‘Raise Your Voice’ Archives
Mind-numbing Janjaweed
By PETER MOLENAAR Peter Molenaar On the western fringe of Alley News territory, there exists yet another progressive church. Was it more than 10 years ago that Plymouth Congregational (1900 Nicollet Ave.) hosted a sizeable public meeting in response to the Darfur Genocide? Indeed, events in this western province of Sudan, Africa had provoked the presence of such notables as Tim Walz and Keith Ellison. The genocide was carried out by the Sudanese government”™s “Arab” militias, known as the Janjaweed (translation: “devils on horseback”). The Janjaweed systematically destroyed Darfurians by looting and burning their villages, murdering, raping, and torturing”¦ and then, polluting their water supply with decomposing bodies. Over 480,000 were killed, 2.8 million displaced. Why, at the present time, would one choose to write about these things? Well, the stench of burning Janjaweed has returned now to waft among the reeds of [...]
Raise Your Voice: Days of May
By PETER MOLENAAR Peter Molenaar The word from Senator Jeff Hayden”™s Capital Update, May issue: “Senate Republicans are staunch in their position that programs providing giveaways for corporations and the wealthy”¦ should be continued. But every dollar spent on the wealthy”¦ is a dollar taken from students, healthcare programs, and crumbling highways.” Speaking of May, May 1 was a workers”™ holiday for almost everyone on the planet but us. However, some local events did honor the spirit. Prominently, there was the May 1st Coalition for Immigrant Workers”™ Rights, which mobilized forces to our state”™s capital, and there was the UNITE HERE union labor rally in Minneapolis. In the build-up period, the May 1st Coalition threw down a splendid fundraising banquet at the Walker United Methodist Church. When asked to speak, I made the following points: 1.) Every school child should come to appreciate the [...]
Raise Your Voice: The last martyr smiled
By PETER MOLENAAR Peter Molenaar Elliot Park (1000 E. 14th St.) was host on April 6 to Sudanese immigrants, friends, and families, who had come to observe a revolutionary moment. In Khartoum, a million people surrounded the armed forces. Soldiers were leaving the compound to celebrate among the people. The 30-year dictatorship of al-Bashir was about to fall”¦ and it did! It is not too soon to begin casting the vision for a new Sudan, including the reconstruction of the historic irrigation system. Naturally, the prison gates have been breached, freeing the comrades to the democratic process. What might we take home from the heart of Africa? For all time, the Sudanese people have demonstrated the possibility of implementing fundamental change by nonviolent means. (Hey, why wait for some mythical Red Army to drop from the sky?) Anything else? We are witness to a Muslim people who have taken down an “Islamic” state. How does this square with the [...]
