The Role of Women in the Syrian Armed Conflict

Hi everyone,

What follows is a cross-post I just wrote for Ecumenical Women at the United Nations (EW), an organization for which I currently serve as Communications Coordinator. While I wanted to put this fairly in-depth peace on the role of women in the Syrian armed conflict both on my blog and on the EW site to more widely raise awareness about this issue, please head over to the EW post here if you would like to share it. Thanks!

God's peace,
Dustin

Ever since I heard UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka speak so eloquently on the need for women's political participation in peacebuilding two weeks ago at a 'Peacebuilding Commission High-Level Ministerial Event,' I felt inspired to dig a bit deeper past the headlines coming out of Syria in order to begin learning a bit more about the role of women in the Syrian armed conflict. Ever since the UN Security Council unanimously adopted its landmark Resolution 1325 on 31 October 2000, the international community has repeatedly affirmed that women play an essential role in peacebuilding, conflict resolution and conflict prevention. For instance, as Ms. Mlambo-Ngcuka pointed out in her address, "women’s political participation is associated with lower levels of corruption, more inclusive decision-making, greater investment in social services, job creation for women, and family welfare," all factors that lead to a more peaceful society. Furthermore, while correlation does not necessarily prove causation, there is a "statistically significant relationship between female representation in government and peace," as you can read about here.

However, well over a decade after the adoption of Resolution 1325, rates of women's political participation in formal peacebuilding negotiations remain extremely low. As an August 2010 report released by UN Women indicates, a "reasonably representative sample of 31 major peace processes between 1992 and 2011 reveals that only 4 percent of signatories, 2.4 percent of chief mediators, 3.7 percent of witnesses and 9 percent of negotiators are women." Women have specific concerns in peace negotiations, such as a need for gender training on all levels of armed forces, the elimination of sexual violence, and the protection of women refugees and internally displaced persons, yet these concerns are rarely addressed in final peace accords. As discussed in this video from IREX, violence against girls and women, especially sexual violence, has become widespread in the Syrian armed conflict, and thus it will be especially important that women are represented in any future peace negotiations in order to increase the likelihood that women's issues are properly addressed. For more information on sexual and gender-based violence in the Syrian armed conflict, as well as other issues, you can read this report from Human Rights Watch and this report from International Rescue Committee.

While we need to raise awareness about sexual and gender-based violence in the Syrian armed conflict, women are playing many leadership roles as well, both officially and unofficially. As discussed in the video from IREX linked to above, women are leaders of protests, civil society organizations and occasionally serve in the Free Syrian Army, although they are increasingly being marginalized as extremist groups to continue to gain power in the opposition. The work of women to protect other women and girls in refugee camps was also mentioned. Finally, we would like to lift up three women working providing leadership in Syrian armed conflict, all with different approaches. Although currently in exile, Suheir Atassi is a co-vice-president in the Syrian opposition and is one of the movement's leading secular activists. Razan Zaitouneh is a Syrian writing and human rights lawyer who still remains in the country, working to document human rights abuses. Finally, the young Yaman Al Qadri is a peace activist who was detained and tortured by Syrian police in 2011. She eventually fled to Canada after being released, and has recently toured in a play called "Let's Talk" about the complex issues Syrians have about the uprising. To hear more from these three amazing women, check out the videos below.

 

  

Dustin is currently in his final year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, having recently completed a year as Vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in New York City. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

Female Genital Mutilation/ Cutting and the Text This Week

Sometimes the two aspects of my internship at Saint Peter's Church and the Lutheran Office for World Community (LOWC) connect in interesting ways. On the church side of things, throughout the week I've been struggling with how to preach this Sunday's lectionary text from the Hebrew Bible, Hosea 11: 1 - 11. While the selected text itself puts forward a compassionate, even motherly image of God, its written in the context of a wider book that uses a patriarchal metaphor of God as a pious husband and Israel as an adulterous wife. Although I haven't yet come to any conclusions, I do think such strong patriarchy does need to be confronted.

From the UN side of things, I recently wrote the following post concerning the practice of female genital mutilation/ cutting (FGM/C) for Ecumenical Women, and briefly touched on what some faith communities are doing to confront the idea as a social norm. Additionally, the Lutheran World Federation program in Mauritania is working to combat the practice, which you can read about here. While FGM/C is primarily confined to Africa and the Middle East to a lesser extent, the issue serves as a helpful reminder about what social norms need to be confronted while preaching in an American society that still allows and even condones violence against girls and women in a variety of forms.

Earlier this month the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) released a follow-up publication to its first statistical report on female genital mutilation/ cutting (FGM/C) in 2005. The report in its entirety can be found here: Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting: A statistical overview and exploration of the dynamics of change. While concentrated across a wide swath of African and (to a lesser extent) Middle Eastern countries, FGM/C takes place in a variety of forms for a variety of reasons around the world.  In some countries such as Guinea, Mali and Somalia, well over 90% of girls and women of reproductive age have undergone the practice, according to the report.

