Sometimes (often) when you see photos of Palestinian resistance either in the West Bank or Gaza, you marvel that for nearly 67 years of violent Israeli occupation they have not ceased to struggle nor bent the knee to colonialism. What can explain such remarkable tenacity & determination?

The struggle against apartheid & ethnic cleansing is necessarily a family & a community affair & while children should be playing games & teenagers courting they are forced instead to take on the Israeli army & prevent Zionist settlers from all over kingdom come moving in & laying claim to Palestinian lands. What kind of life is that for millions of young people? And still they do not bend.

All the media baloney about Palestinian terrorism & the only weapons they have against rubber bullets, live ammo, skunk bombs, tear gas grenades, & bulldozers is slingshots, burning tires, & an immense human spirit of defiance.

These teenagers are scuffling with soldiers in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh to protest the expansion of the Zionist settlement of Halamis on Palestinian land. When you consider that one false move gets them the Israeli gulag, you understand that courage, thy name is Palestine. And when you want to understand how to change the world, you look to them because social transformation starts with scuffles against all odds & ends with triumph over social hatred & injustice.

This is the time to build the hell out of the economic & cultural boycott of Israel, reaching out & explaining the justice of the Palestinian cause. We can no longer allow them to stand alone.

(Photo by Abbas Momani/AFP/Getty Images)

This protester in Bahrain is demonstrating for the release of political prisoners, especially opposition leader Sheikh Ali Salman, arrested in December 2014. His placard reads; “You will get exhausted but we won’t.” That defiance must scare the hell out of the regime & its US & UK allies & certainly explains the extreme violence & repression used against activists.

Our deepest respect & fullest solidarity with the movement that refuses to be beaten into submission.

(Image is screen shot from Press TV video on the protests)

February 14th is the anniversary of the 2011 Bahraini uprising which has not ceased despite massive repression including police assaults on protesters with excessive tear gas & birdshot, massive incarceration of activists, torture, stripping activists of their citizenship & jailing them for life for failure “in their allegiance duties towards the kingdom.” Some activists have life sentences for participation in the 2011 uprising; one young woman is serving a three-year term for ripping up a picture of the king. Others have been jailed for posting “offensive tweets.”

Protest is now daily demanding the release of political prisoners, in particular opposition leader Sheikh Ali Salman arrested last December 28th accused of various offenses including inciting hatred, seeking regime change, & collaborating with foreign powers. In fact, Salman is a somewhat conservative political thinker who advocates constitutional monarchy in Bahrain & disagrees with more radical forces who demand the overthrow of feudal monarchy. He has spoken publicly & quite clearly that he wants reform of the regime, not its destruction. And even this is too much criticism for the regime to tolerate.

In international politics silence is consent & in another illustration of why most of the human race hates the US government, the Obama regime has not uttered even a peep of protest against the violent crackdown in Bahrain nor have they demanded the release of Salman & other political prisoners.

Britain has been less silent though not less malignant in response to the crackdown. In December 2014 they announced the opening of a new military base for aircraft carriers in Bahrain funded by Bahrain’s monarchy. The US has long maintained a base in Bahrain for the Fifth Fleet which plays a key role in the Iraq War.

Britain & the US have economic, military, & political stakes in the region & democracy & human rights are no part of the bargain because they represent a direct challenge to neoliberal domination of the region. Feudal monarchs & neoliberal oligarchs are now comrades-in-arms to defend tyranny. The historic irony is only apparent.

This is a protester shielding himself from tear gas & birdshot with an old door at one of the demonstrations going on now in several places in Bahrain. Our fullest solidarity with their struggle.

(Photo by Hasan Jamali/AP)

We should not let the day pass without taking a moment to honor Rosa Parks (Feb 4th 1913 – Oct 24th 2005) who would be 102-years old today. She was one of the giants of the Civil Rights Movement known best for defying segregation by refusing to give up her seat to a white person in the Black section of a public bus on December 1st 1955. When she refused the order of the bus driver she was arrested & taken away.

She was not an accidental heroine but a long-time radical civil rights activist who knew exactly what she was doing. She was charged & found guilty of disorderly conduct but appealed her conviction to challenge the legality of segregation.

