Syria!

I have been watching what has been happening in Syria and almost have no words, but I would like to try.

I have been alarmed, sad, stunned, horrified, angry, teary, and I don't know what else.

Death, murder, mayhem, torture and the world unable to act.

The UN and its Security Council--inept. The veto holds.

The British Foreign Minister comparing to Bosnia.

The tyrant of a dictator holds sway, killing his own people.

Helpless.

The children--tortured, murdered.


I would urge others to become informed, pray, act online, be there.

Go to Amnesty USA's  Syria page:  learn and act.


I am following two Facebook pages. One is We are all Hamza Alkhateeb. This page describes itself in the following way:

Hamza is a 13 year old Syrian boy who joined his family in a peaceful march to break the Syrian police siege of the city of Deraa, where citizens of Deraa were randomly killed by Syrian security forces. Hamza was one of hundreds of people who were detained, & his tortured body was later returned to his family with his genitals cut & bruises all over his body. We will never be silent. We are all Hamza Alkhateeb.

  It especially focuses on the children, but describes other happenings.

The other page is Human Rights and Justice for Syrian People. It describes itself as 

Global Demonstration and Campaign to Stop the Killing in Syria We are based in Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan, Morocco, US, UK and Australia.

  and says, "We call upon the peoples of the world to stand up and speak up for Human Rights and Justice    for Syrian People." 




May Human Rights, Justice, Freedom and Peace Prevail in Syria -- somehow, someway.


I Declare World Peace.

Occupy Wall Street and Human Rights

I have been thinking about Occupy Wall Street and related protests in regard to human rights and documents pertaining thereto.

This famous line and its extension are in our Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed.

The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution includes this:

Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.  

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights includes these rights:

Article 19.

• Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Article 20.

• (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.

Article 23.

• (1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
• (2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
• (3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
• (4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

Article 24.

• Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.

Article 25.

• (1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

 

 

Obama's Middle East and N. Africa

I have come to believe that my country, the United States of America, is two-faced. We tend to have great values, such as human rights, but tend to act toward other countries, and sometimes against our own people, in a completely contrary manner. I mentioned before that the Native Americans used to say, especially in those "Westerns" of my younger days, that the white man speaks with forked tongue. The Native Americans certainly experienced first hand our contrariness.

In their post for CODEPINK's blog, PINKtank, Medea Benjamin, a co-founder of both CODEPINK and Global Exchange, and Charles Davis, an independent journalist, seem to be saying the same thing about President Obama's major speech on May 20 at the State Department regarding the Middle East and North Africa. We speak of and commend non-violence, but act in a completely different manner.

Here are some excerpts ~

**Given that President Obama daily authorizes the firing of hellfire missiles and the dropping of cluster bombs in places such as Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen, it was awful odd seeing him wax eloquent this week about the “moral force of non-violence” in places like Egypt and Tunisia. But there he was, the commander-in-chief of the largest empire in history, praising the power of peaceful protest in countries with repressive leaders backed by his own administration.

Were we unfamiliar with his actual policies – more than doubling the troops in Afghanistan, dramatically escalating a deadly drone war in Pakistan and unilaterally bombing for peace in Libya – it might have been inspiring to hear a major head of state reject violence as a means to political ends. Instead, we almost choked on the hypocrisy.

* *Yet even for all his talk of human rights and how he “will not tolerate aggression across borders” – yes, a U.S. president said this – Obama didn’t even feign concern about Saudi Arabia’s repressive regime invading neighboring Bahrain to put down a pro-democracy movement there. In fact, the words “Saudi Arabia” were never uttered.

**The president also didn’t deviate from his policy of “unshakable” support for Israeli militarism, typified by his administration’s efforts to safeguard the Jewish state from accountability for its war crimes in Gaza – crimes that left some 1,400 Palestinians dead – and his determination to hand an already wealthy nation more than $3 billion a year in military aid, even as it flaunts the “peace process” and colonizes ever more Palestinian land. 

**Obama’s remarks on the killing of Osama bin Laden were likewise delivered with a complete lack of self-awareness. Describing the latter as a “mass murderer,” Obama – who since taking office has the blood of hundreds of Afghan and Pakistani civilians on his hands – said bin Laden’s philosophy of using bloodshed to achieve desired political changes had been discredited “through the moral force of non-violence” that has swept the region. 

