Which group is spreading hate?

I just received an e-mail from the Horowitz Freedom Foundation inviting me to join their new Terrorism Awareness Program on April 19th, when they will stage a nationwide "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Day." They will even offer me a free copy of the movie, "Obsession: The New Documentary About Radical Islam's War Against the West," if I agree to do a screening on my campus.

It amazes me. It amazes me that there are groups out there that actually propagate such hate, and even more so, it amazes me that they believe that they are doing a service to others. It amazes me that they cannot see the beauty in a religion such as Islam, and it amazes me that instead they can only see hatred. Worse than that, it amazes me that they cannot see the hatred that exists within them. Most of all, it amazes me that they would even think to send me such an e-mail, that there might even be the slightest possibility that I would join their cause and spread their message.

To Mr. Jeffrey Wiener: I suggest you remove me from your mailing list.

Are Americans Learning Hate from the Pulpit?

By Rori Picker, Associate for Interfaith Relations, RFP-USA

My last blog post spoke about Muslim Americans and the discrimination that they face in America. As I quoted, the cover story of USA Today on August 9, 2006 reported that:

Thirty-nine percent of respondents to the USA TODAY/Gallup Poll said they felt at least some prejudice against Muslims. The same percentage favored requiring Muslims, including U.S. citizens, to carry a special ID "as a means of preventing terrorist attacks in the United States." About one-third said U.S. Muslims were sympathetic to al-Qaeda, and 22% said they wouldn't want Muslims as neighbors.

And actions speak louder than words. According to 2005 Hate Crime Statistics released by the US Department of Justice, anti-Islamic hate crimes were the second most prevalent type of hate crime reported last year. Although the worst wave of violence against Muslims and Arabs subsided three months after September 11, the FBI reports a significant rise in hate crimes against these two groups compared to before 9/11.

And these numbers continue to steadily rise. According to a 2005 report on the Status of Muslim Civil Rights in the United States, published by the Center on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the number of incident reports of civil rights cases in 2004 rose 49-percent compared with reported cases in 2003 and marked the highest number of cases reported to CAIR in their eleven year history.

Where do we learn this hate? An article in the November 8, 2006 St. Louis Today points out that we might just be getting it from the pulpit.

The Rev. David Clippard, executive director the Missouri Baptist Covention, a fellowship of 2,000 Baptist congregations, spoke at their annual conference last week and "chose to fan the flames of intolerance and fear." Amidst applause and cheers he declared to the 1,200 convention delegates:

"Today, Islam has a strategic plan to defeat and occupy America. They are after your sons and daughters... Your freedon is on the floor with their foot on it, with their sword raised, and if you don't convert, your head comes off."

This is only one example of what has become a prevalent trend in temples of all forms of faith traditions.These messages of hate are perhaps the most frightening because of the weight that they carry. Congregants give respect to their clergy and respect to the pulpit, and when a leader of a faith community stands before a congregation and preaches hate, people listen. When those sermons are met with applause and cheers, the clergy continue to spread their message.

The American public must speak up and protest such messages. When individuals hear their spiritual leader spreading such messages, they must voice their opinions or write their concerns-- they must express their disapproval. They must make it very clear that those are not the type of messages they want preached. If the message is not heard, more congregants should be encouraged to voice their concerns. Messages of hate should never be tolerated.

The media often refers to political tensions as "religious wars" or "the clash of civilizations." Let us not get confused by the rhetoric. These wars are most often political wars fought over governmental and economic factors. They only become religious wars when we allow our religious leaders to teach us hate.

Let us not allow hate to be preached from our pulpits.

The Burden on Muslim Americans

By Rori Picker, Associate for Interfaith Relations, RFP-USA

On September 11, 2006 approximately 200 individuals from a myriad of faith and cultural traditions came together for the second 9/11 Unity Walk (the first in New York City). The walk began in Union Square Park at the Gandhi statue with a celebration of the centennial of Gandhian nonviolence and ended at the World Trade Center with a memorial for the victims of the September 11th tragedies. The message was one of peace, love, hope and unity.