In a 1992 interview on NPR she said: “I did not want to be mistreated, I did not want to be deprived of a seat that I had paid for. It was just time… there was opportunity for me to take a stand to express the way I felt about being treated in that manner. I had not planned to get arrested. I had plenty to do without having to end up in jail. But when I had to face that decision, I didn’t hesitate to do so because I felt that we had endured that too long. The more we gave in, the more we complied with that kind of treatment, the more oppressive it became.”

This is her Alabama mugshot from an arrest in February 1956 during the Montgomery bus boycott which she was part of organizing. She remained a civil rights activist her entire life.
Our deepest respect for her memory & continuing inspiration.

This 1974 photo is of a child in Hunza country, Pakistan, from “La route de Samarkand” by photographers Roland & Sabrina Michaud. Roland (who is French) & Sabrina (Moroccan) are now in their 70s & 80s & still active photographers. For many years they traveled throughout the Middle East taking photos, including many character studies as magnificent as this one entitled “Fillette à la rose.” Although they were surely of the era, it’s not certain their intention was Orientalist, that is, with a colonial attitude toward their subjects.

Thousands of photos were taken of Native Americans at the turn of 19th to 20th century (at the end of the wars of Indian extermination in the US West) which were commissioned by the ruling elite to document a dying people for anthropological purposes. The photos of Native Americans are stunning but glorified images because at the time most tribes had been either exterminated or driven on to reservations living in squalid conditions.

One hates to question the motives of such a beautiful photo of a child. We didn’t invent the past but merely want to understand it. Since we don’t know, we can simply savor this remarkable image of a child now likely in her 50s.

Bus drivers in Haiti ended their 2-day strike over fuel prices early after the Martelly regime agreed to lower the price of gasoline another notch. Unions representing the drivers claimed recent cuts to the cost of fuel were not steep enough given the drop in global oil prices. The regime recently lowered the price of gasoline by 25 cents to $4.50 a gallon & diesel by 20 cents to $3.55. As a result of the strike, they lowered the price another 25 cents. Capitalism is so irrational that comparisons are difficult but in the US gasoline is now under $2.00 a gallon. Does it take more than double that to get gasoline to Haiti or is some price gouging going on?

Many Haitians are too poor to own their own autos so workers & school children across the country were stranded without public transportation. The media concern for this inconvenience was so touching. All of the headlines rued the stranding & most of the photos showed pedestrians rushing to get past the barricades of burning tires set up by strikers at intersections. Media can really pour on poignant when they want to.

It’s just so curious that in concern for passengers getting to work & school media never mentioned that fuel prices affect the cost of housing; lower fuel prices are to everyone’s advantage. So those stranded passengers might not be as put out as media claims. There have been demonstrations all over the world for the past few years over fuel increases. Near revolutions in some countries. Even in places like Nigeria which is one of the biggest exporters of gasoline in the world.

Media compassion is a whole lot less touching when you know that after the 2010 earthquake price gouging on necessary items, including gasoline, water, food, was through the roof–in the midst of devastation. There wasn’t a fuel shortage in Port-au-Prince but prices tripled from pre-earthquake levels. The cost of a bus ticket out of town more than doubled. When media cries crocodile tears over the inconvenience suffered by Haitians they’re blowing smoke more rancid than that billowing off those tires.

One source reported the US embassy advised staff to bunker down during the strike due to the “large number of incidents of unrest in Port-au-Prince” & to avoid areas where protests were going on, saying protests in the city “can escalate quickly.” Knowing the US government is afraid of Haitian protesters? Now that’s priceless!

This photo is people passing tire barricade in Croix des Bouquets on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince.

(Photo by Andres Martinez Casares/Reuters)

With their draconian new security law, Spain is now trying to legalize the brutality it displays toward African immigrants in Ceuta & Melilla, two Spanish enclaves on Morocco’s Mediterranean coast. Ceuta is the closer of the two to Spain, separated from the Iberian Peninsula by the Strait of Gibraltar.

