Could a 79-year-old Baptist preacher have brutally murdered three boys as part of a KKK murdering binge?  

Edgar Ray Killen, a Baptist preacher, was charged with three counts of murder in Philadelphia, Mississippi, on Friday; he was charged with murdering three voter registration workers — Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney — in 1964.  

While Killen was tried in 1967, along with 17 others, for civil rights violations relating to the murder of the three young men, he is the only one of those who stood trial who has never been incarcerated. During his trial in 1967, 11 members of his jury believed he was guilty, but one member dissented and the jury was hung; the 12th member of the jury later explained that she refused to convict a preacher.

Curiously, Killen is the only person associated with the crime who has been charged with murder, and he pled not guilty on Friday to all three counts. In a move fit for low-brow and highly engrossing daytime TV, Killen’s 63-year-old brother, JD, assaulted a cameraman as the family left the courthouse.

The trial may become something of a curiosity — after all, a septuagenarian preacher is being prosecuted, largely on the basis of evidence from a 1967 trial, for a murder that occurred over 40 years ago. It does, however, demonstrate that the battle for civil rights is still dutifully being fought in the 21st century.

Mimi Hanaoka

“They say it is rather like life under Saddam Hussein. Many Iraqis use an Arabic expression, ‘Same donkey, different saddle.’”

— Peggy Gish, an American member of the humanitarian group Christian Peacemaker Teams, who has recently spent 13 months in Iraq recording the allegations made by Iraqi detainees being held by coalition forces.  

The Iraqi detainees, who number in the thousands, are suspected of participating in the mounting insurgency and attacks against the Iraqi government and the coalition forces occupying Iraq.  

Ms. Gish stated: “In fact, we came to the conclusion that 80 percent to 90 percent of the prisoners had never been involved in any violent action. This is an estimate that tallies with the estimates of other groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. A common reason for men to be detained is because an informant in the neighborhood has given their name to U.S. military and claimed that they are part of the resistance. Informants get money for each name they give, and many people have told us that informants use the system to revenge personal grudges.”

Mimi Hanaoka

What’s wrong with explaining political Islam, and specifically its violent jihadist offshoots, as a necessary or inherent part of Muslim culture?  

In the current issue of Foreign Affairs, Mahmood Mamdani, professor at Columbia University, presents an analysis of two recent books about political Islam, one by Gilles Kepel and the other by Olivier Roy.  

Mamdani’s article is astute and easily digested, and while he presents measured critiques of both books, the three authors, at their core, agree on a central point: to explain political Islam, and specifically jihadist violence, as merely a function of Muslim culture is intellectually and historically indefensible. Mamdani’s article is devoted to offering a critique of the different approaches to understanding political Islam — Kepel’s is historical and Roy’s is sociological — that the books offer. Mamdani’s insights, however, highlight the damage that a culturalist explanation of political Islam can do.

After all, if violent jihad is explained as one of the many manifestations of culture, for the tactful liberal it becomes something shielded within the protective shell of culture; to disparage political Islam and Islamist violence would be to disparage something that is inherently valuable because it is an essential part of Muslim culture. For those who are less sympathetic to the richness of different cultures, the culturalist explanation becomes a polarizing force; borders are inappropriately and unproductively drawn between the “us” and the Muslim “them.” Happily, the voices of scholars such as Mamdani, Kepel, and Roy are effectively sounding the death knell for the intellectually feeble culturalist explanation of political Islam.  
  

Mimi Hanaoka

“What a terrible thing it is that billions — and I mean billions — of pounds are being spent on war in the Middle East which could have been spent bringing people out of dire poverty and malnourishment and disease.”

— Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor, one of Britian’s most influential Roman Catholics.  

The trinity of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Pope, and Roman Catholic Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor all took the opportunity in their Christmas messages to address the current situation in Iraq.  While the Pope was the most modest in his criticisms, the Archbishop of Canterbury and Cardinal Murphy O’Connor openly condemned the war in Iraq and the prevalent climate of fear.

Mimi Hanaoka

“It’s true that the Americans are Christians and we are Christians. But they should not associate us with them. All the Christians want the Americans to get out and the occupation to end. Nobody is with the Americans.”

— Father Gabriel Shamami of St. George’s Church in Baghdad.

There are approximately 700,000 Christians currently living in Iraq, and as Borzou Daragahi reports in The Washington Times, these Christians are reluctant to celebrate Christmas for fear of radical Muslim reprisals.

Prior to the American war in Iraq and in contrast to the current situation, Christians celebrated Christmas in harmony with their Muslim neighbors. Twenty-eight-year-old Sirab Suleyman, an Iraqi Christian, states: “Before the war, Muslims and Christians used to celebrate Christmas together,” he said as he rubbed his hands for warmth in his modest living room. “Muslims used to visit their Christian friends and greet them. It was a true celebration. That’s over now.”

Mimi Hanaoka

“ ‘So what’s your name,’ she said indifferently, taking off her black panties and tossing them with her toe to the cobwebby corner of the motel room just off the Turnpike in Iselin. He had a cowed look, watery eyes that wouldn’t settle on hers forthrightly, and office worker hands. She bet he worked in a cubicle.”

This is how the current installment of “Sex and the Umma,” opens, and this is part of what has sparked such controversy. “Sex and the Umma,” is the Islamic sex column portion of Muslim WakeUp!, a site and online publication that “seeks to bring together Muslims and non-Muslims in America and around the globe in efforts that celebrate cultural and spiritual diversity, tolerance, and understanding.” It is also now under attack from individuals who call themselves the Islamic Challenge Brigades and who claim that the web site is a “vile attack on Islam.” The Islamic Challenge Brigades also allege that the magazine’s publishers are “murtad,” or apostates, a term that can imply impending physical violence.

