Who is my neighbor? (Syria edition)

By Elise Alexander

As the conflicts in Syria and Iraq have become increasingly sectarian over the last few years, feeding off one another's dynamics and international rhetoric and involvement, stories about the persecution of Middle Eastern Christians have become more and more common in the English-language media.  I first started studying Middle Eastern forms of Christianity during college and was astounded at how hard it was to find anyone talking or writing about the topic except for scholars of medieval apology texts or activist groups such as International Christian Concern, which have long viewed Christianity as under threat worldwide.  Other than on the part of voices like these, the Middle East tended to be identified solely with Arabs and Islam.

As of June 2013, though, Sen. Rand Paul was condemning aid to Syrian opposition forces as "taxpayer dollars...being used to enable a war on Christianity in the Middle East."  In February 2014, Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association's radio arm argued that only Syrian Christians "fleeing Muslim persecution in their native land" should be afforded refugee status by the American administration, since the United States is a Christian country and Syrian Muslims have no interest in assimilation.  The US Senate is still deliberating whether to approve a special ambassador for religious freedom in the Middle East and Central Asia, despite the fact that the State Department already has an (empty) office for an ambassador-at-large for religious freedom. Read more here.

I Am Troy Davis By Jen Marlowe (Exploratory Book Review)

By Deborah Ruth Ferber

The day is Wednesday, September 21, 2011.  I am attending university in Toronto, Ontario, hailed as the most multi-cultural city in the world by the United Nations.  Since moving to Toronto in 2009 to pursue my undergraduate degree, I have had many experiences of being the only visible minority because I was the only white pigmented person on the city bus.  Yet although many Torontonians close their eyes to the blatant injustices that happen even in Canada’s largest city, I cannot ignore the disparity of wealth, human rights violations, and racism that still run deep.  Oftentimes below the surface.  Perhaps not in quite the same ways as I experienced during my first year of a master’s program in Indiana, but all the same, issues are still present.

2012 is to be my graduating year and in May I will walk off the stage from university and enter into a graduate peace studies program in the US.  At this point I knew about the death penalty and as a committed pacifist felt it was wrong, but it remained quite elusive to me.  In Canada we do not have the death penalty.  In Canada a life sentence is generally about 20 years and young offenders are often entered into rehabilitation programs.  Yet, lest you think Canada’s justice system is way better than the States, it is not.  I have recently learned (through conversation with victims and their families and from my own personal studies) how deeply flawed our criminal justice system in Canada really is.  We may not sentence anyone to death, but there are other ways to sentence someone to emotional shunning and silencing which are so akin to the emotional distancing that causes social death for so many individuals.  Out of jail, but still not able to land a job or care for their families despite having “done their time”.  Yes, the death penalty may not be an institution in Canada, but to say that it is a non-issue is far from the truth.  For anyone with a sense of human dignity and worth must understand that when one member of society (regardless of citizenship, race, ethnic, or economic composition) dies due to a grave injustice, that a part of us must die with this individual. Read more here.