Category Archives: Theology and Mission
Peace Warrior and Prophet A.J. Muste
Martin Luther King, Jr. commented to Nat Hentoff in the mid-1960’s, “I would say unequivocally that the emphasis on non violent direct action in the civil rights movement is due more to A.J. (Muste) than anyone else in the country.” During the early years of the movement, A.J. Muste as President of the Fellowship of Reconciliation hired the principal organizers of the “freedom rides” on buses in the south. Among them were Bayard Rustin, leader of the 1963 March on Washington, James Farmer founder of CORE and George Houser, founder of the American Committee on Africa.
I wrote several blog posts in 2020 on the pioneer U.S. organizer of non-violent protest A.J. Muste. Following the police killing of George Floyd that year, the human right to demonstrate publicly against the actions of government and powerful institutions was exercised repeatedly as the most effective counter force to policies of the outgoing Trump administration. Civil disobedience and non-violent resistance had at the time already proliferated with the spread of authoritarian regimes worldwide.
Although the life and work of Rev. A.J. Muste has yet to be celebrated in a comprehensive biography, I want to share news of four videos made recently focusing on the leading U.S. revolutionary non-violent resister of the 20th century. The videos total over 6 hours recounting the progression of Muste’s life from his pacifist opposition to WW I to Trotskyite labor organizer, his return to the church and subsequent leadership in civil rights and anti war movements.
The videos’ interviews with trainers and organizers of non violent resistance such as civil rights leader Rev. James Lawson and founder and head of the War Resisters League David McReynolds establish Muste as having introduced non violent theory and practice to key U.S. protest organizers in the last century. In his eighties he continued to organize or serve as lead consultant for anti-Vietnam War demonstrations and draft resistance public actions. His role in shaping the civil rights’ struggle’s reliance on non violent civil disobedience is emphasized by several of the interviewees.
All four videos were made by David Schock, former English professor at Hope College in Michigan, Muste’s alma mater, in collaboration with Dr. Kathleen Verduin also of Hope College. Here is the link to an excerpt, the final minutes of the second video “The No. 1 U.S. Pacifist”, which concludes with Muste’s dream of a peacemaking U.S. foreign policy:
The four complete videos can be accessed on the web site A.J. Muste: Radical for Peace. Also on the site is a request to donate to help cover the video project’s costs covered by the two creators of the film.
In another tribute to Muste’s prominence as the leading opponent of the U.S. war machine and foreign interventions, Professor Noam Chomsky in 1967 wrote at length about the recently deceased Muste’s contributions in the Sidney Lens/Muste Liberation magazine. It is at:
A Shared Risk
The clock read 2:46 on March 11, 2011 when the quake shook Japan’s biggest island. It was the most severe jolting ever experienced on the islands of earthquake-prone Japan. Some registered the impact as over 9 on their scales.
The teachers and students of Okawa Elementary School 400 kms. north of Tokyo knew this was not like former earthquake And they knew to duck under their desks as they had been instructed to do first. They then had to evacuate the school buildings and head out to the expansive playground whose new shoots of grass had just begun appearing. What the occupants of the buildings did not then know was that the real danger was yet to come.
Less than 4 kms. away the Pacific Ocean seethed in turmoil as though angered by the quake’s insolence. A massive wave was gathering force for a pounding of the land. The river close to the school fled in a mad rush inland from its estuary. Students and teachers gathered closer as they listened intently to the playground’s speaker amplifying the announcement that a tsunami was preparing to strike the area.
Although the word “tsunami” is derived from the Japanese language and many “tidal” or “harbor” waves have repeatedly struck modern Japan, school personnel and officials of Okawa’s prefecture were not prepared for the 2011 disaster. The evacuation measures following a quake were familiar and unambiguous. What to do to escape a tsunami of such size and power was yet to be decided.
With no directive coming from the radio, the teachers began a frantic discussion. It was clear they were divided. Bordering the school grounds stood a hill rising in a steady incline over 1000 feet. Even the school’s smaller students had partially climbed it. They had planted and harvested mushrooms there and upper level students enjoyed running or ambling up the hill. When teachers rejected a climb as the best escape route, at least one sixth grader voiced his disagreement. The teachers feared multiple injuries among younger students sliding on the light snow covering the hill.
No one on the playground knew they had 51 minutes between the quake’s first jolts and the wave’s appearance. Or that it would rise above them 30 meters high one minute after the loudspeaker warning. When the river suddenly overflowed its banks and roared as its water surged inland, a handful of sixth graders fled the playground. Four of them along with one teacher survived when the river water began slamming the playground and school buildings. 34 students and 5 teachers perished. When the earthquake occurred, most of the student body had already gone home. The victims were preparing to board the last bus whose driver was also killed. There were over 200 fatalities in the houses near the school.
The tsunami terror left the newly organized Church World Service Japan with a valuable lesson. At a coastal elementary school in a Sendai suburb there were no fatalities. There, immediately following the shock of the quake, students and teachers followed the school stairs to the roof. They witnessed and heard around them the ghastly destruction. But there were no injuries. For Church World Service it was as though the disaster had scrawled a message to guide its future. Disaster Risk Reduction would be their emphasis in preparedness work across Asia.
A variety of measures for risk reduction have been introduced by CWSJ in multiple countries of Asia. Working through local partner non-profits Church World Service Japan implements Disaster Risk Reduction projects in Vietnam, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Myanmar and elsewhere. In most instances, the locale’s evacuation planning is first assessed. Some areas of DRR demanding specialization in expensive technology, such as radiation control measures, are addressed in international conferences CWSJ has helped organize.
