“You’ve come a long way, baby!” I guess that’s what I keep hearing in the background of the Senate Confirmation Sessions for Sonia Sotomayor. “And once you’ve come that long way, you should act like a (white) man, and not rock the boat with your ‘difference.’” Those white, male Senators don’t ask questions about impartiality when white, male judges are being confirmed, because, by definition, those men are unbiased, the norm, hey — they look the same and act same as the Senators asking the questions, so hey — they must be impartial.

But Sonia Sotomayor has bright, red toenails, which we can all see, because of her broken ankle. And she looks like she’s Hispanic. And as Joanna Russ (in The Female Man) said many years ago, when she walks into the hearing room, she “might as well be wearing a sandwich board that says: LOOK! I HAVE TITS!” Given all this difference, I guess Sotomayor has to write off her “wise Latina” comment as a “rhetorical flourish that failed.” And she’s probably smart to remain calm, unruffled, and unemotional or as Maureen Dowd called her “robotic.” These hearings are not the place to educate the elite about hegemony (and US Senators certainly count as the elite; just look at their health care packages!).

I snapped this photo of an ad in a BART station in September 2007. Viewed now, in the midst of a recession, the image takes on extra realism and a tone of increased urgency.

Not convinced we need a New Bottom Line? It’s revealing that a line like “Now you can pay rent and eat” is an effective marketing strategy, catering to people’s anxieties and realities. Needless to say, it greatly saddens me that people find themselves having to choose between shelter and food.

The proposal unveiled on July 14 by House Democratic Party committee leaders is already under attack by the Right, and most commentators believe it will be changed to make it less progressive once it has to be meshed with whatever (if anything) comes out of the Senate.

Unfortunately, the plan itself is inadequate and for precisely the reasons that a Single Payer Plan makes most sense.
Any plan that relies on a mix between private insurance companies and a “public option” will face the reality that the costs of such a plan will dramatically raise overall costs for health care and require some source of revenue to pay for it, and so the debate will be about “raising taxes.”

Sure, liberals and progressives can and should yell about the fact that no such concerns are ever raised when the militarists decide on invading another country (Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and who knows what’s next). The assumption that we can always afford that is there. Ditto, when it comes to giving interest-free loans of trillions of dollars to the banks. All good points, but they won’t really undermine the point of the Right that this is in fact going to cost more money and it has to come from somewhere, and people are scared of raising taxes at a time when their own economic futures seem uncertain. That’s what gives the Republican-Centrist Democrats their power to undermine the health care plan.

Note: The headline has been changed, some text has been removed, and a picture has been added since this article was originally published.

First of two parts

St Joseph's Oratory in the Snowdon-Cote-des-Neiges district of Montreal

I left Montreal not quite three years ago. And I was very happy to leave.

Montreal is not a pluralistic city. It is a frankly racist city. People are accustomed to it: they make excuses for egregious and blatantly racist assertions, which most often come from Quebec nationalists who complain about the “ethnic” vote (meaning either Jews or Italians, depending on the context).

The news was consumed in 2006 with the Bouchard-Taylor inquiry, formed by the provinicial government to report on race relations in Quebec. This would be a sensitive topic anywhere. In Quebec it was explosive.

Coalition for homeless moms and families, in the Mayor's reception area, San Francisco. Flickr/Liz Henry

A woman wrote to me about Tikkun Daily:

When you include pieces from poor people, and what it feels like to live on the bottom rung of this society, then there will be something for me to read. I don’t belong in the rarified company of people who aren’t interested in the daily lives of us poor people.

Thank you for hearing me. I’m so used to being ignored.

I have a big crisis going on right now, and it is hitting me hard, and I’m unable to put together anything at this time.

What I will say, however, is that there is soooo much information available, and that “progressives” are woefully ignorant of the very basics of poverty and homelessness in this country.

Altmuslimah has officially launched its photographic campaign – aimed at providing an alternative to the dominant media image of oppressed Muslim women and angry Muslim men.

