On the use of torture in Kashmir:
Monthly Archives: August 2019
Another great book about Black & Native American history in the US is “Lies My Teacher Told Me,” by James W. Loewen, also now a retired professor. His work focuses more on the exclusion of Black & Native American history in the American school curriculum, including at the university level. He has a second book titled “Lies Across America: What Our Historic Markers & Monuments Get Wrong” about the hundreds of confederate monuments all over the US from coast to coast which honor the confederate & Indian genocide legacies & are maintained at great cost by white supremacist groups. As you recall, some of them came under attack after racist assaults on Blacks a few years ago. But most of them still stand praising the genocide of Native Americans & the legacy of Black slavery. Odious things that will have to be razed with jackhammers when the US has rid itself of white supremacy. Don’t mock that as a delusional pipe dream. It is possible if we organize for that political goal.
(Cover of “Lies My Teacher Told Me”)
I’ve read a lot of books on Native American history & consider the writings of Jack Weatherford, an emeritus professor at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, to be among the best in presenting the considerable contributions Native Americans have made to world civilization & not just in agriculture & textiles. He demonstrates how their achievements were taken to Europe & advanced the industrial revolution. Their agricultural achievements, especially cultivating potatoes & corn, have traveled the world on every continent from Timbuktu to Ireland.
His work was highly regarded by Native American tribes in Minnesota & he was frequently asked to speak & participate in their conferences & gatherings. There is no hint of patronizing in his works. He is also known for his book “Genghis Khan & the Making of the Modern World” for which he was awarded the Order of the Polar Star, Mongolia’s highest national honor for foreigners.
This is the kind of history that Native American children want to read rather than constantly shove the genocide down their throats as a constant reminder of their on-going humiliation. It isn’t an attempt to deny or cover up that history–they would be the last to want that–but to put it in political perspective so they can feel pride in their culture, not just degradation & outrage at their persecution & at a genocide which has by no means ended.
(Photo is cover of a remarkable, readable book)
Not to be vainglorious, but it just dawned on me that I may have played a wee part in Ilhan Omar’s statement on Kashmir. In order to contact her by email, I had to have an address & zip code in her congressional district. So I borrowed that of my older sister who lives there since it wouldn’t accept my Texas zip code. I say wee part, maybe even itsy-bitsy part, since she was probably flooded with phone calls where zip code could not be monitored & was also receiving intelligence reports from her work in Congress. Itsy-bitsy’s good.
“Just returned from Kashmir. Twelve year olds detained and beaten in midnight raids. Women threatened with rape. Young boys given electric shocks, families unaware of their whereabouts. This is the NORMAL you talk about. This is the worst I have seen in the valley yet.”
–journalist Rana Ayyub
There is considerable lobbying by progressives, including Black progressives like Danny Glover, against covering the controversial mural in San Francisco’s George Washington High school which realistically portrays George Washington as a slave owner engaged in the extermination of Native Americans. Their arguments are compelling. But not as compelling as the Black students & parents who object to the mural for portraying them in a demeaning way, even though the artist’s intentions were to protest that treatment.
We only have to remember the very similar dispute over Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn,” once required reading in the high school curriculum, read & swooned over by whites who saw it as an anthem against racism & slavery. It portrays a little white street kid saving a Black adult slave on the run & is the very origins & matrix of white savior culture in American literature, art, & film. It’s a farce & a mockery with Twain putting minstrel language in Jim, the slave’s mouth. It was Black parents who saw their children disturbed & traumatized by the depiction of themselves as helpless buffoons who finally challenged its place in the curriculum.
We have to respect the sensitivities & judgements of Black children & parents, not malign them for attempting to whitewash & censor American history. As one Native American demanding the removal of the murals said, they represent “American history from the colonizers’ perspective.” It is often from the mouthes of children & certainly from the oppressed that we best understand our own history, our own political blindnesses, our own compromises with white savior rancidity.
The mural will not be destroyed; it will be covered, hopefully with positive images of the monumental achievements & contributions of Blacks & Native Americans to world culture, science, & emancipatory theoretics.
There are moments when the oppression & tragedies sustained by Palestinians, Kashmiris, Syrians, Rohingya, Uyghur, Afghans, Yemenis, Iraqis, Somalis, Indigenous tribes of the Amazon, refugees, & so many others are just overwhelming & we feel PTSD symptoms coming on just from witnessing them. We take a breather & then come back after remembering that millions of children are enduring the tragedies we cannot even bear to witness. That’s the responsibility of those fortunate enough not to be on the front lines of oppression.
The news from Kashmir just gets worse & worse. We can parse & quibble over whether Indian fascism in Kashmir is comparable with German fascism but you’d have to be a fool to deny that what India is imposing in Kashmir is fascism & genocide.
After transferring my FB posts to my blog, I realized how much I post every day. There is an overwhelming amount of material in media about Kashmir where before there were decades of a news blackout. That did not change until Kashmiri activists on social media began educating us & campaigning about their freedom struggle. Their voices have been silenced & it isn’t necessarily safe for Kashmiris living outside Kashmir to speak out because they have families in Kashmir to consider. We have to run with this political opportunity & that means excessive posting so that non-Kashmiris know how important their struggle for self-determination is. I hate to keep saying it, but if my wall is just too much, I wouldn’t blame you if you muted me awhile.
J&K police have filed cases against Kashmiris for ‘posting “sensitive remarks” on Facebook that could disturb law & order in the state.” They are not only threatening prosecution but cancellation of visas or passports. How does that distinguish itself from fascism?