Dove's Eye View

Canning in Kabul

The Dove's mother and grandmother used to can fruits and pickles back in the Nixon era. Now the SF Chronicle reports that a Bay Area food science teacher has gone to Afghanistan to teach the mysteries of canning: South Bay official creates program in war-torn Kabul.

(Mountain View Councilwoman Rosemary) "Stasek, a longtime canning instructor, started a program in June to train Afghan women to teach safe preservation techniques to other Afghan women so they can start their own small businesses. The training is one of a number of programs in Afghanistan organized by A Little Help, a nonprofit founded by Stasek that helps women and girls in various parts of the world.

... "Fruit produced in people's yards is the primary preservation source because large commercial fields were destroyed during the conflicts the country has endured, and drought wiped out many crops.

"Once famed for its production of agricultural commodities such as pistachios, walnuts, almonds, grapes, dried fruits and vegetables, Afghanistan could potentially produce for the international market while addressing its own food and nutritional needs.
...
"A Little Help offers women a chance to establish home-based businesses with small-volume production within their villages."

View Ms. Stasek's scrapbook here.

Read about "A Little Help".

Read about the Santa Clara County program that collected more than 80,000 pounds of fruit in 2004: Village Harvest. Their mission is "to provide food for the hungry, preserve our heritage and skills, and promote sustainable use of urban resources. We organize and coordinate backyard fruit harvesting, and provide education on fruit tree care, harvesting, and food preservation."

If you want to make your own preserves, visit Rosey's page.

The Dove and her mother-in-law made plum jam in 2000, the first year in the Dove's fruit-tree laden Oakland home, but new babies and their challenges have gotten in the way every year since. Maybe 2005?

Most homeowners in cities could grow food for themselves, saving energy costs and improving the quality of the food supply. The Dove believes this sort of effort is good for the environment, public health, and the community.

Small Farms: Peace and the Environment

A couple of links to sustainable agriculture signs of hope, leading to a Martin Luther King Day connection.

(Update: MLK links fixed, thanks to Alison for noticing)

First link from Alison: California Coast & Ocean magazine, published by the California Coastal Conservancy. Alison recommends the Summer 2004 issue for its many articles on small sustainable farms and the role of consumers in protecting the environment.

Next, the SF Chronicle features the EcoVillage Farm Learning Center, a five acre sustainable farm along two creeks in the middle of urban Richmond. The center's director, a former public health official in Berkeley who grew up picking cotton in the South, was inspired by words of Martin Luther King to begin farming in the inner city.

"(Dr. King's speech) was a challenge to war protesters to see themselves as part of the broader struggle for a universal ethics.

"In his prescription for spiritual well-being, King spoke of poison and of health in terms of a person's and a nation's soul and in view of the environment. To protest war, according to King, is to stand against the poisoning of the American soul and stand up for healing the land.

"I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values," King said. "We must rapidly begin the shift from a 'thing-oriented' society to a 'person-oriented' society."

The EcoVillage has a produce garden, a barnyard with three sheep and a small orchard that grows heirloom apples. Children and teenagers from surrounding schools visit to learn to work the soil and care for domestic animals, in hopes of teaching them to feel connected to the earth.

On Monday, January 17, the Farm will open its gates for a "Day of Service" honoring Dr. Martin Luther King. Visit the link for a photo tour of the farm.

Regarding the King speech: Shyaam Shabaka, the director of the EcoVillage, was inspired by the speech to begin farming in the inner city. He wants to heal the soul of his community by healing the land. The speech, however, is not really a manifesto for urban agriculture - it's a famous analysis of America's role in Vietnam, and the future of our nation's soul. Go read it and shiver. Unfortunately, the parallels to our current adventure in Iraq are marked.

Pollyanna

Jonathan said in comments: "Sometimes I think that the Middle East has seen so many dashed hopes that nobody is willing to see hopeful signs even where they do occur."

The Dove is determined to keep on listing signs of hope no matter how dark it gets out there. Call me whatever you like*. Our mission here at Dove's Eye View is to bring back olive branches.

For bitter analyses of how everybody is getting screwed, go elsewhere.

*Names called: "naive, gullible, brainwashed by the Zionist/corporatist/imperialist/Islamist/terrorist media, an Arab-lover, a Jew-lover, a Christian infidel apologist, too trusting of Palestinians, Muslims, Jews or Americans, a new-age flake, a syncretist Godless pagan," etc. etc. Whatever you might say, I've probably heard it before, and maybe even thought it myself in a moment of fear. It's all just fear, as are all the arguments, accusations, resentments and polemics. Fear of each other, fear of the past, fear of the future. None of this fear thinking is real.

Peace and Religion in the Mid-East

Jonathan Edelstein looks at religious peace-making in the Middle East, discussing Zionist/Jewish and Muslim trends. It's a follow up to Issandr's article about those imams and rabbis meeting in Morocco.

Jonathan's article is full of new information and clear-eyed analysis - go read it.

Palestinian election a triumph for human dignity

Rami Khouri writes in the Beirut Daily Star: The The Palestinian election was a triumph for human dignity.

