Zimbabwe: Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai beaten by Mugabe's police
Jen Radshaw and Philip Norton, writing for Times Online

Robert Mugabe's police was accused today of beating and torturing a number of opposition leaders arrested at a banned prayer rally in Zimbabwe yesterday.

Among them was Morgan Tsvangirai, the country's main opposition leader, whose lawyer said that he had to be taken to hospital for treatment after receiving a severe beating in custody.

Innocent Chagonda said that he had seen Mr Tsvangirai, who heads the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), when he was "paraded" with other detainees in a Harare police station, although he was not allowed to speak to him.

“He was in bad shape, he was swollen very badly. He was bandaged on the head. You couldn’t distinguish between the head and the face and he could not see properly,” Mr Chagonda told Reuters news agency.

On the street, dozens of police riot squads in trucks and on foot - armed with shotguns, teargas canisters and rubber batons - kept up the pressure on Monday, patrolling Harare’s Highfield township.

Washington said the crackdown was “brutal and unwarranted”.

The Save Zimbabwe campaign said one reformist leader, Lovemore Madhuku, was taken to the main Harare hospital early this morning after collapsing from police assaults. Mr Madhuku's group said that he had suffered a broken arm and a bad head wound.

Mr Chagonda said that he saw Mr Tsvangirai behind a fence at the Borrowdale police station. “Police confirmed they had taken him to hospital last night, which explains the reason he was bandaged,” he said.

There was no news, however, as to Arthur Mutambara, who heads a breakaway MDC faction and was arrested with the others as they arrived in convoy at Highfields suburb, to the south of Harare, the scene of violent street clashes last month.

Mr Mutambara's party said in a statement that he had been moved from Harare's central police station to another station, but his whereabouts were now unknown. A lawyer hired to represent him was allegedly assaulted and chased away from the police station to which he was first taken.

"As a party we are extremely concerned by this development as past experience has shown that it is normal police procedure to hide the whereabouts of arrested persons when they intend to engage in acts of torture and abuse," it said.

The organisers said that the event was a mass prayer meeting in an attempt to get round a police ban on all political meetings in the capital. Riot police cordoned off roads leading into the suburb from early yesterday morning, stopping and searching cars.

Open trucks carrying riot police armed with truncheons patrolled nearby highways. Military police were also seen picking their way through the long grass around Highfields.

Among those also reported arrested were Tendai Biti, secretary-general of the MDC, and Mike Davies, chairman of the Combined Harare Residents’ Association (CHRA).

Wayne Bvudzijena, a police spokesman, said that Mr Tsvangirai and the others had been arrested because they had “instigated people to come out and commit acts of violence”.

He said that the fatal shooting happened when 200 opposition party “thugs” attacked about 20 policemen. Mr Bvudzijena also told state television that three police officers were taken to hospital.

Mr Tsvangirai, a former trade unionist, has been criticised in the past for failing to lead millions of Zimbabweans disgruntled with years of misrule by President Mugabe.

But last week he told a rally in Chiwetu, eastern Zimbabwe, that the opposition now had to meet Mr Mugabe “head-on”. “We have to create a situation where the Zanu (PF) Government will hate, arrest and kill us,” he said in comments in the Manica Post newspaper.

Mr Mugabe, 83, has stirred tempers by announcing plans to postpone presidential elections due next year until 2010.

However, in the first indication that ruling party insiders may have forced him to rethink his plans, he told a regional newspaper yesterday that he would be willing to stand in elections in 2008 “if the party says so”.

Life is getting harder for ordinary Zimbabweans. Annual inflation reached 1,729.9 per cent this week, the highest yet. Petrol is fast disappearing from garages and backyard pumps after rumours that the controversial Central Bank governor Gideon Gono, may this week force vendors into the official selling price of Zim$325 Zimbabwe a litre (less than 1p). Petrol sells for about Zim$9,000 on the black market.

[Zimbabwe's Catholic Archbishop has opposed Mugabe, but I have no indication that the Anglican Archbishop has done so. Abp Malango has in fact shielded Bp Nolbert Kunonga, an infamous Mugabe crony, from ecclesial prosecution.]

And a clarification on Pastor Schmeling

Pastor Bradley Schmeling is taking his case to the ELCA's Committee on Appeals. The court actually informed his that he could either ask the Court of Appeals to find current ELCA policy on openly gay pastors unconstitutional and change the laws, or ask the Churchwide Assembly do to the same. The Assembly runs from Aug 6-12, and a resolution at a local synod assembly would have to be passed, asking the Churchwide Assembly to consider the case. The Hearing Committee that judged his case seems to feel that he has a good case, ethically and legally. However, they are bound by what the current laws say, and if not overturned, Bradley will be removed. So, my prayers for him continue.

