Dan Nejfelt, Faith in Public Life’s Senior Editor and Training Coordinator, worked at Sojourners magazine as part of his graduate study of journalism at the University of Missouri before coming to FPL. Prior to that, he taught remedial reading and writing to 7th and 8th graders in rural Arkansas as a Teach For America corps member. Dan blogs about health care, the Religious Right and budget issues.
By now you probably know by heart the details of the Jena 6 case. If not, there are many, manygood stories about the absurd miscarriage of justice in this isolated, now-infamous town. The best stories always comes from the people on the ground, though. Who better to capture the essence of a demonstration than a demonstrator?
Fortunately, FPL Board President Rev. Meg Riley and her remarkably articulate 11-year-old daughter Jie have sent us some notes from a march in Jena they took part in on Thursday. Jie sets the stage, and Rev. Riley’s insights after the jump.
A dark parking lot is home to action, to a protest finally happening, Jena 6. I am in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It is 4 o’clock, the air is fresh and the sky reflects black on the trees. I’ve boarded a bus with people, all with the same mission.
Jena is a dusty, barbecue smelling place. We pulled to a stop in front of two old ball parks. We had passed little businesses and woods. The bus pulled away leaving us on a sandy gravel road.
We wandered a bit and then went to bleachers. The sun blazed down on my face, my sunglasses were sweaty. Static metallic voices boomed out from left field. I’ve met and am meeting many new people. Good music. Many different hairstyles and dos. Different t-shirts and Red Cross handing out free chips, Gatorade, water, cookies, rice crispies, etc.
Rev. Meg Riley:
The march is going two miles to the Jena courthouse, in 90 degree full sun, and then back again. Our row includes Bob and Diana Doroh from Baton Rouge–Bob the courage behind the decision to charter a bus, our bus Captain–and also a family of African American residents of Jena. I am delighted to have the opportunity to talk to them. It is two sisters, their mother, and a son Demetrius who, like Jie is in fifth grade. Unlike Jie, Demetrius is not skipping school today–Jena has closed its schools. Demetrius tells me the school was on ‘lockdown’ the day before, and kids were unable to go down the halls to the bathrooms.
Closed along with the schools are Jena businesses, ranging from McDonalds’ and Popeye’s to local stores. They are eerily surrounded with yellow police tape and orange plastic fencing. We are incredulous; all the money these vendors will lose! But we are delighted to see the entrepreneurial spirit of African American vendors, who sell a wide variety of food and rally paraphernalia. We wonder what the residents of this 85% white town expect to happen today.
I ask Demetrius and his family the questions which have been on my mind as I have made this journey to Jena: Are they worried about white violence after all the ‘outsiders’ have gone home? This extended family (which extends into the entire row behind us, more folks of all ages from Jena) is delighted that we are there. They say some folks they know are worried about ensuing violence, but they’re just happy. I ask them if they see any white folks from Jena in the crowd, and they shake their heads sadly. “No, says the family matriarch, and I been LOOKIN’!â€
A man named Timothy who is the ninth member of our row, a slim young man with a battered Bible in his hand, who says “Bless you†to each person he encounters, tells me, “Even if the whites aren’t here, they’re thinking about this. It’s a good thing to bring these kinds of wounds out in the open, so they don’t fester.†Timothy is from another town fifteen miles away. He says life there is very similar to Jena, with whites believing racism is over, all healed, and the people of color holding all the pain of it. Later Jim VanderWeele tells me he did meet one white woman from Jena whose father was a KKK member.
It is a delight to run into one more unexpected colleague, Rev. Forrest Gilmore of Princeton New Jersey, whose black “Free the Jena Six†t-shirt also says “Philly bus.†He tells me that that he is joined by several UUs from Princeton, and that the busride down took 27 hours!
Dozens more NAA buses are held up by sheriffs and never make it. News reports say “tens of thousands of people†were in Jena. In town, there are more speakers, allegedly including families of the young African American men, but the sound system makes it impossible to understand a word they say. Someone tells me it has been announced that the $90,000 bail has been raised to release Mychall Ball.
As the day winds up and we wait for our bus to pick us up, rumors begin to circulate. A young woman walking by says that the third circuit Court of Appeals has stated that Mychall Bell must be released within seventy-two hours. We all cheer wildly. This is the same court of appeals who had said a week earlier that it was illegal to try him as an adult and threw the case out. (Why that decision did not result in his being immediately freed has been the matter of bitter speculation all day.)
