A Kashmiri man cries & is consoled by friends & neighbors after the occupying Indian army destroyed his family home in a hunt to kill operation in Gund village, North Kashmir. Why it was necessary to destroy his home is part of the strategy of occupation & not because he was harboring militants. It functions somewhat differently than the occupying Israeli army in the West Bank which razes homes & entire villages for purposes of ethnic cleansing. But it remains a weapon of occupation, intended to demoralize & punish resistance.
End the occupation of Kashmir. Self-determination for Kashmir.

(Photo is screenshot from video on Twitter)

Seven-year-old Palestinian Tareq Dhabanya was intentionally run over & killed by a rabid Zionist settler in the West Bank. Some of those settlers are so violent, deranged, & supremacist that they may never be able to accommodate to a democratic, secular state. But in a democratic state, they will be prosecuted for acts of violence, especially for the murder of children, not given impunity as they are now by apartheid Israel.

May our little brother Rest In Peace.

(Photo from The Palestine Information Center)

The word used to describe combative (in the dignified sense of that word) women is “feisty.” I don’t go for it since it diminishes our indignations. I like “badass” since it suggests you ought to tremble in fear when you get one of our dirty looks.

“many kashmiris are dead uncomfortable with feminism in all its forms, good or bad, that is quite telling, and therefore, nothing should be done to mitigate this discomfort. this discomfort is good, as it will pave way for deeper thinking, which may lead to the realisation that our fight against colonial oppression cannot be divorced from the oppression of women within our homes, workplaces, streets and everywhere. for a healthy internal debate on this, indians, irrespective of political views, should stay away, and if they don’t we are quite capable of elbowing them out, vehemently. we have nothing to learn from them, they must put their own house in order and we should not allow them to relish these important debates in kashmir to further their own saviour agenda.”

–Mir Laieeq

(I’m not posting this to intrude into the debate on feminism among Kashmiris but because it’s such an excellent statement of the relationship between women’s oppression & the broader struggles against war, occupation, genocide.)

The fact that so many of the 37 regimes which endorsed China’s genocide of Uyghur Muslims (along with Cuba, Syria, & Venezuela) are so-called ‘Muslim nations’ should finally lay to rest the notion that those nations are guided by Islam or by human rights. They are tyrannies which misuse Islam to justify their barbarities. They are regimes that do not reflect the commitments & aspirations of their citizens, Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, or other, but only the vested interests of the oppressors. To associate those regimes with Islam is to play into the hands of the Islamophobic ‘war on terror’, the consequences of which we see in Assadism.

By Palestinian artist Malak Mattar, a tribute to a six-year-old Palestinian child murdered by Israeli violence.

Since sarcasm is such a powerful weapon of political resistance, it’s worthwhile to repost these comments from last year mocking the patronizing social media campaign called “Talk to a Muslim” to address the murderous pogroms & murders of Indian Muslims:

Shuja Kosher: “I know many Indian Muslims who are proud Indians. They must be overjoyed that someone will finally talk to them before killing them.”

Sarwar Baig: “Look at him. Feisty little fellow, isn’t he? Observe the dense tufts of hair on his cheeks and chin. Look at the obscenely garish mehendi in his beard. Don’t get too close to the cage now. Don’t feed him. The fence is electrified for a reason. See that bulge under his bright tunic? That’s his explosive vest. Careful now. Go on. Talk to the katua.”

Puneet Maini: “India has now entered that phase where eating with Dalits and talking to Muslims are considered revolutionary acts.”

A few weeks ago, a woman, a retiree who lived in a trailer park, who I met at the dog park gave me a shih tzu dog she had found but couldn’t keep. Rather than her taking him to the shelter which euthanizes, I took him hoping the Yaqui animal shelter could find him a family. I named him Nacho until I could find his caretaker if he was lost or Yaqui could take him if he had been abandoned. If you hold on to a foundling for too long, the bonds become too deep & it’s impossible to give them over for adoption. Once they’re in your heart, they’re yours till death do you part.

The Dairy Queen ice cream shop here gives out free ‘pup cups’ to every dog if you buy something so every once in a while after the dog park I bring my crew to the DQ which they absolutely love. For at least a year, we’ve been waited on by the same young woman who is a dog lover & who always filled up each pup cup to the brim. Yesterday, my crew was due for a pup cup & she again was on the window. I told her my Miss Penny had died but that we had Nacho until we could find him a loving family through Yaqui. She said her aunt was looking for a dog just like Nacho & might be interested in taking him. I don’t trust my vetting judgement when it comes to adopting animals but after a year of interaction with this young woman, I trusted her as a person. So we agreed that I would give her the dog for her aunt & that if for any reason it didn’t work out, I would take Nacho back rather than have him passed around.

Later in the evening, I met her & her mom to relinquish Nacho. She reaffirmed that she would give him back to me if her aunt found him incompatible. This morning, she phoned to ask if she could keep him because her two boys fell in love with him, as she did, & that he slept in her bed curled up at her feet. She said whenever I bring my dogs for pup cups she would show me photos of the little guy so I can be assured of his happiness & well-being. You always worry yourself sick about dogs you turn over for adoption, that they found greater happiness & love. In this case, I feel certain that Nacho found a forever, loving home.

(Photo of Nacho)

I’m certainly not the only one who thinks Trump is setting Ilhan Omar up for an act of violence, including the possibility of an attempt on her life. He’s contemptuous of dark-skinned people, Muslims, & women, especially the fearless ones, going so far as to build concentration camps for little refugee kids. Nothing will stop his advances on human rights except massive national protests demanding his removal & until then a special anti-fascist muzzle fitted for that orange lump of lard. How do we get those national protests going?

Yesterday, Trump wound up a crowd of his followers, encouraging them to chant “Send her back! Send her back!” against Somali-born Muslim Ilhan Omar. He spoke as president of the US in the demagogic style of Adolph Hitler. He places her in extreme danger, inciting the psychotics among his followers to violence.
In response she tweeted a poem of Maya Angelou: “You may shoot me with your words. You may cut me with your eyes. You may kill me with your hatefulness. But still, like air, I’ll rise.” Omar is tough & uncompromising. But she should not have to work as a congresswoman under such racist & Islamophobic harassment.

There must be some way to take legal action, including impeachment proceedings, against the orange lump of lard inciting violence against a Black Muslim woman.