We are deeply concerned. Attempts are being made to link Héctor Mondragón to the FARC guerilla movement in Colombia's paper of record, El Tiempo, which has reported on alleged e-mails to Héctor found on the computer of assassinated FARC leader Raul Reyes. Héctor, a Mennonite economist dedicated to the cause of the poor, is a good personal friend. He works closely with Colombia's indigenous and small-scale farmers (campesinos). He speaks passionately and writes prolifically on connecting the dots between the social political violence suffered and multi-national economic interests underlying the current armed conflict. In Colombia, good work does not go unnoticed. He is a survivor; he was being tortured around the time I entered the world.
Héctor H. Mondragón has been a member of our church since 1994, that is, 14 years. We have known him as a Christian not only committed to the cause of Jesus Christ, but also to Jesus' teaching and example of nonviolent love. ... His positions towards the government as well as toward the insurgent groups have been clear. ... The Colombian Mennonite Church rejects any attempt to link one of its members -- and in this particular case Héctor H. Mondragón -- to any armed group or any violent practice or to slander his/her name, which as we all know, is also extremely dangerous for the life and security of any person in this context. (Click here for the full statement; aquí para español.)
Those who know me know very clearly that I am not part of the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), because I disagree with their strategy, their political line, and their methods.
For 18 years, I have publicly and privately differed from the FARC's strategy. That strategy is centered on the role of the guerrilla converted into a revolutionary army, through which the people can seize power and transform society. ... It has become a tragedy for popular struggles. It has permitted the strengthening of the extreme right, which today is running the country. Not only has it failed to stop the displacement of hundreds of thousands of peasants and Afro-Colombians, but it has actually exacerbated that process, and even provoked the forced displacement of indigenous peoples in various parts of the country. ...
Since 1994 I have opted for a personal commitment to nonviolence as the way to contribute to radical social change. I renounced the use of arms in self defense under any circumstance. I got rid of two revolvers that I had legally carried since I had been threatened with assassination ... I stopped working with bodyguards because I did not want to save my life at the expense of another. I ended up abandoning all routines, and thus the possibility of a stable job, in order to avoid being assassinated. I believe in the struggle for radical social change, but I believe it must be accompanied with a radical change of method, the abandonment of armed struggle and the abandonment of the notion that the end justifies the means. The radical means of nonviolence can help us reach the objective of truly radical social change. ...
It is not about replacing one corrupt, right wing government with another. It is not about exchanging one set of gangsters for another, so that our friends can rule instead of our enemies. It is not about demonstrating "governability" without meeting the basic needs of the 80% of Colombians who live in poverty. Colombia needs deep changes, especially on the land and in its relationship to the transnationals. And the only way to win these changes is to deploy the widest civil resistance, to construct alternatives from the base, and to have massive and committed civil mobilization. Absolutely everything I have done in these years, every single day, has been to work towards this with all my strength and all my experience.
Today, I still carry wounds from the torture that I suffered in 1977 and also from 20 years of being threatened with death, pursued by the paramilitaries. Sometimes I lose hope, especially when I know that some of my friends have been killed. I ask myself why continue in this struggle with indigenous people and peasants, why not give up. But then I am struck again with the passion for the people I love and the certainty that they deserve lives with dignity, and solidarity. They failed to kill my body but today they are threatening to kill my words, and I feel it like a re-opening of my old wounds. But the word is a seed and it grows, whatever happens, in the peasant on the land, in an indigenous person in her territory, in Afro-Colombians returning to their communities, in those who live in the popular neighborhoods of the cities who will eat better after the land reform that we will win, in every working family that will get a just wage for work, there the word will live. They won't be able to kill it.
A call to action may be forthcoming. For the time being we invite you to share this concerning turn of events and pray. Héctor writes, "I remain firm in prayer and many have prayed for me as well. They sustain me. (Me he aferrado a la oracin y muchos han orado por m. Me llegan muchos apoyos y me sostienen. )"
Janna Hunter-Bowman works for Mennonite Central Committee in Bogotá, Colombia, as the coordinator of the Documentation and Advocacy Program for Justapaz.
Based on some responses to my last post, and a new poll by Faith in Public Life and Mercer University, it seems there are many evangelicals who believe that there are in fact times when torture is necessary and proper. I am assuming these people also believe it is at times necessary and proper for Christians to do the torturing?
According to the poll, 57% of white evangelicals in the South believe that torture is often or sometimes justified. Another 16% believe that it can be justified in rare occasions. Only 22% believe that it is never justified. This is surprising because only 48% of the general population believe that torture can be justified. How can this be?
Well, it seems it is because those Christians polled have forgotten or ignored the teachings of Jesus. The poll found that 44% of those asked relied on personal experience and "common sense" more than on Christian teaching when making their decision. Only 28% of the people polled initially were found to base their decision on Christian teaching. When these same people were reminded of the "Golden Rule," many changed their answer. When taking into account Jesus' teaching that those who follow him should, "Do to others what you want them to do to you," opinions changed by 14%. After the reminder, 52% of white evangelical Christians polled replied that the U.S. government should not do to others what they do not want done to their soldiers. This is a 14% jump from the initial 38% who claimed that torture is never or rarely justified.
When we lose sight of the life and teachings of Jesus, we tend to stray away from the path he paved for us to walk. How do those who respond to the call of Jesus to "follow me" end up supporting the torture of children of God? By forgetting what he taught and lived. If we take the words of Jesus seriously to "do unto others...", it becomes much clearer that torture is out of the picture for Christians to support or engage in. There are no known sayings of Jesus that can remotely hint that torture is ever justified, but there are many that point to the fact it is never justified. "Do unto others" is just one of those teachings. Jesus does not call us to "common sense" but to radical discipleship and love. He calls us to the type of discipleship and love that is more likely to get you tortured than approve of the torture of others.
Jimmy McCarty is a student at Claremont School of Theology studying Christian ethics, a minister serving cross-racially at a church in inner-city Los Angeles, and a servant at a homeless shelter five days a week. He blogs at http://jimmymccarty.wordpress.com/.
Christians are people who follow a tortured and murdered God. This fact speaks clearly to what our values should be. One of those values should be a rejection of torture, violence in the name of "law" and the common good, and murder.
Currently, the U.S. government has been accused of torture at Guantanamo Bay and has refused to ban certain forms of torture (i.e., the waterboarding controversy) in their interrogation of accused terrorists. Fortunately, both of the presidential candidates speak out boldly against the use of torture. Christians around the nation are beginning to stand up and speak out against this grave sin, and those of us who have not yet joined the chorus should stand up and do so now.
Christians are a people shaped by the cross. We claim to worship a tortured God and follow a tortured Lord. One of the lessons humanity should learn from the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth is the depths to which humans can sink in their depravity. It should be a constant warning that we must never again resort to the methods of the cross. Much like the world responded to the Shoa (Holocaust) with the words "Never again," Christians should respond to the cross with those same words.
Jesus spoke of the last judgment in Matthew 25, saying that what we do for "the least of these" we do to him. The least of these includes the hungry, naked, and homeless. It also includes the imprisoned. How we treat those who are in prison is how we treat Jesus Christ, and it is part of the basis on which God will judge our lives. In torturing those imprisoned for crimes they have not yet been found guilty of, we torture, again, our Lord and Savior. For people who claim to follow the one who said we are no longer to function according to "eye for an eye" ideology, but to "turn the other cheek," to not speak out against those who would continue to use the methods of the cross is wrong.
For those of us shaped by what occurred to a political prisoner 2,000 years ago on a hill called Golgotha, what happens at Guantanamo Bay should pierce our souls.
Jimmy McCarty is a student at Claremont School of Theology studying Christian ethics, a minister serving cross-racially at a church in inner-city Los Angeles, and a servant at a homeless shelter five days a week.
Last week Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, and world governments (including our own) publicly spoke out on an issue that has barely broken through the international news. On August 24, a massive program of violence against Christians began in the Kandhamal district in the Indian state of Orissa after a Hindu leader, Swami Saraswati, was killed by Maoist rebels. Retaliatory violence has claimed at least 25 lives and sent 10,000 Christians fleeing into the jungle. This is the same region that was torn apart by violence instigated by Swami and other Hindu extremists against Christians on Christmas Eve of last year. Ben and I had the honor of visiting the area this past June on a delegation trip in which we interviewed families and witnessed firsthand the degree to which justice has been denied to thousands of people who lost their homes, churches, and sense of security. Even then it was clear that the root causes of the violence had not been fully addressed and that the situation remained a volatile one without stronger state intervention to pursue justice and foster reconciliation.
According to the All India Council of Churches, "The Christmas 2007 attacks claimed the lives of at least four Christians, and we verified the destruction of at least 105 churches and 730 Christian homes. The current spate of violence will exceed these totals as it continues to spread into other districts. Our estimate from Ground Zero is close to two dozen people dead -- one a Hindu girl burnt to death working for a Christian orphanage -- a nun has been gang-raped, religious men and women personnel humiliated, beaten, tortured, some close to death, while policemen have looked on or have been absent. We appeal for the restoration of law and order. But the root cause must also be addressed."
A growing chorus of leaders are speaking out against the violence, including: "Last week Pope Benedict XVI 'firmly condemned' the violence in Orissa and called on Indians 'to work together to restore peaceful co-existence and harmony between the different religious communities'" (Source: Sydney Morning Herald). "Indian Muslim Council-USA (IMC-USA), an advocacy group based in the U.S., denounced 'in the strongest terms,' the violence and the killing of VHP leader that preceded this violence" (Source: Indian Muslims). "The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom calls on the U.S. Department of State to urge the Indian government to take immediate steps to quell the violence against religious communities in the state of Orissa" (Source: USCIRF). There are many more statements we could post, voices of concern from Christianity Today, the Italian government, Christian organizations within India, and more.
Conspicuously missing from these statements is the voice of the Indian government itself. Its deafening silence is a loud indicator of India's lack of commitment to protect her minorities, uphold justice, and to protect peace.
When a despotic government pursues or tacitly supports violence against a minority population, the world community often complains loudly and often dedicates significant resources to restore security and promote justice. India, however, is the world's largest democracy and America's largest trading partner. India is often pointed to as an example of a successful post-colonial democracy, a nation where the advancement of democracy and the pursuit of freedom resulted in a strong, multireligious nation.
How do we then explain the terrible violence being waged against Christians this week or the immolation of Muslims in the state of Gujarat in 2002?
The bitter reality is that India is a nation that, while remaining dedicated to the basic principle of democracy, so often fails to adequately protect the rights of minorities. Christians, Muslims, Dalits, Scheduled Tribes, and other minority groups in India are too often vulnerable and persecuted, while their plight serves as an electoral "issue" and hot topic for debates and public speeches to gain new voting blocs.
Too often the United States' concern over religious freedom and human rights gets trumped by economic and trade interests. Our ability to apply real pressure on the government of India becomes muted to a whisper by these overriding foreign policy priorities. I pray that you will join us in lifting up prayers for the people of Orissa. These prayers can then be followed by tangible support to the ongoing relief effort and by advocacy to hold the Indian and U.S. governments more accountable to their professed ideal of protecting freedom, including the fragile freedom of the Christian and other minorities in India.
Benjamin Marsh is the state department liaison for the Dalit Freedom Network. Adam Taylor is the senior political director for Sojourners.
Wednesday's New York Times gives a shocking description of the death of Hiu Liu Ng, also known as Jason Ng. Cause of death? Untreated cancer after nearly a year in an ICE detention center. Ng was a 34 year old computer programmer who worked at the Empire State Building and the father of two young sons. He was married to a U.S. citizen and was seeking his green card. Originally from Hong Kong, he had lived over half of his life in the United States. Not your typical or convenient description of an "illegal alien."
Would this have happened to a U.S. citizen? No. Did Jesus say in Matthew 25, "For I was sick and you questioned my documentation status, I was in prison and you reminded me that I was an illegal in the first place?" No. Shouldn't we as Christians be outraged at the mistreatment of vulnerable people, regardless of their origin or status?
I implore you to read this article about Ng's death and the response of our government, which denied him medical treatment, access to a wheelchair, and visits from family members and attorneys because he was too weak to enter the visitor's area. This is a real story of loss and suffering at the hands of a broken system. Even when people enter our country the "right way," nothing is guaranteed and nothing is certain. Our current ailing system, riddled with mistakes, loopholes and extended processes led to broken dreams and broken lives in the case of Hiu Lui Ng and his entire family.
Allison Johnson is the policy and organizing assistant for Sojourners.
Virginia Mitchell and Charlton Breen of the Michigan Darfur Coalition (MDC) recently sat down for an interview with Dominic Maurice. Maurice is a former "Lost Boy" refugee from Sudan who has become a U.S. citizen and resides in Michigan. Last week, Maurice's friend, Lopez Lomong, was selected by Team USA to carry the American flag at the Olympic parade of nations in Beijing.
Charlton Breen:I understand your journey to the United States was a long and improbable one. Can you describe it?
Dominic Maurice: I was born in the village of Chukueum in Southern Sudan. Chukueum was a beautiful village surrounded by mountains. Our family lived on a farm. My father was a teacher, while my mother stayed home to tend to our house and the children. I had started school myself, but everything changed when I was only nine years old.
The war started and the government mandated that all boys from our tribe be killed. So, 50 kids from our town left on foot. Several mothers came with us because they had boys who were too young to make the journey. Our ages ranged from 3 to 15. The majority of the boys were about my age. We had to hide and sleep during the day and walk at night. We walked directly to Kenya, where the United Nations was waiting for us in the Juja region. Not everyone survived the journey. There was no real food for many days, and people ate whatever they could find along the way. Several people died of hunger, while others were taken by animals.
We arrived in Juja in 1991. We lived in Juja for 10 years. On December 29, 2001, I left Kenya and came to Lansing, Michigan, with two other guys. We stayed with an American family. We met them for the first time at the airport, and they helped teach how life in the U.S. is different.
Virginia Mitchell: You recently became a U.S. citizen. Can you tell me about that experience?
Maurice: This process began around 1994. Eventually we became permanent residents of the U.S. After five years, we were eligible for citizenship. When our applications were finally approved we had to submit our fingerprints, and then wait even longer. Eventually, we received our citizenship ceremony letter. People from the MDC talked to a judge to get me a private ceremony. I had my ceremony at a junior high classroom in Detroit. One of the boys in the class had raised $2,000 for the MDC, and they were excited to be a part of the ceremony.
It's great being a citizen now, because I can travel and have a passport, and also I feel great because I know I can stay here. And, in the future I want to be able to contribute to something good, in the way that people have contributed to me.
Charlton Breen:Last week in Beijing, Lopez Lomong was chosen by Team USA to carry the flag at the parade of nations during the opening ceremony. How do you know Lopez, and what was it like to watch him at the ceremony?
Maurice: I have known Lopez since we lived together in the same compound in Kenya. We played games together. I came to the U.S. first and he came later to Syracuse, New York. He tried out for the Olympics in Oregon, then trained in Colorado. We were together again in Colorado, because my cousin graduated from college there at the same time.
It was very exciting to see him on TV. He means a lot to me and to all of us back home in Sudan. We are very proud to see him representing the USA. It sends a message that people can come from anywhere and achieve their dreams. But we didn't actually dream this dream when we were living together in Kenya. Who thought this would be possible? When we were back in Kenya, these types of dreams just didn't occur because we didn't know they could. We are very thankful to the United Nations and the U.S. government for giving us the opportunity to come here.
Virginia Mitchell: What do you think of attempts to link the genocide in Darfur with the Beijing Olympics?
Maurice: Because of a lack of coverage in the media, not everybody knew that there is a link between Sudan and China, but recent news regarding the Olympics is helping people to learn about the link. I think it is very helpful to link China to Sudan to try to get China to help the people of Sudan. I hope the Olympics can bring about a new agenda that will be helpful.
Virginia Mitchell: President Bashir has recently been indicted by the International Criminal Court. How did you feel when you heard this news?