That the twelve year old NGO has assumed a leadership in the DRR field is more evidence that government and other NGO’s have been slow to respond to the need. Although 14 countries in Asia experienced over 227,000 fatalities from the 2004 tsunami centered on Indonesia, Japan appears to be setting the standards across Asia in earthquake and tsunami preparedness. There are two major earthquake fault lines on the main island, with one running vertically through Tokyo.
ANOTHER SCHOOL’S STORY
Climbing the Mountain in Japan
There continues to be surveys and accounts of the decline in attendance and affiliation with churches in the U.S. Although often characterized as evidence of the increasing secularization of the society, I believe this mischaracterizes what is really happening. At the very least, more consideration needs to be given to the trend among persons under the age of 35-40 to adopt practices of meditation and even faith in a power beyond our self from a buffet of beliefs. It is long past time to reject the label secular for any non-Christian or non-Church organized belief or form of meditation.
I am certain that for a majority of U.S. Christians the ten days I just spent in Japan were devoted to a “secular” cause. In accepting the privilege of meeting with the staff of Church World Service Japan for the second time, the first being pre-pandemic in 2018, there was no intention to gain adherents or bolster the churches there. My aim and that of the CWS Japan invitation was for me to assist in developing a public fund raising and outreach strategy for the humanitarian aid agency in a land where 98% of the population is non-Christian. Only one of the six full time staff members, Ms. Yukiko Maki, is Christian and active in the United Church of Japan. Her portfolio as Director of Programs includes cultivating the relationship with the Christian international aid network of the World Council of Churches’ ACT Alliance.
Since its creation in 2011 to help respond to the devastation of the massive earthquake, tsunami and Fukushima nuclear disaster, CWS Japan has grown significantly in its capacity and programs. Its General Secretary Takeshi Komino is now a leading voice in Japan and across Asia in the field of Disaster Risk Reduction. In a few years Mr. Komino has led other chief executives in Japan’s non profit sector in setting standards of accountability and engaging in partnerships with the Japanese Government and corporations.
So were my preparations and efforts to help further the presence and public support of CWS Japan to be considered as “secular” in nature? Only if we define religious, as do many U.S. Christians and analysts of social trends, as confined to activity advocating or espousing belief in Jesus Christ.
In fact, in my own tradition of the Christian faith, proselytism has for decades been superseded by another aim of “mission” in other lands. The founding of indigenous-governed churches in Asia, Africa and Latin America has made redundant and obsolete mission and “missionaries” primarily focused on conversion. The joint Global Ministries office of the United Church of Christ and Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the U.S. now recruit their partisans to “accompany” Christians and non-Christians in tasks which enhance and protect lives and the land where they are invited to do so.
One may well respond to this “call” to “accompanimiento”, as the Latin American origin of this approach to mission describes it, as a pilgrimage with people abroad and our Creator to restore and “make all things new”. This is, however, a significant historic departure from the traditional U.S. Christians’ view of “mission” in other countries. The Global Ministries avoidance of referring to their personnel deployed overseas as “missionaries” in favor of the term “Mission Co-Worker” grows out of the dramatic changes in the 20th century world. The struggles for independent nation status and self reliance resulting in the decolonization of the Euro-American colonies found support among progressive and aware U.S. Christians and their church denominations.
The new outlook on world mission that emerged in the more contemporary church bodies demanded a wholly different set of skills of their mission “co workers” in other countries. Gone was the emphasis on sending “authoritative” voices on the scriptures and preachers of “the Word” to be replaced by mutual learning, listening, affirmation and “accompanimiento”. To build relationship in an effective partnership with a colleague or colleagues in the foreign setting, one first had to devote oneself to learning about the local context. Never appropriate or needed was someone who, with little listening or learning in the local context, presumed to offer “expert” advice on any activity or program.
My rewards in taking such a posture and approach flow from the sense of solidarity and mutual affirmation I have experienced. Rather than a tally of converts I celebrate the beginning and the growth of relationships with those who fulfill the purpose of their lives with life-enhancing, loving works. Following my recent trip, I am grateful for the meeting of new CWS Japan staff and for the deepening of my relationship with those staff I interacted with in 2018. Vastly different but equally fulfilling have been the relationships enabled by mission assignments in Congo (1969-71 and 2010), Mexico (2012-2015), and with Church World Service US donors in Kenya (periodic visits 2003-2011).
A primary difference in my recent experience in Japan has been the strengthening of my conviction that there are many paths up the mountain of faith. Christians are by no means alone in their life work of seeking and paying homage to the hope, peace, joy and love we celebrate at Christmas as Jesus’ offering to all humankind. During this latest Japan visit, I found new strength and assurance from those of other faith traditions and no faith at all in my own trek up the mountain of faith. As we join persons taking a different path we can all know the solidarity and love of Christmas every day as we climb to the mountaintop.
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Visit the CWS Japan English website at https://www.cwsjapan.org/english/. Make a monthly or one time donation while there!
B.Traven’s and Our Struggle to Be Human
There were some years in the 1930’s when B. Traven was the most widely read fiction writer in the world. Today, his many novels and collections of stories have exceeded 25 million in sales and been translated into more than 30 languages. In spite of his huge legion of readers, his biography and even his name continue to be debated. After his death, in his late 70’s? or late 80’s?, in 1969, his first and only wife Rosa Elena Lujan, suggested “He believed that individual stories are not important until they flow into the collective life”. She elaborated that he was “very much in love with communal life and communal thinking”.
