Despite the massive protests of Indian Muslims & their supporters against the citizenship laws & the brutal state violence against them, there are many still writing jeremiads about the political passivity of Indian Muslims. We read similar jeremiads about Israeli Zionists. If you’re an American activist, you could write entire volumes of jeremiads about the decades of lard-ass passivity & political collusion of US workers with the most egregious human rights crimes of our government, including violence against the Black community, genocide of Native Americans, & unending colonial wars & interventions.
Political passivity isn’t written in our human genes; it isn’t inherent to human society or to some human societies. It’s the road of least resistance when people are confused, afraid, propagandized & its historic causes must be analyzed lest we turn to cynicism & misanthropy about the future of humanity. Cynicism presupposes no possibilities of social transformation even under the impact of persecution & just being pushed too far too fast. Misanthropy presupposes no hope & no chance for the power of human solidarity against oppression. Simply put, it’s a political dead-end.
History has demonstrated over & over again that human societies once prostrate before tyrannous power do rise up en masse. The problem before them has always been the lack of leadership to build a humane alternative because so many had already succumbed to cynicism & misanthropy about the possibilities of a better world. Crises are a time for visionaries like Palestinians who call for a democratic secular state for Palestinians & Jews; like Kashmiri & Indian activists who include demands in the Indian protests for Kashmiri self-determination; like American activists who continue to link the economic demands of US workers to the struggles against war, racism, & the attacks on women’s rights & will accept no discounts on justice.