Throughout the closing ceremony in St. Peter's Cathedral in downtown Manhattan I watched with a sense of awe and inspiration as one religious leader after another stepped forward to deliver a prayer or message of peace. As the Muslim representatives stood, I felt their extra burden as they tried to grieve along with their fellow attendants at the horrors of that day while trying to grapple with the discrimination they now face as a result. When a representative of the Sikh faith rose to deliver his message, he moved the audience, recounting the violence Sikhs have also faced since September 11th by individuals believing them to be Muslims. The first victim fell only five days after the planes hit.

As he spoke I could not help but look at some of the Muslims sitting around me and wonder what they must have been feeling at that very moment. What must it feel like to live with the knowledge that not only would someone harm you purely based on your faith tradition, but that others have been killed because someone believed them to be like you? Is it really possible for a group of people to live with the burden placed on them by the American public?

Thirty-nine percent of respondents to a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll said they felt at least some prejudice against Muslims. The same percentage favored requiring Muslims, including U.S. citizens, to carry a special ID "as a means of preventing terrorist attacks in the United States." About one-third said U.S. Muslims were sympathetic to al-Qaeda, and 22% said they wouldn't want Muslims as neighbors.

That burden is taking its toll. According to a study of 611 adults by Mona Amer of the Yale University School of Medicine, about half of Arab-Americans had symptoms of clinical depression, an impressive number compared to the 20% in an average U.S. group.

However, the USA TODAY/Gallup Poll also indicates that Muslims in America might be treated better if Americans knew them. 58% of respondents said that they had never met a Muslim, and those who did know Muslims felt a lot better about them.

On November 16, 2006 The People Speak is going to host an online discussion of Muslim-American college students from all across the country to confront these issues and many more. You can post your question or comment any time before or during the November 16 chat.

(Please note: you must be a registered user of The People Speak site to participate in the forum. Register online today.)

A Long Journey Home: The Skeletons in Our Closets

By Rev. Bud Heckman, Executive Director, RFP-USA

Throughout my childhood, my parents took me to the cemetery to honor our deceased veterans and fellow countrypersons. In the whispers and walks, I learned lessons about life, about respect and about honor. With each approaching Memorial Day and Veterans Day, we would work for weeks ahead; checking the markers on the veterans’ graves, dusting them off, and placing flowers and flags.

I vividly remember the year we combed through the two overgrown forests at either edge of town, to uncover, identify, and re-establish the gravestones of the long forgotten. Every stone was checked and every name verified.

Few things are as powerful as seeing a sobbing hulk of a man embrace a gravestone, or a cemetery plot blueprint, realizing he has found his lost comrade’s final destination. Love of country becomes entwined with love of neighbor and friend, and the connection to the departed is even stronger, the sense of honor more elevated.

The news of a concluding report on the discovery of the frozen body of airmen Leo M. Mustonen in the melting snow of the Sierra Nevada brought back memories of those graveyards in that small town in Ohio. Our military’s meticulous effort to fulfill its “most sacred of promises” catalogued in Michael Wilson’s NY Times article demonstrates society’s deep respect for honoring the dead. In fact, as recent discussion over Slobodan Milosevic’s final treatment should remind us; in life’s end, many differences are set aside for our final recognition.

Over six decades had passed since the fatal failure of Mustonen’s parachute. Yet some of the 425-member staff of the Joint P.O.W./M.I.A. Accounting Command worked for months to resolve his case. Nearly 90,000 missing service persons remain. And we will keep searching, as we should.

However, in stark contrast to such an effort is the fact that the United States government and private organizations have possessed the human remains of over 100,000 persons for more than a century and have not - or, in some cases, will not - return them. Think of the human suffering and anguish involved. The difference is that the remains are those of the first Americans. The disparities are glaring.

In 1860, the U.S. government ordered military troops on the frontier to collect the skulls and other remains of Native Americans and ship them to Washington, D.C., for scientific study. Through time, remains of thousands found their way to displays, dusty shelves, and forgotten drawers in museums, universities, and depositories across the country.

In 1990, Congress passed the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. All federally-funded institutions are now required to return remains as well as sacred objects to the Native American tribes and nations from which they came. Many remains have been returned, mourned, and buried with dignity. But the process is slow and under funded. Many believe that the dedicated staff at the National Parks Service is doing their best, especially given the tensions and parameters within which they must work.

