September 11, 2001 marked a huge turning point in the United States in terms of security and foreign policy, and led to an extraordinary surge in nationalism around the country. However, it has come to light that the response to that momentous moment in history, the 2003 Iraq War, has led to devastating consequences especially regarding women’s lives and rights.

United States President Bush began formally making his case to the international community for the invasion of Iraq in September 2002. The majority of the international community was against the invasion, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) found “no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons program in Iraq.”[1] The following month, October 2002, the U.S. Congress authorized the President to “use any means necessary” in Iraq. The U.S. public, however, widely favored further diplomatic action over an invasion in a poll in January 2003; thus, the Bush administration engaged in an elaborate domestic public relations campaign, playing on the fear caused by the September 11 terrorist attacks, to market the invasion of Iraq to U.S. citizens, and by the end of 2003, the majority of Americans supported the invasion. The rest, so to speak, is history.

But for Iraqi citizens, especially women, the ongoing violence caused by the U.S. invasion is not the only consequence that has become part of the everyday struggle to rebuild their country. Before the U.S. invasion, 75% of Iraqi women had college degrees, and 31% of Iraqi women had graduate degrees (compared to 35% of European and U.S. women). Only 10% of women in Iraq now continue to work in their professions, and they have to contend with the thousands of more experience and better-educated Iraqi women who fled Iraq at the onset of the war and are now returning. However most women stay away from their work, schools, and universities due to extreme safety concerns: Since the beginning of the war, rates of abductions and kidnappings targeting women and girls, most often related to sex trafficking, female suicides and honor killings have increased.

Many Iraqis hoped that when U.S. troops arrived, life would get better. However, there continues to be a shortage of electricity and potable water, and damaged roadways have exacerbated many problems related to state infrastructure. Unemployment hovered around 50 to 60% in 2006, and had been reduced to over 15% as of 2009. The occupation not only “systematically violated Iraqi’s rights” to life, dignity, and self-determination, but it was so destructive and so violent that one in four Iraqis are estimated to be dead or displaced, and up to one million Iraqis have been “forcibly disappeared”.[2]

While Saddam Hussein was portrayed in Western media, and especially in the United States during the aforementioned domestic public relations campaign, as a monstrous dictator (which he was), women had more rights and a better lifestyle under his regime than they do currently. Dr. Rashad Zaydan attended a conference with women from throughout the Arab world, where they studied the constitutions of all Arab countries in an effort to look for the best model for women’s rights. As it turns out, women were most protected and had the most opportunities under the harsh dictatorship of Saddam Hussein: women could work and were paid the same as men (this doesn’t even happen in the “civilized” Western countries of Europe or the United States!), and received up to a full year of paid maternity leave with the option of a second year of unpaid maternity leave, meaning that women could take two years off of work with the guarantee their job would be available upon their return to work. Under the new Iraqi constitution, women can work only if it does not affect their family and if their husband allows them to work.

Moreover, under Saddam Hussein’s regime, all Iraqi citizens had access to universal healthcare, including access to chemotherapy. Under the U.S. occupation, Iraqis had to pay for healthcare. As a direct correlation to the use of depleted uranium by the United States, the number of cases of cancer, especially breast cancer in women and cancer in children, has risen dramatically: even when Iraqis paid for healthcare under the U.S. occupation, they had no access to chemotherapy.

Now that U.S. troops have left, Iraqi women are in more danger than ever. Dr. Nadje Al-Ali, a Professor at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), said that in Basra in 2008, “a reported 133 women were killed for not ‘being Islamic’ enough. And these are only the ones that made it to be officially counted.”[3] “The most significant loss that Iraqi women have suffered is a complete and total loss of security,” says Dr. Souad al-Azzawi, author of “Deterioration of Iraq Women’s Rights and Living Conditions Under Occupation.”[4] The ineffectiveness of the Iraqi government means that the vast majority of “criminals, mafias, militias, death squads, US occupation forces, and Iraqi police and army forces” who commit crimes against women are not held accountable.[5] 2.3 million Iraqis have become refugees, the majority of which have sought asylum in neighboring countries such as Syria and Jordan. However, the refugees are not legally permitted to work, and high unemployment levels in Syria and Jordan mean that even illegal work is hard to come by, contributing to the growing problem of sex trafficking. With the continuing violence in Syria, Iraqi refugees have had to flee again to other countries.

