Christmas in Palestine or Kashmir: military occupation has no respect for anything, anyone, or any religious traditions, including holy days or funeral prayers for those gunned down by the occupying armies.
End the occupations. Self-determination for Palestine & Kashmir.
Several friends have messaged me concerned that I’ve been suspended again. Sorry, but I’ve been furiously reading some books about Syria, Bosnia, & the scale of Indian army hunt to kill operations in Kashmir. I’ll be back posting about these tomorrow. Thank you for worrying about me.
At the dog park today with six of my eight pups.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/849932018548034/
Many of you will want to like, share, & follow this new Facebook page linking the freedom struggles of Palestinians & Kashmiris who are both fighting brutal military occupations. It matters especially because activists from Palestine & Kashmir are so routinely censored, suspended or blocked. It’s a way to express support & follow their struggles.
This little boy is only one of many small Kashmiri children blinded, disfigured, traumatized by India’s use of pellet guns. This is not a result of stray bullets or what the US Pentagon calls “collateral damage.” The harm to small children by the occupying army in Kashmir is intentional, just as it is for Palestinians, Rohingyas, & Black, Latino, & Native American children in the US. The intent is to ward off future resistance by terrorizing, humiliating, & disabling small kids.
Facebook removed the photo of the little boy–apparently it also violated its community standards.
My 89-year-old aunt Rosemary Vail (who we called Midge) has died & I would like to honor her life. She was my mother’s sister, the youngest child in a family of nine. Both parents were German though Midge & my mother believed for several reasons that my grandfather Frank Urman had Jewish ancestry. Frank was an electrician & a union man who went to work for the state & had a job during the great depression; my grandmother Rosemary was a farm girl from Wisconsin–one of the thousands of young girls in that Sister Carrie generation who moved to cities to work & find husbands. She met my grandfather in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Midge met her husband Wayne Vail in church while visiting my mother & a friend in the small town of Hugo where we lived just outside St. Paul. Wayne, like most residents of Hugo, was of French & Native American ancestry. His parents got the first TV in town in 1948 & because they were so kid-friendly opened their house everyday at four pm so all the town kids could come & watch Howdy Doody. That kid-friendly thing was part of Wayne’s nature.
Midge, like my mother, was a deeply religious Catholic & she & Wayne, who was a plumber, went on to have 14 children of their own. I was the flower girl in their wedding, was doted over by Midge when I was nearly run over by a car, spent a lot of time, especially in the summers, babysitting for them where they lived in St. Paul, & simply fell in love with both her & Wayne & with their children who are more like siblings to the Scully clan than cousins. Lizbeth, who was my godchild, died from sudden infant death syndrome. They were as good to me & my siblings as to their own children. They both had a wonderful sense of humor & laughed a lot–as their kids still do. Midge sang to her kids & doted on them all. Both of them were stylish & good-looking in a movie star way but neither hung their identities on that. When I would go to church or the market with either of them, I would be so proud to be with them since they were not the least bit vain or snooty but instead warm & kind to everyone. Coming out of the McCarthy witch hunt era, both were extremely conservative politically.
What I & probably most others loved best about Midge was her kindness & interest in people. I was fascinated as a young girl watching her swoop down on a stranger to learn about them, not in a nosy intrusive way but with sincere interest & attention. She was always very good to me despite the tensions I had with my own mom over politics & treated me with sincere affection even when my politics diverged from her quite conservative views.
My sincere condolences to the 13 surviving Vail children, 44 grandchildren, & 50 great-grandchildren for their loss which their Scully cousins share. We loved our aunt Midge. She was a wonderful woman & we are blessed she & Wayne were part of our lives. Wayne died in January 2016. May they both Rest In Peace. <3
(The picture is Midge & Wayne when they were in their sixties.)
When some criticism of identity politics skirts too close to racism & misogyny (because it cannot be other to oppose those fighting racist & sexist oppression), there are those who start talking ontology, epistemology, phenomenology, & other inscrutable rubbish to throw us off. But baby, we are on to them. We’ll abandon identity politics when we are no longer persecuted for who we are. Now that’s ontology, buster!
“The Impossible Revolution: Making Sense of the Syrian Tragedy” by Yassin Al-Haj Saleh is a brilliant book well worth–even essential–reading. The author is a Syrian political analyst & writer, now in exile, who served 16 years in a Syrian jail & whose wife & political associates were disappeared. The ten essays that make up the book are articles from 2011 & 2012 written for Al-Hayat newspaper. Al-Hayat is an Arabic newspaper which at that time came out of London but is widely read throughout the Middle East. It is not particular to Syria. Perhaps the greatest weakness of the book reflects the intended audience which is mostly intellectuals (who may or may not be activists) & less so the revolutionary movement of Syria.
Some of the essays are simply indispensable for understanding the Syrian Arab Spring uprising which became a revolution–in particular, his profound analyses of the shabiha (Assadist thugs), the militarization of the revolution, the development of terrorist militias, the political character of the Assad regime, the political character of “sectarianism” between Shia, Sunni, Alawites. So much attention has been paid in polemics to the political bankruptcy of the left outside Syria in supporting the Assad regime but in this book we get a sense of the weakness of the Syrian left as a result of political repression under the Assad dynasty & as part of the general political decline of the international left. One could argue that the weakness of political leadership in Syria makes the achievements & tenacity of the revolution all the more remarkable–or it might better be said that given the decline of the left, their absence actually made the achievements possible.
Because the articles chosen (out of the hundreds written by the author) were from the early days of the uprising, there is no analysis of the entry of Russia, Iran, Hezbollah, Turkey, Israel, & US-coalition forces which changed the character of the struggle to the disadvantage of the revolution. There is nothing about the plight of Palestinian refugees or the role of Kurds. A weakness of the book is that it does not situate the Syrian uprising within the context of the Arab Spring uprisings in Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Tunisia, & elsewhere. Many questions are left unanswered. But those issues that are addressed are brilliantly probed in a way not found elsewhere at least by non-Arabic speaking readers. The book is simply a must for those who wish to understand the Syrian revolution.
https://www.facebook.com/unitednationshumanrights/videos/vb.207918945891587/340509556728875/?type=2&theater
Kashmiri Khurram Parvez of the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) beautifully & simply explaining why he became a human rights activist:
Who knew that it is now illegal in 26 US states to participate in or advocate the boycott of Israel? Who knew that a loyalty oath to Israel is now law for millions of US citizens? Zionists are employing the strategy anti-abortion rights groups have used for decades by getting bills passed state by state to truncate our rights. We don’t have to stand for this. If we don’t take this on politically & stop this now, we’ll be serving jail time for refusing to bend the knee to Zionism & for defending Palestinian justice.
It’s time for us to start litigating against this crap & to form state & national coalitions to organize against it. These laws must be abolished & cannot be allowed to hold force over employment, social benefits, etc. We need to start today to form such action coalitions. This is a call to arms.