The “clean record” law was a bold proposal that banned any politician convicted of crimes like corruption and money laundering from running for office. With nearly 25% of the Congress under investigation for corruption, most said it would never pass. But after Avaaz launched the largest online campaign in Brazilian history, helping to build a petition of over 2 million signatures, 500,000 online actions, and tens of thousands of phone calls, we won!

Avaaz members fought corrupt congressmen daily as they tried every trick in the book to kill, delay, amend, and weaken the bill, and won the day every time. The bill passed Congress, and already over 330 candidates for office face disqualification!

One Brazilian member wrote to us when the law was passed, saying:

I have never been as proud of the Brazilian people as I am today! Congratulations to all that have signed. Today I feel like an actual citizen with political power. — Silvia

Our strategy in Brazil was simple: make a solution so popular and visible that it can’t be opposed, and be so vigilant that we can’t be ignored.

This victory shows what our community can do – at a national level, in developing nations, and on the awful problem of corruption. Anywhere in the world, we can build legislative proposals to clean up corruption in government, back them up with massive citizen support, and fight legislators who try to block them.

France’s Le Monde called our “impressive and unprecedented petition” campaign a “spectacular political and moral victory for civil society.” And while this victory may be a first, we can make it the precedent for global citizen action.

• Read the Calls to Political Partiesfrom the Australian Council for International Development
• Find and attend a Make Poverty History Forum near you
• Find and attend a Survive Past Five 5th Birthday Party near you

Angie Andrews

The thing I have held most dear through the years is

a vision of hospitality as a way of life.

It is a vision I have nurtured

in my self,

in my nuclear family

and in my extended family.

I believe it is the legacy of Jesus,

which I want to pass on

to my children

and to my children’s children.

From 1973 to 1985

Dave and I lived in communities in Afghanistan and India.

These communities provided us with wonderful opportunities

to learn how to live out a vision of hospitality in the vortex of chaos:

comforting each other in our brokenness in the context of our battering,

encouraging one another to find a way forward through our bewilderment.

I used take refuge on the roof of our house every day.

I’d pray for God to give me the strength to live with the pain.

I’d turn for advice to my spiritual guide, who – at the time – was Mother Teresa.

I’d read her writings, reflect on her words, and seek to `do God’s will with a smile.’

Gradually our intentional communities grew into therapeutic communities.

The addicts we met in drug dens,

the patients we visited at the hospital,

the prisoners we welcomed from the penitentiary

found their way to our house, found their way into our heart and found it a place of healing.

And in their healing we found our healing.

In 1985

Dave and I returned to Australia.

We were determined to live in Australia

in the light of the lessons we had learnt in Afghanistan and India.

We prayed that we could preserve our vision of hospitality

and reinterpret how we could live out the value of compassion in this place.

I knew I could only start where I was with what I had.

Where I was – was in a neighbourhood with all these wallahs[1] who were marginalized.

And what I had – were all my rels[2] looking on to see what I was going to do.

So with some forty first cousins in all watching over my shoulder

I began to write the next chapter of the history of our family in this area.

Had I given it a title at the time, I would have called it ‘Inclusion’.

I knew that if I was going to translate my experience

of hospitality in Afghanistan and India

into my community in Australia,

it would need to start with inclusion.

Inclusion was important for me,

because I had learnt that at the heart of hospitality was compassion

and that compassion with open arms always started with inclusion.

So I began by including

the marginalized people I met in the neighbourhood

into the core of my family

by treating all the wallahs I befriended as my rels.

As you can imagine many of my rels

would stop me in the street and ask me:

`Angie why are you doing this?

You are a good girl, why are you hanging around with these (bad) people?’

I would tell them that:

`They are not bad people. They are troubled people.

Because many of them have had bad things happen to them in their lives.

And you’d be troubled too, if the same things had happened to you.’

`Yes. Angie. That may be true.

But why should you be involved with them?

After all, you are a mother, with your own children

and you should be caring for your own children.’

`That’s exactly the point.’

I would say.

`I believe God wants us

to care for our children

and to teach them to care for others

just like their own relatives.’

I was really happy

when my daughters Evonne and Navi

began to bring troubled people home.

I remember Evonne going out of her way

to befriend lonely kids at school

and brining them home for me to meet

so we could talk with them

about how we could support them.

I remember Navi bringing home

a fourteen year old girl

who was pregnant.

She was under a lot of pressure

to abort her baby.

So we talked with her about her options.

And said that

if she wanted to keep her baby,

and needed a place to stay,

She was more than welcome to stay with us

One of the basic rules in community work is:

never do on your own what you can do with others.

So when I began including

the marginalized people I met in the neighbourhood

into the core of my family

by treating all the wallahs I befriended as my rels,

I invited others to join me on my journey.

A group of students

told me they were interested;

so we decided

to go on the journey of together.

We used to meet at my house

study a passage about the importance of inclusion

from a book I had by Mother Teresa,

remind ourselves of the people in our neighbourhood who were forgotten

then visit a group living with disabilities in a hostel

run by Norma Spice in Russell Street West End.

One day I remember saying to these students

that if we were really going to relate to these wallahs as our rels

we needed to not only visit them in their hotels,

but also invite them back to our own homes.

The students said they were happy enough to visit people in the hostels,

but were afraid to invite people back to their own homes.

But I said to them, as followers of Jesus, we are called to ‘not be afraid:’

to ‘not be afraid’ to relate to these ‘brothers and sisters’ as our ‘family’.

I knew one of the students was having a house warming party that weekend.

And I encouraged her to invite the hostel wallahs as well as her other rels.

Eventually she decided to include them, and they had such a great time

that they became good friends and have stayed good friends till today.

It was the beginning of a revolution of inclusion.

As word went around about what we were doing

others asked to join us.

We would talk to them

about the legacy of Jesus,

about his vision of hospitality as a way of life,

about his call to be filled to overflowing with a spirit of compassion.

We would specifically talk to them

about Jesus’ challenge to include people in our parties

who were left off other people’s party lists.

As a result of these discussions

we decided to host an open community meal

on a Friday night at someone’s house every fortnight.

Right from the start we decided this would be

a shared meal -

where everyone was encouraged to bring something to share,

rather than a soup kitchen -

where everything was provided by someone else.

