You can’t have reasoned discussion with Zionists, Assadists, Islamophobes, Hindutva nationalists, fascists. It’s a waste of adrenalin, a precious life commodity needed to keep indignation in working order. If they’ve grown to adult life still attracted to political manure, nothing you say, no matter how compelling or cogent, will persuade them. Nothing about their social hatreds will be persuasive to us. So when they poke their snouts around my wall & let out guttural utterances & other insults to the senses, the kindest cut of all is to block them Danno. Otherwise I have to pay for an exorcist or exterminator & they’re pricey these days.
Daily Archives: May 10, 2018
This is Kashmiri journalist Gowhar Geelani on Indian TV news in a debate with a nationalist reporter & two other nationalist windbags. You don’t have to be able to follow the debate to enjoy the contrast he presents to the three of them trying to shout him down.
The strength of opposition to occupation of Kashmir is measured by 700,000 Indian troops
One way of looking at the occupation of Kashmir by 700,000 soldiers & special forces–the highest ratio of soldiers to civilians in the world–is that it represents the Indian government’s measure of the level of political resistance among Kashmiris to colonialism & occupation. It represents India’s fear of unarmed civilian protesters. That’s why the hunt to kill operations, the pellet guns, the overkill. When the men with the guns are running scared, they become more lethal. That’s why Kashmiri activists have reached out on social media to bring others around the world to stand with them. Kashmiris have to know they aren’t alone as they stand on the front lines of one of the most important freedom struggles of our times.
(Photo from Go India Go Back wall on FB)
Bloody Sunday Kashmir
Kashmir is grieving. Indian occupying forces shot dead five militants & five civilians today in one of its hunt to kill operations in the Shopian district south of Srinagar. Thirty other civilians were injured by live ammo, pellet guns, & tear gas after the army swooped down on the village of Badigam on a tip from a snitch/informant. (May they rot in hell.) Some Kashmiris are calling this massacre Bloody Sunday after the 1972 slaughter in Derry, Northern Ireland when British occupation forces shot down 28 unarmed civilians during a peaceful protest against internment of political activists. Many of those killed were shot while fleeing or were shot trying to help the wounded.
The biographies of all those killed are not yet reported except for the militant Mohammad Rafi Bhat, a university sociology teacher who only went underground with the rebels last Friday. He obviously went without martial or guerrilla training & probably had no idea how to handle a gun when the army surrounded the house where they were hiding. The five militants were given the chance to surrender to the army; the army even brought Bhat’s father to the site to prevail on his son to surrender. Not surrendering was certain death. They were all killed & the house razed to the ground. This is not the time to debate the political sagacity of urban guerrilla warfare as a strategy against occupation, but it is necessary to understand what it is that draws young men to leave work & family to engage in such a dangerous form of political activity–although as we know from the death of Adil Ahmed who was run over & killed by an armored vehicle, just walking down the street is a dangerous activity in Kashmir. Many have been shot & killed or injured just looking out the windows of their homes. Mostly the militants are inspired by indignation & opposition to occupation & frustration at the quotient exacted by it in human suffering. They hope, by engaging in guerrilla warfare, to rouse others to action & speed the day of liberation. It doesn’t have a stellar past, but its efficacy as a political strategy is for Kashmiris to decide.
Kashmir is grieving not just the political murders of ten people today but actually 14 in the past 48 hours since four were killed in a hunt to kill operation on Saturday. These are just the latest murderous encounters with Indian occupation forces who have killed at least 89 young men since January, both militants & civilians. That’s close enough to one person killed by the occupying army every day in Kashmir. Staggering levels of violence. Unimaginable levels of loss & grief. Hundreds of civilians have also been injured, some disfigured & disabled, by protesting at the sites of hunt to kill operations in order to protect the militants.
The most meaningful condolences we can render Kashmiris is renewed commitment to educating others to the justice of their struggle. Our heartfelt condolences for the loss of so many freedom fighters in just one weekend. May they Rest In Peace.