I felt great. I won't lie. I felt great. He is a part of the problem. For the ICC to do this, it shows where the responsibility lies for the war in Darfur. I will be happy for him to appear in court. He should be held accountable for his actions.
Charlton Breen: How do you think the international community is doing with efforts to end genocide in Darfur?
The world is doing a good job of trying to help Sudan, but the problem is with the Sudan government. The international community is trying its best.
Virginia Mitchell: You have spoken at several events for the MDC. Is it difficult for you to recount your experiences?
Maurice: It is not difficult to tell people. My mind can still remember what happened. I think people need to know. I feel good letting people know my story.
Charlton Breen: You are about to become a junior at Grand Valley State University (GVSU). What challenges have you faced since starting college?
Maurice: Just getting through it. It takes a long time. I wish I was a senior! I want to be done, so that I can have a chance to do something more. The hardest part, though, is the financial situation. I work when I am not in school, and they (GVSU) tell me I make enough money to pay for my school expenses, but in reality, I don't have enough money after my other expenses to pay tuition. The little money that I make that is left over after expenses, I need to send home to my family in the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya.
Virginia Mitchell: How is life for your family these days?
Maurice: I just talked to them last week. The conditions in Kakuma are really bad. People are getting killed. You can't walk around by yourself or at night. The U.N. is still there, but their rations are too small. There's not enough food or clean water, so I send them money so they can survive.
Virginia Mitchell: Do you miss your home in Sudan? Do you plan to return there one day?
Maurice: Yes, I miss my family and my community. But the situation is not good. Hopefully I will visit around Christmas this year. If everything goes right, I can go in December. I am still waiting for my passport, but the people of Aldersgate United Methodist Church in Grand Rapids have sponsored my airfare.
Charlton Breen:What are your dreams for the future?
Maurice: I have the same dream as Lopez to run in the Olympics. I was running track and playing soccer. But I had to change my plans to just try to support myself, and that kind of killed my dream of running. My new dream is to finish school and to work for an organization and work with children. Because organizations helped me once, so I want to help people, too. I just want to help and contribute, either to kids in Sudan or here in the U.S. I also want to write a book detailing my journey and what I had to go through to get to where I am now.
On July 29, 2008, history was made in the United States House of Representatives – well, kinda. Last week, the House formally apologized for slavery, Jim Crow, and for the racist social consequences that have followed. Never before has the U.S. government publicly apologized for the social institution that reduced Africans to chattel. On one hand, I was humbled, not by the apology, but by the tremendous sacrifice that led to it. To be in a moment where the U.S. House of Representatives publicly apologizes for slavery is certainly a testament to some level of social progress. And because any and all societal progress that black people have experienced is due mostly to the courage, perseverance, and radical love of everyday black folk, this progress should certainly be acknowledged. So I want to preface the remainder of this piece by paying homage to those who have paved the way.
Nonetheless, social progress notwithstanding, my initial reaction sounded something like this: “Really, an apology?!” As I sat with my thoughts, I was filled with an amalgam of emotions. I found it humorous (in a laugh-to-keep-from-crying kind of way), insulting (when considered vis-à-vis the racist realities that still dominate black and brown American life), and angering (at this juncture in our history, is this really all there is to our government’s analysis of America’s race problem?). An excerpt from Cornel West’s Race Matters will help to contextualize my thoughts:
Black people in the United States differ from all other modern people owing to the unprecedented levels of unregulated and unrestrained violence directed at them. No other people have been taught to hate themselves – psychic violence – reinforced by the powers of state and civic coercion – physical violence – for the primary purpose of controlling their minds and exploiting their labor for nearly four hundred years.
Some people, however, might posit that I’m being unfair, or at least a little harsh. What if the apology was sincere? What if there was real penitence present? As Christians, are we not called to forgive, “Not seven, but seventy times seven?”
I affirm the need to forgive. However, in this situation it is even more vital to remember the meaning of repentance. The Greek word for repent is “metanoia” and it means to change one’s mind or purpose. The U.S. government, regardless of any apology, cannot be properly forgiven because it has not undergone a sincere “metanoia.” For this apology to yield any meaningful sincerity, it must be reinforced by real, concrete action. A great starting point would be to cease building prisons in lieu of quality schools. This would contribute not only to the reconstruction of black families, but all poor families ravaged by our corrupt legal system. Sadly, this act of sincere repentance (and it is only one of many possibilities) will probably not happen, mainly because of a nagging feeling I had when I first heard of the apology. I had this strange feeling that the apology came with the House members sitting down, so as to protect their wallets. Real American repentance for racism is going to cost us, not just sentiment but also money, and a lot of it. That said, now let’s see how sincerely repentant our government is.
Ben Sanders III received his Master of Divinity degree from Union Theological Seminary in New York City and is a Ph.D. student at the Iliff School of Theology and the University of Denver. His interests include liberation theologies, and the study of the theological and ethical implications of black religion, race, and racialization.
The latest development on talks between the opposition party -- the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) -- and ZANU-PF President Robert Mugabe is that they have produced a 50-page document as a way forward in power-sharing and the installation of a transitional government. The duration of the transitional government is still being debated -- the opposition wants two years and ZANU-PF wants five. The plan is to eventually dissolve the transitional government and hold fresh elections to appoint a new government. The document is yet to be finalised by the parties. The full text is not yet available to the public -- the information I am giving is from several newspapers. Some of the key issues contained in the document are as follows:
Robert Mugabe, president ZANU-PF
President
Ceremonial president without executive power; amnesty offered on condition that he will undertake not to "seek to influence day-to-day governmental decisions, nor will he publicly criticise, expressly or by implication, decisions made by the government."
Morgan Twangirayi, president MDC
Prime minister
Has executive power; rules transitional government for x years (still being debated); appoints two vice prime-ministers, one from his party and one from ZANU-PF.
Ministry of Defense
ZANU-PF
ZANU-PF has control of army.
Police and prisons
MDC
Has control of police.
Ministry of Finance
Independent expert (not from ZANU-PF or MDC)
Challenge to find impartial visionary experts committed to the welfare of all Zimbabweans, especially the poorest of the poor (item for prayer -- please pray).
A blanket amnesty is being offered to everyone who "in the course of upholding or opposing the aims and policies of the government of Zimbabwe, Zanu-PF or either formation of the MDC, may have committed crimes within Zimbabwe." A tough call!
The document has not been officially endorsed by both parties, but it seems likely that they will with a few changes.
Given the history of Zimbabwe, there is reason for caution. However, this is a small step forward and we need to pray that truth and justice will prevail for the benefit of all Zimbabweans. Please continue to pray, and thank you for your prayers.
Nontando Hadebe, a former Sojourners intern, is originally from Zimbabwe and is now pursuing graduate studies in theology in South Africa.
"God Is Love," inscribed on the tracksuit of the athlete who would become the second-fastest man alive, is what first caught the attention of Australian Olympic official Ray Weinberg in the early '60s. But it wouldn't be until Peter Norman participated in an act of holy mischief for human rights (which became known as the "Black Power Salute" of the '68 Mexico games) that this Australian would so publicly put 1 John 4:8 into practice with his African-American brothers.
Life magazine said it was one of the most influential images of the 20th century. Two African Americans and one white Australian took to the winner's dais and, motivated by their shared faith, all wore Olympic Project for Human Rights buttons while the black Americans raised their fists.
Gold medal-winner Tommie Smith and bronze medal-winner John Carlos approached Peter Norman after the race. They asked if the Australian believed in God, if he believed in human rights, and if he would join their witness. Norman explained to Carlos and Smith that he had been raised in the Salvation Army, where service to Christ was never separated from service to the poor and the hurting, that he understood the importance of their cause, and that he would be honored to join them.
Gold medal-winner Dr. Tommie Smith, in his book Silent Gesture, explains the symbols of their prophetic actions that call back to the faithful creativity and holy mischief of Hosea, Jeremiah, Amos, and Jesus himself in confronting the unredeemed "Powers":
Olympic Project for Human Rights button. "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere," said Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who was assassinated earlier that year. With that sentiment in mind, all three men wore Olympic Project for Human Rights buttons connecting the struggle of African Americans to those everywhere suffering for human rights.
No shoes. What is often missed is that both American athletes took to the podium with no shoes as a prophetic sign of the poverty and suffering of black people.
Black gloves. The gloves were not simply about people power (though certainly not less than that), but also about the cry for freedom to the God who hears and acts on the cries of the oppressed. Be it in Egypt many centuries ago or in China today.
Bowed heads. Smith writes that the bowed heads was a sign of prayer. The kind of dangerous prayer that longs for God's reign of justice, peace, and joy "on earth as it is in heaven."
The actions of all three men cost them dearly. As documented in Matt Norman's brilliant new film, Salute, Tommie Smith and John Carlos were kicked out of the athletes' village, suspended and banned from the Olympics. For the Australian Peter Norman, participating in the organised action cost him his athletic career and he was not chosen for the next Olympics despite being one of the fastest men in the world.
Just as Martin Luther King Jr. gave his life earlier in 1968, so these three men lived out the costly truth of the cross. As Dr. King put it,
There are some who still find the cross a stumbling block, others consider it foolishness, but I am more convinced than ever before that it is the power of God unto social and individual salvation.
As the Olympic Games in China draw closer let us remember the witness of these courageous athletes, what it cost them, and how important it is that we cheer on our athletes. Not simply cheer them on in their sporting events, but also in taking what often are unpopular Christ-like actions that prophetically call for the end of injustice. In doing so they witness to another world being possible. A world that reflects the verse that Peter Norman would wear on his tracksuits, that "God is Love" and that in Jesus this love has started to "flood the earth like the waters cover the seas."
I, wisdom, dwell together with prudence;
I possess knowledge and discretion.
To fear the Lord is to hate evil;
I hate pride and arrogance,
evil behavior and perverse speech.
Counsel and sound judgment are mine;
I have insight, I have power.
By me kings reign
and rulers issue decrees that are just;
by me princes govern,
and nobles—all who rule on earth.
—Proverbs 8:12-16
Wisdom is the key ingredient in the revival of talks under way between the government's party (ZANU-PF) and the opposition MDC. On Monday, these two parties signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU), which sets down the framework for talks about a future government for Zimbabwe. The language of human rights, the dignity of the person, and freedom of speech and press, etc., makes this document a "foreign language" in the context of Zimbabwean politics! Here are some excerpts:
The Parties are committed to ensuring that the law is applied fairly and justly to all persons irrespective of political affiliation.
Each Party will issue a statement condemning the promotion and use of violence and call for peace in the country and shall take all measures necessary to ensure that the structures and institutions it controls are not engaged in the perpetration of violence ... [each] shall refrain from using abusive language that may incite hostility, political intolerance and ethnic hatred or undermine each other.
It is a small step in the right direction; as a Chinese proverb says, "a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step." Thank you for your prayers and support. There are many challenges that face the negotiation process, and in our prayers let us include the following:
a. The cessation of violence.
b. Wisdom for all involved to ensure that democracy, human rights, and the interests of the Zimbabwean people remain central to the process.
c. Implementation challenges that require “mind shifts” from security organs.
d. Extraordinary wisdom and strategy to come up with a solution that fits in with the unique needs of Zimbabwe.
e. Groups that have gained considerably from the status quo and have the potential to derail the process.
f. A way forward without violence.
May Wisdom bring forth justice, peace, and prosperity for Zimbabwe. Thank you so much for your prayers and commitment. May God bless you, too, in all your ways. Shalom!
Nontando Hadebe, a former Sojourners intern, is originally from Zimbabwe and is now pursuing graduate studies in theology in South Africa.
My great-grandfather was one of the first Christians in a village near Pyongyang. God's grace was poured over his entire family, but they experienced intense persecution because of their faith. As a result, he "escaped" one night with his entire family from what is now known as North Korea. My father was 5. Not everyone in his family survived the journey south that one chaotic night.
North Korea, as some may know, is one of the most isolated nations. Subsequently, some of the gravest human rights violations and suffering go unnoticed -- including approximately 200,000 Christians who are in prison labor camps simply because of their faith in Christ. This past weekend, Minhee and I had the privilege of spending some time with friends who left Seattle three years ago to go to Yanbian, China (via Singapore). With their three children, they left the comforts of home, family, and friends to act upon their convictions. The father recently relinquished his well-paying job with full benefits to serve the people of North Korea -- initially at the border of China -- and in a few months, he'll hopefully receive his "resident card," which would allow him to travel to and from North Korea to do community development work. There is no salary to his work as a "tentmaker."
Who in their right mind wants to become a "resident" of North Korea?
It was humbling and inspiring.
When people ask us why we feel so compelled about starting and building the new global poverty organization, it's because of these people and thousands more who are on the ground fighting poverty by serving people, enabling education, building community development projects, digging water wells, distributing medicine, writing letters to governments, giving hope by restoring human dignity -- and so many who do these and so much more -- many who do so in the love of Christ.
Someday, I will return to North Korea.
Someday, I will return to the birthplace of my ancestors, the birthplace of my father and mother. We still have family in North Korea, that is if they are still alive. We do not know. Someday, I will return with my wife and children to not only proclaim and demonstrate the gospel of Jesus Christ but the good news of human dignity that must be afforded to all people because that is the will of God. Thirteen years ago, I climbed Mt. Baekdusan at the border of China and North Korea and prayed for an opportunity someday to return home. I echo that prayer again. Someday, I will return to Korea.
But until then, I hope to be an advocate and activist for many around the world who have no voice. Did you know that about 790 million people in the developing world are still chronically undernourished, almost two-thirds of whom reside in Asia and the Pacific?
Before I submit another entry in the coming days about some of my views about policies with North Korea, I want to draw your attention to an overview of the situation in North Korea via the organization Liberty in North Korea. Would you take three minutes to read this link to hear the story and suffering of my people?
Eugene Cho, a second-generation Korean-American, is the founder and lead pastor of Quest Church in Seattle, and the executive director of Q Cafe, an innovative nonprofit neighborhood café and music venue. He and his wife are also launching a grassroots humanitarian organization to fight global poverty. You can stalk him at his blog eugenecho.wordpress.com.
Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows (Luke 12:6-7).
He will rescue them from oppression and violence, for precious is their blood in his sight (Psalm 72:14).
My friends and I were discussing the ongoing violence in Zimbabwe -- it seems senseless. Or is it? The explanation given for the violence prior to the recent elections was that it was part of "Operation: Who Did You Vote For?" -- also referred to as electoral cleansing. The goal was to ensure that the ruling party would win the elections, which they did.
But then why is the violence continuing? When the negotiations began last week between the political parties, cessation of violence was one of the key issues raised, and we all hoped the violence would eventually stop. But it has not, and the negotiations have hit a brick wall and are currently at a standstill. The loss and violation of human life goes to the heart of our faith. For each human being is made in the image of God and therefore has inherent dignity and is of infinite value.
I fear for myself and our faith communities that the ongoing violence may desensitize us to the value of human life and its preciousness to God. Somehow this is the "salt" and the "light" we need to be to keep the value of human dignity, especially the value of African life. Please continue to pray. Thank you.
Nontando Hadebe, a former Sojourners intern, is originally from Zimbabwe and is now pursuing graduate studies in theology in South Africa.
Tomorrow is Bastille Day. We Americans don't take much notice of that these days, but once there was a time when we did. Once was the time, especially as the storm clouds of World War II were gathering over us, when school children and working folk alike stopped to acknowledge a deep and compelling affinity between America and France. Not only had France, historically speaking, always been our most faithful and dependable ally, but she was also seen, politically speaking, as the other half of the Great Experiment.
Both of us had fought wars of ferocious and egalitarian intensity against the armies of kings and of the scabrous nobility that fawned upon them. We, the people, had won those wars, the French on their side of the Atlantic and we on ours; but we had done so with a great deal of mutual help and encouragement, one from another. And we had--the French too--done all of this in the name of a shared vision, in the name of democracy.
