Author: W

Wissam, Wesley, or simply W, is an educator, writer, entrepreneur, engineer, activist, ex-Imam, humanist, liberal thinker with interest and mediocre attempt at many takes of life. A modern confused Renaissance man, who uses doubt as a path for emancipation and science as a road towards enlightenment.

Answers of Wissam Charafeddine, MI Delegate, Candidate to the Steering Committee of Green Party

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Answers of Wissam Charafeddine, MI Delegate, Candidate to the Steering Committee. (Thank you Shannel for putting the forum and questions together!)

1.      If elected, how do you intend for the Steering Committee to engage better with Caucuses and caucus members to ensure those who represent oppressed communities are recognized by the GPUS?

Since the bylaws give the Steering Committee the responsibility to coordinate with committees and caucuses (Article IV, Section 4-2.7f), then it is the duty of the Steering Committee to institutionalize periodic (perhaps monthly) caucus briefings—short, focused check-ins with at least one SC liaison per caucus to track needs, priorities, and collaboration opportunities. I also support creating a Caucus Relations Working Group to enhance collaboration among caucuses and streamline communication and ensure oppressed communities are not just recognized—but integrated into platform revision, candidate recruitment, and messaging.  

2.      If elected, what actions or policies would you implement to ensure all Greens, regardless of disability, work and family obligations, or economic circumstances, have equitable access to participate in Green Party activities and decision-making processes?

Accessibility is a core Green value, and the bylaws expect the SC to facilitate internal participation. I will propose three actions or the enhancement of them:

1. Implement  multilingual participation tools for proposals and debates  and emphasize the asynchronous tools that we have.
2. Offer automatic hardship-based fee waivers for national meetings and create a solidarity travel fund.
3. Push for a “Green Flex” policy within committees—rotating meeting times and offering recorded summaries to accommodate working-class, disabled, and caregiving Greens.

3.      What is your position on cross-ideological coalitions and partnerships? Are there any types of groups that the party should prioritize collaborating with? Are there any types of groups that the party should avoid working with?


I support principled coalitions rooted in shared actions, not diluted platforms. We should prioritize collaborating with:

Anti-imperialist and climate justice groups

Youth-led direct action networks

Global Greens and anti-austerity movements

We must avoid working with groups that promote genocide, racism, authoritarianism, or eco-fascism. Any coalition must be values-aligned and transparently debated by the NC.

4.       “The Green Congressional Campaign Committee (GCCC) engaged in fundraising behavior that resulted in violations of donors’ rights. GPUS Fiscal Policy requires that donors be notified and given the choice to have their contributions returned. The current SteeringCommittee has been asked to remediate impacted donors and has been provided with multiple ways to do so. At this time, they have chosen not to pursue any of these options, arguing that because the GCCC is a legally separate entity for FEC filing purposes, it is not subject to GPUS Fiscal Policy, including the Donors Bill of Rights.

This position directly contradicts the Fiscal Policy’s stated purview, which covers all GPUS committees, including those registered as independent political committees.

If elected as Steering Committee co-chair, what specific actions would you pursue to correct past violations of the GPUS Donors Bill of Rights and to ensure that all GPUS committees engaged in fundraising, including those with separate legal statuses, remain compliant with GPUS Fiscal Policy and established ethical fundraising standards?”

Fiscal Policy (as referenced in Article IV) clearly applies to all GPUS committees. A minimalist, ethical Steering Committee should:

Immediately  propose to issue donor notices offering refunds, in accordance with the Donors Bill of Rights.

Establish a Fiscal Compliance Review Task Force to audit all active fundraising efforts.

Propose an amendment reaffirming that no legal structure exempts any GPUS body from ethical standards.

Transparency builds trust—and we must restore it.

5.      Understanding that as a member of the steering committee of the National Committee of the Green Party you will not be able to enact governmental policies or legislation,

What is your game plan to deal with a militarized immigration system? How do we protect Hispanic, Caribbean, and other affected communities?We need to play a part of raising awareness. I will:

Support nationwide Green-led sanctuary campaigns and platform visibility for immigrant rights groups.

