A scathing political cartoon about check points by Mir Suhail Qadiri:

Is it premature to say a new anti-colonial movement is emerging In the Middle East & Africa? The Arab & African Spring uprisings are blowing the fresh air of resistance to colonial oppression against the stagnant stench of the Islamophobic ‘war on terror’.

https://eyegambia.org/mali-protesters-demand-withdrawal-of-french-troops-from-the-country/?

The wages of Indian militarism: whether Indians support Kashmiri self-determination or oppose it, working people will pay the price in impoverishment & human misery. Whether Americans support US wars or oppose them, working people will pay the price in poverty, inequality, education, healthcare, & increasing violence in our cultures.

There are those who see a humanitarian side, even justice, to bombing & occupation in Kashmir, Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia. Some even dare claim them as wars for women’s rights & against terrorism. But the wise do not let their politics be guided by amoral or ignorant halfwits.

No to war! No to US-NATO, Russian, Iranian, Israeli, Hezbollah, Saudi-coalition, Pakistani, Indian, Burmese, Chinese military intervention.

‘WE MUST KEEP KASHMIR AT THE TOP OF WORLD NEWS’. The same goes true for the Palestinian, Rohingya, Uyghur, & all struggles of the oppressed. We don’t do that out of news out of mind thing. Having listened & learned from them, we speak for them when they are silenced.

By Kashmiri artist Mir Suhail Qadiri

The children of the Nassar family now homeless stand out in the rain and watch as Israel bulldozes their home in the West Bank.

(Photos via Haseeb Rahman)

By Kashmiri artist Mir Suhail Qadiri

(Poster via Pakistan-India Peoples’ Forum for Peace and Democracy – Pipfpd India)

It always struck me while traveling in Ireland in the 70s–north & south–how well the Irish knew their history, how important it was to their understanding of themselves & their resistance to British rule & occupation. You see the same thing with Kashmiris because history matters in understanding who we are, where we came from, who we want to be & where we want to go. That’s one of the reasons Native Americans, Blacks, & Latinos in the US are systematically excluded from the curriculum all the way from first grade to university. It’s as if they played no role at all in American or human history, except perhaps as slaves. That’s the reason that Native American, Black, & Latino studies departments emerged after the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Those new curriculums were part of reclaiming their history, including their monumental achievements to human civilization across the planet. For generations, white supremacists had gotten away with the monstrous lie that they had no history worth knowing, made no contributions to human society worth mentioning, were incapable of invention or scholarship, & were little more than ‘mud people’.

History matters. Not just to the oppressed but to those who want to understand the origins of inequality, white & male supremacy, nationalism, social hatreds of every kind in order that humanity can overcome them & learn to live in peace with each other as is our calling as human beings.

“This savage reality is exactly what is happening now in Kashmir & being put into effect by the rogue regime in India. The longer the lockdown & communication blockade continue, the further Kashmir gets from being mainstream news & this is exactly what these thugs want to create: a silent genocide of innocent Kashmiris. WE MUST KEEP KASHMIR AT THE TOP OF WORLD NEWS……In that lies the safety of the populace. Kashmir will never be a part of India, but It is every Indian’s responsibility to prevent further harm to an innocent people by a vicious & immoral government of India.”

–Anahita Mody, ‘Kashmir Diaries’ via Naseer Wani