Read it all at Lutherans Concerned: http://www.lcna.org/lcna_news/2007-03-08.shtm

Some recent newsflashes

FBI admits to abuses of Patriot Act
"The Bush administration misused its authority and improperly obtained personal information about people in the US on hundreds of occasions, according to a report released by a US Justice Department watchdog.

Robert Mueller, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, said he was to be held accountable for the abuses, which involved the improper use of so-called national security letters, which allowed the FBI to obtain personal information, including telephone, banking, and e-mail records."

http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.aspx?feed=FT&Date=20070309&ID=6596705

Archbishop Williams meets Archbishop Malango of Central Africa; they should have discussed deposing Bishop Nolbert Kunonga but instead we get platitudes

"This statement, coming in the midst of Williams' silence on the matter of Peter Akinola's support for human rights violations, makes you wonder what a conservative prelate would have to do in order to elicit a public expression of displeasure from the Archbishop of Canterbury." - Jim Naughton, Episcopal Diocese of Washington

http://blog.edow.org/weblog/2007/03/a_troublesome_bishop.html

EU takes a leap of faith and commits to substantial reductions in CO2 emissions: pray that US and China follow!
"I'm getting the feeling that not only in the US but in the industrialising countries as well, there's growing sensitivity when it comes to realising the importance of these issues. The member states have said 'Yes. We want to go down this road.' We are proud to hoist our colours to the mast [on climate change]." Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany

http://euobserver.com/9/23665

News on Nigerian anti-gay legislation FINALLY makes its way to the mainstream media

"A poisonous piece of legislation is quickly making its way through the Nigerian National Assembly. Billed as an anti-gay-marriage act, it is a far-reaching assault on basic rights of association, assembly and expression. Chillingly, the legislation — proposed last year by the administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo — has the full and enthusiastic support of the leader of Nigeria’s powerful Anglican church. Unless the international community speaks out quickly and forcefully against the bill, it is almost certain to become law."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/08/opinion/08thu2.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

For reference, Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church and author of Purpose Driven Life, had this to say about Akinola in Time last year:

"Nigerian Anglican Archbishop Peter Akinola captured headlines last year for leading the worldwide revolt of evangelical Anglicans against the ordination of gay bishops in the U.S. by the Episcopal Church. But to caricature his ministry with that one issue would severely underestimate his importance. Akinola personifies the epochal change in the Christian church, namely that the leadership, influence, growth and center of gravity in Christianity is shifting from the northern hemisphere to the southern. New African, Asian and Latin American church leaders like Akinola, 61, are bright, biblical, courageous and willing to point out the inconsistencies, weaknesses and theological drift in Western churches.

With nearly 18 million active Anglicans in Nigeria, Akinola's flock dwarfs the mother Church of England's membership. And since he is chairman of the 37 million—member Council of Anglican Provinces in Africa, when he speaks, far more than just Anglicans pay attention. Akinola has the strength of a lion, useful in confronting Third World fundamentalism and First World relativism. He has been criticized for recent remarks of frustration that some felt exacerbated Muslim-Christian clashes in his country. But Christians are routinely attacked in parts of Nigeria, and his anger was no more characteristic than Nelson Mandela's apartheid-era statement that "sooner or later this violence is going to spread to whites." I believe he, like Mandela, is a man of peace and his leadership is a model for Christians around the world."

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1187221,00.html

Pastor Warren, you need to see a good neuropsychologist, and if you swing by Michigan I'll introduce you to one. Akinola is not a man of peace. He is nothing at all like Mandela. And as for theological drift, Jesus said to treat one's neighbor as oneself. Akinola is either drifting, theologically, or else he should be thrown in jail for five years.

Mayans to cleanse sacred site after Bush visit to Guatemala

"Mayan leaders will spiritually "cleanse" ancient ruins in Guatemala after a visit by U.S. President George W. Bush, unpopular here because of foreign policies going back to Central America's civil wars.
The leaders said they would hold a spiritual ceremony to restore "peace and harmony" at the Mayan ruins of Iximche after Bush tours the site on Monday.
"No, Mr. Bush, you cannot trample and degrade the memory of our ancestors," said indigenous leader Rodolfo Pocop during a press conference. "This is not your ranch in Texas.""

