Peace News May 2008

Posted May 29th, 2008 by FOR

e-newsletter

FOR peace delegates in Iran.

This month we are looking back at the legacy of Dr. King and looking forward to a peaceful future with Iran.

Iran delegation travel journals
Fellowship excerpt: Resurrecting King
Summer Peacemaker Institutes
Use your tax rebate to stimulate peace
Walking and Bicycling for Peace
Socialize with us!
Spring cleaning?
Upcoming events
We're hiring

We're constantly working to improve our communications with you. Please let us know what you think about this newsletter by e-mailing communications@forusa.org. Visit forusa.org/actionnetwork anytime to change your subscription to this and other FOR e-mails. Thanks!

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Iran delegation travel journals

FOR has now completed it's seventh successful peace delegation to Iran! Co-led by Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb and our Communications Co-Director Ethan Vesely-Flad, this multicultural and intergenerational group traveled to Tehran, Q'om, Shiraz, Abyaneh, and Esfahan meeting and connecting with ordinary Iranians who share our hopes for a peaceful future.

Below we highlight some of the writing and photos of the delegates. Much more is available on our blog at FORpeace.net/tag/iran.

The most moving experience for me personally has been to meet and pray with the Jewish community of Teheran. I was able to meet the current and future Jewish member of Parliment. Ciamak Morsathegh, who begins to serve his community as a member of parliament in 20 days also hosted me and several delegation members to a wonderful Sabbath meal. [...]

The Iranian community appears to be doing well, worships freely, and sponsors six day schools with a population of five hundred children attending. The youth were very evident at services.

There is among many people a desire for more freedom and it has been difficult to wear hijab, and at the same time, I am finding Iran a very vibrant and sophisticated society composed of people who want to be seen as human beings able to determine their own future.

- Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb

While buying scarves from street vendor, we met three women. One of them spoke English. She was with her sister and her best friend. We showed our buttons that say "peace advocate" in Farsi and talked about the importance of understanding and dialogue.

As our conversation was concluding, she started to make one final request, but before the words came she began cry. Through her tears she asked us to go back to the United States and tell people that Iranians are friendly and loving.

The connection we shared in that moment is something I will carry with me forever. The fear, the understanding, the love. All on a Wednesday morning in a busy market square in Esfahan, Iran, among strangers. It’s there always, the love, the “we,” the hope for peace.

- Lily Tinker Fortel

My commitment to nonviolence, to dialogue, has not changed while here. These people have suffered hugely from government policies and the Iran-Iraq war. During a meeting yesterday, a senior government official declared repeatedly that Iran, for thousands of years, has little record of preemptive war, mostly only using self-defense, and that they are open to dialogue with other nations and religions. But other questions--inconsistencies--loom large and we won't get answers. We know people's cell phones are tapped and their Internet usage watched, that arrests are arbitrary and the prison horrendous, that talking too much is costly.

But does any of this mean that dropping bombs will help? Rather, when attacked, Iran defends its way of life--yes, with children soldiers.

So I'm delighted to be returning home to family and friends but sad that so much remains unlearned.

- Susan Mark Landis

Photos by Hank Brusselback

Photos by Sean McConnell

Please visit our blog for more updates from Iran. Our next delegations will be in August and November of 2008. Click here to learn more and apply.

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Resurrecting King

The following is an excerpt from "Resurrecting King: Re-Considering Dr. King’s Legacy on the 40th Anniversary of His Assassination" by Johnny B. Hill, published in the Spring edition of Fellowship magazine. Click here to subscribe now.

Although it has been some 50 years since Martin Luther King, Jr. stepped into history, beginning with the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955-6, his dreams still provide creative resources for helping the least and the forgotten. In many ways, King illuminates the ways in which our individual dreams and aspirations are best fulfilled through the interconnectedness with the dreams of others. Regardless of gender, age, race, ethnicity, religious identity or sexual orientation, King encourages us to see that God’s vision for us is of a common humanity with inter- twined destinies.

Amid all the troubles in our world today, it would seem almost absurd to still dream. Postmodernists would say that because of the false hopes of modernity and visionaries of the modern era, people have lost hopes in grand ideas and social movements. Popular culture would have us believe that the only thing that exists is empirical reality. One of King’s mentors, Howard Thurman, reminded us that as “human beings, without dreams, we die.” According to Thurman, “As long as a man or woman has a dream in his heart, he cannot lose the significance of living.”

King’s dreams gave rise to a global vision of peace, justice, and nonviolence. Toward the end of his life, King’s shift from a focus on civil rights and voting rights to global issues reflects today’s interconnected world, where global realities are inseparable from our individual experiences.

On April 4, 1967, King delivered his controversial “A Time to Break the Silence” speech, openly challenging the Vietnam war. After receiving the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1964, King had begun to consider himself a servant of the global community, commissioning him to go beyond national allegiances and to “live with the meaning of my [his] commitment to the ministry of Jesus Christ.” His commitment to connecting local and global realities stirred an unshakable prophetic rage: Now, it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America’s soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read Vietnam.

The King of 1968 was acutely aware of the interlocutors of race, economics, and politics. He understood that war is intrinsically economic in motive and insidiously evil in moral claims. King recognized that war was a “never ending black hole” that sucks up valuable resources that could be used to end poverty, create jobs and economic development, improve education, treat epidemic illnesses, and more.