In many countries, especially in rural areas, FGM/C is performed by traditional practitioners (primarily older women), but in some countries like Egypt it is frequently performed by trained health professionals.  In nineteen out of twenty-nine countries where FGM/C is concentrated, the majority of girls and women think it should end. While often viewed as a manifestation of patriarchal oppression, rates of support for the practice among boys and men in many countries are roughly equal to that of girls and women according to the report. FGM/C is linked to variety of both short and long-term medical complications such as severe pain, prolonged bleeding, infection, infertility and even death.

Ethnic grouping greatly determines why girls and women undergo FGM/C, with some reasons including social acceptance, beauty, preservation of virginity and a perceived association with religious beliefs (although no religious Scripture requires it). While prevalence of FGM/C amongst younger generations of girls and women is decreasing and many countries have outlawed the practice, faith communities have a major role to play in combating this form of violence against girls and women, especially in areas where it is a deeply entrenched social norm. For instance, some faith communities have removed the cutting aspect from associated rites of passage for young women while retaining the positive aspects of the ceremony overall.

To learn more about female genital mutilation/ cutting and what UNICEF is doing to end the harmful practice, you visit UNICEF's page on the subject here.

God's peace,
Dustin

Dustin currently serves as Vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

Lent 5C Sermon: Stories of Liberation, Stories of Freedom

What follows is the first draft of a sermon I'll be preaching this 
Sunday on the appointed lectionary gospel reading, Saint John 12: 1- 8.  Would love to hear some feedback.  Thanks friends!

A young man who has recently come out to his faith community stands up to an intolerant, bigoted pastor by boldly proclaiming that he is a child of God reconciled through Christ and that he is no less a Christian because of who he loves. After suffering for decades under the weight of drug addiction, a middle-aged women enters a twelve-step program at a church in the Bronx, cleans up, and only two years later is elected president of the parish council. Young Coptic Christians encircle their Muslim sisters and brothers peacefully protesting in Tahrir Square in order to protect them from harassment during evening prayer. These are stories of liberation. These are stories of freedom.

Wrapped in the loving support of his local congregation, a father navigates an inefficient, under-resourced and unjust immigration system in order to remain with his two young, American- born children. After worship on a Sunday morning, a group of elderly African-American women venture out together to cast their ballot at local polling station, only to be kept waiting hours by a system that still wants to deprive them of their right to vote nearly fifty years after the passage of the Voting Rights Act. A Presbyterian woman marches through a blizzard outside the United Nations with thousands of others two Fridays ago on International Women’s Day. Struggling against heavy winds, she holds up a sign that boldly states, “Jesus is feminist”. She holds up that sign despite knowing that other Christians, Christians weighed down by centuries of patriarchy and privilege, are at that very moment actively working within the UN system to curb the rights of girls and women. These are stories of liberation. These are stories of freedom.

A family, two sisters and a brother to be precise, gather together a group of close friends for a banquet in the village of Bethany, just a couple miles outside of Jerusalem. There is much to celebrate… the brother, Lazarus, was raised from the dead only a few days earlier, yet there’s also tension in the air. The Passover is coming, and everyone’s wondering whether the guest of honor will attend the corresponding city festival despite the possibility of his arrest. One sister hosts the meal; joyfully presiding over its many courses while the other seems noticeably tense. Near the end of the evening, the second sister, Mary, bursts up from her seat and reaches under the table, pulling out a large package of costly, fragrant ointment. Then, making one hell of a scene, she scandously stoops down at the feet of Jesus, and the feet of her Saviour, and carefully anoints him with long flowing hair. Mary doesn’t stop until the ointment is all used up, despite the protest of other folks in the room who have no idea what’s going on.

You see Mary is in fact what the Bible typically terms a prophet, as she’s the only one besides Jesus who knows what’s really going on. She realizes that in one sense, her Saviour is already buried, that his fate is already sealed, and thus that he must be properly anointed. One particularly ornery guest named Judas, thinking that Mary’s actions are some sort of expensive thank you note for raising Lazarus, calls Mary wasteful… instead of spending all that money on nard he argues it should have been given to the poor. Jesus strongly rebukes this accusation, cries out “leave her alone,” and affirms Mary’s prophetic action, thereby saying that its not about what Judas, Mary, or what anyone else for that matter is doing at all… its instead about what the Son of God will soon do for all humankind. This too, my sisters and brothers, is a story of liberation. This too, is a story of freedom.

Throughout much of my internship this year, I’ve often found myself thinking a lot about what the whole point of what this Gospel thing is anyway. In a world that seems to be turning away as fast as possible… what does the Church, what does Jesus in fact, have left to offer? We often hear that God in Christ forgives us of our sins. This is certainly true, we are forgiven, but I have come to believe that what God truly does in Christ is something even deeper. Because when we are forgiven, when God reconciles us to Herself in Christ, an even more amazing work happens: we are liberated, we are freed from all that ails us, and that is truly Good News. And this world needs that Good News as much as ever, because without it, none of the stories I’ve told this day would be possible. Because you see, when you got the Good News of Jesus the Christ on your side, the powers of patriarchy and intolerance, the powers of hate and violence and the powers of sin and death don’t have a shot.

