The Israeli army arrested 9-year-old Palestinian child Mohammad Abu Musallam from his home in the occupied West Bank. There must be umpteen international human rights laws against the arrest & terrorizing of little kids. And yet the US Congress wants us to pledge allegiance to the colonial, apartheid state of Israel. Build BDS instead.
“Not a single verse in the Quran says to wear a headscarf. The hijab is not from Islam.”
Of all the banal arguments used against the hijab, this one takes the cake. There is legislation in several countries banning both the hijab & the full veil. How does it escape small minds that whatever their personal views of the veil, laws against it are being used as a weapon to enforce persecution of Muslims. Their personal views, likely based in misogyny, are of absolutely no importance compared to the rights of Muslim women to decide what to wear for personal or religious reasons. If you’re concerned about the attire of women rather than their rights, you might be a boneheaded Islamophobe.
A no-nonsense message from the women of Kashmir:
“This Hindutva terrorist boasted of killing 97 Muslims in 2002, including ripping out a fetus from a dead woman’s womb with a sword. He was sentenced to life in prison but has been released early because killing Muslims is now hunky dory in Modi’s India.”
–Muddaththir Maqsood
(Photo is Babu Bajrangi who had been serving a life sentence for his criminal actions during the 2002 anti-Muslim genocide in Gujarat)
Have any Muslims written an analysis of the term “Islamofascism” so much in vogue after 9/11? The term originated primarily with the rightwing & is now used extensively by Islamophobic demagogues to describe everything from ISIS political formations to any guerrilla formation comprised of Muslims. But it’s acquired a certain cachet & is now used widely, including by liberals & radicals. The middle-class basis of fascist groups & that of guerrilla groups is the same & they share a common distrust of the working class. But there the political similarities end. No one would have referred to the guerrilla groups proliferating throughout Latin America in the 1960s & 1970s nor to the Irish IRA as fascist even though their political methods were criticized, even excoriated. Certainly no one would have identified guerrillaism as Christian or Catholic in character even though as a strategy it was prevalent in majority Catholic countries.
The term Islamofascism is deeply problematic & more suggestive of Islamophobic prejudice than it is political analysis of a complex & troubling phenomenon. My own opinion is that it should not be used even in regard to ISIS. As detestable & reactionary as that formation is, it does not further understanding to associate it with Islam & ratchet up the scare-mongering in place of an in-depth analysis of what political ideas & forces ISIS represents. The US & its allies use scare-mongering about ISIS to justify military intervention in Iraq, Syria, & increasingly elsewhere. But such formations would not exist in the first place were it not for US-European colonialism & collaboration with repressive regimes.
What the hell is the US State Department, in the person of Pompeo & Melania Trump, handing out human rights awards to extraordinary women for? They wouldn’t know human rights if they came up & bit them in the ass. Enough with these pointless honorifics!
It says something about the level of political discourse in the US that the writings of Ken Silverstein on Venezuela are treated as gospel. We laughed ourselves silly when Eva Bartlett went to Syria for a week & came back proclaiming “I’ve been to Syria & everything media tells you is a lie.” Now people who think themselves high-powered Marxists are posting a piece by Silverstein proclaiming “”I just got back from Venezuela &….everything you read or see about the country in the US media is a lie.” His reporting is utterly banal & superficial & although I politically detest Max Blumenthal & Ben Norton, Silverstein belittles the two schnooks personally rather than challenge them politically.
We’re getting a repeat in Venezuela of what we got in Syria to the extreme disadvantage of the Syrian & Venezuelan people. Too many reporters, as Silverstein once was, have become libertarians, utterly rudderless & unable to distinguish oppressive regimes from the just demands of oppressed working people. Silverstein joins an entire army of these guys, including Pilger, Fisk, Cockburn, who can’t even be trusted to report the news accurately because they’re too engaged with the regimes. Bartlett & Beeley, Blumenthal & Norton don’t count of course since they are propagandists, not journalists. But unfortunately that is what the reporters & Marxists have become.
Israel is celebrating International Women’s Day by bombing Gaza & firing on several Palestinian fishing boats in Palestinian territorial waters, abducting the fishermen & confiscating their boats.
“England all rounder Moeen Ali was banned by ICC for wearing wrist bands supporting Palestinian cause, but the same ICC blissfully ignored “rules” when whole indian team and even commentators donned army caps to support Indian Army which is involved in an ongoing brutal occupation in Kashmir. Double standards couldn’t be more evident, ever.”
–Mir Laieeq
Micheal Clinton from Dublin, Ireland is well-known to many of you as a relentless, committed campaigner for the human rights of Palestinians, Kashmiris, Uyghur, Rohingya, & all who are oppressed, & a strong supporter of the Syrian Arab Spring uprising. He is undergoing chemo treatments for leukemia now & fully expects to recover. Can all of you remember him often in your prayers, that his recovery be swift & complete? Being Micheal, he will continue to campaign on & off social media. Human rights never had a stronger advocate.