The Christchurch terrorist streamed his massacre of 49 innocent worshipers live on Facebook. He wanted to glorify & immortalize his monstrous crime. He learned that from media & cinema who vilify Muslims & Arabs & glorify war, occupation, persecution, & genocide against them. Recently, there was a protest to Netflix for a demeaning, dishonest portrayal of Trotsky. We need to organize & coordinate protests to all media & cinema outlets against their racist, hateful portrayals of Muslims & Arabs.
Daily Archives: March 16, 2019
Wish I could share all of the powerful protest posts of my friends, especially my Muslim friends, about the New Zealand mosque massacre. Brilliant, incisive, outraged. Maybe I will try to gather them to counter all the hate coming from nationalists, Islamophobes, racists, white supremacists, & other boneheads. Although white supremacy was directly involved in this massacre & although it remains one of the most malignant scourges to humanity, it should not be emphasized over hatred for Muslims. It is much harder to organize politically against white supremacy than it is against the pogroms, legislation, wars, occupations, genocide, & persecutions against Muslims that are the political gestalt of our times. Social media presents opportunities to organize internationally in defense of Muslims—black, brown,& white—& we should take full advantage.
The mosque massacre in New Zealand isn’t the first time & it won’t be the last time until we internationally organize ourselves against all initiatives to discriminate against or persecute Muslims & Arabs, including all attempts to outlaw the veil in public places. It means rejecting the ‘war on terror’ rhetoric justifying war, occupation, genocide. It is not overstatement to say that the rhetoric portraying the Syrian Arab Spring uprising as “Wahhabi jihadi terrorism” & promoting Syrian, Russian, Iranian, & US-coalition military aggression as liberation from ISIS & terrorism is directly implicated in every violent attack on Muslims. The pogroms against Muslims in India, the occupations of Kashmir & Palestine, the genocide against Rohingya, the mosque shoot-ups in the US, the media & cinematic portrayals of Muslims & Arabs as monsters & terrorists, legislation against the veil, the Muslim ban in the US, & now this massacre in New Zealand are on a continuum of persecution that must be politically organized against. As Zachriah Sulayman says, “Until and unless, the root cause of this problem is grabbed by its throat, incidents like these are bound to happen. It’s time to live as one race or perish as fools.”
May our Muslim sisters & brothers in Christchurch Rest In Peace while we fight like hell to end persecution of others that they may all live in peace.
“It starts with demonizing, with segregation, with manipulation and misinformation, vilification and spitting venom. We had it coming. The terrorist attack in New Zealand was the product of constant hate mongering and continuous revilement on national televisions- left , right or Centre blogs- which resort to propagandas and stereotypes instead of factual information and has normalised and justified violence. Until and unless, the root cause of this problem is grabbed by its throat, incidents like these are bound to happen. It’s time to live as one race or perish as fools.”
–Zachriah Sulayman on the New Zealand mosque massacre
This is a very good interview with Maung Zarni about why he, as a Burmese, campaigns for Rohingya justice. I don’t share his views here on Turkey’s role but one would never argue with his dogged commitment to justice.
Someone always takes umbrage at my criticisms of the Bangladeshi government for their plans to deport Rohingya refugees back to Burma or to the uninhabitable island in the middle of nowhere. They claim Bangladesh is a poor country unable to sustain the number of refugees. Partially that may be true. But then Bangladesh should campaign for other countries to impose economic, political, & military sanctions on Burma & to accept Rohingya refugees for asylum rather than try to force them into concentration camps in Burma or Bhasan Char. It should allow refugees to work, attend school, be integrated into Bangladeshi society.
But there’s another thing: Bangladeshi workers are impoverished by their government’s sweatshop economic policies & by its promotion of child labor in order to attract sweatshops. If some think I’m critical of the government for its refugee policies, they should read my excoriations over its refusal to impose safety policies on garment sweatshops or prosecute sweatshop owners after dozens of fires & building collapses; over its refusal to compensate sweatshop workers who have been injured in fires or families who have lost loved ones in fires or catastrophes like the collapse of Rana Plaza in 2013; over its promotion of child labor in dangerous, backbreaking jobs.
Several years ago, the central bank of Bangladesh reported that the number of Bangladeshi billionaires had tripled due to child labor & sweatshop policies. That doesn’t include the proliferation of millionaires raking it in because of such policies. This photo is a Bangladeshi boy working at an aluminum factory in Dhaka. The health hazards of working with aluminum sentence this small boy to a short life with debilitating health problems. In 2010, Bangladesh adopted the National Child Labor Elimination Policy to eradicate all forms of child labor by 2015 but according to the International Labor Organization there are still over 3.2 million child laborers in Bangladesh. Before the Bangladeshi government can cry poor-mouth, it will have to enforce its own laws & eliminate child labor, allow labor unions, & end sweatshop economics.
(Photo by A.M. Ahad/AP from 2012)
This is a quite significant report since neoliberal farming policy in India, which Monsanto is central to, causes an estimated 17,000 farmer suicides a year. As this article points out, between 1995 & 2013, there were over 300,000 farmer suicides in India. That’s staggering. Neoliberal rural policy all over the world is one of the primary reasons for the exponential growth in urban slums, including in India, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Mexico, African & Latin American countries.
“India continues to be a “Utopia”, a “Paradise” for its minorities especially its Muslims, and everyday we get such reminders. Ask Muzzafarnagar’s Akhter Ansari; his two sons, Nawab and Shahid, were killed during the 2013 pogrom. Ashfaq, his other surviving son, was a witness to his brothers’ murder. On Monday in the broad daylight, Ashfaq was also shot dead! Broken and devastated, and in a way echoing the feelings of all the suppressed Muslims in India, Akhter Ansari says: “For us, the riots are still on.” All hail the “Secular Democracy!” Keep celebrating “Jashn-e-Rekhta” and “Ganga-Jamuna Tehzeeb!” Keep singing “Vande Mataram!” as everything is fine.”
–Basharat Shameem