Today, India took its third delegation of foreign diplomats on a tour of Kashmir. The first one, comprised of extremist rightwing freeloaders from Europe, bombed from ridicule & the second one became a non-event. There’s a pattern to these tours: they drive from the airport in high-security motorcades, stay at luxury hotels with high-security protection, take a boat ride on Dal Lake, & then eat lavish meals in regal dining halls. Of the fifty or so diplomats on the first two propaganda tours, none has reported anything about the overwhelming presence of Indian troops & everyone knows they’re flunkeys for the Modi regime getting a free holiday. Just like corrupt US politicians who go on golf & booze tours at the expense of corporations.

The twenty diplomats on this tour are from Germany, Canada, Bulgaria, Nigeria, France, New Zealand, Mexico, Italy, Afghanistan, Austria, Uzbekistan, Poland, & the European Parliament. The diplomat from Afghanistan already made a fool of himself by telling reporters “Everything is normal & alright here. We saw children on the way to their school, which is a sign of normalcy.” But all schools, including colleges, have been closed for winter vacation since December. His idiotic blunder is being ridiculed in all media reports, including the NY Times. You tour a flunkey, you get such blunders. Modi might suggest the other diplomats keep their traps shut.

Reports also cite Abrar Ahmad, a Kashmiri student who said “such delegations must come out of the high-security zones to know what Kashmiris are facing & what they want.” That’s not what they’re there for. Modi’s foreign minister reported that the delegation would meet with young people from ‘different ethnic & religious communities, local business & political leaders, civil administration & representatives of mainstream media’. Do they all live in the high-security zones? Or does Modi bus them in to do a song & dance for India?

(Photo of ‘normalcy’ in Kashmir from February 9, 2020 by PTI)

“Draconian law PSA has destroyed many lives in Kashmir, the collaborator class has always been complicit in using these laws for criminalising dissent in Kashmir. A ‘civil servant’ who was the darling of administration called this very draconian law as “bread and butter” of District Commisioners. Today when the erstwhile Collaborators in Chief aka Chief Ministers find themselves booked under PSA albeit with posh facilities no one in Kashmir seems to give a f***. Ironically it seems PSA against the old collaborators is meant to give an aura of credibility to their quite bloody and treacherous politics. They seem to be playing a waiting game till the opportune time arrives, meanwhile allowing a newer breed of collaborators to play the dirty game. They will be out soon to micromanage the occupation and backstab Kashmiris as that is the only way they have earned their bread and butter.”

–Mir Laieeq whose polemical force has not been blunted by nearly six months of lockdown

Micheal Clinton has been banned from posting until Saturday for referring to Assad’s murderous forces with an unflattering but appropriate term. He bristles at the censorship but takes his periodic suspensions in stride since we’ve seen many Kashmiris get their accounts deleted permanently for protesting colonialism & occupation in polemics using the King’s English.

Corona virus in India by Mir Suhail Qadiri

It is safe to say that Mir Suhail Qadiri is one of the most incisive, fierce, & brilliant political artists of our times. His art is a different genre but has the same merciless critique of corruption as the great Honoré Daumier in 19th century France. Mir’s work should be collected & is probably already being studied by those who want to learn how to use art as a form of political protest.

If you’re a socialist more concerned about whether Bernie Sanders wins the US elections than you are about the occupation of Kashmir & Palestine, the genocide against Uyghur & Rohingya, or the slaughter in Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, & elsewhere, you may really be a redneck. Or a potato head.

Just in case Kashmiris who were under lockdown do not yet know, an international solidarity movement with Kashmiris emerged in response to the lockdown. There were hundreds of protests all over the world including tens of thousands of people. When Modi was being lionized by Trump in Houston & by world leaders (including Jacinda ‘Crocodile Tears’ Ardern) at the UN in NYC, there were thousands of protesters standing for hours chanting ‘azaadi’ in solidarity with Kashmiris. Thousands marched in NYC at several rallies with banners from Palestinian, Uyghur, Rohingya, Syrian, Jewish, human rights, women’s rights, civil rights groups. This photo is from September 26th when thousands wearing red for solidarity with Kashmir filled Times Square in NYC chanting ‘azaadi’ under these billboards proclaiming ‘Free Kashmir’, ‘Stand with Kashmir’, ‘Restore human rights’.

A Kashmiri solidarity movement emerged whilst India was trying to silence Kashmiri voices. It was led brilliantly by Kashmiris in diaspora who spoke, testified, organized, marched & made the issue of Kashmiri self-determination a central issue in international politics. There were calls for a BDS-like boycott of India to stand in solidarity with Kashmir. A new day has dawned for the Kashmiri freedom struggle, an international solidarity has emerged & instead of silencing Kashmiri voices, they have been amplified a hundredfold.

(Photo from Twitter)

In rereading “Impossible Revolution: Making Sense of the Syrian Tragedy” by Yassin Al-Haj Saleh (a political prisoner under Hafez Al-Assad now living in exile from the Bashar Al-Assad regime), I am struck by the clarity & brilliance of his analysis of the Syrian Arab Spring & the counterrevolution against it. I highly recommend it after one gets a clear understanding of the Assad regime & the emergence of the Arab Spring.

This is only a snippet of a longer video showing a police officer at Camden Fairview high school in Camden, Arkansas lifting a Black student up in the air with a chokehold for having an argument with another student in the cafeteria. After the video went viral on social media, the officer was suspended pending investigation.

Such brutalization of young people may not seem extraordinarily aggressive to Kashmiris & Palestinians living under brutal military occupations but in US high schools it is not legal to treat kids this way even if they’re raising their voices in the cafeteria or classroom. It is however the violence & mistreatment Black & Latino kids are subjected to which leads to shooting them down on the streets or incarcerating them for minor offenses.

“Tiny bit of native wisdom for journalists newly awakened to the horrors in Kashmir. The PSA was always a cruel thing, a Gestapo-style ‘lawless law’ used to keep thousands of ordinary Kashmiris in jail. It’s a tragic abdication of your duty to have not listened to us for 30 years.”

–Kashmiri writer Mirza Waheed on the Public Safety Act used to incarcerate political prisoners, including children, for an indefinite period without charge.