Trump’s press secretary said the 5-year-old boy detained at Dulles airport in Washington DC for four hours & handcuffed “could have posed a security threat.”
That ain’t the half of what they do to unaccompanied kids crossing the US-Mexico border from Mexico & Central America who end up in detention centers.
Last Saturday, hours after Trump signed the Muslim ban, a mosque in Victoria, Texas (about 3.5 hours drive from here) burned to the ground. Fire forensics have not been concluded so they don’t know if was arson & a hate crime. But a GoFundMe page was set up & already over $975,000 has been raised to rebuild.
Of course if those donors haven’t denounced all of the crimes of the past 100 years in US politics & marched against every injustice, then they were indeed presumptuous for showing such generosity of spirit & someone ought to denounce them.
If you would like to brave damnation, here is the GoFundMe page:
Could a Rohingya friend explain why–actually if–we should mourn Ko Ni? I certainly do not agree with his assassination but he was a legal adviser to Aung San Suu Kyi & her party & remained a loyal supporter of Suu Kyi throughout this monstrous offensive against Rohingya.
He was a Muslim &, while not Rohingya, still persecuted as a Muslim in Myanmar. Or did his class status exempt him from that? There are no reports he objected to the genocide of Rohingya Muslims.
So I’m sorry he was shot down in the street & think whoever did it should be prosecuted, but I don’t want to waste my tears on a guy who stood silent about genocide.
The denunciations of protesters continue–from the post-election marches of youth, to the Women’s Marches, to the marches against the Muslim ban. The latest rendition goes: “You march against the Muslim ban? Why didn’t you march against US bombing of Muslim countries?”
Partly what’s motivating this reactionary nonsense is cynicism & misanthropy: nothing people do is ever good enough. Even when they’re making history in the most massive protests in human history for women’s & refugee rights.
The lion’s share of what’s behind the sneering at protesters is reluctant support for Trump. Some are uncomfortably discovering that their politics are going south & they’re morphing into right-wingers. Must be alarming to see yourself move right but don’t lash out at those who stay the course for justice.
We take our cues from fighters, from Palestinians, Kashmiris, Syrian revolutionists, anti-caste fighters. Not from Global Research. Stop reading the stuff that rots the brain & demoralizes the human spirit. Get your ass off the sofa & join the protesters making history. You’ll come to see in action that human beings are a marvelous species & you may get over the misanthropy. If your politics are based on hating & sneering, you’re moving in the wrong direction.
Pope Francis is a case study in the politics of ambiguity. He’s a master of proffering the empty gesture to the oppressed & solidarity to the power elite. Since he became pope in 2013, he has often expressed concern about the conflict in Syria, called for ceasefires & held prayer vigils. Diplomatic messages between him & Assad began then & continue till today. But Pope Francis speaks in passionate abstractions, takes no sides, makes no condemnations.
Not even the pope can play both sides of the street in a revolution against ruthless dictatorship. Especially the pope, who provides spiritual leadership to 1.3 billion Catholics, cannot equivocate. Catholic theology does not sanction mass murder nor teach that Assad will go to heaven if he makes an act of contrition before he dies. In accordance with church teachings, the pope ought to speak in an unequivocal voice & denounce Assad.
But perhaps Pope Francis isn’t so equivocal after all. In October 2016, he named archbishop Mario Zenari, the papal envoy to Syria, as a new cardinal, the highest office in the church which makes him eligible to be pope. Zenari would remain papal envoy.
Cardinal Zenari also speaks in hand-wringing abstractions about bombing & chemical attacks on civilians. One can’t tell from his statements who he is giving the naughty finger to since they can hardly be called denunciations. Would he be deported for speaking frankly? So what? Nearly half a million people have lost their lives & nearly 8 million are refugees. Zenari would merely take a plane back home. Or is it possible his political sympathies are with the Assad regime?
SANA, Syrian state media, reported January 21st that Zenari visited Aleppo to participate “in the atmosphere of joy after defeating terrorism in Aleppo.” He told a group of military, religious, & regime officials he “affirmed that Syria will achieve triumph over terrorism” & that Pope Francis considers cooperation with the Assad regime necessary. That is no longer equivocation; it is endorsement of the Assad regime & accords with other photos of Zenari meeting with Assad to deliver diplomatic messages from the pope where the two are clearly affably engaged.
On the same day SANA posted its report, Syrian journalist Kinana Allouche posted this photo on FB of herself with Cardinal Zenari. Here’s the problem with that association: in April 2016, Allouche, a reporter for pro-Assad Syrian TV, posted selfies of herself radiantly smiling with Syrian soldiers in front of the bodies of rebel soldiers. There was so much outrage on social media that Allouche was forced to take the photos down. Again, in July 2016, a video circulated seeming to show Alllouche laughing over the bodies of children killed in Aleppo while men, presumably the fathers or rescuers, are shouting at her in anger.
As we know from the conduct of US soldiers since the Vietnam War, desecrating the corpses of “enemy combatants” is a war crime & that includes posing for photos with them. Do Cardinal Zenari & Pope Francis really want to be associated with that kind of politics? Because if they do, it blows their ambiguities to hell.
Photo is Kinana Allouche & Cardinal Mario Zenari.