""We will burn incense, place flowers and water in the area where Mr. Bush has walked to clean out the bad energy," he said."

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N09305229.htm

On one hand, this is a justifiable act of resistance by a colonized people against the colonizers. On the other hand, if they were Christians ... I know I ask for fire and judgment and recommend that people see shrinks and neuropsychiatrists, but I think I shall refrain from comparing them to Satan.

Harriet "Never lost a passenger" Tubman, died March 10, 1913


Harriet Tubman was known as "Moses of Her People." In 1849, Harriet's owner was facing mounting debt that belonged to her dead husband, and she decided to sell some of her slaves. Harriet feared being sold into the South, and she fled. Harriet's own husband was free, but he did not want to come, so she had to leave him. Two of her brothers went with her, but later decided to turn back. And so, Harriet continued alone on the Underground Railroad, helped to freedom by both Blacks and Whites.

Harriet herself later became a part of the Railroad, guiding escaping slaves to freedom. She rescued dozens of slaves, was never caught, and in fact threatened to shoot anyone who turned back. No one ever did.

"Her success was wonderful. Time and again she made successful visits to Maryland on the Underground Rail Road, and would be absent for weeks at a time, running daily risks while making preparations for herself and her passengers. Great fears were entertained for her safety, but she seemed wholly devoid of personal fear. The idea of being captured by slave-hunters or slave-holders, seemed never to enter her mind. She was apparently proof against all adversaries. While she thus maintained utter personal indifference, she was much more watchful with regard to those she was piloting. Half of her time, she had the appearance of one asleep, and would actually sit down by the road-side and go fast asleep* when on her errands of mercy through the South, yet, she would not suffer one of her party to whimper once, about "giving out and going back," however wearied they might be by the hard travel day and night. She had a very short and pointed rule or law of her own, which implied death to any who talked of giving out and going back. Thus, in an emergency she would give all to understand that "times were very critical and therefore no foolishness would be indulged in on the road." That several who were rather weak-kneed and faint-hearted were greatly invigorated by Harriet's blunt and positive manner and threat of extreme measures, there could be no doubt."
William Still, author of The Underground Railroad

Additionally, Harriet played a significant role in the Raid at Combahee Creek, an action which freed several hundred slaves during the American Civil War. The Episcopal Church commemorates her life on July 20, along with the lives of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Amelia Jenks Bloomer, and Sojourner Truth.

Why would a slave ever want to turn back? If captured, they could probably expect a worse fate than if they turned themselves in and begged for mercy, but that's only part of it. When people are abused over the long term, they come to accept their oppression as natural and just - they internalize their oppression. There were women who fought against the Equal Rights Amendment. Back home in Singapore, there are Chinese Christians who bristle at the notion that Jesus was not White.

God sent Harriet Tubman to free her people's bodies from slavery. Her task is not complete - you can free the body, but the mind still has to deal with internalized oppression. Often, we deal with that by taking those internalized patterns of oppression, and using them on others. These days, many African-American Christians have joined campaigns to deny rights to the LGBT community. I heard that one Michigan pastor said that he'd even join with the Ku Klux Klan against homosexuals.

That's what a soul still in bondage sounds like, and it's frightening. But, God sent us Harriet. You can bet that She has sent us other prophets to work on our minds and souls as well as our bodies. Stay tuned.

From the Episcopal calendar of lesser feasts and fasts:
"O God, whose Spirit guides us into all truth and makes us free: Strengthen and sustain us as you did your servants Elizabeth, Amelia, Sojourner, and Harriet. Give us vision and courage to stand against oppression and injustice and all that works against the glorious liberty to which you call all your children; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen."

International Women's Day - God's face with a splash of pink?



Wisdom 6:12-16 (NRSV)
Wisdom is radiant and unfading,
and she is easily discerned by those who love her,
and is found by those who seek her.
She hastens to make herself known to those who desire her.
One who rises early to seek her will have no difficulty,
for she will be found sitting at the gate.
To fix one’s thought on her is perfect understanding,
and one who is vigilant on her account will soon be free from care,
because she goes about seeking those worthy of her,
and she graciously appears to them in their paths,
and meets them in every thought.

Christ Sophia, Icon by Robert Lentz: "Christ Sophia is depicted in this icon in an egg-shaped mandala. The inscription in her halo is Greek for " I am who am," The divine name given Moses at the burning bush on Sinai. The Greek inscriptions in the upper corners are abbreviations for "Jesus Christ," her historical manifestation. She holds the ancient statue called "Venus of Willendorf," and points to herself as if to say, " I am she. Know me more fully.""



