Religion
The Right Side of History: Religious Leaders Urge Immigration Reform at Hearing
originally posted by Seth Hoy for Immigration Impact [click here]
Jul 14th
At a House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration hearing today, a panel of conservative religious leaders made the case for common sense solutions to our immigration problems—comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) that secures our borders, follows the rule of law and provides a pathway to citizenship for the roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the U.S. While the hearing, The Ethical Imperative for Reform of Our Immigration System, started off with ethical and biblical arguments supporting and opposing reform, it later evolved into what most immigration debates eventually boil down to—fairness, justice and the punitive aspects of a reform effort.
The majority witnesses—Dr. Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention, Bishop Gerald Kicanas of Tucson and VP of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and Dean Mathew Staver of the Liberty University School of Law—testified to the moral and biblical mandate to care for “the least of these among us,” the “strangers” who reside in our land, and to act justly and mercifully by enacting comprehensive immigration reform. Faith leaders will continue to reach out and support the undocumented population, Dr. Land said, but “only a proper government response can resolve our immigration crisis.”
“Get tough on immigration” hardliners—Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) and Rep. Steve King (R-IA)—however, pushed back on religious leaders by citing scripture that quote the “rule of law” and advocate the “punishing of wrongdoers.” “Americans need not repent for wanting to follow the rule of law,” Rep Smith said, “A truly Christian approach would be to end illegal immigration.” Likewise, the single witness for the minority, Dr. James R. Edwards, Jr. of the restrictionist group Center for Immigration Studies, testified that biblical precepts of compassion and mercy “might not apply to civil government of the nation-state of which we are citizens. Sometimes, such application would actually be harmful and wrong.”
Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL)—among others—took particular offense to Dr. Edwards’ distinction. Rep. Gutierrez replied, “I want my government to be a reflection of my values, don’t you?” Rep. Charles Gonzalez (D-TX) asked Dr. Edwards if our current immigration laws were just and whether deporting 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living here was considered “justice?” Dr. Edwards replied “no” to both questions.
The underlying tension in the room, however, wasn’t whether our immigration system is broken (everyone in the room agreed on that) but in how to fix it—and a step further, what a “just punishment” might look like. While the majority of committee members and witnesses agreed on CIR as a solution, immigration restrictionists championed the Arizona SB1070 model—enforcement through attrition—that is, create enforcement laws so harsh that people choose to leave the state. Rev. Mathew Staver, Dean of Liberty University School of Law, argued that deportation wasn’t the answer and that the conservative “amnesty” scare tactic wasn’t helping anyone:
I call upon those who label an earned path to legal status as amnesty to stop politicizing this debate needlessly and to honestly acknowledge the difference.
Dr. Richard Land echoed Rev. Staver’s complaint that “amnesty” is, in fact, something very different from proposed CIR proposals.
Some critics, however, suggest that “comprehensive reform” is a code for amnesty, but such action is not amnesty because it does not merely pardon an offender. My proposal requires lawbreakers to pay a fine, learn to read, write and speak English, and follow a rigorous process for legal status. Penalties, probation, and requirements do not equal “amnesty.” Going to the back of the line behind those who have, and are trying, to come here legally is not amnesty. These are principles of justice and fairness that respect the rule of law and treat all parties involved (American citizens, legal immigrants and illegal immigrants) with dignity.
While restrictionist committee members continued to argue that CIR and its prescribed penalties—paying fines, going back to the end of the line, etc.—were simply not enough, religious leaders like Rev. Staver, continued to drive home the point that immigration is not a “right left” issue, but a “right wrong” issue, a moral issue, and that we “should not allow partisan politics to deter us from the ultimate goal of fixing a broken system.”
Photo by Lone Primate.
Muslim Community Center Rumbles Ground Zero in NYC
May 25th
Nearly nine years after the Twin Towers collapsed, Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan is still smoldering. The public response to a proposal to build an Islamic center near the site has reignited the embers of anti-Muslim animosity.
The right-wing blogosphere was apoplectic about plans to create a Muslim-oriented community center two blocks from the World Trade Center site. The Cordoba House, a project of the American Society for Muslim Advancement and the Cordoba Initiative, which work to improve interfaith and community relations, would offer a prayer space alongside other public amenities like a performing arts center and fitness facilities. In an otherwise uncontroversial development plan, the political subtext is straightforward: any symbol of Islam is an affront to the victims of 9/11 and American values.
Cue the wingnuts.