So right from the start there was an expectation

that not only would everyone be included

but also everyone would contribute.

Those who had more brought hot pots.

Those who had less brought tea bags.

And the tradition continues to this day.

What has changed over time is how people interact.

When we started the community meal

there was very little direct eye contact.

People used to come in silence, with no smiles.

With their heads hung down, they would collect their meal

eat their meal without talking to anyone and leave as quickly as they could.

Now, people arrive hours early and stay on as late as they can.

There is lots of hubbub as people greet each other and give one another hugs.

There are still some people who choose to sit in silence;

but most people laugh and cry as they talk over their meal about their week.

And most people are happy to pitch in with setting up, serving and cleaning up.

Over the years it has become clear

that through the spirit that is at work within us

- somehow or other – none of us knows how -

we have discovered the power

to help one another and to heal one another.

One night when I was sick

Ted came to my house.

He stood outside in the dark.

I could not see him; but I could hear his voice;

saying he felt for me and he was praying for me.

It was as if an angel had come to comfort me.

Another night, when my brother died,

(after he had thrown himself off the Storey Bridge)

Dave was telling people about his death.

And Dean came up to Dave,

wrapped his arms around him and said:

`Don’t worry Dave. I’ll be your brother-in-law’.

When my (adopted) daughter Navi

(who was born in Nepal)

was being taunted by racist skinheads,

it was people from a nearby hostel

who came to her aid

and offered her their protection.

And when my daughter Evonne

decided to marry Marty,

she extended an open invitation

to all the people from the hostels.

Many of them attended the wedding

and some of them were in the wedding party.

The presence of these wallahs

together with the rest of our rels

was a small glimpse of heaven on earth.

I always wanted to be mindful of

those who were far away,

as well as those who were nearby.

When we bought a house,

we bought at the bottom end of the market

and decided to pay the mortgage off little by little

so we could set aside money to give to others overseas.

When Navi turned eighteen, she wanted to track down her birth family.

We flew to Nepal and tracked down her sisters and their families.

Two of the three sisters were very poor,

so we helped them buy small plots of land and build their. own houses.

I wanted to welcome strangers — particularly refugees — who came from far off lands

so I joined the Refugee Learning Centre in West End.

There I was able to meet refugees, welcome them to Australia, teach them English,

talk with them one by one, listen to their stories, assess their needs

and then find volunteers in the community who were happy to help them.

These volunteers eventually became known as the West End Refugee Support Group.

Twice a year for the last twenty years

I have taken a session in the community orientation course we run

when I talk about the work of the West End Refugee Support Group.

I continually stress that the core role of our volunteers

is to use the opportunity of helping refugees

to be with them, befriend them and be faithful to them in their time of distress –

dispossessed of country, property, family, friends and even their own identity.

Sara Parrott and Ewen Heathdale started a no-fees no-interest revolving loan scheme

to enable refugees with visas but no money to pay for their fares to Australia.

About a hundred refugees have come through that scheme.

And there have been zero defaults on loan repayments.

Peter Westoby and Russell Eggins supported many refugees from Latin America:

meeting arrivals at the airport and settling them in houses they found and furnished.

We started a special torture and trauma support group with them.

Waves upon waves of refugees came to Australia fleeing war-tom regions:

Indo China, Central Asia, South Asia and The Horn of Africa.

So we started an interfaith dialogue group

for Christians, Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims to get to know one another.

And the work goes on.

Recently I helped in a complex two-year refugee settlement case,

assisting the reunification of an Eritrean refugee in Australia

with her fiancé ~ in a refugee camp in the Sudan.

Then I organised volunteers

to help her through her complicated pregnancy,

and subsequently arranged work for her and her husband.

But often there is no work

or the work that is there is not suitable —

(for single parents who have lost their partners in wars

and need to work at home so they can supervise their children)

so Judy Collins-Haynes and I have negotiated contracts

for bulk orders of conference bags

then organized volunteers

to train refugee women to sew at a professional level

and to supervise the production of the conference bags

by the refugee women sewing in clusters at home.

Most of the work I have done

has been unfunded or has been underfunded.

So we have had to have to put on

lots and lots of fundraising events

to raise money for our work with refugees.

And I’ve never been happier

than working alongside my daughters

putting on dinners for hundreds of people

to raise money to support refugees.

One of my most significant memories

was when Evonne, and her husband Marty,

were living in the Bristol Street Household

with our younger daughter Navi,

their childhood friend Olivia,

and a couple of others.

The Bristol Street Household,

located on the main street of West End

was a place devoted to developing an everyday spirituality

that gladly put itself at the disposal

of the people who came to the door of their house looking for help.

And they invited Dave and  I to move in with them.

The next eighteen months

proved to be one of the best times of our lives.

We got on well.

We prayed together, laughed and cried together,

cooked and cleaned together, and grew together.

And I was able to see how my children

had grown into adults

and were now including their rels

into their lives,

along with all the other wallahs.

It is my prayer

that all of us who have been involved in the network

(we now know as the Waiters Union)

will all find our own way

of living out our vision of hospitality in our community.

[2] `rels’ is short for ‘relatives’. It is another one of Angie’s favourite words.

• 320 participants of all ages from around the country
• We held more than 140 appointments with MPs and Senators
• 67 Politicians signed the Giant 40 metre scroll, including then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott who also addressed us at the Signature Event
• A motion in support of the MDGs was moved and unanimously passed in the Senate, and multiple speeches have been made in support of the campaign since Voices for Justice – see the attachment.
• We had more media coverage than ever before including 17 radio interviews, plus your articles are starting to show up in local papers: http://bit.ly/98etNl
• Our photographers took some great photos which can be viewed on our facebook page. Click here:http://bit.ly/9Hgh5O

HOLD AN ELECTORATE FORUM!

The election may be looming closer than we think – analysts say the election could be as early as August! Give your community the chance to find out where your MP and sitting candidates in your electorate stand on international aid issues and climate change by running or taking part in an electorate forum.
Visit: http://www.micahchallenge.org.au/electorate_forums to download a guide on how to run a forum and register your forum on the online map.

10.10.10 – SAVE THE DATE!