You can read the full post here:  Obama Should Follow His Own Advice on the ‘Moral Force’ of Non-Violence | PINKtank.


Somehow: May Peace Prevail in the Middle East and North Africa. May Peace Prevail in United States Foreign Policy.

Two Regions

I am still keeping an eye on the protests in the Middle East and North Africa while pulling for the people of those countries. I continue to pray for Freedom and Peace for all there. Democracy would probably be good for the region, too, but it would have to be a grassroots version and not one of our making. It also may take awhile to concoct. In trying to visualize the region, I found the map above that I thought might help others also. (You can click on it to view it better.)

I am also keeping an eye on what is happening in my home state of Kentucky whose General Assembly (legislature) is now in session. 

I am particularly interested in the eastern part of the state with its especially destructive brand of coal mining known as mountaintop removal (MTR).

This is really not that far off from what is going on in the Middle East and North Africa. In the Lexington Herald-Leader this morning, satirical columnist Larry Webster said that in the mountains the coal company Massey Energy is referred to as "Ole Massa." The coal companies have ruled Kentucky and especially its eastern portion dictatorially for years. They own both the legislature and the governor.

Kentucky writer Silas House  had an op-ed in the New York Times this morning in which he said:

The news media and the rest of the country typically think of mountaintop removal as an environmental problem. But it’s a human crisis as well, scraping away not just coal but also the freedoms of Appalachian residents, people who have always been told they are of less value than the resources they live above.

I also pray for Freedom and Peace for those in Kentucky and its eastern mountains. Democracy in Kentucky would be good, too.

Uprising in Egypt

I am following the protests in Egypt while praying and hoping. I have not had much chance to post heretofore.

On Feb. 4, though I never read the advice column anymore, I happened to notice in Dear Abby the Thought for the Day which seems apropos: "How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." -Anne Frank

I trust that Egypt will turn out for the better, but whatever happens I know that Egypt, the Middle East or the world will not be the same. It is now a new game plan especially for the Middle East.

I believed that 9-11 should have been the wake-up call for a new U.S. foreign policy. I guess there is always hope that it can start here. The U.S. needs to get away from supporting dictators and corrupt regimes who rule against their own people and against our own values. "White man speaks with forked tongue," the Native Americans said. We need to practice what we preach as another saying goes. Human rights are not just for Americans. I have said before that it is not naive to have a foreign policy based on the Golden Rule.

May Freedom, Justice, and Peace Prevail in Egypt. I Declare World Peace. Power to the People.

Human Rights

I have now added a new page to The Peace Advocate: Human Rights. This page is a posting of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights as adopted by the United Nations.

December 10 is the day set aside for Human Rights Day, but every day should be and needs to be Human Rights Day.

I believe that each and every human life is sacred and each person should be entitled to all the rights and privileges thereof.

Times being what they are, I thought folks might need a reminder and a reference.

The page, Human Rights, may be accessed by the labeled page tab at the top of the blog or at the URL here.

Water!

Note: The Peace Advocate is participating in the Blog Action Day of October 15 that is focusing on the issue of water. This is being posted a bit early.


On July 28, 2010, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution recognizing access to clean water and sanitation as a human right.  According to the press release: The Assembly expressed deep concern that some 884 million people were without access to safe drinking water and more than 2.6 billion lacked access to basic sanitation.  Bearing in mind the commitment to fully achieve the Millennium Development Goals, it expressed alarm that 1.5 million children under five years old died each year as a result of water- and sanitation-related diseases, acknowledging that safe, clean drinking water and sanitation were integral to the realization of all human rights. (For more on the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals and water go here.)


On October 1, 2010, the United Nations Human Rights Council confirmed that the right to water and sanitation is contained in international human rights treaties and is, therefore, legally binding.


In June, the Institute for War & Peace Reporting wrote about a water crisis in Iraq. It noted that a UNESCO report found that 100,000 Iraqis have fled their native communities since 2005 due to water shortages and it further noted that another United Nations report claimed the water levels in the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers, Iraq’s primary sources of water, have fallen by more than two-thirds cautioning that they could completely dry up by 2040.