Rumor has it that the U.S. did indeed find remnants of weapons of mass destruction that had been “secretly moved to Syria.” In fact, the IAEA reported that it found traces of uranium and other substances related to a nuclear weapons program in Iraq previous to the 2003 invasion, however it also reported that the substantial level of deterioration of the industrial capacity of these sites had direct correlation to Iraq’s ability to resume a nuclear weapons program.

Has the level of human suffering been worth it?

Each day we make choices about what we are going to eat.  Sometimes those choices are made deliberately with care and thought, a special meal prepared for friends and family, but more often we unreflectively choose the food at the end of our forks.

AND THAT FOOD IS MAKING OUR WORLD SICK

Americans eat 31% more processed foods than fresh, whole foods.  These processed foods, loaded with high levels of salt and sugar, not only harm our physical health but their production also brings the added environmental cost of excess packaging and processing. Even the fresh food we do eat is produced by an industrial agricultural system that relies heavily on petro-chemicals and deadly pesticides.  This reliance on fossil fuels in fertilizers and pesticides ultimately strips the soil of its fertility and ability to hold carbon.

According to the USDA, Americans consumed 26.4 billion pounds of beef in 2010.  We are eating meat at twice the global average and we are consuming over three times the amount of protein needed for our health, the majority of it from animal sources.  Our insatiable appetite for meat is raising our risk for heart disease, cancer, and diabetes.  And the way we raise animals to feed that appetite is taking a huge toll on our environment with deforestation, increase emissions of  climate-change gasses, and pollution from animal manure.

Over one billion people face food insecurity.  Big agricultural companies and wealthy nations   exacerbate the problem of hunger through land grabs, commodity speculation, and bad governmental policy. Our excessive use of fossil fuels affects the climate causing longer droughts and more severe flooding. Farm workers who bring us our food face exposure to unhealthy pesticides as well as abuse and harassment.  It is the poor and most vulnerable who suffer the most.

The way we produce our food is making us sick; it is making our communities sick and it is making our world sick. We need to change.

 We need to begin eating for a healthy world.

Eating for a Healthy World Intiative

The Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice is launching Eating for a Healthy World to encourage people of faith and people of conscience and their congregations and groups to put their faith and beliefs into action by making healthy food choices that will reduce the effects of climate change, protect the environment, and provide access to healthy, sustainable food to everyone especially the poor and vulnerable.  Learn more on our Eating for a Healthy World page.

AbUSed: The Postville Raid

Join us as we investigate the ways that our economic system could be the root cause of war, poverty, and environmental destruction, by using film as a medium for exploration and discussion.

AbUSed presents the devastating effects of US Enforcement Immigration Policies on communities, families and children. The film tells the gripping personal stories of the individuals, the families and the town that survived the most brutal, most expensive and largest immigration raid in the history of the United States.

Thursday, April 26th
6:30pm refreshments, 6:45pm film followed by discussion
The Wesley Foundation Lounge
(First United Methodist Church, 120 S. State St. Ann Arbor, MI 48104)

Open to the public.

Details: gracek@icpj.net, 734-663-1870.

Sponsored by ICPJ’s Latin America Task Force.
Co-sponsored by the Washtenaw Interfaith Coalition for Immigrant Rights, the Social Action Committee of Beth Israel Congregation, St. Mary Student Parish, and the Latin America and Caribbean Environmental Group (LACEG) at the School of Natural Resources and the Environment.

Inspired

In the span of just one week, from April 9-15, 100,000 people will be trained across the country.