Every March 8, many activities are held to celebrate the economic, political, and social achievements of women, and to remember the work that needs to be done.

And on this day, Christians should take a good, hard look in the mirror. For centuries, we have had a male priesthood preaching a male God, or at best a gender-neutral God. But even in the latter case, if a male priesthood is doing the preaching, God ends up being called gender-neutral but acting pretty much like one of the guys.

However, God encompasses and transcends both male and female. The Book of Wisdom is one of the Jewish scriptures. Although they never told us about it in my church growing up, many Christians also consider it part of Scripture. When God is referred to as Wisdom, God is always a She. Wisdom dwells among humankind, seeking to draw us in and teach us Her ways.

It's one thing to ordain women, and to have them as priests, bishops, and teachers in seminaries. It's one thing to change our language, to say, for example, God is my Mother. Those are surface actions. But it's another thing to be able to experience God acting like a woman on a deep level. In the book, Dance of the Dissident Daughter, Sue Monk Kidd argues that masculinity is oriented toward the future, towards heaven, and towards transcendence, while femininity is oriented towards the present, towards earth, and towards immanence. Masculine Christianity orients towards heaven at the expense of earth, towards spirituality at the expense of sensuality. It denigrates earth and sensuality as sinful, broken, and unclean. Sue argues that women have always been, through their experiences of the menstrual cycle and pregnancy, with the rhythms of nature, and that men, by nature, cannot be as in tune with these as women.

The results are that in real life, Roman Catholics hold up celibacy as the ideal. Sex is seen as unclean. And the Roman Catholic Church is one of the greatest enemies of women's health and sexual health. For example, a cardinal once said that money spent on condoms in AIDS should be used on anti-retroviral drugs instead. Another example is my post on Casa Materna, where I mentioned that the RCC in Nicaragua lobbied against abortions and birth control, and left women risking their health to have upwards of ten children each.

I'm not going to spare Protestants either: remember the ex-President elect of the Christian Coalition, who quit after they refused to expand their agenda to include issues aside from sex. Additionally, when Christians evangelized to many indigenous cultures, they took those restrictive sexual mores with them. Many indigenous peoples had greater acceptance of homosexuality and/or gender variance - see my post on Wei-Wa of Zuni for an example. After the Christians came, they turned their backs on that facet of their cultures.

And of course, there is often resistance to feminine images of God. A while back I mentioned that the Diocese of Michigan put up some advertisements on billboards, one of which said "God is my Mother," and that one particular church vehemently denied that God was their mother. Sue Monk Kidd started out in the Southern Baptist Church, which actively taught that women were inferior to men and not worthy of leadership positions in the church. She soon moved to the Episcopal Church, but there too, she faced resistance to acknowledging the wounds that masculine Christianity inflicts on the spirits of women.

“How many times can a woman betray her soul before it gives up and ceases calling to her at all?” Monk Kidd says that women are in desperate need of an awakening to their feminine spirits. Women, and men, are blind to that essential facet of ourselves. I offer an example of what happens if we don't awaken: God has sent us many women prophets. We have often failed to listen. There are those who ignore the evidence that women served as leaders in the early Christian church, and demand that they be excluded from our leadership now. Or sometimes, we listen, but we also pigeonhole: Joan of Arc was a soldier and apparently a successful military leader, but she was a virgin; Saints Clare and Julian were nuns, sworn to celibacy; Mary Magdalene is seen, incorrectly, as a repentant prostitute. If a woman prophet came along, with a message that's inconsistent with our notions of what women do, will we be able to hear?

Many women have turned their backs completely on the Christian tradition, finding that it alienates an essential part of their beings. Similarly, many LGBT folk have done the same, because not only do they find themselves alienated, they also find themselves told that they're going to hell for loving people of the same gender. These losses pain me. I want to share my Jesus with all who will hear, but many have been hurt too much to listen.

And so, I offer this icon of Christ Sophia, of Jesus Christ as a woman, inviting us to know her more closely. This is the face of God, with a splash of pink. Churches have always been guilty of being too slow to change. Right now, we are not worshipping God in Her completeness ... but God does have a way of coming to us in surprising incarnations.

