Volume 6 Issue 43…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race…October 31, 2003

To War
By John Mills

He said it once. It's a crusade.
Then his handlers made him stop,
Thinking the word might alarm
Muslims and others attuned
To religious conflict
And warring.

I thought it was an oil war
He wanted.
To support his business friends
And satisfy our appetite.

But now I see:
He charges "Evil"
As a Christian judgement,
Adding religious purpose
To his quest.

None of this is missed by those we will attack.
They have generations
Of experience in
Religious warring.

We are over our heads
And wrong besides.
I say "we" because
He won't do the fighting.

About Me: In Bush's crusade, neither he nor his cronies will do any dying! Poet John Mills' To War succinctly says what transpired in the runner up to the Iraqi conflict. A Nashville, IN potter, Mill's poem highlights the contradictory reasons given for the war.

Reject Ramadan Repast

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." - Galileo Galilei

US Muslims, fed up with the anti-Islamic policies of the Bush administration, are calling for a boycott of the White House Ramadan dinner. Ramadan is the ninth month of the Muslim calendar during which the revelation of the Koran to Mohammed is commemorated by abstention from food, drink and other bodily pleasures between sunrise and sunset. For the past two years, the White House has invited leading Muslim groups and activists to a celebration of the holy month.

In the past, the dinner has been well attended by a group that voted for Bush in 2000. Accusing some Muslims of political naiveté, Imam Naji Ali of Project Islamic Hope advised them to seek a presidential candidate for 2004 that will serve their interests. Ali called on US Muslims to reject this Ramadan repast and stop being exploited by an administration whose policies they exert no influence over. As evidence, he cited inconsistent statements made by Bush and administration officials and a foreign policy responsible for the deaths of innocent Muslims in a number of countries.

Bush has consistently maintained that the war on terror is not a war on Islam, but his policies make little distinction between the forces of terrorism and Islam. The appointment of an "Islamaphobic" Daniel Pipes to the US Institute of Peace was a slap in the face of the Muslim community. In rejecting the Ramadan repast, Ali also criticized the Defense Department for inviting Rev. Franklin Graham to deliver a speech at the Pentagon. A respected member of the Christian community, Graham has called Islam "a very evil and wicked religion," an assessment shared by some Bush administration insiders.

The Crusades

Occurring within the context of the Inquisition, nine Crusades (1096-1291) were ostensibly undertaken to free Jerusalem and recover the Holy Sepulcher, the tomb of Christ, from Muslims. Central Asian Turks, who in 1071 captured Jerusalem, adopted Arabic culture and championed Islam, controlled Palestine, the holy sites of Christendom and threatened the Byzantine Empire of Alexius I. Thus, Pope Urban II's November 26, 1095 appeal at the Council of Clermont to recover Jerusalem received an enthusiastic response from the laity, especially the secular princes of Western Europe.

The first crusade (1096-99) was initially fought by French and German peasants that were massacred in Asia Minor. A second force led by Godfrey of Bouillon captured Jerusalem (1099), slaughtering thousands of Jews and Muslims. The Latin kingdom of Jerusalem and fiefs at Tripoli, Antioch and Edessa were established. In 1144, Turks recaptured Edessa, igniting the second crusade (1147-48). Led by Louis VII of France and Conrad III of Germany, mutual jealousy doomed their attack on Damascus. In 1187, Muslims, under Saladin, captured Jerusalem, provoking the third crusade (1189-92). Rivalry among forces led by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I, Philip II of France and Richard I of England doomed efforts to reclaim Jerusalem. Richard did capture Acre, a few coastal towns and made a truce with Saladin granting pilgrims access to Jerusalem.

Venetians and claimants to the Byzantine throne from Egypt diverted the fourth crusade (1201-04) to Constantinople. Crusaders pillaged the city and set up the Latin Empire of Constantinople (1204). A Children's Crusade (1212) of 30,000 young people attempted to conquer the Holy Land after their elders failed. Many died of disease, starvation and the treacherous trip over the Alps. Most of the survivors were sold into slavery by unscrupulous seamen on reaching the Mediterranean.

The fifth and final crusade (1218-21) launched by a papal legate against Egypt, the center of Muslim power, failed when crusaders had to be evacuated from floodwaters near Cairo. On the sixth crusade (1228-29), the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II claimed title to Jerusalem and secured the city for Christians through peaceful negotiations. In 1244, it again fell to Muslims. Led by Louis IX, the seventh crusade (1248-54) to Egypt ended with his capture at Mansura. He undertook the eighth crusade in 1270 only to die at Tunis. Muslims gained control of Acre, the last Christian city, in 1291.