Over at Human Events, avowed Jihad-watcher Robert Spencer attempts to psychoanalyze the mosque-builders’ stealth propaganda war:
The Twin Towers, after all, were the symbol of America’s economic power. Placing a mosque by the site of their destruction (at the hands of Islamic jihadists) symbolizes the taming of that power.
That’s news to Daisy Khan, executive director of ASMA, who told CNN that the project’s main mission is to “celebrate the pluralism in the United States, as well as in the Islamic religion… It will also serve as a major platform for amplifying the silent voice of the majority of Muslims who have nothing to do with extremist ideologies. It will counter the extremist momentum.”
But an editorial in Investors Business Daily rails against the supposed Islamicization of America, touting conspiranoiac allegations of the government’s support radical Islamic institutions. (Ah ha! Those extremists at the Census Bureau have exposed their jihadist allegiances by leasing office space in a building owned by a scary Falls Church mosque!)
Witting or not, the government is guilty of what it has prosecuted others for doing — financing terrorist fronts….
Appeasement is now policy. Everything we learned on 9/11 has been turned on its head.
So, um, leaving aside the apocalyptic bloviating, what does any of this have to do with a proposed community center with a Muslim (but not religiously exclusive) focus in downtown Manhattan, which appears to be a progressive project coordinated not by the government but two private community organizations? Do New Yorkers feel genuinely “threatened” by the presence of Muslims praying near Ground Zero (alongside all the other religious institutions dotting the neighborhood), especially when the Twin Towers site remains a dismal, barren lot that could use some local revitalization right about now? (Despite the political noise, the project is currently wading through the usual approval process with the necessary city authorities.)
Marvin Bethea, who served as a paramedic at Ground Zero, told CNN what the presence of the Cordoba House would mean to him:
I think it’s the right thing to do… I lost 16 friends down there. But Muslims also got killed on 9/11. It would be a good sign of faith that we’re not condemning all Muslims and that the Muslims who did this happened to be extremists. As a black man, I know what it’s like to be discriminated against when you haven’t done anything.
Witting or not, to oppose the creation of a private cultural institution simply because of its ties to Islam would expose a gross hypocrisy in the politics of commemoration. Stigmatizing Muslim Americans would only undermine the city’s struggle to include all communities in the collective rebuilding effort.
Welcoming a space like Cordoba House in the Ground Zero community would be a powerful sign that human dignity still flourishes in a city that has been besieged by violence and fundamentalist hatred from all sides. Ground Zero is a strange point of unity in a fractious city, and there’s no point in finding common ground at the site of a tragedy if we can’t learn how to share it.
Image: Rendering of the Proposed Cordoba House on Park Place. (dnainfo.com)
Divine Intervention: Why Evangelicals Matter in the Immigration Debate
May 13th
In the latest faith-based immigration effort, a group of Evangelical leaders and hundreds of conservative grassroots advocates joined Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) yesterday to discuss the need for bipartisan support on an immigration bill. Today, a large group of Arizona faith leaders (Evangelicals, Christians, Catholics and members of the Jewish faith) planned to meet with Senator John McCain and the White House to urge immediate action on immigration reform and a repeal of Arizona’s enforcement law. This is not the first time the religious community has called for immigration reform, but the harsh Arizona law has led to greater urgency within the faith movement—especially among Evangelicals. Much like the rest of the country, religious leaders are pressing the federal government for a solution that goes beyond enforcement, arguing that family unity, legalization and integration issues must be resolved as well.
In a full page Roll Call ad today, the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) urged Congress and the President to pass reform that ‘respects the God-given dignity of every person, protects the unity of family, respects the rule of law, secures our border and ensures a path to citizenship for those who wish to become permanent residents.’
While some may dismiss these words as mere religious rhetoric, the religious community has and continues to provide a powerful voice in the immigration debate. The NAE alone represents 45,000 local churches, 40 different denominations and millions of people nationwide—including a large and growing Hispanic constituency. The NAE, for one, is tired of Congressional inaction on reform. NAE President, Rev. Leith Anderson, demands bipartisan reform now for the sake of family unity:
The law the way it is now is not pro-family, and evangelicals are, at our heart, pro-family. We have people who have waited five, ten years to have their families reunited. We have already waited too long. Bipartisan reform needs to be done now.
The religious community is also standing up against those on the right who refer to a legalization program as “amnesty.” Dr. Richard Land, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, railed against those who tend to type “illegal” in capital letters.
Those who say that making someone pay a fine, get to the back of the line, learn English and take a civics class in order to get legal status is ‘amnesty’ need to take a remedial English class themselves … They may be conservatives, they may be social conservatives, but they’re not evangelicals.”