Collaborate with Caucuses that represent targeted communities to craft anti-militarization talking points.

Push GPUS to become a moral voice on immigration, particularly in exposing the links between climate collapse, war, and forced migration.

6.      What past or present LGBTQIA+ related events, activities, or organizations have you participated in?


  As an ally and organizer, I’ve co-hosted inclusive open mic nights, supported queer Muslim visibility through community safe spaces, and  I am working on a book in Arabic  highlighting the plurality of sexual and gender identities in Arab and Muslim communities and the misinformation associated with homophobia. I also engage in educational programming that challenges both Western stereotyping and internalized homophobia.  

7.      What do you think are the biggest issues facing LGBTQIA+ People of color? What do you think are the biggest issues facing LGBTQIA+ people with disabilities? 

For LGBTQIA+ People of Color: systemic invisibility, violence, and the lack of culturally competent support networks.
For LGBTQIA+ people with disabilities: compounded marginalization, healthcare discrimination, and exclusion from both queer and disability movements.
The Green Party must address these through platform reform, disabled and queer caucus elevation, and intersectional candidate recruitment.  

8.      Would you be in favor of the GPUS hiring a political director?

  Yes—with clarity. A political director, if rooted in democratic values, can help streamline our national messaging, engage strategically with movements, and ensure consistency. But this role must be transparent, accountable to the SC, and subject to NC review to avoid centralization of power.  There is a difference between a Political Director and a Spokesperson. I think Spokesperson should always rotate as not to personify the Party.

9.      What are your thoughts on national visibility in the halls of Congress on off election years where Greens are lobbying for public funding of elections and other causes?


  Absolutely. We need a Green Lobby Week annually—where Greens flood congressional offices with demands for public financing, ballot access reform, and climate legislation. Off-year action shows we are a political force—not just a ballot label. We must be visible, organized, and unafraid.  When I used to be a member of Amnesty International, I used to be on a delegation that visited the congressional offices in Detroit on a monthly basis.  We need to implement something similar.  

10.  What are your top 2-3 priorities for the operation of the Green Party of the US?

1. Triple Membership & Contributions through local engagement, tech automation, and targeted youth campaigns.
2. Form a task force to study the European Green digital platforms, and write a proposal for upgrading the GPUS digital platforms accordingly.
3. Platform Reform to build the most youth-connected, anti-colonial, climate-centered platform in U.S. politics.

Capitalism Reimagined for Human Rights and Community Benefit.

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“I’m not a socialist in the sense of rejecting private ownership. I’m a social entrepreneur: I use capitalism’s tools — innovation, investment, private enterprise — to serve communities and advance human rights rather than private profit. My values align with democratic and eco-socialist ideals of justice and sustainability, but I stay pragmatic, building people-driven, independent, and sustainable structures through non-violent capitalist methods.”

I believe that private ownership, markets, and innovation are powerful tools — not inherently evil. They’ve lifted many out of poverty, generated wondrous technologies, and accelerated human potential. But left unchecked, they often produce inequity, environmental damage, and injustice. So reimagined capitalism means:

  • Using markets & private enterprise not just for profit, but intentionally for human rights, social equity, community wellbeing, and environmental sustainability.
  • Structuring capitalism so that the externalities (pollution, displacement, exploitation, etc.) are minimized, internalized, or prevented.
  • Ensuring that communities have power: governance, ownership, voice. Not just as consumers, but as stakeholders.
  • Embedding accountability: companies, investors, governments must be answerable for social & human outcomes, not purely financial ones.
  • Hybrid models: combining public, private, cooperative, nonprofit, social enterprise, or commons-based forms.

In practice, this looks like: fair wages, safe working conditions, environmental stewardship, supporting marginalized communities, redistributing returns in some way, aligning investment with human rights, etc.