The purpose of Altmuslimah’s visual campaign is to present Muslim men and women multi-dimensionally, figuratively speaking. The collection highlights the literary contributions of empowered Muslim American women; telling portraits of tenacious Muslim females, young and old; warm, loving Muslim men; the purity of spiritual devotion; and the dynamics of positive gender interaction in Islam.

We’re now featuring slideshows/videos on our main page – check out the upper right hand corner of the Altmuslimah site. Every other week, we’ll feature a different video or slideshow that will include photos and artwork from artists across the world. Artists can make their own video using Animoto, or a slideshow using Slideshare. Please send us the embed link at asma.uddin(at)altmuslimah.com, and we’ll feature your work for 2 weeks. And if you have trouble making your slideshow or video, let us know and we’ll make it for you.

Altmuslimah would also like to help spread the message by offering the embed link to other sites interested in featuring our photos. If you are a blogger or run a web magazine or other website, and are interested in supporting this mission to change the dominant image of Muslim men and women, please contact us.

Many thanks to Paula Lerner, who contributed her photos for our very first video:

Altmuslimah’s Photographic Campaign

All,

I joined the Tikkun blog yesterday and introduced my way of thinking through my initial posts – I hope you enjoyed them! They reflect my balance between traditionalism and measured, meaningful change.

I am both a lawyer and a writer, with most of my writings focused on either gender issues or religious freedom in the American, Muslim, or American-Muslim contexts. As it turns out, some of my legal work also has to do with these issues.

My latest initiative in the gender rights arena is Altmuslimah (www.altmuslimah.com), an online magazine I launched in March 2009. Altmuslimah is dedicated to compelling comment on gender-in-Islam from both male and female perspectives. Our work includes not just the online magazine, but also our recently launched photographic campaign (which you’ll hear more about here at Tikkun), and our on-the-ground activism in anti-domestic violence efforts (which you’ll also be hearing about).

I look forward to interacting with and learning from you!

Credit: Flickr/Fridayinla

Many commentators, including Michael Lerner in a current editorial, welcomed President Obama’s speech in Cairo on June 4. There has been positive comment by, for example, Muslim writers at altmuslim here and here, and by Hussein Rashid at Religion Dispatches.

The substantive differences from Bush Cheney policy were summed up by Gilbert Achcar at ZNet as:

a criticism of the U.S. invasion of Iraq; a commitment to withdraw all troops from that country; an acknowledgement of the Palestinian people’s more than sixty-year old tragedy (implicitly recognizing the Nakba); a clear and firm rejection of Israel’s expansion of its settlements in the occupied West Bank; a relatively open attitude toward Hamas; an acknowledgment of Iran’s right to develop nuclear energy within the boundaries of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; and a willingness to talk to the Iranian government, without preconditions.

But in a powerful presentation that that you can listen to here Mark LeVine makes the case that this was a great speech… for President Clinton to have given in his time. It was inadequate for today.

Jesus of the People

Painter Janet McKenzie saw Christ, and all humankind, made in the image of God. She saw a black woman standing strong and proud as the child of God. Following this vision, she fashioned her Jesus of the People, and all of her paintings, as visual prayers for equality and gender equity. Visit our art gallery to see her works.

For hundreds of years, most western artists have depicted the figure of Jesus Christ as a white man. Janet McKenzie dared to see something different from the norm.

Tapping into a tradition established by artists in Ethiopia and South America, who have been painting Jesus as a dark-skinned man for centuries, McKenzie caused a splash in the United States with her depiction of Christ as a black woman. In 1999 the painting won the National Catholic Reporter’s global competition and further reshaped the western image of Jesus.

“My paintings come into existence from my heart and soul, and they are not calculated, nor do I think about other peoples’ potential responses,” McKenzie said. “All that matters to me is that I am creating the most honest work I can at the highest level of my ability. I do not regret creating any of my paintings regardless of the controversies surrounding them.”