Join ICPJ and WCAT for direct action training and learn how to tell the story of what happened to our economy, learn the history of non-violent direct action, and use that knowledge to take action on our own campaigns to win change.

When: Saturday, April 14^th from 11:00 AM-6:00 PM

Where: Northside Presbyterian/St. Aidan’s Episcopal Churches (1679 Broadway St., Ann Arbor)

Click HERE to sign up today!!

Following an Anglo-German Treaty of 1886, a German Protectorate was established over the northern Solomon Islands, followed shortly thereafter by the establishment of a British Protectorate over the southern Islands in 1893. In typical colonial fashion, the German Protectorate was transferred to the United Kingdom in exchange for Western Samoa in 1899.  Beginning in January 1942, Japanese forces occupied the Solomon Islands; in August 1942, the United States led a counter-attack against the Japanese, and fighting ensued on the islands for almost three years. The destruction caused by the intense fighting, as well as the long-term consequences of the introduction of modern materials, machinery, and western cultural artifacts, transformed the Islands and traditional ways of life. Due to the massive destruction of pre-war plantations (formerly the mainstay of the Islands’ economy) and the absence of war reparations, reconstruction was slow, and stability within the Islands was not restored until the 1950s when the British colonial administration built a network of official local councils.

The first national election was held in 1964 for one seat on the newly established Legislative Council, and by 1967, the first general election was held for all but one of the 15 representative seats on the Council. A new constitution was introduced during the elections of 1970, replacing the Legislative and Executive Councils with a single Governing Council, and established a “committee system of government” with the aim of reducing divisions between elected representatives and the colonial bureaucracy and providing opportunities for training new representatives in managing the responsibilities of government. However, many elected members of the Council opposed the new constitution and so a new constitution was introduced in 1974 which established a form of government more closely related to that of Great Britain, a “standard Westminster” form of government.

With the first oil price shock of 1973, the financial costs of supporting the Solomon Islands became too large to bear for the British, however despite the imminent independence of Papua New Guinea (which achieved independence in 1975), there was little in the way of an indigenous independence movement in the Islands outside of a small group of educated elite. Nonetheless, the Solomon Islands became self-governing in early 1976 and fully independent in July 1978.

In early 1999, tensions that had been festering between the local Gwale people on Guadalcanal and more recent migrants from the neighboring island of Malaita erupted into violence when the Guadalcanal Revolutionary Army, later called the Isatabu Freedom Movement (IFM), began terrorizing Malaitans in an attempt to make them leave their homes. As a result, about 20,000 Malaitans fled to the capital and many others returned to their home island. However, the violence affected the local Gwale residents as well, who soon fled the city. In response to the creation of the IFM and the violence that ensued, the Malaitans created the Malaita Eagle Force (MEF) to uphold and defend their interests.

The government of the Solomon Islands appealed to the Commonwealth Secretary General for assistance in resolving the conference, and the Honiara Peace Accord was signed in June 1999. The Accord failed to resolve the underlying problems that caused the violence however, and fighting broke out again in June 2000. On 5 June 2000, the MEF seized the parliament by force and claiming that the government had failed to secure compensation for loss of Malaitan life and property. The Prime Minister at the time, Bartholomew Ulufa’alu, was forced to step down, and on 30 June 2000 Parliament elected Manasseh Sogavare as the new PM. Sogavare established a Coalition for National Unity, Reconciliation, and Peace, which enacted a program of action focused on resolving the ethnic conflict, restoring the economy (which had been struggling since after WWII), and distributing benefits of development more equally. However, Sogavare’s government was deeply corrupt and led to the downward economic spiral and the deterioration of law and order on the Islands.

