Amnesty International Group 22 Pasadena/Caltech News
Volume XIX Number 11, November-December 2011
UPCOMING EVENTS
Thursday, December 1, 7:30 PM. Monthly
Meeting. (Normally the 4th Thursday of every
month, but moved up for Thanksgiving.) We
meet at the Caltech Y (505 South Wilson Ave),
in the Living Room. (This is just south of the
corner with San Pasqual. Signs will be posted.)
We will be planning our activities for the
coming months. Please join us! Refreshments
provided.
Saturday, December 10, 9 AM - 4 PM.
Global Human Rights Write-a-Thon, at
Zephyr Cafe, 2419 E. Colorado Blvd,
Pasadena. (Tel. 626-793-7330) This is part of
a global effort by Amnesty International to
commemorate Human Rights Day (10 Dec).
Please join us to write cards to victims of
human-rights abuses all over the world, but
also to engage in friendly conversation and
enjoy the delicious food at Zephyr Cafˇ. (This
replaces our normal December letter-writing
session on the 2nd Tuesday of the month.)
Saturday, December 17, 6:30 PM. Rights
Readers Human Rights Book Discussion Group.
(Normally the 3rd Sunday of every month, but
changed to suit members' holiday schedules.)
This month we discuss "After the Quake:
Stories" by Haruki Murakami. Vroman's
Bookstore, our usual meeting place, is not
available for us in December, so we will meet
at a private residence: 187 South Catalina
Ave., Unit 2, Pasadena. Call 626-795-1785 or
email aigp22@caltech.edu for more
information..
COORDINATOR'S CORNER
Hi all --
Kathy's schedule prevented her from writing the
column this time, so I'm doing it instead.
This past month has been a busy one for Group
22. During the first weekend of November we
had the Western Regional Conference at the
Sheraton Hotel near LAX. About 8 members of
our group attended part or all of it. It was very
successful, with over 500 attendees. Some of
the highlights for me were a very enlightening
panel on migrant rights, a fascinating workshop
on "AI around the world", led by the Chair of
AIUSA's board of directors, Carole Nagengast,
and some outstanding speakers at several
plenaries. Notable among the latter were Palden
Gyatso, a Tibetan monk who was imprisoned
for 33 years by the Chinese and whose
autobiography our book group read back in
2001; Melissa Roxas, active in health care for
the poor, who was detained and tortured by the
Philippine army; and the three hikers who were
imprisoned by Iran for up to 2 years, the last
having been released just last September: Sarah
Shourd, Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal. All gave
very moving accounts of their experiences, which
were not only very informative, but also very
inspiring in their messages about the need to
avoid becoming embittered by their experiences
and to forgive those who had inflicted suffering
upon them.
During the following week, we had a very well
attended letter-writing meeting in the
Athenaeum and a table at Caltech's Community
Service and Advocacy Fair. The week after that
was our book group, where we discussed The
Honor Code by Kwame Appiah. Again, the
attendance was way higher than usual, and the
discussion was very interesting, as the book was
liked by all and contained much new material to
digest.
This coming month will be a bit less energetic,
but there will be our Human Rights Day Write-a-
thon at the Zephyr Cafe on Dec. 10. I hope
many of you will attend!
Cheers,
Lucas
RIGHTS READERS
Human Rights Book Discussion Group
Keep up with Rights Readers at
http://rightsreaders.blogspot.com
Next Rights Readers meeting:
Saturday, Dec. 17, 6:30 PM Pasadena
(Location details are in Upcoming Events)
BOOK REVIEW
(from The New York Times)
By Jeff Giles
Published: August 18, 2002
After the Quake: Stories
By Haruki Murakami
Translated by Jay Rubin.
181 pp. New York:
Alfred A. Knopf. $21.
Haruki Murakami's surreal, metaphysical
detective novel, ''The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle''
(1997), was a sort of test of his readers'
allegiance: when a character spends 50 pages
just sitting at the bottom of a well and trying to
clear his head, you're either in or you're out. The
novel turned out to be the author's most
transfixing work, its prose as plain-spoken as
ever but its appetites surprisingly epic and dark,
particularly for a book about a guy trying to find
his cat. Murakami has released three slim novels
here in the last few years, if you count the long-
delayed American publication of 1987's
''Norwegian Wood.'' All of them were moving in
their way. None were entirely nourishing. Given
the scope of ''The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle,'' the
minor-key love stories felt like subplots that had
sneaked out of town under cover of darkness
and were trying to make a go of it alone.