We had fought because of our belief in government by the consent of the governed; and in both cases, we were convinced we had won our battles because of the justness and righteousness of that cause. It followed then, especially in the 1930's and 1940's of my own childhood and adolescence, that sheer patriotism required a great celebration on July 4th each summer and, ten days later, at the very least, a rousing public rendition or two of the Marseillaise, a lifting of the hat at noon, and a waving about of France's blue, white, and red in acknowledgment that together, united in principle and vision, even if separated by oceans and language, we had each secured democracy for the world and were determined to secure it still. We had established by mutual example and history, democracy's feasibility, its great utility, its role as benefactor for all people. Long live the rule of law and democratic principles in both our houses.
The first Fourth of July was two hundred and thirty-two years ago; the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, two hundred and nineteen years ago. In both cases, less than a quarter of a millennium. A mere dollop of time. No more than a passing interruption in the long reach of human history. But time enough for us, on this side of the pond, at least, to have some perspective, some distance for considering the course of the Great Experiment as it has played out in reality. Enough for us to inquire of ourselves about how well we have stayed, or not stayed, the course toward human equality; about how well we have achieved flagrant, rampant justice for all; about how fully we have created radical access for all to the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness.
I am not a politician. God knows, it is enough in this day and age just to be Christian at some kind of serious and functional level. To the extent that I am Christian, though, it follows of necessity that what I write and what I say and the actions I take have political repercussions or consequences, for better or worse. I am not naïve enough to think otherwise. When I say I am not a politician, in other words, I simply mean to say that I have no knowledge of how to resolve all the contradictions and conflicts of interest that impede the easy execution of our common life, both domestic and foreign. I don't pretend, either, to have a professional's grasp of what all of those opposing forces are. I certainly don't claim the expertise that would be able to calculate accurately what the consequences might be of restraining any or all of those opposing forces for the sake of the common good of humanity and the on-going health of the Great Experiment.
What I do know, however, is that this July I am reading more and more about Guantanamo Bay and what we have done there. I can view again on the net pictures that have been taken in that place and understand to the depths of my soul, all over again, that something died there, that the Great Experiment was dealt something close to a fatal blow there, that the hope which birthed both the Marseillaise and the Star-Spangled Banner was mocked into impotence there.
I doubt seriously that I will hum the national anthem of France tomorrow, unless inadvertently. I certainly won't tip my hat at noon, and I no longer even own a tri-colored flag to either wave or wear. But I do plan to do again tomorrow what I did ten days ago. The Christian in me will look a while at the pictures of Gitmo on my screen and read the current reportage about Guantanamo in my newspapers and, that having been done, will beseech God somehow to release us all from the hell of what we Americans have permitted and empowered.
That ultimately is the dark side of the Great Experiment, isn't it? That in a democracy, it is not ever some "other" or some "they" who have permitted and empowered. It is we who have done so. It is we who at Guantanamo have desecrated within a single decade the hope of two centuries and, for the Christians among us, shattered completely the second half of the Great Commandment.
Gitmo and all its kind will not undo, nor will they ever be undone. That is our truth this Summer Sunday. But, by the grace of God, there is another and redeeming truth: Gitmo and all its kind can be repented of.
May that be done in all our houses this Bastille Day and every day thereafter, for so long as we who live now, shall live.
During this BBQ season we have to carefully consider what products are apart of our seasonal celebrations. Recently I attended the DC campaign kick-off for the Justice at Smithfield Campaign. "Smithfield Foods is the largest pork processor and producer in the world,the fourth largest turkey processor and fifth largest beef processor in the U.S." In the early 1990's Smithfield opened its Tar Heel, North Carolina plant, with 5,500 workers who slaughter and process 32,000 hogs per day. The Tar Heel plant is not unionized and overall only about 56% of Smithfield pork processing plant employees are unionized.
Though raised in Brooklyn, NY, my family hails from North Carolina which makes this campaign of personal importance to me. At the campaign kick-off two young women testified about mistreatment at the Tar Heel plant. A 22 year-old woman spoke of developing such a serious case of carpal tunnel syndrome that she can no longer lift more than 15 pounds. The testimony of this woman had a profound effect on me because I saw myself in her face. At 22 years-old I was a recent college graduate excitedly planning my future. I did not have to worry about an injury that could leave me disabled for life. If my grandparents remained in North Carolina instead of migrating to Brooklyn, NY, I could have easily been one of the Smithfield workers. What separates me from the workers at Smithfield?
Many workers have painful reactions to conditions, but they do not act for fear of losing their jobs. In this report one employee is quoted as saying 'I am sick at work with a cold and breathing problems and my arms are always sore. But I am afraid to say anything about this because I am afraid they will fire me.'
Workers have also spoken of sexual harassment and racism.How can working conditions like this exist in our modern society? What is the role of race, class and economics in the Smithfield worker struggle?
As I reflect on the Justice at Smithfield campaign I am reminded of a common request made during the blessing of a meal--"may God bless the hands of those who have prepared our food." As we continue this season of BBQ's let us remember the workers of Smithfield when we bless our meals by asking God to bless their hands and their struggle.
Onleilove Alston is a native of Brooklyn, New York, and serves Sojourners in the Policy and Organizing department as a Beatitudes Fellow. She is a student in the dual M.Div/MSW program at Union Theological Seminary and Columbia University. In NYC she organizes with the Poverty Initiative and New York Faith & Justice.
Its been months since I´ve written anything about the current events in Colombia. But I can't let "the hug the country has been waiting for" slip by without comment.
My infant daughter Amara and I were at the deli counter when the news broke. A current ran through the grocery store causing eruptions of joy. Ingrid Betancourt, former Presidential candidate, the three U.S. contractors and 11 others kidnapped by the FARC guerrilla group were freed this afternoon.
An hour later as Amara nursed, I listened to interviews with mothers and other family members of the recently released. Ingrid, beloved symbol of the kidnapped, was held captive for more than six years. The U.S. contractors for more than four. A number of the Colombian uniformed officers released were kidnapped over 10 years ago. The visceral responses to the electrifying news of freedom doesn´t lend itself to tidy sound bites for radio interviews. The sobs and exclamations were beautifully stirring. Upon delivery to a military base, an emaciated Ingrid gingerly climbed down from the plane and fell into her mother´s embrace. She choked, "no more tears, mommy." I squeezed my little Amara tight.
The rescue is being hailed as an "impeccable military operation." According to news reports, Colombian intelligence infiltrated the FARC leadership and not a shot was fired in the rescue mission. If media sources are accurate, the Colombian military essentially tricked the guerrilla into handing over four of the highest profile kidnap victims and 11 soldiers and police. Human Rights Watch congratulated the military for carrying out the rescue without any civilian causalities or otherwise violating international humanitarian law.
By all accounts this largest and oldest guerrilla group in Latin America is weakened, and clearly the Colombian military is at a strong point. The U.S. has helped to ensure as much. These military achievements are in line with U.S. military strategists´ application of an El Salvador model in Colombia. As such, the FARC would be forced to the negotiating table. But at what cost, paid in human lives and quality of life?
Ingrid exclaimed, "this is a sign of peace!" Could it be? While this was an intelligence and not a military rescue in the traditional sense, recent events force reflection on my values and sense of the fundamental direction of history regarding military solutions. As is common, many of the jubilant declarations praising the military with religious overtones created dissonance with my beliefs, principles and politics: "Glory be to (Colombia´s military) intelligence! Glory be to the army soldiers!" ... "God blessed (this rescue operative), but not just God, Uribe blessed it! Yes, long live Colombia ! We are winning the war!"
As a Colombian army general noted, the mission could have turned out differently. At the risk of sounding like the relentless critic, the 15 hostages and the operatives who bore great risk to rescue them could all have been killed. Had the scenario played out differently the FARC may not have experienced yet another humiliating blow. Colombian President Uribe´s reelection campaign would not have this huge boost.
The threat of destructive force as an immediate strategy remains a problem. Military successes could lead to surrender and even armistice, but they should not be confused with lasting peace. As we have experienced with the paramilitary process, a settlement between the warring factions that does not provide for truth and justice, repentance and forgiveness may betray Colombia´s populace. A formal resolution that does not prioritize education, health, housing and other investments will not deliver the conditions necessary for dignified life for the majority poor. In the midst of the collective euphoria sparked by the release there are many questions. Which are the right ones to be asking?
Ambiguity and ambivalence aside, I am jubilant with those reunited with family once again. I´d hug the three U.S. military contractors myself, if I could.
It is wonderful to share good news from Colombia on the armed conflict front!
Janna Hunter-Bowman works for Mennonite Central Committee in Bogotá, Colombia, as the coordinator of the Documentation and Advocacy Program for Justapaz, the peace and justice ministry of the Colombian Mennonite Church.
Slavery in the United States did not end in a night or even a year or decade. Even now, long past slavery's demise, the twin poisons of racism and class oppression echo as terrible reverberations from our forefathers' horrific acceptance and perpetuation of brutal violence against their fellow humans. The whips and chains are gone, but the hatred and violence too often well up while inequitable social policies ensure the longevity of poverty for certain classes of people. Even after 150 years, we in the U.S. have a long road ahead in the abolition of racism and class oppression.
I begin with the U.S. because the timeline of our own struggle means everything when examining the hopes of India's Dalits. Yes, India is changing, but how quickly can a nation change social mindsets that have endured for well over 2,500 years, longer than any known form of human oppression? How do we even begin to dislodge a system ...
Read the full entry »
As you were singing carols, placing the last presents under the tree, and worshiping at a Christmas Eve service this past year, Indian Christians halfway across the world were being victimized by the largest attack on the Christian community in India's democratic history. The complex and combustible layers of caste-based oppression and religious persecution came to a head on Dec. 24,2007, through a spate of violence in the Kandhamal District of Orissa state. During the course of a four-day campaign of terror, more than 100 churches were damaged, at least 700 homes were destroyed, and thousands of Dalit and tribal Christians were forced from their homes.
As preparations were being made to celebrate Christmas, Christian leaders approached the police ...
As our motorcade approached the Dalit village of Nayagarh, we could see the bright and brilliant image of 500 Dalit women gathered to welcome us, their saris forming a kaleidoscope of color. Cheers and whistles erupted from the crowd of women as we approached. I felt like a presidential candidate as I passed through the crowd, shaking as many hands as I could reach, wanting to make human contact with women whose dignity is so often demeaned and whose worth too often dismissed. These women had formed 130 self-help groups composed of 10 other women in villages across the region to invest in entrepreneurial projects that generate income and create a better life for their families and villages. They had come to show off their products and seek additional assistance from Operation Mercy Charitable Company (OMCC), an initiative supported by Operation Mobilization India (OM) and the All India Christian Council (AICC) that provides training and micro-loans. The women proudly showed off their products, ranging from beautiful saris to rice and roti. Access to loans are providing the keys to emancipation from bonded labor and careers of doing the most degrading work, such as cleaning latrines.
Many of these women also send their children to an English instruction school that has been set up by OMCC, funded in part through the Dalit Freedom Network. The majority of Dalit children are either denied access to primary education or only receive instruction in Hindi or other native languages. The public school system has become a dismal refuge for the children of the lower and middle castes, where Dalit students face daily abuse by teachers and students. According to a government report, 73 percent of Dalit students drop out in secondary school. Instruction in English represents a passport to higher education and India's service- and high-tech economy. Already OMCC has set up 81 schools in rural villages across the country. The combination of educational opportunity and asset creation are planting seeds of social and economic empowerment.
Educational opportunities provided by the missions and churches have built a new generation of Dalit Christian leaders ...
Read the full entry »
In the shadow of India's economic miracle lies a people often deemed untouchable, largely impoverished, and seemingly invisible. Bubbling beneath the shimmering image of a new India is a cauldron of inequality, caste-based subordination, and religious tension that could boil over into even greater civil strife and violence. At the center of these forces lies the Dalit struggle. While Dalit rights are often denied and hopes are crushed, growing political, economic, and spiritual empowerment is fueling a movement for liberation. The emancipation of the Dalits could serve as the key to securing India's nonsectarian, democratic future. However, this future collides with the ancient system of castes, which still confers profound benefits or burdens upon Indians simply because of their birth names.
For more than 3,000 years, the caste system has divided Indian society into four distinct classes, or varnas. Outside this system are the Dalits, who according to caste are not considered part of human society and are therefore less than fully human. While untouchability was outlawed in the 1950 Constitution and atrocities against Dalits are prohibited through the 1989 Prevention of Atrocities Act, a lack of political will and widespread corruption at all levels makes the law all but obsolete. Untouchability remains particularly acute in the rural areas of India, where 70 percent of the population still resides. While a great deal has changed in the sprawling and more tolerant cities, in rural areas people's entire lives are circumscribed by a caste identity that suffocates their dignity and segregates their lives.
The Dalit population approximates that of the entire United States. Imagine the U.S. population living in a perpetual state of discrimination and marginalization. This should strike a familiar chord with our own recent history with Jim Crow segregation. According to Joseph D'souza, president of the Dalit Freedom Network and All India Christian Council, the government has outlawed the symptoms of untouchability but ignores the actual disease of caste that still relegates nearly 250 million people to an apartheid-like existence. Comparing the Dalit struggle to a system of apartheid may seem like hyperbole. However, the entrenched system of caste systematically subordinates a large segment of Indian society.
The name "Dalit" means "broken" or "ground down." Approximately 25 percent of India's vast population is Dalit. To this day, people from higher castes refuse to marry Dalits; they are relegated to occupations that are considered degrading; most caste Hindus will not eat or drink with Dalits; and the majority of bonded laborers and sexual slaves in India are Dalit. Caste is part of a Hindu belief that people inherit their stations in life based on the sins and good deeds of past lives. Despite signs of economic mobility, Dalits are often the victims of dehumanizing acts of violence and humiliation designed to keep them in their place. As I learned more about the mounting crisis of AIDS in India, it is the Dalits who are most prone to be living with HIV and most likely to die a painful death from the disease.
I first heard about the Dalit struggle at the World Conference Against Racism, Xenophobia, and Discrimination in 2001. A large contingent of Dalit activists were present in full force. Their message was that the entrenched caste system in Southeast Asia was equivalent to racism and that their voices could no longer be silenced. Unfortunately, their voices were drowned by so many other oppressed voices vying for global attention, and by the controversy around the pulling out of the U.S. delegation.
It took another six years for the Dalit struggle to capture my conscience. In a presentation about the modern-day system of slavery, Gary Haugen, director of the International Justice Mission, based in Washington, D.C., described India as the worst abuser of human trafficking in the world. During a series of meetings over the past year, Rev. Sam Paul, national secretary of public affairs for the All India Christian Council, and Dr. Joseph D'souza have brought the Dalit struggle even closer to home, asking Sojourners to become engaged in the international Dalit freedom movement.
A year later I find myself in the crucible of the Dalit struggle, spending a week with the Dalit Freedom Network and the All India Christian Council, visiting one of the provinces in India that is hardest hit by Christian persecution and Dalit oppression. In many parts of India, the Dalit struggle intersects directly with the issue of religious freedom, as nearly 70 percent of Christians in India are Dalit. While Christians constitute a small minority in India, 2 to 3 percent of the population still translates into roughly 30 million people. Many Dalits and tribal caste people converted to Christianity in order to escape religiously sanctioned inferiority within Hinduism, drawn to a new identity and equality in Christ. However, many in India cling to the notion that India is a Hindu nation and that to be Indian is to be Hindu. Dalit Christians are thus twice-oppressed, once as the outcasts, and then again as members of an often-despised faith. This series will explore the Dalit struggle based on my experiences over the past week through what has felt like a baptism by fire. I hope and pray that you will join me in learning more about this modern system of apartheid.
Following is an interview with Michael Christoffersen, director of Milosevic On Trial, a documentary I watched at the Tribeca Film Festival, which demonstrates the horrors that can happen when religion becomes intermingled with empire.
