The Words of the Biggin Family
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The Words of the Biggin Family |
Bruce Biggin with Pastor Barbara Douglas
Ambassadors for Peace Pastor Barbara Douglas, Pastor of Sweet Home United Methodist Church, and Bruce Biggin, Director of the Ambassadors for Peace Association of Arkansas, organized an exciting “Peace and Justice” Panel Discussion held at Pastor Douglas’ church at the end of January 2009.
The program was advertised in Pastor Douglas’ church community and at Islamic Center for Human Excellence. Over 30 guests attended -- about half from the Sweet Home United Methodist Church and Sweet Home community and about half from the Islamic Center for Human Excellence -- a good mix. The speakers included two Ambassadors for Peace; Mrs. Jerelyn Duncan, Former Executive Director of the Arkansas Martin Luther King, Jr. Commission, and Mrs. Najiyyah Hamidullah, wife of Imam Aquil Hamidullah, Imam of the Islamic Center for Human Excellence. Mr. Biggin and a local judge, Judge Earnest Sanders, Jr. were also speakers on the panel.
Each speaker was given 15 minutes to make their presentation. The moderator was Pastor Douglas. Judge Sanders made the first presentation and focused in on the criminal justice system and in particular talked about the problems that prisoners have when they are released. The main emphasis was on how to create stronger community support systems for released prisoners in order to keep them from returning to criminal activities and prison. He also talked about the need for alternative sentencing for those whose crimes are less serious such as drug addiction. He finally spoke of the need for communities to work together to cut down the crime rate in their areas.
Mrs. Duncan and Mrs. Hamidullah had been given questions to guide their discussions. Some of the questions were:
What are the underlying principles and philosophy for achieving justice in our nation and for bringing about world peace?
What is the relationship between justice and peace?
Can we realize a world of peace without achieving justice?
How does religious freedom contribute to justice and world peace?
The second presenter was Mrs. Jerelyn Duncan. Jerelyn used a power point presentation and first of all gave definitions for the several terms such as freedom, what principles are and why they are important, what justice is, as well as the meaning of peace and religious freedom. After she defined the terms she then presented the aforementioned questions and proceeded to answer them and discuss their implications. She drew from Mahatma Ghandi and Dr. King to explain “justice, religious freedom, and world peace.” One quote from Dr. King was quite powerful, - “Unless we learn to live together as brothers we will perish as fools.” Through her presentation the audience had something concrete to take away with them and undoubtedly had a much better understanding of these important concepts. Mrs. Duncan said that for us to be able to bring about peace, whether internal or world, we must first learn to love and especially love our enemies as Jesus and Dr. King taught.
The third speaker was Mrs. Hamidullah. She spoke powerfully about our need to come together and find the common ground upon which we can unite, that these are the foundations for peace and justice. She said that we ALL need to stop acting out of selfishness and begin acting and living Unselfishly. She emphatically stated that without God we cannot achieve justice nor world peace and that we all need to turn to God, whatever our faith might be. She used the Koran to back up many of her statements. Mr. Biggin was the last speaker. He spoke about the need for returning to fundamental, self-evident truths, first principles such as are found in the Preamble of our Declaration of Independence -- “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights…” To achieve world peace and even justice, self-interest and religious and political exclusivism need to be overcome and that we need to find and embrace these common values.
Each participant brought to light a different aspect of the topics and helped people understand better why and how we can work for justice and peace. After the presentations we opened the floor was opened for comments and questions.
Judge Sanders challenged the audience to go back to their communities and do at least one thing /take one action for justice and/or peace.
One guest stated, “This (information/material) is something our elected officials ought to hear. They ought to be here to hear this!” Several people were interested in getting written drafts of the presentations, they thought them so valuable. Another person asked if we would hold similar meetings in other communities; that they thought it would be good if it could be presented to more people in other localities.
A follow up program is now being planned at Shorter College, a small A.M.E. College in North Little Rock, AR. Discussion is underway with the president of the College to possibly make the event in to a fundraiser for the school.
Based on the excitement that this panel discussion generated, many more such events are certain to follow.
Bruce Biggin is the Secretary General of Universal Peace Federation USA's 9th administrative district.