Category: activism

on new year’s eve, at the threshold of 2024, i want to send my love and duas to the people of palestine, especially the beautiful children of gaza and their extraordinary families.

it’s been emotionally shattering to bear witness to the sadistic violence unleashed on them by the israeli government, its army and mercenaries, so i cannot imagine the horrors they have experienced on the ground. they are being subjected to hunger and thirst, bombs and snipers, torture and detention, ethnic cleansing and war crimes. they have lost families, bloodlines, homes, limbs, the very contours of normal human life that anchor our reality. there are no words. language fails to capture such extreme loss and torment.

yet palestinian communities have been able to come together, under perverse circumstances, to help one another: dig children out of the rubble with bare hands, bake bread in makeshift ovens and feed neighbors, console grieving fathers and kids with mangled limbs, bury loved ones as well as the bodies of strangers. i marvel at young journalists in their 20s, in the springtime of life, who refused to leave gaza so they could continue to tell their people’s stories and stop the genocide.

against these scenes of human compassion and courage, we’ve seen the deranged cruelty and arrogance of mainstream israeli society. it’s not just israeli politicians lusting for a gaza holocaust, it’s israeli soldiers hoping to kill more babies, and israeli teenagers drunk on racism and supremacist vulgarity. the difference is clear. settler colonies are ungainly cartoons disoriented by their own hubris. harmful to others, but ultimately also harmful to themselves. a kind of self cannibalism.

as humans, we come to this world with one and one certainty only. that our time on this earth is limited and that we will die – sometime, someplace, somehow. why not lean into that knowledge and live a life of connection and generosity. we can learn so much from indigenous communities.

vietnam, laos, cambodia, bangladesh, chile, east timor, argentina, bolivia, uruguay, angola, mozambique, iran, iraq, afghanistan, palestine… disastrous interventions, support for murderous military dictators, torture, genocide, and the destabilization of entire world regions. “the illegal we do immediately, the unconstitutional takes a little longer,” he said famously. war criminal henry kissinger is dead. may he rot in hell.

I have known Ali Sajjad since he was a student in college and am proud of the crucial work he is doing for children’s education. This is the kind of investment in young people that we should all support. Pls consider making a tax deductible donation.

In Faisalabad, the historical city of Lyallpur, a team of socially conscious educators run a school that provides the kind of education we often dream of: meeting local and global needs while being holistic, building critical thinking, teaching science, mathematics, languages and technology, including music and the performing arts in the curriculum, and encouraging extracurricular activities (from sports to debates). It’s a school that focuses on inclusivity, social justice, and democracy as core values both in its student body and its staff.

Broadwood Central School is a testament to what Pakistan’s future can be. On account of its egalitarian/inclusive mission and the scholarships it provides to a large number of students, the school needs support to continue its work in the Faisalabad community. Please invest in the school and its students by making a tax deductible donation here.

More info at www.broadwoodcentral.edu.pk

the bombing of the baptist hospital in gaza: (1) israel asked for the hospital to be evacuated so they could bomb it, (2) israel had already bombed part of the hospital before this strike, (3) IDF spokesperson hananya naftali triumphantly tweeted that the air force had struck a terrorist base inside a hospital in gaza right after the bombing (the tweet was later deleted), (4) the israeli military/ government lie pathologically to manipulate the optics of their own violence (most recently they lied about beheaded babies).

but all of this does not matter. it is a distraction.

the leveling of gaza and the forced transfer of its population is ongoing. the blockade of food, water, fuel, and electricity is ongoing. the ethnic cleansing and genocide of the palestinian people is ongoing. israel continues to bomb mosques and UN school shelters, both war crimes under international law.

stop bombing gaza. end the genocide. no more racist settler colonialism. free palestine