Get your church to take part in 10.10.10 with Micah Challenge International and churches all around the world.
Click here for more information and to register your church: http://www.micahchallenge.org.au/micah2010

A NEW PM

Who would have guessed that so soon after Voices, we would have a new Prime Minister. We were not able to engage directly with the new PM at Voices for Justice, so we’ve still got work to do! An electorate forum is in the pipeline for Lalor Electorate. We’ll also be in touch in coming weeks encouraging you to write to the new PM, and with an updated OFFERING OF LETTERS GUIDE you might want to use to let Ms Gillard know that the MDGs are important to the Christian vote.

God bless you as you continue to work for justice!

- From all at Micah Challenge.

Micah Challenge Australia
Ph: (02) 9356 8500
Mezzanine Level, 134 William St, Potts Point NSW 2011
www.micahchallenge.org.au

Should Christians support capitalism? According to a leading English layman, despite all its material benefits, capitalism as we know it contains moral flaws with serious social consequences.

I’m in no position to preach to Christians, but I’m happy to pass on the views of Dr Michael Schluter, founder of Britain’s Relationships Foundation, which will be of interest to a wider audience (and can be found at www.jubilee-centre.org/resources.php?catID=1).

Schluter’s beef is against the failings of capitalism that arise from corporations, which have developed as its primary engine.

His starting point is the belief that God is a relational being, whose priority is not economic growth, but right relationships between humanity and himself and between human beings. Christ’s injunction to ”love God and love your neighbour” points to the priority of relational wealth over financial wealth because love is a quality of relationships.

Corporate capitalism’s first moral flaw, he says, is its exclusively materialistic vision. It rests on the pursuit of business profit and personal gain. It promotes the idolising of money, which Jesus calls ”Mammon”.

”People are regarded by companies as a resource, or as a cost in the profit and loss account, devoid of relational or environmental context. So capitalism constantly has to be restrained from destroying the social capital on which it depends for its future existence,” he says.

This focus on capital lends itself to the idolatry of wealth at a personal level, and the idolatry of economic growth at a corporate and national level. Shareholders pursue personal wealth with little knowledge of how it is generated, and senior management with scant regard for pay structures at lower levels of the company, while customers are persuaded by advertising to pursue self-gratification in its many forms.

Corporate capitalism’s second moral flaw is that it offers reward without responsibility. In the Parable of the Talents, Jesus implies that gaining money through interest on a loan is ”reaping where you haven’t sown”. Lenders may accept some small risk, but they accept no responsibility for how or where the money is used.

Debt finance generally results in relational distance rather than relational ”proximity” because the lender generally has no incentive to remain engaged with, or even in regular contact with, the borrower.

In the workings of large corporations, shareholders generally have little say in decision-making. Most investors provide share capital through a financial intermediary, such as a pension fund. Often they don’t know or care in which companies they hold shares. Even the financial intermediaries generally do little to influence company policy.

Perhaps, Schluter says, instead of ”no taxation without representation” we should adopt the slogan ”no reward without responsibility, no profit without participation”.

Corporate capitalism’s third moral failing arises from the limited liability of shareholders, which allows debts to be left unpaid where the company becomes insolvent. Worse, the unpaid creditors are often employees, consumers and smaller companies supplying goods and services.

Because the downside risks of borrowing are capped, while the upside risks aren’t, management has been willing to borrow huge sums relative to the company’s share capital and thus expand companies at a frantic pace.

In the finance sector, incentive schemes often reward risk-taking excessively on the upside with no downside penalties, reflecting the risk position of shareholders. Consequent mega-losses have to be financed by taxpayers to limit wider economic fallout.

Schluter’s fourth charge against corporate capitalism is that it disconnects people from place. In the Old Testament, the jubilee laws required all rural property to be returned free to its original family owners every 50th year.

This ensured long-term rootedness in a particular place for every extended family. A byproduct was to ensure a measure of equity in the distribution of property, which ensured a broad distribution of political power.

By contrast, capitalism regards land and property as assets without relational significance. This greater flexibility and mobility undoubtedly bring material benefits. But as extended family members move away from one another, and communities become more transient, they can no longer fulfil welfare roles.

Grandparents can no longer help look after grandchildren, and responsibility for care of older people and those with disabilities falls on the state, with the costs having to be met from tax revenues.

Schluter’s final charge is that corporate capitalism provides inadequate social safeguards. It has no concept of protecting the vulnerable through constraints on the market. Deregulation limits constraints on consumer credit although the devastating consequences of debt for personal health and family relationships are well known.

Deregulation ensures labour is available for hire 24 hours a day, seven days a week, whereas biblical law protected a day a week for non-work priorities including rest, worship and family.

The adverse consequences of these flaws start with family and community breakdown. ”The greater wealth of some sections of society in capitalist nations has to be set against the greater ‘relational poverty’ which extends to an ever greater proportion of the population. The danger is that over time these relational problems become self-reinforcing and self-replicating,” Schluter says.

Another consequence of capitalism’s failings over the longer term is a huge growth in government spending. As the number of damaged households increases, so does the size of the bureaucracy.

Government spending on welfare has reached a level many regard as unsustainable, Schluter argues, yet without it many vulnerable people would have little or no physical or emotional support.

As state agencies take over many of the roles of family and local community, they undermine the reasons why these institutions exist and thus further lower people’s loyalty and commitment to them.

Schluter’s conclusion is that Christians need to search urgently for a new economic order based on biblical revelation.

Ross Gittins is the economics editor.

