Fwd: 100+ religious leaders arrested at UN; faith-based revolt againstwar

[jumpy]

Subject:  Fwd: 100+ religious leaders arrested at UN; faith-based revolt 
againstwar
Date: Thu, Dec 19, 2002, 4:33 am



A Sacred Day in New York (12/10/02)

Submitted to Portside by Chris Vaeth

Today the faith-based revolt against the impending war in Iraq poured out
of hallowed halls and into the streets. Joining people in 120 other cities
and towns under the banner of United for Peace, New York's religious
leaders celebrated International Human Rights Day by bearing witness to the
poverty and suffering of those both in Iraq and at home. Before the day's
end, the mass arrest of interfaith leadership marked the arrival of still
another dimension of the burgeoning anti-war movement.

The stage seemed to be set by a full-page ad in The New York Times on
December 4, placed by the National Council of Churches. President Bush was
pictured with his head bowed in prayer. The caption, reminding the
president of his lip service to his own faith motivations, pleaded to him:
"Jesus changed your heart. Now let him change your mind."

While religious communities have long been at the forefront of anti- war
activism, they showed their collective force today. Following an interfaith
vigil in Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, more than 100 ministers, imams, rabbis,
nuns, lay leaders, seminarians, and faith-based community organizers
blocked the sidewalk and were arrested in front of the U.S. Mission to the
United Nations.

The accused, after being divided by gender, were packed into two holding
cells at the NYPD's 17th Precinct. Among the 60 men in our cage were Rev.
Herbert Daughtry (pastor of Brooklyn's House of the Lord Church), Rev. Luis
Barrios (liberation priest at St. Mary's and San Romero), Ben Cohen
(co-founder of Ben & Jerry's ice cream), Imam Faiz Khan (of the Asma
Society), Rev. Peter Laarman (minister of Judson Memorial Church), and
Daniel Ellsberg (publisher of the Pentagon Papers). While it has so far
been impossible to receive reports from the women's side, it appeared that
at least as many women were arrested.

Among the women inside was the director of the Kensington Welfare Rights
Union, Cheri Honkala. She arrived to town yesterday from a month-long,
nationwide bus caravan for economic human rights, to host a "Truth
Commission" on poverty in front of the United Nations. The coordination of
anti-war and anti-poverty protests was fitting. After all, we were
reminded, Saddam Hussein isn't the one closing welfare centers and cutting
off unemployment benefits. The violence that our government commits abroad
is funded by the violence of poverty at home.

Most in the men's cell wore clerical garb; many were carrying sacred texts;
one smuggled in the "Prison Journals of a Priest Revolutionary" by Philip
Berrigan. Father Berrigan, a Jesuit priest who spent 11 years of his life
in prison for anti-war civil disobedience, succumbed to cancer last week.
His spirit seemed to hover over the space as the jailed read his words
aloud.

The holding cell became a forum for prayer, storytelling, announcements, an
impromptu teach-in, planning for next steps, and loud singing and clapping.
An Episcopal archbishop stopped by the precinct to see if the conditions
inside were adequate. One of the jailed ministers responded: "We're doing
fine. The problems are out there." Eager to return to daylight, they were
nevertheless experiencing a rare fellowship forged of shared commitment.

The day was, in a sense, a reunion. Many of the seasoned jailed clergy
already knew each other, from their work with Latin American liberation
movements, the Civil Rights Movement, the struggle in Vieques, the
Plowshares movement for disarmament, and more. It was as if they were
renewing their vows; they were recommitting to an old, sacred struggle with
some new details, and welcoming the younger among them.

One of the "secular saints" inside, Daniel Ellsberg, proudly introduced his
25 year old son, Michael, on this occasion of his first arrest. He told a
story of 25 years ago, when baby Michael was only 3 months old. Back then,
his father first presented him to some of the same people in this very
cell, saying: "I want you to introduce you to your future co-conspirators."
After all that time, they were meeting again.

Of course, the day's action was not the first step in a movement that is
rapidly gaining momentum, but it was among the first broad and active
religious responses. The protesters followed the lead of 2000 New York City
students, from middle-school to high school and college age, who walked out
of school last week to march against the war. And it anticipates this
Saturday's Uptown March for Peace and Justice, to be led by youth of color
from Washington Heights, Harlem, and the Bronx.

Prior to today's civil disobedience, Rev. James Lawson, who was responsible
for much of the training in nonviolent resistance during the Civil Rights
Movement, addressed the participants. He admonished that the severity of
the impending war in Iraq will demand much more than symbolic protest. It
will require Americans, especially people of faith, to render the war plans
of this administration literally unmanageable ... blocking traffic in the
streets, standing in front of government agency doorways, sitting on the
floors of congressional offices, and choosing the rite of passage into the
nation's jails.

He was giving voice to a call that more and more people of conscience, both
within and outside religious institutions, hear in their hearts. It is a
call from a creative force in the universe, of many names or no name at
all, to block this war machine with both their spirits and their bodies.
Today is a hopeful indication that faith leaders, en masse, are answering.