Lujan, translator of many of his books into English, also revealed that Traven had indeed been the German revolutionary Ret Marut. Condemned to death by firing squad in 1919 in Munich, the former communications officer of the Bavarian Socialist Republic escaped from his captors and sought refuge on a freighter that took him, an undocumented man claiming to be born in the U.S., around the world. We know for certain that for more than five years, he was a man without a country.
In 1925 he chose life on land in México and jumped ship in the northern port of Tampico. Two novels that he had likely written while at sea were published a year later in Germany by the author B. Traven. The Death Ship tells of an undocumented sailor and his mates exploited ruthlessly by the captain and owners of a global freighter. Gerald Gales, the sailor, is also the protagonist of The Cotton Pickers, first titled The Wobbly, who tells his fellow farmworkers that he identifies with the Wobblies (Industrial Workers of the World). Wobbly publications and artifacts remained stored among his personal items to his death.
Not surprising that many literary critics as well as readers have described Traven as a proletarian writer. This is true to a limited degree but there is a larger view of the man’s work and his life as a whole. I prefer thinking of him as an internationalist with exceptional compassion for people of all nationalities, tribes, and cultures. And a man with an unsurpassed talent for expressing that compassion through tales set in the highly diverse environments of México, his adopted country. A foremost example of what I see as his “internationalist” affiliation is found in his dedication of The Bridge in the Jungle:
“To the mothers
of every nation
of every people
of every race
of every color
of every creed
of all animals and birds
of all creatures alive
on earth
This begins the story of a mother’s and her Chiapas villagers’ anguished search for her exuberant pre-teen son. The same “internationalist” devotion can be found in most of Traven’s fiction. While exploitation of the workers by the man with capital is present in his best known book in the U.S., The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, other non-proletarian specific themes prevail. The grizzled old prospector cures an Indian on the way to the “treasure” and finds his place among his patient’s people. Thompson renounces the pursuit of great wealth for the envisioned peace with a loving wife and small farm in the Midwest. And Dobbsie, who resembles Traven the most, is tamed through the grueling pilgrimage to more knowledge of himself.
The passion of celebrating the worth and dignity of every human being drives Traven’s creativity. The writer’s utopian dream was of a world where the work of the typesetter, the secretary in the publisher’s office, the mailroom clerk, and the writer were all equally valued. What sets Traven apart from other modern writers in the hundred years since his fiction first appeared is his embrace and affirmation of all peoples and cultures. While his focus continued to be on the surviving Mayan cultures and people of Chiapas, southern México, he didn’t romanticize or set them apart from other “pre-modern” cultures or our own today. Traven lived off and on in Chiapas for a total of at least two decades and his ashes were scattered over the jungle there.
In her introduction to The Kidnapped Saint and Other Stories Mrs. Lujan wrote of his love for Chiapas. “Traven went to the Indians of Chiapas as a brother, a friend, and a comrade, not as most outsiders did, to steal from or exploit them.” She heard from her husband how he lived among them: “At night Traven slept on the hard ground with only his serape wrapped around him. In the morning he rose early and ate tortillas and chili with them.” She notes that her husband had a gift for languages and could converse in several Mayan dialects.
Why B. Traven spurned the great wealth and fame that would have come from his life work he explained in 1929. Writing a German professor who lectured on his books, Traven wanted it understood that “I do not want to give up my life as an ordinary human being”. To do so would have undermined his aim to “do my part to get rid of all authorities and the veneration of authorities so that every man can feel stronger in the knowledge that he is absolutely as indispensable and important for the rest of humanity as every other person no matter what they do.” Our duty as human beings was to “serve humanity according to our understanding and capacity, to lift up the lives of others, bring them more happiness and direct their thoughts to meaningful goals of life.” Forty years later, at his death, Traven could look back on a lifetime of remaining faithful to this goal. B. Traven, presente!
Unity Emphasis in Global Christian Mission Today
Elena Huegel is a “Mission Co Worker” in San Cristobal de las Casas , Chiapas, Mexico. She is assigned to work with INESIN, a local human rights and peacemaking agency, and leads workshops for the staff and community. INESIN is one of many “partner agencies” of the Global Ministries work of the theologically progressive U.S. Protestant denominations, the United Church of Christ (UCC) and the Disciples of Christ (DOC).
Like most partners of Global Ministries outside the U.S., it is ecumenical in nature and does not aim to found churches. Mission churches started decades ago with the help of missionaries of the two Global Ministries denominations are now self-governing and self-propagating. Most are growing much faster than the U.S denominations and benefit from Elena’s and other Mission Co Workers’ presence in the their programs of community economic development, agriculture, healthcare, education and protection of human rights.
Elena’s grandfather, Frederick Huegel, went to Mexico early in the twentieth century, as a missionary trained in preaching and evangelism with the intention of growing the Disciples of Christ presence in central Mexico. Elena’s parents also worked with the new churches of the Disciples of Christ in Mexico. Bilingual at an early age, Elena has been a Mission Co Worker in Chile for over twenty years and in Paraguay before returning to Mexico to work with INESIN staff.
The following interview with Elena Huegel took place last August while driving her to a speaking engagement in the U.S.
DS: So Elena what does INESIN stand for?
EH: The Institute for Intercultural Studies and Research.