How It Might Look: Key Features

To bring this into concrete vision, here are features I think are essential in a “capitalism reimagined”:

FeatureWhat It Means in Practice
Democratized ownership & controlWorker cooperatives; shared ownership; community land trusts; governance that includes those affected.
Purpose over profit (or profit + purpose)Business models where profit is a tool, not the end; reinvestment of surpluses into community; mission-driven impact.
Regulatory frameworks & institutionsLaws/policies that enforce labor rights, protect the environment, support public goods like health, education; tax regimes that distribute wealth more fairly.
Social entrepreneurship and impact investingInvestors who care about both returns and social outcomes; enterprises that solve social problems while being financially sustainable.
Commons, cooperation, solidarityCommunity-led initiatives; shared infrastructure; local decision-making; the idea that not everything should be commodified.
Transparency, accountability & measurementMetrics beyond GDP: human development, inequality, ecological impact. Workers’ rights, diversity, social inclusion.

Case Studies: Where Things Are Shaping Up

These are real-world examples (warts and all) of pieces of reimagined capitalism already happening. They show it’s possible — though always a mix of progress + struggle.

1. China — Leping Group

The Leping Group is social enterprise in China that works in eco-agriculture, microfinance, early childhood education, and domestic service training. IADB Publications
What’s promising: it blends market operations (services people pay for) with social goals (serving underserved populations). There’s innovation, scale, local embedding. But barriers exist in regulation, bureaucracy, and balancing profitability vs mission. IADB Publications

2. Africa — Social Enterprises Creating Jobs

A study of several social enterprises across African countries (Rwanda, Ghana, Kenya, Ethiopia) shows that these ventures are creating employment, especially in neglected sectors. Examples: WASH (water, sanitation, hygiene) businesses; waste-management (“TakaTaka Solutions” in Kenya) which turns trash into jobs; ambulance services where public provision is weak. Siemens Stiftung
These show how private initiative + local innovation + community need combine.

3. South Africa — Social Enterprise Sector

There’s a “vibrant sector” of social enterprises in South Africa (surveyed in 2018) doing diverse work: delivering services, reducing inequality, reinvesting surpluses into social mission. Gibs Website Storage
Challenges include: legal framework (many are not formalized), accessing capital, balancing mission vs financial viability. But it’s a live example of capitalism bent toward community benefit.

4. Bangladesh — Friendship NGO (Runa Khan)

Friendship works in remote, climate-affected communities: combining health, education, disaster management, economic development, cultural preservation. Wikipedia
What’s impressive is the integrated approach: instead of just one silo (say, health), they combine multiple spheres (climate + livelihoods + migration + culture), recognizing that human rights are interlinked. They serve millions, often where state capacity is hard to reach.

5. India — eSamudaay (Rural Towns, Digital Commons)

Recently, eSamudaay in small towns in India is building digital-ecosystems for local entrepreneurs: enabling vegetable vendors, pharmacies, general stores, etc., to join platforms that respect data sovereignty and local governance. It uses open-source tools, a “business in a box” model. The idea isn’t building a gigantic corporate platform that captures all value, but keeping value / decision-making local. Financial Times

What’s Hard About It (Because Reality Bites)

  • Trade-offs: financial return vs mission. Many social enterprises struggle financially if forced to be fully self-sustaining while also paying fair wages, caring for environment etc.
  • Regulatory / legal obstacles: Many countries don’t have law that supports social enterprise, or tax treatment, or simplified regulations.
  • Access to capital: Mission-oriented businesses are often seen as higher risk; fewer investors willing to trade off profit for impact.
  • Scaling without losing mission: When expanding, pressures (market, investor, competition) push mission creep.
  • Measuring outcomes: Hard to quantify human rights, social inclusion, environmental impact in ways that investors, public and stakeholders accept.
  • Global externalities & power imbalances: Multinational corporations, global supply chains can undermine local well-being (e.g. extractive industries, environmental damage), even when domestic policies are good.