Murakami's new book, ''After the Quake,'' is
unexpectedly powerful, a collection of stories,
slender and small as a hand, about the
emotional aftershocks of the 1995 earthquake in
Kobe. Murakami has said that he considers
himself a novelist above and beyond all else,
telling his translator and biographer, Jay Rubin,
''I think it's important to write short stories, and
I enjoy doing so, but I believe strongly that if you
take away my novels, there is no me.'' Pay no
attention to that man behind the curtain. Even if
''After the Quake'' had nothing to say about
Murakami, which it certainly does, I'd gladly
settle for what it says about us.
Kobe lies in western Japan, a considerable
distance from the country's twitchiest fault lines,
and was always thought to be fairly safe as far
as earthquakes were concerned. But at 5:46 on a
Tuesday morning in January, a quake struck
nonetheless, causing tens of thousands of old
blue and brown tile roofs to fall in, killing more
than 4,000 people and leaving nearly 300,000
homeless, including Murakami's parents. It took
20 seconds. I'm laying all this out, like a sixth
grader's oral report, because it will be hard for
Americans to read ''After the Quake'' without
taking the earthquake as a metaphor for the
attack on the World Trade Center. It's worth
remembering that Murakami wrote these stories
before Sept. 11, and that he wrote them not
because he'd gotten his hands on a nifty literary
device but because his homeland had taken a
traumatizing shock to the system.
The six stories in ''After the Quake'' are all set in
February 1995, a month after the earthquake
and a month before cult members carried out a
sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subway. Which is
to say that Murakami has chosen to freeze in
time the moment when Japan was staggering
away from the scene of one tragedy and,
unknowingly, toward another. (The twin
disasters moved the author himself to return to
Japan after years of self-imposed exile in the
United States and write the nonfiction book
''Underground.'' Rubin investigates the
intersection of the author's life and art in a lively
and eccentric new critical study called ''Haruki
Murakami and the Music of Words.'') The
characters in ''After the Quake'' all live at a safe
remove from Kobe, but the shock waves reach
them daily via the newspaper and television.
The opening story, ''U.F.O. in Kushiro,'' concerns
Komura, a stereo salesman and a familiar
Murakami hero in the sense that he's so
straightforward, so decent -- ultimately so plain
-- that weirdness seems drawn to him like a
storm looking for a low-pressure area. For five
days, Komura's wife watches earthquake
reports around the clock, barely eating, never
speaking. On the sixth day, she walks out on
him, leaving a note that reads: ''The problem is
that you never give me anything. Or, to put it
more precisely, you have nothing inside that you
can give me. You are good and kind and
handsome, but living with you is like living with
a chunk of air.'' What happens next is a classic
bit of deadpan Murakami strangeness: Komura
agrees to deliver a box for a friend and only
after he's passed it along does he think to
wonder what was inside. In the end, the mystery
drives him close to violence. The box,
presumably, is a symbol for Komura himself.
Either it contains his soul, and he's just handed
it to a stranger -- or it's been empty all along.
Murakami has always been drawn to characters
who feel empty inside -- if you take away my
novels, there is no me -- and the earthquake has
only heightened their sense of dislocation.
''Landscape With Flatiron'' is a melancholy story
about a young woman and a middle-aged
painter who apparently abandoned his wife and
children in Kobe. The pair make hypnotic
bonfires on a beach, form a bond and trade
fears until, one night, the artist says: ''I don't
know. We could die together. What do you
say?'' ''Super-Frog Saves Tokyo'' is a wild story
about a six-foot-tall frog who appears in the
home of an ordinary bank officer named Mr.
Katagiri. The frog tells Katagiri that he needs his
aid in the battle against an enormous worm that
lives beneath Tokyo and is planning to unleash a
crippling earthquake. ''Super-Frog'' is such an
engaging mix of realism and fantasy (''I am a
genuine frog. Shall I croak for you?'') that it
takes a while for you to realize what a sad
undertow the story has and how much it says
about Katagiri's solitary life, his feelings of
powerlessness and his dread of another quake. I
mean, unless there really was a six-foot frog.
With Murakami, you never know.
The final story in ''After the Quake,'' ''Honey
Pie,'' comes closest to spelling out Murakami's
message, which, with apologies to Rilke, is
something along the lines of: you must change
your life, if you can even call it a life. An
agonizingly passive writer named Junpei gets a
second chance to marry a woman he's never
once stopped thinking about. Astonishingly, he
equivocates. Then the earthquake hits: ''He
hadn't set foot on those streets since his
graduation, but still, the sight of the destruction
laid bare raw wounds hidden somewhere deep
inside him. . . . Junpei felt an entirely new sense
of isolation. I have no roots, he thought. I'm not
connected to anything.'' Junpei's attempt to seize
the day -- and the woman -- is fraught and
painful and enormously affecting.
Yes, Murakami wrote these stories before Sept.
