Testimony of a 9-year-old Kashmiri boy kidnapped & held in prison for two months by Indian occupying forces: He was held in a gulag 1,000 kms/622 miles from his home under the Public Safety Act (with analogs in Palestine & apartheid South Africa) which allows detainment for up to two years without charges or prosecution. One young boy who was tortured while held, committed suicide after being released. This little 9-year-old boy would only speak without identifying himself so he & his family would not suffer reprisals.:
“I always used to cry. I was kept in a solitary cell with a toilet, there was no roof…it was scary. I was unable to eat or sleep. I had to fold or lift my legs as the cell was very small. There were snakes. When I started shouting, they used to come & take out the snakes but I didn’t stop crying so a doctor was brought in & he used to inject something that made me unconscious.”
Kashmiri journalists, who face arrest under the normal conditions of occupation & even more so under the siege & blockade (if not forcible disappearance), came out to protest the suppression of press freedom on October 3rd, nearly two months into the blockade. The immense courage of the spirit of azadi speaks for itself.
(Photo by Freny Manecksha, Indian journalist & supporter of the Kashmiri struggle)
What did Imran Khan mean when he tweeted “The moment the siege is lifted there will be a bloodbath–which would be the only way to subdue the Kashmiri people”? Mine is a sincere question. The occupation is never going to destroy the struggle for azadi, that we are sure of. India hasn’t been able to stop protests even with nearly a million troops. Any violence would only come from Indian forces, that we are just as sure of. So is Khan saying that if the siege & blockade is lifted, India will increase violence more than under the brutal siege? It’s a peculiar statement that does not seem to judge the struggle for azadi favorably. But correct me if I misunderstand.
“Wounds”, a work in paint & embroidery on cloth by Rollie Mukherjee in tribute to the role of Kashmiri women in the struggle for azaadi.
HOME
Home, a small house in a
small town, I hear
that you have fallen cold
tonight. In your arms
autumn has frozen
stars to death.
From home to only desolate
hollow of an empty grave now,
your shiver has picked up
on poor
farmer’s house,
a blacksmith’s
house, sad
sad house, small and blue in
the night,
and made it shudder with
fear.
Your shingles no more
shine
like silver of the moon,
the tusks of your windows
are
breaking like ice on water. Your rivers
have ran dry. Your
predilection
for infinite love has wilted
away. Tonight,
In your silence I hear
motherless
children weep. I hear
that your pain has stirred
dead of our nameless
country. What cure
must I invent to
hold you together? What
prayer must I
say to not let you
fall apart ?
Sputnik News is a Russian state-owned propaganda site which can hardly be called a reliable news source. Putin publicly endorsed India’s siege & blockade of Kashmir & boasted that Russia had sold India the most sophisticated electronic military equipment to conduct the occupation. So when Sputnik News reports that Indian intelligence is on alert because Pakistan is infiltrating Afghan terrorists into Kashmir, that should not be posted as reliable information. It should be considered Russian propaganda, justification & support for the Indian occupation.
Some people think Counterpunch magazine is a platform for political debate when most of its writers are Assadists & Stalinists & some of the very same who write for Global Research & Mint Press. Where’s the debate? And what’s an editorial policy all about? A progressive magazine would not give a platform without some serious rebuttal to those who espouse support for the Assad dictatorship, conspiracy theories about the Hong Kong protests, support Syrian & Russian bombing of civilians, deny the Rohingya & Uyghur genocides. It’s not a journal whose (mostly male) writers & editors can be trusted for insight.
Jacobin magazine, a bastion of equivocation & playing both sides of the street, has published an article titled “The Annihilation of Rojava” about the US handing Syrian Kurds over to Turkish & Syrian genocide. With their credulous belief that the US military advanced Kurdish democracy & the Rojava democracy project, the writers exhibit the exact same political stupidity as those anti-Assadists who called for US military intervention on the side of the Syrian Arab Spring. They’ve all been played by the Pentagon if they think for one bloody-assed moment that US military policy has ever been guided by humanitarian or democratic concerns. Theoretically, it isn’t much more advanced than Assadists & Stalinists who talk about a ‘US regime-change operation’ in Syria. There was never a possibility of Syrian Kurdish utopia based on betrayal of the Syrian Arab Spring.
What needs to be done by those who think deep thoughts but don’t know their asses from their elbows about US military policy is to formulate an analysis of exactly what US military strategy is for Syria beside a series of improvisations, barbarous bombing campaigns over cities in the hunt for ISIS, betrayals, & tacit collaborations with Russia & the Assad regime.
According to the Global Hunger Index, 16-percent of American households with children under age 18 were food insecure in 2017. That’s more than 13 million kids, a majority from the Black community especially when school free lunch programs end during summer vacation. The estimate of hunger in the US is likely way too low because it does not account for seniors, the disabled, & others who make do on ‘poor people’s food’ like rice, potatoes, & beans, dog food, or just scrounge. The Global Hunger Index ought to have special categories for Blacks, Latinos, Native Americans, & seniors if we want a realistic picture of hunger in the US.
