and inaugurate the "International Alliance Against Fundamentalism" (which later became "Rationalist International"). I wrote to her, but there was no reply. In June 1995, I went to Buffalo to participate in the inauguration of the new Center for Inquiry, founded by Paul Kurtz, who had meantime become another friend and respected colleague in the USA for me. I planned a stop over at Austin, but I could not reach them in time and changed my schedules. Since we had not been in personal communication for quite some time, I did not know anything about the latest developments in Austin. Today I know that my letter, if at all, must have reached them in deep trouble. Court cases and harassment by the tax authorities were shaking the base of their existence and Madalyn's health had badly gone down. This would have been my last chance to see Madalyn, Jon and Robin ever again. I am very sad that I missed it. Three months later they have already been dead.

Before sometime in 1993 or 1994 Madalyn went silently out of my sight, she has been there all throughout the years to cordially appreciate me for every success and - of course - to vehemently criticize a few of my decisions. One tie question between us remained for a long time the rationalist/atheist question. Madalyn felt that strong and uncompromising atheists as we were (and still are), had to express their conviction by calling themselves "atheists". In the beginning, she even proposed us to change our name. We were not in a position at that time to move the national council of Indian Rationalist Association for a name change, but apart from this we also did not accept the necessity of breaking with our long tradition. Moreover, we argued, there was not much difference in the meaning of atheism and rationalism or even humanism or freethought. Its fruits recognized the tree, and no name board or trademark could guarantee that its bearers fought seriously for our cause. Finally, didn't she herself draw inspiration mainly from the rationalist heritage? And didn't she select a core group of atheists and rationalists like us and Nicolas Walter to form United World Atheists? She did. But despite winning this point, I started, back from Austin, "Indian Atheist Publishers" and launched my first magazine, the "Indian Atheist". Full of enthusiasm and new ideas and with a huge collection of old RPA and Haldeman Julius books, which Madalyn had generously gifted to me, I laid the foundation stones of what is today the largest freethought publishing house in Asia.

In 1983, I was elected national general secretary of the Indian Rationalist Association, and my new responsibilities together with many other activities as a publisher, writer and rationalist campaigner occupied me completely. But I never forgot to keep Madalyn informed about my ventures and plans and I looked forward for her advises, proposals, warnings, friendly encouragement as well as her hitting humorous remarks and her criticism. I wrote her long letters from Tokyo and from Amsterdam, she reported extensively from Helsinki and from Moscow. Once she told me that she got a star with her name. It had been quite expensive, but she liked the idea to become "eternal" that way.

What impressed me most in Madalyn over the long years of our friendship, was her honesty and seriousness, her straight and often provocatively open ways, the total lack of pretensions and vested interests. She would never submit to any authority but the authority of the better argument. She would never accept any bonus, not for being a woman, not for being famous, not for - later - being old and ill. I was often infected by her enthusiasm and energy and strengthened by her courage and fighting mood. Her unusual personality made many people her friends and admirers, but as many hated her openly or secretly. I was deeply shocked about the reactions on her disappearance by people who allegedly share our cause. Many did not hesitate to scornfully spread insults and propaganda of her hardcore enemies in the religious camp. Madalyn herself would perhaps have expected something like this. It was one of her main worries that she could die one day in front of the hyenas who would cheer and celebrate her end as a triumph. She wished to die secretly, unnoticed, far away from the public eye. In an ironic and cruel way, this wish has come true: she died under a shroud of mystery and only five and a half years later, her fate became known.

I think about sharing Madalyn's letters and papers with the public. Both, her friends and her enemies, deserve it. But time has not ripened yet.

Madalyn, her son Jon Garth and grand daughter Robin.

Sanal Edamaruku, Madalyn Murray O' Hair and Joseph Edamaruku at Madalyn's Austin house in April 1979. Photo by Jon Garth.

Sanal Edamaruku, Nicolas Walter and Joseph Edamaruku discussing over breakfast at Madalyn's Austin house in April 1979. Photo by Madalyn.

