Hearts and Minds on the Pakistan Border

He says, “We cannot win the war on terrorism when we are losing the border to insurgents. . . . Top al-Qaeda and Taliban terrorists . . . are using the border to set up camps, to recruit volunteers from the tribal population and to train them . . .

Aerial bombing raids by the Pakistani military to fight the insurgency only alienate the populace as civilians are killed and villages destroyed. . . An effective counterterrorism strategy requires a global ground response to forge a cooperative relationship with the tribes that harbor the insurgents and the Frontier Corps responsible for border security. We need to offer them more than the insurgency is offering. . .

The Pashtuns have a tribal code known as Pashtunwali that demands hospitality. But the tribesmen and women living among the jagged mountains are terribly oppressed. . . Millions are without access to health care, clean water, education and jobs.

To counter the insurgency, we need more than military measures -- we need to improve the lives of those who live in the region.”

He urges the establishment of a Global Tribal Fund to direct funding into a strategy consisting of:

“1. Tribal Scouts: a coalition of locally recruited tribesmen and tribeswomen who would begin to contact and negotiate with the tribes in the border areas. The scouts would meet with chiefs to find out what they need for their people. . . .

2. Tribal Life Support. . . provision of water, roads, transportation, health care, education, employment opportunities and security to live and work. . . [with] trained Pashto- and Balochi-speaking administrators, builders, designers, health-care providers and educators. . .

3. Tribal Security Training, for the Frontier Corps – . . . locally recruited tribesmen who know the language, the tribes and the culture and are the logical security forces. . .so that they can resist domination by the insurgency. . .

David Ignatius (Washington Post, May 1) describes American Lt. Colonel Kolenda ’s strategy in Afghanistan, to drive the insurgents away from population centers and deeper into the mountains and woo the elders and mullahs away from the insurgents. He talks “like an amateur ethnologist as he explains the tribal makeup of Kamdesh, a hauntingly beautiful region of northeastern Afghanistan, a few miles from the Pakistan border -- a land of steep mountains, narrow river valleys and primitive terraced farms.”

Kolenda's strategy was to “re-empower the traditional tribal structure, which had lost sway during 30 years of war to a new elite with guns and money. Working through tribal shuras, or local councils, he offered the elders a deal: If they would provide security, he would bring them economic development in the form of roads, bridges, schools and health clinics. He financed these projects mostly with quick cash from the Commander's Emergency Response Program, or CERP, which has proved to be one of the most potent American weapons in Iraq and Afghanistan. We are reminded of David Riesman’s half-joking suggestion during the cold war that, instead of bombs, America should drop refrigerators over the Soviet Union.

Kolenda gradually won the tribal leaders' trust, traveling to one insurgent haven 16 times to meet with the elders. This year, attacks on U.S. forces in most parts of the region have largely ceased.

Alison Blosser, a young State Department officer, is using a similar approach to help guide the Provincial Reconstruction Team for Kunar province, based in Asadabad.

So, according to Ignatius, American policy may be gaining sense, turning away from military power and attacks on insurgents towards social and political sensitivity, trust, protection, and peaceful help for the local people.

Business Meeting

For M&O, Janet said that Louise, of Waco, had held a memorial meeting at the meetinghouse for her dear cousin and closest relative, Florence Harrison. She also said that a forum would be held on what it means to be a community of Friends (see below). Gary and David still propose arranging for a daylong silent retreat at the meetinghouse.

Ken reported for Outreach. There will be a children’s party with a potluck supper at the meetinghouse on Friday May 9th at 6 p.m. There will be a pinata, croquet, face paint, hopscotch, frisbee, bubble blowing, music by Karl, and musical chairs. Two grills will be needed and Friends are asked to sign beforehand on a signup sheet for providing food. There will be picnics at the Peach Pavilion at Brackenridge Park on Saturday, November 8 2008, and April 4 2009.

Lindsay will take head-and-shoulder photos of committee clerks and Meeting attenders (if they wish) for display in the meetingroom lobby, with names, to make it easier for newcomers to recognize us. It will obtain nametags for use at the monthly potluck lunch.

The committee will arrange for a forum discussion on outreach, getting Friends’ thoughts on what kinds of outreach we should consider. Family names are no longer being used in the newsletter, to preserve Friends’ security.