The conflict in the Solomon Islands was foremost about access to land and resources, centered around the Guadalcanal area. Since the beginning of the civil war, it is estimated that around 100 people have been killed and that 30,000 refugees, mainly Malaitans, have had to leave their homes. Economic activity has been severely disrupted, and continuing civil unrest on the Islands led to an almost complete breakdown in normal activity: civil servants remained unpaid for months at a time; cabinet meetings had to be held in secret to prevent local warlords from interfering; and security forces have been unable to reassert control because many police and other security personnel are associated with the aforementioned warlords or gangs.

In July 2003, the Governor General of the Solomon Islands issued an official request for international help, endorsed unanimously by the parliament. In response, one warlord announced and faxed a signed copy of a ceasefire which, days later, he reportedly broke. In August, a regional peacekeeping force, the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI), entered the Islands. RAMSI was made up of personnel from Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, and Papua New Guinea and has been successful in improving the Islands’ overall security conditions; however the country continues to face serious problems, including an uncertain economic outlook, deforestation, and malaria control.

In 2009, the government set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission with the assistance of Desmond Tutu to address people’s experiences during the five year ethnic conflict on Guadalcanal.

For more information:

The Human Development Report Case Study: Solomon Islands:  http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2005/papers/HDR2005_McGovern_and_Choulai_33.pdf

Relief Web report on refugees and internally displaced peoples (IDPs) in Guadalcanal:  http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/reliefweb_pdf/node-131575.pdf

Information on the Truth & Reconciliation Commission in the Solomon Islands:  http://www.usip.org/publications/truth-commission-solomon-islands

Video of Peace Corps volunteers who served in the Solomon Islands:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34SWAEVgFCY

Women Peacemakers Create Positive Change

“Reconciliation brings peace, but in the absence of forgiveness and repentance, reconciliation and peace cannot exist”

Apollonia Bola Talo is a grassroots activist from the Guadalcanal Province of the Solomon Islands. During the social unrest and tension in the late 1990s, Talo worked with the Peace Monitoring Council (now known as the National Peace Council), and played an active role in the disarmament of militants through the collection of illegally possessed arms around Guadalcanal. While this may sound like an easy task, Talo went around the Island and had to constantly engage in negotiations, as well as organizing and implementing awareness work on the importance of the surrender and collection of arms with the militants and also the general public in order to convince them to give up their weapons; by raising awareness for their cause, Talo earned the trust of both the rebels and the villagers.

In 2007, Talo received the annual “Women of Courage Award.” Currently, Talo works on women’s issues and interests related to HIV/AIDS, income generating enterprises, training, policy development, social justice and peace.

Her son says about her: “I have no enemies. Just like my mother, I believe in peace. Everyone comes to my mother for assistance; whatever it is and what time it is, does not matter. That is how I grew up and that is how I will live my life. My mother is a leader, teacher, and a human rights advocate.”

On 17 December 1999, the UN Security Council passed resolution 1284, creating the United Nations Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC). UNMOVIC replaced the former UN Special Commission but continued the latter’s mandate to destroy Iraq’s WMDs and to check Iraq’s compliance with its obligations not to reacquire the same weapons.

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein allowed UN inspectors to return to Iraq in November 2002, at which point UNMOVIC inspected alleged chemical and biological facilities, but found no WMDs.

Between December 1999, when UNMOVIC was created, and November 2002, when UNMOVIC inspected Iraq, the United States experienced, arguably, the most traumatic event of it’s history: the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, a series of four coordinated suicide attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a fourth flight which crashed in Pennsylvania. Nearly 3,000 people died in the attacks. Al-Qaeda, led by Osama bin Laden, claimed responsibility for the attacks, citing US support of Israel, the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia, and sanctions against Iraq as motives for the attacks, as well as the spread of a morally corrupt American culture worldwide. The US responded to the attacks of 9/11 by launching the “War on Terror” and invading Afghanistan to remove the Taliban regime. The afternoon of the attacks, US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld began issuing hurried orders to his aides to look for any evidence of Iraqi involvement. Meanwhile, the NATO council declared the attacks on the US to be an attack on all NATO nations, the first invocation of Article 5 of the NATO Charter which had been written in the Cold War in anticipation of an attack by the USSR. US President Bush announced the War on Terror in 2001, and on September 14, 2001, the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists was passed, a joint resolution was passed by the US Congress authorizing US Presidents to fight terrorists and the nations that harbor them. On October 7, 2001, the War in Afghanistan began with US and UK aerial bombing campaigns; in October 2002, just days before the US Senate was to vote on the Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of US Armed Forces Against Iraq, 75 senators were told in a closed session that Iraq had the means of attacking the US Eastern Seaboard with biological or chemical weapons. The Senate approved the Joint Resolution on October 11, providing the Bush administration with a legal basis for the invasion of Iraq. The Bush administration began a media campaign in the US, attempting to connect Iraq to al-Qaeda and the 9/11 attacks, and with a high approval rating, invaded Iraq on March 20, 2003. The rest is history.

