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Contribute to the work of Project Lakota

This note was sent out to Friends by Project Coordinator Candy Boyd:

Project Lakota is in somewhat desperate need of funds. [In early November], we received 4 calls in 4 days from the reservation for assistance and we are still paying for some supplies from the summer (as the summer building season is so short in the Dakotas, we sometimes upfront a small budgeted amount, and fundraise through the winter). As Project Lakota is becoming better known on the reservation, we are also receiving more requests during the cold season for help with utilities, firewood, indoor repairs, underskirting, transportation emergencies, and assistance for elders – some to avoid foreclosures. The snow has already started to fly on the Lakota nation.

The Dakota summer was productive for Project Lakota. Candy went up early and we were finally able to get the land easements secured for Minerva Blacksmith and her 3 families of grandchildren. This meant that by the end of the building season, we had electricity and heat (hooray!) in to all 3 trailers.

In addition to electricity (yes!) and heat (yes!), we replaced a door which had been blown dysfunctional by the storms, put in a screen door, put vinyl tile flooring on top of the subfloor throughout one trailer, brought in tons of gravel for the long reservation driveway which we raked by hand, and helped to replace the old outhouse which had blown over a few times in the summer storms. We networked with another nonprofit who provided an electrician to hook up the electricity and labor for the outhouse, and we saved thousands of dollars by doing the work on the driveway. The grandchildren, children, and Minerva were working every step of the way. Minerva is currently negotiating with the tribe to do the mapping for her waterline and hookups for which we seriously need to fundraise.

The McGaa family trailer is now fully set up with underskirting, handicap ramps, electricity, indoor plumbing and water, and septic system. Hooray!

If you feel so led, please donate to Project Lakota, 7429 Brunswick Ave., St. Louis, MO 63119.

For more information on housing on the Pine Ridge reservation and the Lakota people, please see the following video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIPnl97Kwx4

Many thanks,
Candy Boyd

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QVS Applications Now Being Accepted for 2013-2014 Year

Join an Experiment in Faithfulness in the Friends’ Tradition

Quaker Voluntary Service is excited to announce that applications are now being accepted for the 2013-2014 program year for sites in Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Portland.

Apply
Young adults are encouraged to apply for this year-long program and will be placed in one of our three cities. Participants will live in a Quaker intentional community, serve full-time with local community organizations, participate in a dynamic program exploring the growing edges of the Quaker Way, and receive support from QVS and local Friends meetings and churches. We are partnering with many dynamic organizations in each city where QVS volunteers will work. To see descriptions of our current placements in Atlanta, click here: Atlanta 2012-2013 Site Placements. We will keep you updated as future sites are confirmed.

For more information and to apply, please see: www.quakervoluntaryservice.org/apply.
Applications are due by March 15, 2013.

Spread the Word
A primary role you can play is to help us spread the word about this opportunity to any young adults you know who may be interested and to any people you know who work with young adults. Forward this email, direct people to our website, or be in touch with us about who we should reach out to.

Give
We’re so grateful for all your gifts of support. As we come to the end of the year, please consider making another gift. Gifts of any size help us tremendously. We also have matching challenges in place for gifts of $250 or more so that your gift can have a greater impact ($50 or more if you are a young adult). Please consider a donation today. You can donate online or by sending a check to Quaker Voluntary Service, PO Box 17628, Atlanta GA 30316.

With much gratitude,
Christina Repoley
QVS Founding Executive Director

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Interview with Dr. Zahir Wahab

Windows and Mirrors: Reflections on the War in Afghanistan is a traveling mural exhibit that makes a powerful statement on a nearly invisible reality.

The exhibit consists of more than 45 large scale paintings by artists from all over the country that memorialize Afghan civilian casualties. The exhibit also includes images collected from Afghan high school students by Dr. Zahir Wahab, a professor at Lewis and Clark College, who asked young Afghans to draw images from their daily reality.

It was in June 2011, while teaching in Kabul, Professor Zaher Wahab asked Afghan High School students – boys and girls – to draw pictures of their experience with war. These powerful images have been incorporated into the traveling mural exhibit.

Click here to read an interview where Wahab discusses why Americans need a visual reminder of the war in Afghanistan, now the longest war in U.S. history.

Click here to see the exhibition tour schedule.

Click here to explore the exhibition artwork.

Click here to read more about this AFSC project.

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Finnish Conscientious Objector Joonas Norrena

War Resisters’ International‘s database of prisoners for peace and conscientious objectors is part of the Right to Refuse to Kill programme. It keeps track of known prisoners for peace and conscientious objectors, and allows supporters to access information on conscientious objectors. It is also linked to War Resisters’ International’s co-alert system.