What attracted you to want to follow this entire trial?
By coincidence, I did the documentary Genocide: The Judgment (1999) for BBC and SVT about a trial at the Rwanda court. I made some friends there and found out that the trial of Slobodan Milosevic was going to happen. So, while some journalists came and went, I stayed around. Eventually, I got exclusive access to the tapes and was able to secure interviews with both Milosevic's defense lawyer and the prosecution team.
Explain how you got the trust of these players, so that they would open up and talk with you.
In the beginning, nobody wanted us there. We had to convince them that we were people to be trusted. That took a while, and it wasn't until much later that we were able to get some of the interviews. It takes a lot of stubbornness and you also have to be a little naïve to some extent. It also helped that we were just a small production company. In addition, we were not affiliated with a particular group, so we were able to be seen as not having an agenda.
How did you maintain your objectivity as a filmmaker given the brutality of these crimes?
I wanted to create a historic record that reflected to a certain extent what actually happened. At the same time, film is drama. It's not just dry historic records. So, it's not a totally neutral observation but my interpretations.
Of all the footage, what was most disturbing was the scene in which the Orthodox priest blesses the Scorpions. This is followed by a montage of the brutalities committed under this elite Serbian army.
It was very disturbing. It's a well-known fact that the Serb Orthodox Church was giving their blessing to the Serbians. This proved that it was not only an ethnic war but also a religious one as well. I'm not saying the Muslims have always been innocent victims. But in this instance, the church knew about the ethnic cleansing and was giving their approval. I've had some Serbs dispute the footage, claiming that the group this priest was blessing didn't perform the shootings that followed. But it's been investigated and the Scorpions that were blessed were the ones who did those acts.
How did you obtain footage like this?
We relied on material that was used during the trial as evidence. The only time we went outside was when we interviewed some of participants.
Why do you think there was so little coverage of the trial in the United States?
Except for some Balkan journalists and my documentary crew, I seldom saw any other media covering the trial.
How did you react to the sudden death of Milosevic during the trial?
At the time, it was terrible as there was no real closure. Looking back at it, the fact that there wasn't a judgment rendered gives an opening for people to talk about the issues raised at the trial.
What are the future plans for this film?
Milosevic on Trial will be seen at the Silverdocs: AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival, held June 16-23, 2008, in Washington, D.C. Also, we only used about 1 percent of the material in the documentary. So we're in the process of making an archive where people can access all of the material. We might include information about Saddam on Trial, where I served as one of the producers. For more information, log on to our Web site (www.team-productions.com).
Becky Garrison was cited by Publishers Weekly as one of "four evangelicals with fresh views," alongside Jim Wallis, Shane Claiborne, and Ron Sider
Teresa and her husband, Rich, have been at my church for about four years now. Like several of our members, their faith in Christ and desire to live out the gospel not only humbles me but helps shape the depth and direction of our church. Teresa started a blog titled Jewels in the Ashes and actively serves on the board of directors at World Aid based here in Seattle. World Aid focuses much of their energy and work serving and empowering Internally Displaced People (IDP) in Burma and refugees on the Thai/Burma border. If you're looking for someone trustworthy to donate money toward the relief efforts in Burma, Teresa and World Aid will get those funds where they need to get to.
I got this incredible "insider's look" from Teresa, who received this from friends who are working within Burma. Do yourself a favor and take three minutes to read this:
As Westerners we want Western solutions for Burma. We want planes to fly in supplies to save people who we know could be saved. We live in a world where we can replace bad hearts with good hearts, clone organs, and do bone marrow transplants. We think putting men on the moon is old school. Flying in a planeload of life-saving supplies should be child's play.
In Burma making a phone call is difficult. Only seven percent of the country's 52 million people have electricity. For Burma's excessively paranoid generals we might just as well ask them if we can fly in a planeload of anthrax as one of aid. To them, this act might save lives but it would poison the culture, and while it may be a culture of fear and defeat, they unfortunately see it as their culture to defend.
To make a difference in Burma we have no choice but to deal with what is, not what we as Westerners think should be. I detest the current regime. I can't for the life of me comprehend their cruelty. This is the side of humanity that makes me want to throw up my hands in utter despair and quit, but I can't because quitting is what allows governments like this to continue.
I am so proud right now to be working with a group of people who haven't quit Burma. A group that spans the globe, a group that is organizing in the face of utter despair and effectively getting help to cyclone victims in ways that could get many of them arrested if they were ever found out.
What is in Burma is that international aid is failing; goods sent in to help disaster victims are being co-opted by the government. The military, once stuck with the problem of how to feed and clothe their 400,000 soldiers, now has enough rice stores to feed them for years to come. Likewise with medicine.
However, what is also happening in Burma is that internal aid is working. Granted that it lacks the fairy-tale effect of a white horse riding in, complete with knight in shining armor, or wizards with magic wands that can turn the horrible truth into a happy ending, but in a very real way, in a very empowering way, Burma's people are saving themselves -- despite the generals.
Supported by those who refuse to quit, a quiet revolt is taking place. A strong grassroots movement is evolving to bring goods to those in need. It travels many routes and is crossing continents and cultures -- some routes are above ground -- small convoys of concerned citizens with used clothing and humble donations, businessmen with enough clout and connections to get permission to transport small quantities of relief – many adopting a village and rallying friends to sustain support - and some routes go underground – traveling through bank accounts and well-established black market trades long used by insurgents and smugglers. Even many military officials, appalled by the suffering they face each day, are denying orders and secretly transporting aid.
I was really amazed when the Saffron Revolution was so easily quashed. I was saddened to see the despondent faces of those I passed every day on the street afterward, people who had had the opportunity to support their most revered and had failed to do so. Defeat went well beyond the monks and deep into the heart of the entire country.
But this time is different. Perhaps because of that defeat, perhaps because the general's decisions to refuse lifesaving aid is just more callous than anyone can accept, I'm seeing strength and unification among people who otherwise may have continued to remain passive.
I really don't know if this will come to fruition, if this will be the catalyst that actually unites an active resistance movement and that that movement will grow. I don't know if the temptation of controlling a well-fed army will serve as the tipping point for internal conflict in the military, but what I do know is that in the face of it all, my faith in humanity is once again being restored. So long as we don't give up, there is hope for those cyclone victims still surviving. So long as we don't give up there is still hope that Burma will change for the better, and in our lifetime. So long as we don't give up, others won't give up.
My thanks really goes out to all those of you who continue to lend support, to all of you who understand that the gap between what should be and what is is currently too wide to jump in Burma, that even planes can't cross it, but that this is not a reason to stop helping.
What should be may never come to Burma, but what is is still worth saving.
Many thanks,
Name omitted by request.
Eugene Cho, a second-generation Korean-American, is the founder and lead pastor of Quest Church in Seattle, Washington, and the executive director of Q Cafe, an innovative nonprofit neighborhood café in the city with only a handful of cafés. You can stalk him at his blog at: eugenecho.wordpress.com.
In the Dominican Republic, an estimated 10 percent of children are sexually exploited. According to Project Rescue, the average age around the world for a child sex slave is 13, and the average cost for a child sex slave is $150.
But child sexual exploitation is not only an overseas issue. According to U.S. law enforcement, there are at least 20,000 children manipulated and forced to engage in prostitution on a daily basis -- the actual number is unknown. What is known is that child sexual violence and exploitation has been growing dramatically around the world for the past couple of decades.
Advances in technology and communication have served to exacerbate the problem. But contrary to popular opinion, child pornography is not confined to seedy Web sites. Mainstream Web sites, such as Craig's List, allow for "barely legal" adult offers.
In the U.S., the high demand and easy money is a lure for vulnerable children. In 2005, The New York Times told Justin Berry's story. At 13 years old, Justin entered a life he eventually realized he would not be able to leave without significant intervention. Thankfully, he did obtain the help he needed. But his story exemplifies the evolution and ease of child exploitation in a high-tech world. The article stated,
A six-month investigation into this corner of the Internet found that such sites had emerged largely without attracting the attention of law enforcement or youth protection organizations …. "We've been aware of the use of the Webcam and its potential use by exploiters," said Ernest E. Allen, chief executive of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, a private group. "But this is a variation on a theme that we haven't seen. It's unbelievable."
Of course, child exploitation goes beyond Internet pornography. After a series of investigations in the early '90s, the FBI stated:
the utilization of computer telecommunications was rapidly becoming one of the most prevalent techniques by which some sex offenders shared pornographic images of minors and identified and recruited children into sexually illicit relationships. In 1995, based on information developed during this investigation, the Innocent Images National Initiative was started .…
The PBS program Now recently discussed child prostitution in the U.S. with Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, who said:
It's one of those issues that doesn't get discussed and therefore there's an assumption that perhaps either it doesn't exist at all or the young women and girls who are prostitutes are there by their own free will … [The child prostitutes are] 10 or 11 years old, and the age is getting lower. We're not talking about 17 and 18 and 19-year-olds, although we could.
My friend Rev. Gabriel Salguero reminds us of the need for all of us to use our gifts to combat child exploitation. We must respond to the issue as a community where writers, musicians, politicians, business people, and the religious community use our collective resources to raise one voice to protect the children of our world. He challenges us not to see this issue in terms of nationality or geography but as an issue that calls into question our very sense of humanity.
Rev. Juan Carlos Morales is the senior pastor of Hosanna Assemblies of God in Ellenville, New York. He is also a member of the Latino Leadership Circle, a graduate of the Center for Urban Ministerial Education (CUME), and a seminarian at New Brunswick Theological Seminary. On Thursday, May 29, the Inocencia Project raised monies in its first public event and fundraiser. Inocencia Project was founded by Emanuel Veras to combat child prostitution in the Dominican Republic and around the world. Inocencia Project is a project of Cigua Palmera Foundation and is supported by Hiccup Media Group and through individual donations. To donate and learn more about Inocencia Project, go to www.ciguapalmera.org.
For more information about efforts to address this critical need, go to:
In January, I was nominated to be one of the Torchbearers for the Olympic Torch Relay when it came to San Francisco. The theme for the relay in San Francisco was sustainability and caring for our Mother Earth. Part of the nomination process included writing an essay about how I have been involved in caring for the environment and ways I had contributed to helping people. I wrote:
What sustains me on my personal journey for excellence is my faith that God has created all people and all of creation out of love. In this love I am called to respond by being the best person God has created me to be, using my gifts and talents to create a world that reflects love, peace and hope.
My personal journey includes that I am a Catholic Sister. I belong to the order of St. Francis of Penance and Christian Charity. My calling and experiences have compelled me to work for the communities I am part of, the country I live in, and the world, to promote each person being treated with respect and dignity.
As I carried the Olympic Torch, I also carried with me the many communities I work with, such as the Coalition Against Human Trafficking, the St. Vincent de Paul Society, Habitat for Humanity, and the international mission work I've done in Chiapas, Mexico, and Tanzania. People coming together can do so much to make our communities (and our world) places of compassion and justice.
Additionally, I try to live as "simply and as green" as possible, through recycling, not using bottled water, and using alternative methods of transportation. The Christian community of the Sisters of St. Francis to which I belong works to protect our environment through a variety of efforts: particularly in water conservation, the conservation of wildlife and the wetlands, as well as efforts to bring about peace in our world. I spoke about these themes whenever there were opportunities in the Olympic process.
Some of the torchbearers shared together that we were grateful for the protestors supporting the people of Tibet. One of the 80 torchbearers in San Francisco dropped out citing privacy concerns. But, as I told the San Francisco Chronicle, "I'm praying and hoping that we can respect one another and do it peacefully," and added that that protesters denouncing China's human rights record should realise that "there are torchbearers who have similar sentiments."
We thought the protestors who climbed the Golden GateBridge were quite clever and very brave! That act got a lot of attention and was visually amazing, and did not hurt anyone while at the same time it got the message around the world. We also felt the candlelight vigils were another peaceful way to send a message of peace and justice and dignity. However, some family and friends reported that there were a number of the protestors who were "looking for a war," and getting very angry at those who had a different view.
I am honored to have carried the Olympic Torch and found it a true gift as a Franciscan Sister to represent those who follow St. Francis - the one for whom the city of San Francisco was named. St. Francis was a man of peace, a person who respected all people, and who honored all creation. As a Franciscan Sister, I also strive to be a woman of peace, a person who respects others, and who honors all creation. This is what the Olympic Spirit is about: peace, respect, and honor.
Sr. Patricia Rayburn, OSF, lives in Redwood City, CA, and carried the Olympic torch for a block along the Marina in San Francisco looking toward the Golden Gate Bridge.
The genocidal situation in Darfur continues to worsen, with more killings and increased attacks on peacekeepers. All the efforts to date by the U.N., the U.S., and other governments have failed to stop the atrocities.
In this morning’s New York Times, the Save Darfur coalition ran an ad with the message: “We stand united and demand that the genocide and violence in Darfur be brought to an end.” It was signed by the three remaining presidential candidates – Hillary Rodham Clinton, John McCain, and Barack Obama. The statement, We Stand United On Sudan, concluded:
Today, we wish to make clear to the Sudanese government that on this moral issue of tremendous importance, there is no divide between us. We stand united and demand that the genocide and violence in Darfur be brought to an end and that the CPA be fully implemented. Even as we campaign for the presidency, we will use our standing as Senators to press for the steps needed to ensure that the United States honors, in practice and in deed, its commitment to the cause of peace and protection of Darfur’s innocent citizenry. We will continue to keep a close watch on events in Sudan and speak out for its marginalized peoples. It would be a huge mistake for the Khartoum regime to think that it will benefit by running out the clock on the Bush Administration. If peace and security for the people of Sudan are not in place when one of us is inaugurated as President on January 20, 2009, we pledge that the next Administration will pursue these goals with unstinting resolve.
An Associated Press story called it a rare show of bipartisan unity. It is that, and it is also a hopeful sign that on this moral issue, there are indeed no Democrats or Republicans, conservatives or liberals, only compassion and a commitment to do everything possible to bring an end to the horror in Darfur.
In the back and forth concerning the role South Africa must play in the crisis of human rights abuses under the reign of Robert Mugabe and his cronies, it is my belief that we must see some form of serious intervention.
I understand the need for diplomacy, which always calls for "you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours." But when endless reports have been publicized of the atrocities that the people of Zimbabwe are facing, South African President Thabo Mbeki must engage ways to ensure that we as a South African people do not repeat history in our failure to act for justice -- as Bishop Tutu rightfully pointed out in the tragedy of Rwanda.
Mbeki can use people like Dr. Gerrie Lubbe, Dr. Allan Boesak, Bishop Tutu, and many other social activists who should be strategically commissioned to have a round-table discussion with Mugabe and his crew.
While the world, and even South Africa, remains largely disengaged from this crime against humanity that is occurring in Zimbabwe, people are dying. Must someone declare that there is genocide taking placing before the United Nations, the African Union, and world leaders will make a stand?. If this is the case, let me proclaim, "There is genocide taking place in Zimbabwe!" -- a genocide that may be ethnic, it may be cultural, but most definitely political.
For all that Mugabe has seen in his lifetime, one cannot understand how elder Mugabe can allow his people to suffer at his hand. At one time in our not-too-distant history, Mugabe was one of the most celebrated African leaders. How has this former champion of his people become the enslaver and dictator?
Let us work to mobilize our networks and resources, and our power and influence to aid the people of Zimbabwe. Do what you can to see this hypocrisy and abuse of human rights come to an end.
Seth Naicker is an activist for justice and reconciliation from South Africa. He is currently studying and working at Bethel University, in St. Paul, Minnesota, as the program and projects director for the Office of Reconciliation Studies. He can be reached at: seth-naicker@bethel.edu or smnaick@hotmail.com
What does it mean to be a Christian in these times? The works of mercy knock on our door. The hungry, the naked, the sick, and the prisoner demand our compassion -- but more, they demand our action.