DS: Tell us a bit about the history of that organization.
EH: When Rios Montt was President of Guatemala and all the refugees from the country were crossing the border into México, the Catholic Bishop (Bp Samuel Ruiz) had people all along the border helping with the refugee crisis. The UCC and Mennonites from the States had mission workers helping as well and they all got to know each other. In fact when opportunities opened for resettlement back into Guatemala the mission workers all began to accompany them back as human rights watchers. That resettlement began in January of ’94.
That’s also when Canada, the U.S. and México signed the Fair Trade agreement (NAFTA) and the Zapatistas had said that if the trade agreement was signed they were going into open warfare against the Mexican government. It was signed and the revolution explodes, the heart of it being San Cristóbal and the communities around it. So with that the inter-religious turmoil that there already had been between Catholics and Protestants was heightened. It took on a whole different turn because the government began taking advantage of the Protestants who were among the most oppressed of the population. The government encouraged creation of paramilitary groups among the Protestants. The groups were mainly children of Protestant converts from what I can tell.
DS: But you say there had been turmoil and tension between Protestants and Catholics before the Zapatistas came on the scene. What was that about?
EH: This is a simple question to a very complex situation. To read more I suggest:
There are many points of view as to why there are conflicts between the different protestant and Pentecostal groups and the different Catholic groups as well as newer religions (mainly Muslims) in Chiapas in general and the Chiapan Highlands (including San Cristóbal de las Casas) in particular. I would summarize by saying that there have been and are political and economic forces that have used religious differences to divide and conquer the Mayan communities. Nowadays, organized crime has also come onto the scene sowing further confusion and chaos within communities and, in some cases, bringing different religious groups together in the struggle against the cartels while in others causing further unrest and division. There is a very long history of violence connected to the different religious expressions, with victims and perpetrators connected directly or indirectly to different religious affiliations.
DS: So the Protestant grievances about the Catholics had been long standing and were used by the government.
EH: The government was trying to get at the Zapatistas from different directions. And as the inter religious strife got worse the Bishop (Samuel Ruiz) realized that he needed someone to help him build a bridge and talk to the Protestants. He had already done quite a few things to build bridges. There were a whole lot of Protestants driven off their lands in the Chamula area and he supported the ones who fled to San Cristóbal. As the Bishop saw better what was happening, he went to the UCC and Mennonites who had worked with Catholics on the border and together they went on to found INESIN, the Institute for Intercultural Studies and Research. It was to create a space for inter-religious and inter-cultural dialog using various forums and projects to do that.
DS: Did the UCC have people in place there to participate in INESIN’s creation with the Catholics, Bishop Ruiz in particular?
EH: The UCC overseas mission office, Global Ministries, had a couple down there at the time. The couple were preparing to go down in late ’93 but finally arrived in February ’94 and were there then for some pretty incredible things. They were Paula Biddle and George. They knew the area as they had been working with Guatemalan refugees in Chicago and had been traveling back and forth from Chicago to Chiapas since the refugees began crossing the border.
DS: And what are you doing at INESIN now?
EH: So I am helping in staff development and education in trauma healing and conflict transformation primarily with the staff of INESIN. Protestants in Chiapas have seen INESIN as a Catholic organization and there is a lot of distrust and suspicion of any Catholic program among the Protestants. It’s going to take a long time of trust building before they join with Catholics in a process of trauma and conflict healing. So I’ve had some small groups and I’ve done some Christian Education trainings for Protestant Sunday School teachers which have attracted larger groups. I do other things as a way to start building up trust and relationship. I am also the local, national and international coordinator, facilitator, and trainer of the Retoños en las Ruinas: Esperanza en el Trauma (Roots or New Shoots in the Ruins: Hope in Trauma) program with facilitators in Chiapas, different states of Mexico and 5 other countries in Latin America.
DS: In addition to your training for trauma healing and conflict transformation you’ve been trained in environmental education?
EH: My undergraduate training was in recreation and outdoor education and my first love has always been environmental education.
DS: What is the tie between trauma healing and the environmental education?
EH: I came to realize there is a soul wound in our relationship with the earth and that’s one of the great things about being here with the Mayans. There’s the opportunity to come full circle. It used to be environmental education was concentrating on how we take care of the earth. Now, coming full circle with the help of the Mayans and other indigenous groups we understand better how the earth takes care of us.
We can’t be fully healed unless we attend to this relationship with the earth and how this is an essential part of our wholeness. Many people among the Mayans have that very clear. How a healthy relationship with the earth is essential to our relationship with oneself, with others and with God. So I’ve been thinking more in the last four years here about how our reconnecting with nature brings about our healing and how for example a sense of awe is essential to our recognizing something bigger than ourselves, something where hope lies, something that moves our souls. I’m doing more work around that now. How immersing people in nature can be part of their healing process.
DS: So how is this Mayan tradition of relationship with nature transmitted these days?
EH: I would say that not all Mayans today practice or have experience of the relationship. One of the things that the Institute has been doing especially on the Catholic side is helping to reconnect to that spirituality that was connected to Mother Earth. So one of the things that is still practiced but not everyone practices is the Mayan altar. The Mayan altar is always transitory. It is made from things from nature. It is created by the community. Using different flowers but it can also have dirt and seeds and fruit. These are placed in four quadrants representing the four cardinal directions.
And that transitory altar also has candles on it. Once the candles are lit they’re not put out. And the altar lasts as long as the candles last and once the candles die down, the altar is taken apart and the fruits are eaten and everything goes back into nature again.
