Part Three of five-part series by Raqib Hameed Naik with Rohingya refugees in India telling their stories:
Daily Archives: October 9, 2017
Far be it from me to boss people around, but activists who live in Melbourne, Australia should hotfoot it over to the University of Melbourne to protest its sponsorship of the Irrawaddy Literary Festival in Mandalay, Burma on November 3rd to 5th, which is organized by the Burmese junta & Suu Kyi to whitewash the genocide of the Rohingya people. Several from the University will be participating in the festival. The same for anyone near Manchester Metropolitan University in the UK which is also sponsoring the thing.
As Khurram Parvez from Kashmir said about an “apolitical” literary festival India was trying to pull off in Kashmir: “If it does not highlight the pain & truth of Jammu & Kashmir, it’s not apolitical,” & he added that Kashmiris “have a fundamental problem when the show is organised in collaboration with the government, which is aimed at promoting the problematic political agenda of fascist & tyrannical military occupation.” If the Irrawaddy Literary Festival does not highlight the genocide in Arakan state, it’s not a cultural event but a whitewash.
Zionist settlers invading Al-Aqsa compound to harass Palestinian worshippers
Over 300 Israeli settlers entered the Al-Aqsa mosque compound this morning under the protection of Israeli forces. They taunted Palestinian worshippers by dancing, clapping, & singing. Last Thursday, 55 Israeli settlers toured the compound again protected by Israeli forces & attempted to perform prayers, a violation of the agreement between Israel & the Jordanian trust which governs Al-Aqsa because it is a Muslim holy site.
On Thursday, Israeli police also arrested a Palestinian security guard after he stepped in & objected to an Israeli woman soldier assaulting a Palestinian child entering the mosque. The guard was assaulted by Israeli police & border guards during his detention.
Stand with Palestinians by honoring & promoting the cultural & economic boycott of Israel. Buy nothing with barcode beginning 729 & check every label on every product from food to cosmetics to clothing & shoes.
(Photo is screen shot of dancing Israeli from video by Palestine Info Center)
Some racism approaches parody: one nimrod suggested the Rohingya were backward because they didn’t have a space program. As if militarizing the cosmos were a good thing.
Hate & disrespect are the essence of extremist right politics
The dead giveaway of stinking rotten politics permeating the rantings of fascists, Zionists, Assadists, Hindutva & Burmese nationalists & all other debased ideologies: hatred, cynicism, animosity, misanthropy in the form of racism & misogyny. This stunning photo of a Rohingya woman taken in Cox’s Bazar last March was posted by a Burmese nationalist nimrod on a post by Maung Zarni with a demeaning comment about seeing her naked. Hate & disrespect are the essence of such politics. The politics of social transformation are based on the highest regard for human life, a belief in the sacredness of human life. To us she is beautiful beyond words.
(Photo from Reuters)
This is Part Two in the five part series by Raqib Hameed Naik where Rohingya refugees in India talk about who they are. The crisis of refugees isn’t some big geopolitical thing but the stories of human beings trying to make a life in the worst of circumstances.
October 7th marked the 16th year of the US-NATO war & occupation of Afghanistan. Despite the US escalation of forces, there is almost no media coverage of the war & there hasn’t been for years. Photojournalism doesn’t exist, not even of the embedded up the butt of the military kind. Nothing is more imperative than rebuilding the international antiwar movement & reclaiming it from those who support dictatorships rather than freedom struggles against them. Those betrayals have compromised an already weak movement & is one of the greatest political failures of our times. It is not too late to rebuild a movement in defense of the people of Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Libya, Somalia.
Have spent the morning contacting the authors (via Facebook & Twitter) who are scheduled to attend the Irrawaddy Literary Festival sponsored by the Burmese military in November. Many of them identify as liberals & even human rights advocates. Some may consider it harassment but to my mind if it isn’t education that will dissuade them from attending, it’s shaming. You don’t get to be part of whitewashing genocide just to peddle books without facing consequences.
If anyone wants to join me: http://www.irrawaddylitfest.com/authors/
Five-part series of Rohingya refugees in India saying who they are, what they want
What does a Rohingya feel when he is told that he is an ‘illegal immigrant’, a ‘security threat’ & ‘unwanted’ in India? What was their life like before they had to run away to save themselves? What does it feel to be reduced to just a statistic? What do the Rohingya feel when they hear the news that they will be deported back to the land where their lives are in danger? In a five-part series, Raqib Hameed Naik speaks to five refugees who had to give up all they owned to attempt a start a new life. Their stories, in the first person, are an attempt to go beyond majoritarian narratives & give them a platform to express their views & opinions.
This is Part One about 27-year-old Mohammad Ismail.