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CSPbzitPL8&feature=related — Bush’s speech on Sept. 20, 2001, beginning “War on Terror” – no mention of Iraq…
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbqCquDl4k4&feature=related — Bush’s speech on the night of 9/11

Rep. Barbara Lee’s response

Californian Barbara Lee was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1998, and gained national attention in 2001 when she was the only member of Congress to vote “No” on the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists (AUMF). Lee stated that while she did not oppose military action, she believed that the AUMF, as written, granted too much power to the president regarding waging war at a time when the facts regarding the situation were not yet clear; she warned Congress to be careful not to enter into an open-ended war with neither an exit strategy nor a focused target. Lee explained:

“[The AUMF] was a blank check to the president to attack anyone involved in the September 11 events – anywhere, in any country, without regard to our nation’s long-term foreign policy, economic, and national security interests, and without time limit. In granting these overly broad powers, the Congress failed its responsibility to understand the dimensions of its declaration…The president has the constitutional authority to protect the nation from further attack and he has mobilized the armed forces to do just that. The Congress should have waited for the facts to be presented and then acted with fuller knowledge of the consequences of our action”)

Lee’s courageous vote made nationwide news, and led to hostile responses including death threats against her and her family, while referring to Lee as a “communist” and a “traitor” despite the fact that her vote appears to have reflected the beliefs of the majority of her constituents.

However, Lee’s advocacy does not end with the Iraq War. Her many courageous acts include, but are not limited to, the Mario Cuomo Act of Courage Award presented to her by Death Penalty Focus in 2002, her vote against the Iraq War Resolution in 2002, her creation and introduction of an Educational Exchange Act between the US and the Caribbean that directs USAID to extend and expand existing primary and secondary school initiatives in the Caribbean, and her consistent votes to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya and Iraq. Based on votes on economic, social, and foreign policy issues, Lee was ranked as the sixth-most Progressive member of the House by the National Journal in 2006, and continues to advocate for what she believes is right as a representative of the state of California.

Thursday, March 29, 6:30pm refreshments, 6:45 film. 

Iraq For Sale: The War Profiteers is the story of what happens to everyday Americans when corporations go to war.  Iraq For Sale uncovers the connections between private corporations making a killing in Iraq and the decision makers who allow them to do so.

HUFFINGTON POST: “Greenwald, the master of the issue-doc, has delivered a film that connects on both an emotional and an intellectual level. And, most importantly, it does so by letting the facts — and the victims of the war’s privatization — speak for themselves.” -Arianna Huffington

Your Food, Your Water, Your World: A film screening in celebration of World Water Day

World Water Day 2012 is a chance to learn and advocate for lasting solutions ensuring access for everyone to clean water and safe food. Hundreds of events will be held in over 50 countries. In Ann Arbor, join the Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice, Food & Water Watch, and Oxfam America for a special free celebration:

What: Your Food, Your Water, Your World: A film screening in celebration of World Water Day, featuring the food documentary FRESH

When: March 22nd, 6:30 pm

Where: Social Hall, Bethlehem United Church of Christ, 423 South 4th Ave., Ann Arbor, MI 48104  Free