Many crusaders, like followers of modern-day evangelicals, believed the crusading sermons and died fighting foreign wars hoping to gain nirvana. Desperate to escape famine and pestilence at home, the refuse of Europe created a wave of immigration. For many, pilgrimages to the golden East were much like the later treks to the gold fields of the North American West.

Although begun by the Church, the most powerful forces driving the crusades were the greedy ambitions of younger sons of the nobility that hoped to gain through wars in foreign lands what could not be inherited by peaceful means at home and the commercial interests of merchants eager to acquire spices, cloth and other goods from the East more directly and cheaply. Largely military failures, since they did not free the Holy Land or create a Holy Roman empire, the crusades did, through prolonged contact with the East, change Western European culture and stimulate trade. (Sources: World History and Encyclopedia Britannica)

Disgruntled feels: Stonewalled! When the 9-11 attacks went down, some skeptics screamed CIA fundraiser, i.e., blame terrorists for an inside job to get more government funding. It occurred just as Israel and the US needed a catalyst to justify driving some well-placed screws into oil-rich Middle East nations and end WCAR discussions on racism and reparations. The more we learn about 9-11, the more its seems the skeptics, including former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, were right to view the oversimplified explanation of Islamic terrorism with suspicion. To prevent the public from acquiring more information, the Bush White House has stonewalled the 9-11 commission.

Disgruntled wants to know: Good and evil are most often presented in shades of gray, rarely in black and white. A religious zealot I am not, but as a spiritual being, some things worry me a lot. For example, the news from Croatia that a gang of nursery school toddlers viciously attacked a playmate is disturbing. While I am not homophobic, the Anglican bishop who sees a problem with gays leading the congregation makes valid points based on his interpretation of biblical scripture. With the death and destruction of war a daily fact of life and other things that are not quite right, could we be experiencing the end of time or just more moral decline?

Disgruntled says: In an unprovoked attack, Israel, the only Middle East nation with nuclear weapons, bombed "suspected terrorist training" camps inside Syria. Violating a sovereign nation's territory is an illegal act under the UN charter. In addition, Israel is in flagrant violation of dozens of UN resolutions. Responding to the recent resolution demanding that Israel remove its fortified fence, Israel declared it would not. Moreover, it announced intentions to build more apartments in occupied territory and, to punctuate its defiance, Israel bombed three PLO buildings near an illegal settlement. Laying out its reasons for war in Iraq, George W. Bush claimed Iraq was in violation of a number of UN resolutions. Rather than hold Israel to the same standard and enforce compliance, Bush will only say the nation has a right of self-defense. The obvious double standard surely exacerbates US-Middle East relations.

Fair Trade Fight

Immediately following the completion of negotiations on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994, discussions about its expansion under the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) commenced. Held December 1994 in Miami, Florida, the opening Summit of the Americas included the heads of state and government of every nation in the region, except Cuba. If implemented, FTAA will progressively eliminate the investment and trade barriers that exist among the region's thirty-four democracies. The Summit's Declaration of Principles and Plan of Action included an agreement to complete negotiations on FTAA by the year 2005. The deadline was later confirmed as January 2005 with entry into force as soon as possible thereafter, no later than December 2005.

Since the 1994 confab, several summits and seven ministerial meetings have been held behind closed doors with little input from citizens, but plenty of suggestions from corporations. However, in keeping with its commitment to transparency, FTAA ministerial agreements, history and other information can be accessed at its official website http://www.ftaa-alca.org.

Opponents of FTAA claim it is one more example of the kind of free-market fundamentalism that has created a global race to the bottom. The implementation of FTAA will bring further erosions of environmental protection, engender greater declines in workers' livelihoods and sanction more violations of human rights. Activists opposed to its implementation have only to cite the consequences of the implementation of NAFTA, which has been a disaster for working families and the environment in the US, Canada and Mexico. In the US, millions of high-paying manufacturing jobs have been exported to relatively low wage developing countries, causing a decline in the standard of living of US families while exploiting Third World workers under sweat-shop conditions.

Activists across the Americas are mobilizing resources and educating the public in an effort to stop FTAA! Preparations are being made for peaceful demonstrations at the next FTAA ministerial meeting November 20-21, 2003 in Miami, Florida. For more about the Stop FTAA campaign, see http://stopftaa.org or contact ftaa@globalexchange.org to get involved.

Muslims United?

On the eve of George W. Bush's recent trip to the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, Malaysia Prime Minister Mahathir Bin Mohamad urged the world's 1.3 billion Muslims to unite in a speech before the tenth gathering of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC). The call for unity to disprove the negative perception of Islam as a religion of backwardness and terror must have reached Muslims throughout the six countries visited by Bush.

