c. 1996 Religion News Service
Muslim groups seek greater political involvement
(RNS) Muslim Women for America, a new organization aimed at increasing the political influence of Muslim women, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations announced plans Monday (Aug. 26) to register Muslims to vote and get more Muslims to the voting booth on Election Day.
Anisa Abd El Fattah, executive director of Muslim Women for America, said at a Washington news conference that the efforts are needed because although the number of Muslims in the United States is increasing their status is decreasing.
She described Muslims as a”peaceful, productive and tax-paying community … that has almost no political representation.” Her organization, based in North Springfield, Va., intends to register Muslim women to vote, educate them about candidate’s platforms and help provide transportation and day care so women can get to the polls. Her group also will help Muslim women overcome the notion that they do not need to vote because”their husband’s vote was representative of the family sentiment.” The efforts were welcomed by other Muslim leaders, including Sharifa Alkhateeb, vice president of the North American Council for Muslim Women.”It will be a catalyst for political awareness, involvement and running for office by Muslim women,”said Alkhateeb, of Great Falls, Va.
At the same news conference, Nihad Awad, national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said his Washington-based advocacy organization will coordinate activities on Sept. 13 for”American Muslim Voter Registration Day.”The council has requested that voter registration tables be set up that day at mosques, Islamic centers and Muslim-owned businesses. The organization also encourages Muslim communities to invite candidates to speak after Friday prayers and at other Muslim activities.”The bottom line is we would like our communities to have 100 percent voter registration and, hopefully, 100 percent turnout,”Awad said.
Update: Mother Teresa’s condition improving but still grave
(RNS) Mother Teresa, the world-renowned nun who has devoted her life to caring for the poor of India, remained in grave condition Monday (Aug. 26) but doctors said she is a”a shade better”than on Sunday.
According to wire service reports from Calcutta, the nun _ who celebrates her 86th birthday Tuesday _”is scribbling notes and letters”and appeared to be responding to treatment for a lung infection and heart condition.
Dr. J.C. Ghosh, a cardiologist at the Woodlands Nursing Home where Mother Teresa has been hospitalized for almost a week, said that she was now on a respirator only about 50 percent of the time.”Mother Teresa is fully conscious today,”he said, adding that the nun is no longer running a temperature but that her heart rate is still irregular.
The Albanian-born nun, who won the 1979 Nobel prize for her work among the sick and dying of Calcutta’s poor, founded her religious order, the Missionaries of Charity, in 1949. It has grown to become a worldwide religious order aiding the dying and in recent years has opened a number of houses to help people with AIDS.
In Albania, once the most ideologically atheistic of communist nations, Reuters reported that Albanian President Sali Berisha said on Monday that the country was praying for Mother Teresa.”Albanians unite in prayer and hope for your quick recovery and full health so you may continue your humane and divine mission,”Berisha said in a telegram read on Albanian television.
Methodist bishops take aim at poverty among children
(RNS) United Methodist bishops have launched an initiative they hope will involve the entire membership of the nation’s second-largest Protestant denomination in the effort to end childhood poverty.”For the first time in history it is possible to create a world in which all children share in at least the basic opportunities for life,”the bishops said in a letter announcing the new effort.
With the letter, the bishops also released an eight-page”foundations”statement setting out the theological and biblical rationale for the anti-poverty effort.
As a first step, the bishops asked each of the church’s more than 35,000 congregations to designate a Sunday in October as a”Children’s Sabbath,”which parishioners would use for reflecting and acting on the plight of poor children. During the past several years, the Children’s Defense Fund, a liberal advocacy group in Washington, has designated the third weekend in October as a”Children’s Sabbath.””Children deserve our support,”the bishops said.”What we do for children, our greatest natural resource, we do for Christ.” On Oct. 30, the denomination’s Council of Bishops will meet to determine the next step in the anti-poverty effort.
