In the wake of the Manchester attack, journalists Patrick Cockburn, Robert Fisk, & John Pilger published another round of their tattered theme that ISIS is rooted in Islam, specifically the Wahhabism of Saudi Arabia. Cockburn, writing in the Independent said the US & UK “will look in any direction except Saudi Arabia when seeking the causes of terrorism.”

Cockburn, Fisk, & Pilger represent what happens when you try to write political analysis with your head stuck up your ass. The US & European powers have been linking terrorism to Islam since before 9/11 & since 9/11 have been whipping up a frenzy of Islamophobia as the primary ideology of war, genocide, occupation. It is Zionists & the so-called left (erstwhile socialists & anti-Semitic libertarians) who have linked it specifically to Wahhabism without having a clue what Wahhabism is theologically or politically.

It’s true ISIS identifies itself as jihadi fighters but as numerous Muslim scholars & theologians have so cogently argued, ISIS has no affinity with Islam but is a warped political response to the terrorism & destruction of US-European forces in the Middle East. ISIS is a counter-revolutionary force, a rightwing response morphing from defeat & demoralization going back nearly 30 years to the first Gulf War & kept in operation by weapons from the US Pentagon & other countries. These scholars point to the killing fields of Iraq, Syria, Yemen, & to the massive repression in Egypt & Bahrain because they root their analyses in political reality, not in Islamophobia.

ISIS has affinity to Islam in the same way Cockburn, Fisk, Pilger, Tariq Ali, & the whole Hands Off Syria Coalition crowd have affinity to leftism & progressive thought. They wave their hammer & sickle banners but they’ve grown old before their time, decrepit, warped, hateful & stupid, & more than anything lazy in their scholarship. They know nothing & get away with it because those who share their antipathies for Muslims & Arabs know even less, are content with tropes about Wahhabism & don’t require understanding.

There’s a polarization taking place, a sifting of the wheat from the chaff. Those who will make this world a better place to live have nothing in common with social hatred toward anyone. Let the haters go straight to hell.

Assadist political analyses fall squarely within the perimeters & traditions of demonizing Islam & Arabs so characteristic of western historiography. So I’m learning. Reading all the rubbish is exhausting.

There is an urgent need for Muslim & Arab historians to render political reality without the social hatred & with insight. Maybe it’s mostly a matter of translating what has already been written. But I hope translation will be done & made available & that among them are historians & political thinkers with a razor-sharp polemical style that will take no prisoners nor compromise with US-European militarism.

Before communism took over the job in the 20th century, Wahhabism was the greatest threat to human civilization for hundreds of years. British colonialists trembled before its power. Only the Ottoman Empire could stop the spread. Thank God we didn’t have the internet to let us know what Zionist historians are now revealing.

Now Wahhabism is back imperiling the future of humanity. Turn off social media & you’ll never know. Or hide under the bed.

Zionist writers on Wahhabism post 9/11 went much further than the US State Department in associating it with terrorism. If you want to know where Assadists get their version of Wahhabism, it’s from Zionists with the addition of the head-chopping stuff.

In one sweeping smear, they malign Islam & add nothing to an understanding of terrorism, extremism, war, occupation. The obfuscation lends itself to supporting Assad’s dictatorship.
In reality, Islam has as little to do with ISIS as Judaism has to the state of Israel.

It’s oddly comforting to know the US doesn’t rank alone in idiocy. We have our Bowling Green Massacre & covfefe. India has the judge who thinks peacocks get pregnant from crying & the TV guy who wants to know why Kashmiris have red cheeks.

Kashmiri boy: “My cheeks so seditious.”

(Brilliant irony tweeted by faysal @.Faysal)

Why do Kashmiris have red cheeks
Why do Kashmiris protest
Why do Kashmiris call themselves Kashmiris not Indians.
Why why why!
#cheekytweet

(Retweeted faysal (@_Faysal) via Irfan Hassan)

After ridiculing the Indian TV news anchor who asked “Why do Kashmiris have red cheeks?”, this article goes on to answer the question:

http://withkashmir.org/2017/06/04/arnab-can-make-you-burst-into-laughter-and-then-face-palm/

On the 28th anniversary of Tiananmen Square: the unknown Chinese democracy protestor known only as “Tank Man” (whose fate remains unknown) stands as testimony to the power of resistance & to opposing the falsification of history by those who deny a massacre ever took place.

Today, thousands will protest in Hong Kong, as they do every year, to commemorate those who fought & died in Tiananmen or later in Chinese prisons. Icons of democracy like Tank Man & Li Wangyang will be honored.

We honor not only our Chinese brothers & sisters but the thousands of men, women, & children from China to Syria, Kashmir, Palestine, Venezuela, Yemen, Iraq, Bahrain, Morocco, India, Afghanistan, Myanmar, & everywhere tyranny is opposed who carry on the highest tradition of humanity to resist oppression & fight for human freedom.

Reposted & updated tribute to Li Wangyang, a democracy activist in China:
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Today we commemorate the 28th anniversary of Tiananmen Square when the Chinese government violently cracked down on the democracy movement with the imposition of martial law.

Student protests for democratic reforms that began in Beijing in April 1989 spread rapidly to include millions of people in over 400 Chinese cities. After the military crackdown on June 4th, the regime used traffic control systems in Tiananmen Square as a surveillance system to track down participants & then unleashed a nation-wide crackdown, hauling in thousands of activists for interrogation & arrest in order to strangle the movement.

This is a day to honor those activists, many of whom were tortured & likely died in prison. Li Wangyang represents the best in that generation of fighters & reportedly served one of the longest jail terms. He was a 39-year-old factory worker & labor rights activist in Shaoyang (Hunan Province) about 920 miles (1481 km) south of Beijing, who advocated & organized labor unions independent of Chinese government control. Mr. Li was arrested as a result of his participation in the democracy movement, including publicly posting a call for a general strike in support & organizing a memorial for the victims.

He served 21 years in prison on charges of counterrevolutionary propaganda, incitement, & subversion. During that time, he was subjected to hard labor, torture, beatings which caused blindness & loss of hearing, solitary confinement. In May 2011, he was released for reasons of poor health & checked into a hospital for treatment of diabetes & heart disease. On June 6th, 2012, he was found hanged in his hospital room. Officials immediately declared it a suicide & pressured his family (who visited him daily) for cremation, warning them not to make trouble.

Mr. Li was frail & broken physically by his incarceration but his mind & spirit remained undaunted & fearless. A media interview only days before his death documents that along with the testimony of his sister & family members. He was too weakened by torture & abuse to even stand alone, let alone hang himself.

Thousands march every year in Hong Kong to mourn the death of this champion of democracy & human freedom & to demand a formal criminal investigation into his death. The results of such a forensic investigation have not been forthcoming while the regime hopes time will nullify the demand.

We should all take a moment to honor this remarkable man. May he RIP & may his life & commitment to democracy inspire a whole new generation of freedom fighters not just in China but throughout the world.

(Photo is Li Wangyang)