Swat – Engaging Peace

Militarize police against terrorists? Bad idea.

Posted on October 15, 2015 by kathiemm

Whether you are a privileged student in a good university, a parent of small children, a kid, a grandmother, or any of the other types of ordinary people in this country, you should be worried about the increasing militarization of the police.

The police are human beings. That means they are subject to all kinds of influences, just like everybody else; for some of them, their families, their communities, and the media to which they have been exposed have made them angry, frightened, violent, hateful, bigoted. These traits are pretty scary in anyone, but particularly in people with guns. Especially big guns, rapidly firing guns, guns with no brains or morals.

And because they are human, police can also make mistakes. Huge mistakes.

You all know about Ferguson, Missouri, and similar nationally-recognized episodes starring militarized police but even Ferguson has its less well known stories.

There are probably thousands of other examples of police misuse of their increasingly militarized power—and the limited sanctions that ensue from their misuse– that led to tragedy.

For example, read this brief TruthOut article for five really outrageous examples of SWAT raids gone wrong.

As is true of so many social problems, efforts are being made to rein in the abuses of a militarized police force .

If enough people become involved, perhaps we can reduce the progress towards 1984 in 2015 and beyond.

It’s indecent for these guys to share a bed

Posted on October 12, 2015November 10, 2015 by kathiemm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FH25VEmWLmo&feature=player_embedded

Cool, huh? An 11-man SWAT team, heavily armed, yelling, swearing, breaking in an open door, and throwing flash bang grenades, raids a house and (pant, pant) captures a 68-year-old grandmother and her adopted daughter. Whoops, wrong house.

Viewing this video really steamed me up. It was another unneeded reminder of the issues that obsess me everyday anyway. Militarization of police. Unnecessary force. Guns, guns, guns. Violation of civil rights. Violation of human rights. Inhumane behavior.

But the steam that built up in me was nothing compared with the sense of outrage, disbelief, and anger I felt when I watched this second brief video, a newscast report by a member of the local TV network invited to come along with the SWAT team and see them in action.

What happened to the free press? David Shepherd, the so-called reporter for this story, seems more like the “bought press,” or the “seduced press.” Here is a blatant example of what can happen when people whose job it is to report the news become “embedded” in the action.

I was less steamed and could only laugh when I read a report on the raid in Police: The Law Enforcement Magazine, entitled “Ind. SWAT Team Tricked Into Raiding Grandma’s Home”. The moral of the story seems to be that the raid, the intimidation, the destruction of property was not the fault of the police who did those things. They were tricked into it.

A lot of people in this country go nuts in response to particular forms of coupling (white with black, men with men, etc.) It is the increasing tendency of coupling between members of the press and gun-bearing members of the power structure that makes me nervous.

The good news is that the grandmother filed a law suit and the judge ruled that the SWAT team does not get immunity from prosecution.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Malala

Posted on January 23, 2014March 11, 2021 by kathiemm

By guest contributor Sunanda Sharma

Malala Yousafzai is known as “the girl who stood up for education and was shot by the Taliban,” and she casually includes that on the title page of her incredible book, I Am Malala.

Malala at the White House. Photo by Pete Souza, in public domain.

Before she was shot, Malala anonymously chronicled her life under the pen name Gul Makai for BBC in 2009.

Malala states in her book that her father, Ziauddin, has been her greatest inspiration in advocating for women’s rights and education for all children. His own sisters were not allowed to get an education, being forced instead to learn all the household chores that would be expected of them once they were wed.

Based on his observation of his sisters’ fates and his own love of learning, Ziauddin started his own chain of public schools in Swat, Pakistan, including the school that Malala attended until she was shot by the Taliban in October 2012.

The Taliban occupation of Swat was a harrowing time for residents of the Valley. Malala describes how Fazlullah, “the radio Mullah,” broadcast rules for “proper” Islamic conduct, which he claimed were written in the Qu’ran.

A mufti (Muslim scholar) tried to shut down Ziauddin’s schools, claiming they were “haram” (prohibited in Islam). The mufti went on to accuse Malala’s father of being an infidel. But Ziauddin said, “I am a Muslim too,” asserting that he had never heard of such ridiculous claims in the Qu’ran.

Their conflict reflects the struggles of the modern Muslim whose religious identity is so misunderstood by Westerners who fail to recognize the divide between radical extremists claiming to act in the name of religion and the millions of Muslims who practice Islam as peaceful citizens.

Malala’s story led to her United Nations address on July 12, 2013–her sixteenth birthday–which is now known as Malala Day. Her speech is powerful but sweet, reflecting her personality.

Sunanda Sharma is a senior undergraduate at Boston University, majoring in psychology and intent on promoting peace