Today, 118, 358 Native American remains have still not been returned. In most cases it is because they cannot be identified as belonging to a federally-recognized tribe. They are labeled “culturally unidentifiable.” Often we know the region they come from, but not whom to give the remains to. Still these once-beloved mothers, fathers, friends and children are waiting to be returned and honored. Americans of faith and goodwill must respond, if we are to succeed in righting this wrong.

The first step in the final chapter of this “long journey home” for such Native Americans took place on Saturday, April 1, 2006. Fulfilling a dream, Cheyenne Peace Chief Lawrence Hart and tribal representatives from the South Central Plains region broke ground on a regional burial site in Clinton, Oklahoma. Working in partnership with the National Congress of the American Indians, with the over 50 US religious communities of Religions for Peace-USA, and with other religious and Native American partners; the Return to the Earth project, as it has been dubbed, works to fulfill that “most sacred of promises,” even for those who cannot be brought “home.” Native Americans will receive remains of their ancestors and handle them in ways that they see as appropriate. They will be assisted by religious communities as humble accompaniers in the process of repatriation.

While needing to obviously acknowledge a history of silence and even collusion in the historic wrongs against Native Americans, religious communities can bring unique assets. For example, their scriptural understandings of forgiveness and reconciliation give strong imperative to their involvement in the process of restorative justice needed today. And they want to move beyond the handful of formal apology statements that have trickled into existence.

I still remember some of the simple lessons of childhood – “clean up after yourself,” “put things back where you found them,” and “don’t take things that aren’t yours.” Now that I am older, however, those sayings come into sharper reflection. For instance, nearly 10,000 of those 100,000 plus Native American remains came from Ohio, probably some of them from in or near my hometown. There is a further irony here. The cemeteries in which those American service men and women are respectfully resting – the ones where I shaped my first understanding of honoring the dead - are situated in what was once completely Indian territory. The lingering knowledge of this fact is seemingly only left in the name places and school mascots of the region.

America’s focus today is largely on terrorism and security. It might be a helpful and humbling reminder that we have “skeletons in our own closet,” literally. It is time to own up to our own domestic history, and make peace with ourselves, even as we seek peace in the greater world.

Peace: Not Just About Non-Violence

By Rori Picker, Associate for Interfaith Relations, RFP-USA

In 1864, Cheyenne Peace Chiefs passed through Denver heading for a peaceful sanctuary in Colorado when they were massacred at Sand Creek. This massacre was one of hundreds of such incidents that took place from the colonial era through the end of the 19th century, devastating the Native American population. In 1860, the United States government ordered military troops on the frontier to collect the skulls and other remains of Native Americans and ship them to Washington D.C. for scientific study. Remains - like those of the Cheyenne peace chiefs of the Sand Creek, Colorado massacre - were among thousands that ended up in displays as well as on dusty shelves and in forgotten drawers in depositories, museums, and universities across the country.

In 1990, Congress passed the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, requiring the return of human remains and sacred objects to Native American tribes and nations from which they came. Yet today over 110,000 remains still cannot be identified as belonging to a particular tribe. These once beloved mothers, fathers, friends, and children are waiting to be returned, honored, and buried with dignity.

In 2003, Native Americans and religious communities joined together to form the Return to the Earth Project, which supports Native Americans in burying unidentifiable ancestral remains now scattered across the United States and enables a process of education and reconciliation between Native and Non-Native people. The project has made significant progress in the past year, including erecting a building on the burial site and producing a study guide to start the healing process. Additionally, an awareness conference is scheduled for Monday, October 9, 2006, featuring Cheyenne Peace Chief, Lawrence Hart and Dr. Timothy McKeown of the National NAGPRA Office as speakers. However, there is still much more that needs to be done.

At the VIII World Assembly of Religions for Peace in Kyoto, Japan, Prince Hassan bin Talal of Jordan declared, “Now, more than ever, we must remember that peace is not just the absence of violence; it is the active creation of trust, recognition and empathy.” If we, as Americans, hope to facilitate a global peace, we must create trust, recognition and empathy within our own land first.