Your Voice Is Needed

In my last blog I told you about Global Importune and how you can help alleviate injustice through Global Importune's letter writing campaigns by spending just 5 minutes a month.

Here's two more examples of what Mark does. These are letters from this month. They may help you realize how important your signature can be. Just put yourself in the shoes of these women.

Muhammad Nakhira Al-Dhahiri
Ministry of Justice
PO Box 753
Abu Dhabi
United Arab Emirates

Dear Minister:

I am writing to express my concern over the fact that a female domestic worker has reportedly been sentenced to 150 lashes by a Shari'a court in the Emirate of Emirate of Ras al-Khaimah for becoming pregnant outside marriage.

According to a local newspaper of October 5, 2005, the woman was ordered to take a pregnancy test after her sponsor (which means either her employer or her employment agency) reported to the police that she was pregnant. Afer the test confirmed that she was pregnant, the public prosecutor referred the case to the Shari'a court.

I welcome the UAE's October 2004 accession to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. Please remember that the Convention obliges you to uphold the right not to be subject to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

I urge the UAE judicial authorities to implement a moratorium on the use of flogging, which is a cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment, with a view to its eventual abolition.

I thank you for your attention to this matter and anxiously await your reply.

Sincerely,

The second letter:

Joseph Kabila, President de la Republique
c/o Mrs. Louise Nzanga Ramazani
Minister-Counselor & Charge d'Affaires
Embassy of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
18 Range Road
Ottawa, Ontario K1N 8J3

Your Excellency:

I wish to bring to your attention a very troubling matter. Kavira Muraulu, a farmer in her fifies, was raped on the night of May 16, 2003 by a soldier from the military camp in Mangangu, near the town of Beni in North-Kivu Province. When she complained of the attack to the soldier's military commander, he ordered the soldier to pay Ms. Muraulu three U.S. dollars in compensation, but took no action when the order was ignored. Kavira Muraulu then took her complaint to the local district governor, who issued reassurances, but made no arrangements to ensure her safety.

A while later the rapist and other soliders seized her in her fields, tied her up and beat her, knocking out a tooth. They only stopped when another woman threatened them with a gun. Kavira Muraulu was later taken back to the governor's office where he tried, but failed, to persuade her to retract her accusation. The soldiers then attacked her again, this time bayoneting her in the stomach. Fortunately, she survived these assaults, but authorities have failed to bring her attackers to justice.

I fear for the safety of women in your country. I urge you to bring justice to Kavira Muraulu and other rape victims by holding suspected perpetrators accountable to an appropriate, legally constituted judicial authority. I ask that you establish a systematic and comprehensive program of health and psychological care for survivors of sexual violence.

I thank you for your immediate attention to this extremely serious matter and anxiously await your reply.

Sincerely,


Why are only 400 letters so effective? Because one letter actually printed out and mailed equals 100 e-mails or telephone calls.

So feel free to cut and paste either of these letters and mail them yourself or to Mark Konrad at Global Importune who will mail them with the others he has received.

To get on Mark's list and have him send you letters for signing (along with a postage paid return envelope) e-mail him at globalimportune@sympatico.ca with "I want to join your mailing list" in the subject line.

Otherwise you can write to Mark or send your copies of these letters to him at:

Main Clubhouse
P.O.Box 610226
Port Huron, Michigan 48061

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What doth the Lord require of you, but to do justly, and to love mercy. Micah 6:8

Let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice; let them ever shout for joy, because thou defendest them Psalms 5:11

Global Importune's Call For Justice

As Mark Konrad, the founder of Global Importune states, "If you're silent about injustice, you're giving consent to it."

If you want to do something tangible about injustice, but don't know where to start, Global Importune is a painless way to get involved that requires, at most, about five minutes of your time each month.

Each month Mark selects a political prisoner from a list assembled by Amnesty International. Then he writes a letter on behalf of that prisoner. Mark then mails copies to more than 400 Global Importune members scattered throughout the U.S. and Canada. Each member is asked to sign and date his or her letter and return it in the postage paid envelope. When he receives them back, Mark forwards the letters en mass to the government leader or ambassador of the offending nation.

When writers and peace workers, members of opposition parties, bloggers and whistleblowers are thrown in jail, governments count on no one caring. But when a national leader receives a bag full of mail from strangers who say: we know you have this person and we are watching what you are doing with him, it not only gives that leader pause but often leads to release.