Friends approved donations of $100 each to Mesjid Bilal, Haji Omar’s mosque, which now has its own building and to Sikkuy, an Israeli civil rights organization, for its American operations. Omar is a fine outreach for the Muslim community and delighted us with his description of his pilgrimage to Mecca. Sikkuy advocates for equal rights for Arab Israeli citizens. Shuli and his partner were very impressive when they spoke here at a forum.

The report of the Meeting discussion and recommendations on FCNL priorities for the next two years was approved (see below.)

The Quaker Bell

A trip through freedom's hometown

Charles threw 10,000 Quakers into prison, Penn among them. So the opportunity to pay off a debt, and send Penn and the Quakers to a colony 3,000 miles away, seemed like a great idea. Penn could conduct his holy experiment so far away that the king would not be bothered.

Only one problem -- the ideas that came to Pennsylvania with the Quakers were the very ideas that formed the basis of the Declaration of Independence and the Revolutionary War. Some days, you just can't win.

Philadelphia was the capital of Penn's colony; what the brothers loved most was freedom, particularly freedom from England. In 1750, as part of the 50th anniversary of Pennsylvania's Charter of Privileges, a bell was ordered from England. The inscription around the crown reads, "Proclaim liberty through all the land to all the inhabitants thereof." They hung the Liberty Bell in the Statehouse, which is now known as Independence Hall. The first time they rang it, it cracked, so they recast it. They tried to ring it again, and it cracked again. . .

Eventually a[nother] group of people who felt that way [about liberty] ended up in Independence Hall. They were delegates to the Continental Congress and had come from each of the 13 original colonies. On July 4, 1776, they adopted the Declaration of Independence, which led to our fight for freedom and made Philadelphia the capital of the United States.

But there was life in Philadelphia before the Revolution. Chris Klemek is a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania working on his doctorate in history. Under the rubric "Poor Richard's Walking Tours" he guides visitors through the history of the city. Slightly irreverent and thought-provoking, his tour is an interesting way to see Philadelphia.

Klemek pointed out that Penn was a radical guy, an aristocrat who converted to Quakerism and was constantly advancing revolutionary ideas. And as you walk through Philadelphia you can see the radical way that Penn laid out his town -- creating the first planned city in the modern world. In stark contrast to the London in which he was born and that he watched burn to the ground in 1666 because it was so dense and unplanned, Penn designed Philadelphia as a perfect open grid. He also decided that everyone who lived in his grid would be free to follow whatever religion attracted him in any way he saw fit -- a reaction against the persecution that Penn was subjected to as a Quaker in England. Philadelphia became the first truly diverse society in America.

By the eve of the Revolution Philadelphia was the largest city in the English-speaking world after London. And it was rich. There is no better illustration of the wealth that came to Philadelphia in this time than the Christ Church, built in the 1730s and '40s in grand high Georgian style. At the time of construction, it was the greatest building in North America. It is in extraordinary contrast to the austere, frugal Quaker meetinghouse, which embodied the ideals that Penn was trying to bring to his wholesome colony.

It was the very success of the colony that ultimately undermined many of Penn's ideals. The best example of this problem was slavery, which was at the heart of much of the wealth coming into Pennsylvania. As early as 1688, the Quakers were at the forefront of the anti-slavery movement and favored abolition..

The illustrious documents produced in Philadelphia proclaim enlightenment and ideals of liberty and equality for all men. But tensions from Penn's time on just these issues continued for centuries. How did slavery exist in this ostensibly enlightened nation? Why didn't women vote? Why weren't Native Americans citizens? In the end these tensions make the Liberty Bell an ironic metaphor -- a flawed, cracked emblem of an unfinished revolution.

Ann Sieber, of Liveoak Meeting, in Houston, writing in The Best of Friends about Jan De Hartog, says, “Jan wrote and narrated a history of Quakers for Dutch TV . . . When the film crew went to the Tower of London, they visited the room where William Penn was imprisoned. It contained the fourposter bed which Penn had slept in, which, of course, had a little cord barring access. But as soon as the hulking Beefeaters who were giving the tour left the room. Jan pushed the cord aside and lay in Penn’s bed.

There he had a remarkable insight, and made the cameraman lay on the bed and shoot upwards towards the bed’s intricately carved canopy. Staring up at the four corners, as they were configured there, Jan realized that that was where Penn conceived the layout of Philadelphia. The carved wood described the town layout, with the city hall in the center, ands the four bedposts the town’s four planned squares.”

These are presumably what are now the four parks, Franklin, Washington, Rittenhouse, and Logan.

Personal

• Did you see Leilah on KLRN? She was speaking of her inspiration by the Jane Austen series to buy the whole set of her books to read on her own.

