Mary Scully Reports

Indian doctors living in the US wrote this truly detestable letter to The Lancet protesting the editorial about the health consequences of the occupation on Kashmiris–health consequences that only a shameless propagandist with a criminal mind would deny considering only India’s use of pellet guns against unarmed Kashmiris which has injured, disabled, & killed thousands. But there are also health consequences to the Indian Army’s use of rape as a weapon of war, to those nearly 10,000 families who have lost a loved one to forcible disappearances, to those thousands who sustained incarceration & torture, for the small children growing up under the presence of overwhelming & hostile martial force. Apparently to Hindutva doctors, that Hippocratic oath thing means nothing. Kind of like how ethical standards meant nothing to Dr. Mengele & the holocaust doctors of Nazi Germany. But it does mean this organization should be registered as a foreign lobbying organization for the Indian government, functioning not unlike AIPAC for Israel.

Pia Klemp, the German ship captain who faced prison time for rescuing refugees in the Mediterranean just refused the Grand Vermeil medal awarded from the mayor of Paris. This is her magnificent letter of refusal:

“You want to award me a medal for my solidarity action in the Mediterranean Sea, because our crews ‘work to rescue migrants from difficult conditions on a daily basis’. At the same time your police are stealing blankets from migrants that you force to live on the streets, while you raid protests & criminalize people that are standing up for rights of migrants & asylum seekers. You want to give me a medal for actions that you fight in your own ramparts. I am sure you won’t be surprised that I decline the medal.

“I’m not a humanitarian. I am not there to ‘aid’. I stand in solidarity. We do not need medals. We do not need authorities deciding about who is a ‘hero’ & who is ‘illegal’. In fact they are in no position to make this call, because we are all equal.

“What we need are freedom & rights. It is time we call out hypocrite honoring & fill the void with social justice. It is time we cast all medals into spearheads of revolution!

“Documents & housing for all!
Freedom of movement & residence!”

–Pia Klemp, 20 August 2019″

This album is a composite of #StandWithKashmir rallies in Kansas City & Philadelphia.

The National Education Union (NEU) is the largest union of teachers in the UK with 461,950 members. It published this statement of solidarity with Kashmiris on August 20th, 2019.

https://neu.org.uk/articles/kashmir?

“Until the last Kashmiri is out of jail, and all Kashmiri journalists allowed to write and publish exactly as they want to, India must be relentlessly condemned as a prisonhouse and a totalitarian state. #StandWithKashmir #EndTheOccupation #RedForKashmir

–Indian activist Satyadeep Satya

Sweden’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Margot Wallström tweeted today that in a phone call with Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, she stressed that “the EU, including Sweden, supports, a bilateral political solution between India & Pakistan over Kashmir, dialogue through diplomatic channels.” What’s wrong with that hare-brained, completely worthless proposal? It completely disempowers Kashmiris & ignores their struggle for self-determination. They are not even invited to participate in negotiations over their fate. It ignores Indian colonialism & the presence of nearly one-million Indian troops using pellet guns & live ammo against unarmed civilians. It makes no demands on India whatsoever when it should, at least, be denouncing the occupation & the hermetic blockade. Let’s call this proposal what it is: a sham, an evasion, an obfuscation for the fact that the EU, including Sweden, intend to do nothing to pressure India to withdraw its troops & stop its murderous siege of Kashmir. There’s too much trade & commerce money at stake.

Any serious negotiations with India over Kashmir would begin with demands for the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all Indian troops & the immediate release of all Kashmiri political prisoners & only then would proceed to negotiations requiring the presence of democratically chosen Kashmiri representatives so that Kashmiris can damn well speak for themselves.

“Kashmir’s a very complicated place. You have the Hindus & you have the Muslims & I wouldn’t say they get along so great,” Trump told reporters.

Trump boasts repeatedly of his “very good brain,” of “being, like, really smart.” When running for president, he said, “I went to the best schools. I’m, like, a very smart person. I’m going to represent our country with dignity & very well.” The guy is an amoral halfwit & nothing makes that more evident than this jejune misrepresentation of the Indian occupation of Kashmir. It would be farcical if it weren’t so truly insulting & tragic for Kashmiris.

My neighbor, a kind & loving woman, recently purchased two parakeets & a cockatiel. She asked me to keep the birds with mine because her home was being fumigated & the fumes would kill the birds. My rescue birds are not caged because I believe captivity & cages violate their nature. They have cages but they just perch on them to canoodle, socialize, & poop. Most birds are social animals & grieve solidarity. Cockatiels especially demand companionship & develop severe psychological disorders without it. Her little guy sits alone in a cage all day but I couldn’t responsibly let him fly free while caring for him. My little flock are hovering around his cage & he seems overwhelmed to again meet some of his own kind. It’ll break my heart to send him home alone but I will suggest to her that getting him a companion is a must.

Just stating again for the record: solidarity with those on the front lines of oppression is not a matter of noblesse oblige. It isn’t even just a matter of ‘an injury to one is an injury to all’ in any sentimental sense. It’s a matter of the survival of the whole human race before war, occupation, genocide take down all of us together. Militarism doesn’t just slaughter millions of people in the besieged countries; it rots the very souls of the aggressing countries, produces psycho-killers, & necessitates greater repression, impoverishment, misery. That’s why no human being is alien to us.