No leader - no matter how dreadful - wants to be embarrassed or wants attention called to his wrongdoings.

As a result of Mark's work - and those who sign these important letters - more than 200 political prisoners have been released around the world.

Mark also sends out letters in support of legislation that remedies injustice. Here's an example from this month that I signed and returned to him:

His Excellency Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu
State Governor
The Round House secretariat
Alausa, Ikeja
Lagos, Nigeria

Dear Governor,

I welcome the current discussion of a "Domestic Violence and Other Related Matters Bill" by the Lagos House of Assembly.

In Nigeria, women suffer from violence in the family: they get 'punished' for supposed transgressions and are beaten, raped or murdered.

If the Bill is passed, it will help to protect those women who face violence in the family.

The government of Lagos State, along with the federal government of Nigeria, has an obligation under international human rights law to prevent violence against women and to assist women in escaping violence. Perpetrators must be prosecuted, and victims of violence given full support.

As the Governor of Lagos State, you have the power to make a difference for these women.

I urgently ask you to voice your support for the "Domestic Violence and Other Related Matters Bill" and undertake a thorough public education campaign on this issue. I urge you to publicly condemn violence against women: say it is never normal, legal or acceptable and that it is a human rights abuse.

I thank you for your attention to this important matter and anxiously await your reply.

Sincerely,

As Martin Luther King stated: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

I urge you to contact Mark today and get on his mailing list. Your signature can mean freedom from rape as punishment for third world women. Your signature can mean release for a person languishing in jail for no good reason except that he or she is for peace, told the truth or was working for justice.

Mark can be contacted at: globalimportune@sympatico.ca and his website is www.globalimportune.org.

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He hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. Isaiah 61:1

Faith: Words To Action

I believe in all that has never yet been spoken.
I want to free what waits within me
so that what no one has dared to wish for

may for once spring clear
without my contriving.

If this is arrogant, God, forgive me,
but this is what I need to say.
May what I do flow from me like a river,
no forcing and no holding back,
the way it is with children.

Then in these swelling and ebbing currents,
these deepening tides moving out, returning,
I will sing you as no one ever has,

streaming through widening channels
into the open sea.

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In three brief, "intense periods of happiness" between 1899 and 1903 Rainer Maria Rilke wrote The Book of Hours.

The poem above Ich glaube an Alles noch nie Gesagte (I believe in all not yet said) belongs to that collection. Translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy the volume is subtitled Love Poems To God.

Rilke wrote as a result of "inner dictations" or words that came to him and "struck him with their force and persistence."

Certainly the above poem resonates with anyone who has a desire to do what has never been dared before in an effort to create peace.

The Christian Peacemakers Teams are, most certainly, divinely guided. Imagine what we could do if everyone who calls him or herself a Christian stood up - like them - against war. Imagine if each one of us was willing - like the Peacemakers - to put his or her body in the line of danger not to hold a gun and kill others, but in order to block bullets from hitting the bodies of others.

This is what Jesus would do today. He would lead us all to form a human wall between those with guns and those without and would say: "Okay. We're unarmed. We are your brothers and sisters. We stand for love and peace. Will you shoot us?"

Maybe those with the guns would. But while an army can kill one person or 10, 100, even a 1000 people, it cannot destroy us all when we stand together. If we Christians - millions of us - showed up together and put our lives on the line for peace and to protect others, things would change.

We would surely then be singing a praise of love to Christ in a way that no one ever has. And, through us, God would accomplish miracles.

All that is within me, bless his holy name. Psalms 103:1

I will very gladly spend and be spent for you. 2 Corinthians 12:15

They slay the widow and the stranger, and the murder the fatherless. Psalms 94:6

Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. Mark 8:34

I beseach you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. Romans 12:1

The work of righteous shall be peace. Isaiah 32:17

Love: Our Salvation

PBS recently broadcast a program, created by Wayne Dyer, on how to love unconditionally.

One of Dr. Dyer's guests was Immaculee Ilibagiza. Immaculee is a Tutsi who survived the 90 days it took her country's Hutu's to kill nearly a million people: 90% of Rwanda's Tutsis.

Immaculee survived the Rwandan genocide in a 3 foot by 4 foot secret room in which she remained for 91 days with several other women. Hidden by a clergyman whose family didn't know they were there, the women had a toilet but could not bathe and had very little food.