Exactly one year after his Riverside Church “Break the Silence” speech, on April 4, 1968, King was assassinated in Memphis as he stood in solidarity with over a thousand striking sanitation workers. In the last chapter of his book, Where Do We Go From Here? Chaos or Community, entitled “The World House,” King set forth a courageous vision of the beloved community with a prophetic and imaginative recognition of the global interrelatedness of cultures, economies, and religious traditions. Before the language of globalization and postmodernity became critical categories in understanding contemporary life, King looked upon the horizons of the mid-1960s as he anticipated the new global realities humanity now enjoys and fears today. On the backdrop of the Birmingham campaign, his receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, the rising tide of black militancy, and the struggle to pass national voting rights legislation, he wrote:

All inhabitants of the globe are now neighbors. This worldwide neighborhood has been brought into being largely as a result of the modern scientific and technological revolutions.

Visit our website to read more of our special Fellowship edition on Maintaining Dr. King's Legacy, and our blog entries about Dr. King. To subscribe to future editions of Fellowship magazine, make a donation to FOR today!

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Summer Peacemaker Training Institutes

There will be several opportunities for young organizers, artists, and activists to participate in PTIs - innovative gatherings that combine theory and discussion on social change with concrete organizing tools. For one week, participants learn and teach through group and one-on-one discussion and interactive workshops, music, art, and popular education to develop and strengthen solid foundations in counter-militarism, anti-racism, gender/queer issues, economic justice, and sustaining a spiritual practice.

Institutes will be held in Illinois, Minnesota, and Michigan in July and August. Cost is on a sliding scale from $475 to $700, and scholarships are also available. For more information call Brie at 651-757-5353, e-mail peacemakertraining@gmail.com, or visit youth.forusa.org.

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Stimulate Peace

The U.S. government has launched an "economic stimulus" plan generating $600 checks for many Americans. While the president may hope that we will invest this cash in short-term consumerism, many people of conscience have a better idea. One congregation in Asheville, NC unanimously decided to donate their tax rebates to organizations working for peace and justice. Read their letter to President Bush.

Let's join them in turning this money into work for a more peaceful world. Please pledge to give a part of your check to support peacework at FOR, or make a donation right now.

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Walking and Bicycling for Peace

Those following our Iranian friends Nasif and Jafar in their bicycle trip around the world for peace and the environment will be pleased that they participated in the Interfaith Peace Walk in Philadelphia and are now in Seattle. Visit their blog to get the latest updates, and see if you can catch up with them. You won't regret it.

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Socialize with FOR

We hope you enjoy reading these monthly e-mail updates from us, but some of you may be looking for more. Online tools make it easy to connect not just to FOR but also to the world-wide community of people like you, working for peace in ways large and small.

Facebook	Twitter	Flickr	Change.org	FORpeace blog
Facebook is a popular networking web site with over 70 million users around the world. On FOR's page you can get updates and start discussions with other FOR supporters. Become our "fan" and let your friends know about about FOR.	Twitter is a network of micro-blogs that users can read and update from anywhere - even a mobile phone! Follow FOR on Twitter for informal updates and conversation.	Flickr is a photo sharing web site that lets you follow and comment on the images uploaded by your friends. FOR posts pictures from delegations and a wide variety of other events related to our work.	Change.org is a social network that asks the question "what do you want to change in the world?" You can create your own changes, recruit supporters, raise funds, promote actions, and share multimedia on any issue that moves you.	FOR's official blog is updated regularly by staff and volunteers with personal reflections and current events. Recently the blog has featured updates from Iran delegates and a collection of MLK Day posts.

Please join us in these online communities to show your support for FOR and make connections with peace lovers from all corners of the Internet..

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Spring Cleaning?

The weather is warming up and it's a great time to open the windows and clean out the cobwebs. If you have material objects weighing you down, you can use a web site called Mission Fish to sell them on eBay and benefit FOR at the same time.

Click here to learn more at MissionFish.com.

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Upcoming events

May 30 - June 1: STOPMAX Conference to stop torture & solitary confinement
June 10: Diplomacy Shout Out - "Time to Talk" action and National Call-in Day for Diplomacy with Iran
June 12: Children of Abraham Peace Walk, New York City
June 20: Monthly Iraq Moratorium Day
June 26: UN International Day in Support of Victims of Torture
July 3-6: 50th Annual Seabeck FOR Conference
July 14-19: Baptist Peace Fellowship annual conference

Upcoming Delegations

May 24 - June 7: Interfaith Peace-Builders delegation to Israel/Palestine: "Legacies of 1948"
July 26 - August 9: Interfaith Peace-Builders delegation to Israel/Palestine: "Investing in Peace"
August 2 - 16: FOR peace delegation to Peace Community of San José de Apartadó, Colombia
August 5 - 20: FOR peace delegation to Iran
November 15 - 30 : FOR peace delegation to Iran

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We're hiring

Do you have a passion for peace and a knack for fundraising? FOR is seeking a new Co-Director of Development.

This position is responsible for overall strategy for development activities of FOR. The Directors of Development (2 positions) work closely with the Executive Director, program staff and the National Council (governing board) to accomplish the goals of the organization by securing contributed support through appeals, grants, deferred giving, special events, publications and donor visits. The directors coordinate and supervise the work of the staff of the development department.

Click here to learn more about the position and apply.

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