Assadists regularly use the term “proxy war” because most of them are know-nothings whose politics are a repertoire of fear-mongering condemnations using such terms as jihadis, Wahhabi/Salafi, head-choppers.
There is no such thing as a proxy war. It’s a political obfuscation. Using the term means you have not studied the complexities of a conflict enough to understand who is involved, how they’re involved, why they’re involved.
Neutron Indian nationalism: one guy (now blocked) wrote on the requiem for Sajad Hassan, “Some people love Kashmir but hate Kashmiris.”
So if you would just leave the valley, they can go sightseeing again without that damn azadi.
Nationalism makes you violent. But first it makes you stupid.
So many nationalists hating on Kashmiris have not endeared themselves-mostly for abusing the memory of young Sajad Hassan, but also for taking up my time forcing me to block their asses because they aren’t suitable for civilized discussion.
The ignorance & stupidity of nationalists, Assadists, Muslim & Jewish haters, women haters, war-mongers, Putin & Trump supporters, racists & white supremacists, misanthropes who hate on Dem-libs, is only matched by their ineptitude with language. Hate has never been good with words. Grunts, guttural rumblings, verbal drooling, nasal snorting & sniffling, abusive epithets, talking through their asses, do not make for pleasant exchanges but it’s all the unfortunate & detestable are capable of. Pity them, pray for their rotten souls, but why put up with them?
What they get out of interfering with our requiems & impugning a young man shot walking down the road (or rescue workers & small children) isn’t apparent to human beings who respect & care about others. That’s for psychologists of the abnormal & of fascist derangement to figure out.
If any haters have been missed, please let me know so they too can be dispatched to Facebook hell with all the other haters.
This is 18-year-old Sajad Hassan who was fatally shot in the head by Indian occupying soldiers this evening in Batamaloo, Srinagar, although Indian authorities claim there is no deployment of soldiers in the area. Interesting that claim, since there are countless videos of attacks by troops on protesters in the district. With 700,000 occupying troops in Kashmir, where aren’t they deployed?
Young Sajad was not participating in an anti-occupation protest but was executed walking down the road. He may have been walking home, going to visit a girlfriend or pals, or off to see a film. It doesn’t really matter to the occupying army who they shoot in Kashmir: unarmed protesters, stone-pelters, children in their homes, seniors standing near protests, young men walking down the road.
India may be trying to provoke & goad more young people into armed resistance so they can openly kill more & justify to the world the barbaric occupation of Kashmir.
We cannot bring back the life of this young man or all those executed just in the past several days. What we can do is actively stand with Kashmiri resistance to occupation by educating others & helping to build international solidarity with their struggle.
May Sajad Hussan Rest In Peace. Our deepest condolences to his family & friends. May his death not be in vain. Build international solidarity to strengthen & promote the emergence of an anti-occupation movement in India.
The photos are Sajad as he would like to be remembered & after he was declared dead.
Some don’t get the stone-pelting thing in Palestinian & Kashmiri Intifada. They see it as provocation. Maybe they never heard the David & Goliath story.
What would they have unarmed protesters do against truncheons, tear gas canisters, pellet munitions, live ammunition? Stand there like dumb oxen? Stop actively opposing occupation & fighting for self-determination? Submit to colonialism?
“Silence that comes through guns is peace for occupier
World a mute spectator
To all the cries & tears
Brokenhearted #Kashmir still stands.”
(Photo & poem from Kashmir Freedom)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEKuKMaVePs
Everyday Kashmiris send me videos of violent encounters with occupying forces; everyday social media is filled with images & reports of violence in Kashmir, youth killed by troops in search & summary execution operations, of funerals, of grieving.
Kashmiris always express a determined commitment to Azadi/freedom but they are not superhuman. The battalions of international solidarity must actively enter the struggle to promote & strengthen the growth of an anti-occupation movement in India. Without an anti-occupation movement, India feels it has a free hand to shoot & disable unarmed protesters, rape women, forcibly disappear, torture, incarcerate, murder.
