WASHINGTON (RNS) The deadly mall attack in Kenya on Saturday (Sept. 21) is a sign that the al-Qaida-affiliated group that carried it out has been dealt a blow in Somalia and they are looking to generate headlines with more high-profile attacks in the region, a regional expert says.
The militant group that carried out the attack, al-Shabab, wants to establish an Islamist government in Somalia.
In recent years, however, African Union troops in Somalia have driven the militants out of most parts of the capital city of Mogadishu as a U.S.-supported government there has attempted to establish control over the country. At one time, al-Shabab controlled parts of Mogadishu.
The attack in Nairobi underscores al-Shabab’s organizational skills and their commitment to die for a cause, said David Shinn, a former U.S. ambassador to Ethiopia and a professor at George Washington University.
But it also highlights that the group has to rely on high-profile terrorist attacks that generate headlines because they lack popular support and have failed in any direct fights with African Union forces in Somalia.
“Increasingly, al-Shabab has alienated the average Somali,” Shinn said.
The Kenya attack came shortly before a deadly attack against a church in Pakistan, but analysts warn against concluding that radical Islam is gaining strength. A faction of the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for it.
“These bombings are so common now,” Shinn said. “I would attribute it to happenstance and coincidence.”
Both attacks were conducted by groups with regional grievances, though some within the groups have more global aspirations.
Al-Shabab, for example, is primarily Somalis, though there is a smattering of foreigners in the leadership ranks, Shinn said. They are divided among those who envision a more global jihad and those whose goals are limited to ruling Somalia.
The Kenya attack may be a sign that al-Shabab will attempt more high-profile bombings, but their capability to do so is in question.
The last high-profile attack the group was associated with was in Uganda in July 2010, suggesting it takes the group time to get the training, financing and other support necessary to conduct a major attack. In between they have claimed responsibility for smaller attacks.
The 2010 attack killed at least 74 people and was aimed at two locations where people gathered to watch a televised World Cup match.
The latest attack comes as the United States has shown support for the government of Somalia in their fight against the militant group.
Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mahamud was in Washington recently and met with top U.S. officials, including Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and National Security Adviser Susan Rice.
(Jim Michaels writes for USA Today)
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Earlier today, Bossip.com posted this video of Bobby Wingate, a Florida man who was punched in the face and tased by a police officer because he was walking on the wrong side of the road. As these stories go, Wingate spent the night in jail–because after the uncalled for beat down, he charged with resisting arrest on top of walking on the wrong side of the street–while the police officer was free. When the case went to trial, it was dismissed because there wasn’t enough evidence to convict him. Wingate is currently filing a lawsuit against the Jacksonville sheriff’s office but claims he is doing so as a matter of principle.
In general there is nothing encouraging about this situation and it is almost commonplace for us to expect that somewhere in America–especially if its in Florida as of late–a white police officer is using (read “abusing”) his authority against a black man. But there is a silver lining in this story. Though Wingate is filing a lawsuit, he offers a glimmer of hope through non-retributive justice. Of this he says, “If I ever see him again, and he needs my help for something, I’ll help him.” There is no eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth here, just some old-fashioned good will toward men. I am encouraged by Wingate’s outlook when he could be enraged given our current climate and I hope that others might find some level of encouragement. Indeed we wish that incidents such as this will decrease and that less perpetrators will go unpunished but, for now, let’s celebrate one man’s decision to find some good will to give to a man who thought to give none to him.
WATERBURY, Conn. (RNS) The remains of an 18th-century Connecticut slave whose abuse continued long after his death will finally be given a dignified burial.
On Sept. 12, more than two centuries after his death, a slave known as Fortune will be interred at Waterbury’s Riverside Cemetery with all the trappings of a state funeral.
It will be a ceremonial end to the life of a man whose mistreatment serves as a reminder of the North’s participation in slavery.
Fortune died in 1798. His death is clouded in lore and speculation. Did he drown in the Naugatuck River? Was he fleeing and fell and broke his neck?
What is certain is that Fortune’s master, a Waterbury bone doctor by the name of Preserved Porter, stripped Fortune’s skin, boiled his bones and used his skeleton as a medical specimen. The mistreatment of the slave was recorded in a book about Waterbury’s history by Joseph Anderson.
The indignity continued well into the next century. Porter is believed to have opened an anatomy school in Waterbury where bone surgeons studied Fortune’s skeleton. In 1910, the slave’s skeleton surfaced in a closet in a Waterbury building.
It was then donated to the Mattatuck Museum in Waterbury where it hung in a glass case with the name “Larry” scrawled on its skull, horrifying and entertaining curious schoolchildren on field trips. Museum curators realized the display was in poor taste and took it down in the 1970s.
There he remained boxed up, his story untold, until museum officials began researching the history of African-Americans in Waterbury and received a letter from a city resident urging them to look into “Larry” the skeleton at the museum.
What followed was a decades-long Fortune Project for the museum as scientists and anthropologists examined and studied Fortune’s bones, most recently Quinnipiac University. All the while, many debated how best to serve his legacy.