This week’s spiritual wisdom comes from poet Mark Siet:

Life is about the perfection of love
Its source remains in heaven above
And yet still through these hands do we mold
Our lives of caring from young until old.

Nothing else matters but the Creator in every breath
What else could compare to this sublime holiness
Knowing that with each step there is only One
In the rising of the moon and the setting of the sun.

There in that place where nothing may be perceived
A curious fashion comes into being whereupon received
The threads of Torah’s living letters the vine upon the Tree
Weave these pesukim flowing through Tzimtzum to the sea

Joining the waters above with those that are below
With every meaning shared light there does show
For after all this is the very purpose of divine connection
To reveal in each moment by our infinite reflection.

About fifteen years ago, I tuned in to the revival of klezmer music, once the traditional music of Jews in Eastern Europe. After that culture was destroyed in World War II, the music survived, and cross-pollinated. For me this was an exploration, not a return, and at first I had troubles telling one group from another. But klezmer now is like reggae was in the 70s and 80s, a spice that can be added to a wide range of musical dishes. Reggae may have started as the music of Jamaica, but it became a style used by everyone from the Clash to the Police. And today, klezmer is as various and multifaceted as any genre I know.

The Klezmatics are an example of that range….

Third in a series

Medicating in Montreal

Some commentators in Canada feel that the health care debate in the USA should open up a debate also in Canada.

Jean Chretien, Prime Minister of Canada 1993-2003

I can’t imagine why. We’ve been debating it by complaining long and loud since 1995, when the Liberal government of Jean Chretien decided it was a Conservative government and began to destroy health care in the name of deficit fighting.

Canada abandoned Keynes and endorsed Hayek overnight.

It is a fortunate person who has a private physician today. For my first four years in Montreal I mostly used clinics, now ubiquitous in most Canadian cities, where one can wait two hours to see a physician.

My last three years in Montreal I was fortunate to find Mark, who has become a friend as well as my doctor, but I’ve lived in Ottawa two years next month and don’t have a GP here.

Dig up a hole here, take the dirt all the way over there, and then move all the dirt back into the hole again?

Yes sir!

Drive a Korean general back to his quarters in the middle of a snowstorm when I can barely see out the window?

Yes ma’am!

Plan the assassination of someone the Vice President says needs killing?

No sir!

A gay band from Seattle, who played at Obama's inauguration. Credit: Scott Eklund / P-I

The Left are inherently doves, advocates for peace, and they place their own peaceful existence above any involvement in any worldwide conflict.

That assessment is by a right winger, quoted on TD by Peter Marmorek. But it sounds all too true. I’m happy with the “inherently doves.” Not with the idea that we place our own peaceful existence above involvement in any worldwide conflict.

As we’ve written here and here before, we won’t get universal health care without a huge fight. The same is true of any kind of decent energy bill to wean us off fossil fuels. And don’t even mention world poverty.

Obama appears to be conflict averse. But isn’t that why we elected him, because he said there was no blue or red America, only one America?

Middle class people typically are conflict averse. We (I’m one) have something to lose. In this country especially too many of us think we have gained what we have solely by individual effort (I dissent from that one — I’ve made beaucoup individual effort but it would have done little for me in a country without the rule of law, or without the other privileges built by others for people like me). We are not used to collective action. We don’t want to rock the boat. We might fall out. In both senses.

But in recent American history one set of people have not shied from conflict.

The compatibility of Islam and pluralism is sometimes defended by referencing examples of Islamic “tolerance” of minorities in centuries past. Some Muslims’ interpretation of pluralism is colored by Islam’s political power in the past,[1] and they define religious tolerance in terms of how religious minorities were treated in the Islamic Empire – that is, as groups that were free to practice their religion as long as they obeyed the Islamic political order and paid taxes in return for protection by the Islamic state. As some modern Islamic thinkers argue, however, this form of religious tolerance is inadequate in light of changing human rights standards.[2] Whereas the Islamic Empire’s notion of religious tolerance may have been appropriate for that time, Muslims in the modern age must re-evaluate and realize that the historical approach to religious tolerance must be modified. Conditional and condescending “tolerance” must be redefined to include mutual respect, equal treatment, and robust pluralism.