Click here to review a list of activists currently in prison, followed by the latest additions to the database.

A current campaign now requesting your attention is the recent sentencing of Joonas Norrena, a 20 year-old conscientious objector from Imatra, Finland. Joonas Norrena was sentenced to 179 days of home detention for “refusal of conscription” (asevelvollisuudesta kieltÃytyminen) on 26 November 2012 by Kymenlaakso district court. He had refused to do military service in July 2012 in Vekaranjärvi garrison in Southeastern Finland.

Click here to read more about his case and use the WRI interface to send a letter of concern.

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A CALL TO ACTION CONCERNING SHAKIR HAMOODI

Guest Author: David Finke

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Will you please take 5 minutes to help free a peacemaker from unjust imprisonment?

Shakir Hamoodi — a beloved businessman and father of five, well-known to Columbians as a committed bridge-builder between different faiths and cultures — has been locked up in federal prison since August 28th, on a 3-year sentence which we all had expected would be probation according to plea negotiations. He was convicted of violating sanctions during the 1990s by sending money to family members in Iraq when he heard of their dire suffering: we are calling it a “Crime of Compassion.”

Here in Columbia we have seen an outpouring of letters, favorable editorials, public meetings, celebratory dinners, all in tribute to Shakir’s leadership among us, in baffled outrage at the draconian sentence, and with compassion for his stellar family. I am part of a group working with a pro bono attorney who filed a 5-inch-thick set of documents officially petitioning President Obama for executive clemency to commute Dr. Hamoodi’s sentence. I have studied and summarized 60 letters attesting to Shakir’s character and contributions (and could copy you on request). There were even more letters from Iraqis whose family members’ lives were saved due to his selfless act, on which he kept meticulous records. Click here to read David’s August 2012 post on this blog regarding Dr. Hamoodi’s case.

Now, in the next two weeks, we have a window of opportunity to try to get the President’s attention to act on humanitarian grounds to mitigate this injustice which we feel has been done. I’ve been in personal communication with a staff member of now-reelected Missouri senator, Claire McCaskill, to set up a meeting with her to urge her to personally intercede with the President.

Here’s where you can help:

First, read a quick summary of the case and circumstances at the website established by Shakir’s eldest son: www.helphamoodi.org. There is a link there to add your name to the nearly 7,000 others asking the President for clemency.

But we know that this alone — and even the excellent set of documents which we’ve conveyed to “The Pardon Attorney” at the White House, plus two Senators’ staffers — will not suffice to get positive action. NOW: We need a flood of phone calls, faxes, messages on Senatorial websites, and office visits to show our senators that this is worthy of their attention, and invite (urge, demand, plead) that they bring this to Obama’s awareness. Senators listen to constituents: YOU.

If you have only 5 minutes or fewer, I urge you to pick up the phone and call McCaskill if you’re in Missouri, Durbin if you’re in Illinois, and Gillibrand if you’re in New York or anywhere else in the country*. Tell them that you’ve become aware of a situation crying out for Executive Clemency, and urge the Senator to intervene on behalf of justice and human decency. You can offer weblink resources if you wish (“helphamoodi” is an easy one to remember); you can ask for a report back as to what the staffer finds. Phone numbers are at the end of this memo.

Another means of contact is the official website for each Senator. I have found that constituents’ comments there get more response than e-mails, and are far more effective than just adding yet another name to a petition (though that’s important too, to keep building the numbers); I urge you to send letters by FAX as well. If you are able, I recommend a visit to your local Senatorial office, possibly with a delegation of 2 or 3 others with this concern.

I mentioned “the next two weeks” because the Christmas-New Year period is one in which pardons and commutations are traditionally given (though possible at any time). This may be our best opportunity until next year at this time, and we are determined to not let Shakir suffer more time locked away from family, if humanly possible.

I also welcome you sharing this information with a personal note on any of your social media, and announcing in your Friends Meeting or elsewhere. Thank you for reading and considering this. I commend it to your heart.

In peace and love,
-DHF

*We mention Senator Gillibrand because we learned that a staffer in her NYC office saw Glen Greenwald’s article about Shakir in The Guardian, and has possibly brought it to her attention. We now have a direct contact with Gillibrand’s office, and are urging her to work with Claire to present this concern to the President. You could show concern beyond her direct constituency by urging her favorable action.

