http://kindlemag.in/a-rooster-for-supper/
So interesting the role Kashmiri writers, poets, musicians, artists play in weaving together the politics & the personal of occupation. This short story by Kashmiri writer Jamsheed Rasool was just published in Kindle Magazine, an Indian journal of culture & politics that is full of interesting work.
This is a beautiful work artistically; a powerful work politically.
Recently got called a CIA shill & ISIS supporter. Then a hunky young guy from Kashmir said I looked “hot” so I’m okay with that.
Recognize the feeling? Palestinian protesters in Hebron, in the occupied West Bank, throw shoes at a poster of Trump. What happened to burning an effigy?
(Photo by Mussa Qawasma/Reuters)
In researching militarized sexual violence in Kashmir, I came across an analysis written by a non-Kashmiri feminist. Rape & sexual torture by an occupying army have a political character & psychological dynamic that need to be understood as well as the army does which employs it for social control & subordination. But the feminist critique indulged some kind of vindictiveness by prioritizing patriarchy in Kashmiri society so that Kashmiri men came out almost as culpable as the army perpetrating the crimes. With such an obtuse approach, the feminist analysis became worse than useless & almost an apologetic for the army.
The issue of sexual violence & torture in war & occupation has been an issue of epic scale for decades but it was not addressed because of the shame associated with rape. It was thought of as sexually frustrated soldiers “getting their nuts off” rather than a calculated military stratagem when it has to be understood politically that any shame involved adheres to the perpetrators, not the victims.
February 23rd is Kashmiri Women’s Resistance Day commemorated as part of the campaign to demand justice for Kunan Poshpora. February 25th is the annual commemoration in Guatemala of the National Day of Dignity for the Victims of Armed Internal Conflict to honor the victims of the civil war between 1960 & 1996.
Guatemalan military violence against the Mayan people included torture, forced disappearance, mass rape, massacres & mass graves, razing entire villages & crops, displacing entire communities, & acts of genocide. Over 100,000 women were raped: first the army took the men & massacred or disappeared them; then they returned for the women who they raped in front of their children. A scenario of horror very like Kunan Poshpora in 1991.
Women & human rights activists around the world have changed the dynamic of the political struggle against militarized sexual violence, especially activists in Kashmir & Guatemala. No one who watched the 2013 trial of former dictator Efrain Rios Montt, the general who led the scorched earth policy against Mayans, will ever forget the power of Mayan women rape victims testifying against him to bring him to account after campaigning for 30 years. The women scorned the lie that military rape is their shame & before the world laid it squarely on the military. That the courts allowed the general to walk only means the campaign continues, that it has been set back, not defeated.
This interview with Natasha Rather, a co-author of “Do You Remember Kunan Poshpora?”, by Irfan Mehraj is a feminist understanding of military sexual violence. It takes mass rape & torture out of the realm of victimology without diminishing the horror of the crimes. Rather discusses the dialectics of patriarchy & military rape in a political way without ulterior motives or imputations against Kashmiri culture & without excuses either. The work of Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) on military sexual violence is also exemplary in that regard. There is no ambiguity about the criminal culpability of the occupying army.
That’s what makes the fearless work of Kashmiri activists campaigning about Kunan Poshpora so important. There is no healing from such monstrous crimes without justice. There is no justice without international solidarity to support activists on the front lines of this struggle. The contributions by Kashmiri & Mayan activists to exposing & campaigning against military sexual violence are beyond incalculable.
This is a video of the Syrian uprising against Assad’s dictatorship in Aleppo in 2012. It’s the revolution Assad & his coterie of propagandists claim is fake news & never happened. There were protests like this across Syria, as those who followed & supported the Arab Spring remember well.
https://www.facebook.com/HalabTodayTV/videos/1220790807938355/?pnref=story
“The struggle of humanity against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.”–Milan Kundera
As part of commemorating Kashmiri Women’s Resistance Day, these articles about the mass rape & torture perpetrated by Indian occupying soldiers at Kunan Poshpora are valuable for understanding a monstrous crime still demanding justice:
“Kunan-Poshpora: Reconstructing truth” by Freny Manecksha:
http://m.himalmag.com/kunan-poshpora-reconstructing-truth/
“26 Years After Kunan Poshpora, Army Still Enjoys Immunity For Sexual Violence” by Mohammad Umar: https://thewire.in/…/26-years-after-kunan-poshpora-army-st…/
“22 Years after Kunan & Poshpora, Rethinking Kashmir” (written in 2013) by Abhijit Dutta:
https://kafila.online/…/22-years-after-kunan-and-poshpora-…/
#kwresist
#kunanposhpora
Hopefully that Milos Yiannopoulos creep hath been “hoist with his own petar.” Or as the French would more aptly phrase it, with his own péter.
Social transformation requires respect for others, not smart-alecks who hate.
The DAPL protest camp in North Dakota, where thousands have stood with the Standing Rock Sioux for six months, was dismantled & set afire by protesters yesterday as part of a leaving ceremony. They had been given an eviction notice by the Army Corp of Engineers to comply with Trump’s executive order since the camp was on federal lands.
The protesters would have been raided & assaulted, not for the first time, so the anticipated spring flooding is the more likely reason they pulled up stakes & razed the camp.
Trump can issue executive orders till the cows come home. That does not preempt national sovereignty for the Standing Rock tribe & by no means ends opposition & protests against DAPL. North Dakota is only the beginning of the pipeline project. It has 1,200 miles more to go across North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, ending at a terminal in Illinois to be processed for distribution.
Using eminent domain for land grabs, the route will pass near municipal water sources, residential areas, Indian reservations (defying tribal sovereignty & sacred burial grounds), wetlands, nearly 350 miles of farmland in Iowa, & will be tunneled under the Missouri & Mississippi Rivers.
The movement to stop DAPL has just begun. There will be some scuffles. There will be some setbacks. The government will maneuver & try to outsmart the movement & when that doesn’t work will use excessive force because billions are invested in this project. Tough noogies. Indian tribes, farmers, residents of those states, environmentalists, should have been consulted beforehand so the resounding opposition could have saved investors all their money & time.
The struggle continues.
(Photo of DAPL camp being dismantled yesterday by Terray Sylvester/Reuters)
The Kashmiri Women’s Resistance Day public event in Srinagar was denied a permit as part of India’s denial of justice for the victims of mass rape & torture in Kunan Poshpora. A Twitter campaign was held in solidarity. The Indian authorities cannot silence the demand for justice which is now international.
Today is Kashmiri Women’s Resistance Day to highlight how military occupation affects the lives of women & the role they play in resistance. It is also to commemorate the mass rape & torture at Kuman Poshpora in 1991 which is still denied legal justice.
This is a marvelous article by activist Essar Batool, a co-author of “Do you remember Kunan Poshpora?” & one of the petitioners to the court to reopen the Kunan Poshpora case against the Indian military: https://www.awid.org/news-and-ana…/womens-resistance-kashmir
“The struggle of humanity against power is the struggle ofmemory against forgetting.”–Milan Kundera
Painting: “Shadows” by Rollie Mukherjee