Barbara Smoker, then president of National Secular Society (UK) with Madalyn Murray O' Hair in front of the Helsinki head quarters of Union of Freethinkers (Finland).

(Rationalist International Bulletin has reported about the developments in the O' Hair disappearance case in Bulletin # 8, Bulletin # 9, Bulletin # 12, Bulletin # 18, Bulletin # 63 and Bulletin # 68. They all and other earlier bulletins are available in the Bulletin Archive at our web site www.rationalistinternational.net).

Creative Rationalism

THIRD INTERNATIONAL RATIONALIST CONFERENCE

New Delhi, India: 8-12, February 2002

Rationalist International invites you for an extra-ordinary event: The Third International Rationalist Conference.

Join Rationalists -- Atheists, Freethinkers, Humanists, Skeptics and Secular Humanists -- from around the world. Meet rationalist thinkers and fighters who influence social change. Exchange ideas, views, experiences and visions. Identify the creative dimension of Rationalism. Discuss the potential of transforming societies. Set the course for the future of enlightenment and humanism. Witness history.

Creative Rationalism

THIRD INTERNATIONAL RATIONALIST CONFERENCE

At New Delhi from 8 to 12 February 2002

We need to keep setting high goals and achieving them.

An interesting, thought-provoking conference.

If you are interested to participate in the Third International Rationalist Conference, please send your full postal address to the email address given below to receive further details and a registration form. And if you are interested to be considered for presenting a paper in the conference, please send a biographical note together with the title and abstract of the proposed paper. All correspondence to the Third International Rationalist Conference are to be addressed to:

Conference@rationalistinternational.net

For photo album of the First and Second International Rationalist Conferences, please visit our web site: www.rationalistinternational.net

THE NETHERLANDS -- FIRST COUNTRY TO LEGALIZE

EUTHANASIA

On 10, April 2001, the final legislative step has been done to legalize euthanasia in the Netherlands. The Upper House of the parliament in Den Hague endorsed with a vote of 46-28 the decision of the Lower House, which had already passed the bill in November 2000. With this the Netherlands has become the first country which allows physicians to end the lives of patients suffering unbearably and without hope.

The euthanasia law legalizes a practice, which has been unofficially in use since decades and met with wide acceptance of the public. Guidelines, adopted by the parliament in 1993, have become part of the law. They require a long doctor-patient relationship and exclude euthanasia for non-residents of the Netherlands. Before the law was passed, the health minister, Els Borst, gave an assurance that there were supervisory provisions in place, guaranteeing that the law could not be misused by doctors and protecting patients from euthanasia against their wishes.

Though the law had ripened on the base of a broad consensus and was welcomed by an overwhelming majority, vigorous Christian "pro-life" activists tried to shadow the historic event. Praying, chanting Bible versus and singing hymns, demonstrators gathered in front of the parliament while debates were in process. Amongst them were many students of Christian schools who had gotten a holiday for the occasion. In a last ditch effort, they had already tried earlier to stop the law by flooding letters to the Upper House.

(See also the related article "A Yardstick of Civilization" by Sanal Edamaruku in Bulletin # 57 of 7 December 2000)

EVOLUTION OF MAN -- A CORRECTION

In the article "Evolution of Man" in Bulletin # 69 we have wrongly attributed the discovery of the fossilized hominid "Lucy" to the British palaeoanthropologist Mary Leakey. This needs correction. Lucy, the most complete specimen of the Australopithecus Afarensis, was discovered by the American palaeoanthropologist Donald Johanson in Ethiopia in 1974.

Mary Leakey found the skull of Australopithecus Boisei (Zinjathropus) at the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania in 1959. In Laetoli she made two more landmark discoveries which fundamentally influenced the understanding of human evolution: In 1975 she discovered jaws and teeth of a 3,750,000-year-old hominid and in 1979 the 3,600,000-year-old fossilized footprints of a bipedal hominid, both among the oldest findings.

Now Mary Leakey's grand daughter Louise Leakey declared the discovery of a new, 3,600,000-year-old hominid in northern Kenya. And this is the main issue of the article in Bulletin # 69.

(In the archive, Bulletin # 69 is already updated).