RESOURCES:
There was also excellent coverage in Newsweek’s online journal.
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I. Senatorial office telephones

Sen. Claire McCaskill:
Washington, DC Telephone 202-224-6154
Columbia, MO 573-442-7130
St. Louis, MO 314-367-1364

Sen. Dick Durbin:
Washington, DC Telephone 202-224-2152
Chicago, IL 312-353-4952
Carbondale, IL 618-351-1122

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand:
Washington, DC Telephone 202-224-4451

II. Senatorial fax numbers

McCaskill: Washington, DC 202-228-6326
Columbia, MO 573-442-7140
St. Louis, MO 314-361-8649

Durbin: Washington, DC 202-228-0400
Chicago, IL 312-353-0150
Carbondale, IL 618-351-1124

Gillibrand: Washington, DC 202-228-0282

III. Senatorial websites for comments:

McCaskill: www.mccaskill.senate.gov/contact/
Durbin: www.durbin.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/contact
Gillibrand: www.gillibrand.senate.gov/contact/

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Doing Time for Peace: Resistance, Family, and Community

The North Shore Coalition for Peace, Justice, and the Environment Cordially invites all to celebrate a book launch and signing of Rosalie Riegle’s new oral history…

Doing Time for Peace: Resistance, Family, and Community

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WHEN:
Saturday, December 1, 2012 from 3:00 to 5:00
Refreshments served.

WHERE:
Curt’s Café, 2922 Central Street in Evanston. (Near Lincolnwood.) Take Bus 201 from the Purple Line Davis Street stop. Curt’s Café provides training to Evanston’s at-risk youth in both food service and life.

WHAT:
In this compelling collection of oral histories, more than seventy-five peacemakers describe how they say no to war-making in the strongest way possible—by engaging in civil disobedience and paying the consequences in jail or prison or by “doing their time” at home while their loved ones are incarcerated.

Included in the book are interviews by Kathy Kelly, Mike and Nettie Cullen of the Milwaukee 14, John Dear, SJ, the Berrigan children, Brad Lyttle, Mike Giocondo of the Camden 28, and many more. A short program will introduce the book.

MORE ABOUT ROSIE:
Born to a political family from Flint, Michigan, Rosalie Riegle has been drifting to the left ever since she met Catholic Worker co-founder Dorothy Day in 1968. Prior to that, she was a typical Catholic woman, graduating from St. Mary’s College in Notre Dame, marrying after a short career in retail, and birthing four daughters. She says Dorothy Day changed her life. “I became active in nonviolent resistance to the Vietnam War and helped to found the Saginaw Valley Peace Watch in Saginaw, Michigan, where I lived for forty years. Oh, those were the days! We were certain our vigils and rallies and visits to the draft board would make a difference, and eventually they did, as the mighty chorus of the antiwar movement helped to end a needless and devastating war. I wish I could regain the hope of those heady years.” Click here to read more…

TO PURCHASE THE BOOK:
You can order “Doing Time for Peace: Resistance, Family, and Community” on Amazon.

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Inside Solitary Confinement of America’s Prisons

Today in Chicago an exhibit opens at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago showcasing the work of volunteer photographers who, hoping to provide some solace, are filling requests from inmates in Illinois solitary confinement. You can read more about what photos were requested, the inmates behind them, and the participating photographer’s experiences by reading this WBEZ article describing the project, which is run by Tamms Year 10, an advocacy group that’s working to close that prison. The future of Tamms is stuck in a legal battle between Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn’s office and AFSCME, the union that represents the prison employees. Quinn wants it closed, but a judge recently ruled in the union’s favor. The governor’s office has said they’d appeal to the state supreme court.

The November/December 2012 issue of Mother Jones also took on this issue with their article, “Solitary in Iran Nearly Broke Me. Then I Went Inside America’s Prisons.” by Stephen Bauer. He writes:

“There was a window,” I say. I don’t quite know how to tell him what I mean by that answer. “Just having that light come in, seeing the light move across the cell, seeing what time of day it was—” Without those windows, I wouldn’t have had the sound of ravens, the rare breezes, or the drops of rain that I let wash over my face some nights. My world would have been utterly restricted to my concrete box, to watching the miniature ocean waves I made by sloshing water back and forth in a bottle; to marveling at ants; to calculating the mean, median, and mode of the tick marks on the wall; to talking to myself without realizing it. For hours, days, I fixated on the patch of sunlight cast against my wall through those barred and grated windows.

When, after five weeks, my knees buckled and I fell to the ground utterly broken, sobbing and rocking to the beat of my heart, it was the patch of sunlight that brought me back. Its slow creeping against the wall reminded me that the world did in fact turn and that time was something other than the stagnant pool my life was draining into.

Here, there are no windows.

