Young Anabaptist Radicals

Author Archive: TimN

Facebook as a tool against repression

cross posted from As of Yet Untitled

Last Sunday, a friend of mine got up and shared about the detention of Philip Rizk, a German-Egyptian activist and journalist. Phil had roomed with my friend at Wheaton College and was a best man at his wedding. And now he was in secret detention in Egypt. Two days before he was picked up by an unmarked vehicle during a Gaza solidarity protest. The Egyptian police weren’t giving out any information as to his whereabouts. The only information his family could get was confirmation that he was being held.

What could friends in the US do to support Phil? Like many, they turned to Facebook. In recent years, Facebook has become a tool of choice for campaigners around the world, including Egypt. Last October, Wired magazine ran an extensive article on Egyptian activists who were organizing on Facebook to challenge the repression of the Egyptian government. Now, people from around the world joined the Free Philip Rizk group on Facebook.

For those not familiar with Facebook, it describes itself as a tool for mapping social relationship. When friends of Phil began inviting their friends to join the Free Phil group, these friends in turn could invite their own friends to join at the click of a button. Some people replaced their profile photos with a Free Phil banner so that anyone looking at their profile would see the image. By the time I saw the group on Monday morning there were thousands of members. As of today, there are 7,662 members.

But what’s the point of all this virtual organizing? What good does it do? (more…)

February 15, 2009 activism, Gaza, Police Read more >

YAR’s word cloud as interpreted by Wordle

This evening while browsing the 5 Best Data Visualization Projects of the Year I came across Wordle, a wonderful tool for building word clouds.

What are word clouds? We’ve actually already got our own rather dull cloud of post tags tag cloud way down there on the right hand column. In this case the categories most often used are larger and the categories less often used are smaller.

The first cloud below is based on all the words in recent posts on YAR and the second on all recent comments on YAR. The bigger the word, the more often it is used. I think you’ll agree its a fun and informative look.:

YAR posts
Wordle: YAR - Feb 9, 2008
YAR comments
Wordle: YAR comments - Feb 9, 2008
Note that both of these representations are fleeting as they change as soon as the next comment or post is added.

February 9, 2009 Meta (YAR) Read more >

Wife Swap looking for one good Mennonite family

This is not satire. Crossposted from As of Yet Untitled

This past week, the producers of the Television show “Wife Swap” sent out an email soliciting a Mennonite family to participate in their show. The email, with the subject line “Seeking Strong Families with Strong Morals” says “we are hoping to reach a Mennonite family that would be willing to share their lifestyle and views with another family.”*

Wife Swap is a reality television show that has been on the air since 2003. As the title suggests, the premise is that two women swap households. During the first week, the visiting woman must follow the rules and habits of her host family, which always includes a father and at least one child over seven. The wikipedia article on Wife Swap says, “In fact, the show will usually deliberately swap wives with extreme polar opposite lifestyles, such as a dramatically messy wife swapping with a fastidiously neat one.”

It’s not too hard to imagine who the Wife Swap producers would imagine as polar opposites of a Mennonite family. The email says, “…we are interested in Mennonite families because of their views on peace and their hopeful outlook towards the world.

Anabaptists have been the subject of reality television shows before. You may remember the controversy around “Amish in the City,” a show that took five Amish teenagers and put them in an apartment in the city with “worldy” roommates. Over 50 members of congress wrote UPN to protest the show, which went ahead anyway. It was recieved with skepticism by Mennonite scholars and a luke warm reception from audiences. See the Mennonite Weekly Review article for more: Good reviews, skepticism greet debut of Amish show

(more…)

January 12, 2009 Television Read more >

Shock for an eye, awe for a tooth: so much for lex talionis in Gaza

Smoke rises after an Israel air strike in Gaza Strip, December ...
After spending an hour reading the news about Gaza, there’s a lot of different blog posts I could write. I could write about the numbness and despair I feel as I watch the video camera meandering through the corpses of Palestinians. I could tell the stories I heard from Israelis and Palestinians when I went with a CPT delegation to Palestine in 2003. I could call on Hamas and Israel to give up on the myth of effective violence.

Instead, I’m going to lower my ambitions. I don’t think the Israeli government (or the leadership of Hamas) is going to reconsider their use of violence anytime soon. So what if we measure them by standard of lex talionis or an eye for an eye? This is a controlled system for retribution found in Islam, Judaism and Christianity. In traditional societies, escalating revenge led to vendettas and feuds that could quickly dominated the social landscape.

