The importance of the struggle against occupation in Kashmir

It was through Kashmiri activists badgering me on Facebook as far back as 2011 that I came to study, understand, & commit to their struggle. I don’t kid myself that I know the entire history or complexities of their struggle, even with all the information & links they pass on to me. I don’t have sufficient sources to assess the inter-dynamics of political forces in Kashmir. Some things you have to be Kashmiri to understand.

What I do know without a single reservation is that their struggle is one of the most important freedom struggles in the world–not because they’re a great big country with a great big economy & military might–like India–but because, like Palestinians, like the Syrian popular movement against Assad, like Guaranis in Brazil, & Standing Rock Sioux in North Dakota, their relentless, committed struggle against tyranny shows suffering humanity the way forward to justice & peace against insuperable odds.

In the process, they’re teaching us all a thing or two about international solidarity–that the iron law of social transformation is “an injury to one is an injury to all.”