"(The Palestinian election) is, above all, a testament to the extraordinary human resilience, political determination and moral clarity and depth of the Palestinian people. It is about Palestinian perseverance to confront the pain and suffering of modern history with a show of human dignity, a determination to affirm life's bountiful promise of the ordinary pleasures of living a normal life. The Palestinian people have just done something very striking that needs to be acknowledged and applauded. Despite years and decades of being occupied, exiled, ostracized, subjugated, disenfranchized, curfewed, penned in and surrounded by a wall...; after all this and more the Palestinian people have just held what is universally acknowledged to be the most free and fair - and genuine - democratic election in the modern Arab world."

Not too many other Arab commentators have had such good things to say about the election, which is why the Dove was unsure of herself. A popular vote is always a good thing, to the Dove's idealistic heart, but she was uncertain. What if it's all a hoax?

In the Middle East there will always be people muttering darkly about tricks, hoaxes, frauds and traps. The Dove absolutely believes that while such things do exist, it's better to focus like a laser on the best of all possible intentions. Protect yourself from tricks, of course, but sail along assuming that the olive branch or the new plan is extended in good faith. Humans tend to live up to your expectations of them.

Thanks to Mr. Khouri for sharing his hopeful view of the recent poll.

Update: See Jonathan's comment here.

Election Fever

The Arabist Network reports that the Palestinian elections are causing one definite sign of hope: activists in Egypt are urging free elec tions with multiple candidates for President.

The Dove would like to believe that the Palestinian elections are a sign of hope, but the chorus of naysaying voices has dismayed her. It does seem, however, that the nascent democracy movement in Egypt is finding its voice. Read the Arabist Net for more.

Kerry in Syria

After visiting the troops in Iraq last week, Senator John Kerry went to Damascus to meet Bashar Al-Assad.

Why didn't America choose this man over George Bush? He's clearly an actual statesman and leader, instead of a bumbling reader of pre-printed speeches. With this trip to the Middle East he shows what we're missing.

And I was not happy with Kerry's stated positions on Israel/Palestine, either. I almost didn't vote for him over it. But at least the man has the guts to fly into Baghdad (twice last week) and then go to Syria to talk to Bashar. This is what real presidents do. And you can bet that if he needed to speak with Syrian or any other diplomats in French, he completely held his own. In the world of the reasonable, this is a credit to him (and the state which he represents).

I don't understand those 59 million who voted Bush. I really don't.

The sign of hope is - George Bush created the mess we're in, G. Bush will have to preside over the next four years of dealing with it.

Kerry 2008?

Inter-religious Diplomacy

The Arabist Network tips us to a new institute in Fes, Morocco, devoted to developing "inter-religious diplomacy through reflection and interpretation of sacred texts to contribute to find a way out to political conflicts." The original article doesn't tell us, but the Arabist Network does, that rabbis and imams joined together to make this happen.

When Muslims and Jews get together to find common ground, it's always a sign of hope, even if you believe in separation of religion and state.

Issandr Al-Amrani comments:

"as far as I know there aren’t many initiatives by religious leaders to resolve regional conflicts. Perhaps the most prominent is a program by the Church of England (it was started by the former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, but I don’t know if the current one has given it the same attention) to get Palestinian imams and Israeli rabbis to meet and discuss. I remember attending one such meeting in Cairo last year, meeting some interesting rabbis involved in politics such as Michael Melchior. The various religious leaders’ argument was that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was essentially a religious one and that therefore the solution should be religious. I can’t say I agree with that, but no wrong can come from better inter-religious relations."

More Peace Camps

Len Traubman sends us a link to a Midwestern summer peace camp for Semitic children of all three faiths: Jewish, Muslim and Christian. It's called Hands of Peace, and it's one of more than a dozen such camps all over the country.

The camp's goal is to "bring together youth from both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to build connections and foster peace."

The Dove's mother attended civil rights summer camps in the late 1950s sponsored by the Methodist Church which brought black and white college students together for the first time. Out of those connections rose the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC, an early and vigorous peace and justice movement.

My mother's connections from summer peace camp led directly to the 1960 Lynchburg, Va., drugstore sit-in which she was arrested, convicted of felony trespass, and sentenced to jail. She served 20 days (was given time off for good behavior) during her senior year at a very exclusive women's college in Virginia. Her fellow demonstrators, 2 black students and three other white students, also did jail time. The trial was front page news all over Virginia for a month. This was the first integrated sit-in in the South, at a time when black students were sitting in at lunch counters all over the region, protesting segregation.

My point is that these peace camps do foster peace movements. They nurture future leaders for change, and they make it possible for people who might never have known each other to become friends. Through such connections, change happens.

Film: The Syrian Bride

The Beirut Daily Star reports on The Syrian Bride, a film made in Israel by an Israeli and a Palestinian. It's about a young Druze woman in the Golan Heights who is trying to cross into Syria to marry a man she's never met.

The review says it's an example of Arab-Israeli cooperation, and that the filmmaker used the "soft occupation" of the Golan Heights to explore all manner of Middle Eastern situations: bureaucracy, clan, religion, sexual mores, as well as Israel's relationships with its Arab neighbors.

Here's hoping this film gets to the Bay Area soon....