A.S. Dulat–a retired top official in India’s spy agencies (the Intelligence Bureau & Research & Analysis Wing) who also served as an advisor to India on Kashmir–speculates that collaborator Omar Abdullah, son of collaborator Farooq Abdullah just released from detention, will become the next chief minister of J&K after his release from his luxury suite gulag. See how elections work in Indian-occupied Kashmir? They’re more like a musical chairs of collaborators.
Former RAW chief A.S. Dulat believed the National Conference is likely to take control of the union territory.

https://thewire.in/politics/omar-abdullah-chief-minister-jammu-and-kashmir?

There are oh-so-moving stories about China supplying face masks to Italy & other countries to fight the coronavirus. The Chinese Communist Party regime cannot be allowed this public relations largesse when its policies are directly responsible for the worldwide spread of the disease that will kill thousands. What about Xu Zhiyong & Li Qiaochu, two human rights activist who were arrested in China for inciting subversion against the regime after criticizing president Xi Jinping’s mishandling of the coronavirus? Maoists & other Stalinists can run interference for the CCP regime by denying the Uyghur genocide & justifying the arrest of human rights activists, but it is our commitment to tell the truth about the character of that regime in order to stand with Chinese activists fighting for human & democratic rights.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/08/china-activist-who-called-xi-clueless-on-coronavirus-faces-years-in-jail-for-subversion?

The coronavirus doesn’t just expose the broken character of national healthcare systems but highlights the complete lack of a coordinated international response in defense of refugees. It’s a hell of a time to realize that when there are hundreds of thousands of refugees denied asylum & forced to live in squalid, overcrowded conditions that are a petri dish for coronavirus & every other contagious disease.

Now with activists around the world in quarantine, the conditions of refugees are worsened & they are left politically, not just physically stranded. Many of them will get sick & many will die. We cannot blame it entirely on racist & xenophobic regimes but must own responsibility for the shameful lack of international antiwar & refugee rights movements. We have to find ways even in our isolation to pressure our governments to open the damn borders & grant all refugees asylum, no exceptions, no exclusions. No human being is alien to us.

https://www.nrc.no/news/2020/march/10-things-you-should-know-about-coronavirus-and-refugees/?

It’s not certain to me how sacred cow urine is to Hindus outside of grass-fed Brahmin herds since thousands of malnourished sickly cows prowl the streets like abandoned dogs & cats. I do know that laboratories have found what they consider medicinal properties in cow & horse urine & process them as elements in medications. I wouldn’t be comfortable with ridiculing cow pee drinking or bathing in cow poop except that they seem to be promoted by Hindutva groups as a cure for the coronavirus in India. No matter how sacred cow urine & dung may be considered, no Brahmin is going to take that cure but will foist it on the poor rather than provide proper healthcare. For that reason alone, it becomes fair game for ridicule.

The white savior complex is a pernicious & insidious mind set with a profound impact on how US foreign policy is perceived. What else can explain the call for US humanitarian intervention in Bosnia, Syria, & elsewhere after 170 years of US colonial wars? It is appalling that Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn” is not understood as a, if not the, preeminent & pioneering work of the white savior genre but is considered an anthem of antiracism. Whites & even some Black scholars & writers do not see Twain’s racism but the book became an issue when Black schoolchildren were traumatized by reading it. It isn’t just Twain’s flagrant use of the n-word but that a white juvenile delinquent saves an adult Black slave, that Twain makes minstrel language the vernacular of that Black man, & that the book has stronger elements of a farce than a merciless condemnation of slavery. It is the epitome of white saviorism, not antiracism.

The author of this piece, Sahar Ghumkhor, is an Afghan woman now living in Australia. She takes a hardheaded look at the Oscar winning documentary “Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone” about young girls in Afghanistan. She situates it as part of that feel-good white savior genre which masks ‘war on terror’ justification for the US-NATO occupation of her country & helps to assuage our discomfort about the war. She wrote an equally uncompromising piece for Al Jazeera on the hypocrisy of Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand (long before Ardern came out as a supporter of the lockdown of Kashmir) & a piece on how Muslims are required to prove their humanity as ‘good Muslims’ versus terrorists.

The white savior mind set permeates literature & film, not to mention our understanding of US military & political policy. We need more writers like Sahar Ghumkhors to expose the insidious character of the white savior complex & give it no respect whatsoever.

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/skateboarding-won-save-afghan-girls-200308121710895.html?

Gomutra (cow piss) by Mir Suhail Qadiri

From Palestine to Kashmir, occupation is a crime.

(Photographer, time, place unknown)

“Kashmir still is not able to recover from the losses of last year..Most of the people are struggling, and finding it hard to make living. Corona scare has given one more blow to the commoner…Meanwhile Schools have announced 6% fee hike.”

–Tahir Khan Hamidi

“given the abysmally low number of tests carried out for Covid 19 in india, one cannot but conclude that india might be sitting on an impending volcano. amidst such a potentially horrific scenario the government is tolerating misinformation spread about the treatment of the virus with cow urine therefore willfully endangering lives of millions.

it is during instances of such massive stupidity many kashmiris say if God had destined occupation for us didn’t He have any country other than india to rule over us!”

–Mir Laieeq

“Imagine all your communication was snapped before you could celebrate your festival you wait a year for. Thousands of your people locked up in dark jails. No one on the road. Not even outside. You didn’t know where they took your kids, your young and old. You watched on TV. Some people celebrating, distributing sweets, and dancing on the roads for you’re locked up in your home. Imagine the rape threats. On media, by politicians, by trigger-happy foot soldiers. Then they had the audacity to teach you about “humanity” when they could not even uphold the ethics of war. There is no mask that could protect you. All of a sudden, you are locked up in your own home and all this is justified because you are a Kashmiri. A sudden knock wakes up the warrior in you. This was not even half of the story, just the index of it. Never forget, never forgive.”

–Kashmiri Zachriah Sulayman