Make a Pledge Against Hate

Nazis have directly impacted my life. Maybe some of you reading this have a similar story.

I come from a family of refugees. At every family gathering that I can remember, my grandfather talks about being in the Dachau concentration camp. Liberated when he was 19, he's never been back to Germany.

When I was 16, I was the first in my family to make the trip. My grandfather's dream was that I would be able to find any living family members, but there was no one left. I walked through the Dachau concentration camp, the same road that he walked, the railroad tracks that stopped just inside the gate with the horrible lie written over the arch "Arbeit Macht Frei". I went through the bunks they lived in, where the Nazis forced absolute order and cleanliness, hunger and despair. I looked for my grandfather's face in the photos there--of starved and torture people. And I saw the photos of their liberation when those who had not been killed became refugees.

I come from a family of refugees. When I was four, my parents took in 4 Vietnamese refugees. This was how I first learned about war, through the experiences of my new siblings, ages 5 to 9. My little four year old mind knew something was different about them, and it wasn't that they hadn't seen a doorknob before or a flushing toilet; it wasn't that they hadn't slept with a pillow before and didn't speak my language. All of those things I noticed but there was something deeper about them that was different. I had no language as a child to describe it. As an adult, I realize now that it was that up to that point, they had lived their entire lives in the horror of the Vietnam war. They had been robbed of innocence, had seen things grown men killed themselves over from guilt.

I read that Refugee Services in Lansing was in need of funds and volunteers, and had only about 3 months of funding left. When I think of the journey that refugees make to finally reach Lansing--the terror, the suffering, the exhaustion--leaving behind everything, hoping to be chosen to be the one to leave the refugee camps, the strangeness of life in the United States, the longing for a home that is not safe to return to, I want to support agencies like Refugee Services.

If you want to do something about the neo-Nazis coming to Lansing on April 22, please consider taking action that will have long lasting results to better our community. We're suggesting that you make a pledge to Refugee Services so that all people who have fled violence, hunger, and poverty can start a new life here with us.

Sayrah Namaste

Refugee Services Mission Statement

Refugee Services has given second chances to over 12,000 people fleeing war and persecutionfor more than 20 years. For each conflict worldwide, RefugeeServices helps Lansing play a global humanitarian role with apartments, food, doctors, jobs and caring hands. From Vietnam to Somalia, the Persian Gulf to Kosovo, Refugee Services works with the community to make Lansing a safe haven for the world's distressed.

Refugee Services is the receiving agency for mid-Michigan, through which refugees are placed in new homes in cooperation with the community. Refugee Services assists in arranging needed health care, family reunification, permanent resident alien status, and citizenship. Services also include assessment of employment skills, job training, and placement.

Toledo, Ohio - October 2005

The experts we talked to also advised us that neo-Nazis and other hate groups return to communities where they get a desired response, such as large protests, extensive media coverage, and violence or rioting resulting in the arrests of the protestors.

One recent example is Toledo, Ohio. The National Socialist Movement, the same neo-Nazi group organizing the upcoming rally in Lansing, went to Toledo in October 2005. Although there was less than twenty of them, they marched through a predominately African American neighborhood with their hate speech. Violence broke out and the city declared the situation a riot, arrested protestors, and put the city under curfew. 419 media outlets covered the story. The curfew was an injustice to all Toledo residents, but affected the low income residents the most. Police presence was heaviest in the African American neighborhoods so that movement was restricted and people intimidated.

The neo-Nazis, boasting of their success on their websites and to other pro-white groups, organized a second rally in Toledo for a couple of months later, in December 2005. This time, Toledo organizations encouraged people to stay away from the rally. The city of Toledo, fearing another riot, clamped down on the city that day with huge police forces costing tens of thousands of dollars to the city's already limping budget. Civil liberties were suspended that day and no protest zones created. The police brutalized nonviolent protestors, causing legal observers and peace team members to make public statements against the police and to file lawsuits against them for their egregious behavior.