Nor is the religious community happy about Arizona’s enforcement law—a result of the federal government’s failure to act on reform. The Liberty Council issued the following in a recent statement:
The crisis the country is witnessing in Arizona over immigration is the result of a failed immigration policy at the federal level. Arizona lawmakers felt compelled to act because the federal government would not. We do not agree that the Arizona law was the wisest course of action because immigration is a federal and not a state responsibility. It is the federal government’s failure that has led to the current crisis. The Arizona law is a symptom and a cry for help.
The religious community is just one voice—a voice which continues to get louder—of many calling for congressional action on immigration reform. How many more need to speak out before Congress gets the message?
Photo by freefotouk.
The Politics of Fear and Hate: Dealing with Islamophobia in The South Asian Community
originally posted by Debayani Kar for RaceWire [click here]
Mar 3rd
This piece originally appeared on Race-Talk.
In the nearly 10 years since September 11, progressive writers of color have written a great deal about Islamophobia and the U.S. wars against majority Muslim countries. A lot of this commentary has centered on white mainstream politics and the U.S. government’s flawed response to 9/11 encompassing the occupation of Afghanistan, Iraq and increasingly Pakistan. But an often-overlooked topic is the persistence of anti-Muslim sentiment within our own communities, in particular among South Asians.
Many observers may be familiar with the rise of Hindu nationalism in India under the leadership of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from 1998 to 2004. The massacre of thousands of Muslims in Gujarat was carried out with the implicit sanctioning of the party in 2002. In 2003 the BJP proposed an alliance among the U.S., Israel and India to counter threats of terrorism faced by each nation; this was code for the three governments’ anti-Muslim rhetoric and policy, and the equating of terrorism with Islam.
Beyond these larger geo-politics, the day-to-day structural injustices faced by India’s Muslim minority are less well-known. Indian-born MIT professor Omar Khalidi wrote in a major English weekly, “India is seen as a shining example of a secular state but in reality the Indian state actually privileges Hinduism over other religions and religious communities.” Khalidi went on to name constitutional discrimination, legislative discrimination and cultural discrimination as cases in point.
Khalidi’s arguments resonate with those of us working to eliminate structural racism in the U.S. Even then, anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. is sometimes conveniently classified as apart from general racism, even among people of color. The rationale is the need to address the real threat of terrorism. Yet it is simply the specific government- and media-sponsored definition of terrorism that implicates Muslims; violence carried out by anyone of Muslim descent is considered terrorism when other violence is not. A recent notable example is the utterly different treatment of Joe Stack compared to the Fort Hood shooting or would-be Christmas day bomber.
This otherizing of Muslims impacts our broader justice work. Former Representative Cynthia McKinney lost her seat in 2002 to the joint lobbying work of pro-Israeli government group AIPAC and conservative Hindus who faulted McKinney for supporting Arabs and Muslims. More recently, 11 students from a progressive Muslim campus organization were arrested to prevent them from exercising their right to free speech and protesting Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren. The Muslim-as-the-terrorist-other storyline fits neatly into silencing many progressive voices of dissent.
Beneath the surface of religious tensions lies a shrewd layer of economic reasoning. Religion has long been used by powers-that-be as a distraction to divide and conquer communities who might otherwise unite to defend common interests. In the U.S. similar divisions have been exacerbated vis-à-vis race, enabling the right wing to cleverly pick off impoverished white communities, leading them to vote against their own economic interests. A startling recent study provides the quantitative evidence for the economics of hate in India; authors from New York University find that periods of relative Muslim prosperity in India have resulted in increased violence against Muslims by Hindus.
I made this connection between economic justice and the politics of hate in my own life in recent years. Having focused primarily on economic justice work, the importance of tackling this issue did not rise above the fold for me until a recent trip to trace my roots. In July 2008 I traveled to Bangladesh and re-connected with relatives my predominantly Delhi-based family had not been in contact with for more than 50 years, due to the legacy of Partition.
The trip opened my eyes to many structural realities I had not yet grappled with: that Hindus are treated under a similar unjust economic and political structure within Bangladeshi society as Muslims face in India; that my own Hindu relatives can recount many stories bearing out this reality; and that we of South Asian descent have a long way to go to really grapple with all the issues we face between and across borders in South Asia and the diaspora.
Given the history of South Asia, there are thousands upon thousands of personal stories like this that illustrate the larger structural forces at work. True, the U.S., Britain and global North’s relationship with and exploitation of the differences in our communities is very real and requires addressing. Many have written extensively on the topic. But there is something to be said for engaging in anti-oppression work within our own South Asian communities, to hold each other more accountable.