Saturday, June 25, 2005

Seattle to Join Boycott?

I arrived in Seattle late Thursday. It is a picturesque town, very hilly (somewhat as I'd envisioned San Franciso), and rife with of economic disparity. I'd heard that it also had a reputation for being anti-corporate and anti-war (recall the city was the site of major demonstrations against the WTO a few years back). Indeed, soon after arriving, I saw signs calling for the impeachment of President Bush.

In the first area I visited (off International Boulevard) there were several halal meat/grocery shops on one block, a kebab house, and an Abysinnian resturant. I bought some figs, bananas, and apples for breakfast from the halal meat store. A Somali sister worked the cash register, and several other East African looking women in hijab visited the store while I was there. I asked the Somali for directions to the mosque. It was only a few blocks away. Enroute, I saw a hijab-clad Muslim woman walking along the hilly road, carrying an umbrella to shelter herself from the sun, at home as she might be in Cairo or Karachi.

This part of town seemed quite poor, with very small houses made of siding, many of them old and ramshackle.

Just blocks away was the gargantuan Boeing Plant, responsible for the manufacture of machines used to kill Muslims in other countries, perhaps the friends or relatives of some of those living here.

The East African Muslims in this neighborhood were friendly and welcoming. I saw the mosque, but did not visit there yet. I will probably go there tomorrow and give them some NT boycott fliers.

I wound up going to juma'a prayers at the Eastside mosque. The road it's located on is discontinuous, and I spent half an hour looking for this mosque, after arriving in this upscale neighborhood. A chamelion-mosque? I had almost given up and was about to leave when I found it. The parking lot was full of benzes and BMWs.

I handed out about 100 boycott fliers, which were received without resistance. One Arab brother, after looking over the boycott flier, asked for a stack of them, and then set his son to distributing them.

It's funny that Starbucks, on which I personally squandered a goodly fraction of my income prior to the boycott, is named on the flier as one of the companies subject to boycott for their investment in Israel. And Seattle is one of the cities known for its independent coffee houses (including Seattle's Best, which even those of us stuck on the East Coast are familiar with), a dire challenge to the Starbucks monopoly. Together, Seattle and I will put Starbucks out of business:-)

Tomorrow, inshallah, I will take more boycott fliers to some of the progressive bookstores and coffeehouses in downtown Seattle.

May Allah reward the NT team which put together the materials educating people about Israeli apartheid. They have been a great help during my trip.

Saturday, June 18, 2005

Baltimore’s Abu Ghraib

This Tuesday, I found out what it feels like to look into the eyes of a mother whose son has been beaten to death while in custody. Joey Gilbon's mother walked proud, carrying a picture of her son. She had beautiful dark brown skin, a crown of white hair, and deep contemplative eyes, which would make you cry if you looked into them long enough. I hugged her, hardly knowing what to say. "Your son will not be forgotten," I managed to mumble.

I stood with her and the mothers at the entrance of Baltimore's Central Booking Facility on Falls Way and Madison Street. They were there to protest the deaths of their loved ones in custody. So they were in jail in Iraq, you say? Nope, right here, in AmeriKKKa.

Twenty-seven people, mostly black, have died in custody at Central Booking and City Jail in recent months, while waiting to go to trial. Many of them were locked up for very minor, non-violent offenses, like non-payment of child support, or loitering.

Baltimore's zero tolerance law prohibits assembly in certain areas. Although the law ostensibly is aimed at drug dealers, it means that a city resident who steps outside his house, if it happens to be in an area targeted by "law enforcement," may be arrested after one or two warnings. (The zero tolerance laws are also an attack on the First Amendment freedom of assembly of some sectors of society--but that is a separate issue.) So, in effect, some of the detainees held at Central Booking were locked up for standing outside their own homes. And while there, they could be the target of murderous prison guards.

One of the recent murders was of 52-year old Raymond Smoots, who was beaten so badly by guards that his family could barely recognize his body. But, his mother was determined to fight for justice in her son's case. In the days leading up to the protest, she stood on a West Baltimore street corner with activists handing out leaflets with the heading "Is Baltimore's Central Booking our Abu Ghraib?" It was from her that I learned of the protest.

The protest was called by the Emergency Coalition for Justice, an umbrella organization which included many of the families of the victims, the All-Peoples Congress, the Million Worker March Movement, the Nation of Islam, the Troops Out Now Coalition, and others. I found out about the protest too late, otherwise, I'd have recommended that Jamaat al-Muslimeen add its endorsement.

At the start of the rally, the organizers symbolically wrapped yellow police tape around the front steps of the Central Booking facility, calling it a crime scene, and demanding the prosecution of the prison guards and police responsible for the deaths in custody. They charged that prisoners were forced to lie in their own vomit and that essential medicines were withheld from other prisoners. One, who had AIDS, was denied anti-retroviral medication, and another, a diabetic, was refused his insulin. A female detainee, Debby Epifanio, died after being denied her medicine.

Despite the heat advisory, nearly 300 people showed up for the rally. Most were people of color. I was pleased to see there was a significant youth continent--mostly anarchists and predominantly white.

Some of the mothers spoke. Other speakers included an NAACP representative in stunning African garb, a Nation of Islam representative, a Christian minister, and others. Notably absent were the "Sunni" Muslims.

Strange, I thought, the NOI Muslims don't pray (formally). But they work for justice. The Sunni Muslims pray. But they (with notable exceptions) don't work for justice. Shouldn't one lead to the other?

A particularly interesting speaker was a prison guard, who decried the abuses of his co-workers, and apologized to the families for what they had endured. He wore shades and a hat to disguise himself so that he would not be fired from his job.

While the speakers blasted prisoner abuse and police brutality, I ran up and down the road handing out fliers explaining why we were there to passing motorists. An hour handing out fliers was like a Racism 101 class. Many of the motorists were leaning out of their car windows, clearly intrigued by the protest. Nearly all the black motorists to whom I offered the flier took it; the only black people who refused the flier were prison guards who were getting off work. But the majority of white motorists refused to take the flier. A white ex-convict, who said he'd spent twenty-five years in the facility we were protesting, helped me pass out the fliers. He said, "Sh--, the white people, they won't take it. They all close-minded." It seemed a willful ignorance of injustice.

The rally over, it was time to march.

"Stop the killing, stop the lies, Raymond Smoots didn't have to die!" we chanted as we marched around Central Booking. The facility is a veritable modern day dungeon, encompassing several city blocks, with thick concrete walls protected by cameras and electronic gates.

On the next block, we found ourselves strolling along side the City Jail. It is a dilapidated old brick structure with grates and barbed wire covering the windows on every floor. We turned the corner, chanting, "Tear down the walls," and "No justice, no peace!" The prisoners could hear us, and some of them yelled back words of appreciation and encouragement. I could almost hear some of my reactionary relatives and colleagues saying, "Would you prefer if these common criminals were running the streets?"

But, the real criminals fill the corporate boardrooms, the halls of Congress, and the Oval Office; they are never the ones to be warehoused when they can't afford bail or a good lawyer.