Asian Women Lead In National Affairs

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30406, 3 April 1964, Page 2

Asian Women Lead In National Affairs

Though women had few chances for a full life in Asia, they made the most of their opportunities and played an important part in their countries’ affairs, said the Rev. Alan Brash at a meeting of the Christchurch area group of the Pan Pacific and South-east Asia Women’s Association last evening. Ceylon had the only woman Prime Minister in the world (Mrs Bandaranaike) and many women were political leaders in India, he said.

“I, personally, know women with outstanding qualifications as lawyers in both the Philippines and Indonesia,” he added. “Miss Margaret Lee, wife of a former Admiral of the Indonesian Fleet, is an ordained minister of the church and a very prominent leader in Christian affairs in Indonesia.”

Mr Brash, who is about to leave New Zealand for Singapore to take up a position as Inter-Church Aid Secretary of the East Asia Christian Conference, said one of the women teaching in a theological college was Dr. Ivy Chou, of Sarawak, and she had all the qualifications to do this. Money Raising “One of the most amazing things I have seen in Asia is the raising of money by a women's organisation known as the Fellowship of the Least Coin,” he said. “It is primar-

ily a prayer fellowship of Asian women, but it raises the equivalent of about 20.000 American dollars a year.” This money was spent not only within Asia, but also as an Asian contribution to other countires. Money had been sent from this fund by Asian women to a drug addicts’ programme in New York, to support American Negroes in their struggle for social justice, to help programmes among Australian aborigines, to help students in Paris, delinquent youth in London, and children’s programmes in Africa. Church Life In church life, New Zealand had much to learn from the larger churches in Asia. At least seven Asian nations had more Christian worshippers than New Zealand. “And we have much to learn from the way in which they maintain their faith in a non-Christian environment,” he said. “Now that we are so close to our neighbours in terms of travel, we must not

only learn more about them but learn how to live with them. Our only security as a community in New Zealand within the wider community of Asia is that in our whole life, and particularly our economic life, we establish cordial and mutual relationships with our neighbour countries.”

It was very difficult for New Zealanders to remember how people lived throughout the world—that more people lived in huts of mud and straw than in any other kind of shelter: that more mothers watched their children die than those who saw all their family reach maturity. More people lived without the help of a doctor than those who enjoyed even rudimentary medical care, he added. Inequalities Within Asia The inequalities between peoples were not only between western, Asian, and African nations. There were startling inequalities between Asian nations themselves. With almost equal populations, Japan had 40 times more doctors than Indonesia; Japan had 45 medical colleges graduating 2800 doctors a year, whereas Indonesia had only five medical colleges which graduated less than 200 doctors a year.

“Asia today constitutes a challenge to our ignorance in New Zealand,” he said. “How much do we know about the geography and the history of Asian countries? “Most New Zealanders even make mistakes in naming Asian countries. We are quite incapable of distinguishing between most of the different peoples in the region. Most of all, perhaps, Asia is a challenge to our complacency—the fact that, as a people, we lack thankfulness,” said Mr Brash.