Stephen Bauer is touring the Pelican Bay SHU in California, where 94 percent of prisoners are celled alone. It’s been seven months since he’s been back in a prison cell. After being apprehended on the Iran-Iraq border, he, Sarah Shourd, and Josh Fattal, were held in Evin Prison’s isolation ward for political prisoners. Sarah remained there for 13 months, Stephen and Josh for 26 months.

You can read more about Stephen’s experience and reflections on America’s prison system as he shares about corresponding with inmates in SHUs around California as part of an investigation into why and how people end up in these conditions. More than 80,000 people were in solitary confinement in the United States in 2005, the last time the federal government released such data.

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Is Violence our Religion? by Minga

What religion is most dominant in the world? Is Islam on the rise accompanied by its US shadow Islamaphobia? Is Christianity flying high with curving right wing? Is it atheism? Buddhism? No. Truthfully, it’s the religion of violence: our belief that war (with Afghanistan… Japan… Iran… or___ _blank) will bring peace.

I first understood this idea from Walter Wink, who died last year. He explains how Redemptive Violence is the dominant religion in our society. Redemptive Violence is the belief that when someone offends us, violence towards them is appropriate and can heal the victim. How are we taught that violence saves us?

Most of us watched TV starting at a young age. Cartoons and sit-coms are quite violent. The average child who has had 40,000 hours of screen time by age 17, has viewed some 15,000 murders. What congregation can hold a candle to that inculcation into the Dominant religion. No wonder so many of our 17 year olds easily register for the military. Now we have MP3 and dramas that sell violence as pleasurable and entertaining. They want to fight villains like Darth Vadar and Popeye.

Everyone remembers Popeye the sailorman? Wink reveals the plot, “In a typical segment, Bluto abducts a screaming and kicking Olive Oyl, Popeye’s girlfriend. When Popeye attempts to rescue her, the massive Bluto beats his diminutive opponent to a pulp, while Olive Oyl helplessly wrings her hands. At the last moment, as our hero oozes to the floor, and Bluto is trying, in effect, to rape Olive Oyl, a can of spinach pops from Popeye’s pocket and spills into his mouth. Transformed by this gracious infusion of power, he easily demolishes the villain and rescues his beloved. The format never varies. Neither party ever gains any insight or learns from these encounters. They never sit down and discuss their differences. Repeated defeats do not teach Bluto to honor Olive Oyl’s humanity, and repeated pummellings do not teach Popeye to swallow his spinach before the fight.”

So the US drones on a similar trajectory as Popeye (or are we Bluto?). We conquer Germany, and then fascism rises its head again. We fight Al Queda in one country and then invade another country endlessly fighting around the world like Popeye from one episode to another. We appear to vanquish the enemy, but violence never brings us peace. It’s delusionary. Wink again, “Our origins are divine, since we are made from a god, but…We are the outcome of deicide.” Even our religion, the death penalty of Jesus, is infused with murder. This Domination Religion is found everywhere.

How is it that this Autumn seems so gorgeous in the midst of living Under Domination? By Domination system I don’t mean exactly apartheid regime. It’s a more subtle form of mind occupation, it’s the ocean of violence and the acceptance of violence all around. It’s bittersweet to see such beautyin the world of Domination. The wind tussles a yellow leaf back and forth over the river’s edge. A seagull soars from a bridgepost and cuts spirals in the sky. Wildlife seems so tame to me after absorbing the Pillars of Violence humans live and breathe. We are savage in our violence. The wind moans through the copse of trees, and despite the stiff breeze the yellow and red-tipped leaves hold onto the dancing branches for dear life.

“I saw also that there was an ocean of darkness and death, but an infinite ocean of light and love, which flowed over the ocean of darkness.” [G Fox 1680s]

Originally posted on Minga’s blog, Pedals and Seeds.

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Farmers meeting farmers

A story of peace from the Huffington Post, published November 1, 2012:

Don Bustos of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) grows the same crops that his ancestors grew more than 300 years ago — on the same land and using the same methods, with a few modern adaptations.

Growing organic vegetables in New Mexico’s Sonoran Desert isn’t easy. Conditions there are different than in many other parts of the United States. Sixteen time zones away, in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) — known as North Korea — farmers can relate. They, too, face unforgiving climates and short growing seasons.

Under ordinary circumstances, traditional farmers from these two countries might never meet. But AFSC, which works to promote peace through programs in 35 U.S. cities and 14 countries, has a way of creating unusual opportunities for partnership and exchange.

Click here to read more about this remarkable collaboration between farmers, authored by AFSC’s Kerry Kennedy and Richard Erstad, watch a video & see photos from the tour.