Kashmiris have fought & grieved alone long enough.
Azadi!
Facebook says I have 5,883 pending items. If you’re one of my pending items, hold your shirt on till I figure out what that’s all about. Given my backlog in reading messages, I should get to that pending item list by the year 2024.
https://www.facebook.com/musaib.b.umair.5/videos/278267472597850/?pnref=story
There are too many videos of occupying soldiers ganging up on & beating the hell out of unarmed Kashmiris, including elderly ones, to post every one. But this is to put in perspective that one incident where a fully-armed special forces soldier got roughed up a little which nationalist Indian media is making a federal case about.
We stand with Kashmiris. If soldiers get nicked with a stone or kicked in the shins, tough noogies. Go home India go home & the hundreds of thousands of Kashmiris who grieve from your monstrous crimes can begin to build a free, humane society.
End the occupation. Self-determination for Kashmir.
How the hell did I get 12,000 readers? It sure ain’t cause I’m hot. Or is it?
The Hands Off Syria Coalition has a strong, apparently dominating, presence in the Boston antiwar movement which is difficult for me to see since I was active in the movement there for over 25 years.
There was an episode in that time worth relating since it involved the political character of the antiwar movement. It was in the 1980s when we were focused on opposing US military intervention against Nicaragua & other Central American countries.
A representative from a guerrilla group opposing a repressive US-backed regime in one of the countries was touring US antiwar groups & came to our coalition in Boston. He was very imperious, distinguished looking, a professor at Berkeley but from that country.
His veiled proposal to antiwar activists was to stop organizing antiwar actions to become a fund-raising apparatus for his group which he of course portrayed in the most romantic terms.
The guy was slick but what he was proposing was that antiwar activists approach the wealthy liberals who finance the antiwar movement to solicit funds for arms & military equipment for his group. But of course that purpose would not be revealed to the donors. This matter of playing liberal donors for fools has come up more than once in my political life. It flows from the reprehensible notion that liberals are politically inferior & do not merit respect or honesty. The principles that prevail are that you never lie to them, never disrespect them politically. That should not require elaboration.
It must have been a three or more hour knock-down, drag-out fight between the guy, myself, & one other activist. Our man had the same disdain for antiwar activists as he did for liberal antiwar donors & thought it would be a walk in the park to convince us to abandon antiwar actions. We hammered him without mercy while he stood over us shaking his fingers in our faces, threatening to throw us out of the antiwar movement, denouncing us. He thought he could throw that kind of weight around but both of us had been activists for years & were not intimidated by his status or hauteur.
Our argument was that he was trying to involve the antiwar movement in a gun-running operation, that it would bring law enforcement down on the movement, & politically corrupt & destroy the movement. Our role was to educate, organize, & mobilize students, trade unions, church & community groups, women’s & civil rights groups, LGBT activists, the Black, Latino, & other communities in antiwar activities. Our role was not to provide arms to guerrilla groups.
Politically the job of the antiwar movement is to stay the hand of militarism–& not just US militarism–so freedom fighters in other countries can settle their accounts with repressive regimes. Our commitments do not include gun running that will bring law enforcement down like a ton of bricks.
He hammered back at us until we pushed him too far & he burst out “We don’t care about your students & your workers & your women & your Blacks. They mean nothing to us. We want money” And with that outburst he sucked the air right out of the room. He stood over us glaring & dumbfounded, knowing his outburst had just cost him the debate. When he returned to demanding the two of us get thrown out of the movement, someone snorted at him “They started the movement.” Which wasn’t true, but it silenced him. The two of us gloated from ear to ear.
The political character of the antiwar movement today has not changed. Our job is not to get arms for the Free Syrian Army but to stay the hand of US, Russian, Iranian, & other military operations, to force their unconditional withdrawal so that the Syrian revolution can settle its accounts with the Assad regime without interference.