Update: Cardinal criticizes riot police raid on Paris church
(RNS) Cardinal Jean Lustiger, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Paris, has criticized the storming of a Parish church by riot police who forcibly evicted some 220 African immigrants, including 10 hunger strikers, who had taken sanctuary in the church to protest their potential expulsion from France.”We did not want these people to be used as some some sort of spectacle,”Lustiger told a French radio station.”We constantly negotiated with the authorities to secure legal status”or at least conduct a case-by-case review of the immigrants’ status, he said.
Lustiger’s brief comments were the first made by a member of the French hierarchy on the occupation of St. Bernard’s Church which began June 28. Lustiger had given permission for police to end a sit-in by African immigrant protesters last March at St. Ambroise Church.
Initial news reports said that police evicted 300 protesters from the church but on Monday (Aug. 26), wire reports from Paris put the number of those threatened with expulsion from France at 220 _ 99 men, 53 women, and 68 children.
In his interview following the raid, in which 1,000 riot police battled crowds of immigrant supporters and sympathizers before breaking down the church doors to evict the protesters, Lustiger appealed to authorities to exercise clemency in their decisions.”Everything must be handled politically by responsible people and not by people who want to make an example of the unfortunate,”Lustiger said.
His comments appeared directed at far-right politicians who have criticized the government for being too soft on illegal African immigrants.
The church protests were prompted by changes in France’s immigration laws which removed the right of children born in France to claim automatic rights to reside in the country and which tightened rules for temporary permits.
Reuters reported on Monday that four of the protesters had already been deported to Senegal, Mali and Zaire. Also on Monday, a Paris court struck down expulsion orders against three of the 10 hunger strikers.
Interior Minister Jean-Louis Debre said 30 percent to 40 percent of the protesters would likely be allowed to stay in France.
American hatred of government is dangerous, colloquium concludes
(RNS) Hatred of government and politicians is a”clear and present danger”in American society, the participants in a recent ethics colloquium concluded.
A paper titled”Politics is not a four-letter word”was the product of the Aug. 6 Maston Colloquium sponsored by the Center for Christian Ethics in Dallas, reported Associated Baptist Press, an independent Baptist news service.
Drafters of the paper included clergy, leaders of Baptist organizations and professors with a variety of perspectives on American politics.”A rising tide of animosity and hostility toward government threatens to undermine the ability of anyone to govern,”the group concluded.”Incessant attacks on government erode the moral core of our communities, our cities, our states and our nation, drawing us toward mindless acts of anti-government terrorism, such as the Oklahoma City federal building bombing.” Foy Valentine, former leader of the Southern Baptist Christian Life Commission, said the aim of the colloquium, named for pioneering Christian ethicist T.B. Maston, was to offer suggestions about”what should be done about redeeming the genre of politics.” While warning against over-zealous criticism, the participants acknowledged that political leaders have their problems.”We recognize that those who govern are capable of shameful misconduct and can be wasteful, extravagant, incompetent and dishonest,”the paper said.”Government nearly always stands in need of correction and improvement.” The group also warned about fallout from the trend of”dismantling government.””The recent stampede to abolish selected government services … is putting at risk those whom Jesus Christ called `the least of these my brethren’ _ the poorest and most needy, the weakest and most vulnerable among us,”they said.”Less government is not necessarily better government, and local government is not necessarily better government.”
Quote of the day: Anglican Archbishop Samuel Sindamuka of Burundi on the economic sanctions imposed on Burundi
(RNS) On July 25, in a bloodless military coup, the Tutsi-dominanted army installed Pierre Buyoya as president of the ethnically divided nation of Burundi. The coup prompted Burundi’s African neighbors to impose economic sanctions on the nation. In an August 23 letter to Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey, the spiritual head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, Archbishop Samuel Sindamuka of Burundi wrote of the embargo’s impact:”The sanctions are affecting the peasants who will not be able to sell easily their farm produce because there is no petrol (gasoline) for transport. Goods of first necessity (salt, food, medicine) have been affected. Because of the lack of petrol, the humanitarian organizations (and) churches will not be able to take the assistance to the beneficiaries who are in camps or dispersed in the hills. … What is needed in Burundi is support from all our friends to bring back peace, stability and democratic institutions. These sanctions do not contribute in any way to the restoration of peace and democracy.”
END RNS