Contemporary Muslims’ effort to grapple with pluralism and their political position in relation to the religious “other” is in some ways analogous to the challenge the American religious right has faced realizing that America is not a “Christian country” – at least not in the sense that allows conservative Christianity to hold a privileged position. In both cases, a religious group that once dominated a society is coming to terms with greater diversity and the demands of justice in a pluralistic context.[3]

Last August, Marwa el-Sherbini, an Egyptian pharmacist living in Germany since 2003, was with her toddler son at a playground in the Dresden suburb of Johannstadt. A dispute transpired between her and a man now referred to by public records as “Axel W.” about whether it was her son’s or his niece’s turn to go on the swings. In the course of the argument, W. called el-Sherbini, who wore a headscarf, an “Islamist”, a “terrorist” and “slut”. Angered by the incident, el-Sherbini filed a formal complaint against W.

A local court fined Axel W. €780 (USD$1,100) for calling el-Sherbini a “terrorist”. During the trial, W. continued to insult el-Sherbini, telling her, “You don’t have the right to live here,” and afterwards, he appealed the fine. Last week, he and el-Sherbini appeared in court for his appeal.

As el-Sherbini prepared to testify, W. attacked her inside the courtroom, stabbing her 18 times. El-Sherbini’s husband, Eliv Ali Okaz, intervened during the attack, only to be stabbed by W. and shot by courtroom security, which unexplainably mistook him as the attacker. Okaz is in critical condition. El-Sherbini died on the courtroom floor. Their three-year-old son witnessed the entire episode.

Tisha b’av is the day of mourning for all the destructions and oppression that happened to the Jewish people. Jewish theology claims “because of our sins we were exiled from our land,” so it’s important to raise the issue of whether our current sins toward Palestinians may lead again to another exile from our land.

The selection below comes from Jeremiah Haber’s blog, The Magnes Zionist. Magnes was first president of Hebrew University, and a strong supporter of a one-state option and for reconciliation with Palestinians. He, along with Martin Buber and others, developed a kind of Zionism that has not had major influence on the mainstream currents of contemporary Zionism, but which demonstrates that there is nothing intrinsically racist or colonialist in the theory of a Zionist project, however its actuality may have turned out to be — just as we might say that imperialism is not intrinsic to the original conception of American democracy however its actuality may have turned out to be.

Below is Haber’s post, reprinted in full with his permission:

One of the hemisphere’s most critical struggles for democracy in 20 years is now unfolding in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa (nicknamed “Tegucigolpe” for its long history of military coup d’états, which are called golpes de estado, in Spanish). Despite censorship and repression, popular anger over the June 28 military overthrow of democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya is growing. International condemnation has been near-unanimous, and the Organization of American States has suspended Honduras, the first time the hemisphere-wide body has taken so drastic an action since 1962.

That’s the latest word from Tikkun Contributing Editor Stephen Zunes. It’s hard to get this story from our media. Luckily, Zunes presents a compelling analysis of what is happening and of the missteps of the Obama administration.

Here’s Rep. Dennis Kucinich explanation as to why he voted against the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, which passed the House last week:

It sets targets that are too weak, especially in the short term, and sets about meeting those targets through Enron-style accounting methods. It gives new life to one of the primary sources of the problem that should be on its way out — coal — by giving it record subsidies.

It’s worth reading his whole statement.

The highpoint of my vacation last week was literally 15 feet above the Atlantic Ocean. That’s how high at least one of the dolphins leapt as they swam around Barbara, my disabled sister, and half of the 23 members of the Vedder clan gathered in North Carolina for a reunion.