I am thinking of the prisoners especially as I prepare for trial in Washington, D.C., tomorrow. There are the 2 million men and women who crowd U.S. prisons -- many for nonviolent offenses. Then there are the tens of thousands shoved in the dark corners of the U.S.'s vast but hidden archipelago of "war on terror" detention. Guantanamo -- perched on the tip of Cuba -- is the most visible and the most vulnerable.
Since walking from Santiago de Cuba to Guantanamo as a work of mercy -- to visit the prisoners and appeal to the humanity of their imprisoners -- with friends in 2005, I have been particularly concerned with what has been called the "gulag of our time."
And so tomorrow, 35 of us go to trial for an action at the U.S. Supreme Court. On Jan. 11, a day that marked six years of torture and abuse at the U.S. Naval Base, 80 of us were arrested there. In the statement we read there, we explained that "We are here to bring their plight and the plight of all prisoners from this current war, to the 'highest court in the land.' We are here to make their suffering visible, to make their voices heard, to make their humanity felt." And we continued that after we were arrested -- many of us were taken into custody under the name of a Guantanamo prisoner. And in a new twist on traditional protest, we will continue to carry those names into the courtroom on Tuesday.
This act symbolically grants the Guantanamo prisoners their day in court, which the Pentagon has denied them for years. For example, Christine Gaunt, a grandmother and third-generation hog farmer from Grinnell, Iowa, will carry with her into the courtroom the name and the memory of Abdul Razzaq, an Afghani man sent to Guantanamo in 2003. She reflects: "Abdul Razzaq continually claimed his innocence. He died in Guantanamo in 2007 of cancer, leaving behind children and grandchildren. He never had a chance to make his case in a court. I will take his name to honor his right to justice before a proper court, a right cruelly denied him at Guantanamo."
On Christmas Day a few years ago in Dallas, Texas, Socheata Poeuv's parents called a family meeting to tell her that her sisters weren't really her sisters, and her brother was not her full brother. After 25 years of attempting to live a "normal American life," her parents revealed a shocking family secret that would draw them all back to Cambodia, the home they fled and struggled to forget during the fall of the Khmer Rouge in 1979. As she packs for her trip back to Cambodia, Socheata turns to the camera and confides, "I knew more about the Holocaust than the Khmer Rouge. I knew even less about my own family."
Socheata Poeuv documents the unfurling of her family mystery in a beautiful, strong film called New Year Baby. After arriving in Cambodia, Socheata narrates the film through a series of interviews with her parents, relatives, and even the former Khmer Rouge leader who supervised the labor camp where her parents were forced to work. In one exchange that filled me with both dread and loathing, Socheata asks the former KR district manager, now a poor farmer, if the thousands of dead weigh upon him. Chillingly, he explains, "No. They do not come to conscience," and "I have forgotten so much." Shocked, Socheata presses him for more but the only thing he has left to say is, "I am sorry for the mismanagement of my district." He shifts on the dirt floor as his wife fries some fish for Socheata's mournful, exhausted Pa.
Ma and Pa Poeuv emerge as heroes by the end of the film. Ma's compassion for orphaned children and Pa's courage as he leads his family through minefields, gunfire, and across borders are stories that Socheata calls "remarkable, but common." When you watch the film, you'll find yourself marveling at how simple, ordinary people can be fiercely courageous, unconditionally loving, and self-sacrificial -- and you'll wonder about your own capacity to "go and do likewise."
For Socheata, what had started as a "glorified home video" turned into a 90-minute film, which in turn led to a significant human rights effort to document and archive testimony of what it was like to live under a regime some call "the most controlling government in history." Socheata's latest project is Khmer Legacies, a nonprofit whose goal is to videotape testimonies of thousands of Cambodian survivors by having children interview their parents. Socheata knows firsthand the importance of storytelling through the generations: After New Year Baby was screened at a film festival in Dallas, Texas, Socheata brought her parents and entire extended family up to the stage. Upon seeing the 300+ audience give Ma and Pa Poeuv a standing ovation and wait in line to shake their hands, Socheata recalls, "It really was that experience of having the audience affirm their story that transformed their relationship to their past. More than anything, they had never been honored like that before in their whole life. These are broken-English immigrant people who are invisible in our society." Socheata's film and new nonprofit shed some light and heart on the Cambodian genocide and the importance of "Never Again."
Anna Almendrala is the marketing and circulation assistant for Sojourners. To learn more about Khmer Legacies, visit their Web site: www.khmerlegacies.org
I posted last November about legal proceedings against Chiquita for protection money paid to Colombian right-wing paramilitary organizations (AUC) that had been designated terrorist organizations by the U.S. government. Two stories this week shed more light on the situation and are worth checking out.
First, last week's 60 Minutes broadcast included a segment called "The Price of Bananas," which gives a good overview, including the origins of the paramilitaries:
The second comes from Christianity Today in an article titled, "Corporate-Sponsored Terror." It describes the lawsuit against Chiquita brought by former missionaries with New Tribes Mission, widows whose husbands were kidnapped and killed by left-wing guerrilla forces (FARC) when they controlled the region where Chiquita was operating:
When Chiquita Brands International pleaded guilty last year to violating anti-terrorism laws -- and was fined $25 million for its payments to Colombian terrorists -- Tania Julin and Nancy Hamm felt betrayed and angry.
Though Chiquita's plea did not involve the group that murdered their husbands 12 years ago, the women learned through the case that Chiquita had also paid protection money to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
"I believe they need to be held accountable," said Hamm, who retired from New Tribes Mission (NTM) last year. "This affected us in a horrible way, but I think it could affect a lot of other Americans, too, if Chiquita or other American companies continue to blatantly fund terrorists." ...
While Julin said none of the widows are bitter about the dangers that ultimately ended their husbands' lives, she does hope that winning the lawsuit will pose a warning to companies tempted to do business with terrorists.
"Chiquita had a choice whether to deal with the terrorists or not. If they felt they had to deal with the terrorists or not be in Colombia at all, they could have chosen not to be in Colombia," Julin said. "They chose to work with these terrorists."
If you thought socially conscious music in the mainstream was a thing of the past, turn your ears to what Australia is listening to. A song about justice and reconciliation in Australia was the highest new entry in the charts two weeks ago - starting out at #2 on the Australian charts and #2 after Madonna on the digital track charts - and remains in the top 50. As The New York Times reported:
A song about racial reconciliation with the Aboriginal minority has become the fourth-biggest-selling recording in Australia, even though it is available only as a download from the Web.
The song "From Little Things Big Things Grow," written more than 20 years ago by Australian artists Kev Carmody and Paul Kelly, tells the story of Australian nonviolence hero Vincent Lingiari. Under the name "GetUp Mob," they have collaborated with other Australian musicians, such as Missy Higgins and John Butler, to sing of this historic moment in Australian history. And (to my knowledge) they have launched the musical career of Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd by sampling his historic apology speech:
As prime minister, I am sorry. On behalf of the government, I am sorry.
Both Kev Carmody and Paul Kelly's music is richly submerged in themes of justice and in biblical poetry, from Paul Kelly's song "The Lion and the Lamb," to Kev Carmody's "Comrade Jesus Christ." In "From Little Things Big Things Grow," you can hear the mustard seed of racial reconciliation and dignity spreading. As Ambrose, one of the kids in my neighbourhood, said about the song, "It's boss!"
It seems along with little Ambrose, Australian listeners are agreeing.
Jarrod McKenna is seeking to live God's love. He's a co-founder of the Peace Tree Community, serving with the marginalised in one of the poorest areas in his city, and is the founder and creative director of Empowering Peacemakers (EPYC), for which he has received an Australian peace award in his work for peace and (eco)justice.
The following is an interview with Abigail Disney, producer of the documentaryPray the Devil Back to Hell, which recently won the award for best documentary feature at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival.
What sparked your interest in wanting to make a documentary about Liberia?
The fact that the newly elected president of Liberia was a woman was notable, especially since the continent had had so few women in leadership, and that women had been so peculiarly and sadistically targeted during their war. I knew there had to be a backstory. She hadn't just arisen spontaneously.
How were Christian and Muslim women able to come together for a common cause?
They were all so completely fed up with war that they were willing to overcome their reluctance. There was some mistrust at first, but the longer they spent time together in prayer and fasting the more they came to understand and empathize with each other. Friendships were forged on the field that will exist for a long time—it is quite possible that the nature of the relationship between Christian and Muslim was forever changed in Liberia.
Elaborate on the role that religious leaders played in helping to bring about peace to Liberia.
While it may seem unlikely, the fact is that the warlords and even Charles Taylor were quite religious. Religious leaders therefore were among the only people who could influence them, even in the chaotic atmosphere of war. But women were dissatisfied with the limited way in which the religious leaders wielded that influence. So the campaign really began with the women bringing pressure on the leaders via their religious confidants. This pressure ultimately was one of the reasons Taylor and the rebels decided to come to peace talks in Ghana.
How did prayer inform these women's social justice actions?
All of the women in this film were deeply, deeply religious and believed with all of their hearts and minds in the power of prayer to influence events and people. This was a critical aspect of their plan, and a big part of what made them so tenacious and persistent in their protests. But more than this, prayer was a source of personal strength to each of the women. They gained strength through their individual practice of prayer, but also the communal practice of prayer was an extraordinary glue that held the group together in spite of all kinds of pressures to pull them apart.
Explain the significance of the Lutheran church that you filmed for this documentary.
St. Peter's Lutheran Church was the scene of the first organizing meeting for the Christian Women's Peace Initiative, early in the film. In 1989, however, that church was also the scene of one of the most horrific massacres in the pre-war period. Samuel Doe's army, in anticipation of Charles Taylor's assault on Monrovia, went into the church and slaughtered more than 600 members of a rival ethnic group in a single night. The candlelight vigil in the middle of the film takes place on the church compound on top of the mass grave that contains most of those bodies. The church was and still is the church that Leymah Gbowee attended, and a source of great strength and counsel to her. It was also through the Lutheran Church that WIPNET, her organization, got offices and also got its first international donations.
Why is Leymah Gboweethe focal character of your story?
Everyone acknowledged her to be the leader and the face of the peace movement. But more than this, Leymah was so clearly charismatic, articulate, and genuine that I knew that a film with her at the center could not fail to be compelling. She is one of the most gifted people I have ever met.
What can we do to enable this change to continue without imposing our Western values on this culture?
I think you are precisely right here. Why do we insist on imposing "solutions" that are always at best temporary, and at worst impractical and even disrespectful to indigenous cultures? I think at heart we are sometimes deeply mistrustful of the competence of indigenous cultures to find their own answers. And when we impose programs, very often we do so in such a manner as to set them hunting for external money that is scarce, inadequate, and hard to get. The answer is to do some better listening. As people coming in from the global North we need to arrive in places with a little less confidence in our "answers" and a little more confidence in the people we are there to serve. People aren't poor because they don't have values, don't have smarts, don't have gumption—people are poor because they don't have money. We need to recognize that most of the "resources" needed to fight the world's problems are also the victims of those problems.
What's been the response when you've shown this film?
The response has been overwhelmingly emotional, connected, and positive. And this is not just from people in the U.S. We have already shown the film in many countries to women's groups and the response has been so moving. Women in Iraq wept when they saw it, and immediately asked how many copies they could make so as to make sure that it is shown in people's homes all over the country. Women from Sudan e-mailed us to say that they felt sure that lives were being changed by the dialogues the film had sparked. In Tblisi, Georgia, women sat down immediately after the film and wrote up a Peace Agenda that is now making its way around the country for women's signatures. What is remarkable is the way that so many women were already poised to work together for peace—all the film does is remind them how powerful they are when they work together. It is a spark of faith in dark times.
What are the future plans for this documentary and how can interested churches and nonprofits arrange for showings of this film?
We hope to work with churches and other religious organizations along with youth groups, women's organizations, and other interested partners to get the film seen far and wide. At the moment we are still forming distribution plans, but churches that are interested in seeing the film should go to our Web site and give us their information so that when we are set up for distribution we can get in touch with them.
"Arise, then, women of this day!" goes the Mother's Day proclamation. But this is not your wake-up call to french toast and flowers. Instead, this phrase was the rallying cry for the first "Mother's Day of Peace" back in 1870—back before the day became laden with Hallmark and guilt. Julia Ward Howe, the creator of Mother's Day, pleaded with women to speak out against war, not only for the sake of their sons, but for the sons of mothers across the globe. Today, mothers must not only seek peace for their sons, but for themselves.
Studies are showing that warfare brings significantly increased incidents of rape and domestic violence. Soldiers are taught violence in war and that violence is then turned upon innocent civilians in the country of conflict, fellow soldiers during wartime, or it returns home in the form of spousal and child abuse. Think the war is taking place thousands of miles away? Think again. Wartime violence is happening in living rooms across the country.
Americans may remember the four women murdered by their military husbands within a six-week period at Fort Bragg army base in North Carolina near the beginning of the Afghanistan invasion. While this caught the media's eye for a brief time, the violence at the hands of military personnel continues to rise.
A 2003 study financed by the Department of Defense found that nearly one-third of female veterans who sought health care through the Veterans Affairs reported that during their military service they experienced rape or attempted rape. Another set of figures from 2004 and 2005 showed a 40% increase in the number of sexual assaults reported by female soldiers—which may mean women feel safer in reporting the attacks or that the numbers are on the rise.
60 Minutes did research in the 1990s that found that domestic violence was five times more common in U.S. military families than civilian families. And that was during "peace time." During war, the numbers become far more gruesome. During the Rwandan genocide, UNICEF estimates 150,000 women were raped in the 100 days of conflict. Today, the remnants of that violence have ventured into the Congo and 27,000 sexual assaults were reported there by the United Nations -- in just one year, in just one province.
So, arise, then, women of this day! Forget the french toast. Forget the flowers. Arise and speak out against war. Spend this Mother's Day writing letters, calling congress, or finding another way to help stop the war. It is just a few hours of your life. And you might just end up saving one.
Nicole Sotelo is author of Women Healing from Abuse: Meditations for Finding Peace (Paulist Press) and is a contributor to Weep Not for Your Children: Essays on Religion and Violence, edited by Rosemary Radford Ruether and Lisa Isherwood (forthcoming from Equinox Publishing). She holds a master's degree from Harvard Divinity School and does workshops and retreats for Christian women healing from abuse. To learn more, visit www.womenhealing.com
Today is the commemoration of Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Memorial Day)in the modern Jewish calendar. The date was originally enacted by the Israeli Parliament in 1953, but has now become a commemoration by the international Jewish community and friends.
It is a day to commemorate the more than 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis from 1938-1945. It is a day to reflect on the fact that when the rest of the world knew what was happening, too little was done to stop it. And, it is a day to reflect on contemporary genocides, such as Darfur, and redouble our efforts to ensure that "never again" becomes a reality.
… built largely around first-person testimonies. After an opening chapter that gives a searing overview of the victims' suffering, it offers composite sketches of a Christian journalist observing life in the Warsaw Ghetto, a Jewish woman in a work camp, and a Jewish youth who was forced to pull out the teeth from his brother's corpse and shove other dead bodies into ovens. A fifth chapter consists of a eulogy for those who died in the Holocaust; the final chapter recounts the efforts to rebuild Jewish life after the war ended.
It is also intended to address some of the theological questions raised by the Holocaust.
The overriding theological message of the Megillah [Scroll] is that human beings have a right to question the divine, but they cannot expect answers --and that even without answers, the Jewish faith in God endures. The Megillah ends with the exhortation: "Do not mourn too much, but do not sink into the forgetfulness of apathy. Do not allow days of darkness to return; weep, but wipe the tears away. Do not absolve and do not exonerate, do not attempt to understand. Learn to live without an answer. Through our blood, live!"
Today, we remember, we mourn, we reflect, but we will not "sink into the forgetfulness of apathy." We renew the vow, Never Again.
Duane Shank is the senior policy adviser at Sojourners.