Searches of the house were conducted frequently so absolute silence had to be maintained. People who knew her - including her math teacher who was a Hutu - searched for her in order to kill her. She said she heard him through the thin wall saying: "I know Immaculee's here and I will find her and kill her."

But Immaculee survived. She subsequently wrote her moving account Left To Tell: Discovering God Amidst The Rwandan Holocaust.

What she learned is that only forgiveness and love can save us.

Yes, we must call evil for what it is. We cannot bury our heads in the sand. That is what allowed the genocide to claim so many lives: people looked the other way.

We can't look the other way. When we do, we are complicit in wrongdoing. Yet, neither can we fight injustice or wrongdoing with hate. Instead we must learn from Immaculee and do as she did.

Immaculee survived because she was able to go deep within, touch God and find the ability to send forgiveness and love to her would-be murderers. And she survived because another man - a Hutu - listened to that same Voice within himself, risked his life and hid her.

Immaculee weighed 69 pounds when she emerged on the 91st day.

Now she is an inspiration for all. With tremendous grace she gives us God's message:

Killing others destroys our souls. Love is our only real option and our only possibility for salvation.

We must all seek to follow Immaculee's example and allow God's love to transform our lives and our world.

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God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. John 4:24

God is love. 1 John 4:8

Nevertheless I am continually with thee. Psalms 73:23

God hath not give us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. 2 Timothy 1:7

He will swallow up death in victory. Isaiah 25:8

Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times; but, Until seventy times seven. Matthew 18:12,22

9/11 Revisited

Christian theologian David Griffin is professor emeritus at the Claremont School of Theology, where he taught for over 30 years (retiring in 2004). He has authored or edited over two dozen books, including God and Religion in the Postmodern World and Religion and Scientific Naturalism.

He gave a speech at the University of Wisconsin on the moral obligations of Christians in regard to 9/11.

He says that, while it is terrible to think that the U.S. government might have been complicit in the attacks of 9/11, it is "too horrible" to think that the U.S. government actually planned and carried out these attacks.

"Unfortunately," he says, "the evidence that this happened is convincing."

Professor Griffin subsequently lays out a persuasive case that the "omissions and distortions" in the 9/11 report amount to a cover-up by government officials and that the available evidence suggests that the Bush administration was complicit in the 9/11 attacks.

His lecture was broadcast On C-Span 2 on Thursday, April 28, 2005, yet this is the first I've heard of it or his books on this topic.

But no wonder. Who could believe it could be true? It is monstrous to think so.

Yet Christians do not run from controversy. Nor do we stick our heads in the ground when it comes to difficult subjects. We know our first allegiance is to God and truth. Therefore, watch this video of Dr. Griffin's lecture and consider the evidence for yourself.

If you are tempted to dismiss Dr. Griffin as some sort of madman without listening to his lecture, be aware that a growing number of respectable professionals, including physicist Steven Jones of Brigham Young University and Morgan Reynolds, Ph.D. professor emeritus at Texas A&M University and former director of the Criminal Justice Center at the National Center for Policy Analysis headquartered in Dallas, TX who served as chief economist for the US Department of Labor during 2001 and 2002 (in George W. Bush's first term) also find compelling evidence that the 3 buildings destroyed during 9/11 were destroyed as a result of planned demolition.

I came to Dr. Griffin's lecture, after seeing other research and videos. For a brief summary, Twin Towers Story will give you an broad picture of the evidence.

However it is the compelling and convincing fact-based video 911 Revisited that brought me to the sober realization that what really happened on 9/11 could not possible be as we were told.

After now listening to Dr. Griffin's lecture, I am deeply saddened. I thought the idea that 9/11 was orchestrated by our government was an insane, paranoid fantasy. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to hold this view any longer. I cannot dismiss this information, given the magnitude of the evidence and the explanations by engineers.

It is important to realize that the majority of those working in our government are good, dedicated and moral people. However, there certainly seems to be an agenda in the highest ranks of our government that is counter to everything Christ stands for.

I ask you to pray for our nation and ask God to lead us out of the darkness and betrayal into which we have been thrust. The eyes of all wait upon thee. Psalms 145:15

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They have not lied unto men, but unto God. Acts 5:4

Am I therefore your enemy because I tell you the truth? Galatians 4:16

Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. 1 Timothy 1:17

He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death. Psalm 107:14

He will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; He will lead them in paths that they have not known. Isaiah 42:16

The Lord will lighten my darkness. Psalm 18:28

You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. John 8:32