Here two immigrants try to get over the 20-foot (6-meter) wall, topped with razor wire & with recently installed anti-climbing mesh, to enter Ceuta from Morocco. Frequently large groups of immigrants rush the fence as they’re attacked by Moroccan cops in the rear & Spanish cops trying to beat them back. They do this to increase the odds of some getting into Ceuta where by international law they are supposed to have due process rights as asylum seekers. A Spanish publication recently referred to them as “hordes of Sub-Saharans.” (Even in their grubby traveling clothes they’re a class act compared to the neoliberal barbarians who run Spain & the European Union.)

Fifty immigrants tried to scale the fence & you can see one young man here is caught in the razor wire. Many injuries are sustained that way. Only one of the group managed to get into Spain by jumping into the Mediterranean & swimming to the beach in Ceuta.

Almost exactly a year ago (Feb 6th), 15 immigrants drowned trying to swim from Morocco to Ceuta. They likely would have made it (even though Spain has constructed a breakwater to make it harder) but Spanish Civil Guards fired rubber bullets & teargas at them as they swam. Spanish authorities then tried to weasel out of culpability by claiming they drowned in Moroccan territorial waters. One Spanish official actually said the immigrants drowned not because they were being shot at but because they misjudged the high tide & couldn’t swim. With galling temerity the European Commission asked Spain to account for why it’s cops used rubber bullets on unarmed swimmers. Maybe if they wring an answer out of Spain the EU will account for its immigration policies which have caused the drowning deaths of thousands of immigrants trying to get into Europe from Africa & the Middle East.

Spanish authorities in collusion with Moroccan officials are actually trying to flout Spanish, EU, & international immigration law regarding right of asylum not only by the use of extreme violence against immigrants but by forcibly pushing those who enter Ceuta (& Melilla) back across the border without due process. Spanish immigration law prohibits summary expulsion, guarantees the right to legal counsel & an interpreter during deportation proceedings. If Spanish officials won’t obey the laws the Spanish people should pick them up by the ears & kick their asses to the curb. And it looks like they’re moving in that direction.

Our fullest solidarity with the immigrants wherever the hell they’re from. Immigration is a human right.

(Photo by REDUAN/EPE)

These little Afghan refugees in Pakistan playing the circle game known by children round the world are unaware of international negotiations about their fate taking place between the Afghan & Pakistan governments & the UN refugee agency (UNHCR). Since the Soviet war in Afghanistan in the 1980s until the US-NATO occupation in 2001 there were reportedly about 3 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan (& another 2 million in Iran). According to the UNHCR, since 2002 more than 5.8 million Afghan refugees have returned home, 4.7 million of them assisted by UNHCR petty cash. There are still (by UNHCR figures) 1.8 million Afghans living in Pakistan in slums & in refugee camps. As to why the figures don’t add up, your guess is as good as mine.

We are also repeatedly told by media (& the UN) that after the US-NATO occupation Afghanistan’s economy “quickly improved due to the flood of international aid.” And this claim gives us a clue as to why the figures don’t add up. We’re dealing in funny facts just like we’re dealing with funny money when it comes to all that vaunted humanitarian aid. Even the CIA publicly acknowledged in 2013 that living standards in Afghanistan are among the lowest in the world with massive shortages of housing, clean water, electricity, medical care, & jobs (according to the World Bank 35% of Afghans are unemployed). One in three Afghan children are malnourished; children under 5-years old have the highest rate of stunted growth in the world. Six months ago there were still nearly 700,000 internally displaced people in Afghanistan. That’s emancipation US-style.

Moving from squalid conditions in Pakistan back to a war zone & homelessness or refugee camps in Afghanistan does not appeal to the refugees so they have resisted appeals to move back. Rather than go back thousands have made desperate (& mostly hopeless) asylum appeals to Turkey & Germany. The UN–always the handmaiden of colonialism–has attempted to bribe them with grants of US $150 to relocate. Even by shameful World Bank standards of poverty, that’s a slap in the face. The Pakistani government has been more coercive, at one time refusing to renew the ID cards of registered refugees & treating them as undocumented immigrants. Of course Pakistan’s extensive military & bombing campaigns near the Afghan-Pakistan border have created millions of internally displaced Pakistanis so the country has more homeless people than it has refugee camps to accommodate them.