A couple of days before Christmas 1993, I was sitting in my parent's living room watching a football game when I got a call from my uncle in Baghdad. After a very quick hello, he jumped right into asking if my father was home. I told him no, so he quickly gave me a flight number for a plane that was coming into Dallas the next day. After twice telling me that it was very important to be at the airport tomorrow, he told me to give his love to my mom and hung up. The next day we went to the airport and met my cousin and his wife, who had just spent the last several weeks sneaking out of a war-decimated Iraq. When Saddam Hussein ruled Baghdad, his government kept very close tabs on the people. In order to make an overseas phone call, one had to go to what used to be a post office and wait in line. Why? Because the government had agents who listened to all outgoing phone calls. Whenever my family would call, all hell could be going on around them, but they said nothing: "Oh, everything is just fine! Nothing to report here. How are you?" So intimidated by this reality, my father would never say a thing about Iraq or family during phone calls that took place entirely in the United States.
When I created my blog I attached a site meter, which basically tells me how many people visit the site. One of the features of the site meter is that it will tell you from which city, state, and country a visit originated. It does not tell you the IP address of the computer, just the location and company of the server the visit was routed from.
For example, whenever my mom checks out the site, it registers: Verizon.com: Dallas, Texas.
Since we moved, whenever my wife or I log in, the site meter registers: Cox.net: Fayetteville, Arkansas.
This past fall, at the start of the Muslim fast of Ramadan, I sent a very small e-mail to my father's side of the family all over the world. In three sentences I told them that the move had gone well, gave them our new address, and signed the message with "Happy Ramadan."
The next day I noticed a change in the site meter. Whenever I logged into the blog, it no longer came up as being routed through Fayetteville, Arkansas. Instead, our Internet traffic was being routed through: Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana.
Huh?
So I ran a little experiment. I took my laptop up to the chapel office where I work and logged in using the router there. It registered Fayetteville, Arkansas. I went back home and logged in using our neighbor's router. Again, it registered Fayetteville, Arkansas. But sure enough, when I logged back in using our router, it let us know that we were being routed through Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana. I tried the same experiment with my wife's laptop. Same result.
I called our provider. The first guy I talked to laughed uncomfortably and said, "I don't know why it is routing through an Air Force base, but I have a pretty good idea." He sent me up the chain of command, but they could not tell me why everyone in my apartment complex was being routed through their local server, but I was being routed through an Air Force base.
A week later my wife and I got tickets to the Kentucky-Arkansas football game. The singing of the National Anthem was punctuated with a flyover by an Air Force B-2 Stealth Bomber. As the black sliver approached from the north, the crowd began to whip itself into a frenzy. But over the cheers I heard the public address announcer state that this very bomber was part of the initial invasion of Baghdad during Operation "Iraqi Freedom."
The flyover was impressive. I have never seen a stealth bomber in person. Those suckers are big, loud, and very intimidating. And as the plane passed right above us, with its roaring engines completely drowning out the roaring crowd, I couldn't help but think of the irony:
This very Air Force plane dropped bombs over Baghdad to "liberate" the Iraqis from an oppressive government that monitored their own citizens' communications. And now that very same Air Force seems to be monitoring mine.
Rev. Omar Hamid Al-Rikabi is a campus minister at the University of Arkansas Wesley Foundation. He is the son of a Muslim father from Iraq and a Christian mother from Texas. He shares his stories on his blog at www.firstbornstories.com
The Philippines Armed Forces have been implicated in most of the recent human rights abuses that have occurred in that country (almost 800 unlawful executions since 2001). Journalists, activists, pastors, and lawyers have been kidnapped, tortured, or even gunned down in public for daring to advocate on behalf of the economic, social, and civil rights of the poor.
But since 9/11, the U.S. government has given the Philippines army $245.6 million for "foreign military financing," "anti-terrorism," and "international military education and training." This is more military funding than any other country in Asia receives. As American taxpayers, we should be outraged that the U.S., through massive military funding, extends carte blanche to a government that cannot control and discipline its own national army –an army that carries out personal vendettas and hit lists en masse. As members of the body of Christ, we should lament when our brothers and sisters are cut down in the mission field – especially when we helped to bankroll it.
In my previous blog post about the disappearance of Jonas Burgos, I mentioned that the Farmers' Alliance he volunteered for had been labeled an "enemy of the state" organization. The military did this to justify the half-hearted investigation conducted on his disappearance. This and other incidents have alarmed the United Nations Human Rights Council, especially since the Philippines has (strangely) just been granted a seat on the committee. In keeping with the strictures of committee membership, the Philippines is set to undergo a kind of human rights audit called the "Universal Periodic Review" on April 11, 2008.
After Ecumenical Advocacy Days, Edita Tronqued Burgos planned to tour the U.S. to speak to Filipino-American communities about the things going on back home. In her increasingly hopeless search for her activist son, she has stumbled upon a new mission: to put American taxpayers and citizens in contact with their U.S. congresspersons about the issue. The work of Edita and others like her have made the extrajudicial killings a more high-profile issue, and there were even hearings in the U.S. Congress about it last year. Still, positive change seems elusive in 2008 as military aid to the Philippines increased by "a few million," with $2 million earmarked for human rights issues. Seems to me like we're trusting foxes to guard the henhouse here.
To read more about American military funding to the Philippines, click here.
Anna Almendrala is the marketing and circulation assistant for Sojourners.
Imagine you're eating at a shopping mall food court when you suddenly hear shouting and see a group of uniformed men (neither police nor army) drag a young man from his lunch a few tables away. "I'm just an activist! I haven't done anything wrong!" he shouts as they cuff him and take him to a waiting van outside. What would Christ-followers do? What would you do?
This is the scene that plays in Edita Tronqued Burgos' mind over and over again as she worries about her missing son. On April 28, 2007, Jonas Burgos was eating lunch in a crowded mall in downtown Manila, Philippines, when four to eight unidentified men abducted him. During her presentation at Ecumenical Advocacy Days a few weeks ago, she mused that if the people in that crowded mall had done "the Christian thing," maybe her son wouldn't have disappeared into the ether that weekend.
After one or two strange, groggy phone conversations with his family, all trace of Jonas Burgos disappeared for good. Now Jonas' family tries to act on every lead that comes in, and investigate every rumor and sighting. Edita once traveled hours after receiving word of a bound, heavily tortured corpse found in the countryside. It wasn't him.
Why was Jonas abducted and disappeared like this? What had Jonas done to merit such brutality? The son of activist-journalists persecuted under the Marcos dictatorship, Jonas had gotten a degree in agriculture, then moved to the provinces to teach organic farming techniques to the peasants. Soon after he arrived, he became distraught at how impoverished the farmers were, in part because of the Philippines' economic policies (aimed at hyper-development through corporate foreign investment). He became a volunteer for a farmers' rights organization called Alyansa ng Magsasaka sa Bulacan (Alliance of Farmers at Bulacan). But in the Philippines, advocacy and activism on behalf of poor farmers can draw the ire of the military, which branded Alyansa an "enemy of the state."
Jonas' disappearance is just one of hundreds of cases in which activists, journalists, and artists in the Philippines are kidnapped, tortured, or murdered by unidentified men in uniform. Their deaths are often unrecorded or unverifiable for lack of a body, and the police seldom investigate. This is called an "extrajudicial killing," an execution committed beyond the boundaries of the legal process.
In Jonas' case, as it became clearer that the military was about to be implicated in his disappearance, the Philippines Armed Forces launched a smear campaign claiming that Jonas was a member of the Communist Army of the People of the Philippines. They asserted that Jonas had been caught embezzling money, and the "communist terrorists" killed him to punish him for stealing. This statement released by the national military was a shocking, hurtful lie, as was obvious to anyone who even remotely knew Burgos.
Edita Tronqued Burgos ended her presentation by emphasizing that no one should be beyond the protection of the law. Even if he had been guilty of a crime (rather than of economic advocacy), that would not justify kidnapping and disappearance. In typically outspoken Filipino style, Edita pleaded, "even a child molester caught in the act gets his day in court to defend himself. Why shouldn't my son deserve the same right?"
Anna Almendrala is the marketing and circulation assistant for Sojourners.
Friday morning I posted about Bush legalizing waterboarding. That evening, Bill Moyers' Journal had a compelling and disturbing segment on the use of torture by U.S. forces. It was about the Oscar-nominated documentary film, Taxi to the Dark Side, directed by Alex Gibney who made Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. The Moyers segment includes excerpts from the film and testimony of prisoners falsely accused and tortured in Afghanistan and Iraq. Watch it.
Key quote:
Despite Rumsfeld's and Cheney's and President Bush's allegations that these guys are the worst of the worst, that they were all captured on the battlefield, recent studies of the whole compendium of the government's documents show that only five percent of these people were picked up by the United States. Only eight percent of them are accused of being members of the Al Qaeda. Over 90 percent of them were picked up by Northern Alliance or Pakistani forces in exchange for bounties.
Ryan Rodrick Beiler is the Web editor for Sojourners.
Uncertainty about the consistency of conservative convictions was part of what killed the campaign of Mitt "Double Guantanamo" Romney, and it was coverage of the "suspension" of his campaign that nearly drowned out another important story yesterday.
Contrast that criticism of Romney with a familiar defense of George W. Bush: "Well, you might disagree with him, but at least you know where he stands." Though this faint praise could be applied to any number of universally condemned leaders throughout history, I keep running into people that sincerely mean it as a compliment, as if sincerity made up for bad choices--something I would think most conservatives would disagree with.
Well, if you want to torture this logic any further, know that waterboarding--or as the Spanish Inquisition called it, water torture--is legal according to the Bush White House. Under certain circumstances. Such as, whenever the president says so. The L.A. Times reports:
... in remarks that were greeted with disbelief by some members of Congress and human rights groups, White House spokesman Tony Fratto said that waterboarding was a legal technique that could be employed again "under certain circumstances."
Fratto said the nation's top intelligence officials "didn't rule anything out" during congressional testimony Tuesday on CIA interrogation methods, and he indicated that Bush might consider reauthorizing waterboarding or other harsh techniques in extreme cases ....
I've always assumed that our clandestine forces used torture either directly or by proxy--because of history that's well documented in places like Guatemala, Colombia, Vietnam, and elsewhere. What I don't usually expect is official admissions of torture. Perhaps a wink and a nod as plausible deniability is established. Perhaps official consternation when the underlings get caught operating outside of conventions that high officials themselves have called "quaint." What's especially troubling is that history demonstrates that with official sanction or not, whatever these forces are actually doing is often several degrees worse than official admissions--and viciously specific in contrast to the vague official pronouncements about "harsh techniques." So if they're legalizing actual torture techniques now, I'm even more concerned about what's actually going on in the cells and chambers that we're never meant to know about. For national security. Because our enemies hate our freedom.
And if you think it's only "bad people" who get tortured, listen to the testimony of survivors.
The report's findings show that of the 2,253 questions that were asked in the Republican and Democratic debates through Dec. 27, only 5.1% of the questions posed to candidates dealt with human rights issues (CAPAF called their definition of what constituted a human rights issue "a generous interpretation" -- it included topics such as Darfur, torture, genocide in Iraq, and promoting democracy). This was in contrast to the 8.6% of questions about immigration, 10.7% on moral issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage, and 18.1% about general personal politics and party values.
In the report, William F. Schulz, a CAPAF senior fellow and former executive director of Amnesty International, offers a possible explanation for this marginal attention:
Human rights issues have rarely, if ever, been a principal focus of political campaigns for President or even for Congress. This reflects the fact that human rights are often perceived to be matters involving people far away whose needs and interests have very little relevance to our own.
However, he argues that human rights issues, such as the genocide in Darfur and military torture, do in fact have an impact on us here in the U.S. and should be a more prominent focus in the current presidential campaign:
Many U.S. actions have colored the attitude of the international community toward America and thereby implicated U.S. national interests quite directly: the "unsigning" of the treaty establishing the International Criminal Court; the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; the denial of habeas corpus to certain prisoners; revelations regarding U.S. use of torture. Moreover, the continuing saga of unstaunched death and destruction in Darfur, Sudan, has cast a pall over the reputation of every country that has failed to stop it.
One might assume that human rights would have been more central to the 2008 presidential campaigns to this point than in years past given the relationship of human rights controversies to U.S. policy and interests—the fact, for example, that how the world regards this country can have a very direct impact on America's national security, and the need, in light of Iraq and Darfur, to clarify when in the future the U.S. should commit its blood and treasure to countering regimes that abuse human rights.
Here at Sojourners, human rights issues, such as the genocide in Darfur and human trafficking, are incredibly important. They are not issues that "have little relevance to our own;" instead, they are central to our mission as people of faith to follow Christ's example of fighting for and working with the poor, rejected, and forgotten.
Despite the disheartening findings of the CAPAF report, I think change IS happening. This shift in values, the desire to focus on ending and eradicating these huge moral issues of our time, is happening. As a member of the progressive faith community, I hear a lot of discourse about this movement that we see happening all across the country, this "great awakening," this spiritual revival that is sparking a social movement.
But you don't have to take our word for it. All of the panelists at the CAPAF event yesterday affirmed that change is happening, and that a lot of progress has been made just in recent months to make these human rights issues compelling national values. In fact, two of the panelists, Gary Haugen, president of the International Justice Mission, and Gayle Smith, co-founder of the ENOUGH! Project, specifically singled out people of faith as being leaders in bringing about this change.
"We're seeing some shift in terms of what values are all about, from values as a matter of personal choice to values as an expression of solidarity and global citizenship," Smith said. "There is the beginning in the faith community of a translation of values from, again, within the four walls of our homes to the far reaches of the globe." Smith cited the increase in attention to the genocide in Darfur as one tangible example.
Haugen agreed, saying that the religious community has contributed to "a broadening of issues to include human rights and international human rights" in the national conversation. He also talked directly about the impact faith had in the abolition and civil rights movements, and how the spiritual foundation of those movements provided a "very profound motivator for sustaining a prolonged, successful fight."
"Religion can be a conviction to force us to act on hard, painful issues. It is a very powerful, sustaining, motivating force," Haugen continued. A force that is having a clear effect again now, he said.
It's true that issues such as genocide and global poverty are big and seemingly insurmountable. But, as the event reaffirmed for me yesterday, ultimately we have the conviction and force to win this fight.
Our final stop is Mussoorie, an hour's harrowing taxi ride up into the Himalayan foothills from Dehradun. And it's dazzling. The town spreads across the hilltops, often seeming to float above the clouds. A short walk over the hillcrest reveals a 180-degree view of snowcapped Himalayas. Beyond them lies Tibet.
Mussoorie is the opposite of Mumbai: serene, beautiful, quiet. Though we all loved our time in the cities this comes as a relief. There's a well-regarded Hindi-language school here, so the town hosts a lot of expats. (It also hosts a lot of monkeys, who tend to swoop down and steal the expats' food off the café table.) Some of them (the expats) attend the tiny church run by our friends, a couple we'll call Fred and Ethel.
Fred grew up in one of the villages that lie in the shadows of those aforementioned Himalayas. No power, running water, or driveable roads, if I remember correctly. His family's faith, while technically Hindu, might be more accurately described as animist. They worshipped household gods. They kept homemade idols.
As a teenager Fred was recruited by some missionaries to assist at a school and it was there that he came to believe in Jesus. (They thought he was already a believer. Oh, that wacky cross-cultural communication thing….) Though he'd never finished the equivalent of high school, Fred went on to get three master's degrees. Along the way he met and married Ethel, also the recipient of advanced degrees. And they felt called to Mussoorie.
If you believe in Jesus and the stuff he said, then the earthly pursuit of justice emerges from Jesus himself. It's Jesus who demands justice and it's Jesus who fulfills it, ultimately. That's a little thing they call the gospel, and what Fred and Ethel do is train guys to walk out to those inaccessible villages in the mountains and tell people about this gospel thing in their own language and cultural context. It's a job that Western folks couldn't do correctly, nor even folks from the cities in India. The villages are too isolated and their language too idiosyncratic for non-natives.
The young guys they train come from those villages and they walk for days to get back to them. Much like Paul, Timothy, and Barnabas. It's pretty grueling work. But these dudes are just filled with energy and joy, and if you ask them to dance (as we did on our final day), they throw down, Garhwali-style.
And at Fred and Ethel's church the songs are mostly in Hindi. It's a real homegrown service but the non-natives in the room are mostly trying to learn Hindi anyway, so it works out.
We had the privilege of driving out to a couple of nearby villages with Fred, Ethel, their three kids, and a few of the guys they train. Imagine unpaved one-lane roads without rails, winding above sheer drops.
Folks out in those mountains and valleys are mostly shepherds and farmers. The farming happens on terraces that stair-step the mountainsides. At one point we climbed to a peak about 12,000 feet up, which is pretty exhausting for lowlanders used to the thick air around sea level. We met a kid up there who was tending some cattle. And when he wasn't herding, he was doing his studies in a little booklet. But the place we met him had a 360-degree view of Himalayan peaks, which would be a little distracting to me if I were trying to study.
Up top there was a little shrine to some unnamed god. People had climbed up and left coins, combs, scraps of cloth and such. Halfway up we'd met a family known to Fred who had some adorable little pigtailed girls. We noticed a number of burn scars on the girls, which Fred had to explain to us. Evidently the local superstition holds that it's bad spirits that make babies cry, so you drive out the spirits with a hot brand. Some of Fred's trainees showed us their own childhood scars. One had been branded as late as age 12. The consensus was that there's pretty much no way to feel culturally open-minded about that. Yeah, don't burn kids: that's a superior idea.
But we gave the kids lollipops while Fred checked in with the parents, all of us aware that it's a long process, this spreading of good news. Note: lollipops help.
Bob's Top 5 Answers to Questions About India:
5. Yes, and don't hit the cow or you'll go to jail.
4. Every day. But Indians don't think of it as "Indian food."
3. Yogurt. Immodium.
2. Like when a ballgame lets out and everyone's fighting to leave the parking lot. But with colorful saris everywhere.
1. Once you get used to the dance numbers, they're probably no sillier than your average Bruce Willis movie.
Video production by Kaitlin Hasseler, Sojourners media assistant, Anna Almendrala, Sojourners Marketing/Circulation assistant and Matt Hildreth, Sojourners web assistant.
While volunteering in a legal clinic in my sophomore year of college, interviewing people applying for political asylum in the U.S., I heard a lot of people describe how they had had to leave everything behind and flee into the jungle, carrying children on their backs.
I interviewed lots of people and read the personal statements of cases already filed, and all the stories were sickeningly similar. The basic skeleton of their stories was this: one day, a group of "communist/insurgent/fill in the blank" guerillas passed by my village begging for food. A few weeks later, a military group from the national army stormed the community, accusing us of being part of a rebellion. After enduring the military's accusations/threats/rapes/beatings/murder attempts, we survivors melted into the surrounding mountains and jungles. We walked for weeks, living like fugitives in foreign countries until we finally collapsed within the border of California.
It was always the same story, the same timeline of events. The only deviations from the testimony were in those grisly details: "all the men in my village were shot in the head," or "all teens were forced to join the army," or "all the ladies and girls were violated." Once I interviewed a client who remembers soldiers kicking his pregnant mother in the abdomen. She gave birth in the jungle, three days later, to a stillborn baby. Another time a child returned from farming to find his entire community shot dead in the center of the village. Once, a man came into our clinic seeking help on his asylum case, and when he told about how he had helped the army gather up all the leaders of the village into a church and set it on fire, we turned him away.
It wasn't even until a few weeks into the volunteer work that someone told me about the United States' involvement in the massacres. The military dictators and officers that created the structures and protocols for combating "communism" in the 1980s and 1990s attended military training programs in the United States. Their armies are funded generously by our government. Some were politically supported in the world arena when they staged their coup d'etats against democratically elected administrations. I know that if the people of the United States heard even a few of the stories from people that had miraculously survived village massacres, they would be in Fort Benning every year en masse, protesting the School of Americas with us.
Anna Almendrala is the marketing and circulation assistant for Sojourners.
In the spirit of tradition and solidarity, the Sojourners interns once again traveled to the annual SOA Watch protest and vigil this past weekend to close the U.S. Army School of the Americas. Officially named the "Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation", the school provides combat training for Latin American soldiers at Ft. Benning in Columbus, Georgia. Graduates of the school have committed atrocities against their own people in countries like El Salvador, Guatemala, Colombia, and others. This year, more than 25,000 people made the trek to the gates of the SOA/WHISC to call for the complete closure of the school and an end to the repressive policies it embodies. Two busy days of uplifting music, speakers, teach-ins, and activist networking ended with a solemn mock funeral procession honoring by name the thousands of victims who died at the hands of SOA-trained military personnel. White wooden crosses inscribed with the names and ages of martyrs were placed at the heavily secured gate on the base. The atmosphere of the vigil was saturated with holy respect for those who had gone before us in the work of peace and justice. Although the school still remains open, the ongoing work of raising awareness and political pressure are complimented by this large-scale demonstration of defiance and dissent.
The majority of our group had never attended an SOA protest, and experiencing a powerful event of this size and intensity was a bonding experience for us. In our many hours in the van, we debated issues of U.S. militarism, our nation's corrupt foreign policy with regard to Latin America, and the very nature of democracy. We also spent time evaluating what it meant for us, individually and collectively, to be present at such an event. As Sojourners, we are called to do direct social justice work from a perspective of faith, even if results are difficult to see. As Christians, we stand in solidarity with fellow believers in Latin America who were and continue to be persecuted because of their beliefs in a gospel of liberation, justice, and freedom from direct violence and structural poverty. As people of faith, we stand with the rest of the world in calling for peaceful solutions and an end to the violence taught by our military institutions. As individuals, however, we vary in our own religious traditions and perspectives.
Allison Johnson is the policy and organizing assistant for Sojourners.
Here's the good news about Darfur: we know it is doable to force the regime in Khartoum to back away from its genocidal divide-and-conquer strategies. We know this because the U.S. helped do it once already: it led international pressure that forced Khartoum to a peace accord and power-sharing agreement with southern Sudan in 2005. If we want to preserve the peace in the south, stop the genocide in Darfur, and prevent Genocide Round Three from happening in Sudan's eastern Beja region, we need to remember the lessons of the last seven years.
Here's the genocidal strategy Khartoum has repeatedly employed: when rebel groups form in Sudan's provincial areas – an understandable reaction to a government that takes callous disregard for its countrymen to new depths – it arms ethnically or regionally-based militias and turns them loose to rape and kill civilian populations, forcing millions to flee their homes. It aims to create as many splinter groups as it can, in order to keep its enemies weak.
Then, when it has managed to stir up widespread violence and human rights abuses, it cynically tries to bill the whole thing as an internal ethnic conflict, hoping to pass off genocide as anarchy. But to buy this line would be to blame the spark of pre-existing ethnic tension, rather than the truckload of gasoline which the Khartoum regime systematically poured on.
They did this in southern Sudan, against Christian and animist populations, for decades. The tide began to change just before the turn of the millennium, when the New Sudan Council of Churches initiated a people-to-people peace process (focusing on traditional leaders and civilians rather than rebel commanders) which did hard, painstaking work to heal ethnic and regional divisions within southern Sudan – divisions which had prevented the region from negotiating from a position of strength. At the same time, a wide outcry from diverse groups in the U.S., including conservative Christians and human rights advocates, motivated the Bush administration to initiate a full-court diplomatic and economic press. After a range of delaying tactics, Khartoum signed onto a peace agreement in 2005.
By that time, they were already into round two of the genocidal strategy, in Darfur: this time arming the Janjaweed militias, drawn largely from groups that consider themselves Arab, against populations that consider themselves ethnically African.
Khartoum didn't think we'd care if they slaughtered Muslims. It is a good and hopeful thing that they were wrong.
But we need not just to care, but also to remember the lessons of the last seven years. So far Darfur peace efforts have consisted of sporadic, drive-by diplomacy which has allowed Khartoum to continue fanning the violence in Darfur, while putting off the international community with false promises of reform, mixed with belligerent bluster. Exhibit A is the failed 2006 Darfur Peace Agreement, which got the buy-in of only one rebel group and gave no seat at the table to civil society.
Peace talks are re-convening in December – read this excellent, concise analysis and let your government know you want us to get our diplomatic act together, now.
Elizabeth Palmberg is an assistant editor of Sojourners.
At its board meeting last month, the National Association of Evangelicals formally named Leith Anderson as its president. Anderson is senior pastor of Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, and has been serving as interim president of the NAE for the past year.
I've had the opportunity to spend some time with Leith Anderson. I believe he is the kind of leader most needed these days, both for the NAE and for the wider evangelical community. He has both the heart of a pastor and the passion of a prophet, and he finds ways to be true to his convictions and be committed to bridge-building.
There is no shortage of evangelicals that have passion about every topic in contemporary life. The challenge here is not to find people who are interested. There are plenty of people who are interested. It's, How do we unite evangelicals in understanding what the issues are and having a moral perspective in how we approach them?
And, in developing that moral perspective, he noted
We have a document that is called "For the Health of the Nation." They are seven priorities that the NAE organizes around in terms of being a public voice.
[The document] relates to religious freedom, sanctity of human life, human rights, and creation care. It was first issued in 2003 and then reaffirmed by the NAE in March of this year. What we're doing is organizing many of the activities of the Washington office and the association around each one. These are big topics like justice and compassion for the poor and the vulnerable.
On immigration reform, one of the most controversial issues in America today, Anderson said,
I'm hoping that in the future we are also going to be able to engage more on the issue of immigration in America. It's a pressing issue that the country needs to unite around. We need to have a biblical voice. We need to recognize this is a high concern for the Hispanic community, which has a large numbers of evangelicals within it. Hispanic churches are the fastest growing in the nation and immigration is a top priority. Up to this point, NAE has not made any formal statements on it. I just anticipate this will be a growing priority and concern which fits under the topic of justice.
I congratulate Leigh Anderson on his new position, and look forward to working with him.
If Mukasey can't tell whether waterboarding is torture or not, maybe he should have someone do it to him, and then see what he thinks.
I'll have to respectfully disagree. Torture that doesn't leave any physical marks but can still cause permanent psychological damage is still torture. Therefore I oppose waterboarding for anyone - including presidential appointees and Fox News correspondents who after a few dunks think it's no big deal. They deserve the human dignity that comes with being created in the image of God. Them and everyone else.
Ryan Rodrick Beiler is the web editor for Sojourners.
One more reason to take up dumpster diving: I've been finding lots of bananas lately, many of them from Chiquita, and many of them from Colombia. I've been aware of Chiquita's entanglements with right-wing paramilitaries, but at least I can eat the fruit with a clean conscience since none of my dollars have made their way up the corporate food chain and back down to Colombian death squads.
A recent USA Today article summarized the scandal well. This was my quote of the week for SojoMail today:
Chiquita's money helped buy weapons and ammunition used to kill innocent victims of terrorism. Simply put, defendant Chiquita funded terrorism.
That's the U.S. Justice Department, in court filings last month against Chiquita for paying off right-wing paramilitaries in Colombia. Here's the rest of the story, Harpers Index-style:
$1.7 million - amount Chiquita paid the Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, AUC), a right-wing paramilitary organziation responsible for the majority of human rights abuses in Colombia's armed conflict
$25 million - amount Chiquita was fined after pleading guilty of paying money to a terrorist organization
$49.4 million - profits reaped by Chiquita from its Colombian operations between Sept. 10, 2001, when the AUC was designated a terrorist group, and January 2004, when its payments stopped. That's a number to keep in mind when Chiquita protests that it was merely trying to protect its workers.
173 - Colombians allegedly murdered and in some cases tortured by right-wing militias that received payments from Chiquita, whose families are now suing the company.
4,000 - number of people killed in the Uraba banana-growing region during the period when Chiquita admits to paying the AUC.
1989 until 1997 - years during which Chiquita paid left-wing guerillas before the region in which they operated was taken over by the AUC
And if this makes you not want to eat Chiquita bananas, here's some more bad news:
A spreading investigation in Colombia into what is being called the "para-politics" scandal may ensnare other corporate targets. Former AUC leader Salvatore Mancuso in May told the newspaper El Tiempo in Bogota that all banana producers had paid for protection, including Dole and Del Monte. Mancuso, who was jailed after turning himself in as part of an ongoing government-backed demobilization, said his group received 1 cent for every dollar of bananas exported. "All of the banana companies paid us. Every one of them," Mancuso told the newspaper.
And one more closing thought:
"It may be true (that) you could not operate in these areas without paying the AUC. If it were al-Qaeda, that wouldn't be a defense," says Terry Collingsworth, an attorney with the International Labor Rights Fund, which has filed lawsuits against several corporations, including Chiquita, over their activities in Colombia.
Part six in a series of posts by Bob Massey, a Los Angeles screenwriter who is currently traveling to India with a team from Ecclesia Hollywood hosted by a faith-based human rights organization whose work in Mumbai concentrates on rescuing girls from sexual slavery. + Click here to read previous posts
Back to Ishmael's office to hear from the aftercare team. We'd already seen them in action, obviously, but to hear about what goes into rehabilitating a trafficked girl is an intense experience. The team happens to be entirely women. In fact, much of the larger office is women, and nearly all are Indian. I want to make clear that this isn't some big American crusade just because Ishmael is from the U.S. This is an effort by Indian Christians. And people from all over the globe support it since the traffic crosses international borders.
At lunchtime we discovered that Pizza Hut here serves curry pizza. That's your big American crusade, if you're looking for one.
In the afternoon we saw the other side of Mumbai at the Inorbit Mall. Turns out malls everywhere are pretty much the same. And it highlighted all the tensions that are the hallmark of this trip. Some of us also caught half of a Bollywood flick at the multiplex. It was in Hindi but you pretty much get it: girl wants boy, boy brings home light-skinned princess, girl breaks into the forbidden room where the ghost lives, there's a musical number, then some physical comedy, boy gets his comeuppance, and so on. We do this in Hollywood by a similar formula. We know the drill.
Flight to Delhi.
Train to Dehradun.
Except the train thing is worth noting because it's not at all like a Wes Anderson movie. Wes, you big fat liar. I mean, filmmaker.
Sigh. I wish Owen Wilson were my friend too. You know that scene in The Royal Tenenbaums when they go confront Owen Wilson's character in his apartment and he's sitting there smiling that Da Vinci-esque O.W. smile, and above his head is an oval framed drawing of some tighty-whities? Okay, never mind. I know you can't say "tighty-whities" on a Sojourners blog.
Anyway, the train was more like - too much baggage, heat, changing money, watch the money belt, ATM won't take our card, insane taxi thing, beggars who are bringing their A-game by trying to amuse the money out of our pockets and it almost works, one insane guy who insisted on getting my address (Ted Nugent, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Washington, DC 20001), missing one ticket, getting kicked out of seats, a thrown rock shattering the train window, and about a bazillion supernice friendly Indian people.
Seven hours later we're at Dehradun. Snagged by our friends Hari and Dr. Reeta, who run SNEHA, a school / health clinic / vocational training center for kids from the slums.
Part five in a series of posts by Bob Massey, a Los Angeles screenwriter who is currently traveling to India with a team from Ecclesia Hollywood hosted by a faith-based human rights organization whose work in Mumbai concentrates on rescuing girls from sexual slavery. + Click here to read previous posts
Bob experiences the big righteousness comedown …
At the offices of Ishmael's organization, we were schooled on the ins and outs of rescuing girls from brothels. We talked with the legal team, the investigators, and the undercover guys. It's real spy vs. spy stuff. But the stakes are real.