In July, the UK Guardian reported on a joint UK/US study echoing an Oxfam one showing  that Kabul, Afghanistan and its surrounding area are facing a sever water crisis. The Oxfam policy officer, Ashley Jackson, said: ‘Thirty years of war has left sources of water co-opted, stolen and contaminated. ‘Oxfam research has found that water is now a major cause of local conflicts. Disputes over these scarce resources lead to violence and even, in some instances, fuel the greater conflict.’


Closer to home, central Kentucky, where I live, has been in pretty much of a drought since mid-summer and eastern Kentucky faces water problems due to its primary resource: coal.


The Environmental Protection Agency has said about the method of coal mining known as mountaintop removal including that often used in eastern Kentucky: Mining dries up an average of 100 wells a year and contaminates water in others. In many coalfield communities, the purity and availability of drinking water are keen concerns.


On October 6, the Louisville Courier-Journal reported: “The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is blocking nearly a dozen water discharge permits sought by coal mines in Kentucky, saying they fail to protect eastern Kentucky waterways.”


On October 8, four groups ( Kentucky Riverkeeper, Appalachian Voices, the Waterkeeper Alliance and Kentuckians for the Commonwealth [KTFC] ) filed 60-day “notice of intent” letters alleging that three eastern Kentucky coal companies may have committed more than 20,000 Clean Water Act violations over the past few years. KFTC has a blog entry on this matter here as does Scott Edwards of the Waterkeeper Alliance have one on the Huffington Post.


Water is a precious and valuable resource. It is a gift of God and human life, as well as all life, is dependent on it. However, water can be at the root of conflicts and can escalate them. Military activities can worsen water as can industrial and mining activities. We often think of water scarcity and the unavailability of clean water as far away problems in undeveloped countries. However, as can be seen above there can be problems closer to home.


Please go to the widget in the sidebar of The Peace Advocate and sign Change.org's petition to Ban Ki-Moon, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, in support of the UN's work to supply clean, safe drinkinng water especially to children. By 2015, the hope is to reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water.

A Photo and a Song

This is a follow-up to my previous post, "A Place for the Other."

Here is the photo ~

Here is the song, "Somewhere," albeit the lyrics, from the musical, West Side Story ~


There's a place for us, 
Somewhere a place for us. 
Peace and quiet and open air 
Wait for us 
Somewhere. 

There's a time for us, 
Some day a time for us, 
Time together with time spare, 
Time to learn, time to care, 
Some day! 

Somewhere. 
We'll find a new way of living, 
We'll find a way of forgiving 
Somewhere . . . 

There's a place for us, 
A time and place for us. 
Hold my hand and we're halfway there. 
Hold my hand and I'll take you there 
Somehow, 
Some day, 
Somewhere! 

(Music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.
 © 1956, 1957 Amberson Holdings LLC and Stephen Sondheim. Copyright renewed.
 Leonard Bernstein Music Publishing Company LLC, Publisher.)


I would also like to point readers to Monday's On Religion Forum piece in USA Today, "Division vs. Unity" by Eboo Patel that is posted here.

Patel ends his piece saying, "In America, everyone has a place. In America, we are better together."

A Place for the Other

Here is a short video of  comparative religion writer and initiator of the Charter for Compassion, Karen Armstrong, being questioned about the Muslim community center proposed to be built two blocks from the site of the former World Trade Center. I was quite taken with Armstrong's answer, feeling that she had spoken a truth.






I would also like to point readers to the op-ed e-letter, Green-Dog Democrat, of Joe Burgess of my town of Frankfort, KY. His current issue entitled, "The Washington Post March over Gingrch and other ignorami" is on the controversy surrounding the center. It is posted on the web here.

Additionally, I note that the two arms of my faith community, the Unitarian Universalist Association and the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, sent a joint letter to New York's mayor, Michael Bloomberg, in support of the center.

UUA Statement on Peacemaking

Note: This Statement of Conscience was passed at the recent General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association. It is taken from the UUA webpage that is found here. I commend it and the Association.

Creating Peace


2010 Statement of Conscience

We believe all people share a moral responsibility to create peace. Mindful of both our rich heritage and our past failures to prevent war, and enriched by our present diversity of experience and perspective, we commit ourselves to a radically inclusive and transformative approach to peace.



1.Our commitment to creating peace calls us to the work of peacebuilding, peacemaking, and peacekeeping.