DS: And the altar is built at a certain time of year.
EH: No it can be at any time the community needs to gather. And we at INESIN always have groups that visit us build a Mayan altar together.
Is Socialism No Longer a “Dirty Word” in the U.S.?
If a health care system which serves all residents and citizens
If free quality education for all children from pre school through university
If the public ownership of all natural resources essential for human life – water, power, and natural gas
If foremost priority in public expenditure is given to improved systems serving citizens and residents and not to securing the control of resources in other nations
If an economy driven by production for human consumption and use and not the production of weaponry
If international collaboration rather than competition in meeting global crises: climate change, nuclear weapons proliferation, and pandemics
If progress toward making one or more of these aims our reality requires adopting our own form of socialist rule in the U.S., then I am all for it.
The increasing U.S. rule by a corporate and financial elite supported by the knee-jerk charge that a policy is “socialism” serves to defend a flagrantly unjust and unsustainable status quo. Does making some dramatic changes in this country’s economic and political systems necessitate serious consideration of socialist solutions? Yes, it does and yes it will. Evidence mounts that in European nations with some mix of socialist and capitalist economic policies the people are healthier and happier and increasingly more financially secure than here.
Those nations also prove that adopting a form of socialism does not require authoritarian rule and loss of individual freedoms as most people in this nation seem to think. The youth in this country are more aware than most adults that making socialism a “bugaboo”, as one commentator recently called it, serves only the small minority who gorge on profiting from the status quo. It now appears more likely that the charge of “socialism” assigned universal health care and similar programs by conservatives and some liberals is now approaching its expiration date. As a hold over from the Cold War propaganda of the 50’s, increased allocations for an already bloated budget for defense (and the corporations subsidized by the defense budget) at the expense of increased budgeting for health care, education and public utilities has begun to lose force in shaping public opinion. At the same time, we in this country remain under the sway of an extreme form of capitalist economics that subverts the aims of the majority who work more and die earlier year by year.
As we consider the consequences of ignoring and now in some states banning discussions of race and the history of white supremacy in classrooms, it would be helpful to look at how discussion of contemporary examples of socialist and capitalist economic strategies have also been largely ignored in our schools. That someone is now and has been able for many years to graduate from a U.S. secondary education with the conviction that only socialism leads to authoritarian rule is not by chance. To ignore completely the history of capitalist Germany’s descent into barbarous, genocidal rule in the last century is to avoid by intention serious critique of our form of capitalism which now threatens the country’s survival as a democracy. That many of Germany’s leading corporations and members of the economic elite supported the Nazi regime is still kept secret from most of our students throughout their education.
But I would be renouncing my call as a Christian to neglect mention of some personal and social developments of our time that many U.S. Christians and others ignore. First, on the personal level there is an even more precipitous decline in church attendance and membership in leading Western democracies, such as Germany, than in this nation. At the same time, the China Christian Council of what we identify as “godless” Communist China has experienced growth that would be the envy of “mega-churches” in the U.S. When restrictions were lifted in the early 1980’s by the Communist Party and Chinese state, the China Christian Council as the unified Protestant Church and the heir of the work of pre-1949 missionaries has been hard pressed to build enough churches and seminaries to keep up with the rising number of Christians in China.
On the social plane, is it not time for Christians who oppose universal health care in the world’s richest nation to reconsider their position in the light of Jesus’ example? How can followers of the healer and advocate for the poor favor an economic system driven by one’s own interest over an economic and political system based on “from each according to his/her abilities to each according to their needs”. It is now time to ensure that the mischaracterization of socialism as inherently or practically against faith in a higher power be ruled out of our public policy discussions. To continue to equate socialism with either authoritarian or godless rule is to make an argument founded on lies and fear. How many of the NATO members which have implemented social welfare policies many persons here characterize as socialist have banned religion or severely restricted public religious activity?
How do so many U.S. Christians justify the ethical principles of many members of our corporate/financial ruling elite? Let me single out the example of our former Chair of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan whose ethics were shaped by the Objectivist philosophy of Ayn Rand. The system of thought condemns altruistic behavior and elevates self interest as the fundamental principle of a free society. Through his forties, Greenspan contributed articles to the Objectivist movement’s newsletter in the 60’s and remained close to Rand until her death. As an upper class refugee from the deprivations of the early years of the Soviet Union, Rand developed a philosophy of life that extolled the extreme individualistic ethics of capitalism. Greenspan’s background as a devoted Rank acolyte did not hinder his rise to prominence in service of the U.S. economy, deregulation of the financial industries and free market trade policies.
That the influence of a declared socialist Senator from Vermont has risen significantly and that so many of our country’s youth now condemn the unfettered capitalist economy in the U.S. can be attributed to the crises that overwhelm our country today. Not having experienced the fear mongering of the Cold War they perceive lame anti-socialist policy arguments rooted in corporate domination of our political discourse as impeding the nation’s progress in eliminating fossil fuel production, the priority of spending for defense, criminal justice practices which divide white workers from workers of color, and fierce opposition to union and other organizing to make change. Will we in the U.S. progress toward the implementation of a mixture of socialist and capitalist policies in our political economy? Yes, we will, provided our rule by and for the people survives and defeats the current onslaught making voting for many persons harder in defense of a grotesquely unequal and unjust status quo.