“under the Trump administration: 50,000 Hondurans, 9,000 Nepalese, 200,000 Salvadorans, 45,000 Haitians, and 2,500 Nicaraguans all being forced out by 2020″ ~ from the new york times.. some democracy.”
–Kuffir Nalgundwar
The lionhearted stone pelter
The lionhearted stone pelters of Kashmir & Palestine against brutal military occupation: to respect the stone pelters of Kashmir & Palestine is not to glorify violence but to honor self-defense against violence. The oppressed have a right to defend themselves by any & every means necessary. It appears most stone pelters are working class youth always on the front lines against tyranny. The stone is the weapon of Intifada. Those who condemn the stone pelter condemn Intifada.
(Photo is Palestinian child facing off against Israeli army. It was misidentified as a Kashmiri boy but such fearlessness is seen in Kashmiri & Palestinian kids.)
Rabid Islamophobia & anti-Semitism are the bedrock of Assadism
Rabid Islamophobia combined with anti-Semitism should stick out like a sore thumb to those who actually wade through the rubbish posted by Assad propagandists & their guppy squad. The Islamophobia is arrant in their portrayals of armed militias using the inflammatory rhetoric of the war on terror: the head-chopping jihadi, Wahhabi/Salafi stuff. The propagandists themselves are, for the most part, too slick to openly, or at least often, express their hostility to Muslims & Jews–although Bartlett & Beeley both publicly associate with David Icke (Bartlett even edited for him) who believes extraterrestrial reptilian Jewish bankers called the Illuminati rule the world. Icke’s ideology is nuts but it’s also dangerous politically & has thousands of disturbed adherents–many of whom are Assad supporters via Global Research & other libertarian journals. The attraction of so many anti-Semites (& fascists) to Assad is most likely based on the historic persecution of Jews under the Assad dynasty & the eventual flight of all of them. The last Jews in Syria left Aleppo during the 2016 bombing siege by Syria & Russia.
That’s why the photos of an Israeli man humiliating an African refugee were posted by several Assad supporters with coy or snide suggestions about the Israeli guy’s religion rather than his political philosophy of Zionism. That’s not a minor confusion. It’s the bedrock of anti-Semitism. If you don’t hate on Jews, it would be unthinkable to make that kind of imputation against Judaism. It was a horrific incident; as horrific as seeing Israelis perched in easy chairs, sucking down beers, & watching the 2014 bombing siege of Gaza. Despite living through all that, Palestinians do not condemn Judaism but are merciless in their condemnations of Zionism. Palestinians long ago proposed a democratic, secular state where Palestinians & Jews will live as brothers & sisters. They saw it as the only workable solution to the mess Zionism, in league with the US & UK, have made. Those who undermine that proposal by associating Palestinian solidarity with anti-Semitism are political dry rot & of no value except to the fascist cause.
Photo is Palestinian returning tear gas canister dropped by drone at Great Return March. If Palestinians can be put through this hell & still call for a united state with Jews, anti-Semites have no right to sabotage that.
(Photo from Great Return March on Twitter)
{PS: I’ve chosen not to post the photo of the Israeli man & African refugee. It’s pornographic in its own way & inflammatory.)
Anybody ever win an argument with a rightwing bozo on Facebook? Me neither. That’s why I bounce them. So don’t call me intolerant & censorious. I’m just protecting our adrenalin for when it’s really needed.
Ro Nay San Lwin & Shafiur Rahman leaving Johannesburg for Durban & then on to Cape Town in their South African tour to build active solidarity with the Rohingya people. A big fat salute to South African activists for organizing this impressive speaking tour & inspiring the rest of us to organize one in our own countries.
As we see from this funeral/protest for a militant in Kashmir & from the Great Return March in Gaza, military occupation isn’t a particularly effective way to quell political dissent. It only maximizes the quotient of human suffering on the way to liberation.