The pictures of your moms are beautiful. Your testaments to them even more so. Because of politics & conflicting personalities, I had a difficult, contentious relationship with my own mom. It’s not uncommon, at least in US culture, for girls more than boys to have conflicted relationships with their moms. There’s an entire library on the subject. My generation which introduced feminism seemed like a rebuke to the WWII generation of women who felt their choices were being mocked & condemned. It’s possible the mother-daughter conflicts had more to do with that than anything else. My mother had a close, loving relationship with her own mother & some of her own eleven daughters, especially the conservative ones. Other than her reactionary politics on everything from war to feminism & a certain deep misanthropy, my mom had many admirable qualities including commitment & tenacity & most of all a warm interest in other people.
She had an aquiline nose & as a devoted Catholic always boasted that it was like Pope Pius XII’s nose (unfortunately a collaborator with the Nazis & pope from 1939 to 1958). I was in my fifties when I first heard her express dislike for her nose. ‘But mom’, I said, ‘it’s just like Pope Pius the XII’. She answered, ‘Would you like this nose?’ I was stunned to know she didn’t admire her nose as much as we had been taught to. She had a loving relationship with my father. They sang in the church choir together, did all kinds of ballroom dancing & even taught it in our basement, always had an active circle of friends associated with the church. She remained political in a conservative way until the day she died in 2007 at the age of 86, still determined to make me a Republican.
May Lorraine Rosemary Scully (nee Urman) Rest In Peace.
Zaira was 11-months-old in December 2017 when her 25-year-old mother Rubina Jan was gunned down by Indian occupying forces who opened fire on protesters during a hunt to kill operation in Batmurran village, Shopian. Twenty-four other protesters were injured. Rubina Jan was in her home when she was killed in that incident.
This is Zaira & her father at the funeral of Rubina Jan. May she Rest In Peace.
Happy Mother’s Day Kashmir.
(Photo from AFP)
Another Indian national will be prosecuted for spying on Sikhs & Kashmiris living & studying in Germany. If Indian spies are operating in Germany, they are also operating in other countries in order to threaten the families in Kashmir of activists who campaign for self-determination. It’s illegal. It also necessitates a solidarity movement to defend the rights of Kashmiris in diaspora & demand the spies be prosecuted & deported.
This Kashmiri mother named Mala grieves the loss of her son Javaid who was booked under the draconian Public Safety Act. “I want my son back”, she cried. He is her youngest son & the only bread earner in the family. Thousands of Kashmiri youth are in Indian jails with no access to justice or forcibly disappeared & presumed buried in mass graves.
Stand with Kashmiris & demand the immediate release of all political prisoners & the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all Indian forces from Kashmir.
(Tweeted by @MehJohar & @KoushurGamukk; photo by Junaid Dar, posted May 9, 2020)
Srinagar medical officials report that the 20 from Pulwama admitted to hospital with pellet injuries & the four with gun injuries are all in stable condition. That means they will probably live but some of them will be disabled & disfigured for life & will sustain a lifetime of pain & suffering from lead pellets that cannot be extracted from internal organs.
Stand with Kashmiris & demand the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all Indian forces from Kashmir.
Call me ultra-left, but I have immense respect for the outrage & fearlessness of these protesters confronted by the trigger-happy Indian Army.
Per the colonizer's mouth piece named Aditya Raj Kaul, this is a video shot in Pulwom of the aftermath of Riyaz Naikoo's martyrdom. I posted a comment on Aditya Raj's page but the coward will most likely delete it so I'm posting a snapshot below.[Please note I do not Indianize beautiful Kashmiri names of our places. It's Pulwom not Pulwama; it's Balhom not Balhama; it's Handworr not Handwara; it's Tsodorr, not Chadoora; it's Tsandpur not Chandapora and so on and so forth. Be Proud and snatch back our Kashmir from the wretched hands of colonization starting with our language!]
Kashmiris are going to win their independence from India because they will not rest until they do. But they will do so a lot sooner & with a lot less loss & human suffering if human rights activists can marshal the massive forces of human solidarity around the world. For those nationalists who scoff at this eventuality, the seemingly invincible US military was defeated & humiliated by the Vietnamese who had the support of millions on every continent around the world.
Stand with Kashmir & demand the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all Indian forces from Kashmir.