Feeding the Wolf
In a blog dedicated to “erasing borders” I want to address what force or forces serve to defend and strengthen national borders and border enforcement in the world. Now is the time because increased migration of threatened people across borders, “free trade” agreements, new technologies, and more travel (among other factors) all call for easing traffic across borders.
It is a confounding paradox for citizens of the U.S., especially for those born in the country with a single cultural identity, to delight in being surrounded by persons of other cultures while the politics and political economy of the country fosters suspicion and enmity of other nations and cultures. How could it be that a nation whose ideal self image, the ideal we grew accustomed to celebrating in our lives and in the life of the nation, has been that of a country leading in welcoming immigrants, how could it be that the same nation remains deadlocked on immigration reform for 35 years and focuses on combatting one enemy overseas after another?
Any attempt at a satisfactory answer to this question must consider some indisputable facts too long ignored. For anyone following the news casually, regardless of the news source in this country, we are aware of the U.S. emphasis on national defense and security. From the Defense Department budget, to television ads selling insurance for veterans, to conversations with those whose loved one is serving in the military, to statistics on the U.S. military’s footprint in over 80 other countries, we know this country is exceptional in equating military might with power and security.
What we don’t know and seldom talk about in our public forums is the effects on our loftiest ideals of our emphasis on preparation for war and conflict. What we also don’t think or talk about much in our civil dialog is the interaction between production of weaponry and the health of our economy.
Histories of California’s economy all point to the manufacture of aircraft as leading the way in the State’s growth. Its long Pacific sea shore has seen the rise of some of the largest and most important military bases during and following WW II. When a few bases were closed in the 90’s, and major aircraft production sites shut down, there was deep concern about what would replace them in the economies of the local communities and the State as a whole. Today the strength of California’s economy should assure us that a transition from an economy relying on defense expenditures can benefit a state’s population
Following the “Great War”, as many in the U.S. now term WW II, the late Prof. Seymour Melman devoted his research and writing to bringing to light the potential boost of the national economy with a conversion from defense production to production of “things that make for peace”. Despite his sterling credentials as a Columbia PhD in economics and his teaching at the same university until 2003, there has been little support for Melman’s views except among left wing intellectuals and peace organizations. He continues to be a “voice crying in the wilderness” in the political and economic discussion in this country.
Yet Melman’s case for such a conversion of the U.S. economy is more relevant today than ever. In a 1990 interview with journalist Bill Moyers, Melman noted “there’s no mystery in the shabby railroads, the broken bridges, the unpaved streets, the wrecked buildings, the absence of adequate housing, the aging character of the industrial equipment.” There is today more decline in U.S. manufacture of goods used by or benefiting individual consumers. With 46 per cent of U.S. production equipment devoted to manufacture of weaponry in the mid-1980’s, Melman urged us to consider the impact on employment in manufacturing, on industrial research and development, on worker productivity and on wages among other measures of a healthy economy.
In highlighting the economic effects of this country’s production of goods individuals do not consume, Melman’s views also raise questions about the effect of arms production and sales on U.S. policies as a superpower. How do arms sales abroad, we accounted for 37 % of the world total sales in 2020, affect our foreign policy? What about the influence of the arms industries (the Lockheeds, Raytheons, General Dynamics, etc.) on the military establishment strategies and our perpetual wars? What are the costs to the nation’s ideals and self image of selling vastly more weaponry than any other nation in the world? Finally and most urgently in our time, how does our focus on defense and arms production handicap our capacity to lead in renewable energy production and innovation?
While controversy rages in our politics over what to do about the climate crisis worldwide, the response to a global pandemic, and how to move toward a healthy multi-racial society there is little conflict in our politics on defense and security issues. Consensus of the two parties on expanding our military and waging war for international conflict resolution seems guaranteed.
A few years ago a Cherokee Indian fable was widely shared. A wise grandfather advises his grandson that there are two wolves inside all of us. One of the wolves is characterized by anger and fear and the other wolf is accepting and loving. The two wolves fight within each of us. So the grandson asks which wolf finally wins and the grandfather replies, “The one you feed will win”. Despite its lofty ideals and grand achievement in the past, does anyone doubt which wolf the U.S. continues to feed today? What will be the consequences for the nation if the wrong wolf wins the battle within us? What will be the consequences for the world?
Division Street in Every U.S. Town
Division Street remains the principal east-west residential artery in Atchison, Kansas. The town is named after a leading defender of slavery who himself “owned” many slaves: David Atchison. A powerful Senator in the pre-Civil War era, Atchison advocated founding the town on the west side of the Missouri River to bridge the Kansas territory with the pro slavery forces of the State of Missouri to the east..
There are signs of a Division Street in all U.S. towns and cities, in the South and the North. The multiple deaths of black men and women at the hands of law enforcement and the ensuing mass protests before and during the pandemic have called our attention to these signs of racial separation and conflict. Let me take you to Indianapolis, Indiana my hometown, the capital of a “free state” prior to the Civil War.
When my family moved there in the mid-1950’s African Americans were virtually banned from purchasing homes north of 42nd Street. Real estate agents would not show homes in my white neighborhood to potential black buyers; banks denied their mortgage applications. I grew up with no African American neighbors and no black children attending my elementary school. In the early 1960’s when support for racial integration and opposition to the City’s discriminatory practices and legislation grew, the neighborhood and City changed. As black families moved into houses in the area, some realtors contributed to the view that they would bring a decline in neighborhood appearance and property values. This widespread expectation did create a white flight to northern Indianapolis suburbs along with increased profits for realtors.