Not too long ago, sometime around Christmas I believe, you heard it aptly asked from this pulpit, “Where is God for you today?” After a long, cold winter, after blizzards and superstorms, after mass shootings and the massive stress of a presidential election, as we enter a new season of rebirth and light and as we prepare to celebrate the Good News of Christ’s resurrection and our resurrection in Christ, I’d like to leave you all with a new question. What is Christ liberating you from? What is Christ freeing you from? What is Christ liberating you from? What is Christ freeing you from? Because you see my sisters and brothers, the stories I shared today aren’t just the stories of Copts in Tahrir Square, or of a recovering drug addict parish council president, or of a young woman making a scene, anointing the feet of her Saviour… these stories of liberation, these stories of freedom in Christ, are our stories, all of our stories, as well. So I ask one more time, what is Christ liberating you from? What is Christ freeing you from? To put it another way, what is the new thing Christ is doing in you?
Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

A "Man Prayer" to Eliminate Violence Against Women

While looking around online today for content to post on the www.ecumenicalwomen.org blog, I came upon the following short film by Tony Stroebel, with words by Eve Ensler entitled "Man Prayer."  The film is a powerful message supporting the development of a more positive masculinity that takes up the cause of eliminating all forms of violence against girls and women.

 

Especially on a day when the Violence Against Women Act was finally renewed in full by Congress despite the strong opposition of many conservatives, and only four days before the beginning of the 57th Commission on the Status of Women at the United Nations, I thought its message was particularly fitting.

God's peace,
Dustin

Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

God as a Protective Mother

What follows is a cross-post I wrote for Ecumenical Women, an organization of faith-based advocacy groups working to forward gender-equality through the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).  The 57th CSW will be opening on March 4th and lasting for two weeks.

Hi everyone, with only 8 days remaining before the 57th Commission on the Status of Women begins on 4 March at United Nations Headquarters in New York, we at Ecumenical Women will be providing you with daily thoughts, video, quotes and prayers that inspire our work.  Those of you attending churches that use the Revised Common Lectionary this Sunday may have noticed that today’s appointed gospel message, Luke 13: 31 – 35, put forward an immensely powerful feminine image of God:

³¹At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, ‘Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.’ ³²He said to them, ‘Go and tell that fox for me, “Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. ³³Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed away from Jerusalem.” ³⁴Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! ³⁵See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” ’ (NRSV)

In this passage Jesus uses two metaphors, the first of which describes Herod as a fox, as someone cunning and destructive.  The second metaphor helps to clarify the first, as Jesus describes himself as a hen protecting her chicks.  Those sisters and brothers living in more agrarian communities will recognize the dichotomy that Jesus is setting up here:  God is a compassionate, strong mother protecting her children, an image contrasted with Herod who as a fox has set out to kill the young chicks.

While Herod himself is long gone, who do you think are the Herod’s of our own time?  As we prepare to work toward the elimination of all forms of violence against girls and women at CSW, we pray that God works through our advocacy to protect all Her children.
 
Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

Retelling of the Daughter of Jepthah @ the UN Church Center (video)

As part of my internship at the Lutheran Office for World Community at the United Nations, I'm priveleged to work in a diverse ecumenical environment on variety of important issues.  One of the issues I spend the most time on is gender equality, predominately through supporting the communications work of an organization called Ecumenical Women (EW).  As stated on their website, the work of EW is to:

As a coalition, we seek to give those traditionally excluded from political decision making bodies, opportunities to speak truth to power through partnerships with our communities and through bringing women from around the world to the United Nations. Our Ecumenical Women coalition advocates for gender justice at the United Nations, incorporating annual advocacy trainings for our constituencies and delegations, network building and policy recommendations which challenge structures of inequality. Members of Ecumenical Women advocate not only for a few improvements but for a fundamental system change in church and state to invest in and empower women worldwide.

EW primarily does this work through bringing delegates to the United Nations for formation and advocacy efforts during the annual Commision on the Status of Women (CSW).

During an expert consultation to prepare for this year's CSW, a member of the EW team, Rev. Kathleen Stone, wrote and directed a retelling of the Daughter of Jepthah story from Judges 10 - 11 that was performed in the Chapel of the Church Center for the United Nations on October 25th, 2012.  As a judge of Israel, Jepthah vows to make a sacrifice to God if he is victorious in battle against the Ammonites.  While the Ammonites are indeed defeated, Jepthah ends up sacrificing his daughter.  As the priority theme of this year's CSW57 is "elimination and prevention of all forms of violence against women and girls," this retelling of the Daughter of Jepthah story is meant to both give voice to those women and girls who have been victims of violence across the globe and to explore how the Scriptures and traditional definitions of faithfulness can be properly questioned.

You can check out a taping of the performance below:



Be sure to learn about Ecumenical Women and the Commision on the Status of Women more thoroughly, and I'd love to hear what you think about the performance.

God's peace,
Dustin

Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin really likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.