Jacob Bender, CAIR-Philadelphia Executive Director, and Salima Suswell, CAIR-Philadelphia Executive Committee Member, travelled to Harrisburg on September 6th to attend the 2nd Annual Eid-al-Adha Dinner at The Governor’s Mansion. The dinner was hosted by Governor Tom Wolf and his wife Francis and was attended by about 60 Muslim leaders from around Pennsylvania.
One narrative technique of imaginative fiction is for the hero to wake up from a deep sleep in a strange time and place. From Washington Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle” to Mark Twain’s “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court,” from Dorothy’s sojourn in the Land of Oz” to Woody Allen’s “Sleeper” and episodes of “The Twilight Zone,” writers have utilized this literary device to hold up a mirror to their own times.
The First Amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees the right of American citizens and residents to freely practice religious beliefs and engage in any corresponding religious actions and/or rituals made in accordance with those beliefs. Additionally, federal law expressly prohibits workplace discrimination based on race, color, religion, gender/sex, or national origin.
On Sunday, August 20th at Italian Lake, Harrisburg, the Community Responders Network, a grassroots coalition committed to confronting and preventing incidents of bias in Central Pennsylvania, and the Harrisburg Mayor's Interfaith Advisory Council, organized a unity rally we called "Speak up for Unity, No Hate Here!” The purpose of the event was to affirm equality, non-violence, cross-cultural acceptance, and interfaith cooperation.
This past Wednesday marked the beginning of Dhu al-Hijjah, the twelfth and final month of the Islamic calendar. The first ten days of Dhu al-Hijjah are a time imbued with great holiness. The rituals of the hajj are performed during the eighth, ninth, and tenth day of the month, culminating in Eid al-Adha, the “Festival of the Sacrifice,” which begins on the tenth day.
It was a pleasure to represent CAIR-Philadelphia as I marched down Broad Street with thousands of people responding to the events of last weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia. United in our disgust with the president’s response to the murder of Heather Heyer by a neo-Nazi using his car as a weapon, the march was also a condemnation of white supremacist racism, the implicitly violent ideology embedded into the DNA of American history and culture.
There are moments in history when time itself seems to just stop, and then abruptly change direction. Sometimes the momentous quality of these events is self-evident to those caught up in their wake: the fall of Baghdad in 1258; Lenin arriving at the train station in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1917; Rosa Parks boarding her bus in 1954; the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963; the Iranian Revolution of 1979; the attacks of Sept 11, 2001. What unities these events are their transformative impact, dividing time into a before and an after (as in before 9/11 and post-9/11).
Jacob Bender, CAIR-Philadelphia Executive Director, said: “Regardless of the identities of the alleged bombers of the Minnesota Islamic Center, who we hope will be quickly apprehended, this attack comes in the midst of a nationwide campaign of vilification and demonization of Muslims and the Islamic faith by Islamophobic activists, irresponsible media personalities, and even high-ranking government officials. Only a concerted and united effort by the Muslim community and its interfaith and social justice activists will defeat the voices of hate now transgressing our national values of pluralism, democracy, and justice.”
It has been over two months since a courageous group of March on Harrisburg activists embarked from Philadelphia to a 105-mile political pilgrimage to the Pennsylvania Statehouse to demand real reform with three pro-democracy and anti-corruption bills: automatic voter registration, non-partisan redistricting to end gerrymandering, and a ban of legalized bribery.
