87 days now of the Kashmiri blockade & no end in sight. There are important protests in Lebanon, Iraq, Chile, ongoing genocides in Idlib, Palestine, China, Yemen, & West Papua, attempts to deport Rohingya to an uninhabitable island, war in Afghanistan, & millions of refugees stranded all over the world. It’s not that Kashmiri lives are more valuable than all those others but that their struggle, if fortified by international solidarity, can reverse the trend of barbarism that is taking over the world & advance unity in action with other freedom struggles. It’s that important, that politically decisive. What happens in India won’t stay in India. If fascism is not decisively defeated there, it will impact other freedom struggles in the most adverse ways & the world will end up that much closer to hell. Kashmiris are playing a leading role in making this world suitable for children to come of age in, for human beings to live & love in. For those reasons, we #StandWithKashmir.
Daily Archives: October 30, 2019
AN INCREDIBLY BEAUTIFUL & POWERFUL STATEMENT ABOUT THE MEANING OF AZAADI BY KASHMIRI MIR LAIEEQ, originally posted October 14, 2017:
“Indian state despite its grave, unspeakable crimes against us, has not been able to kill our humanity, it has failed to make hatred the defining virtue of our struggle, despite its beastly behaviour we have not turned into beasts, instead we have retained our dignity and ethical fabric, despite being victims of an atrocious war imposed upon us we have maintained our moral compass, the humanitarian gestures like rescuing occupying soldiers even when most of them have been acting like savages is a reflection of who we are and what we aspire to be! In all this lies the biggest defeat of this oppressive state and our greatest victory, it also gives us hope that a free kashmir will not be built upon pathological hatred of the other, but upon the ideals of human fraternity, dignity and brotherhood. Kashmir today even in one of her most painful times has a lot of lessons to offer to Indians and world at large: we are willing to sacrifice our lives to achieve freedom but we won’t lose our morality in the process, we refuse to slip into savagery and hatred despite the cruelest provocations like killing and blinding of our children. As for us, Azaadi is not a mere destination but a means towards a more humane, just and ethical society…”
(Reposting since Facebook has taken the liberty of deleting it without cause)
Beware the NY Times when it comes to articles about terrorism in Kashmir. It alternates fairly decent coverage about Article 370 & other issues with rubbish like the article today titled “Militants Kill 5 Laborers in Kashmir, Expanding Threat to Civilians: Many Kashmiris are afraid to go back to work, fearing attacks by militants intent on halting trade to punish the Indian government.” The ideology & strategy of the ‘war on terror’ are essential to India’s occupation of Kashmir & also critical to modern international power politics & the NY Times is not going to let the Kashmiri narrative undermine that. That’s why the NYT will continue to publish alarmist articles like the one today & why we must continue exposing the lies about terrorism being a problem in Kashmir. The problem in Kashmir is the Indian occupation, not the chimera of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism.
Berlin, Germany #StandWithKashmir rally, October 27th, 2019.
One of the horrors of US immigration policy is that thousands of children are unaccounted for & disappeared after being dumped in refugee concentration camps. Now we learn that after arresting 13,000 young Kashmiri boys, the Indian government cannot account for them. Two months ago, 14-year-old Umar Bashir Naikoo was abducted & sent 1,000 miles/1,609 km away to a prison in Uttar Pradesh where he might have been mixed with the adult criminal population. Now ordered to release him, Indian authorities do not know where the young boy is.
In the interests of human rights & child welfare, there is urgency to our demand that India stop the abduction of children, immediately release all political prisoners, & immediately set up an investigative unit to locate all of the abducted children & return them to their families.
Indian journalist & Modi sock puppet Barkha Dutt is denouncing the killing in Kashmir of five day laborers from West Bengal. She calls “The terror attack on labourers a grim reminder of the full reality of Kashmir.” Kashmiris are also denouncing the killings but unlike nationalist Dutt who attributes them to Pakistan-sponsored terrorists, Kashmiris suspect government agents since there is no history of armed militants attacking unarmed workers while there is 72 years of history of the Indian Army doing so. The ‘full reality of Kashmir’ does not just include the murder of those workers but the collective punishment of the Indian Army crackdown today on all Kashmiri males ordered on mosque loudspeakers to show up at army camps with their identity cards.
If Dutt wants to talk about the ‘full reality of Kashmir’, what about pellet guns against unarmed protesters, the mass rape & assault of women & girls, the forcible disappearance of almost 10,000, the abduction of over 13,000 boys & their incarceration with adult criminals in hell hole Indian prisons, the arrest of up to 30,000 Kashmiris? Using the royal ‘we’ in a telling way, Dutt says “We blame Western media for caricatured media reportage of Kashmir.” Now she’s beginning to sound like Assad’s fascist propagandists with whom she shares considerable affinities.
There is every reason to question the motivation of the Oxford Union in having Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Sitaram Yechury debate the issue of Kashmir with an official of Modi’s party, the BJP. Yechury & the CPI(M) may have strong views against the occupation. It is not clear, at least to outsiders, what role they are playing in forging a nationally coordinated anti-colonial movement. But it is highly unlikely that the majority of Kashmiris politically identify with the CPI(M). There are Kashmiris living outside Kashmir who could brilliantly represent the political range of Kashmiri resistance.
The issue is not a matter of red-baiting Yechury but of questioning his political judgement in agreeing to speak for Kashmiris, even communist Kashmiris. It’s very possible, if not likely, that the Oxford Union is too sophisticated to impugn the Kashmiri struggle as terrorist-based but also smarmy enough to suggest it is communist-based which would undermine considerable international solidarity, at least among academics. The primary political responsibility of socialists is to build Kashmiri solidarity into a massive, international, broad-based movement, not to use the movement to advance one’s own political agenda or organization. Yechury should have refused to speak for Kashmiris & insisted that a Kashmiri be invited instead. He does his own party no good by such an imperious blunder.
The Indian government may never recover its dignity after the disastrous tour of rightwing EU flunkies.
Surrey, British Columbia, Canada #StandWithKashmir vigil, October 27th, 2019.
Shiraz, Iran #StandWithKashmir vigil, October 27th, 2019.