Giving Back for Life

There is a tradition in my particular faith that encourages the spiritual to pursue the path of "Tikkun Olam". Translated, this means to try and help repair the world where it is broken. Our commitment to service is not unlike many other faiths.

We need not look far to see the broken parts; the homeless, the sick, the poor, the oppressed.

On Sunday, November 2, 2008 I, along with two additional committee members and a number of dedicated Action Captains, will work to introduce more than 300 Jewish and Non-Jewish members of my Congregation to 15 different non-profit organizations in Orange County. It is our hope that those who participate will feel inspired and connected to the organization they choose and incorporate community service into their lives and the lives of their children for good.

We are calling this event "Mitzvah Launch". Traditionally, some synagogues call this "Mitzvah Day" but to limit this work to one day is not really what it's about. It is about making meaning in our own lives and making a meaningful difference in the lives of others.

Much has been said about community organizers and volunteers these days and I have to say that casting negative opinions about a vital ingredient of our social culture is one of the silliest things I have heard someone in politics try to sell. 

Our communities would be worse off if we relied only on our government to house, feed and care for our homeless, organize vital services for the elderly, and provide supplies and programs for school children living at or below the poverty level. Many of these organizations provide government agencies the statistical data they need in order to develop policy. 

Running an non-profit organization requires the input of Attorneys, MBA's, LCSW's, and an army of liaison staff. If these positions were all salaried, most would cost upwards of 50K. Management level positions even higher. 

Most organizations cannot sustain salaries and keep their doors open. They depend on us, community organizers and volunteers willing to do the work, plan the work, and lead the way for others. 

It is appropriate to say these organizations provide for our community, and more specifically provide a hand up to the individuals they serve. Filling in the gaps between a government sponsored program is a tall order. That is why they are worth a few hours or more of our time. 

Here are a few we will be helping:

Ronald McDonald House

Laguna Beach Friendship Shelter

Mercy House

Habitat for Humanity

Hemopet Life Line (Walking Greyhounds)

Binky Patrol

Brit Tikvah (A support group for parents with special needs children)

Jeremiah Society (Adults with special needs)

American Red Cross

Boodle Boxes (care packages) For Soldiers

Heritage Point

Orange County Coastkeeper

Save Darfur (Darfur Action and Aid)

"It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do a little".

- Sydney Smith, writer and clergyman (1771-1845)

No experience is required to help make the world a better place.

Pastor Rick Warren's Civil Forum on Faith

On August 16th I attended the Saddleback Church Civil Forum on Faith with  special guests Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain.

Surprisingly, my impressions of the Candidates as it relates to Darfur were not dissimilar.

Pastor Warren asked both candidates if they felt there was evil in the world and should they confront it, negotiate with it or attempt to abolish it.

Sen. Obama answered thoughtfully agreeing that Darfur and Rawanda were in fact a Genocide. He did not elaborate on what immediate steps he would take to resolve the crisis in Darfur. His overall view as I understood it was that negotiation would be his first approach; with the help of the "International Community". This has been tried and has not worked so far.

McCain took a stronger tone but his answer was as diffuse as Obama's.When pushed about the UN he said there are times when you do not wait for the UN to take action; but I suspect this had more to do with Iraq than with Darfur.

He said what was going on in Darfur "must be stopped" but he did not elaborate on what, if elected, he would do.

Here we are again, everyone knows what is happening in Darfur is wrong, yet no one is willing to commit their language in the form of a plan of action. It's baffling. You either have a plan or you don't. You are either willing or you are not. 

A better question to the candidates would have been "What specifically would you do to help bring an end to the genocide in Darfur".

We already know there is much evil in the world.

Lopez Lomong, the hope of a people

By Collette Kaplan

When I went downstairs to read the LA Times this morning, my husband; with his usual hour head start on me said, "You are going to be very happy when you read the front page and very happy when you read the sports page!". 

