‘Fascism is safe in India so long as anti-fascism can be presented as Muslims fighting against Hindus. No wonder the government is desperate to unleash Hindutva zealots for assaulting Muslims on a massive scale and present the targeted violence as a clash between two communities.’
–Indian activist Satyadeep Satya
“The State Wants Hindu-Muslim Riots:
Government response to anti-fascist protests: Unleash RSS+police on Muslims to make anti-fascism look like a fight between Hindus and Muslims, the only perspective whose popularity can save fascism in India.”
–Indian activist Satyadeep Satya
“When I told them that I was from Kashmir, one of the police officers told me, ‘We will do to Kashmiris in India what the Myanmar army did to Rohingyas’.
A young woman in Nehtaur, a town in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, reports that police invaded & vandalized her home & took away her brother. Just like Kashmiris have been enduring for decades. Unfortunately, her brother will meet many Kashmiri kids in jail. Human rights are no longer an integral right of being Indian.
We learned the hard way in the US that when we allowed Black kids to be demonized as ‘narco terrorists’, approved martial law, police violence, & violations of the US Bill of Rights in the Black community, that eventually chickens would come home to roost & civil liberties would be jeopardized for everyone.
Human solidarity against injustice & oppression isn’t just a weak-kneed sentimentality; it is the iron law of social transformation.
#StandWithIndianProtesters #StandWithKashmir
Protests on December 21st in Australia in solidarity with Indian protesters against the citizenship laws legalizing exclusion, marginalization, & persecution of Muslims.
(Photo by Jacob Andrewartha)
‘Balloon vendor, Kabul, Afghanistan’ by photographer Steve McCurry in his series on children of war: the US-NATO occupation is entering its 19th year of continuous bombing, war crimes against Afghans, thousands of land mine victims with their limbs blown off, millions seeking & being denied asylum, massive homelessness & widespread child labor. It was the opening shot in the Islamophobic & colonial ‘war on terror’ campaign.
The US has modified its justifications for the occupation from hunting Osama bin Laden to saving Afghan women to fighting the Taliban & now ISIS. There is no news coverage of the war under the rubric that if it isn’t reported, it isn’t happening. But it was always & remains an illegal & amoral war with no possible justification. Since the degeneration of the antiwar movement under the influence of Assadism & Stalinism, there have been no antiwar actions anywhere in the world to stand with Afghans in what is becoming one of the longest wars in US history. One of the most important political responsibilities of our times is to rebuild a principled antiwar movement that makes no compromises with militarism no matter what odious justification is offered.
Stand with the people of Afghanistan. Demand the immediate cessation of US bombing & the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all US-NATO forces from Afghanistan.
(Photo by Steve McCurry, unidentified date)
“In 3 days, 40,000 civilians managed to flee their damaged homes away from the Russian holocaust against their city “Marrat al-Numan” and they went to other parts of the region of Idlib in Syria.
In the meanwhile, the main market of Saraqeb city was targeted by Russian airstrikes this afternoon.
Nothing new, just usual crimes by Assad, bombing, airstrikes, explosive barrels, etc.”
#IdlibUnderFire
–Syrian activist Firas Abdullah
Whole lot of people are unfriending me this past week. It could be Kashmir, could be too much reporting on human suffering in general. I have to wear a dental night guard because anxiety about it all causes me to grind my teeth furiously. I ground one molar right out. But witnessing & writing about oppression is a whole lot different than living with it. If not us, then who will stand with those who have been silenced?
(Now if it’s my politics or my attitude they reject, they can stuff it.)
