This morning a Burmese nationalist made a brief foray on to my wall sputtering & drooling about “Bengalis.” I bounced her but a toxic miasma still remains so I’m looking for the services of an exorcist.
She blithered the classic rants of xenophobes & racists about Rohingya women having large families–“up to 15 children” she slobbered indignantly. I’m a feminist & believe in reproductive freedom for women; I also believe in religious freedom. As the 4th of 19 children in a Catholic family, I’ve spent my life defending my mother’s religious choices against the foulest insults to her intelligence. I have no idea how many kids most Rohingya women have. It’s not my business & I’m certain they don’t need anyone’s advice. My only concern is that the Rohingya & all their kids, however many there are, are defended against vilification & genocide.
Sometimes, when I know a person is well-meaning but misinformed, I feel bad about unfriending them for openly supporting the Assad regime. But I know nothing said or written exposing his dictatorship & the bombing of civilians will be persuasive against the likes of Tariq Ali, John Pilger, Jonathan Cook, & other such apologists for counter-revolution in Syria. Even if you’re well-meaning you become part of defeating the Arab Spring revolution against Assad, weakening the Palestinian struggle, & weakening the struggle for democracy in the Middle East. There’s that ‘road to hell’ thing. I’ve been in politics a long time & don’t really want to put up with crap anymore, even well-meaning crap. Not to mention that support for Assad puts me in too close proximity to fascists.
General Min Aung Hlaing, who is Commander-in-Chief of the Burmese military since 2011 & chief architect of the Rohingya genocide, issued a statement expressing gratitude to China for “its stance on & support for Myanmar” in conducting the Rohingya genocide which the fascist general called “the conflict in Rakhine.”
It would be valuable to know what Chinese working people think about their government’s direct involvement in genocide but political repression in China makes a movement opposing that involvement difficult to organize. China is involved in persecuting the Uyghur Muslims of China & the Buddhists of Tibet so it isn’t religion which determines the Chinese regime’s involvement in the Rohingya genocide. It’s their stinking rotten politics combined with their economic & military investments in Burma.
Photo is Rohingya family wading through Naf river to asylum in Bangladesh. Stand with the Rohingya people against genocide & for human, democratic, civil, & refugee rights.
Satire & sarcasm used by the powerful against the oppressed is propaganda. When used by the oppressed, it is a weapon for freedom which helps blunt the grief & release the anger of war & occupation.
This sarcastic tweet mocks the Israeli Law of Return where any Jew living anywhere in the world has citizenship rights in Israel & occupied Palestine, including the expropriation of Palestinian homes & lands, while millions of Palestinians live in refugee camps. It also ridicules the contemptible Zionist tenet that God deeded Palestine to Jews in the Bible.
Cable TV news has spoken of nothing else for weeks except sexual assault by powerful media, political, movie industry figures. Exposure of these violent crimes would advance women’s rights except that media uses them only to promote either the Democratic or Republican party. As much as feminists welcome these exposures, what about the crimes against Rohingya, Kashmiri, Palestinian, Syrian, Iraqi, Yemeni, Somalian, Libyan, Congolese, Mayan women? Not one single word for weeks about war, occupation, genocide on cable news.
Hold me cover my sight
This is no paradise
Don’t show me the
Evil sides of the world
How many hours and how many days
Love is just slipping away
How many seasons and how many years
In tears
How many centuries and how many lives
In fear
Photo is Palestinian child Husni Abu Dubaika & his brother who were among several hundred children killed by Israeli bombers in Gaza, July-August 2014.
Buddhist dissident in exile Maung Zarni–who is playing a central role with Rohingya activists in educating about & campaigning against the Rohingya genocide–will be speaking in Toronto tomorrow at 6 pm. He isn’t a person to pull his punches & has compared the Rohingya genocide to the holocaust & to the killing fields in Cambodia. After so much mealy-mouthed complicity from politicians & diplomats, his uncompromising analysis is essential.
AAA road service reports that one in five don’t know how to change a flat tire. I was taught by George Weissman, a socialist of the 1930s generation & my political mentor. The socialist movement he helped build was in a tailspin & becoming politically corrupt. After he instructed me how to change a flat, we sat on the steps & this very taciturn man expressed his grief, frustration & anger at the debasement of socialist politics which he no longer had authority to influence. Good thing he didn’t live till today to see the worst of it with so many supporting Assad’s dictatorship & the bombing of civilians.
I’ve never had to fix a flat since on the occasions I’ve had one on the highway, a fellow has always stopped to change it for me. I’ve never had the heart to rebuff human kindness. Maybe that’s a grace since I associate changing a flat with George’s political grief. He died in 1984.
Ordinarily I don’t post racist caricatures because they’re all alike in imbecility & infantile social malice. But cartoons are a prominent genre for Burmese propagandists & supporters of the Rohingya genocide. Racist cartooning of Blacks, Chinese, & other nationalities was also the norm in the apartheid (Jim Crow) era in the US. Political cartooning is such a brilliant way to skewer tyrannous power that it is odious when used to humiliate the oppressed. Consider the incisiveness of Daumer compared to this halfwitted rubbish. That’s what happens when you use sarcasm to ridicule the oppressed rather than oppressors.
Who even knows what this piece of crap means except to insult–& show the stupidity of Burmese nationalists. Once again, Assadists & other fascists have joined with the political forces who support the Burmese military in conducting genocide against the Rohingya people. In politics there are no equivocations when it comes to genocide. Either one stands with the Rohingya people or one stands with fascism.
(This rubbish posted on Twitter by Rohingya activist Ro Nay San Lwin @nslwin)
Kashmiri friends, it seems to me there is a dramatic increase in the execution of militants. There appear to be two or more funerals a day. Is the Indian army on a siege to rout & execute militants?