By the time I entered high school in 1960, many of my neighbors were African American. Once the inevitable was accepted, integration took place suddenly and quickly. I learned that one of the black families on my paper route hosted Rev. Martin Luther King on his visits to the city. My graduating class at the City’s premier public high school was half African American and included the school’s first black junior prom queen.
Fifty years after my high school graduation, I was dismayed to learn that not all of my class’ white students took pride in the School’s progress in adapting to a more racially diverse student body. At the reunion in 2014, no reference was made in the program that we had been participants in historic change at the City’s oldest high school. For some attendees, it was evidently no cause for celebration.
In my wife’s Atchison, Kansas hometown, Division Street is a constant reminder of the conflict that continues to divide this country today. The Street’s name also describes the seated U.S. Congress. Republicans want to preserve the filibuster, a measure originated by southern congressmen to defend segregation and subjugation of the black population in the South. In response to Republican legislation in a majority of states to limit voting by persons of color, Democrats have now submitted a bill to protect and expand the right to vote . Without ending the Senate’s filibuster procedure, however, the “For the People Act” has little chance of being approved.
Thanks to the intransigent solidarity of the Republic opposition, expansion of voting rights, substantive measures to reduce income inequality, reform of immigration policies and even urgently needed repair of the nation’s infrastructure will continue to be stalled or voted down. Inoffensive Republican gestures affirming citizens of color continue as the party’s political strategy for the next elections. There was near unanimous Republican approval of a national Juneteenth holiday this year in the Congress. African Americans have for years celebrated the June 19, 1865 freeing of slaves in Texas when a Union general arrived at a State seaport and made the announcement, more than two years after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. But how many white U.S. citizens now celebrate the Juneteenth holiday?
The spring Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered in Memphis, TN I had a college job in the national headquarters of a leading shoe retailer. There were dozens of low wage “key punch operators”, most of them black and Puerto Rican women and I knew most saw King as a martyred leader. The day before the King funeral, I protested the company’s refusal to give anyone paid time off to watch and was promptly fired. How many U.S. citizens still resent the national holiday in January celebrating his birth? It became a national holiday in 1983 but did not become an official state holiday in all 50 states until the year 2000.
An African Plea for Tolerance and Unity
“May our love not be centered upon ourselves! May this love not incite us to love only those who are like us or to espouse ideas that are simililar to our own! To only love that which resembles us is to love oneself; this is not how to love.”
These are the words of the Malian mystic Tierno Bokar Saalif Taal, a disciple of the Sufi tradition of Islam. The unity of all believers, like the unity of humankind, was basic in his teaching.
“To believe that one’s race or one’s religion is the only possessor of the truth is an error. This could not be. Indeed, in its nature, faith is like air. Like air, it is indispensable for human life and one could not find one man who does not believe truly and sincerely in something. Human nature is such that it is incapable of not believing in something, whether that is God or Satan, power or wealth, or good or bad luck.”
Tierno (pronounced ‘Chair-no’) Bokar grew up in a devout Muslim household surrounded by social conflict in Segou, a major town of southern Mali. While periodic battles threatened the population, his mother, aunt and grandmother taught and lived the virtues of love and charity. Following his father’s flight with one of the contending militias, Tierno and family settled at 18 in the village of Bandiagara where he lived the rest of his life. As a man who exemplified modesty and humility, he taught that God bestowed faith and wisdom on all peoples regardless of their level of technological advance or education.
His leading disciple Amadou Hampate Ba wrote that Tierno said, “Contrary to what usually happens, one should therefore not be surprised to find spiritual riches in someone from a people considered as backward, but one should instead be troubled at not finding them in civilized individuals who have long worked on developing their material lives.” Ba urged us to remember that all of Tierno’s words “came out of a modest room of dried earth, in the heart of black Africa, in 1933”. Amadou Ba’s 1957 record, published in French, of his master’s teaching was titled A Spirit of Tolerance: The Inspiring Life of Tierno Bokar in the 2008 English translation.
Mali was a French colony and after the Catholic Director of the Office of Muslim Affairs read Amadou Ba’s rough transcript of Tierno’s words, he wrote,
“These were words in their pure state, words spoken not to exalt man, neither speakers nor listener, but rather truly animating words, spoken with such sincere feeling for the other as to cause god to lie in the heart of the unbeliever, to vivify his faith, and to give a meaning to the lives of everyone.”
At the age of 33 Tierno Bokar opened his school, or “zawiya”, in Bandiagara. It was where Amadou Ba began his education. After years of study in the French schools of “French Soudan”, Ba spent six months in 1933 with Tierno, his first and foremost teacher. He took copious notes recording for himself and others what this master of wisdom and faith taught.
Apart from his teachings of tolerance and the unity of humankind, Tierno Bokar appealed to his pupils to find what God was trying to communicate to us through our senses and the “Book of Life”. As Jesus sought to do with the parables, Tierno often based his lessons on seeking the meaning of commonly shared experience. Amadou Ba’s book tells a moving story of his teacher repairing a bird nest and follows it with Tierno recounting an incident when his dog served him as an example of faithfulness. Ba comments, “For him, all of nature, animals and plants included, should be respected because they are not only our nourishing Mother, but they are, moreover, the great divine Book wherein everything is a living symbol and a source of teaching.”