(more…)

December 29, 2008 Current Events, Gaza, Palestine, war Read more >

Why does Sojourners magazine have more advertising then content?

The other day I picked up the November issue of Sojourners, a magazine and an organization that I feel a lot of shared values with. I flipped to the cover story, “The Meaning of Life”. I started to read the article, but quickly became distracted by the advertising that took up the majority of every page.

I decided to do the math. Over 17 pages “The meaning of life” was over 71% advertising and only 29% photos and text.

Here’s the breakdown by page, with the percentage dedicate to advertisements and the advertisers:

p. 12 (100%) – Azusa Pacific
p. 13 (66%) – Baylor University and Friends Committe on National Legislation
p. 14 (100%) – IVP Books
p. 15 (66%) – Sierra Club Books
p. 16 (50%) – Eastern University
p. 17 (66%) – Beacon Press and Goodpreacher.com
p. 18 (66%) – Herald Press, Peace by David Cortright, Bread for the World
p. 19 (66%) – Trinity Wall Street, Church Divinity School of the Pacific
p. 20 (66%) – Luther Seminary, San Francisco Theological Seminary, New Society Publishers
p. 21 (66%) – Eardmans, Clergy Leadership Institute
p. 22 (66%) – Nazarene Theological Seminary, Self Help Credit Union
p. 23 (50%) – Church publishing
p. 24 (66%) Wesley Theological Seminary
p. 25 (100%) – Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
p. 26 (50%) – Auburn Theological Seminary
p. 27 (66%) – Westminster John Knox Press, Sojo Store
p. 28 (100%) – Bethel Seminary and University (more…)

December 14, 2008 Consumerism Read more >

My governor: the WWF wrestler

Adapted from As of Yet Untitled.

This morning I turned on NPR during breakfast and heard the news that the governor of Illinois was arrested at his house this morning in his blue and black jogging suit. Throughout the day today, in the car, on the train platform and over lunch I’ve had conversation with friends and strangers, all Illinoisans (yep, that’s how it’s spelled). The consensus was clear: we are all absolutely staggered by how stupid this man has been.

For those of you who haven’t been following Illinois politics for the last few years: Thank You. The news has been nothing but embarrassment to those of us who live in this state. For the last 3 years, the governor’s office has been under heavy investigation. The governor carried on defiant and self-righteous. Just yesterday he said, “If anybody wants to tape my conversations, go right ahead, feel free to do it. I appreciate anybody who wants to tape me openly and notoriously. And those who feel like they wanna sneakily and wear taping devices, I would remind them that it kinda smells like Nixon and Watergate.” according to the Washington Post. (more…)

December 9, 2008 Politics, Power Read more >

“We are the agents of our own change” – Arthur Mutambara

Cross-posted from As of Yet Untitled

This week Zimbabwe has wrestled its way back into the news with reports of over 600 dead of Cholera and as many as 60,000 cases feared in coming weeks. Inflation is so high that at restaurants you pay before the meal because the food will cost more when you finish. Unpaid soldiers are looting and rioting in the streets.

On Monday I was part of a gathering to hear from Arthur Mutambara, the leader of the smaller faction of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), one of two opposition parties currently in negotiation with the Zanu PF, the governing party. On September 15, the two parties signed a power sharing agreement that, if ratified, will make Robert Mugabe president, Morgan Tsvangirai (leader of the larger MDC faction) prime minister and Mutambara deputy prime minister.

Mutambara sees the power sharing agreement as the only path forward for Zimbabwe. In a country deeply traumatized by the violence before the June 27 election, a coalition government, Mutambara said, would offer the stability for a national healing process, a return to economic stability and could oversee the process for fair elections.

"We cannot wish away Mugabe," Mutambara said. "He has the presidency in his hands and the power that goes with it." The economic crisis alone is not enough to topple Mugabe and the country is far too traumatized for an uprising, violent or otherwise.  It very painful to imagine an election, let alone a free and fair one. In any election held now, traumatized voters would re-elect Mugabe.

(more…)

December 8, 2008 Change, Current Events, Foreign Policy, Leadership, Politics Read more >

Bible Verses of the Day: The Seduction of Civilization

crossposted from As of Yet Untitled

This week I had the opportunity to be part of a conversation looking at the bible through the lens of civilization skepticism. Theologian Ched Myers took us through the first 11 books of Genesis looking at the way that much of the sinfulness in this story is caught up with the rise of civilization, from the Garden of Eden to the Tower of Babel.

