This young girl is one of thousands of mourners who attended the funeral today of Aaquib Gul, a militant killed along with two other young men in a hunt to kill operation by Indian soldiers in the Budgam District of Srinagar. Indian media reports that it turned into an all-night gun battle when the soldiers were fired on by the militants. Maybe they were fired on; more likely they weren’t. Military officials said “some weapons & ammunition were recovered from the spot.” Enough for three men to keep up an all-night battle with a cordon of troops or just a couple pistols?

Mourners at the funeral shouted freedom slogans & Indian paramilitary troops responded with tear gas. Where are the condemnations for such violence, including against funeral mourners? Do we hear the sound the silence?

Aaquib Gul was buried today in his ancestral home. Javaid Ahmad Sheikh & Sajid Ahmad Gilkar were also buried. May the three young men Rest In Peace.

(Photo by Danish Ismail/Reuters)

I have an 82-year-old Canadian friend who I’ve been friends with since August 2013. She’s a person who has always stood with the oppressed. She is having some health problems, including macular degeneration, & used an app on her old computer to read FB posts & follow what is going on in the world. The computer is so old that it freezes after 5 minutes & has nearly 400 viruses. She’s hoping her grandson can fix it next November when he comes back from across Canada.

In the meanwhile, she offered to let me unfriend her so someone else could take her place & if she got her computer fixed we could then become friends again. I would never unfriend her as a kindred spirit.

Sorry to be a pest about money but if anyone is willing to help her get a new computer please let me know. 

Thank you for helping me get medical care for my four new rescue dogs. All four have gotten their shots, three have been tested & found positive for heart worms & are receiving treatment, & one is recovering from being neutered. The two bambinos are a scourge on the household since they’re bullies & are not yet potty trained but they’re a work in progress. It was the foolish but right thing to take them. Thank you. 

Hopefully all the righteous Indian nationalists are playing close attention to the resounding expressions of humanity by Kashmiris to the attack on the pilgrims, including a blood drive, calls for an investigation, & a protest rally. Do they have eyes to see & ears to hear over the nationalist cacophony of Indian media?

That is how all Indians should be responding, & just as thunderously, when Kashmiris are assaulted with pellet guns, tear gas, stun grenades, & live ammo. It is the oppressed who lead the way in showing what human solidarity looks like. It is such unity in action that can force an end to a brutal occupation & allow Kashmiris to live free.

Go back India, go back.

Mohammed Imran, an elected refugee representative in the registered Kutupalong refugee camp, delivered this brilliant speech to Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, when he visited the camp yesterday. Imran said: “I spoke to people, especially young people (in Kutupalang camp). They didn’t tell me I want more food, more blankets and more medicines. They told me — give us a future. That’s the message to both leaders of Bangladesh and Myanmar.”

The speech to Filippo Grandi:

“No one can prosper if there are no opportunities. The fact that after 25 years there are no professionals in the camp is largely because of lack of development and opportunity. This is an indictment on UNHCR and hence its support has been largely a failure.

We need scholarships for students to study in local universities or overseas. Many refugee students worldwide have such opportunities. For 25 years the Rohingya have remained incapacitated, largely due to policies of the government and UNHCR. Self representation is paramount to support scholarships for those Rohingya with the ability to go to university.

Food and shelter isn’t only what is required by refugees. It’s like throwing money into a pit. The Rohingya have created an industry; opportunity for local professionals. Bangladeshis are receiving handsome salaries. Why haven’t the same opportunities been provided for refugees? Or at least the opportunity to also develop. To live decent lives.

There are countless visits, meetings, diplomats and celebrities. What does it all achieve? How can the support provided be measured? If nothing changes, who is accountable? How can it be viewed as a success? It needs to be communicated in a better way.
If nothing changes, no durable solutions, no capacitated Rohingya … who is accountable for that? Surely it is UNHCR and the Government as custodians and protectors. Increased opportunities for self determination.”

(Photo is Imran with children)

“Violence will ultimately breed more violence. A murder of a single innocent is the murder of whole humanity, that’s what my faith teaches me and that’s what I practice. The loss of lives of those unfortunate Amaranth pilgrims is condemned and we are sympathetic towards the families of the deceased victims. This surely is #NotInMyName moment for us.”

–Sheikh Imran

“Those who have not said or written a word against 120 civilian killings, 2000 pelleted eyes, torture of teenagers, 16000 injuries and nearly 8000 arrests automatically lose all the moral right to be preachy. Period.”

–Gowhar Geelani

All Kashmiris are expected to denounce the attack on pilgrims just like all Muslims have to denounce terrorist attacks they had nothing to do with. Notice how it hasn’t stopped the growth of Islamophobia as a political weapon to persecute, conduct pogroms, & wage war against them.

They condemn because the oppressed fight the oppressors using the weapons of justice, not those of social hatred.

“#NotInMyName
#kashmir_bleeds but still we know what is right and what is wrong.”
–Suhail Dar

https://www.facebook.com/sadz.cool/videos/1432295220170781/y

Even though these Hindu pilgrimages from India to Kashmir are more displays of nationalist power than religious rituals, it is tragic that someone attacked a bus of them, killing 7 & injuring 19. It’s tragic but I’m not going to join the chorus of denunciations because it’s unlikely that Kashmiri militants did it & more likely that Indian forces did the slaughter to discredit the Kashmiri struggle & justify even greater barbarism. That’s not conspiracy thinking; it’s probability.

To be frank, I’m also not going to do the denunciation thing because I won’t grieve more for nationalists playing holy as an act of provocation in support of occupation than the braying chorus of nationalist jackasses grieve for the tens of thousands of Kashmiris killed, disappeared, raped, tortured, incarcerated, blinded & disabled, disfigured, traumatized under occupation.

The oppressed don’t fight for freedom using the barbarisms of the oppressors. They also don’t like being played for fools.

May those who died RIP. They should never have trusted the Indian military to protect them when it is notorious for monstrous crimes against the people of Kashmir.

Go back India, go back.