During the six month sabbatical from his post in the French colonial administration Ba asked Tierno whether it was good to study other religions. The “sage of Bandiagara” replied,
“You will gain enormously by knowing about the various forms of religion. Believe me, each one of these forms, however strange it may seem to you, contains that which can strengthen your own faith. Certainly faith, like fire, must be maintained by means of an appropriate fuel in order for it to blaze up. Otherwise , it will dim and decrease in intensity and volume and turn into embers then from embers to coals and from coals to ashes.”
Tierno Bokar then added, “That which varies in the diverse forms of Religion – for there can only be one Religion- are the individual contributions of human beings interpreting the letter with the laudable aim of placing religion within the reach of the men of their time. As for the sources of religion itself,” he went on to say, “it is a pure and purifying spark that never varies in time or space, a spark which God breathes into the spirit of man at the same time as He bestows speech upon him.”
With his emphasis on love and humility, Tierno’s teachings on religious tolerance came naturally. A plea for the unity of all believers accompanied his teaching on tolerance:
“Brothers of all religions, let us in God lower the boundaries that separate us. Down with the artificial creations that pit human being against each other….. Let us fly as an eagle with powerful wings towards the union of hearts towards a religion that is not inclined towards the exclusion of other ‘credos’ but towards the universal union of believers, freed from their own selves and morally liberated from the appetites of this world.”
Tierno advocated respect and acceptance for Christian missionaries and colonial officials: “This religion, which Jesus sought to deliver and which was loved by Muhammad, is that which, like pure air, is in permanent contact with the sun of Truth and Justice, as well as with the Love of the Good and Charity for all.”
It is with excitement that I introduce most of you readers to the teaching of Tierno Bokar. I am looking forward to re reading Ba’s book again and expect it will soon fill with my scrawled notes and comments. The lessons of a heightened awareness of what is going on around us in nature, the animal and plant realms in particular, hold a special appeal for me as I approach three quarters of a century in age. I also plan to order the only other book I know of that treats Tierno’s insights on God’s presence. Published in 1984 it is by the author of the introduction to Ba’s book, Dr. Louis Brenner, and is titled West African Sufi: The Religious Heritage and Spiritual Search of Cerno Bokar Saalife Tall .
Our Neighbors are Dying from Vaccine Resistance
Five years after our move from California to the Missouri side of Kansas City, I thought the culture shock was behind me. I did know and had told friends that the adjustment was felt here more than adapting to life in San Luis Potosi in central Mexico. Until now though I hadn’t really grappled with the vast differences of life in the State of Missouri after thirty plus years in California. The response of people in Missouri to the COVID pandemic, especially in the rural areas of the State, reflects a gulf in outlook and values much greater than I had heretofore realized.
According to a “WalletHub” study, there is now a greater risk of contracting the COVID -19 in Missouri than in any other state in the U.S. Health facilities in the southern part of the State are now overwhelmed by the number of COVID infected patients. The fire chief in Springfield, the largest town in southern Missouri, stated last week “This is a mass casualty event, happening in slow motion” and declared, “Our community is in crisis”. Low vaccination rates particularly in southwestern Missouri are the major factor in the high death rates from COVID. The CEO of the Springfield’s Greene County Health Department tweeted, “Likely all recent deaths were avoidable with vaccination, perhaps a few would have had cold like symptoms.”
Although health officials in the area continue to plead the case for vaccination, resistance is still high. Head of Cox Health Services, which manages several hospitals in southwest Missouri, declared, “If you could see the exhaustion in the eyes of our nurses who keep zipping up body bags, we beg you.” Taney County, with a Cox Hospital in Branson, ranked number 10 in the nation in new infections the week after the July 4 holiday. Only one in four persons in the County has been vaccinated.
Resistance to vaccination accompanies resistance to mask wearing by many people in Missouri. The town of Nixa with 21,000 residents south of Springfield, will soon vote on whether to remove its mayor. Infuriated by the mayor’s imposition of a mask wearing ordinance last October, citizens petitioned for the recall vote. Missouri’s Governor Mike Parson who hails from southern Missouri has customarily made public appearances maskless and contends it is a “personal matter”. But the alarming climb of the rate of COVID infections in his State has now led him to request federal assistance in combatting the virus. His official bio still claims that “Missouri has outperformed projections for both COVID-19 and the economy and continues to meet each challenge head on”.
Surpassing the Governor’s influence on COVID response in southern Missouri has been the former President’s laissez-faire attitude on citizen protection. There was no challenging of the 2020 presidential election results after Trump was backed by 57 % of Missouri voters. His support in the southern part of the State was overwhelming. Three counties in the south which are expected to see a tripling of COVID cases in coming weeks voted for the defeated incumbent by a 76%, 78% and 82% margin.
With multiple health care officials at the State and local levels emphasizing the spread of COVID in Missouri, the Governor has urged a calm response. “I don’t think we need to be out there trying to scare people into taking a vaccine” Parson told reporters after a Kansas City press conference. That statement followed his warning that the federal aid in Missouri’s anti-virus efforts should not include a door to door information campaign. A White House official called the Governor’s description of the federal three-pronged plans a “mischaracterization”.
Political posturing in the Governor’s fulfilling his responsibilities is especially lamentable when so many poor nations are now pleading for access to the vaccine. Due to the recent assassination of the country’s President, we in the U.S. now are aware there have been no COVID vaccination programs in Haiti. As of mid May, the UN reported that less than 2% of the vaccinations in the world have been administered in Africa. Although widely available throughout the State of Missouri, less than 40% of the population has chosen to be vaccinated.
Erasing Borders 