Recently Pakistan began forcibly relocating Afghan refugees to camps closer to the border with Afghanistan & issued ID cards for registered refugees only until the end of this year. One report says Pakistan took the issue of Afghan refugees more seriously after the Taliban attack in Peshawar in December 2014 even though the attack was claimed by Pakistani Taliban. Nevertheless, hundreds of Afghan refugees have been arrested & are still behind bars. It’s a classic case of scapegoating immigrants.

Once again, this is the face of emancipation US-style. This is the price paid for the US-NATO war. The Obama regime is attempting to thwart antiwar protest with a phony declaration that the war has ended. That wouldn’t be the worst lie he ever told. Get your placards ready for the spring antiwar protests: US out of Afghanistan! US out of Iraq!

(Photo by Muhammed Muheisen/AP)

The image on top is a photograph of the moment of the police murder of Shaimaa al-Sabbagh at a peaceful protest commemorating the 2011 revolution ousting Hosni Mubarak. She was part of a protest going to lay flowers in Tahrir Square in honor of those who died. The moment of her death has become a political icon & a grafitti call to arms now appearing on Cairo’s streets.

Our deepest respect & fullest solidarity with the democracy movement in Egypt.

(Photo from Reuters; stencil from twitter)

Egyptian women gathered, in defiance of a government law banning protests, on Thursday (Jan 29th) at the exact spot in downtown Cairo where activist Shaimaa al-Sabbagh was murdered by police during a peaceful protest commemorating the January 25th revolution against Hosni Mubarak. The protesters told reporters they organized a women-only protest to deter infiltration by plainclothes cops. Only male journalists were allowed. (Of course, now the regime will hire women cops & stick press passes on them.)

Sabbagh was killed by birdshot that hit her in the head, heart, & lungs according to the autopsy. Police not only shot her but then (according to several witnesses) prevented anyone from trying to help her & ignored pleas to let an ambulance through to take her to a hospital. According to some reports, her husband but according to other reports, a colleague carried her through side streets trying to get a taxi or private car to take her to hospital. She died on the sidewalk & was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital she was brought to in a private car.

Despite photos & video of the police attack, the Egyptian regime is trying to talk its way out of culpability. The top prosecutor claims they’re investigating the murder & issued statements saying it’s not yet known who is responsible. Using divide & conquer, the regime has its stooges working overtime on social media claiming the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) is responsible. It’s hard to explain away that birdshot but the regime tried, claiming riot cops only use tear gas against unarmed protesters–as if that was a good thing. Talking out of both sides of their ass, they also accused the peaceful protesters of attacking the cops. Does that explain why they arrested the six eyewitnesses at the scene, including Sabbagh’s grieving husband, who testified to the police use of birdshot? Those arrested have now been released but the gulag still hangs over their heads since they face a list of charges including being part of an illegal protest, assaulting cops, & cutting off a public road.

At least 1,400 protesters (probably a lowball estimate) have been killed under the repressive regime of General Abdul Fattah al-Sissi since he took power in July 2013. Thousands more have been arrested.The protesters have included members of the MB as well as secular & other democracy activists. On January 25th, the day following Sabbagh’s murder, at least 20 others were killed in protests marking the 4th anniversary of Mubarak’s overthrow.

Sabbagh belonged to a socialist group that opposed the undemocratic regime of Mohamed Morsi but also opposed the military dictatorship of General al-Sissi. Images of her death were widely viewed on social media & have galvanized opposition to the regime & its ban on protests. Hopefully members of the MB & other activists can forge some unity in challenging the ‘new regime, same as the old regime.’

Egyptian women played a fearless role in the 2011 revolution against Mubarak. At Thursday’s protest–& at considerable risk to themselves–they chanted “The interior ministry are thugs” & “Down with military rule.” Some held placards with the picture of the Interior Minister with the words “Murderer” & “Wanted, killer of Shaima al-Sabbagh.” A hashtag for the demo christened al-Sabbagh “the martyr of flowers.”

Our deepest respect & fullest solidarity with the women protesters. The Egyptian regime is armed to the teeth against its own people by the US Pentagon as part of a devil’s bargain to support Israeli apartheid against the Palestinians. Our commitment is to continue telling the truth so that when US working people get off their leaden asses they will know which side to stand with.

(Photo by Thomas Hartwell/AP)