If you come to my Facebook wall denying the Rohingya genocide you better be packing more than Assadist & other fascist sources of information. Ignorance is one thing but fascism brings out my inner Pit Bull.

We often note that children are not accidentally harmed, disfigured, disabled, or killed in war, occupation & genocide but are directly targeted. That was as true in Nazi Germany as it is in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Kashmir, Burma, & elsewhere. It’s politically of the essence that we analyze & highlight this violence against children & do not allow the narrative to be controlled by the forces of oppression. Challenging the official lies is made possible by social media in a way not possible in the 1940s. When the super-power combatants of WWII in collusion with Zionist forces controlled the narrative about the genocide of Jews, it justified colonizing Palestine & the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

Jewish, Roma, Polish, & disabled children suffered in the most unspeakable ways under German fascism. It’s regrettable become criminal that Zionism & its super-power allies continue to cynically manipulate that suffering to justify Israeli crimes against Palestinian children. If they respected the legacy of those children, they would be unable to reproduce the violence against Palestinian children.
Wikipedia is a questionable source of information regarding Muslims & of course Palestine but this entry on children in the holocaust is quite valuable but also horrifying:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_in_the_Holocaust

We should take a moment to remember & honor the up to two million children, Jewish & non-Jewish, who died under German fascism.

(Photo is Jewish children in Auschwitz liberated by the Red Army in January 1945)

Rohingya activists & Burmese political dissidents like Maung Zarni do not hesitate to compare the Rohingya genocide under Burmese fascism to the holocausts under German fascism. A comparison of scale is not to the point but does highlight the horrors suffered by Jews, Roma, the disabled, political dissidents under Hitler. Every human life ‘exterminated’ is an infinity of grief & loss. Every genocide not actively opposed reduces the potential for humanity ending inequality, war, occupation, oppression & for making this world suitable for children to come of age in, for human beings to live & love in.

(Meme tweeted by Haikal Mansor)

[Warning – Graphic Image, Viewer Discretion Advised] This what a close range pellets fire does to a human body, today this boy was hit by pellet fired by Indian forces. Full cartridge was fired upon him, leaving a major entry wound damaging his vital internal organs and the government still insists that pellet are non-lethal weapons meant to restrain rioting.

A Kashmiri activist on Twitter (who has thus far eluded the censors) posted this photo of a pellet munitions injury sustained by a fellow in Soura. Coincidentally, a Kashmiri Facebook friend referred me to the above post. There isn’t much information on the incident since it is posted to show just how “non-lethal” pellet guns are to the human body.

There is another report about a 16-year-old boy returning from an exam who was also shot at close range by Indian occupying soldiers. The boy’s abdomen was torn up by the pellets & doctors are assessing damage to other internal organs, particularly his kidney.

The use of pellet guns against unarmed civilians, even stone-pelting civilians, is a human rights crime. A movement needs to be built opposing the use of such weapons & the occupation of Kashmir.

We are watching in real time, thanks to social media, how regimes around the world are weaseling their way around the Rohingya genocide to protect their commercial interests in Burma. To do business on a grand scale in Burma, they have to court the military junta which controls the economy. The Rohingya & their supporters should try to understand that it isn’t personal; it’s just business. Or more aptly, that’s just capitalism.

On their way to the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) in Burma on November 20-21, the Swedish & German foreign ministers along with high-ranking EU official Federica Mogherini stopped in Bangladesh to meet with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. They expressed their ‘grave concern for the atrocities against the Rohingya people’ in Burma & without batting an eyelash at the political insanity also expressed support for the Burma-Bangladesh plan to forcibly repatriate the refugees back to apartheid, concentration camps, & continuing genocide in Arakan state. Then the three diplomats traveled on to Burma for the ASEM summit where they agreed not to discuss the genocide but instead focus on fighting terrorism & violent extremism & trying to censor social media. These criminal politicians are trying to make forcible repatriation the solution while Burma is still engaged in genocide because that’s a way to weasel around taking a political stand against the genocide so they can protect their economic & military investments in Burma. They truly represent the barbaric phase of capitalism.

The photo is a Rohingya woman with her newborn & small daughter arriving in Bangladesh less than two weeks ago after a flight for their lives. She should not be forced to take her children back to a concentration camp so that the Burmese military can finish exterminating the Rohingya people.

