After three 30-day Facebook suspensions, I keep waiting for the axe to fall again. It’s quite disorienting to be banned from social media & I appreciate when people show solidarity & awareness of that. Call me a cry baby but Kashmiris know much better than I how infuriating & frustrating it is. If you would like to communicate with me when I’m out, please message me & I will send my email address. Or is that just inviting problems?

I goofed again. Facebook did not delete Aasif Shafi’s personal page, even though I was unable to access it yesterday, but instead deleted his photojournalist page which they have not restored. No one is signing the petition to get his photojournalist page restored perhaps for fear of coming under surveillance by FB censors. But if we do not stand together on this, we get picked off one by one.

https://www.change.org/p/facebook-facebook-stop-censoring-kashmiri-activists-journalists-restore-aasif-shafi-s-account?

So it seems Facebook has relented from eliminating the account of Kashmiri photojournalist Aasif Shafi & has restored his account. In a time when journalists around the world are being repressed, disappeared, murdered, Facebook discredits itself by getting involved in censoring them. Twitter & Facebook are on a binge of censorship, especially of Palestinian, Kashmiri, Rohingya activists. When they bounced Alex Jones & some Burmese generals (including chief genocidaire General Min Aung Hlaing, but leaving Suu Kyi’s several walls intact), it was to legitimize the censorship of political activists & silence their voices. Some may think bouncing the generals was a good thing but in fact Hlaing’s account was a valuable place to follow his travels to drum up investments, see who was meeting with him & what he was saying. It’s imperative to understand what the oppressors are up to.

Freedom of speech is a democratic right which we have nothing to fear from & everything to gain from. If we are wise, we never advocate that it be abridged even for the extreme rightwing because they have many media venues to express their views & our options are few. That is why it matters that we maintain freedom of speech on social media.

As part of censorship of Kashmiri activists on social media & Indian repression of journalists in Kashmir, the personal Facebook wall of photojournalist Aasif Shafi which had 67,000 readers has been deleted. You can take a stand for free speech & a free press, show solidarity with Aasif, & follow his important work by liking & sharing his wall.

https://www.facebook.com/photographer.aasifshafi/

Not unlike European fascists of the 20th century, modern fascist demagogues & their libertarian & Stalinist affinity groups rail against capitalism but in every instance support state power against popular democratic movements. Assadist support for the Syrian dictatorship is of a piece with their support for Putin, Duterte, Suu Kyi, Mohammed Ben Salman, Ortega, Maduro, & even Trump. To disguise their support for state & corporate power they scapegoat–then Jews & Roma; now Muslims & Jews. Zionism & Israel serve to justify that scapegoating without rendering hatred of Jews one whit less malignant. Hatred of Jews & of Muslims are the twin pillars of Assadism & permeate everything they write.

The prominence of Jews in media, arts, politics does not reflect intellectual superiority or control over the world as posited by anti-Semites but primarily their historic urban character & culture. In the same way as Israel serves the purposes of US hegemony in the Middle East, so does the demagogic vitriol of Islamophobia which justifies wars, occupations, & the genocide against Palestinians (as well as Rohingyas, Kashmiris, Uyghurs, & others). The fact that fascists & their Assadist affinity groups support the Palestinian struggle is only an expedience, a maneuver to corner Jews & eliminate them before they turn on Palestinians, who are also Semites. The point is to strengthen Palestinian political power that it may transform Zionists into anti-Zionists in the same way the US civil rights movement transformed racist relations in the US. That there were setbacks in that struggle does not mean it was not worth fighting but only that we must learn how to solidify & prevent reversals in the historic gains we make in creating just & democratic societies.

Fascist scapegoating of Jews & others led to the holocaust; Zionism led to the genocide of Palestinians. The way out of this stinking morass of social hatred is to understand the power relations between the state & suffering masses, to elaborate the character of fascist & Assadist demagoguery, & to reject & scorn anti-Semitism & Islamophobia in every form. That makes no concessions whatsoever to Zionism but completely undermines its power. We all have a right to live in this world with peace, justice, & dignity. There is no place for supremacist delusions that put us at war with one another.

“From that day on when India forcibly took control of Kashmir:

Our each morning is mourning.
Each Day, we shoulder the coffins of our brothers.
Each day, we attend funerals of our martyrs.
Each day is black day.
Each day Kashmir bleeds.”

–Zara Ali 🇵🇰 🍁@Iam_ZaraAli on Twitter

You may want to look at Maung Zarni’s public Facebook wall to follow his speaking tour in Japan. It’s a good example of the kind of political work others can do to build the Rohingya solidarity movement.

“Stop calling it “communal violence” when it’s clear that it’s anti-Muslim violence.
Don’t call it a “riot” because it’s actually a state-engineered pogrom.
Stop using vague words like “scuffle between two groups” when the evidence points to a hate crime.
Don’t just call it “mob violence” because the mob enjoys institutional impunity from state agencies.

Your language demeans the lives of a minority community. Check it.”

–Heba Ahmed