Long live Palestinian intifada!

This photo is another example of how the media doesn’t always completely lie about Palestinians & Israel but it never tells the truth. The caption to this photo read: “A Palestinian teenager kneels during Friday prayers as Israeli riot police block off a street in East Jerusalem.”

With such sketchy information, one might be led to think the riot cops are there to deter crime or rioting. In fact, as part of Israel’s occupation of East Jerusalem to expropriate it from Palestinians & as part of its on-going campaign to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem, Israel has banned all males under 50-years-old from observing Friday prayers. Hundreds of Palestinian boys & men are forced to pray kneeling on the public streets.

So this young guy is not only exercising religious freedom; this is a courageous act of political defiance. Protestors around the world who have faced phalanxes of riot cops know just how courageous this is since at any moment this young man could be beaten to a pulp.

Long live Palestinian intifada! No military aid to Israel! Support the Boycott, Divestment, & Sanctions movement against Israel!

(Photo by Tali Mayer/EPA)

Emancipation US-style in Afghanistan

Emancipation US-style: Now here we can see so clearly the failure of US-NATO marines at liberating Afghan women. And we are not referring to their attire but to the fact that they are begging in the streets of Kandahar in order to feed their families.

We don’t fault US-NATO soldiers for failing to achieve women’s liberation; they were never set up to be a salvation army. They were sent in to Afghanistan to occupy, destroy, kill, control–& that they’ve done very well.

US-NATO out of Afghanistan! US out of Iraq!

(Photo by Anja Niedringhaus/AP)

Music, not war chants!

And beside all the compelling political reasons why immigration is a human right, there are the cultural ones that make it so desirable. In a world chock full of global communication, we still don’t know much about each other or about our different cultures–especially the vibrancy of poetry & music & art.

Many first heard the Peruvian flute from immigrant musicians playing for change in subways or on street corners. Once you’ve heard it’s vibrant & sometimes haunting sounds, you will find it unforgettable. Why should the global predators be allowed to deny us these treasures? It’s for certain once we’ve heard their music, we’re less willing to take up arms against others or consider them barbarians.

Colonial powers have turned much of culture into propaganda, especially film. But this kind of culture doesn’t serve colonialism at all; it only serves human solidarity. We are meant to be brothers & sisters singing our own songs to each other–not shouting war chants.

This musician is in Q’ero, Peru.

(Photo by Kazuyoshi Nomachi)