women’s suffrage – Engaging Peace

People have suffered and died for it

Posted on October 19, 2018October 19, 2018 by kathiemm

Commemoration of the 1970 anniversary of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution; the amendment was ratified in 1920 and provided for women’s suffrage. In the public domain. Ward Brackett, designer.

By Kathie MM

People have been stabbed, strangled, shot, castrated, burned, tortured, and killed for it–for pursuing the right to vote, and all the other rights that can be accessed through that right (including the right to make choices about who will govern). Human beings have not always had such rights, and even today, even in the United States of America, some hard-fought-for rights are denied to many.

For centuries, the major view among rulers was that might makes right. The biggest and strongest bullies built empires and used outrageous force to get what they wanted, causing enormous death and destruction in the process. Remarkably, many of the biggest most murderous bullies believed they had a divine right to do what they were doing. Otherwise, how could they get away with it?

In today’s world, there seem to be two major views regarding rights. The might makes right guys are still around. The “rights” to which they feel entitled are the rights to get rich, exert power, squelch opposition, decide who will live and who will die, who will profit and who will be enslaved, who has free speech and who must be silenced. It’s hard to hold onto those “rights” in a true democracy, so generally tyrants become more and more ruthless. You can think of your own examples in ancient and recent history.

It takes considerable control of resources and power to promote the myth that might makes right, and sooner or later, throughout history, ordinary people join together to fight for a more democratic, fair, and just society–for example, through massive, largely nonviolent resistance, as in South Africa under the leadership of Nelson Mandela, and in Poland under the Solidarity Movement. Sometimes in the U.S., major social and economic reforms have been enabled through the ballot box as in the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (whose social programs have been under attack from the right ever since).

In a true democracy, in the kind of democracy for which people have suffered, fought, and died for hundreds of years, there are certain inalienable rights–like being able to vote, move around freely, worship one’s chosen deity, speak truth to power, pursue education, and engage in gainful employment; according to the United Nations, such rights are inherent. That is, people of every color, every religion, every ethnicity, every sexual orientation are entitled to a range of human rights, as agreed upon at the United Nations by nearly every nation on earth, including the United States, in the wake of two horrendous world wars.

Unfortunately, there are still some people, including here in the United States, who abhor and fear democracy. Some of them hold political offices right now. Do you know who they are? Do you know who among the candidates tries to disenfranchise voters, rob the poor to gratify the rich, rape the environment for personal profit? And. do you know who has made the efforts, taken the risks to preserve and protect democratic and human rights? Do you know who will help protect your rights, and who will promote a sustainable environment in a sustainable democracy in a sustainable world?

You have a few weeks left to learn all you can about all the candidates running for all the local, state, and national offices in the elections to be held on Tuesday, November 6. You don’t have to die for the right to vote. Just exercise it. What better way to maintain your self-respect, honor those who fought for your rights, and help make the world better for the coming generations?

Human Kindness: America’s Positive People

Posted on April 7, 2017 by kathiemm

Two young girls were among the approximately 7,000 protesters who gathered in downtown Minneapolis on Jan. 31, 2017 to denounce President Trump and express solidarity with immigrants. (Photo by Fibonacci Blue/ flickr CC 2.0)

by Charles Bayer*

Last week I described how I have often encountered America’s positive people — those I know, as well as complete strangers who have gone out of their way to be gracious and helpful. This week I want to widen that observation and describe how many Americans welcome and support countless others to their homes, cities, churches and hearts. Why? Perhaps they remember that a generation or two ago their forebears arrived at Ellis Island undocumented. Or perhaps they are compelled by the deep roots of their religious faith.

“The sanctuary movement is only the latest sign that at heart we are a gracious people who care deeply about each other and a world of others.”

These days we are witnessing the bitter vituperation of an ignorant president who continues to sow fear and suspicion, who has accused Mexico of sending across our border rapists and drug dealers whom he plans to keep out by constructing an impenetrable wall.

This fearmongering has not gone unnoticed or unchallenged. Across the nation hundreds of communities large and small have declared themselves to be “sanctuary cities.” While no one seems certain as to what that implies, at a minimum it is an indication that when the reds come to seize someone the government has decided to deport, the transfer will be resisted.

In addition, churches all across the nation are now willing to open their buildings to those who are no longer safe from the threat of deportation. According to The Los Angeles Times, these congregations now number in the hundreds.

Historically, churches have been safe havens where fugitives could seek temporary protection. In Anglo-Saxon England, churches and churchyards generally provided 40 days of immunity, and neither the sheriff nor the army would enter them to seize the supposed outlaw. But gradually the right of sanctuary was eroded. In 1486, sanctuary for the crime of treason was disallowed, and sanctuary for most other crimes was severely restricted by Henry VIII. This right was later abolished.

In the 1980s many US churches provided sanctuary for political refugees from Central America. A member of our community was convicted of participating in a religious body that offered refuge during those troubling years.

“If this drive toward fascism is what it means to make America great again, then greatness has been badly defined.”

When President Trump declared that we should prioritize Christian refugees, and followed it with a prohibition against anyone coming here from several Muslim countries, a blanket of fear descended on every mosque and Muslim community. There’s a Muslim religious school a few blocks from where I live. Concerned about their children’s safety after Trump signed the ban, parents were hesitant to send them to class lest they be harassed on the way. When a threatening letter was sent to the school, a nearby Christian congregation dispatched volunteers every morning when the children were due to arrive and every afternoon when they were to return home, to make sure they were OK.