Of The Empire The Beatitudes

Of The Kingdom Blessed are the rich and famous, for everything in the empire is theirs. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who are funny, for they will be the life of the party. Blessed are those who mourn (with others), for they will be comforted. Blessed are those who are aggressive for they will get what they want. Blessed are the meek, (strong, but gentle) for they will inherit the earth Blessed are those who seek success, for they won’t let any-thing else fill their minds. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merci-less, for no-one can stand in their way. Blessed are the merci-ful, for they will receive mercy. Blessed are the politic, they will always see an angle. Blessed are the pure in heart, they will see God. Blessed are the war-makers and arms-dealers, for they will be called ‘good businessmen’. Blessed are the peace-makers, for they (alone) shall be called the children of God. Blessed are those who never stand up for the right and risk alienating the powers-that-be, for theirs is nice, quiet life. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. ]]> http://wecan.be/beatitudes-with-attitude/1267/feed/ 0 http://wecan.be/beatitudes-with-attitude/1265/ http://wecan.be/beatitudes-with-attitude/1265/#comments Sun, 13 Jun 2010 23:56:43 +0000 dave http://wecan.be/?p=1265 John Dear

Open your Bible to Matthew 5 and you will never be the same. Gandhi and King called those passages the grandest manifesto of nonviolence ever written—beginning with the storied Beatitudes. Grand for a number of reasons—for their poignancy and conciseness, for their sheer poetics, for their morality and practicality. But grand, too, for a subtle reason—for the furtive critique that lay behind them. Namely, every culture of war, such as Jesus lived and died in, fuels itself by an antithetical set of maxims. One might name them–“anti-beatitudes.”

They are easily reconstructed, because, alas, they’re all too familiar. We’ve been tutored in them all our lives; they hang in the air, live in our very bones. This false spirituality of violence, injustice and war is what Jesus spoke out against:

• “Blessed are the rich, the reign of this world is ours.” Empirically the rich rule the world, and the rest suffer and die, often in misery. But Jesus counters with the real truth. Blessed are the poor in spirit, those who have nothing—no power, no prestige, no possessions, no success. They receive the first and greatest blessing—entrance into God’s reign. The rich lay claim to all things, except that. Thus Jesus calls us to live in friendship with the poor, to let go of power and domination, to embrace our own powerlessness. Which is to say, share our lives with the poor, practice downward mobility, and they’ll share with us the reign of God.
• The Pentagon’s chief tenet: “Blessed are those who make others mourn.” Those who kill, who support war, who pay taxes for killing, who build nuclear weapons, who execute people—blessed are they, the Pentagon insists. More, blessed are you if you never mourn. But Jesus sets this anti-beatitude right. He says, blessed are the billions who mourn their loved ones lost to starvation, injustice, relievable disease, and war—from Hiroshima and Vietnam to El Salvador and Iraq. God’s consolation will flow to them. As for us, mourning leads to peacemaking. As we mourn with those who mourn, we receive God’s consolation. Otherwise no comfort will be ours.
• And the motto of every warlike culture: “Blessed are the violent and the invincible, the proud and the powerful, the domineering and oppressive. But Jesus says the meek are blessed—the gentle, the humble, the nonviolent. The violent inherit nothing but blood and destruction. The meek, they inherit the earth. Pursuing nonviolence wins the blessing of creation itself. As St. Francis discovered, creation and nonviolence are inextricably linked.
• “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for injustice.” The siren song of the System. The System sustains itself by all manner of injustice and lawlessness and greed. But Jesus offers a contrary word. Desire for unjust gain shall forever thwart fulfillment. The unjust will never be satisfied. But those who are passionate for justice, they’ll find satisfaction, true meaning. They’ll take part in God’s very purpose—the transformation of disarmament and global peace.
• “Blessed are those who show no mercy.” So the culture summons us. No mercy to the poor, to women and children, the elderly and the homeless, victims, outcasts, enemies, refugees, the hungry, the undocumented, the unborn, those on death row, those who are different, those we don’t like. But the culture keeps the spiritual consequence close to its vest: The merciless will be shown no mercy. On the other hand, says Jesus: God’s mercy comes to the merciful.
• “Blessed are the impure of heart.” The warlike culture tells us that it does not matter if we are filled with darkness and confusion and violence. But such darkness, says Jesus, shades our view of God. It obscures our recognition of Christ in the poor, in the enemy, in one another. Rather “Blessed are the pure in heart”—those with disarmed hearts, nonviolent hearts, hearts of universal love. To attain such wholehearted love, we must practice contemplative prayer, turn our violence over to God and receive in return God’s gift of peace. Thus illumined by the light of God, we’ll see God in the poor, in the struggle for justice, in the bread and the cup, in creation, in the poor, in the enemy. The pure in heart will see God. The beatific vision will begin here and now.
• “Blessed are the warmakers.” Thus say the Pentagon and its chaplains. No, says Jesus. “Blessed are the peacemakers”—those who help end war and the conditions for war, who create peace. They are sons and daughters of the living God. Peace is God’s purpose for humanity. God is a God of peace. Since we are God’s children, we make peace, too. The warlike culture tries to name us its patriots, warriors, “good” Americans. It wants to tell us who we are. But Jesus tells us the truth: we are the beloved sons and daughters of the God of peace. That means, like Jesus, we act according to the God of peace, practice nonviolence, resist war, demand that the troops come home from Iraq, and try to live and breathe the holy Spirit of peace.
• “Blessed are those who never stand up for justice, who do not rock the boat.” The silent, the indifferent, the comfortable, those who keep their distance. Blessed are you—you’ve made it! You’ll ruffle no feathers and invite no trouble—but neither will you possess the reign of God. The reign of God belongs to those “persecuted for the sake of justice.” In a world where war and nuclear weapons run wild, peacemakers get no thanks, no honors. They’re harassed, threatened, put under surveillance, arrested, jailed, even killed. But Jesus says, this is your opportunity to practice nonviolence, to meet hatred with love—just like the prophets and saints. So Jesus declares: “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me. Rejoice and be glad for your reward will be great in heaven.” Do we draw heat for our work against poverty, the death penalty, nuclear weapons. the war on Iraq? Take heart—rejoice and be glad. We’re on the right path. We are joining the ranks of Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. King, Dorothy Day, Archbishop Romero, and Sister Ita Ford.

