A poster at the December 8th protests in Hong Kong: doesn’t this placard succinctly explain the denunciations & implacable hatred of Assadists & Stalinists for the Hong Kong protesters? The Hong Kong protesters stand with others around the world fighting repressive & autocratic regimes like the Chinese Communist Party regime. They have annually protested to demand justice for those massacred at Tiananmen Square in 1989. There have long been reports of protests within mainland China, especially against environmental ruin, but most of that news has been effectively suppressed as we believe news of the Hong Kong protests are suppressed in mainland China.

Assadists & Stalinists do not have the excuse of lacking information. Their corrupt, elitist, class-based political method covers their rightwing politics with the mantra ‘US regime-change operation’. Of course the US has long been involved in removing or assassinating political leaders. No one would dispute that. It has long been involved in trying to disorient, discredit, & demobilize popular democracy movements. It even learned in the Arab Spring uprisings how to help corrupt regimes take advantage of mass protests to pull off coup de d’états, as in Egypt & Bolivia. But to reduce political analysis of complex conflicts in the barbaric phase of capitalism to US puppetry & all democracy protesters to sock puppets of the US without including analysis of the global crisis of capitalism & contradictions & conflicts within those societies is deeply racist, white supremacist, & makes a mockery of political theory. It should be ridiculed as the politics of simple-minded apologists for tyranny.

Now a group of the same Assadists, Stalinists, fascists, & all their camp followers are making the same claim toward Iran protests. The ‘US regime-change operation’ mantra as an analysis for complex national & international politics should be rejected with disdain. But that inept all-purpose mantra, which has confused so many, forces us to think out how to sort through the cacophony of conflicting reports to come to real understanding of what these international uprisings against barbaric capitalism represent.

Fullest solidarity with the Hong Kong protesters who stand with the oppressed & with working people around the world. My only additions to their list would be the Rohingya, the Black, Native American, & Latino communities in the US & Indigenous peoples on every continent now subject to expropriation, marginalization, plunder in the name of economic development.

This photo was tweeted by @hkwuliff who lives in Hong Kong & reports often on the protests, the repression, & the persecution of Uyghur Muslims)

Protest in Queens, NY against India’s anti-Muslim bill CAB for those who understand that what happens in India won’t stay in India.

The powerful testimony of a homeless woman & the magnificent photography of Gmb Akash who never patronizes his subjects & always highlights the beauty of humanity.

I am very grateful to Allah. I have a home to sleep in, food to eat, children to love. There are homeless people who are living near this train station who suffer from the cold at night, who beg for food in the afternoon, and who have no one to look after them. When I see them, I stop complaining to Allah about the little problems I have. Though I live in this dilapidated house, eat only rice and lentils for lunch as well as dinner and suffer from illness, I am still grateful to the Almighty for all the blessings he has given me. I have no major problem to share with you. I am grateful for the life I have.

I have never done anything for anyone. Poverty made me unable to do anything for the people who are less fortunate than me. This thought gives me pain all the time. I often ask myself, “What will I take with me when I die?”.

In addition, I do not know if I can manage to live another winter or not. People of my age suffer badly this time of year. No one notices us. When you are old and poor, you suffer silently because there will be no one to hear your pain; no one will come to you to give you warmth. During this crucial season, some of us gather together besides a fire every morning; all of us are waiting for death. Every winter one of us dies. Last year, Safura died of pneumonia. We do not know who will leave us this year.

Life is not easy for me. I have never had any new clothes, but that is okay. There are many people my age who do not expect even what I have. A few days ago, for the first time in my life, I received a winter shawl. For days I was not able to open it and wear it. I keep looking at it and when I decided to wear it, I saw my ninety-year-old neighbor, Mariyum, who does not even have a proper saree. I gifted my shawl to her. I want very much for her to survive this winter. If my shawl can keep her warm for some time than it will be the best reward of my life. And what about me? I can manage with this old shawl….and when I feel too cold, I say prayers. You can believe it or not, but when I pray, I feel warm.

– Morsheda Begum

If you want to be part of gifting a winter Sweater for winter among poor elderly people, feel free to message me on this page. I will share addresses where you can send your gift for women like Morsheda. Like every year, I am going to gift winter sweaters and other winter essentials and distribute them among poor elderly people who live in the street and in rural areas. I hope that during this winter, you will also be able to make someone warm with your love.

Love and Light!
GMB Akash

Because of a momentary lapse in attention, my big Rhodesian Ridgeback escaped the yard. She is the sweetest girl with me & the little dogs but goes psycho when she sees a cat. As I chased her down the alley where feral & neighborhood cats congregate & laze in the sun, she spotted my neighbor’s cat & attacked her. The other cats fled. I began hollering which distracted her & the cat got away. My neighbor wasn’t home to check on the cat & when I did she looked mighty traumatized but okay. Later I went to check with the neighbor & he first threatened to call animal control on me for not controlling my dogs, then said she was injured on her back but not mortally.

He didn’t think a vet was required but allowed me to get an antibiotic spray for her that I’m told is a powerful cure-all for most injured animals. Now I have to deal with those momentary lapses in attention since my dog would not have done her doggy thing if I hadn’t been careless. I was chasing my Chihuahua, a Houdini at escape, in the alley & left the gate open, forgetting that the Ridgeback was in the yard. It’s not certain if dogs keep you young or make you grow old before your time.