(Photo from Reuters)

It seems worthwhile–to show the political character of Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina–to repost this about the Tazreen Fashions factory fire on November 24th 2012 in Dhaka, Bangladesh, where 117 garment workers were burned to death & 200 others were injured. This fire was just one of 200 sweatshop fires in Bangladesh & happened just six months before the Rana Plaza collapse in April 2013 where 1,134, including child workers, were killed & 2,500 seriously injured. The bodies of many workers were never recovered.

Sheikh Hasina has been Prime Minister since January 2009. So when she shows up at Cox’s Bazar to do heart-warming photo ops with Rohingya children, we know she doesn’t mean a bit of it. It’s just grandstanding. Hers is the government that hasn’t yet trashed its plan to deport thousands of Rohingya refugees to an uninhabitable island buried most of the year in flooding; that obstructs refugees from applying for UNHCR benefits; that denies refugee children education after primary years; that denies refugees the right to legally work; that just signed an agreement with Burma to forcibly repatriate thousands of Rohingya back to hell in Arakan state & warehousing in concentration camps.

It should be noted that US & European retailers are as complicit in sweatshop exploitation of mostly women & children in Bangladesh as they are complicit in genocide in Burma because of their commercial interests.

In an industrial catastrophe reminiscent of the famous 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City (where 146 garment workers burned to death), a fire incinerated the 8-floor Tazreen Fashions factory on November 24th 2012 in Dhaka, Bangladesh, burning to death 117 people & injuring 200 others. The bodies of 52 victims were charred beyond recognition & wrapped in cloth were dumped & buried in a mass grave. Bangladesh, with about 4,500 garment factories, is the world’s second biggest garment exporter after China, with clothing making up 80% of its $24 billion annual exports to several countries including the US & Europe. The Tazreen factory which opened in 2009 employed about 1,700 people.

Tazreen made clothing for many US & European retailers (as well as the US Marines). Walmart (& it’s Sam’s Club subsidiary) & Sears immediately tried to distance themselves from the disaster & claimed Tazreen produced their clothing without their authorization. In fact, documents photographed by a Bangladeshi labor organizer after the fire showed that five of the factory’s 14 production lines were devoted to Walmart apparel. More importantly, officials who attended a meeting on factory safety held in Bangladesh in 2011 (after a series of garment factory fires) claimed the Walmart official present played a key role in blocking reforms to have retailers pay more for apparel to help finance electrical & fire safety. According to the minutes of the meeting made available to The New York Times, Walmart’s director of ethical sourcing said, “It is not financially feasible for the brands to make such investments.” And in a sweatshop economy he’s absolutely right.

The Bangladesh government claimed sabotage & arson as the cause of the fire but this was only a cover for the manufacturers since fire officials report 700 people had died in garment factory fires since 2006 & Tazreen was later proven to be an electrical fire. Factory conditions remain wretched, with overcrowding, locked fire doors, & no enforcement of safety laws. There have been other factory fires since with more deaths & in April 2013, Rana Plaza, an 8-story garment manufactory collapsed killing 1,100 workers & injuring 2,000 more in an extremely gruesome industrial accident where many were buried in the debris.

When retailers whose clothing was manufactured at Tazreen met in May 2013 to discuss compensation payments, Walmart & Sears did not see fit to show up because they are completely devoid of social conscience. They’re like psycho-corps.The Bangladesh garment manufacturer’s association offered a measly $1,250 compensation to each family of those who died (approximately two years pay). We don’t know if those injured even received an offer. Unfortunately the offer was more for show because today, on the second anniversary of the conflagration, relatives of those who died protested outside the factory demanding unpaid compensation.

At the time of the fire, thousands of Bangladeshi workers hit the streets in protest, closing down over 200 factories, blocking major highways, throwing stones at factories, & smashing vehicles. They demanded justice for those killed & injured & improved safety. They continue to fight but the odds against them are enormous–the entire edifice of sweatshop economics, including retailers, their own & other governments, manufacturers associations, & a compromised labor leadership.

Sweatshops are a fixture of neoliberal economics & the battle against them won’t be won without international solidarity. That mission should not be left to garment workers alone & students in the plundering countries. It should not just change our shopping habits but should transform our whole way of operating in the world since we’re the ones benefiting from the super-exploitation of sweatshops.

Our fullest solidarity with the garment workers of Bangladesh.

(Photo by A.M. Ahad/AP)