The indefatigable Ro Nay San Lwin & a fellow Rohingya activist from the Free Rohingya Coalition addressing a European conference on the genocide & plans for forcible deportation back to the killing fields of Burma.
Daily Archives: November 5, 2018
A mordant protest against pellet munitions in Kashmir:
(Photo from Times Bashir/Kashmir Daily News)
To whoever dared enlist me without my consent or knowledge in the group ‘Victims of religion & Islamic extremism’, I will hunt you down & escort you unceremoniously to Facebook blockland. The group is a cesspool of Islamophobia & anti-Semitism.
“Suffer the little children to come unto me & do not try to stop them because the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”
–Jesus, CE/AD 33
“Mexican soldiers…should stop them before they reach our border, but won’t!”
–Trump, 2018
(Photo of 4-year-old refugee on the Honduran/Guatemalan caravan by Carolyn Van Houten/Washington Post)
Out of sensitivity, some friends have messaged me against posting photos of the Iraqi babies born disfigured as a result of US chemical warfare in Iraq. Since the nuclear bomb at Hiroshima & Nagasaki & Agent Orange in Vietnam, the US has a history of using chemical agents on civilian populations. The advocacy group ‘Birth defects in Fallujah’ & others are not posting the photos to promote pity nor certainly as a freak show. When I was a nun we worked with children with learning disabilities & severe physical disfigurement. They’re as human & loving as the rest of us & as the disability rights movement has taught us, as humans they are perfect just as they are. But suffering is involved for them & their families, especially if the harm was done through malpractice or violence like carpet bombing a civilian population with nuclear & toxic agents. We post the photos not to display their suffering but to expose the character of US chemical warfare & militarism.
Silence the birds till our souls are free,
Silence the waves till they feel what I feel,
Play melancholy on a flute,
My soul will listen to you,
Paint the sky with blood,
So you cannot avoid what is true,
Your silence is consent, it amounts to a sin,
Open your heart to the pain that I am drowning in.
Cry till the rivers cannot carry much more,
When you speak, I pray that they hear your call,
The sea won’t run dry nor will mountains fall,
If you try to understand that my blood is yours,
Anger pumps through my veins as we search for a cure, the pain that I carry is also yours.
Shout so that the wind quivers before you,
Light the candle within your soul with love,
Demand truth from all those who stand before you,
Personify your flame, don’t let it go out,
Let it glimmer through the darkest of nights,
Draw a vision and vow that you will always fight.
Silence the birds till our people breathe free,
Silence the waves till you feel as I feel,
Play tunes of hope on a flute,
My soul will smile with you,
Paint the sky with love,
The greatest canvas for a dove,
Your light will be me, we are fighting to win,
Light your flame to the pain that I am drowning in.
—Sanaah Sultan via Teresa Gill
And still we wonder why the grotesque disproportion between mourning US & European victims of terrorism & those sustaining war, occupation, & genocide? Is it only white supremacy? Or is it also because the former are so few & so rare & the latter so constant & so many? Never a day goes by without grieving & funerals in Palestine, Kashmir, Syria, Iraq, Burma, Yemen, Afghanistan. It is overwhelming to witness, as it must be hell on earth to endure. We should never ever forget the contribution the deceased have made to human freedom from oppression. May they Rest In Peace.
Again, on the first snow in Kashmir:
“#Snow_Of_Resistance
I still wana choose a dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery .#Kashmir
#FreedomToBe #Azadi #Snow”
–Dar Ishtiyaq
How do we tell the difference between a propagandist & a journalist? Propagandists are embedded with repressive armies, as in Syria. Journalists are disappeared & executed, as in Arakan state, Burma; harassed & arrested, as in Kashmir; beaten & shot at, as in Palestine; disappeared, tortured, executed, as in Syria & other war zones.
These are Palestinian journalists covering land expropriations in the West Bank & the Great Return March in Gaza.
https://www.facebook.com/basem.naim.980/posts/186684675591949
On the first snow in Kashmir:
“White snowy carpet is more like a Shroud on the naked mutilated bodies of innocent Martyrs of this unfortunate land.”
–Kashmiri Farhan Rashid Gandroo