RSVP: http://wwd2012.eventbrite.com

The theme of this year’s World Water Day is food security. It takes 1000 times more water to feed the human population than it does to satisfy its thirst. To ensure our future access to water, we must work to ensure that we produce food sustainably. FRESH celebrates the farmers,  thinkers, and business people across America who are re-inventing our food system. Each group has witnessed the rapid transformation of our agricultural system into an industrial model – and confronted the consequences: food contamination, environmental pollution, depletion of natural resources, and morbid obesity. Forging healthier, sustainable alternatives, they offer a practical vision for a future of our food and our planet. Before and after the film, enjoy free refreshments and learn how you can advocate for a sustainable food system. Can you join us? RSVP at http://wwd2012.eventbrite.com

***

Oxfam America is an international relief and development organization that creates lasting solutions to poverty, hunger, and injustice. Together with individuals and local groups in more than 90 countries, Oxfam saves lives, helps people overcome poverty, and fights for social justice. We are one of the 15 affiliates of Oxfam International.

Food & Water Watch is a national nonprofit that advocates for consumer access to safe and sustainable food, water, and fish. They are working in Ann Arbor this winter to implement fairer food policy for small-scale farms and consumer health in the 2012 Farm Bill.

Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice empowers people of faith and people of conscience to act with their deepest beliefs and values for a better world. Since 1965, ICPJ has educated and advocated for justice in Washtenaw County and around the world.

Mohammed Tayssir Safi speaks at St. Mary Student Parish on March 25

Each year the ICPJ community gathers for an annual meeting to connect with each other, elect members to the Board of Directors, and to reenergize our work for peace, justice, and inclusion.

This year’s annual meeting  features Mohammed Tayssir Safi, who is not only the first Muslim chaplain at the University of Michigan, he is the first Muslim Chaplain at any public university in the United States—not bad for a 2003 graduate from Pioneer High School.

He brings to his work a commitment to using education and understanding to nurture a community of respect and engagement for the common good.

Where: St. Mary Student Parish, Newman Hall, 331 Thompson Street  Ann Arbor, MI 48104 (map). Free Sunday Parking in garage on Thompson.

When: Sunday, March 25

7:00 Dessert Reception
7:30 Business Meeting
8:00 Program: “Connecting Generations and Building Consciousness” by Mohammed Tayssir Safi

Details: info@icpj.net, 734-663-1870. Free and open to the public, voting limited to ICPJ members. Become a member at www.icpj.net/give.

Our Faith and Food gardens are a bright success!

Faith and Food Gardens Grow!

From just thirteen congregations in 2009, our Faith and Food community garden program has grown to thirty-one congregational gardens producing over five tons of fresh produce in 2011. The outstanding efforts of the faith community have helped to alleviate hunger in Washtenaw County and ensure access to fresh and healthy food for the poor and most vulnerable.  We are excited to continue this dynamic partnership with Food Gatherers in 2012.

Faith and Food Kick-off 2012

Spring is almost here and it is time to begin planning our gardens.   You are invited to our Faith and Food kick-off to learn how you and your congregation can plant a garden for the hungry.

• Hear the experience of returning gardeners
• Discover how you don’t need a big space to grow a huge amount of food
• Find out how to get your garden started
• Learn labor saving tips that will make the work fun and increase your yield
• See how a garden includes your entire congregation and builds community
• Get your congregation signed-up to grow food for the hungry in 2012!

Representatives from Food Gatherers and ICPJ will share resources and how food donations work.  New and returning congregations and interested individuals are invited.

Monday, March 19

6:30-8:00 pm

Food Gatherers Warehouse, 1 Carrot Way, Ann Arbor

Refreshments will be served.

Parking available at the Ann Arbor Chinese Christian Church across the street from Food Gatherers

For information, please contact Bill (bill@icpj.org) or call 734-663-1870

Download the Faith and Food fact sheet