"Stand in the gap." Muslim youth in Paris have turned the catch-phrase into reality.
It's been a wild week of riots on the outskirts of Paris. Youth with pent up anger and frustration and with nothing to lose have taken their complaints to the streets after 2 teens were accidentally electrocuted while hiding from police. The violence has spread like a wildfire to neighborhoods beyond the area where the teens died.
In the midst of this, one group stands out. One group is standing in the gap.
Abderamane Bouhout, president of the cultural organization that manages Bilal mosque, mobilized small groups of young believers during recent rioting to go between the rioters and the police and urge the disaffected youths to express their anger in nonviolent ways.
Mr. Aouad, who witnessed one such intervention on Monday night not far from the mosque, said it was impressively effective.
"It worked," he said. "They went right between the two sides and a lot of the kids listened to them. The damage the next day was a lot less serious than the previous nights."
At the local city hall, Lamya Monkachi says the role of religious personalities along with that of young locals recruited from the suburbs to mediate for the city authorities has been key to reducing the violence in Clichy-sous-Bois in the past two days, even as it intensified in other suburbs.
(NY Times http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/03/international/europe/03cnd-france.html?hp)
God bless and strengthen the Muslim peacemakers, the youth with more courage than I've ever known. Pack light, but load up on courage, love and relevancy.
Today's Bonus: Courage Quotes
"Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen." -Winston Churchill
"Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others." -Winston Churchill
"Courage is the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means, at the point of highest reality." -C. S. Lewis
"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear." -Ambrose Redmoon
"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear. Except a creature be part coward, it is not a compliment to say it is brave." -Mark Twain
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