When President Trump suggested the possibility of assembling a Muslim registry in this country, scores of Christians said they’d go to the registration sites and declare themselves Muslims.

This state of affairs does not reflect the America I love and to which my grandfather, Peter Bayer, came from Germany after World War I. The United States has now become an enclave for frightened people who are controlled to the extent they internalize Trump’s hateful rhetoric. Thankfully, there are enough good people around who accept as fellow citizens those who are different — even if they do not personally know them.

The sanctuary movement is only the latest sign that at heart we are a gracious people who care deeply about each other and a world of others — added to the list that includes the underground railroad, the end of slavery and segregation, the civil rights revolution, care of the elderly through Social Security and Medicare, women’s suffrage, gay rights, WIC (the program for women, infants and children) and the effort to guarantee health insurance to every American.

We must not be ruled by fear or kept in line by how this administration defines the “outsiders” we are supposed to hate. If this drive toward fascism is what it means to make America great again, then greatness has been badly defined. It is not greatness to which Trump is pointing us, but a narrow sectarian nationalism that may end the greatest experiment in democracy the world has ever known.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 License. This article was originally published on Common Dreams, Friday, March 31, 2017, by BillMoyers.com

Charles Bayer

Charles Bayer is a somewhat retired theological professor and congregational pastor who writes regularly for The Senior Correspondent. He lives in Claremont, California, where he is still involved in writing a newspaper column and a variety of other jobs, boards and activities.

Unfinished business

Posted on July 3, 2014July 19, 2014 by kathiemm

Idealized image of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin reading the Declaration of Independence to colonists. Public domain, work of the United States federal government

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…” (From The Declaration of Independence: A Transcription, IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776, The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, signed by 56 white men).

Members of those 13 colonies successfully fought King George for independence, but large segments of the population then and now were excluded from the select group considered entitled to “certain unalienable Rights.”

Among the groups excluded from “all men” by the formulators of the Declaration were, of course, all women, plus all native peoples, slaves, freedmen, and others not seen as deserving the same rights as the men in the emerging power structures in the colonies.

There was no inclusive view of human rights in the minds of the authors of the Declaration of Independence—or most others of those times.

A vision of equal rights for all did not gain legal status in the U.S. until the passing of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (1866), which included an Equal Protection Clause guaranteeing all citizens equal protection under the law. The 15th Amendment (1869) prohibited both the federal and state governments from denying the right to vote for reasons of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” It was not until the 19th Amendment (1920) that women were given the right to vote.

Today, in 2014, women’s suffrage seems pretty secure within the United States—at least for women in the white majority; however, there continue to be efforts to prevent people of color from voting. And rights are far from being equally distributed. Lots of work still to be done.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

In honor of President Lincoln: Moving towards freedom

Posted on February 10, 2011February 13, 2011 by kathiemm

[Note from Kathie Malley-Morrison: Today we welcome the first of several contributions by our guest contributor Majed Ashy. Dr. Ashy is an assistant professor of psychology at Merrimack College and a research fellow in psychiatry at McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School. He was born in Lebanon and is a Saudi Arabian. He earned his B.A, M.A, and Ph.D. in psychology from Boston University. His research in psychoneuroimmunology and political psychology focuses on childhood experience of adversity and its psychobiological consequences. He authored the Saudi Arabia chapter in State Violence and the Right to Peace: An International Survey of the Views of Ordinary People Greenwood Publishing Group / Praeger series. He is contributing several chapters to two volumes to be published by Springer Publishing Co.: Handbook on War, Torture, and Terrorism, and Handbook on Protest, Peace, Reconciliation, Apology, and Forgiveness.]

By Majed Ashy, Guest Author

Two arguments are presented repeatedly in discussions of the evolution of democracy in the Middle East: “Arabs are not ready for democracy,” and “If Arabs get more democratic rights, then some Islamic extremists will come to power and that is a threat to the whole world.”

Army trucks surrounding Tahrir Square, Cairo (Photo by Ramy Raoof; licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic; from Wikimedia Commons)

I heard similar alarmist arguments against women’s suffrage, African American civil rights movements, and Black liberation in South Africa. President Lincoln, whose birthday is this week, did not accept the arguments against freeing the slaves in America, but millions of people still lack freedom.

With advancements in communication technologies, Internet resources, social networks, media, satellite TV stations, and international travel, the evolution in individual empowerment and the rise of social collective awareness are natural consequences. Masses of people are rejecting as self serving and racist the “old” narratives about the necessity of oppression.

One of the problems faced in the Middle East is the communication gap between governments and the general populations. Many Middle Eastern governments are still using a “language” that does not speak to people who are educated, aware, and able to see through the narratives of oppression. The image of men on camels and horses in Tahrir square in Cairo beating protesters summarize this divide.

We have in the Middle East youth who represent the future, are linked through the Internet to people all over the world, watch satellite TV stations from almost every country, and call for human rights. On the other side we have people who come from the ancient past and deal with their problems by riding camels and beating people up.

The current conflict in the Middle East is about narratives. One narrative that has not been given a chance yet is that the Middle East can evolve into a responsible democracy that takes into account human rights, international law, and democracy. All lovers of freedom and democracy should respect and help sustain this effort.

Majed Ashy