Soon someone else walks by and says that Louisiana Supreme Court has dropped all charges against all six young men, and they are now home. We all look like we want to believe it but the cheering is less enthusiastic. Three other people come by and say exuberantly that Mychall Ball is home. On the bus home, those with electronic equipment are desperately seeking corroboration of these great rumors, and when I get back to the Baton Rouge hotel room I do the same. All that an extensive search nets me is that the first statement is true: Within seventy two hours, Mychall Ball must be released.
I report this to Jie,saying happily, YES! At least we know for sure that they have to release Mychall within 72 hours! We can hope that our coming here helped that decision to get made! “Sure it did,†she replies with wisdom which makes me wonder if it can really be that she’s only turning eleven, not fifty, on Sunday, “No one down here wants this kind of fuss.â€
Two news stories today captured the tension between an overzealous, even bigoted government and the American Muslim community. As reported in an AP article (which was included in Faith In Public Life’s newsreel, to which you can easily subscribe for free):
Advocacy groups sued the FBI and the Department of Justice on Tuesday for failing to turn over records they requested on surveillance in the Muslim-American community.
The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of the Muslim groups, alleges that the FBI has turned over only four pages of documents to community leaders, despite a Freedom of Information Act request filed more than a year ago. The documents were not related to surveillance.
The request sought records that described FBI guidelines and policies for surveillance and investigation of Muslim religious organizations, as well as specific information about FBI inquiries targeting 11 groups or people.
The lawsuit states that all the plaintiffs — who include some of the most prominent Muslim leaders in California — have reason to believe they have been investigated by the FBI since January 2001.
This afternoon, Politico.com ran a story and a video of Congressman Peter King (R-NY) expressing concern that there were “too many mosques” in America, and that the NYPD should be commended rather than investigated for its controversial and possibly illegal tactics during the 2004 Republican Convention.
So, Muslim leaders must sue the government to obtain basic information about the guidelines by which the government investigates them while a non-Muslim member of the United States Congress says there are too many mosques, and that Muslims must be investigated more aggressively. Glad that’s cleared up.
Earlier today the Senate voted down an amendment to a defense authorization bill which would have restored habeas corpus — the right to contest one’s arrest in a court of law — to foreign “enemy combatants” detained by U.S. authorities. The AP reported that Sen. Lindsey Graham claimed that giving suspected terrorists a right to challenge their detention would allow them to go “judge shopping” for a sympathetic court. This indicates a striking lack of faith in America’s judicial system and a belief in the unimpeachable integrity of the military and the executive branch.
By contrast, Sen. Patrick Leahy said the failure to restore habeas corpus “calls into question the United States’ historic role of defender of human rights in the world. It accomplishes what opponents could never accomplish on the battlefield, whittling away our own liberties.”
As Leahy suggests, this is not just a political issue, it is a moral one. Faith groups such as the National Religious Campaign Against Torture have spoken out on habeas corpus and torture repeatedly. The two issues are intertwined because the suspension of habeas corpus is one of the key enablers of torture.
As it stands right now, the United States government can hold prisoners at Guantanamo and other military prisons indefinitely, without any access to any defense in court. That is not detention, it is “disappearing,” a practice associated with dictatorships that we used to denounce.
This year in God’s plan, Rosh Hashanah coincided with the beginning of Ramadan. On the advent of the Jewish New year the Jews gather in Synagogues and pray for renewal and hope for the future.
Since the war in Bosnia, which brought us together, we have shared many other perilous journeys to conflict-ridden parts of the world in the quest for Peace. Coming from our respective traditions in which lately there has been an unfortunate seepage of politics into our ideological roots, casting us in adversarial roles, our journey has not been easy. Yet not only has our friendship endured, it has only gotten stronger.
As we prayed at the synagogue and the mosque, we were before the God of Abraham, reflecting on the opportunities and the challenges that we face.
As I prayed in the synagogue this week on Rosh Hashanah I reflected on the Torah portion of Abraham, Isaac, and Ishmael. Brothers lost, living in darkness, separated by fear and jealously. Would Ishmael and Isaac only gaze upon one another at their father’s death? Is not the greatest plague that of ”darkness,” when brothers remain estranged and cannot feel each other’s pain?
Thousands of years later now the same darkness seems to prevail – one brother not feeling the pain of the other. These Holy days, as I search for new beginnings and a fresh start, I am reminded of my faith’s demands of me to respect and sanctify life. On this Rosh Hashannah, as I read the Torah, my journey of hope and trust with my Muslim brother came to my mind. These are challenging time for Muslims, Jews and Christians but also an opportunity. This is the time to turn our errant behavior into good deeds and dispel the darkness. This demands that we stand up to those who bash and demonize Muslims and others, and discriminate out of ignorance and fear against our biblical brothers and sisters. Unless we act courageously the plague of darkness will continue. May our prayers for Peace be fulfilled in our daily lives.
