For the umpteenth time someone has suggested I stop writing about international politics & the war on Muslims to focus solely on injustice in the US. For the umpteenth time I will respond. My psychology & my political tradition are in accord that humanity is indissolubly one regardless of religion, culture, ethnicity, national borders. Our fate on this planet is indissolubly yoked by war & climate change, if by nothing else–if those 700 US military bases on foreign soil aren’t persuasive enough. The American political tradition expresses that imperative in “An injury to one is an injury to all.” The Islamic tradition expresses it in “To kill one human is as if one has killed the entire humanity” (which has become the slogan of the White Helmets). So my commitment stands on fairly solid ground & is shared by millions of people around the world who actively oppose war, occupation, genocide–most recently in Palestine & Burma.
In fact, I write plenty about US politics since I have been actively involved in them for going on 52 years. But in case my accusers haven’t noticed, women’s rights, civil rights, racism, poverty, class inequities are also inextricably related to what the US is doing overseas with its wars, occupations, sweatshop economics, & neoliberal plunder. I’m not going to stop writing in solidarity with freedom struggles around the world because you don’t understand those connections or don’t agree with my analyses. Let me speak frankly: if you don’t like what I write about, you can lump it. I’m not going to stick to reporting the local weather report just because you don’t get solidarity. I would never turn my back on the oppressed who are my brothers & sisters.