Since I do not like gratuitous violence, I avoid Quentin Tarantino films. In a lapse of judgement, I watched ‘Django Unchained’ now being streamed on Netflix. In the first fifteen minutes, I thought the film was another white savior monstrosity but it quickly morphed into a colonial & sustained indulgence in humiliating, degrading, & violating Blacks. The profligate use of the n-word was only one element in this vicious anthem to the hatred of whites toward Blacks & it added the treachery of basking in hatred of Black house slaves toward other slaves. At no time are Blacks shown with dignity but only as servile & obsequious or excessively violent. Tarantino took over two & a-half hours to express hatred for Black Americans under the guise of art. Why leading Black actors participated in this abomination can only be explained by hefty salaries & colossal bad judgement.
Monthly Archives: September 2020
So many times in my senior days I read laudatory obituaries & eulogies for men I worked with politically many years ago. What I remember about them is how absolutely vicious & vindictive they became with me after I rejected their sexual advances or how they looked down on me & insulted me as a working class woman. May they Rest In Peace, my ass! May they rot in hell. Amen.
It may be a source of disappointment, but I do not support the death penalty by any of the means used, from hanging to lethal injection, no matter how monstrous the crimes. It’s not that I have a soft spot for rapists, murderers, war criminals but that I do not believe the state should have a say so over life & death especially when you look at the violent, racist, & antisocial character of most most political leaders, judges, courts. To my mind, capital punishment is a method used by the oppressors against the oppressed. That is borne out by the huge number of Blacks on death row in the US & the just as huge number of Blacks in prison cleared of all charges by innocence projects. The oppressed do not use the methods of oppressors but employ humane methods of justice that do not wring the humanity out of us but nevertheless require justice for the victims of rapists, murderers, war criminals.
This is the cover of Indian journalist Freny Manecksha’s book on Kashmiri women, the role they play in the freedom struggle, & the way the Indian Army uses violence against women to destroy the freedom struggle. It is of course the art work of Rollie Mukherjee. The book is important because of the role Kashmiri women play internationally in campaigning against forcible disappearance, the use of rape as a weapon of war & occupation, the arrests of young children, & in the general struggle against colonialism & occupation.
(The book is available at Amazon.)
This is how one million unscreened Indian troops in Kashmir are spending the pandemic lockdown: 21 hours of heavy artillery in a gunfight in Shopian that destroyed more than one family home. Part of the strategy of India in ostensibly fighting terrorism is to destroy & vandalize homes & livestock. Israel employs a similar strategy in the West Bank where it razes the homes of those arrested or being hunted as terrorists.
Demand the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all Indian forces from Kashmir.
(Photos by Reshi Irshad)
(Posted April 29, 2020)
A US government commission has cited India for having “perhaps the steepest & most alarming deterioration in religious freedom conditions” in the world. US agencies, including Trump & the White House, are making a big splash of unfollowing Modi & Indian government agencies on Twitter. This commission report can be used to build solidarity with India’s 200 million Muslims who are facing extremes of persecution but, with its several wars & involvement in genocide in Palestine & Kashmir, the US is hardly an arbiter of human rights anywhere in the world. We would know the US means business if it severs its multi-billion dollar trade & military contracts with India & that eventuality is a pipe dream without considerable political pressure.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/28/india-religious-freedom-narendra-modi-us?
NYC doctor Lorna Breen who was treating coronavirus patients has committed suicide. Her father said she went back to work after recovering from corona & described to him the tragic scenes of dying patients: “She tried to do her job & it killed her,” he said.
To those inclined toward conspiracy theories about corona, do you want to believe the poignant testimony of Dr. Breen & other medical personnel treating corona patients or do you prefer to form ranks behind Alex Jones, Trump, & all the other whack jobs who are pandemic deniers?
May Lorna Breen Rest In Peace.
(Photo is Lorna Breen, MD)
Trump is threatening to sue China for coronavirus compensation. So if the US can sue China over corona, why can’t Afghans, Syrians, Iraqis, Somalians, Yemenis, Kurds, Libyans sue the US, Russia, Iran, Turkey, the Saudi coalition over war & compensation for the complete devastation & destruction caused by US-NATO, Russian, Iranian, Turkish, & Saudi coalition forces in their countries?
(Posted April 28, 2020)
A quite good interview with Kashmiri journalist Qazi Shibli who was arrested in July 2019 & just released several days ago.
They can cage the body
They can’t cage the voice of Kashmir
They can kill Kashmiri
They can’t kill voice of Kashmir
The can suppress one voice
They can’t suppress the voice of entire Kashmir
They can’t cage the soul
They can’t cage the ideology of suppressed Kashmiri.
The spring is spreading its wings and taking us right into the middle of summer a month that brings joy and hope with it.
Even a rust bullet gives new life to a bloom
Which blood has passed through a Kashmiri
Which is soaked in blood
It can’t bare the glow of bloom
The bloom gets its way to come out from rust bullet of Kashmiri
Same is the voice can come out from every soul of Kashmiri.
عمر ابن فاروق