I never read the sports page...ever! Being suspicious, I pulled that section out of the stack first and screened it. On the front page, there was a photograph of a group of runners with the subtitle,"Lopez Lomong was voted by Captains of the U.S. Teams to carry the American flag into the opening ceremony". My husband had correctly predicted my reaction. I was happy, very happy!

I knew about Lopez Lomong because I heard him interviewed on NPR where he talked about the joy of making it onto the Olympic Team after dreaming about it as a child in Sudan.

 

The story of Lomong goes something like this: At the age of 6, during what was then called a civil war in Southern Sudan, Lemong was abducted and forced to work as a child solider. He managed to escape and walk three days where he and a few other boys crossed the boarder into Kenya where he was arrested and placed into a refugee camp. He would spend the next ten years of his young life in that camp.

The International Rescue Committee had a special program that was able to get hundreds of these boys out of the bleak refugee camps and into the US. We know them as the "Lost Boys".

Lomong was one of the lucky ones chosen to go. He was placed with a foster family in Tully, New York. He attended Northern Arizona University and won NCAA titles in the 1500 and 3000 meters.

Last year Lemong became a U.S. citizen, tomorrow he will carry our flag and participate with pride in an Olympic Dream that represents hope for the suffering people of Darfur. As a nation that prides itself with concern and compassion for others, this will be an honest moment dedicated to some of our treasured founding principles; "Liberty and Justice for all".

This is all thanks to a group of American athletes who understand that there is more to life than sports and that the Olympics are in fact a political event for the country that hosts them. Though the message may be nuanced, it is a great one to send to the world.

I have never cried reading the sports page, today was a first.

The International Criminal Court Takes a Brave Stand

By Collette Kaplan

On July 14th, the International Criminal Court bravely charged Sudanese President Omar Bashir with crimes against humanity for his role as the leader of the ongoing Genocide in Darfur.

These charges are significant against a regime with a long track record of violence against non-Arab groups in Sudan, but they are not the first. Last year the ICC issued warrants for Bashir's top officials; Humanitarian Affairs Minister, Ahmad Harun, and Janjaweed Militia leader Ali Kushayb. The Sudanese government has not cooperated in handing them over. It is generally accepted that Bashir will not go quietly.

Why then are we to believe the ICC's action will make any difference to a people who have been begging for justice for more than 5 years?

I suspect one reason is that the US has put little diplomatic effort into pressuring Sudan's biggest diplomatic protector, China, into using it's influence. 

China purchases the majority of the regions oil and could have influenced Bashir's reluctance to participate in a meaningful peace agreement long ago. Considering Mondays charges, China may now want to distance itself from a President facing arrest for Genocide on the eve of their hosting the International Olympics. China might also reconsider supplying arms to a government the ICC has formally charged with Crimes Against Humanity. Failing to with hold arms shipments could result in their being charged with violating the Genocide Convention.

This week the Arab League held an emergency meeting to discuss the indictment of Bashir.

The league recommended that Sudan turn over Harun and Kashayb as a bargaining chip to thwart or delay the ICC's taking additional action against Bashir. Sudanese presidential advisor Mustafa Osman Ismail said Sudan would not cooperate with the ICC because they do not recognise them, according to the state-run Egyptian news agency.

A leading Saudi columnist for the Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper said on Monday, "We must remember that the Arab League did not care about the extermination of 300,000 Darfuris. It even refused to stand a moment of silence to the killings, displacements and burning."

It would appear to some that Bashir is looking for reinforcement instead of re-assessing the path to the peace. 

It will take the ICC many months to issue an actual arrest warrant for Bashir. Meanwhile, the Sudanese government will predictably use it's outrage to explain renewed violence against African Union and UN peacekeepers. It has already posed the threat of renewed violence against aid workers in press statements. There is no doubt this may scare the ICC into backing down or delaying further actions until there are certain assurances. But promises made by Khartoum are generally empty ones.

Peace it would appear, will now hang in the scales of Justice. Or will it?

Luis Moreno-Ocampo has delivered the evidence. Now he must have the support of the Judges and he must also have the support of the UN Security Council. 

Perhaps the first best step now would be the immediate and long overdue deployment of the additional AU and UN Forces with a mandate to protect? Most experts agree that protection provides a baseline front against additional aggression. Reducing the regimes ability to kill with impunity effectively reduces the regimes grip on their mission. Now, while the government of Sudan is mired in debate over the ICC's charges, and reeling from the recent penetration of rebel forces in Khartoum, would be the time. 

It is illogical for the UN to wait for Khartoum to give the thumbs up sign and allow these forces in. 

The ICC's  brave stand means nothing if the very bodies required to support it do nothing. 

Protection, peace, and prosecution has always been the accepted order and approach at resolving this conflict. 

In his most recent live press conference, President Bush said he is waiting for the UN. 

Conspicuous in its absence is any comment from China. 

There are current reports that Sudan is showing signs of increased cooperation with aid shipments and visas for aid workers; actions that most certainly would not have come with out the ICC charges.

For now, we can only wait, watch, and hope that the threat of prosecution brings peace and protection to the people of Darfur. 

"The Silent Guest of the Genocide Olympics"

By Collette Kaplan

On the eve of the July 4^th holiday, President Bush announced through his press secretary that he would attend the August 8^th opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics in Beijing. He stated that he does not view the Olympics as a political event; he views it as a sporting event.  Embarrassing a government for the loss of 23 lives in Tibet, he noted, is not in our diplomatic best interests.

Conspicuous in its absence from the President’s explanation is the ongoing genocide in Darfur.  That is a shame because President Bush is on record as recognizing the situation in Darfur for what it is, a genocide.  The inconvenient fact is that the genocide in Darfur is ongoing because China gives the regime in Khartoum diplomatic cover.  To date, more than 400,000 have been killed and 2.5 million have been displaced and are living in refugee camps with no protection, little food or water and worse, little hope of returning to their homes.

China’s record on Darfur is shameful.  Since 2003, Darfuris have been begging for someone to send a peacekeeping force with the size, equipment and mandate to protect them.  In a breakthrough in August 2006, the U.N. passed Resolution 1706 authorizing just such a peacekeeping force. The government of Sudan balked and with the support of the Chinese, the U.N. backed down and passed a watered-down resolution in July 2007. A year later, there is still no effective peacekeeping force on the ground and the pace of the violence is increasing.

The International Criminal Court has indicted and issued an arrest warrant for the mastermind of the Darfur genocide, Ahmed Haroun. Haroun is Sudan’s “Minister of Humanitarian Affairs,” a position given to him to signal Khartoum’s defiance of the international community.

Instead of supporting Haroun’s arrest, China invited him to visit last month and gave him the “kings tour” of their provinces.  Perhaps the Chinese were simply warming up to roll out the red carpet for the “A” list guests in August?  But is this really a guest list that we want our President to join?

Where is the outrage?

Genocide is a serious international matter and any government that backs it should be called out for it. Any country that remains silent is a bystander and should be labeled as such. Both are worthy of criticism and shame.

I fail to see how tiptoeing around China’s offenses does us any good in the long run.  It only makes us look weak. Our willingness to look the other way on China’s reprehensible support of the Khartoum regime only emboldens both Sudan and China in their defiance of world norms. 

Americans are good people; we care about what is right and just. And certainly, this is not an easy issue.  We understandably feel stretched in our capacity to stand up for another victimized people across the world.  Nor is China likely to walk away from Khartoum willingly.  No doubt, the rising price of oil and the significant supply that Sudan provides to China will strengthen China’s resolve to back its partner unless the pressure on China increases significantly.  But tough issues are what define our moral character.

Perhaps we need a reminder that in 1936 Hitler hosted the Olympics in Nazi Berlin.  It was a propaganda fest for the Fuhrer.  While President Roosevelt did not attend, other world leaders did.  Three years later, Hitler was rolling tanks through Eastern Europe and the death camps were soon to follow.  For my money, President Roosevelt was right to decline the trip to Berlin.