• Janet and Ken’s daughter, Rebecca, was admitted to hospital in early April and was told that her survival was a miracle. She recovered well, worried about her 4-year-old son, who has physical handicaps and is beginning to realize that he is “different.”

• Karl had an exhibition of his “folk art” in a small gallery at Waring, which is itself small. Little Vonn enjoyed himself peeling velcroed parts of the art off and sticking them back on again. The gallery is owned by Megan’s mother. Megan grew up in Waring and she and Steve were married there. Clara W. has been in Florida training for Americorps. She has been installing hurricane shutters on windows, taking them down again and showing home owners how to replace them on the installed brackets. She is enjoying the practical work. Molly has missed her but is enjoying her studies.

• An experienced labyrinth creator came to Jim and Gayle’s front yard to set out a labyrinth. This she did by dowsing, determining the exact center and path of the labyrinth, when those who had assembled walked it to the center, gathered in silence, and walked back. Someone noted that all had green feet – from the liveoak pollen. Jim now has to place the flat stones along the path, dowsing for where each one must go.

• Margaret says, “A couple of weeks ago I had an honorable mention in a competition sponsored by a Foundation started by the San Antonio Poets Association, (to which I now belong and go to their meetings.) They printed it in their anthology and the 3 winners, plus the 20 HM's had to go to the SA Museum of Art to read our poems.”

• Ken called a Home Depot long distance number and reached instead a lady in London, Ontario. She explained that HD had its lines crossed, he told her of his time in Canada, and they had a friendly and amusing conversation. She said she’d met a number of interesting people from Texas this way and they ended wishing each other “a good one.” Jen will be going to Africa this summer to do some research.

• Mark’s medical bills after his accident will be paid by the driver’s Hartford insurance, thanks to help from the Villa Franchese social worker. His work at the butterfly farm in the zoo is a “pleasant environment” where he was named “employee of the day” but he is feeling great sadness at the death of a friend to add to the deaths of many others. He has sent us this poem:

Poem

I sat upon the wishes of a star.
My ass caught fire with grief
that burned away the reasons that I use
to choke my hidden truth.

A tiger crouches deep within my brain
and stalks my wayward dreams
with shanks of rust and teeth of faded gold.
She cannot rest, nor I;
within our hidden lairs
we have yet work to do.

Slow fire upon the wind
heats dreams not bought or sold.
No thief so deep a loss
as I to my rich self can do.
and yet with the shadow in my bones
that still grief burns
and chants a pain deeper than my fear;
of courage of my dreams
will not myself undo.

Food

Discussion of FCNL Priorities

FCNL should continue to provide opportunities for Congress members, staff, and aides to meet with one another in an environment that encourages positive, open communications – as a path toward solving the issues on which we work.

FCNL should continue to provide accurate, factual, and current information to all sides in political controversies, especially those identified as our areas of priority

In FCNL’s four listed categories of work, Meeting Friends supported:

On Seeking a World Free of War and the Threat of War:

i. the democratic principles of the United Nations and the use of the International Criminal Court to handle war crimes, terrorism, etc., and restoring U.S. support for human rights law, a decrease in U.S. unilateralism, and a revived U.S. identity as a balanced member of the law-abiding world community.

ii. reducing the worldwide U.S. military presence in places which are formally peaceful, and the increasing military involvement all over the world in ways that are neither peaceful nor sustainable.

iii. peacekeeping missions in places such as Darfur, and bringing peace-breakers before the International Criminal Court.

i. concern for the growing prison population, especially non-violent prisoners affected by “three-strikes” laws who could be living productive lives, thus wasting social resources, and producing more social violence

ii. a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to acknowledge past and current wrongs in the U.S. treatment of indigenous peoples, following the model of the new Australian Parliament.

i. priority for social goals over expenditure on the military, e.g.,

a) a well-run education system , open to all, focused on the whole person; training for creativity and sociability, not rote learning;

b) attention to our neglected infrastructure (roads, bridges, houses, water systems, mass transit, etc.), especially to increase energy efficiency and employment;

c) a reorganized medical system, so that all people receive decent, respectful, and affordable medical care.

i. stress on the connections between preservation and restoration of the environmental, physical, and social infrastructures, e.g.,urban sprawl.

And, adding “sexism, ageism, and heterosexism” after “institutional racism” in the list of issues to be witnessed “as the way opens”.

