Peace for Life Women, War and Empire Programme
PHILIPPINE WOMEN INTERFAITH PEACE CONFERENCE
2012 APRIL 19-21 | ZAMBOANGA CITY
DECLARATION
Muslim and Christian Women for Peace Against Fundamentalisms
We are women of faith—Muslim, Christian and Lumad—religious leaders, educators, community organizers, human rights advocates and youth, gathered in an Interfaith Peace Conference on “Muslim and Christian Women for Peace Against Fundamentalisms” held on April 19-21, 2012 in Zamboanga City. We affirm our convictions amidst our people’s continuing struggle for liberation and self-determination. Read more »
Muslim-Christian women conference in Zamboanga rejects fundamentalisms, calls for end to US Empire
2012 MAY 2
Participants of the recently concluded Philippine Women Interfaith Peace Conference with the theme “Muslim and Christian Women for Peace Against Fundamentalisms” expressed solidarity in rejecting fundamentalist ideologies and resisting the US Empire, which have caused detrimental impacts on women and aggravated their lamentable economic condition and social status in society.
Some 65 women from Luzon,Visayas and Mindanao representing various Muslim, Christian and Lumad traditions participated in the conference, which was held at Our Lady of the Pillar Retreat Center in Mercedez, Zamboanga City in Mindanao from April 19 to 21, 2012. Read more »
Muslim-Christian Feminist Alliance
for a World without War and Empire
REPORT OF THE STEERING COMMITTEE MEETING
2012 FEBRUARY 1-4 | VANCOUVER, CANADA
In early February, Peace for Life sponsored the first steering committee meeting of a small group of Muslim and Christian women who came together to address concerns about the use of religion to legitimize empire, war and the oppression and disciplining of women.
The meeting is part of a five-year project, initially called Women for Peace Against Fundamentalisms, whose purpose is to create international alliances among women of faith who are working to end all forms of religious violence, including hate crimes and terrorism fueled by religious extremism. This is the first major project to be initiated under Peace for Life’s Women, War and Empire Programme. Read the full report »
INVITATION TO MUSLIMS TO ENDORSE AND PROMOTE . . .
An Islamic Response to Kairos Palestine
In 2009, Palestinian Christian leaders issued The Kairos Palestine Document, “the Christian Palestinians’ word to the world about what is happening in Palestine.” Impelled by a moral duty to respond to the declaration, Muslim members of Peace for Life have launched an initiative to promote a common response to Kairos Palestine from an Islamic perspective, through the document, An Islamic Response to Kairos Palestine.
The initiative was an outcome of a two-day PfL workshop on Muslim-Christian solidarity held in South Africa in December 2011. Prof. Farid Esack, former PfL co-moderator and head of the Department of Religion Studies at the University of Johannesburg, facilitated the workshop and led the drafting of this document.
Muslim activists, intellectuals and religious leaders across the globe are invited to endorse this document. Read the full text here: An Islamic Response to Kairos Palestine.
PRESS STATEMENT
United Methodist Church Fails to Align its Words with its Actions
UNITED METHODIST KAIROS RESPONSE
2012 MAY 3
Today, United Methodist Kairos Response (UMKR) did not get the decision that we had hoped for, as the General Conference plenary voted against a motion calling for divestment from Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard, and Motorola Solutions, companies that profit from Israel’s violations of Palestinian human rights and denial of Palestinian freedom. The conference faced a choice between standing with the oppressed as Jesus did, or yielding to fear. It appears that they yielded to fear as a result of misinformation spread about the consequences of supporting divestment. Read more »
PALESTINE UPDATE 2, No. 23
The Dysfunctional Ideology of Jewishness
By MAZIN QUMSIYEH
2012 MAY 04
Palestinian academic Mazin Qumsiyeh argues that Gilad Atzmon’s book, The Wandering Who?, provides invaluable insight into the ideology of Jewishness—crucial for understanding Israeli behaviour and the conflict in the Middle East—and urges people to engage with the ideas laid out in the book rather than dismiss it or seek to censor it. The review itself exposes the essential confusion in the nature of Jewish identity in the context of Zionism and its iron grip on Israeli politics. Read more »
Click here to read past issues of Palestine Update Edition 2.
DECLARATION AND OPEN LETTER
Raizal People assert right to be heard before International Court of Justice
The Raizal people, ancestral owners of the Raizal Archipelago of San Andres, Providencia and Santa Catalina over which Colombia maintains sovereignty, are petitioning the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to recognise their right to be heard in the current dispute between Nicaragua and Colombia for control of the resource-rich group of islands through the following declaration addressed to the ICJ and the governments of Nicaragua and Colombia. In an open letter to the ICJ, pastors from various churches in the Raizal Archipelago endorsed the Raizales’ declaration. Read more »
Pax Christi International on Ethics and Arms Trade
By FR. PAUL LANSU
Pax Christi International and its Member Organisations have an important role to play leading up to negotiations of a global treaty to regulate the conventional arms trade in 2012. Key human rights obligations must be embedded in the treaty and Pax Christi member organisations should advocate together, on the basis of faith and ethics. Read more »
A Good Friday Meditation: The Drone and the Cross
By BRIAN TERRELL
2012 APRIL 5
The Roman Empire employed crucifixion as its preferred method of executing suspects deemed threatening to its imperial power and to the "Pax Romana" it imposed on the known world. The history of empires is banal and predicable even in its cruelty and the United States is more clearly than ever the successor of this imperial tradition. Empire will always be on the technological cutting edge, from bronze swords to nuclear missiles, with each advance extending the reach and the catastrophic potential of successive imperial powers, but the history of empires is really one single tragic story told over and over again with incidental variations. Read more »
Jeju and Easter’s Challenge against Empire
By DEREK DUNCAN
2012 APRIL 5
Part of the story of Holy Week is how the forces of the Roman Empire conspired against the Prince of Peace in the last days. It is not only a lesson of history, but it is central to the witness of Jesus that we should exercise faithfulness to God and justice toward all people in the face of whatever powers, principalities and structures of violence would dominate and divide us. Global Ministries is blessed to be in partnership with many communities around the world who continue to demonstrate a faithful witness against such forces today.
The residents of Jeju Island off the southern coast of South Korea are such an example. For months protests have been building against the construction of a new naval base on Jeju in the village of Gangjeong. Read more »