Recently, however, I learned that some scholars are rethinking the original Greek translation. The passive “Blessed are…” is not accurate, they say. Better the more active phrase: “Walk on! Walk forth!” If true, it rings a different tone, a tone of doggedness, support, encouragement. God cheers us on that we might go the distance in pursuit of justice and peace. Something along these lines:

• Walk forth, you poor in spirit, you humble and powerless. Keep going. Don’t be discouraged by your poverty. The reign of God is yours.
• Walk forth, you who mourn the victims of war and hunger. Keep going. You will be consoled.
• Walk forth, you meek and gentle and nonviolent. Inherit the earth and enjoy the blessing of creation.
• Walk forth, you who hunger and thirst for justice. Don’t give up. You will be satisfied. “Justice will roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
• Walk forth, you merciful. Keep showing mercy in a merciless world. Forgive everyone. Be compassionate to everyone. Show mercy to everyone. Mercy will be yours.
• Walk forth, you pure in heart. Keep going. Be filled with the light of peace and see Christ in the poor, in the enemy, in one another.
• Walk forth, you who make peace. Keep on going. Speak against war. Organize peace vigils. Write Congress, demand the troops come home, work for nuclear disarmament. Become who you are, the sons and daughters of the God of peace.
• Walk forth, you persecuted for justice. Keep going. Don’t give up. You stand on the shoulders of Dr. King, Dorothy Day and Mahatma Gandhi. Your reward will be great.

Here are the Beatitudes of Peace, uttered contrary to the anti-beatitudes of war that pulse through the veins of our culture. If we follow these guideposts, hear this encouragement, we learn, the Gospel teaches, that the God of peace is alive and at work among us–giving us God’s reign, God’s consolation, God’s creation, God’s satisfaction, God’s mercy, God’s face, God’s calling us her daughters and sons, and God’ best reward. In other words, take heart. God is leading us into the fullness of life, a life of peace. There really is good news after all.

www.fatherjohndear.org/NCR_Articles/Nov21_06.html

Michael Wood-Lewis and his wife, Valerie, moved to the south end of Burlington, Vt. in 2000. He recalls, “We’d landed in what we thought was our dream neighborhood. It was walkable, near the lake, full of trees. But we were having trouble getting to know the neighbors. One night, my wife and I were sitting around the dinner table talking about it. It hit us that in the Midwest, where we’re from, people brought cookies to their neighbors. We’ve been here a year–where were our cookies?”

Hence plan A. They baked up a batch of Tollhouse specials and delivered them to the neighbors. “We used china plates, because I figured that way they’d have to return them and we’d get another conversation,” says Wood-Lewis. “We never did get them back. I was kind of dumbfounded. But I don’t think it was because people were rude. I think it’s because people are living in a different culture than they were 50 years ago.”

A culture busier and more distracted than before–busy enough that even in Vermont something had changed. So Wood-Lewis cooked up plan B, which just may turn out to be one of the most innovative (and deceptively obvious) uses of the Internet so far. In his hand, the Net has become a way to meet people not half a world but half a block away.

“I invested 15 dollars at the copy shop and printed up 400 flyers and put one on every door in our neighborhood. It pretty much just said, ‘Share messages about lost cats and block parties.’ ” So was born the Five Sisters Neighborhood Forum, which he ran as a volunteer effort for six years. “It took about five minutes a day, and I was already on the computer anyway.” Every evening he’d compile the five or six messages that had arrived at his inbox during the day, and send them out in a single e-mail bulletin–that was it. Someone would write in: “Neighbors, fyi: late last night I observed a large possum ambling across my front yard. Not as bad as a skunk, but I understand that possums can damage gardens and dig up lawns.” Twenty-four hours later, another neighbor would have responded: “They have very soft feet that are not good for digging, and are not likely to cause lawn damage–and they are very clean animals and spend much of their rest time grooming themselves.” Meanwhile, someone else has pruned their apple trees and wants to share the news that they have kindling piled up on the back porch free for the taking. Down the street someone’s car has been broken into; the only thing taken was a gym bag filled with “my shoes, some sweaty clothes and a couple of issues of the New Yorker. If anyone finds it dumped in their shrubbery, let me know.”

Networking locally

Forget the World Wide Web–this one barely stretches four blocks. And no video, no rating systems, no celebrities, no hyperlinks, just the daily rhythm of neighborhood life. “It grew steadily, from 10 or 20 percent of the neighborhood to the point where by 2006 we had 90 percent of the neighborhood signed up,” says Wood-Lewis. That’s when Cottage Livingmagazine included the area in its list of the 10 best neighborhoods in the country. “And the reporter called me and he said, ‘Everywhere else in the country people would have dozens of different reasons why their place worked. But here, almost everyone put the e-mail thing on the list.’ That’s what gave me the confidence.”

The confidence to quit his job and start offering the service across all of Chittenden County, Vermont’s largest. Within two years, FrontPorchForum.com reached 13,000 households, participating in more than 100 neighborhood forums, some of them in inner-city neighborhoods where the main topics were how to fight graffiti and drive away drug dealers; some in rural towns where you get messages like: “We have four Indian Runner drakes who we expected to be females and lay beautiful round eggs. Instead we have these guys who really need some girls!!!”

This sounds like the stuff you’d see in the letter-to-the-editor column or on the bulletin board at the supermarket–and it is. But now it comes in an easy-to-use daily update that somehow breaks down barriers.

“My sense was that this skill of neighborliness had eroded,” says Wood-Lewis, citing data like the Harvard professor Robert Putnam’s famous book Bowling Alone. “If you could increase social capital in a neighborhood–that is, your network of who you know and how well you know them–then your involvement increases. If you’re among strangers, you’re not going to volunteer for the Girl Scouts.”

Sound theoretical? Not long after he’d launched his first forum, one of Wood-Lewis’ neighbors was moving from an apartment to a house across the street. “They figured they could do it by themselves,” he says, “but at the last minute decided they had a couple of big items they’d need some help with. So they put a note on the forum saying ‘come Sunday at 2:00′–and 36 people showed up. People didn’t just move the chest of drawers and the bed; they organized into teams and boxed up the entire contents of the house, moved it across the street, and unpacked it, all in 90 minutes. I mean, someone pulled the picture hooks out of the wall in the old place and spackled over the holes. All the cardboard boxes were broken down and ready for recycling.”

Front Porch Forum may already be the most important source of information for many Vermonters, who have watched their newspapers lay off reporters and shrink coverage.

“One afternoon last year the state closed our main bridge as unsafe,” says Erik Filkorn. “As a member of the town government I sent an extra to Michael Wood-Lewis, and he got the word right out. I think more people got the news that they’d have to change their morning commutes from him than from the traditional media.” But it only works in emergencies because people use it every day; the steady stream of lost cats and people looking for summer jobs for their teenagers creates the community that people then rely on at more crucial moments.