Events

• At the Forum on April 27 we discussed the deepening of the Meeting community. People spoke of the greater ease in helping others than in seeking help, and of how it is often easier to speak openly of problems away from friends. Anonymity is sometimes useful. Sensitivity is needed in inquiring of others’ needs. Relationships must be internal, not merely external. Meeting others outside of the weekly meeting is positive.

  There was appreciation of the freedom of delivery in meeting for worship and of the intimacy of silence. In some other churches new ideas, as ways to grow, are threatening. The lack of creed makes change easier. On Friend spoke of needing to hear tender, broken, ministry in meeting.

• In the May Forums we shall discuss, on the 25th, what kinds of outreach to the wider community we might be carrying out. It has been said that Friends don’t make new Friends but find them. How many unfound Friends are there out there and how can we find them?

  On the 11th, we shall discuss “Session 2" of Gates, Opening the Scriptures, “‘Beyond What Words can Utter.” In this Gates suggests that we have lost earlier Quakers’ ability to express our religious experience in words, a “poverty of language,” while recognizing Penington’s own words: “And the end of words is to bring (us) to the knowledge of things beyond what words can utter.” Gates suggests that we are sometimes tempted to dispense with words altogether but that our testimony against creeds was never intended to be a testimony against words.

  Then, of course there is the view expressed in this poem, “Words or Living”:

  Oh, economy of words
  when will I learn
  that a life lived
  is the salvation
  is the joy
  not the flood of words
  I hide behind.

  Gerald Haynes, Claremont Meeting
  From Friends Bulletin, January 08

• Sikkuy representatives, who spoke to us last year, will be in San Antonio again on the weekend of May 23. They will probably speak at Temple Beth El.

Cal State Teacher Gets Job Back

Marianne Kearney-Brown, 50, is a graduate student in mathematics, said, "My concerns have been addressed." She was unwilling to sign the state oath of allegiance that required her to "swear (or affirm)" that she would "support and defend" the U.S. and California constitutions "against all enemies, foreign and domestic." She tried inserting the word "nonviolently" in front of the word "support," but was told by university officials that altering the oath was unacceptable.

The chancellor's office finally gave her a statement saying, "Signing the oath does not carry with it any obligation or requirement that public employees bear arms or otherwise engage in violence." With that statement stapled to the loyalty oath, and a promise by the university to present the clarifying language to other new employees, Kearney-Brown signed the form and returned to work.

The attorney general's office said that "the oath does not compel an employee to take any violent action and, in fact, requires an employee to work within the system of government to resolve problems and achieve change.

General Friends Conference

1. Creative suffering
2. Overcoming peace of mind.
3. You and your birthmark.
4. How to break the static cling habit.
6. Guilt without sex.
7. Achieving inner peace through shopping.
8. Holding people’s attention through simplicity and ostentation.
9. Zen and the art of RV maintenance.
10. Introduction to stainless steel.**

Bric A Brac

• We once used to look over the old plaques of honors students, stretching across the decades, at the University of Illinois library, observing how the lists of names, English and some German, gradually admitted others over the years, Irish, Italian, Polish. Now comes the 2008 list of the New York Times scholars, high school winners of the NYT scholarships:

  Santy Barrera, Trinel Torian, Thandar Aung, Joenni Abreu, Qingnan Li, Arian Flores, Yelizaveta Piligromova, Diana Shifrina, Tiana Williams, Ying Wang, Robert Santos, Romaine Hall, Leanne Valentin, Ohn Mar, Gabriella Anderson, Stevens Kelly, Aman Eyasu, Ana Rosado, Mya Marshall, and Marlen Amaro.

  And, in case you wondered, the five English names there all belong to African- Americans. Of course, this is New York.

• A study of the diversity of human metabolism across the globe — about who eats what, and how their unique internal microorganisms handle the input, says the biggest difference between the 17 groups was between people from South China and everyone else. "They have a very different and much broader range of diet," he says. "Very broadly speaking, the southern Chinese are the healthiest and the people in southern Texas are least healthy." Nature, April 8.

Meetinghouse

“One of the greatest areas of our invincible ignorance is as to whether that part of man which can attain to some knowledge of the divine is itself in some sense immortal; whether it lives after the body dies and, if so, in what manner. As the aphorism has it, the trouble with life after death is that those who know don’t talk and those who talk don’t know.” (Geoffrey Hubbard, Quaker by Convincement)

** We hope you realized that these were intended to be funny, by Stan Banker, in Quaker Lite 21/2: The Lite Within.

May query: