To follow the complete story of on-going hearings in Walkersville, MD to consider the re-zoning of agricultural land for an Ahmadiyya Muslim Community facility go to our original post with updates here.
Month: January 2008
Citizens for Walkersville, model for grassroots organization
Recently we posted a couple of articles about how to get organized and get a movement going. Here is an article written by Steve Berryman, Vice President and spokesman for Citizens for Walkersville, on his view to date of the hearings that took place last week and continue tonight in this small central Maryland town. The work the citizens have done there to protect the culture and character of their town is a prime example of how we need to organize.
At this point there has been four days of the hearings – with 18 hours into it – at Walkersville Town Hall on Frederick Street. I have derived some observations from this.
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It amounts to a civics lesson in some ways, but in others it boils down to be a real-life “David vs. Goliath” story of asymmetric warfare between the interested parties.
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You could never have scripted this. The AMC [Ahmadiyya Muslim Community] is invested in a positive outcome to the tune of $100,000 in legal fees and related expenses and is still counting. Being an enormous multi-national corporation with millions in available funds and operations in over 180 countries worldwide, they stand to lose much more than that in terms of their international expansion efforts should they lose the decision. This proposition is easily supported by their web site.
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In the other corner are the people of the Town of Walkersville. Speaking as groups of home-owners associations and the grass-roots “Citizens For Walkersville” (CFW), resources were home grown and donated in a heart-felt fashion……
Read the rest of Mr. Berryman’s commentary here. Read our earlier coverage here. Here is the website for the AMC.
Roanoke, VA refugee director to retire
Roanoke, VA is the largest refugee resettlement site in that state, partially thanks to the ‘Dragon Lady’ director of Refugee and Immigration Services, Barbara Smith who will soon retire. For financial reasons, according to the Roanoke Times , Refugee and Immigration Services will soon merge with Catholic Charities. I’m bringing you this information and this article simply because it’s a good behind-the-scenes look at what happens in a “blue heaven” refugee resettlement office and it likely parallels what is happening in your city.
One bit of information here that most people don’t know is that it’s up to local government agencies to foot the bill for translators when refugees require services.
So it goes [Smith will get tough] when a federally funded agency or institution fails to provide a translator for an immigrant. That violates the nondiscrimination clause in Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Smith can recite it from memory — curtly, if necessary — on her refugees’ behalf.
Why do Turkish leaders want to meet the Meshketian Turks?
Last week just before President Bush left for his Middle East tour, he met with Turkish President Gul in Washington. Here is an AP story discussing the background of our present relations with Turkey and what those meetings were about. But, what could the last two paragraphs mean?
While in the United States, the Turkish president is to meet with representatives of the Meskhetian Turks. A minority group ousted from the Soviet Republic of Georgia, the Meskhetians were bounced around to other Soviet republics until settling in Krasnodar Krai, a territory of Southern Russia.
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The Church World Service Immigration and Refugee Program undertook what it calls one of the largest refugee resettlement programs in 2005-2006 to bring as many as 18,000 Meskhetians to about two dozen cities in the United States.
Meshketian Turks came to Hagerstown, MD. We were told these Turkish Muslims had been persecuted by Christians in Russia and that although Turkish, Turkey did not want them back. We also heard the rumor that the Bush Administration agreed to take thousands of these displaced persons (displaced at the end of WWII) to help out Turkey, to remove a sticky problem, in the run-up to the Iraq War. And, by the way, the Meshketians did not live in refugee camps but some had homes to sell before arriving in America. So, why would President Gul wish to meet with representatives of the Meshketians in the US? Thought they didn’t want them in Turkey.
In searching around for more information on the Meshketians, I came across a report (scroll down) from the Norwegian Institute for International Affairs which says that the Meshketians did not exist before about 1950 but are a conglomeration of various Turkish ethnic and religious groups (several forms of Sunni Muslim) that have joined together and are “militantly Muslim” and “anti-Russian.” The report goes on to say that many want to emigrate to Turkey. Just great, and so why would the Bush Administration, with the help of contractor Church World Service, feel the need to bring 18,000 to a city near you?
And one last thought, next time you see a Crop Walk in your community think about the fact that you are helping the sponsoring organization, Church World Service, bring more Muslims to America. What! Aren’t there enough persecuted Christians in the world needing help?
Lincoln, NE, lament—we have poverty
Here is an article yesterday in the Lincoln Journal Star about the release of a report on the high poverty level in that city. The article begins dramatically:
Poverty can hide in Lincoln.
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It does not show itself in the form of extensive slums or hordes of homeless people begging on the street.
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Here, it mostly hides inside chilly homes and in the form of late payments, and it’s masked by a variety of community solutions.
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How poverty affects Lincoln, and how each person could help, isn’t an issue that begs for an answer here.
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But Lincoln Action Program is looking for one anyway, and it is challenging the public to help.______
On Thursday, LAP rolled out its part in a nationwide campaign titled “Rooting Out Poverty.”
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With it, agency leaders hope to raise awareness of need in Lincoln, where they said more than 33,000 people live below the federal poverty line.
The article goes on to lament that 53% of those are on Food Stamps (funny that is just about the same percentage nationally of refugees on Food Stamps).
As you read further down, one wonders what the mystery is all about. This city has a large immigrant/refugee population that keeps groups like the Lincoln Action Project (with its 20 programs) in business.
It (LAP) helps people like Nabil Shokai, a Sudanese refugee who came to Lincoln in 2005 and took career training at LAP. Today, he is an Americorps volunteer, getting work experience while helping other refugees with paperwork and resettlement.
So, Mr. Shokai is paid by the Federal government (Americorps is a federal program) to help more refugees resettle in Lincoln. Earth to Lincoln! You will never get out of your cycle of poverty when you keep importing it!