Flanked by an unprecedentedly large security contingent, Bush was greeted by thousands of protestors on each leg of his trip. According to Asian polls, Bush's popularity rating is the lowest of any US president in recent history. To punctuate that assessment, his talks with Japan and China regarding their intervention in global money markets to shore up the dollar, rather than allowing their currencies to float, fell flat.

Indeed, the call for Muslim unity does not bode well for the US-led occupation or Bush's reelection, should conditions further deteriorate in Iraq. There are already indications that the US military presence in the region has become a magnet for Islamic pilgrims. While Bush first used the term crusade to elevate his war on terrorism by giving it some grand religious significance, it may well backfire, if Muslims throughout the diaspora unite to defend Islam, the obvious object of Bush's aggression. It would reverse the historic crusades.

by John Burl Smith

Never having read the J. R. R. Tolkien novel on which The Lord of the Rings trilogy is based, I was not disturbed as Roger Ebert (Chicago Sun-Times 12-18-02) that the second installment, The Two Towers, was not a replica. Without such a frame of reference, the cinematic world director Peter Jackson created offers a realistic portrayal of human emotions and responses in times of crisis. The message is clear, we choose a direction as each decision brings us closer or takes us further away from truth as we interface with the environment.

On Frodo (Elijah Wood) and Sam's (Sean Astin) epic journey to destroy the ring, a symbol of evil, the disparate band of warriors, which includes Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and Gimli (John Rhys-Davis), are scattered. The Lord of the Rings is a metaphor for life, like The Wizard of Oz or The Emperor's New Clothes. Embodying strange creatures with distinct personalities, Jackson presents The Two Towers as a kind of humanoid primordial stew. Poignantly, he dramatizes the soul's struggle against dark forces in the mind as decisions are made. Veritably in the physical and psychological evolution of homo sapiens, the dangers surrounding ultimate power looms like a wraith, haunting both waking and sleeping hours. Symbolized by the ring and those desperate to possess it, choices test the humanity of all who are tantalized by or obsessed with the ring and its powers.

Pitting greed against charity as a counterpoint to action, The Two Towers masterfully juxtaposes good and evil, justice and injustice. Pursued by Dark Lord Sauron's minions, hobbits, elves, dwarfs, wizards, humans and other inhabitants of Middle-earth overcome anatomical, cultural and philosophical differences in order to survive. The centrality of justice and right binds them in a desperate battle against incredible odds. Facing a titanic struggle with certain death for some at "Helms Deep," Jackson's symbolic characters clarify the importance of each role in the outcome as action unfolds. Typifying life, major characters do not always play the most important roles. Neither size, appearance nor rank determines contributions to achieving goals.

I recommend viewing The Two Towers as a family activity. It provides the opportunity for parents to explain the choice between good and evil. Moreover, all family members can examine implications for justice and the role greed plays in making those choices. It also is an excellent vehicle to explore the reality of violence in a context void of blood and gore.

Summarily, Sam's admonition to Frodo, "Some things are worth fighting for," is also a message for parents today. Children need to know that in real life war is never heroic or romantic, even if it is necessary. Always tragic for poorly educated debt-ridden people, the horrific battle at "Helms Deep" exemplifies the carnage of war. Synonymously, greedy powerful nations with mighty armies and weapons of mass destruction fight desperate poor people in countries across the African continent, Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine. Hopelessly outnumbered and backed against the wall, these are people, not dwarfs, elves or wizards, forced to confront man's ultimate acts of evil. Powerless to stop the violence raining down, for them life is not a metaphor, but a desperate struggle for survival.

Email www.aljazeera.net In July, the evangelical organization Jerusalem Prayer launched a campaign to help Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. According to its chairman, Pastor Michael Evans, "We don't support the road map. The Bible is our road map." One of the main US evangelical lobbyists for Israel, Rev Jerry Falwell spelled out the evangelical attitude in his book, the Fundamentalist Phenomenon (1981): "To stand against Israel is to stand against God. We believe that history and scripture prove that God deals with nations in relation to how they deal with Israel."

Email jsonofgod@hotmail.com As calls for an independent investigator heats up over the outing of former ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife, there are reports that Wilson is about to drop a bombshell sure to shatter the administration's credibility. Supposedly, he can substantiate claims administration officials made up or distorted war stories, including fabricating details about the "rescue of Pvt. Jessica Lynch."

Email theafricanhedonist@juno.com If we couldn't and didn't give UN inspectors 4 months to find WMD, why should Mr. Kay get 6-9 more months and more money? The American public must be more gullible than an a**s' behind! We should be lynching Bush and his inner circle for lying and wasting our precious dollars on some stupid war. Alas, mainstream media are owned by a few well-heeled folks, thanks to consolidation, etc., but that is what we call democracy right? The right to bamboozle the general public!

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