For Maxine Watts, the chair of the African American History Project, which partnered with the museum, Fortune’s bones serve as a reminder of the flawed slave ideology that considered African-Americans subhuman.
“His living and his death were not in vain,” said Watts, former president of the Waterbury chapter of the NAACP. “Slaves were not considered totally human. Yet Fortune’s bones were used as a teaching tool for human anatomy. Fortune is proof that we are all equal underneath the skin.”
The Rev. Amy Welin, who will preside over Fortune’s funeral at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Waterbury, said the way the slave’s master used his bones is hard for her to fathom, even after studying the cruelty of slavery. Fortune was baptized in St. John’s in 1797, where Porter’s wife, Lydia was a member.
Welin said she won’t eulogize Fortune’s life, but will preach about God’s justice
“The service will be for the rest of us,” she said. “What are we supposed to do with what we’ve learned about Fortune? What are we supposed to do with the racial injustice around us now, the ghosts of slavery that still haunt us?”
Fortune and his wife, Dinah, had four children. But because Fortune’s descendants can’t be found, members of the Southern Connecticut chapter of the Union of Black Episcopalians will accompany his casket down the aisle of the church during the funeral.
Steven R. Mullins, a founding member of the chapter, will serve as master of ceremonies during the funeral.
“I hope that the Waterbury community comes out to the burial,” said Mullins. “I hope people realize that there was slavery in Connecticut. Fortune’s burial will be a learning and teaching moment.”
Connecticut abolished slavery in 1848, but it provided gradual emancipation for persons who turned 25 prior to 1784.
The funeral will be held at 4 p.m. Sept. 12 at St. John’s Episcopal Church.
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(RNS) For weeks leading up to the March on Washington, the Rev. Perry Smith urged his congregation to join the landmark civil rights event happening a few miles away.
“We felt it was something that needed to occur because of the absence of the rights of African Americans in this country,” recalled Smith, 79, who recently retired as pastor of First Baptist Church of North Brentwood in Maryland after more than 50 years. “We wanted to emphasize the need for change, jobs and education.”
Smith, a native of Mound Bayou, Miss., and a former Freedom Rider, knew the sting of segregation firsthand. He and other religious leaders called on churchgoers to show up that August day 50 years ago so they could let the nation know.
“They came from everywhere,” Smith said. “The crowds were larger than many of us expected. It certainly said, if I could use Fannie Lou Hamer’s term, ‘People were tired of being sick and tired.’”
Through passionate pulpit sermons, religious leaders — black and white, from North and South — helped bring busloads to Washington. Fifty years later, organizers are again turning to churches to rally attendance at a week of events marking the anniversary of the march, including a march on Aug. 24.
Activists say recent court rulings could spark a sizable turnout. The Supreme Court recently struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and, in a separate case, raised the standard for race-based admissions policies at colleges and universities.
Many may come to protest the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of black teenager Trayvon Martin, which has focused new attention on race relations.
“They’ve got something to fight about, to stand up to,” said the Rev. C.T. Vivian of Atlanta, who urged ministers to join the 1963 march. “It’s not too much to think it would be a good-size crowd.”
Vivian, the Rev. Martin Luther King’s national director of affiliates for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, traveled throughout the South in the early 1960s asking ministers for both participation and help funding bus trips to Washington.
“The church was the only institution we had that could raise money,” Vivian said.
But some religious leaders didn’t endorse the march and weren’t publicly supportive of the movement. Fear was one reason. “Some of them thought that was the only way to protect their congregation,” Vivian said.
Many ministers involved in the movement were jailed, beaten and even shot. Some churches were bombed. Despite those dangers, many answered the call to march.
“There were buses coming from clear down in Texas and coming up from the Deep South,” Vivian said. “Somebody had to speak out against the way we were treated.”
As sites of strategy sessions and as a means of grooming leaders, the black church’s role in the civil rights movement was critical. Charles Hicks, a longtime activist from Bogalusa, La., said black churches were vital links between communities and activists, especially in small Southern towns. During the Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott, he said, churches distributed picket signs and provided rides for protesters.
Churches with white congregations also stepped up, activists said.
Jewish congregations, Quakers and Mennonites sent participants to the march, and churches in the American Baptist Churches USA helped raise money for the movement.
The National Council of Churches, which represents more than 100,000 churches nationwide, organized buses, mostly from the Northeast, to carry people to the march.
Glen Stassen, a professor at Fuller Theological Seminary in California, recalled feeling anxious that the march would fizzle. “Would people really show up, or would it be a flop?” he said. “Would somebody do something violent which would mess up the message?”
He soon saw evidence that allayed his fears. “As we came in on a curve on one of the expressways into Washington … all kinds of buses came in from the other direction — just pouring in,” he recalled. “It was obviously going to be a success.”
Some of the churches that participated in 1963 plan to return for this year’s march. Organizers also are targeting first-timers.
“It’s more important that they come now than they did in 1963,” said the Rev. Reginald Green, pastor emeritus of the Walker Memorial Baptist Church in Washington and a former Freedom Rider. “We’re talking about remembering the march, but still we don’t have equal rights.”
(Deborah Barfield Berry writes for USA Today.)