Muslim WakeUp! Editor-in-Chief Ahmed Nassef is in contact with the FBI about the situation, and Lloyd Grove, who covered the story for the shamelessly and unrelentingly gossipy New York Daily News, quoted FBI Special Agent Jim Margolin as stating: “Even if this were merely a denial-of-service attack, it would be a federal crime.”

Mimi Hanaoka

“Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. It’s not a secret, okay? And I’m not afraid to say it. That’s why they hate this movie. It’s about Jesus Christ.”

— William Donohue, President of the Catholic League, speaking recently on MSNBC’s Scarborough Country.

Donohue indulged in this spectacular piece of anti-Semitic demagoguery in the context of a discussion about Mel Gibson’s controversial film, The Passion of the Christ. Donohue also added: “Hollywood likes anal sex.”

Mimi Hanaoka

“The detention system in Afghanistan continues to operate outside the rule of law. The United States continues to hold Afghan detainees in legal limbo and in many cases incommunicado, in violation of U.S. obligations under the laws of armed conflict and applicable Afghan law.”

— Brad Adams, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch, in an open letter written today to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. The letter was also carbon copied to Porter Goss, Director of the CIA.  

Adams accuses the American government of neglecting to sufficiently investigate the allegations of criminal abuse and murder reported to have been perpetrated by American forces in Afghanistan, and states: “Six detainees are now known to have died in U.S. custody in Afghanistan—including four known cases of murder or manslaughter — and former detainees have made scores of other claims of torture and other mistreatment. Some of the cases took place over two years ago. Yet to our knowledge, the U.S. government has conducted only a handful of criminal investigations, and has charged only two people with any crime in these cases.”  

Mimi Hanaoka

The newest demographic that American Democrats should court for political support is the “heartland Arab,” or so it would seem if we are to believe an American teacher in Syria. Tyler Golson, who teaches English in Damascus, wrote the following in a recent edition of The Daily Star, the Lebanese news daily:

Having a truly even-handed and practical approach to peace in the Arab world means realizing that not everyone, and certainly not all of the elites in Arab society, sympathize with the anti-American movements taking place within their own ranks, and that these heartland Arabs could prove a valuable ally in future U.S.-Arab relations.

The heartland Arabs that Golson refers to are hardly what would pass for someone from the traditional “heartland” on this side of the Atlantic; they populate the upper and upper middle class, they hail from prestigious families and backgrounds, and they are highly educated. They are, however, Christian. Golson notes that it is President Bush’s religious zeal, captured in what he touts as his moral values, coupled with these Arabs’ distaste for centrist Democratic policy — specifically on issues of abortion, gay rights, capital punishment, and gun control — that makes Bush so appealing to this elite.

It is certainly important for the Democrats, if they are to wrestle power and influence away from Bush and the Republicans, to take into account this pro-Bush Arab minority in Syria. It is, however, important to remember that it is the minority Alawite Shias who have proved themselves incredibly influential in Syria. The Alawite Shias have historically controlled the pan-Arab Baath party, which has been in control of the Syrian government since 1963.

In calling attention to this pro-American segment of Syrian society, Tyler Golson cautions the Democrats to not fixate on rigid dichotomies, such as the divide between the “red” and the “blue,” Arab and non-Arab, and rightly so. I would add that Americans — indeed everyone — should extend this attention to nuance not only to the Arab and non-Arab, Muslim and non-Muslim, but also to the various other minorities and groups that exist in Syria, such as the complex subdivisions that exist within the broader distinctions between Sunni and Shia Muslims, in additional to the Druze Kurds, Armenians, and Assyrians who live in Syria. To fail to do so is simply to replace the “red” and the “blue,” with yet another simplistic, albeit different, understanding of the Middle East.    

Mimi Hanaoka

“Some people think that the women should be confined to their houses and put veils on and all that and they should not move out — absolutely wrong.”

— Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf, speaking to the BBC about the merits of a moderate understanding of Islam.  

General Musharraf has been busily chattering away over the past few days, condemning the current approach of the war on terror and admitting that the trail of Osama bin Laden, the leader and figurehead of al-Qaeda, has disappeared into the ether.  

Mimi Hanaoka

“We don’t know where he is. He might be anywhere.”

— Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf, speaking to CNN about Osama bin Laden, the leader and figurehead of al-Qaeda.  

“Mission Accomplished,” read the sign aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003, as Bush announced that “from Pakistan to the Philippines to the Horn of Africa, we are hunting down al-Qaeda killers,” and that “al-Qaeda is wounded.”

Mimi Hanaoka

Is the Anglican Church headed for a 21st century schism? Apparently yes, if traditionalist evangelicals have their way.  

The controversy stems, most immediately, from the issue of whether gay bishops may be installed in Anglican churches. There has been a furor since Gene Robinson was installed as the ninth Bishop of New Hampshire, the first openly gay bishop to have such an honor, and the more traditional elements of the Anglican Church are threatening to split from the rest of the church. Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria has gone so far as to declare that homosexuality is “an aberration unknown even in animal relationships.”

In stark contrast to Archbishop Peter Akinola,  the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury, the Welshman Dr. Rowan Williams, recently declared to the world’s Anglican churches: “Any words that could make it easier for someone to attack or abuse a homosexual person are words of which we must repent … Do not think repentance is always something others are called to, but acknowledge the failings we all share, sinful and struggling disciples as we are.”

With 70 million baptized Anglicans who belong to 43 autonomous churches across the world having riotous disagreements, we might well witness a 21st century schism within the Anglican Church, and the split will certainly not be an amicable one.

Mimi Hanaoka