Peacebuilding is the creation and support of institutions and structures that address the roots of conflict, including economic exploitation, political marginalization, the violation of human rights, and a lack of accountability to law.



Peacemaking is the negotiation of equitable and sustainable peace agreements, mediation between hostile parties, and post-conflict rebuilding and reconciliation.



Peacekeeping is early intervention to prevent war, stop genocide, and monitor ceasefires. Peacekeeping creates the space for diplomatic efforts, humanitarian aid, and nonviolent conflict prevention through the protection of civilians and the disarmament and separation of those involved in violent conflict.



2.We advocate a culture of peace through a transformation of public policies, religious consciousness, and individual lifestyles. At the heart of this transformation is the readiness to honor the truths of multiple voices from a theology of covenant grounded in love.



3.We all agree that our initial response to conflict should be the use of nonviolent methods. Yet, we bear witness to the right of individuals and nations to defend themselves, and acknowledge our responsibility to be in solidarity with others in countering aggression. Many of us believe force is sometimes necessary as a last resort, while others of us believe in the consistent practice of nonviolence.



4.We repudiate aggressive and preventive wars, the disproportionate use of force, covert wars, and targeting that includes a high risk to civilians. We support international efforts to curtail the vast world trade in armaments and call for nuclear disarmament and abolition of other weapons of mass destruction. We repudiate unilateral interventions and extended military occupations as dangerous new forms of imperialism. In an interdependent world, true peace requires the cooperation of all nations and peoples.



5.For Unitarian Universalists, the exercise of individual conscience is holy work. Conscientious discernment leads us to engage in the creation of peace in different ways. We affirm a range of individual choices, including military service and conscientious objection (whether to all wars or particular wars), as fully compatible with Unitarian Universalism. For those among us who make a formal commitment to military service, we will honor their commitment, welcome them home, and offer pastoral support. For those among us who make a formal commitment as conscientious objectors, we will offer documented certification, honor their commitment, and offer pastoral support.



6.Our faith calls us to create peace, yet we confess that we have not done all we could to prevent the spread of armed conflict throughout the world. At times we have lacked the courage to speak and act against violence and injustice; at times we have lacked the creativity to speak and act in constructive ways; at times we have condemned the violence of others without acknowledging our own complicity in violence. We affirm a responsibility to speak truth to power, especially when unjust power is exercised by our own nation. Too often we have allowed our disagreements to distract us from all that we can do together. This Statement of Conscience challenges individual Unitarian Universalists, as well as our congregations and Association, to engage with more depth, persistence, and creativity in the complex task of creating peace.

II. Historical and Theological Context

Our Universalist faith in the oneness of the whole human family teaches us that peace is necessary; our Unitarian faith in the sacred potential of each person teaches us that peace is possible.



A. Historical Practices

For two hundred years, Unitarians and Universalists have worked to build peace by removing the underlying causes of war. As early as 1790, Universalists gathered in Philadelphia declared, “Although a defensive war may be considered lawful, yet we believe there is a time coming, when the light and universal love of the gospel shall put an end to all wars.” The Massachusetts Peace Society, founded by Unitarians Noah Worcester and William Ellery Channing during the War of 1812, helped launch the first peace movement to include both those repudiating all violence and those supporting defensive wars, to welcome members of all religious persuasions, and to affirm that nonviolence is humanly possible as well as divinely commanded. Since that time, Unitarian and Universalist peace efforts have continued to be informed by those principles. Though we have always held diverse views on the justification of defensive and humanitarian wars, at our best we have worked together to end the violence of slavery, to promote international law, to liberate Jews and others from Nazi tyranny, and to build the United Nations and other institutions of international cooperation. This Statement of Conscience builds on this tradition by challenging individual Unitarian Universalists, as well as our congregations and Association, to engage in a variety of nonviolent and peace building practices.



B. Theological Principles

This Statement of Conscience is grounded in the following Unitarian Universalist theological principles:



The fundamental unity and interdependence of all existence. The interdependence we have long affirmed has become the daily reality of our globalized world. Our interdependence makes it both possible and necessary that we see the peoples of the world as one community in which the security of each nation is entwined with the security of all others.



The transforming power of love. We affirm the reality of love as a dynamic power within and among us. This power moves us to create relationships of compassion, respect, mutuality, and forgiveness; to love our neighbor; and to recognize everyone as our neighbor. We stand on the side of love when we work for peace.



