[Peace] let's make C-U a "city of refuge" for Steven Salaita

[Robert Naiman]

I can't speak to your individual case, but I can testify that
Champaign-Urbana has indeed long been a "city of refuge" for many people,
not all of whom were famous. In the 1980s, there was a "public sanctuary"
at the Illinois Disciples Foundation on campus in Champaign for refugees
fleeing U.S.-supported violence in El Salvador and Guatemala. If I remember
right - Jim Holiman would remember more details than me - four other
churches supported, including the Friends Meeting and St. Mary's Catholic
Church. When "David and Eva" (not their real names), refugees from El
Salvador, decided that they had as much of living in the fishbowl of public
sanctuary as they could stand, and decided to go to Canada, Jim and I drove
them to the "station" on the "underground railroad" that took them there.
During the time that "David and Eva" were in public sanctuary at the IDF,
the Urbana City Council passed a supportive resolution declaring Urbana to
be a City of Refuge for refugees fleeing violence in Guatemala and El
Salvador. Belden would remember more details than me, if I recall
correctly, he was the main organizer of this effort. Belden gave the
"keynote" speech of the pro-sanctuary side, a thorough take-down of the
Reagan Administration's war on poor people in Central America and on the
social movements trying to advocate for poor people. But many other people
spoke, most of whom were active in the sanctuary movement and/or the
"Pledge of Resistance," which was a national movement of people who had
signed a pledge to nonviolently resist any Reagan Administration
"intervention" in Central America. I think Sharon Irish and Sharon Monday
Dorsey and Frankie Day spoke and Jim spoke and I spoke. And Bernadine
Stake, then on the council, gave an impassioned speech disagreeing with
those who said that this wasn't the city's business; this is exactly the
sort of thing we should be doing, she said.

So there is that precedent.

And there have been many, many individual cases, from around the world, of
people who came to Champaign-Urbana to study or work at the University who
were "fleeing persecution" in the classic international law sense as well
as people from around the world, around the U.S., and especially from the
Chicago area, who were maybe not "fleeing persecution" in the classic sense
but were definitely fleeing something. You feel it immediately when you
travel around East Central Illinois; within a radius of 100 miles, there's
no place like Champaign-Urbana, this town has a "refugee culture"; there
are a lot of "ruthless cosmopolitans" here.

So there is that precedent as well.





Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
(202) 448-2898 x1

On Tue, Aug 11, 2015 at 1:36 AM, John W. <jbw292002 at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> Would that C-U was also a "refuge city" for some of us, with less
> notoriety, who have lived here for years.
>
>
>
> On Mon, Aug 10, 2015 at 8:34 PM, Robert Naiman via Peace <
> peace at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
>
> Let's publish it for the world - a "Pledge of Resistance," if you will -
>> that while we would certainly understand perfectly well why Steven Salaita
>> might have a bad taste in his mouth about re-accepting his appointment to
>> the University of Illinois when his appointment is re-instated, if he does
>> accept it we will welcome him back into the Champaign-Urbana community with
>> open arms, and form a "band of brothers" to protect him from the
>> News-Gazette until the Snooze-Gazoo accepts that further attempts to harass
>> Salaita and abridge his First Amendment and employee rights will be totally
>> futile, Then they'll have to content themselves with nostalgia for the
>> racist Chief mascot. Oops, did I say "mascot"? I meant to say "symbol."
>>
>> ===
>>
>> Robert Reuel Naiman
>> Policy Director
>> Just Foreign Policy
>> www.justforeignpolicy.org
>> naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
>> (202) 448-2898 x1
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Peace mailing list
>> Peace at lists.chambana.net
>> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace
>>
>>
>
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