So that night we took a little tour of Mumbai's red light districts. To the American eye, they're no seedier than anywhere in the city, and if you weren't paying attention you wouldn't notice the prostitutes. They don't dress flashy or sexy (other than wearing too much eye makeup). But they stand around in the same way that prostitutes everywhere stand around. Pimps loiter nearby. But otherwise it's merchants, tons of people in Muslim dress, street kids - buying, selling, talking, eating, walking, honking, biking, avoiding this or that, etc.
So it was in that context that I was looking at the girls-we-were-told-are-prostitutes and I caught myself noticing one in particular and thinking, "Hm, she's cute."
And, in a flash, there it was:
You're a guy, you're stressed and lonely, maybe you're single (or maybe not), you come equipped with a sex drive, and there she is - some cutie standing there - waiting, available. It's a transaction, no one gets hurt (right?). She gets what she wants (you tell yourself), you get what you want (you tell yourself) …
Probably most of you saw this insight coming a long way off. But it's disturbing to realize there's no great space between cop and perp. It's so weird to be a guy, a male, wrestling with this notion of righteousness. Especially where women are concerned. I mean, there are Russian guys who've written thousand-page novels on this very epiphany, but it's different to feel it push through your own skin.
Not that Ishmael's crew has time to parse the finer points. They prod the cops to rescue girls and arrest pimps and traffickers. But they think about this stuff and pray about it. And they know that, individually, none of them is holy.
Part four in a series of posts by Bob Massey, a Los Angeles screenwriter who is currently traveling to India with a team from Ecclesia Hollywood hosted by a faith-based human rights organization whose work in Mumbai concentrates on rescuing girls from sexual slavery. + Click here to read previous posts
One of the genius moves of this anti-trafficking program in Mumbai is that they don't just bust bad guys and rescue girls from sex slavery. They spend as much effort helping those girls recover.
The girls are set up in a group home where they're cared for, educated, trained for the workplace - but primarily loved. Most of them were sold into slavery by impoverished parents. So you can imagine (actually, no you can't) some of the feelings they must deal with.
In the morning we went to meet the staff and share some prayer time with them. They start the workday as a team, reading and pondering Jesus's words about love and justice, praying, and singing. Gotta say, I've never before been in an office where that happened. You realize: these people aren't just lawyers and such; they're on an actual mission from God.
Which seems like just a bunch of words until you meet the girls. They are between 15 and 18 years old, all rescued from lives of abandonment, rape, and abuse. They look about 10 to 13. They are so cool. Hilarious, talented, sweet, goofy, curious, shy, polite, utterly enamored of Bollywood musical stars and showing us their Bollywood moves. Lucky for us we had David, our heavily tattooed co-pastor who has no shame on the dance floor. David wiggled around in waves. The girls giggled hysterically. It was a blast.
We spent the rest of our hours with them getting to know names, getting impromptu Hindi lessons and then butchering it, making weird little fuzzy muppetish critters out of glue and sticks and fuzzy colorful balls, doing conga lines, and generally being ridiculous. It was wonderful. And then we had to get back in the van to leave.
That's when it sinks in for the first time. We'd just joined a bunch of girls to horse around and be goofballs (polite, well-mannered, sweet-natured goofballs, in their case), which - and let me emphasize this point - is what little girls should get to be.
Here's one thought shared by all the men in the van: men - males - have a lot to answer for.
[Right here is the place to insert Bob's kneejerk impulse to legally mandate slow, painful castration of perpetrators of sexual crimes against girls, for which Bob happily volunteers to hold the sharp knife on every one of the bastards, twice. But then take a deep breath and replace all that with some standard Christian boilerplate about forgiveness yadda yadda, and then to go cite some scripture verse so you people at home can wrestle with the tension between justice and mercy on your own time. But Bob's not actually in the mood for grace at the moment and it'll take him a while to come around, so let's just pretend it happened so Jim Wallis doesn't come put Bob the guest blogger in a wicked headlock. Thanks.]
Okay, but, seriously: someone SOLD these girls. Maybe the parents were conned into their girls would go to the city to work as domestic help or whatever. But, people, what measures would you NOT take if guys paid to rape your daughter/sister/niece/girlfriend?
Part three in a series of posts by Bob Massey, a Los Angeles screenwriter who is currently traveling to India with a team from Ecclesia Hollywood hosted by a faith-based human rights organization whose work in Mumbai concentrates on rescuing girls from sexual slavery. + Click here to read previous posts
Whew. Landed at Mumbai Airport after 20-some hours on the plane. Customs, change money, exit to the madness that is Bombay traffic. (Bombay traffic probably warrants a more lengthy description than I have time for here, but picture the Mississippi River full of large metal honking flotsam and yet somehow everyone but you knows how to get across.)
As we were waiting for the van to take us around this little street kid came over to beg. He's the "before" picture for what was to be our day and our week. He was dirty, not real happy looking, but not especially extraordinary in Bombay. Take a look at his photo. I'll come back to this.
We all trekked out to the church that our host and his family attend. It's called the Church at Powai and it was shocking in its unexoticness. We knew all the songs, it was entirely in English, and it was clear that most of the congregation were educated and basically middle class. The church also does a traditional service earlier in the day and a Hindi service later in the day, so the experience was probably wider than what we saw. Some of you will be thrilled to know you can get Michael W. Smith CDs in Bombay, should you need them.
I should mention Vishnu here. Vishnu is the 22-year-old driver who came with our rented van. We have been watching him drive and we can't figure it out. We should all be dead based on the incomprehensibility and sheer velocity of the traffic here but we haven't even had a scrape. Vishnu is a choreographer. Amazing.
And I should also mention our host, who must remain nameless becuase of the nature of his job. Those that work for his organization are lawyers and others who risk their lives to rescue women from sex slavery around the world. So our host is from the U.S., ex-military, and clearly the right man for this job. Call him Ishmael.
Ishmael kindly hosted all 10 of us at the flat he shares with his wife and kids. We also got to meet 10 boys rescued from homelessness and parentlessness by a friend of our hosts named Solomon. He and his wife started a ministry to take care of these lost boys. They taught us how to play cricket and we made balloon animals and such. See the photo of the 10 little goofballs wearing balloons here.
They are the "after" picture to the kid we met in the morning.
Many other thoughts that I'll update later. Must go now. Please keep praying.
Sunday we had the big sendoff at church. David Batstone (author of Not For Sale) spoke about his findings on slavery worldwide and here in California. It's completely NUTS. Like, the world should be embarrassed. People, didn't we sort this out a century or two ago? But evil is innovative. It seems there are endless ingenious ways to exploit one another. And they say there's nothing new under the sun...
On a completely shallow note, one of the clips they played from the forthcoming Concert to End Slavery film featured a solo piano song by Imogen Heap, which serves to confirm my devastating crush on her kooky six-footness. What, I'm the blogger here; I can't deviate from misery for just one second? The woman's got crazy hair and a thing for social justice. What's not to like?
Anyway.
As this blog goes forward, in case you start to wonder, people and organizations will not be cited by their proper names. Some of them could be harrassed or threatened or worse if their identities were publicized.
Today we meet at LAX for the flight to Mumbai, which, oddly, lays over in New Jersey. Weird. TRENTON, NJ: GATEWAY TO THE ORIENT! You know, one C. Columbus was searching for black pepper from India when he bumped into this here continent. Kinda makes you wonder what he'd make of New Jersey.
Onward...
Bob Massey is a screenwriter living in Los Angeles. He is traveling to India with a team from Ecclesia Hollywood.
So what happens when a bunch of overprivileged Hollywood folks (actors, screenwriters, a grad student, a cameraman, an IT nerd with lots of tattoos, a nurse, a full-time mom, and a purveyor of homeopathic remedies) trek through India to meet with people fighting slavery, poverty, and oppression?
What unites us is some sense of conviction that as followers of Jesus it's unacceptable to stand by while people suffer. And people aren't only suffering in India - they also are here in Los Angeles. So we hope not only to discern how to support our Indian friends, but also to return with new tools to alleviate some of the suffering that characterizes the other side of Hollywood.
In preparation, we fasted. And by "we" I mean Ecclesia Hollywood's 10-member team that's going to India, plus the men of The Lodge (the monthly men's group from Ecclesia), and anyone from church who felt so led. The point was to remember, in our hunger, to pray. The trip only lasts two weeks, but we don't quite know what we'll encounter.
Sunday evening was the last meeting of the India team before we leave on Friday. We turned in the rest of the funds we've raised, our immunizations are done, and most of us have cracked books about India or memorized some Hindi phrases. (Uh, some of us, anyway...)
Bob Massey is a screenwriter living in Los Angeles. He is traveling to India with a team from Ecclesia Hollywood.
Copyright (c) 2006 Beliefnet, Inc. All rights reserved.
Use of this site is subject to Terms
of Service and to our
Privacy Policy.
Constructed by Beliefnet.
We are deeply concerned. Attempts are being made to link Héctor Mondragón to the FARC guerilla movement in Colombia's paper of record, El Tiempo, which has reported on alleged e-mails to Héctor found on the computer of assassinated FARC leader Raul Reyes. Héctor, a Mennonite economist dedicated to the cause of the poor, is a good personal friend. He works closely with Colombia's indigenous and small-scale farmers (campesinos). He speaks passionately and writes prolifically on connecting the dots between the social political violence suffered and multi-national economic interests underlying the current armed conflict. In Colombia, good work does not go unnoticed. He is a survivor; he was being tortured around the time I entered the world. 
Janna Hunter-Bowman works for Mennonite Central Committee in Bogotá, Colombia, as the coordinator of the Documentation and Advocacy Program for Justapaz.
Add to Del.icio.us
Add to Technorati
Add to Digg
Add to Newsvine
Jimmy McCarty is a student at Claremont School of Theology studying Christian ethics, a minister serving cross-racially at a church in inner-city Los Angeles, and a servant at a homeless shelter five days a week. He blogs at 
Christians are people who follow a tortured and murdered God. This fact speaks clearly to what our values should be. One of those values should be a rejection of torture, violence in the name of "law" and the common good, and murder.
Allison Johnson is the policy and organizing assistant for Sojourners.
Virginia Mitchell and Charlton Breen of the Michigan Darfur Coalition (MDC) recently sat down for an interview with Dominic Maurice. Maurice is a former "Lost Boy" refugee from Sudan who has become a U.S. citizen and resides in Michigan. Last week, Maurice's friend, Lopez Lomong, was selected by Team USA to carry the American flag at the Olympic parade of nations in Beijing. 
Ben Sanders III received his Master of Divinity degree from Union Theological Seminary in New York City and is a Ph.D. student at the Iliff School of Theology and the University of Denver. His interests include liberation theologies, and the study of the theological and ethical implications of black religion, race, and racialization.
"God Is Love," inscribed on the tracksuit of the athlete who would become the second-fastest man alive, is what first caught the attention of Australian Olympic official Ray Weinberg in the early '60s. But it wouldn't be until Peter Norman participated in an act of holy mischief for human rights (which became known as the "Black Power Salute" of the '68 Mexico games) that this Australian would so publicly put 1 John 4:8 into practice with his African-American brothers.
My great-grandfather was one of the first Christians in a village near Pyongyang. God's grace was poured over his entire family, but they experienced intense persecution because of their faith. As a result, he "escaped" one night with his entire family from what is now known as 
Eugene Cho, a second-generation Korean-American, is the founder and lead pastor of 
Phyllis Tickle (
Onleilove Alston is a native of Brooklyn, New York, and serves Sojourners in the Policy and Organizing department as a 
Adam Taylor is the senior political director for 
Becky Garrison was cited by 
In January, I was nominated to be one of the Torchbearers for the Olympic Torch Relay when it came to 
Seth Naicker is an activist for justice and reconciliation from South Africa. He is currently studying and working at Bethel University, in St. Paul, Minnesota, as the program and projects director for the Office of Reconciliation Studies. He can be reached at: 
What does it mean to be a Christian in these times? The works of mercy knock on our door. The hungry, the naked, the sick, and the prisoner demand our compassion -- but more, they demand our action.
On Christmas Day a few years ago in Dallas, Texas, Socheata Poeuv's parents called a family meeting to tell her that her sisters weren't really her sisters, and her brother was not her full brother. After 25 years of attempting to live a "normal American life," her parents revealed a shocking family secret that would draw them all back to Cambodia, the home they fled and struggled to forget during the fall of the Khmer Rouge in 1979. As she packs for her trip back to Cambodia, Socheata turns to the camera and confides, "I knew more about the Holocaust than the Khmer Rouge. I knew even less about my own family."
Anna Almendrala is the marketing and circulation assistant for Sojourners. To learn more about Khmer Legacies, visit their Web site: 
The following is an interview with Abigail Disney, producer of the documentary 
Nicole Sotelo is author of 
Today is the commemoration of 
A couple of days before Christmas 1993, I was sitting in my parent's living room watching a football game when I got a call from my uncle in Baghdad. After a very quick hello, he jumped right into asking if my father was home. I told him no, so he quickly gave me a flight number for a plane that was coming into Dallas the next day. After twice telling me that it was very important to be at the airport tomorrow, he told me to give his love to my mom and hung up. The next day we went to the airport and met my cousin and his wife, who had just spent the last several weeks sneaking out of a war-decimated Iraq. When Saddam Hussein ruled Baghdad, his government kept very close tabs on the people. In order to make an overseas phone call, one had to go to what used to be a post office and wait in line. Why? Because the government had agents who listened to all outgoing phone calls. Whenever my family would call, all hell could be going on around them, but they said nothing: "Oh, everything is just fine! Nothing to report here. How are you?" So intimidated by this reality, my father would never say a thing about Iraq or family during phone calls that took place entirely in the United States.
Rev. Omar Hamid Al-Rikabi is a campus minister at the University of Arkansas Wesley Foundation. He is the son of a Muslim father from Iraq and a Christian mother from Texas. He shares his stories on his blog at 
Imagine you're eating at a shopping mall food court when you suddenly hear shouting and see a group of uniformed men (neither police nor army) drag a young man from his lunch a few tables away. "I'm just an activist! I haven't done anything wrong!" he shouts as they cuff him and take him to a waiting van outside. What would Christ-followers do? What would you do? 
Contrast that criticism of Romney with a familiar defense of George W. Bush: "Well, you might disagree with him, but at least you know where he stands." Though this faint praise could be applied to any number of universally condemned leaders throughout history, I keep running into people that sincerely mean it as a compliment, as if sincerity made up for bad choices--something I would think most conservatives would disagree with.
Our final stop is Mussoorie, an hour's harrowing taxi ride up into the Himalayan foothills from Dehradun. And it's dazzling. The town spreads across the hilltops, often seeming to float above the clouds. A short walk over the hillcrest reveals a 180-degree view of snowcapped Himalayas. Beyond them lies Tibet. 
While volunteering in a legal clinic in my sophomore year of college, interviewing people applying for political asylum in the U.S., I heard a lot of people describe how they had had to leave everything behind and flee into the jungle, carrying children on their backs. 
In the spirit of tradition and solidarity, the 
At its board meeting last month, the National Association of Evangelicals formally named Leith Anderson as its president. Anderson is senior pastor of Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, and has been serving as interim president of the NAE for the past year.
One more reason to take up 
Except the train thing is worth noting because it's not at all like 
One of the genius moves of this anti-trafficking program in Mumbai is that they don't just bust bad guys and rescue girls from sex slavery. They spend as much effort helping those girls recover. 
As we were waiting for the van to take us around this little street kid came over to beg. He's the "before" picture for what was to be our day and our week. He was dirty, not real happy looking, but not especially extraordinary in Bombay. Take a look at his photo. I'll come back to this.
Ishmael kindly hosted all 10 of us at the flat he shares with his wife and kids. We also got to meet 10 boys rescued from homelessness and parentlessness by a friend of our hosts named Solomon. He and his wife started a ministry to take care of these lost boys. They taught us how to play cricket and we made balloon animals and such. See the photo of the 10 little goofballs wearing balloons here.
