Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, November 2007, pages 46-47

Northern California Chronicle

Indonesians Honor Independence Day With Festive San Francisco Celebration

By Elaine Pasquini

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA’S Indonesian-American community held its 13th annual Indonesian Day festival Aug. 11 in San Francisco’s Union Square. The world’s fourth most populous country with 234 million people—home to the world’s largest Muslim population—declared independence from the Netherlands on Aug. 17, 1945.

Indonesian Consul General Yudhistiranto Sungadi welcomed the audience and thanked San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom for his continued support and friendship.

Held in the heart of the city’s shopping and tourist area, the festival featured Indonesian arts, crafts, jewelry and food. Guests also enjoyed traditional music and dance performances.

Lieberman Urged To Change Stance On Iran

Leslie Angeline fell in love with the Iranian people in May, when she first visited Iran as part of a Global Exchange citizen diplomacy delegation. “The Iranians we met were warm, welcoming, generous—and mostly children,” the Sonoma County resident told the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

Upon her return, Angeline heard Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) state on the June 10 CBS program “Face the Nation”: “I think we’ve got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq.”

Lieberman’s comments compelled the Californian to travel to Washington, DC to confront the senator personally about his stance on Iran. A strong opponent of the U.S.-led war on Iraq, Angeline was determined to lobby against the same fate befalling the beautiful country she had just visited.

“When I heard Lieberman say he thought we should launch military action against Iran,” she explained, “I couldn’t help but think of the 70 percent of the Iranian population who are under the age of 30—the age of my son.”

Failing to obtain a personal meeting with Lieberman, nine days later Angeline began a hunger strike. The Code Pink activist then made daily visits to Lieberman’s Washington, DC office to ask for a meeting. Each request was denied. On July 10 Angeline was arrested after she refused to leave the senator’s office.

The next day, after a report of her hunger strike and arrest appeared in the Capitol Hill publication Roll Call, Angeline was notified that Lieberman would meet with her and Ali Nasri, a young Iranian cyclist with Miles for Peace (milesforpeace.org) for five minutes. At their July 24 meeting, Angeline broached two specific issues with the former Democratic vice presidential candidate. “I told him that every time an American politician threatens war or sanctions against Iran, this gives the Iranian government an opportunity to crack down on the country’s peace movement,” she related. Secondly, reminding the senator how outspoken he had been when he wrote about recognizing the humanity of African Americans during the civil rights movement, she asked him: “Don’t you see the humanity in the Iranian people?”

Ending the meeting, Lieberman told her: “I’ve heard you and I will think about what you’ve said today.” Angeline had brought a loaf of bread to the meeting in order to end her hunger strike following their talk. “Everyone in the room shared from the loaf as I ended my fast,” she recalled. “I think we may have made a difference that day—if nothing else, I know we touched his heart!”

Angeline’s meeting with Lieberman to promote diplomacy instead of military action inspired the creation of Code Pink’s new campaign, “Cities for Peace with Iran.” In August Angeline and activist Jes Richardson traveled around Lieberman’s home state of Connecticut to encourage city councils to pass resolutions opposing military strikes against Iran. For more information visit <www.codepink4peace.org>.

Egyptian National Day

“The Egyptian government’s taking over City Hall,” quipped San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom as he and Consul General Abderahman Salaheldin hoisted the Egyptian flag over the mayor’s City Hall balcony. Amid cheers from diplomats and members of the Bay Area’s Egyptian community, the red, white and black tricolor rustled in the breeze in commemoration of the 55th anniversary of the Egyptian revolution.

Presiding over the late afternoon ceremony along with the city’s venerable Chief of Protocol Charlotte Mailliard Shultz, Mayor Newsom proclaimed July 23 Egyptian Heritage Day and praised the close relationship between Egypt and California’s most popular city.

That evening some 400 guests enjoyed a banquet at the Palace of Fine Arts hosted by the consul general and his wife, Dr. Thoraya Elkhadrawy. Egyptian Assistant Foreign Minister for Financial and Administrative Affairs Dr. Khair El-Din Abdel Latif was one of several special guests attending the celebration.

Anti-Torture Rally at APA Convention

During the American Psychological Association (APA) annual convention held at San Francisco’s Moscone Center Aug. 17, members debated the issue of the participation of psychologists in military interrogations and torture. Across the street at Yerba Buena Gardens, Psychologists for an Ethical APA—a group of APA members vehemently opposed to the involvement of psychologists in military interrogations—rallied against torture, called the APA policy a violation of ethics, and demanded it be stopped. Members of The World Can’t Wait, co-sponsor of the rally, distributed orange ribbons to bring attention to the U.S. military’s practice of torture. For more information visit <www.ethicalapa.com/>.

Sharing Stories Theme of Arab Cultural Festival

“Hikayatna, Our Stories” was the theme of the Arab Cultural and Community Center’s 13th annual Arab Cultural Festival held in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park Aug. 26.

“Despite our diverse histories and backgrounds, there is a common experience that we all have—the sharing of cultural norms and history through the stories of our elders,” said ACCC President Jess Ghannam, explaining the choice of this year’s theme. “Every one of us has had the experience of sitting with our family over dinner or coffee and hearing stories of past generations. This is how our traditions have been maintained and nurtured.”

The daylong event featured jewelry, books, artworks, crafts and food for sale. Guests enjoyed entertainment by Al-Juthoor debke troupe, the Georges Lammam Ensemble, Moh Alileche and Ensemble, Palestinian-American hip-hopper Patriarch, poet Dina Omar, Politikal Heat and Shadia Mansour.

Elaine Pasquini is a free-lance journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area.