These are different times.  China is a different host and President Bush decided to attend on the rationale that constructive engagement is the wiser course.  The dilemma now for the President is how to be a gracious guest without being a silent guest.  President Bush was right to call Darfur a genocide.  He knows that the Chinese are the difference-maker for a diplomatic solution in Darfur.  Now is the time to insist that the visit is a two-way street.  The Chinese need to deliver material concessions or President Bush should use the forum to call out China’s complicity in genocide.  My guess is that President Bush hopes that he gets a pass.  We should not let that happen.

Perhaps President Bush has not been given the message that genocide matters to us?

Last time I checked, the White House and the United Nations phone lines were open and taking our calls.

 

Submitted to the LA Times July 3, 2008

The profundity of complacency.

by Collette Kaplan

Gasoline is nearing five dollars a gallon, unemployment increased by 5% last month, and the dollar is trading at an all time low. We have spent over 561 billion, yes, that's correct, 561 billion of our tax dollars on a war in Iraq with no end in sight. There is no real solution for the Iraqi people that would be palatable to them coming from the US yet we push on and spend on.

Our levees are spilling over from torrential rainfall. New York skips spring and heads right into sweltering heat in the triple digits. Corn is no longer corn, it's fuel and is trading at more than forty dollars a bushel.  To environmentalists, the idea of corn being used as an alternative fuel source is now someones shortsighted idea instead of a solution, as we now face grain shortages and higher food prices.

Adding fuel to the fire so to speak, is the Western drought. Farmers in the Central Valley already preparing for the worst, have topped all of their trees. The same is true for the avocado farmers in San Diego.

California has a budget crisis. No money for infrastructure or natural disasters like wild fires.

Schools are showing test scores at there lowest point in a decade. College Deans report that cheating is rampant and reading is becoming something old people did, way back in the day. Wikapedia is where it's at man, who needs books?

The housing market that many of us are now out of, has cast a shadow on the long held belief that owning a home is security. Still, most of us are leveraged to the hilt with equity lines of credit to cover the high cost of living for our excesses, for ourselves and for our kids.

This is our reality and it is not pretty but there is still plenty of time for change.

Changing the way we think is the paradigm shift that has to occur in order to accomplish the good things that we want for ourselves and the good we want to accomplish as a nation 

I have long held the belief, that we need stronger connections between our actions as individuals and actions as citizens. If we can't run our own houses the way we would have our government run our nation then we are going to have problems. It ties into the philosophy that we have to actually "BE" the change we want to see around us.

If we care about issues such as global warming, oil dependence, education, fiscal responsibility, then it would seem that more of us would try to actually do something about it. Positive action steps make it happen.

The same is true on issues of political ideology and policy. If Washington hears from us, they are more likely to listen. 

As an activist for Darfur and Human Rights in general, I really want my elected officials to score well on these issues. When they don't, I let them know. The same is true for environmental issues. 

While discussing the complexities of African Affairs with a close friend, she remarked that while the situation in Darfur is tragic, there is not much we can do about it with all of the other problems we are faced with.

There is much we can do about everything if we only would. 

We all have the tools to create change for the better. 

One of the easiest things all of us can do is pick up the phone or send and email to our elected officials to tell them what matters. 

This single, positive action, has the potential for dramatic payoff in our society.  So why don't Americans adopt the thinking that we check in with our kids, so too should we check in with our leadership?

We allow ourselves to be consumed by issues instead of taking action.

To me, the urgency of Genocide requires action. 

Understanding Gandhi's proverb that advice should be like soft falling snow, I asked my friend the following:

"Other than feeling bad about Darfur, have you actually tried to do something about it? It might make actually make you feel better." 

Below is the link to send an email, sign a petition, or obtain a phone number to make that call. 

It's the same one I gave to my friend.

www.savedarfur.org