The inherent worth and dignity of all persons. All human beings have the right to a meaningful and fulfilling life, including physical safety and economic and social well being. All have the responsibility to work on behalf of the dignity of others.



Human freedom. Most human beings are free moral agents with the capacity to make choices and are accountable for these choices. Human freedom may be used creatively or destructively. These possibilities are expressed not only in our individual choices and actions, but also in the institutions and social structures we create. Peace is the product of human choices that empower human agency and extend the possibilities for human freedom.



Rejection of moral dualism. We reject as false the sharp separation of good and evil, refusing to assign individuals and nations into one category or the other. Moral dualism can blind us to our own and our nation’s capacity for evil and to the inherent worth and dignity of those whom our nation labels as enemies. In the midst of ambiguity we can build peace by cultivating the goodness in ourselves and others.



Cooperative power. Power is created and expressed in complex networks of human relationships. Power can be used to create or destroy, to liberate or oppress. Preventing war and creating nonviolent alternatives require the use of cooperative power—power with, not power over. Cooperative power is grounded in a commitment to mutual persuasion rather than coercion.



Justice and peace. Justice concerns the fair ordering of human relationships, including social and political relationships. War signals the breakdown of fairly ordered human relations. Peace is an attribute of relationship; it is a process, not a stagnant state. Peace emerges as our social and political institutions become more cooperative and more just. Lasting peace rests on just relationships.



Humility and open-mindedness. We affirm an open-mindedness that makes us suspicious of all claims of finality, including our own. Humility allows us to take strong stands while remaining open to the possibility that we are wrong or that future circumstances may call for a different position.



III. Calls to Action

Creating peace calls for action at all levels of human interaction. To be effective, our actions must be incorporated into existing structures and institutions, and new systems must be created. We support the Unitarian Universalist Peace Ministry Network in its work of identifying resources, disseminating information, and evaluating methods to create a culture of peace on all levels.



Creating Peace in Our World

We covenant to advocate vigorously for policies and participate in practices that move our nation toward collaborative leadership in building a peaceful, just, and sustainable world, including:



•supporting the Unitarian Universalist-United Nations Office in advancing the United Nations’ efforts in promoting peace, and its implementation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights;



•supporting the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee in ending the use of torture and addressing institutional violence in all its forms;



•supporting the Unitarian Universalist Association and our congregations in influencing public policy decisions made by the U.S. Congress and Administration; and



•participating in international civilian peace building, peacemaking, and unarmed peacekeeping teams.

Creating Peace in Our Society

We covenant to act in the wider community in reducing the causes of institutional and structural violence by:



•supporting Association and congregational initiatives aimed at eradicating all forms of cultural, political, and economic oppression;



•supporting the socially responsible investment of our Association and congregational assets; and



•supporting Unitarian Universalist Ministry for Earth in advocating lifestyles and policies that promote harmony with our natural environment.

Creating Peace in Our Congregations

We covenant to create peace through worship, religious education, and social action by:



•developing Peace Teams to provide training in compassionate communication and conflict resolution, and to engage each congregation in multi-level action toward a culture of peace;



•working through congregational governing bodies to develop and honor behavioral covenants in all aspects of congregational life;



•working through our lifespan religious education structures to provide workshops on conflict resolution and compassionate communication, to encourage understanding and participation in social justice ventures, and to utilize Unitarian Universalist resources such as “Peacemaking in Congregations: A Guide to Learning Opportunities for All Ages”;



•becoming a resource for creating peace within our communities in cooperation with other faith traditions and community organizations;



•working toward the reduction of violence in our communities by supporting community policing, economic development, and conflict resolution;



•supporting veterans, military service members, conscientious objectors, and their families, and providing them with opportunities to share what they have learned; and



•supporting nonviolent resisters and their families, and providing them with opportunities to share what they have learned.

Creating Peace in Our Relationships

As individuals we covenant to:



•learn and practice the skills of compassionate communication;



•honor the behavioral covenants of our congregations; and



•adopt lifestyle changes that reflect reverence for the interdependent web of all existence.

Creating Peace within Ourselves

We recognize that peace begins with each person and covenant to:



•develop for ourselves and our congregations spiritual practices that cultivate inner peace;



•sustain these practices as foundational to wholeness, forgiveness, and reconciliation; and



•practice loving-kindness and compassion toward ourselves, and pay attention to the ethical insights that follow.