This same phenomenon is under way across the United States, as our declining economy has led to what sociologists call “an uptick of neighboring.” At the University of Pennsylvania, Keith Hampton runs a website for community groups with over 50,000 members, and the volume of messages grew 25 percent between 2008 and 2009. “I don’t think people will create silos and hide in houses to shield themselves from hard times,” he says. “They’re going to look for people to help solve these problems. Those tend to be your neighbors.”

“There was a mother near us, with a teenage daughter who was having a birthday,” Wood-Lewis recalls. “The girl wanted to go canoeing with her friends for her birthday, but when her mother checked out the price of renting canoes, it was too high. Her daughter said, ‘I see lots of canoes in backyards around here,’ but her mother said, ‘You can’t just ask people you don’t know for their boats.’ Still, she put a one-line notice on the forum, saying they needed six canoes. Before the day was out, people were coming by. I mean, there were canoes just piling up in their front yard. She wrote me a note afterward: ‘What a great feeling. What a great reminder of how to be a community. Why didn’t I get to know these people 10 years ago?’ ”

This essay was adapted from Bill McKibben’s latest book, EAARTH: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet (Times Books, April) © 2010 by Bill McKibben. Reprinted by arrangement with Henry Holt and Company, LLC.

Bill McKibben is the author of more than ten books, including, most recently, EAARTH: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet and Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future. He is the founder of the environmental organizations Step It Up and 350.org. He lives in Vermont with his wife, the writer Sue Halpern, and their daughter.

Probably the greatest Muslim proponent and practitioner of nonviolent jihad was Abdul Ghaffar Khan. Abdul Ghaffar Khan was born in Utmanzai in 1890. His father, Behram Khan, was a wealthy Pathan who ran a large guest house on the main road to Peshawar. Behram Khan had many servants, but he always took great pride in serving his honoured guests himself. His mother – whose name I do not know – lived her life, like most Pathan women, in purdah, hidden from prying eyes behind a veil of secrecy. She was reputedly quite devout, and set her son an unforgettable example of genuine piety.

In 1901 Ghaffar Khan attended Edwards Memorial School in Peshawar. The head-master, Rev. Wigram, a stern but generous teacher, was committed to providing the best education he could for the boys on the North-West Frontier. And the young Ghaffar Khan grew to appreciate him almost as much as his own parents.  Not surprisingly, in 1910, after spending a couple of years in the Islamic School in Aligarh, Ghaffar Khan started a school in Utmanzai, his own home town.

In 1913 Ghaffar Khan participated in a conference of progressive Muslims that was held in Agra. He met famous Islamic leaders, like Maulana Azad, and he seized the chance to discuss his understanding of Islam with them. ‘It is my inmost conviction,’ he was to say later, ‘that Islam is amal (work), yakeen (faith), and muhabat (love), and without these the name Muslim is sounding brass and tinkling cymbal.’ ^[i]

Upon returning to the North-West Frontier after the conference, Ghaffar Khan decided to perform a chilla, or fast, in order to seek divine guidance on how he could put the amal, yakeen, and muhabat that he preached into practice. What actually occurred during the chilla no one knows. But we do know that Ghaffar Khan emerged from the fast with a resolute determination to serve God as fully as he could for the rest of his life.

In 1915, his wife, whom he married in 1912, having died of influenza, Ghaffar Khan set out on a pilgrimage to visit every village in the North-West Frontier. Three years – and five hundred villages – later, Ghaffar Khan returned, saying;  ‘I have one great desire. I want to rescue these gentle people from the tyranny of the foreigners who have disgraced them. I want to kiss the ground where their ruined homes once stood. I want to wash the stains of blood from their garments. (And) I want to create for them a world of freedom, where they can live in peace, and be happy.’[ii]

In 19i9 Ghaffar Khan was arrested by the British authorities, who saw him as a threat to their power in the region. And, over the next five years, Ghaffar Khan was in and out of prison all the time for protesting against British imperialism.  On one occasion, he found himself grinding corn in solitary confinement. His fellow prisoners offered to pay a bribe to get him out of prison. But he refused. His prison guard told him he could stop grinding corn if he wanted to. But he replied, ‘Robbers grind corn. And their cause is impure. Why should I mind grinding for my cause which is pure?’[iii]

In 1924, after a three-year stretch, Ghaffar Khan was released from prison. And he took the opportunity to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca. He was fascin-ated with the life of the Prophet. Especially the early years. When Mohammed spent his time in Mecca. And he came back from his haj refreshed, ready to re-engage in the struggle for freedom, armed with the ‘weapon of the Prophet’

‘The weapon of the Prophet’, he says, ‘is sabr’, not ‘a sabre’. It literally means patience. ‘The weapon of the Prophet ‘he says, is patience. If you exercise patience, endure all hardships, victory will be yours. No power on earth can stand against it.’ He quotes the Koran as saying, ‘there is no compulsion in religion’; ‘forgive and be indulgent’; ‘render not vain your almsgiving by injury;’ ‘whosoever killeth one – for other than manslaughter – it shall be as if he had killed all mankind, and whoso saveth the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind.’ [iv]

In 1928 Ghaffar Khan started a newspaper called the Pakhtun. It was to become the vehicle that he was to use to rally his people for the long ongoing struggle. Then, the following year, Ghaffar Khan launched one of the most exciting, and creative, and effective, nonviolent campaigns for independence ever conducted. It began innocuously enough with the Khan calling Pathans to join him in forming a movement called the Khudai Khidmatgar.  Any Pathan could join the movement, provided they swore an oath to become ‘A Servant Of God’:

‘I am a Khudai Khidmatgar, and as God needs no service…

I promise to serve humanity in the name of God.

I promise to refrain from violence, and from taking revenge.

I promise to forgive those who oppress me or treat with cruelty.

I promise to refrain from taking part in feuds and quarrels.

I promise to treat every Pathan as my neighbour and friend.

I promise to live a simple life, to practice virtue, and refrain from evil.

