Towards Greener Pastures

The recognized heroes of 9/11 –police, firemen and recovery workers—have long been cast aside, and life moves on for most. Life speeds towards its end-- especially if you are suffering from serious health problems caused by post 9/11 air quality, which Mayor Guiliani and EPA head Christine Whitman denied in the face of facts.

Last week I attended a NYCOSH dinner honoring diverse people who had confronted the lies about 9/11 health. The event reminded me that unions, local power brokers and public servants can indeed make a difference in advocating for monies necessary to treat serious emergencies. However, beyond New York City, the scandalously slow response to Hurricane Katrina victims continues, with a new environmental insult-- toxic trailers.

Congress has been made aware of reports that some of the emergency trailers contain toxic levels of formaldehyde. The National Council of Churches called for an investigation, “For almost two years, victims of these storms have made FEMA trailers their home having lost almost all of their earthly possessions. Now many of those same people are finding that the place they thought would be a refuge…is now potentially causing them, their children and other family members to suffer respiratory and other health problems— This is just unacceptable and appalling.”

But are we surprised? Since the tragic failure to install al Gore instead of Halliburton as President, the US government has not ratified the Koyoto Treaty to curb emissions that cause global warming. Do we really expect poor people’s health to be of interest? The ugly American Right is hard at work malling America. Nothing is safe-- not a red river valley or a rolling pasture, a rocky mountain or a sandy shore.

The National Council of Churches Eco-Justice Program is offering a new creation-friendly building guide entitled, "Building A Firm Foundation: A Creation Friendly Guide for Churches." The NCC Eco-Justice Program also invites submissions for a book examining ecological theology. (www.ncccusa.org/). But where are we Muslims? Do we care about the environment? Or are we all too busy planning to blow up gas lines?

Recently I was asked to find local Muslims to attend the Interfaith Center of New York’s Marshal Meyer’s retreat-- Cultivating Hope: Planting Seeds of Environmental Justice in NYC. I realized that I am not aware of local imams who have made this their issue. I hope I will hear of some? Syed Hossein Nasr has written eloquently on the environment but he is in Washington DC. We need more of us to care. I do hope that after their graduations at least some of our brothers and sisters are planning to work in green fields.

On June 1, Neil MacFarquar wrote in the New York Times that, “As the first generation of American-born Muslims begins graduating from college in significant numbers, with a swelling tide behind them, some congregations are beginning to seek native imams who can talk about religious and social issues that seem relevant to young people, like dating and drugs. Gihan Zahran, 43, an Egyptian immigrant, remembers a previous Arab imam who even told a much perplexed teenager that wearing Nike shoes was “haram,” or forbidden in Arabic, without explaining why.”

The article was an important reminder of a serious problem—that many of our imams are not equipped to offer practical guidance and informed interpretation to today’s Muslim youth and families. Two Fridays ago I attended a mosque in Brooklyn’s Bay Ridge, and the Khotba was in angry Arabic. It was painful. It is not helpful that many old-school Arab leaders seem to stereotype and blame all Jews equally.

While I agree that Muslims need to organize more effectively around Palestinian rights, I do not wish to mix my worship of Allah with such extreme negativity. More light! There are so many reasons to be angry and fearful. The USA is already in Somalia with Task Force 150 bombing “radicals” and killing US and Swedish and Yemeni volunteers and of course Somalis. We all need more sunlight, and less Fire!

And what are the paths through fire to love and family? Who can guide us? How do we find our own ways through red river valleys and along the sandy shores? We cannot standardize all teaching, nor support the malling of Islam. Humanity comes in many shapes and sizes, strengths and weaknesses. We need very specific and individual guidance. There are compassionate accommodations to human needs –Islamic ones, ranging from multiple marriages under certain conditions, to (possibly) temporary marriages among the Shia. There have also been non-Islamic ones, like the Hippies’ summer of Love, the utopian experiments in the 19th Centuries. But that dream is faded; Free Love has now been replaced by Sex that Sells. We must beware of the manipulations of our capitalist merchant class, afflicting all around us with desire.

The Poet Dante celebrated the tragic damnation of two lovers, Paolo and Francesca, doomed to ride the whirlwind of their desires for all eternity. And yet the forces of repression and inhibition create their own unhealthy climate, and to save us, cocoon us inside toxic trailers.

And in our trailers all families are not the same. Family life is not always healthy. The youngest detainee Omar Ahmed Khadr has been in Guantanamo since he was arrested at age 15. He comes from a so-called “al Qaeda family” originating in Canada before moving to Afghanistan. According to prosecutors: “All the children were indoctrinated into the al Qaeda way of thinking.” However, after being “captured bloodied and bullet riddled”, half-blind Omar will now be “tried” as an adult, a practice increasingly common in the USA as well as in the legal hellhole of Guantanamo.

Child exploitation comes in so many forms—child soldiers, child labor, child camel jockeys, and children detainees denied international rights. May Allah grant us the wisdom to find our inner child, and to speak more gently, with more compassion. The seed is the future of the flower. The Child is father of the Man.