Related posts
http://weiwentg.blogspot.com/2006/12/feast-of-our-lady-of-guadalupe-mary.html
http://weiwentg.blogspot.com/2006/07/feast-of-mary-magdalene-july-22-is.html
http://weiwentg.blogspot.com/2006/07/we-wha-of-zuni-this-is-we-wha-zuni.html

LGBT Asylum seekers in the US

Rev. Elizabeth Kaeton is on the Episcopal Church's Executive Council. One response they have made to the Nigerian legislation that would criminalize advocacy on behalf of the LGBT community, they have urged the US government to "grant asylum to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals, or those advocating for their civil rights, who seek such protection, and commit the Episcopal Church to aid in their resettlement."

I'm particularly interested in the immigration issue. The US does indeed grant asylum for persecution based on sexual orientation. I personally know of one Indonesian man who is seeking asylum. The penalty for "sodomy" is 14 years in Nigeria, so even if the new legislation fails completely, Nigerian LGBT folk who want it probably have a better than average chance of obtaining asylum. I hear they've granted asylum to LGBT Singaporeans ... and while "sodomy" is illegal there and LGBTs aren't allowed to politically organize, I don't believe they are persecuted to the degree they are in Nigeria. The "sodomy" laws aren't enforced (I believe), and a whole bunch of political organizations wouldn't be allowed to organized if they tried, so the LGBT group that tried wasn't alone.

That said, there are problems. LGBT asylum seekers often face identical prejudices from their immigrant communities. Having a supportive immigrant community can be key to successfully adjusting, particuarly if English isn't one's first language or the asylum seeker isn't familiar with American culture. Just figuring out taxes or credit or other finances, for example, is a nightmare. Hiding sexual orientation and living in your ethnic community is stressful and dangerous.

http://www.sodomylaws.org/usa/usnews22.htm

Additionally, judges can be capricious. Because of the stringent requirements for asylum, this is a category where a judge's prejudices can come to the fore. The article below details two Egyptian men, who were lovers, who submitted very similar cases to two different judges. One was accepted, one was denied. And anyway, it looks like the national denial rate for asylum seekers is 65%.

http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=1ceb8db22b7cfe7bb2cff09a6da3d5bd

Aswad and Zaid (the ficticious names of the two Egyptians) did not know that they could apply for asylum based on sexual orientation. They overstayed their 6-month visitors' visas, which certainly did not help their cases. They sought asylum around the time of the 9/11 attacks, which likely hurt. Additionally, if they were an opposite-sex couple, and if, for example, Aswad were granted asylum, Zaid could have been granted asylum as a derivative of Aswad's status. As a same-sex couple they could not do this, but ironically, their same-sex relationship would have helped cement their case. And it was their case, not two cases, no matter what the laws say.

Finally, Americans of all people should understand patriotism. LGBT people abroad may or may not want to migrate to the US. We should indeed set up the conditions for them to seek asylum here safely, and we should make our offer public. But, attitudes need to be changed by people on the ground, and if they request our help doing that, we should offer it.

Rainbow Presence Declaration (rainbowpresence.blogspot.com)

But I, through the abundance of your steadfast love, will enter your house, I will bow down toward your holy temple in awe of you. Psalm 5:7

To our sisters and brothers in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion:

In their Communiqué of February 19, 2007, the Primates of the Anglican Communion laid out steps to be taken by the Episcopal Church, specifically by the House of Bishops, by September 30, 2007. As lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender members of the Episcopal Church and heterosexual supporters of full and equal participation for lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender people in the church, we do not agree as to the course of action the Episcopal Church should take in response to the Primates’ Communiqué.

We agree that:
The Episcopal Church must understand what is being asked of it—especially in terms of its lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender members.
The Episcopal Church needs to know who its lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender members are in order to know who is being asked to pay the price of unity in the Anglican Communion.
Until lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender members of the Episcopal Church have full and equal access to all the sacraments and rites of the church, lesbians/gays/bisexuals/transgendered people are essentially second-class members of the Episcopal Church.
We acknowledge that:
No matter what course of action the Episcopal Church decides to take, faithful Episcopalians will feel it necessary to leave the Episcopal Church.
Some of us may be among those who leave the Episcopal Church.
There are lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender people who live in places where making themselves vulnerable is unsafe and even life threatening.
We affirm the presence in the church of our lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender sisters and brothers who preceded us, giving of themselves and their gifts while remaining invisible as lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender people.

Therefore, on Easter Sunday we (lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender and all allies) will be present in our churches and make ourselves visibly known to our fellow parishioners, clergy, bishops, and leadership through the wearing of rainbow sashes, stoles, hats, buttons, and other articles of clothing and accessories.