I promise to devote at least two hours a day to social work.’[v]

Now for a Pathan, an oath such as this, is a very serious matter. Once made, it can not be broken. Even upon pain of death. So in asking a Pathan to swear an oath such as this, Khan was hoping to appeal to the old warrior code to help forge a whole new warrior ethic. An ethic that would pride itself on forgiveness, rather than revenge, and service, rather than slaughter; and that would have the power to break the cycle of violence on the North-West Frontier once and for all.

It was a brilliant idea – culturally appropriate and politically astute. And Pathans responded to the Khan’s call by rallying behind the banner of the Khidmatgar in their thousands. In fact, the recruiting drive was so successful, that at one point up to one hundred thousand Pathans – men and women both – donned their famous red shirts, and went to work in the villages, singing:

‘We serve and we love; our people and our cause.

Freedom is our longing; our lives the price we pay.’ [vi]

The courage of these Khudai Khidmatgar was legendary. A British officer commanded a Khidmatgar by the name of Faiz Mohammed to take off his red shirt. He refused. The officer then commanded his soldiers to forcibly strip the recalcitrant. Faiz Mohammed did not fight back, but he refused to cooperate. It took up to nine soldiers to strip him of his proud red shirt. And even then they only were able to do it when they had beaten the Khidmatgar unconscious. The soldiers then came for a Khidmatgar by the name of Mohammed Naquib. He was beaten mercilessly. And his shirt was stripped off his back. But when he was ordered to take his trousers off he went berserk. He turned to run to get a gun. But he was pulled up short by the voice of his commander. ‘Mohammed Naquib!’ he cried. ‘Is your patience is exhausted so soon? You swore to remain nonviolent until death!’ With those words ringing in his ears, eyewitnesses say the chastened Khidmatgar turned back to face his tormentors, armed only with the ‘weapon of the Prophet’, fortitude and forbearance.

A large crowd gathered in Kissa Khani Bazaar in Peshawar to protest the brutality of the British. Troops from a nearby army base were deployed. The troops asked the people to disperse; and they had begun to do so, when, without warning, three armoured cars drove at speed into the crowd. Several people were run over and were killed on the spot. The troops asked the people to disperse; but they said they would do so only if the armoured cars withdrew, and they were allowed to carry away their fallen comrades. The troops did not remove their armoured cars, and refused to allow the people remove their fallen comrades. So the crowd did not disperse. The troops then opened fire, shooting point blank range into the front row of the gathered throng. When those in the front row fell wounded, the next row came forward and took their place. Over and over again, from 11am in the morning till 5pm in the evening, row upon row of Khidmatgars, took the place of their fallen comrades, bared their breasts, and were shot to death by the troops. Two to three hundred were killed – many more were wounded – and the bazaar was littered with piles of bodies of the dead and dying. The elite Garhwal Rifles were brought into deal with the crowd. But faced with unarmed men and women, who would not fight, they refused to fire. ‘We will not shoot our unarmed brethren!’ they said.

It was the beginning of the end for the empire on which – it was said –  that the sun would never set. [vii]

[ii] Eknath Easwaran A Man To Match His Mountains foreword

[iii] Eknath Easwaran A Man To Match His Mountains p88-89

[iv] Eknath Easwaran A Man To Match His Mountains p117,209

[v] Eknath Easwaran A Man To Match His Mountains p110-112

[vi] Eknath Easwaran A Man To Match His Mountains p113

[vii] Eknath Easwaran A Man To Match His Mountains p122-124

In Reconstructing Jihad, my friend Halim Rane, a brilliant Palestinian-Australian Muslim scholar, argues that the concept of jihad needs to be deconstructed – and reconstructed as a struggle for righteousness and for justice.

Quoting Fatoohi, Halim says ‘jihad is most accurately defined as “exerting efforts, in the form of struggle against something in the name of Allah”.’ Contrary to the popular notion, Halim says ‘in its original sense “jihad” does not mean “war”, let alone “holy war”. It means “struggle” (jahd), exertion, striving; it signifies the exertion of ones power to the utmost of ones capacity in the cause of Allah; the opposite of being inert (qu’ud) sitting.’[i]

Halim says that ‘the term jihad and its grammatical equivalents occur thirty five times in the Quran.’ Of these thirty-five verses Halim says ‘twenty are open to differing interpretations’ but ‘only four verses use the term in a combative context’. He says ‘by contrast, eleven verses use the term in a pacific sense.’[ii]

When talking about jihad in a militant sense, Halim says that the famous ‘sword verse’ – that calls on Muslims to ‘slay those who ascribe divinity to aught beside God wherever you may come upon them’ (9:5) – that has been ‘quoted through out Muslim history to justify aggression against non-Muslims for their “unbelief”’- has to be interpreted in context’. And, in context, Halim says this verse is not calling Muslims to a generic ongoing war against non-Muslims, so much as specific call at a particular time in history, for Muslims to fight in self-defense in a war that was ‘already in progress’ because the ‘unbelievers’ had broken their treaty obligations and subsequently attacked their Muslim neighbours.[iii] Halim says we should note that the very next verse (9:6) calls on Muslims to protect ‘unbelievers’ who seek their protection; and he concludes that ‘if their unbelief was the basis of fighting against them, this provision would be nonsensical’ [iv]

When it comes to armed combat it would seem that many Muslims – like many Christians – would subscribe to their own version of a just war framework. Halim asserts that the Quran permits armed combat only on certain strict conditions:

1. That Muslims have sought to make peace. ‘The establishment and maintenance of a just peace is an overriding objective in Islam. In fact the word “Islam” is from the root word ”slm” meaning “peace”.’[v]
2. They have not used their vows to God as an excuse not to seek peace. The Quran instructs Muslims ‘Do not allow your oaths in the name of God to become an obstacle to the promotion of peace between people.’(2:224)
3. They have not rejected open offers of peace because of hidden agendas. The Quran says: ‘do not out of your desire for fleeting gains…say to anyone who offers you a greeting of peace “you are not a believer”.’(4:94)
4. They acknowledge that, apart from securing a just peace, all killing is sin. The Quran famously says ‘if anyone slays a human being – unless it be punishment for murder or for spreading corruption on earth – it shall be as though he had slain all mankind; where as if anyone saves a life, it shall be as though he had saved the lives of all mankind.’ (5:32)[vi
5. All acts of aggression are forbidden. Killing is only permissible when there is no other alternative for people to pursue in the quest of self-defense, self-determination and peace with justice (17:23; 2:191)[vii]
6. In conflict, homes and homelands are to be protected. [viii] Not only Muslim mosques, but also Jewish synagogues and Christian churches are to be guarded and to be defended (22:40).[ix] And ‘helpless men, women and children’ are to be liberated from oppression. (4:75) [x]
7. Wherever possible Muslims are to make peace between conflicting parties.(49:9-10) Those who forgive their enemies and make peace with them can expect God’s reward (42:40) even if they are non-Muslims (4:94)[xi]
8. The Quran demands that Muslims ‘respond to (one) offer of peace with a better one’ (4:86) ‘In fact, peace must be given a chance, even if deception is anticipated from an enemy.’ (8:62) [xii]
9. Muslims are expected to seek peace with justice. In Islam justice (adl) literally means ‘the act of straightening making equal or establishing equilibrium’. Only when things are ‘in their rightful place’ can there be justice and only when there is righteousness can there be peace.[xiii]
10. The maqasid (purpose) of jihad (struggle) – whether it is violent or nonviolent – is to strive for human freedom, fraternity and welfare.[xiv]

Most, if not all, of the wars being waged today, cannot be justified according to this just war framework. But surprisingly, Halim argues it is not only the invasion of Iraq, it is also the Palestinian intafada against Israel that cannot be justified.

Halim says that the first intafada was quite effective, because it used largely nonviolent means – like noncooperation, resignations, strikes, demonstrations, marches, breaking curfews, blocking roads and flying flags – to advocate for self-determination, which mobilised international support for the Palestinian cause, including support for them from within Israel;[xv] but the second intafada was quite counterproductive, because it used largely violent means – like armed combat, suicide bombs and missile attacks – to advocate for self-determination, which was a public relations disaster for Palestine and provoked globally sanctioned Israeli repression in the name of self-defense.[xvi]

Halim argues that, in these present circumstances, all Muslims should set aside violent jihad as a strategy altogether and struggle for righteousness nonviolently.

Halim says that while there is a precedent in the Meccan period of the Prophet Muhammed’s life, ‘in Muslim tradition the nonviolence displayed by the prophet has been overshadowed by his military conquests’. So much so, that many ‘Muslims do not see the value of nonviolence’ at all and tend to ‘regard violence as the most “Islamic” means of resolving conflict.’ This perspective is not helped by the fact that the Muslim sects who have practiced nonviolence most – the Maziyariyya and the Ahmadiyya – are considered heretical by the orthodox.[xvii]

However, Halim insists that the idea of nonviolent jihad is completely consistent with the fundamentally nonviolent principles in Islam – of benevolence (ihsan), compassion (rahmah) and patience (sabr).[xviii] Abu-Nimer says Islam can be used as ‘a force for tolerance, pluralism, and reconciliation’.[xix] And Johan Galtung says the pilgrimage (hajj) can provide ‘Muslims with the cultural tools to carry out such nonviolent actions as mass demonstrations and marches.’[xx]

[ii] Halim Rane Reconstructing Jihad p141

[iii] Halim Rane Reconstructing Jihad p186

[iv] Halim Rane Reconstructing Jihad p187

[v] Halim Rane Reconstructing Jihad p192

[vi] Halim Rane Reconstructing Jihad p190-1

[vii] Halim Rane Reconstructing Jihad p181, p190-1

[viii] Halim Rane Reconstructing Jihad p191

[ix] Halim Rane Reconstructing Jihad p179

[x] Halim Rane Reconstructing Jihad p183

[xi] Halim Rane Reconstructing Jihad p193

[xii] Halim Rane Reconstructing Jihad p193

[xiii] Halim Rane Reconstructing Jihad p193

[xiv] Halim Rane Reconstructing Jihad p168

[xv] Halim Rane Reconstructing Jihad p116-21

[xvi] Halim Rane Reconstructing Jihad p121-26

[xvii] Halim Rane Reconstructing Jihad p122-3

[xviii] Halim Rane Reconstructing Jihad p122

[xix] Halim Rane Reconstructing Jihad p124

[xx] Halim Rane Reconstructing Jihad p123

IN THIS age of suspicion they seem the oddest of couples: a Muslim imam and Pentecostal Christian pastor, who once wanted to kill each other.

At one time both were militia leaders — and also victims — of religious conflict in Nigeria. Now they have found answers in their own faiths to become best friends.

Visiting Australia with their tolerance message, they hope to harness our multiculturalism into a global demonstration that different beliefs are no impediment to peace.

Pastor James Wuye lost most of his right forearm to a machete attack, and Imam Muhammed Ashafa lost family and a spiritual adviser before they met and to their surprise discovered common ground and eventually trust.

Their journey sparked the establishment of a body called the Muslim-Christian Dialogue Centre in the religiously divided city of Kaduna in predominantly Muslim northern Nigeria.

However, even the name became contentious, as Pastor Wuye recalls: “Some Christians objected that we had the Muslim name first. I told them the order did not matter.”

Eventually the organisation reached out to a growing Nigerian Jewish population, as well as people of traditional animist beliefs, and evolved into the Interfaith Mediation Centre.

Nigeria, one of the most religiously committed nations on earth, is divided between a Muslim north and a Christian south with both wanting to get more territory. “The Christians wanted to plant the Bible on the Niger border and the Muslims wanted to take the Koran to the sea,” said Imam Ashafa.

They were brought together at the provincial government houses in Kaduna and a journalist linked their hands. Soon after, Imam Ashafa heard a sermon at his mosque that said forgiveness of his enemies was a central tenet of true Islam.

For Pastor Wuye the journey to trust was longer — about three years by his reckoning. Now he has a message for fellow Pentecostals and other Christian fundamentalists who think their religious path is the only truth.

“There is more than one way to truth, and remember what Jesus said about loving their neighbours.” Imam Ashafa has a similar message for Islamic extremists.

Both have travelled to other world trouble spots to carry their message and are the subject of an award-winning documentary by Palestinian filmmaker Imad Karman, The Imam and the Pastor.

http://www.theage.com.au/national/imam-and-pastor-unite-for-message-of-peace-tolerance-20081029-5bha.html