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Tennessee baby named “Messiah” whose parents are fighting for their right to keep the name despite judge’s ruling. (Photo Credit: AP Photp/Heidi Wigdahl)
c. 2013 USA Today
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (RNS) A Tennessee judge should not have barred a couple from naming their child “Messiah,” said the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee.
On Thursday (Aug. 8), the parents of the child appeared in Cocke County Chancery Court in Tennessee because they could not agree on a last name.
Child Support Magistrate Lu Ann Ballew ordered the mother, Jaleesa Martin, to change her son’s name to “Martin DeShawn McCullough.” It includes both parents’ last names but leaves out “Messiah.”
“The word Messiah is a title and it’s a title that has only been earned by one person and that one person is Jesus Christ,” Ballew told the 7-month-old’s parents.
Hedy Weinberg of the ACLU’s Tennessee office said Ballew is free to hold religious beliefs, but that faith should remain private.
“She does not have the right to impose that faith on others,” said Weinberg. “And that is what she did.”
Martin is appealing the judge’s order. Weinberg said ACLU staff is reaching out to the boy’s mother to offer assistance.
“A parent has the right to choose their child’s name,” she said. “In this case, the judge is creating a culture where she is imposing her religious beliefs on others. And that is unacceptable.”
“Messiah” currently ranks 387th among baby names for boys and girls, according to Nameberry.com, a blog about baby names. “Jesus” is number 101, while “Christopher” — which means “bearer of Christ” — is number 23.
According to the Social Security Administration’s database of popular baby names, the name Messiah has grown in popularity since 2005 when it was ranked 904th. It was 387th in 2012.
Ballew said it was the first time she has ordered a first name change. She said the decision is best for the child, especially while growing up in a county with a large Christian population.
Nick Harrison, co-author of “The Best-Ever Christian Baby Name Book,” said that there aren’t many other names that specifically refer to Jesus Christ.
Harrison said he sympathized with Ballew. Parents have to be careful when they give their children an unusual name, he said, because it can lead to bullying.
“I can sympathize with the judge but I don’t understand the legal precedent,” he said.
Harrison said names can help a child shape their identity. Knowing the meaning of a name gives a child something to aspire to, he said.
“Messiah” might be going too far, Harrison said. “That’s a lot to live up to.”
(Bob Smietana writes for USA Today and The Tennessean. Heidi Wigdahl of WBIR-TV in Knoxville, Tenn., contributed to this report.)
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WASHINGTON (RNS) Noah’s grandfather Methuselah lived to the ripe old age of 969 and Moses reached 120, but most Americans would be happy to make it into their 90s, according to a new study.
Black Protestants and Hispanic Catholics are the most likely religious groups to say “radical life extension” — living to age 120 or more — would be good for society, according to a new Pew Research Center study, “Living to 120 and Beyond,” released Tuesday (Aug. 6).
The speculative “Living to 120 and Beyond” survey comes against the backdrop of U.S. Census Bureau projections that suggest by 2050, one in five Americans will be 65 or older, and more than 400,000 will be 100 or older.
Researchers found that four in 10 Americans, including 54 percent of black Protestants and 44 percent of Hispanic Catholics, say radical life extension would be “good for society.” Among religious groups, white Catholics showed the least support, at 31 percent.
The findings dovetail with previous studies that showed correlations between race and a desire to prolong life, including research suggesting black and Hispanic cancer patients were more likely than whites to seek aggressive end-of-life care and consider religion very important.
Asked how long they’d like to live, African-Americans scored highest in the Pew report, with a median age of 94, compared to a median age of 90 among all Americans.
Included with the Pew study was a compilation of religious leaders’ views about radical life extension, though no religious group in the United States has released an official statement regarding life-extending treatments.
The Rev. Charles Brown, a Payne Theological Seminary ethics professor and former Baptist pastor, told researchers: “I think we would embrace it because we welcome the blessings of a longer life so that we can make more of a contribution to society.”
Asked why blacks might be more in favor of life-extending treatments than others, Brown said, “We have gone from a sense of impossibility in the 20th century to one of possibility in the 21st, and I think we want as much chance as we can to participate in these new possibilities.”
Researchers quoted retired Pope Benedict XVI from 2010 to help explain white Catholics’ low approval rating of life-prolonging treatments: “Humanity would become extraordinarily old, (and) there would be no more room for youth. Capacity for innovation would die, and endless life would be no paradise.”
The frequency of a person’s worship attendance had little bearing on views of radical life extension. However, people who believe in life after death were more likely (43 percent) to say treatments that extend life would be a good thing than those who don’t believe in an afterlife (37 percent).
When it comes to personal desire for life extension, white evangelicals were least likely to want treatments (28 percent). Similarly low numbers of white Catholics (35 percent) and white mainline Protestants (37 percent) said they would want treatments to extend “life by decades.”
Black Protestants were split, at 47 percent, on whether they would want such treatments. Hispanic Catholics were similarly divided, with 46 percent wanting the treatments and 47 percent not wanting them.
The Pew survey was based on phone interviews conducted from March 21-April 8 among 2,012 U.S. adults and had an overall margin of error plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.
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