How I See It Looking If It Were More Fully Realized

If we built more of our economic systems in this reimagined way, we might see:

  • Cooperative zones: Worker-owned businesses and community-governed enterprises making up a significant portion of local economies.
  • Mandatory social and environmental audits: Not just financial audits. Companies measure their human rights impact, environmental footprints, equity & inclusion.
  • Impact investment mainstreaming: Investors (banks, pension funds) expect social returns as part of their mandate. Instruments like green bonds, social bonds, impact bonds, community investment funds proliferate.
  • Regulated market failures fixed: Pollution, climate change, monopoly power, resource depletion are priced in (carbon taxes, regulation, strong antitrust).
  • Universal basic services: Health, education, housing, digital infrastructure are guaranteed; private enterprise complements but doesn’t replace public goods.
  • Local economic resilience: Local supply chains, local ownership of infrastructure (energy, water etc.), community resources.
  • Strong safety nets & redistribution: Tax systems that ensure wealth doesn’t concentrate; social protections for marginalized groups.

Why This Matters

  • Human rights are not optional; economic systems must serve people, not the other way around.
  • Environmental crises + inequality threaten the viability of economies built on destruction and exclusion.
  • Communities left out of markets or harmed by them suffer — morally, socially, and ultimately economically (because instability, unrest, poor health etc. cost all of us).
  • Innovation thrives when the needs of many are considered, not just markets that serve the wealthy.

Conclusion

Reimagined capitalism doesn’t reject private ownership or markets; it reorients them. It says: yes, entrepreneurship, investment, innovation have tremendous value — but they should be harnessed so that private profit and community benefit, human rights, environmental sustainability are not enemies, but partners.

What this looks like in practice is messy and varied. It is already budding in places: in South Africa, India, Bangladesh, parts of China, and Africa more broadly. Scaling it up will require changes in policy, attitude, governance, and investment.

Article 4 Freedom of Religion: Defending not only the dignity of the believer—but the humanity of the doubter

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.FridayMusings is pleased to provide our readers with Article 4 – Freedom of Religion from the Universal Declaration of Human Values by Wissam Charafeddine, a Livonia author and lecturer. This article is particularly important with its discussion of defending the dignity of the believer–but the humanity of the doubter.Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change or disavow his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance. 


With over 4300 religions in the world, over 32,000 Christian denominations, 10’s of thousands of Muslim and Jewish sects and schools of thought and over a trillion Hindu and Budhist Gods, the freedom to believe—or not to believe—is one of the most sacred rights a human being can possess. Article 4 of the Universal Declaration of Human Values affirms that and includes the right to change or disavow one’s religion, and to practice, teach, and express belief—either alone or with others, in private or in public. These freedoms protect not just religious devotion, but the autonomy of the soul and mind.This article is rooted in Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, drafted after the horrors of global religious persecution and war. It reflects centuries of philosophical struggle: from Locke’s Letter Concerning Toleration, which argued that faith must be free of state control, to the Enlightenment thinkers who demanded reason over dogma. It also draws from the painful lessons of the Reformation, the Inquisition, and countless modern-day examples where individuals have been punished—or killed—for their beliefs, conversions, or criticisms of religious authorities.


Today, religious freedom is still under siege around the world. Apostates and freethinkers are imprisoned or executed in several countries. In others, entire religious communities face systematic discrimination—whether it’s Uyghur Muslims in China placed in camps, Christians attacked in India, or Baha’is denied citizenship rights in Iran. Even in so-called democracies, laws exist that blur the line between blasphemy and dissent, making it dangerous to question mainstream religious narratives. As someone who has exercised this right by publishing my Arabic-language book Dialogue: Universe from Void—a respectful but direct critique of classical proofs of God’s existence—I recognize that this freedom is not guaranteed everywhere. My ability to speak, write, and reflect on these matters without fear is a privilege many still do not have.


True freedom of religion includes the freedom to search, to question, to leave, or to reform. It includes the right to be silent, and the right to speak. Without that, belief becomes coercion, and conscience becomes property of the state or the mob. In defending this right, we defend not only the dignity of the believer—but the humanity of the doubter.