In reverence for all life, we covenant to practice peace at all levels of human interaction.



Last updated on Wednesday, July 7, 2010.


Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations
25 Beacon Street
Boston, MA 02108
617-742-2100
info@uua.org



© Copyright 1996 - 2006 Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations. All Rights Reserved.

I Am An Uzbek

"I Am an Uzbek, is that a crime?

This is not a Kyrygyz house, this is mine."

I am an Afghan, I am a Muslim

I live in Pakistan, I live in Iraq

I am a Christian, I am from Palestine

I am Jewish, I come from Poland

I am a Christian, I come from Guatemala

I am a Christian, I come from Mexico

I am a poor American, I have no home

I am a shrimper, I lost my job

I am a human being, I live on Earth

I am living, I am breathing

Is that a crime?

--Anne G. Woodhead

Books!

Books have guided me on my spiritual and activism journey. It seems there is usually another book with my name on it just around the corner.

Here is a list of some books of rather recent vintage that have guided this Peace Advocate and provided the backdrop to my blog. I provide the list by author and group by subject or relatedness. The year given is the year of publication. I share these books to let folks know where I am coming from and with hope that some may perk readers' interest. There are a number of other books by some of these authors that readers may find helpful.


I will have to give some credit to my husband. He and I have both had a chance to read the last few years since our children have been grown and he has retired. He has pointed out a number of them to me and we have had some good discussions.

Karen Armstrong ~ 

• 
  
  A History of God (1993)
• 
  
  Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths (1996)
• 
  
  The Battle for God: Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (2000)
• 
  
  The Great Transformation: The Beginning of our Religious Traditions (2006)

John Dominic Crossan ~

• 
  
  Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (1994)
• 
  
  With Jonathan Reed ~ In Search of Paul: How Jesus' Apostle Opposed Rome's Empire with God's Kingdom (2004)
• 
  
  God and Empire: Jesus Against Rome, Then and Now (2007)

Marcus J. Borg ~

• 
  
  The Heart of Christianity (2003)
• 
  
  Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary (2006)

John Dominic Crossan and Marcus J. Bog ~

• 
  
  The first Christmas: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus' Birth (2007)

Brian D. McLaren ~

• 
  
  Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope (2007)

Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin ~

• 
  
  Three Cups of Tea : One Man's Mission to Fight Terror and Build Nations--One School at a Time (2006) 

Greg Mortenson ~

• 
  
  Stones into Schools : Promoting Peace With Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan (2009)   

 Malalai Joya with Derrick O'Keefe ~ 

• 
  
  A Woman Among Warlords: The Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Who Dared to Raise Her Voice (2009)

A Truth-telling Woman

There is a book I have just read on Afghanistan by a remarkable young Afghan woman. I first heard of it and her through CODEPINK: Women for Peace who recommended it and co-sponsored Joya on a book tour of the U.S. I requested Frankfort's Paul Sawyier Public Library acquire the book which they did. I now recommend this  immensely informational book on the country of Afghanistan by a woman of that country who dares to speak to truth to power, including to that of our own country, the United States of America.

 

 

~ ~ ~ 

 

A woman among warlords : the extraordinary story of an Afghan who dared to raise her voice by Malalai Joya with Derrick O'Keefe

Scribner, 2009.

 

~ ~ ~

 

Book Review

Publishers Weekly
One of the few women, and the youngest, to win a seat in Afghanistan's Parliament, Joya recounts in strong, uncompromising language her march to activism, from her humble origins to recognizing a burning need to bring the corrupted leaders to justice in her war-torn country. Native to the western Afghan province of Ziken, and later Farah City, Joya—a name she had to adopt in order to protect her family—grew up mostly in desperate, unsafe refugee camps in Pakistan after the Russians invaded Afghanistan in 1978. With only a high school education (and one wonders how she wrote this book in English), she nonetheless became a teacher in the camps, then worked to organize underground classes for girls in Herat in defiance of Taliban edicts. Her activism grew, supporting orphanages and war victims after the Taliban fled and the U.S. began air strikes and became an armed presence; Joya is adamant in underscoring the responsibility America holds in reinstalling to power the same warlords (commanders she names in the Northern Alliance) who once tore the country apart during the civil war of the 1990s. Having won election to Parliament in 2005 at age 27—Eva Mulvad's film Enemies of Happiness documented her election—Joya was outspoken in condemning these warlords she called criminals and antiwomen, enduring the shutting off of her microphone, assassination threats and, finally, suspension from Parliament. Joya is on a dangerous, eye-opening mission to uncover truth and expose the abuse of power in Afghanistan, and her book will work powerfully in her favor. (Oct.)