An erstwhile Kashmiri friend informs me that Kashmir is now free. According to him, most of the CRPF troops have been removed from Kashmir, Kashmir is free of interference from Pakistan, & in the near future will be free from ‘useless bloggers’ like myself ‘who always put things out of context’. He said he doesn’t want Kashmir to be another Syria just to give people like me a chance to be uselessly busy day & night on social media & suggests I do some good in my life instead.

Have all the troops been withdrawn from Kashmir or just the CRPF troops? Have the thousands of political prisoners been released & are the child political prisoners all accounted for & back home with their families? How has India addressed the torture & trauma sustained by those children? Has India accounted for the nearly 10,000 forcibly disappeared? Have they identified the remains of Kashmiris in hundreds of mass graves? Have they stopped the use of pellet munitions against unarmed protesters? Have they done anything to address the issue of pellet victims unable to get medical treatment for their injuries or for those unable to get medical care under the siege? Have they had a tribunal on the Indian Army’s use of mass rape & all its other human rights crimes? Have they restored telecommunications & compensated Kashmiris for the billions lost in commerce? Because if any of the conditions of the occupation in ‘now free Kashmir’ prevail, this ‘useless blogger’ ain’t going nowhere whether that hapless Kashmiri likes it or not.

You don’t last long in politics if you’re thin-skinned about criticism but for the record I’d like to know when he thought my writing about Kashmir went from campaigning for Kashmiri rights to ‘useless blogging’? Or did he think it was always useless? Activists like me–& we are legion–don’t have some peculiar need to wallow in human suffering; we don’t write about oppression because we get something out of it. We do it because we’re committed to human rights & hate inequality & injustice & because we believe in the human race. To sound schmaltzy, we love the human race & want the best for all of us. It is not the most tranquil commitment in life; it isn’t even particularly rewarding if you don’t have academic credentials. We do it because other human beings are suffering, we identify with them & cannot live with that knowledge without doing something about it. If my erstwhile friend doesn’t like that, he can lump it. Amen.

Is it three states now or four states where India has snapped the internet? I believe they include Assam, Tripura, Kashmir, & Meghalaya. What happened in Kashmir didn’t stay in Kashmir.

Aung San Suu Kyi is masterful at talking out of both sides of her mouth. While basking in glory as an international human rights icon prior to her election as president, she made a videotaped presentation on the Burmese Army’s use of mass rape as a weapon against the oppressed nationalities. Burma is a prison house of nations, including the Karen & Shan along with the Rohingya. Karen women activists & organizations, many of them in forced exile after the 1988 popular national uprising, have done remarkable work educating about the violence inflicted on Karen, Shan, & Rohingya women by the Burmese military. During the 2017 phase of the Rohingya genocide, Karen women came out full force in solidarity with Rohingya women facing mass rape.

After her long collaboration with the generals became fully evident during the 2017 siege against the Rohingya, Suu Kyi reversed her inconvenient views about the Burmese Army. When reports of extreme sexual violence & mass rapes of Rohingya women were emerging in international media, she posted this image on her Facebook page. It was at the same time she was denouncing all photos from the genocide in Arakan/Rakhine state as ‘fake news’. One journalist reports that diplomats disturbed by this image questioned her about it but their objections were arrogantly rebuffed. However, it wasn’t long before this image was removed from her wall. But not before there were screenshots & significant outrage, including from Karen women. Since the 2017 siege, Suu Kyi has repeatedly defended the military against these charges & will be forced to do so at the genocide case in The Hague since this image was presented by Gambian lawyers prosecuting the suit against Suu Kyi & the generals at The Hague.

(Photo is screenshot of the meme on Suu Kyi’s Facebook wall)

There have been protests all over India, especially in the state of Assam (where nearly two million Muslims have been disenfranchised), against the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) & the National Register of Citizens (NRC) which both marginalize & exclude Muslims & create a political environment of increased violence against them. It is such a significant step toward Hindutva fascism that five left parties (which in India are mass organizations) have issued a joint call for their chapters all over the country to organize popular protest actions against CAB & the NRC on December 19, 2019. Actually they should have included an international call for protests on that day since what happens in India will not stay in India when the Modi regime is in the vanguard of fascist forces worldwide.

Coalescing a national response to CAB & NRC is momentous but the protests should include massive banners demanding the end of occupation in Kashmir since the occupation & fate of Kashmiri Muslims is directly linked to the struggles in India. Since some of these left parties have organized protests all around India against the occupation in an ad hoc manner, we now know that coalescing a national movement against the occupation is as possible as it is imperative & that one reason it has not happened is because of political failures on the part of these mass parties.

You don’t have to live in India or be Muslim to understand their importance & want to participate in the December 19th protests. Those of us outside should consider ways we can rally on that same day to oppose CAB & the NRC & to incorporate a demand for the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all Indian troops from Kashmir & for the immediate release of all Kashmiri political prisoners.

All out December 19th!

130 days of Kashmir Caged & the first day when persecution, marginalization, & pogroms against Muslims are legalized in India.

(Photo from Pakistan-India Peoples’ Forum for Peace & Democracy)

“the british damned all non-muslims in india as ‘hindu’. this laid the foundation for the hindu/indian nation.. the congress fostered the idea that all non-brahmins are hindus and created the illusion of india.. now the sangh has reaped all those fruits and has initiated the process of reverse engineering.. mobilise all non-muslims against muslims first, condemning them as non-indians.. next, crusading against non-brahmins rendering them non-indians or provisional indians, phase by phase.. until only the brahmins remain ‘indians’ as originally intended.”

–Kuffir Nalgundwar