11. Still, he must know how ''After the Quake''
will resonate in the United States. The collection
was published in Japan as ''All God's Children
Can Dance,'' but he changed the title for the
English translation. One sliver of what makes
the book so moving is the sense that on some
level it is Murakami's deeply felt get-well card.
About the Author
(source: http://contemporarylit.about.com)
Haruki Murakami was born January 12, 1949 in
Kyoto, Japan. The son of two teachers of
Japanese literature, Murakami grew up in Kobe,
Japan, reading Western authors and listening to
Western music. He attended Waseda University
in Tokyo, where he studied theater and worked
at a record shop. Before he graduated, he had
opened a coffeehouse/jazz bar in Tokyo with
his wife, Yoko, which they ran for seven years,
from 1974 to 1981.
In What I Talk About When I Talk About Running,
Murakami recalls the exact moment in the Spring
of 1978 when, lying on the grass at a Yakult
Swallows baseball game in Jingu Stadium, it
occurred to him for the first time to write a
novel.
By Autumn, Murakami had written a 200-page
novel entitled Hear the Wind Sing, which he
entered into a new writers contest at a literary
magazine. He won the contest, and his novel
was published. He followed in 1980 with a
second novel, entitled Pinball, 1973. Both novels
were nominated for the Akutagawa Prize, and
with this initial writing success, Murakami sold
his club and devoted himself full-time to writing
novels. In 1982, he published A Wild Sheep
Chase, the third novel in his "Trilogy of the Rat."
In 1987 Murakami published Norwegian Wood,
a bestseller in Japan. In 1995 he wrote the
Yomiuri Prize-winning novel, The Wind-Up Bird
Chronicle. Kafka on the Shore (2006) won
Murakami the Czech Republic's Franz Kafka
Prize.
In 2011, Murakami released the English
translation of 1Q84 (One Q Eighty-Four or ichi-
kew-hachi-yon), a 1,000 page epic work of
magical realism that was originally published in
three separate volumes to accolades in Japan.
Murakami is known for his blending of the
fantastic realism in his novels, and it's this
magical realism, in combination with his flowing
use of language, that gives his novels an ethereal,
dreamlike quality.
Murakami is also a devoted marathon runner,
and he writes about both writing and running in
his 2008 work of nonfiction, What I Talk About
When I Talk About Running. Newcomers to his
Murakami's fiction may want to start with
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World,
Murakami's the most surreal of Murakami's
novels and widely regarded as his best.
DEATH PENALTY NEWS
by Stevi Carroll
This month blew by. My shyness makes me
about the worst signature gather for the SAFE
campaign. I'm hopeful we, as a group, will be
able to help out with this. The Amnesty
Western Regional Conference made me realize
how many of us there are who care about human
rights. The young people who attended made
my heart leap with joy because I know they will
carry on with the good fight as I wind down
over the years.
Rais Bhuiyan
Rais Bhuiyan, a Bangladeshi Muslim, was shot
and blinded by Mark Stroman shortly after the
September 11, 2001, when criminals crashed jets
in New York City, at the Pentagon, and in a
field in Pennsylvania. During his shooting spree,
Mr. Stroman killed two other men he thought
were Muslims. He was caught, tried, convicted
and sentenced to death.
Prior to Mr. Stroman's execution, Mr. Bhuiyan
completed the hajj to Mecca. As he prayed, he
decided he needed to do something to help
lessen the hatred in the world. When he
returned, he contacted Mr. Stroman and worked
to have Texas grant him clemency. His plea fell
on deaf ears, and on July 20, 2011, the state of
Texas carried out Mr. Stroman's execution.
Before he died, Mr. Stroman told Mr. Bhuiyan,
"Hate brings a lifetime of pain."
Mr. Bhuiyan now spends his life working for a
world without hate, including the death penalty.
A video is available at Rais Bhuiyan - World
Without Hate
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YivxImox3B8.
Execution in Idaho
Idaho hasn't executed anyone for 17 years until
the 18th of November with the execution of Paul
Rhoades. According to Idaho Governor C. L.
"Butch" Otter "(t)he State of Idaho has done its
best to fulfill this most solemn responsibility
with respect, professionalism and most of all
dignity for everyone involved."
The Amnesty International USA website states
that many other inmates wrote letters requesting
clemency because Mr. Rhoades helped them look
at their lives and 'turn away from violence.' Rob
Freer, Amnesty International's USA researcher
said, "The death penalty rejects any notion of
reconciliation or rehabilitation, labeling the
condemned prisoner as an object to be toyed
with and discarded. This is a punish-ment that
offers no constructive solutions to violent
crime."
