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

[George Hardebeck]

Encouraging stuff guys. Please remember my radio program is there for such
conversation. Always ready to schedule in those with such to share,
Thursday nights, 7PM WRFU 104.5 at the IMC. George Hardebeck

On Tue, Aug 11, 2015 at 4:19 AM, Robert Naiman via Peace <
peace at lists.chambana.net> wrote:

> 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
>>>
>>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Peace mailing list
> Peace at lists.chambana.net
> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace/attachments/20150811/16c2b9ac/attachment.html>