Mary Scully Reports

India is going full throttle against freedom of speech & freedom of press. There isn’t the least reason to feel smug about that since ‘whither India’, the US & other countries are right behind headed where Syria, Iraq, & Burma have arrived.

https://thewire.in/government/home-ministry-gopal-sankaranarayanan-article-370?

HOUSTON ‘KASHMIR CRISIS’ COUNTER-PROTEST TO ‘HOWDY, MODI’ RALLY ON SEPTEMBER 22nd:

Did Modi & the Hindutva crowd really believe he would get in & out of Houston, Texas without a massive counter protest? “Howdy, Modi’, my ass! When India’s siege & blockade internationalized the Kashmiri struggle for self-determination, it meant that Modi & his minions will face public protests wherever they show up, including Houston which is considered a stronghold of Hindutva in the US.

Kashmiri activists & their supporters are already organizing a Kashmiri crisis counter-protest. Please join them this coming Saturday at 2:00 pm at the Clear Lake Islamic Center, 17511 El Camino Real, Houston, TX 77058. If you have any questions, contact Br. Mohammed Nasrullah 713-876-3624.

Tulsi Gabbard’s long associations with Modi & the fascist BJP party–not to mention her associations with Assad, Zionism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, & General Sisi–should lay to rest any suggestions that her campaign for US president is the least bit progressive–whatever her rhetorical pandering to the Assadist & Stalinist cult that has destroyed the antiwar movement.

Here she is in 2014–wearing a BJP noose around her neck–with Vijay Jolly, a BJP official holding up a biography of Modi at an Overseas Friends of the BJP (OFBJP) banquet. The banquet was to celebrate Modi’s election. Recognizing her as a kindred nationalist & genocidal spirit, Modi invited her to visit him in India that year. When she got married in 2015, a BJP spokesperson (& before that a long time fascist RSS executive) named Ram Madhav, delivered gifts to her from Modi at the wedding party. The RSS, is the mainspring of Hindutva nationalism.

Let it be said to confusionists like Tariq Ali who is promoting her candidacy on his wall, that one cannot support her & at the same time oppose India’s siege & blockade of Kashmir–at least without looking foolish. Perhaps they can learn that you also cannot support the Assad dictatorship & Syrian & Russian bombing of civilians & still call yourself a progressive.

(Photo from The Caravan)

India moves from one propaganda & public relations blunder to another. It’s impossible to tell Kashmir under Modi from Syria under Assad or Arakan state under Suu Kyi & the generals.

https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/india/reuters-ap-and-ndtv-correspondents-asked-to-vacate-govt-bungalows-in-srinagar?

At long last, the struggle of West Papuans against Indonesian oppression is becoming widely reported on social media. We see what that has meant for the Kashmiri, Palestinian, Rohingya, & Uyghur struggles. Their struggles against exploitation, occupation, genocide are becoming internationalized.

Amnesty International India has launched a #LetKashmirSpeak petition campaign against the telecommunication blockade of Kashmir. You can sign it by going to the very last sentence & tapping the “here” link. Every thing we do to protest can help the Kashmiri struggle. Please take a moment to sign & share the petition.

https://amnesty.org.in/news-update/amnesty-international-india-launches-urgent-campaign-to-end-the-protracted-blackout-in-kashmir/?

Faye D’Souza, an Indian news anchor, challenging the Modi regime on the lockdown & telecommunication blockade of Kashmir.

My friend John Blackburn, a Scottish socialist, took this photo of me & his brother Felix in London during my first trip to Europe in 1974. I had saved for years for that trip & was nearly 30-years-old. From London, I moved on to France where I haunted the museums, & then to Portugal where I witnessed, photographed, & marched with the Portuguese revolution. A sense of internationalism is in my DNA & I only haven’t done more travel because that DNA was born working class & hasn’t always had the money.

Thank you to John for sending me this photo.

To my mind, the proposal for UN troops in Arakan state, Burma to protect returning Rohingya (even without the near-moronic proposal that Indian & Chinese troops be included in the UN force) is not a solution, based on the experience of UN troop deployments elsewhere–most notably in the Democratic Republic of the Congo & Haiti. They become an occupying army, not a force for security from harm. Massive rape rates are part of their ignominious legacy in DR Congo & a cholera epidemic in Haiti for which the UN denied culpability or reparations.

As long as Suu Kyi & the military regime remain in power, the Rohingya & other oppressed nationalities in Burma remain in danger. Burmese capitalism is a unique form of capitalism, bound with & controlled entirely by the military. Most industrial projects like mining are joint ventures with the generals, including the mining & other industrial projects with India & China. The military allowed the neoliberal investment boom to overcome not just economic sanctions imposed after their repression of the 1988 revolution against military dictatorship but the utter stagnation of the Burmese economy. Foreign investment in Burma combined with the Rohingya genocide are artificially holding up the Burmese military & creating a temporary reprieve for them from political unrest.

That makes the boycott of Burma called by Rohingya activists & supporters extremely important, even pivotal to the future freedom of the Rohingya & other oppressed nationalities in Burma. It would necessarily involve pressuring our own governments to outlaw investments in Burma & has the potential to undermine & weaken the military dictatorship & reenergize the now repressed forces of democracy. In the long run, the only permanent solution in Burma is the end of military rule & their prosecution, along with the Suu Kyi government, for human rights crimes, war crimes including the use of rape, & genocide.

#BoycottBurma

This is the video that Facebook deleted from my wall earlier today which shows protests in the Soura neighborhood of Srinagar against the killing of 18-year-old pellet victim Asrar Ahmad.