This morning my friend Kristin preached on 2 Kings 17:7-23, a passage that lays out the sins that led the children of Israel into exile. As Kristin spoke, I began to notice things about the passage through the lens of civilization skepticism. I thought I’d share some of those thoughts with you here:

7 All this took place because the Israelites had sinned against the LORD their God, who had brought them up out of Egypt from under the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

The sin of the Israelites is specifically against the God who brought them out of the Egyptian domination system in which they were slaves. It is a sin of forgetting. They have forgotten that they were liberated from the story of Pharaoh which told them the only way to survive was service to the Egyptian project. The rest of the passages goes on to detail the form their forgetting took.

(more…)

November 16, 2008 City, Civilization, The Bible Read more >

An Anabaptist response to repression of immigrants

Crossposted from As of Yet Untitled

I’m in the midst of a 5 day stay in LaGrange, Georgia hosted by the Alterna community as part of the Christian Peacemaker Teams steering committee meetings. Today I had the opportunity to interview Anton Flores, one of the founders of the community.

Anton has lived in LaGrange for 15 years and for 10 years he taught at LaGrange College. Today his full time, unpaid works is with Alterna. During the week, I’ve noticed he is often on his cell phone as he recieves calls from people in crisis. Whether it is legal, health related or housing crisis, Anton help Latino immigrants navigate the situation in this small town of 28,000.

A significant portion of Anton’s time is spent helping people caught in the legal system. Anton goes to court every week as an advocate for local Latinos who have been fined, most often for driving without a license (it’s impossible for those without documents to get one in Georgia). Anton estimates fines paid by immigrants and low income people in LaGrange each year to be at least $125,000, a sizable contribution to local government by a group that makes up only 5-10% of the population.

Last year Anton set up an office in a local Hispanic grocery so he could get to know the community. The arrangement was so successful in connecting with the Latino community, that he no longer needs to go looking for work. His work finds him on his cell phone wherever he is.

But Anton isn’t only content to fight fires. He also challenges the system that creates these crisis. In our conversation he described the paradoxes of the system that depends on undocumented immigrants for labor even in building military barracks and the LaGrange courthouse. Anton pointed to the way Atlanta heavily recruited Mexican immigrants as labor in the years before the 1996 Olympics as they struggled to make deadlines. Though the system needs the laborers, they are the ones forced to take all the risk. Along with crossing the border without documentation, they also must find false documentation. Anton described his experiences doing courtroom advocacy in which he watch a judge mock those who used false names in a way that made them out to be liars and untrustworthy. In reality, they were hard working, honest people forced into fraud by the system that needed them.

(more…)

October 6, 2008 Immigration Read more >

Can anyone not do better then Palin on the bailout?

So no one’s written anything here yet about the proposed $700 billion bailout of the US economy. I don’t think I have anything profound to say, but I suspect there might be some YAR readers out there with some opinions. I bet you can do better then Governor Palin did with Katie Couric yesterday when asked whether the bailout is a good idea:

That’s why I say I, like every American I’m speaking with, we’re ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the healthcare reform that is needed to help shore up our economy. Helping the–it’s got to be all about job creation too, shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans and trade–we’ve got to see trade as opportunity, not as competitive, scary thing, but one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today–we’ve got to look at that as more opportunity. (as quoted in Christian Science Monitor)

So consider this an open thread for any insights or thoughts you have to share on the current state of the US economy or the intense politicking/backstabbing/nose rubbing going on today in Washington.

September 26, 2008 Politics Read more >

Chicago police, racism and the powerlessness of the gun in Rogers Park

crossposted from As of Yet Untitled

This afternoon I was sitting in my office downstairs from our apartment when I noticed the yelling volume outside had gone up significantly to a low roar. I looked out the window and saw that the number of kids walking home from nearby Sullivan high school had grown to a critical mass. Either something had already happened or was about to.

I walked out the front door and saw that one of Charletta’s big plastic planters was broken, dirt and plants spilled out on the ground. On the corner of Pratt and Bosworth, 30 or 40 kids were milling around. One squad car (car number 9602) was there, but the officer was still sitting in his car, smoking a cigarette.

As I walked toward the corner I watched a swirl of motion erupted as four or five kids took swings with their legs and fists at a sixth boy. As I continued walking toward the corner, the officer sitting in his car did nothing but sit and smoke his cigarette. By now the victim of the attack was on the ground as the other kids took turns kicking him. As I got closer, the officer began to back his car up, almost running over the kid on the ground. Then as soon as it had begun, it ended. The kid on the ground was apparently not hurt too badly as he was also quickly away from the scene.