 

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

 

 

~ ~ ~

 

From the book:

 

Either Obama does not want to acknowledge or he is not aware of the main problem in Afghanistan and thus he will continue the wrong policies of the past administrations. He did not even try to replace the defense secretary, Robert Gates, who has been behind the failed US.S. war in Afghanistan and Iraq. If Obama wants to do anything positive in Afghanistan or if he has genuine concern for the plight of the Afghan people, he must first strongly criticize the past mistakes of the US. government. He must criticize how the United States helped turn Afghanistan into a safe haven for fundamentalist terrorists and now helps prop up a corrupt regime and a powerful drug mafia.

 

If I ever do have the chance to meet President Obama, I will try to convey to him these points and tell him very clearly that the U.S. government has betrayed the Afghan People enough. I would ask that he please stop this pattern, and put an end to the ongoing crimes against my sorrowful people.

 

Day by day the Afghan people become more frustrated by the foreign troops and by the "warlord strategy" of the United States.

 

 -page 209

 

~ ~ ~

 

 

From a recent piece by Malalai Joya in The Daily Beast entitled, Memo to America: Stop Murdering My People:

 

 

We can no longer bear the killing of our pregnant mothers, the killing of our teenagers and young children, the killing of so many Afghan men and women. We can no longer bear these “accidents” and these “apologies” for the deaths of the innocent.

 

We salute the anti-war movements in the NATO countries. Here, we will struggle to our last breath to stop this war that is tearing apart our beloved Afghanistan.

 

 

The Side Bar

If readers have not done so, I urge them to mosey up for a visit to The Side Bar in the right of the The Peace Advocate blog.

In The Side Bar, there is an array of non-alcoholic, peaceful selections from which the visitor may choose.

At the top, there is a PINK widget-link for the CODEPINK site, Women Say No to War. Next, comes a peace quote from President Obama. (We hope he believed what he said.) This is followed by another PINK widget-link for the main site of CODEPINK: Women for Peace and one showing that I support us getting out of Afghanistan. Next is a widget-link to the website and text of the Charter for Compassion which I believe is a great document and effort for peace. I encourage visitors to support and promote this initiative. There, then, is a very important little message-prayer-wish-"mantra" for peace itself.

The following section consists of links to peaceful and, thus, Blissful Blogs. Some are CODEPINK-related and some are by Central Kentucky bloggers.

I then have a little section about me followed by the public followers of this blog.

The next section is a Facebook one: a share button, my Facebook badge with link, the Charter for Compassion page, and the CODEPINK: Women for Peace page. 

The next-to-last section consists of a list of peaceful, Lilting Links, including others related to CODEPINK, the UN (I serve on the board of the Frankort Chapter of the United Nations Association.), other peace groups, including some for Palestinian freedom and human rights and peace for all of Israel-Palestine, and also those of my religious affiliation. I also have reminder-reference links to the UN Declaration for Human Rights and the US Constitution. Included in the Lilting Links are also links to the websites of the members of the Congressional Sixth District of Kentucky with their contact information.

The final section consists of The Peace Advocate's blog archive.

Note that visitors to The Side Bar may taste, sip, and drink as they so choose, but overindulgence is discouraged. I hope that the visit is found to be tasteful, enhancing, and helpful.

Please note also that visitors to The Side Bar are asked to leave their weapons without and to refrain from quarreling and fighting within.

I encourage visitors to become Peace Advocates themselves.

Charter for Compassion

December 10 is Human Rights Day; Hannukah and the Christmas season are upon us and the New Year, too.

For the world, please affirm Karen Armstrong's initiative,
 the Charter for Compassion.

The names of all affirmers on December 31 will be sent along with the Charter for Compassion to 5 world leaders whose countries are engaged in conflict.



MAY PEACE PREVAIL ON EARTH! Compassion is the way.