Execution in Oregon
Just as Oregon was about to break its 14-year
hiatus of state-sponsored murder December 6
with the execution of Gary Haugen, Governor
John Kitzhaber announced he will allow no more
executions in the state as long as he is governor.
In the comment thread following one of the
articles I read about this announcement, some
people expressed caustic comments disparaging
the governor's change of thought.
When 26 states outlaw the death penalty, it will
then be considered 'unusual' and will be open
for national review.
SAFE California
As I said earlier, I am the wimpiest person in the
world to collect signatures on petitions. Now
with that said, if each of us have a petition in
hand, we can ask for people we know to
consider the issue and perhaps sign on the line.
Two women I've asked about it, both of whom
did sign the petition, said they'd heard nothing
about the initiative and were glad to know
something is being done. I have petitions to
share and more information is available at SAFE
California - Savings Accountability Full
Enforcement.
http://www.deathpenalty.org/article.php?id=637 .
Saudi Arabia
I have concentrated completely on the death
penalty in the USA, and of course, we know
that while 139 countries have abolished the
death penalty, others continue. Since Saudi
Arabia is the USA's ally, I thought I'd see
what's been up with that country's death
penalty.
As many of us know, the method of execution in
Saudi Arabia is public beheading. On October
6, 2011, eight Bangladeshi nationals were
beheaded for killing an Egyptian man in 2007.
The eight men executed were Ma'mun Abdul
Mannan, Faruq Jamal, Sumon Miah, Mohammed
Sumon, Shafiq al-Islam, Mas'ud Shamsul Haque,
Abu al-Hussain Ahmed, Mutir al-Rahman.
Apparently in Saudi Arabia, the condemned
person can pay blood money to the family of the
victim but many of the convicted prisoners do
not have the money to do this. They could also
secure a pardon by having connections which
they also lack.
By October, 58 people had been executed in
Saudi Arabia causing the UN to call for a
moratorium on executions in that country. So
far as of this writing, six more executions have
been carried out.
To read more on this, go to
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-
updates/saudi-arabia-executes-eight-
bangladeshi-nationals-2011-10-07
and
http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/homepag
e/world-news/detail/articolo/saudi-arabia-
arabia-saudita-chiesa-church-iglesia-pena-di-
morte-capitol-punishment-pena-de-mu/.
Stays of Execution
November
9 John Lesko Pennsylvania
Hank Skinner Texas
10 Anthony Juniper Virginia
Executions 2011
October
27 Frank Garcia 39
Texas Lethal Injection
November
15 Reginald Brooks 66
Ohio Lethal Injection
15 Oba Chandler 65
Florida Lethal Injection
16 Guadalupe Esparza 46
Texas Lethal Injection
18 Paul Rhoades 54
Idaho Lethal Injection
PRISONER OF CONSCIENCE
Gao Zhisheng
by Joyce Wolf
Each month as I begin to write this column, I do
a Google search for news about Gao Zhisheng.
Nearly always there is something new, usually
an organization or an American or European
official issuing a public appeal to the Chinese
government to find and free human rights lawyer
Gao Zhisheng. It has been encouraging to learn of
these many efforts on behalf of our group's
adopted prisoner of conscience. Today,
however, my reaction to the search results was
"No! Please, no!"
The Epoch Times reported on November 24,
"Twitter Post Claims Gao Zhisheng Is Dead: An
unconfirmed report of human rights lawyer Gao
Zhisheng's death has been posted to China's
Internet. On Nov. 17 a netizen with the screen
name GuaDai posted a message on Twitter
saying 'It is believed that Gao Zhisheng passed
away on Nov. 15 in Inner Mongolia where he
was detained. Man will die eventually, and to
die for the sake of freedom, although dead, he is
still with us in spirit.' "
The twitter post has not been confirmed. Gao's
family has not received any official notice of his
death. On NDTV Beijing activist Hu Jia said he
believes that Gao is still alive and urged the
international community and human rights
organizations to "keep paying attention to Gao
Zhisheng's disappearance case and keep putting
pressure on Chinese authorities."
Please join us at our Dec. 10 Write-a-thon and
help us follow Hu Jia's suggestion. We'll hope
for better news next month about Gao Zhisheng.
GROUP 22 MONTHLY LETTER COUNT
UAs 28
POC 2
Total 30
To add your letters to the total contact
lwkamp@gmail.com.
Amnesty International Group 22
The Caltech Y
Mail Code C1-128
Pasadena, CA 91125
www.its.caltech.edu/~aigp22/
http://rightsreaders.blogspot.com
Amnesty International's mission is to undertake
research and action focused on preventing and
ending grave abuses of the rights to physical and
mental integrity, freedom of conscience and
expression, and freedom from discrimination,
within the context of its work to promote all
human rights.