After it was clear that the violence was over, the officer finally got out of his car. (more…)

September 19, 2008 Guns, Peace & Peacemaking, Police, Power Read more >

Technology, violence and the myth of progress

Part 2 of Isaac’s post on worship and technology and the resulting discussion inspired me to crosspost of my review review of What a way to Go: Life at the End of Empire.

Recently I watched the DVD What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire which simply and succinctly points out the fatal flaws in the myth of salvation by progress and growth that are at the core of our culture. It lays out the case of why the North American life style is unsustainable for humans and all of creation through interviews with scientists, artists and activists.

I believe it’s imperative that we hear and understand the message of this movie. So for those of you who won’t watch it, I’ll summarize some of it’s key points. The first section is a look at four different ways in which we are reaching the limits despite our best attempts to ignore them.

Peak Oil

Peak OilThe concept of peak oil is one of the simplest of the four to explain and the most difficult to deny. Oil companies are not finding enough new oil to make up for how much we’re using. At some point in the in the next few years, oil production will flat line. In other words, peak oil is the day when we will not be able to produce more oil then we did yesterday. Oil will still be produced, but it will not meet the ever increasing demand of our ever increasing consumption.

(more…)

September 8, 2008 Civilization, Environment, Technology Read more >

Sexual harassment as disease and political tool in Egypt

crossposted from As of Yet Untitled.
Yesterday in my daily BBC feed I came across six horrifying stories from Egyptian women who experience regular sexual harassment. The psychic effect on women comes through in heart breaking clarity:

I get harassed 100 times a day. I tried everything to stop it but it doesn’t stop. I wear loose clothes, I don’t wear make up, I spend more than an hour in front of the mirror everyday thinking of ways to hide my body.

The stories also point to a wide spread acceptance of harassment among men in Egyptian society:

Another time I was walking home and this guy unzipped his trousers in a car next to me. I screamed, but he shouted back very aggressively, saying ‘Who do you think you are? Why would I even look at you?’ People in the street gathered around us and to my surprise they were not sympathetic with me. They supported him. They all defended the guy because they do the same thing.

Most of the women share their own attempts at coping or resistance strategies, few of which seem to have any affect. (more…)

September 4, 2008 activism, Bigotry, Current Events, Politics, Privilege, Sexism, Tradition Read more >

Conspiracy to commit civil disorder and “Old tires (for burning)”

cross posted at As of Yet Untitled

I came back today from a weekend away to headlines reporting on multiple raids throughout the weekend of activist convergence spaces at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul/Minneapolis. Here are a few excerpts from reports on the raid:

The police presented no warrant at the time of the raid, but claim that they have a warrant to search the space for "bomb-making" materials. No "bomb-making" materials were found. Rather, the police barked orders for everyone, including a 5 year old child, to get on the floor with their faces to the ground. Everyone inside was put in handcuffs." (Illegal Police Raid on Anti-RNC Convergence Space in St. Paul)

(more…)

September 1, 2008 activism, Current Events, Police Brutality, Politics Read more >

Why aren’t more women commenting?

Urbanmenno and Lora have posted comments that address an issue I’ve been meaning to raise for months. We finished up a poll last month that made it clear that the site as a whole has a larger male readership then female (64% male and 36% female). But the ratio of women to men in comments seems to be much lower then that. I’m reproducing Urbanmennos and Lora’s comments here because I think they need more visibility then the tail end of an unrelated post:

Urbanmenno says:

Tim made a good comment on urbanmennonite.com in regards to the above Menno Roundup referencing this post’s discussion and in fairness to all involved, I’ll post it here as well

Tim’s comment:

I’m one of the men who was involved in the discussion you referenced on YAR. Initially I was chastened by your comment, but I’ve done some more thinking about it, and I think when it comes to anti-sexism work, women shouldn’t always have to be the ones defending equality. Sometimes men need to confront men about sexism and not expect women to do the work.

Maybe no one’s going to change anyone’s mind, but blatant sexism and oppression need to be challenged. Silence is not the solution.

Urbanmenno’s response:

I actually think there are a lot of men on YAR who do a great job of speaking up for women’s equality and I applaud them. And I don’t have a problem at all with the men defending the good fight. Particularly since it can be really hard as a female to keep having these kinds of conversations over and over again — soul-killing actually.

I drew attention to the post not to chastise any of the men involved. I saw the post and resulting comments more as another example of where women are talked about and not talked with. It would be interesting to take that particular post and ask the general YAR audience why didn’t women comment on it … (more…)

August 4, 2008 Meta (YAR) Read more >