A Rohingya refugee boy & his baby brother: just so we know who this genocide is really all about.
(tweeted by Maung Zarnia)
Daily Archives: October 2, 2017
Started having problems with Facebook putting warning masks on photos after a troll-like person said she was one of those sensitive souls who can’t take such reality. Don’t we all have weak stomachs for human suffering! So I blocked her hoping to cut the interference because the truth must be told. But I forgot trolls come back in dozens of other incarnations. That’s life on social media.
There is no schadenfreude gloating over Aung San Suu Kyi’s ‘fall from grace,’ as know-nothings claim with an air of hauteur & moral superiority. There was never any ‘there-there’ to Suu Kyi’s claims as a champion of human rights. Anyone who has actually paid attention to Burmese politics & her role in them should know that.
These claims by so many men are an attempt to make criticism of Suu Kyi by women just another cat fight competition. As one of the few who has been writing criticism of Suu Kyi since 2012 because of her collusion in genocide, I consider such claims nothing but contemptible misogyny.
https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2017/03/03/the-legend-of-aung-san-suu-kyi/
https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2017/03/17/the-legend-of-aung-san-suu-kyi-part-2/
Whoever in the power elite thought it a good idea to let Trump take the election has to eat all the indignity & disgrace he brings to the American presidency. That’s a good thing. He has not been able to achieve a decisive rightwing shift in US politics but he has exposed what a cesspool the US government really is.
Trump’s response on requests for help from Puerto Rico:
“They want everything done for them.”
On 16-year-old Insha Mushtaq, the face of Kashmiri children & youth blinded by pellet guns
There have been several reports about this 16-year-old Kashmiri girl named Insha Mushtaq who was blinded & disfigured by pellet munitions in July 2016 while in her family home. She represents the 1,562 mostly children & youth who were partially or fully blinded by pellet guns just in the last 6 months of 2016.
This is a report I did about Insha Mustaq last March 5th:
This is a continuation of the story of 15-year-old Insha Mushtaq who was inside her home when she was struck by pellet munitions fired by an occupying soldier & was blinded in both eyes. Insha is one of at least 1,562 mostly Kashmiri children & youth who were partially or fully blinded by pellet guns just in the last 6 months of 2016. Another 7,330 were injured by pellet guns & though not blinded suffered disfigurement & permanent disability, pain, & health problems because the pellets cannot all be removed from vital organs.
Blinding & disabling Kashmiri young people is not accidental but an intentional military stratagem & human rights crime to demoralize & exact maximum suffering & to disable resistance to occupation & the fight for self-determination. Israel employs the same stratagem against Palestinians. The spirit of colonialism has never been other than snaggle-toothed barbarism. There is no higher vision–not even nationalism.
We know Insha’s story because Al Jazeera & a documentary video reported on the many surgeries she endured to extract pellets & repair tissue. They also reported about the emotional turmoil Insha & her family went through in accepting her disability & knowing how to deal with it. What concerned them is that she was a girl who loved to read & learn & that would surely be much harder.
There was in one account the distinct whiff of pity for Insha from the reporter. Being disabled in any way is a devastation. Everything becomes harder. But disability rights has hammered out the understanding that disability does not make inferior nor is it a death sentence. It requires emotional transitions, major adjustments, physical accommodations & learning new ways of doing things. No one not disabled would be so cavalier as to dismiss just how hard it it, especially for young people, to come to terms with the grief & loss of disability. That’s why disability rights have been so important in forging respect which does not include pity but also demands social services necessary for a good life.
This update is about Insha returning jubilantly to school when it reopened last week, ready to learn, thrilled to see her old classmates. Our girl is back. There’s a lot of healing can be done when surrounded by love.
Insha also lives in a society dealing with thousands of other young people blinded & disabled, not to mention those disabled by age or accident. There is no inspirational silver-lining in disability. It is what it is & it ain’t what it ain’t. But the one think it ain’t for sure is a sign that life is over & is only to be endured as hell on earth. It means a new way of doing things.
And for the record: it won’t stop Intifada. One of the most notable things about the massive uprisings of the past decade has been the large number of activists in wheelchairs on the front lines of social struggle, especially in the Arab uprisings taking on the military.
Welcome back Insha. May your journey be blessed.
On the braid chopping incidents in Kashmir by Khalid Fayaz: mass hysteria or deliberately induced fear-mongering?
As Khalid points out, “The very etymology of the word hysteria, from latin word hystericus (of the womb), is anti-women (sexist). This feminization of madness is nothing short of fiction.”
This is an article by Anand Mangnale on Indian media’s campaign of vilification against the Rohingya–not just the refugees in India who they are attempting to deport but also those being subjected to genocide in Burma with weapons the junta purchased from India:
So many sophisticated western men are claiming it’s pointless to criticize Aung San Suu Kyi. After all, they argue, she doesn’t control the military & is powerless. Before they go all macho-chivalrous, they ought to spend a little time actually researching her role in Burmese politics & stop trying to exonerate her from responsibility for this genocide. Burmese & Rohingya activists certainly don’t. She’s an adult woman with full capacity to make moral & political judgements & doesn’t need apologists any more than the generals do. In fact, Suu Kyi sits on the highest body of military leadership in Burma, right next to Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing, the chief architect of the Rohingya genocide. She takes her place in the leading body of genocidaires. Get real with this macho-chivalry crap.