For the Muslims, the month of Ramadan marks the beginning of the Divine revelatory process of the Quran to the Prophet Muhammad. In this month Muslims fast during the day and gather in mosques every night to offer prayers and listen to the Quran. It is considered the most blessed month, in which besides extra attention is given to the needy, the poor and the sick. The Fast must include refraining from anger and violence. The idea of the whole exercise is to refresh a sense of deep spiritual commitment, through which can come renewed efforts to address the prevailing injustices in the society around us.
For Muslims who abhor acts of violence, these are indeed difficult times. The month of Ramadan, which just started and signifies the start of the Quranic revelatory process to Prophet Mohammad, is considered by the Muslims to be a Blessed month. During this month Muslims pray, reflect, meditate and ask for Gods’ help. The mosques are full, charity is at its maximum, and the Quran is read and listened to extensively. They stand in prayers all night to offer special prayers for themselves, their family and the rest of the world, for peace and stability. Islam to them means Peace as it literally does. Muslims must attain and internalize this value above all if at all they are abiding by the teachings of the Quran.
All of this seems serene and peaceful.
During the first night after breaking the fast I stood in prayers at the mosque and was listening to the Quranic recitation of the verse
Those who believe and those who follow the scriptures the Jews, the Christian and the Sabians (a small Christian denomination in Iraq), Any who believe in God and the Day of Judgment, and work righteousness, shall have their reward with their Lord on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve.
My friendship was being reaffirmed. Friendship not just between the two of us but with many others from different Faiths and persuasions with whom I have bonded in our common destiny as the verse was pointing to.
Sadly enough my mind wandered to the daily news of violence and bloodshed committed in the name of Islam. I feared that this month in which all warfare must stop and all bloodshed must end, will be washed away in a torrent of blood, blood of innocent people, Muslims and non-Muslims. This seemed overwhelming for a moment, but the spirit of Ramadan again prevailed in reminding me how emphatic the Quran is in condemning mischief and mayhem. These daily acts of violence are morally offensive in the Quranic sense and give a contrary image of Islam.
The Quran’s declaration in the verse quoted above stood out in my mind. It seemed that it was addressing all of us who believe in our faiths’ commitment to Peace and Justice. It reaffirms not only our friendship but our work together. We must continue to speak out boldly and act against those who are committing these acts in the name of their religion. Realizing that these misguided people will continue to unleash acts of terror on anyone and anywhere in the name of religion, the need for the Muslims to raise their voice and act is urgent. Bold condemnation of these acts, whether committed by individuals, groups of people or even governments, is the right action from our faith perspective. We must not be intimidated.
We know and are convinced through our friendships that the universal ethical calling of a just peace cannot be readily answered if we live only among ourselves. We have learned that we can no longer act as if only what happens in our immediate communities matters. We must act to show that we owe solidarity to others beyond our communities in order to better appreciate the universality of human dignity.
This is the essence of the spirit of Ramadan and Rosh Hashanah.
Shana Tova and Ramadan Mubarak
In the synagogue —for renewal and hope they all pray
In the mosque, heaven’s doors are open, they say.
Tell them — to open their eyes and see.
That God isn’t there besides thee.
If you will only look beyond the prayers and meditation,
You will see Him where there is injustice and oppression.
President Bush and Donald Rumsfeld pushed for war with Iraq immediately after 9/11. One and a half years later, they fulfilled their wish by launching “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” and the bloodshed continued ever since.
Just as 9/11 served as a starting pistol for the race to war in Iraq, the sixth anniversary of that abominable day should mark the start of a decisive leg of the long march to peace. Regardless of whether the surge ends, President Bush will prolong this war for as long as we let him.
Religious groups continue to sound a prophetic call for peace. An Interfaith fast, organized by numerous Muslim, Jewish and Christian groups, will occur on October 8, and you can register to organize a fast in your community, or find one near you, at the Interfaith Fast web site.
Christian Peace Witness, which held an inspiring religious service and march for peace on the war’s fourth anniversary, is organizing peace vigils across the country, which will continue occur continually between now and the fourth anniversary of the Iraq war in April. You can register to lead a vigil in your community at their web site.
If peace were easy, we would have it by now. Ending the war will continue to take tremendous effort on numerous fronts, and the movement’s spiritual health will be necessary for its ultimate success. Interfaith Fast and Christian Peace Witness can provide this nourishment. Please take part.
