Category: politics

ramadan begins with the israeli bombing of gaza, an open air prison. dozens of people have been killed including a pregnant woman and her 14-month old daughter. in what world is that ok? #gazaunderattack #istandwithgaza

black women rock!

African-American women leaders gathered on Capitol Hill Tuesday in defense of Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, one of the first two Muslim congresswomen in history and the first member of Congress to wear a hijab. Omar has been the target of numerous right-wing attacks since taking office, including by President Donald Trump himself. More here.

Asim Rafiqui: Those we often consider ‘illiterate’ or ‘un-modern’ or ‘in need of education’ or ‘unaware of how the world works’ or any number of denigrating, racist, and reductive generalisations that are often used against anyone Pashtun, are often the most lucid, clear and theoretically strong about understanding the operations of power, and its allies.

To crudely paraphrase Manzoor Pashteen’s statement:

“This is a media that chases Taliban commanders through mountains to offer them their microphones and their cameras. This is a media that has always-whether for the authorities or for violent men–acted as an enabler of war and a promoter of war. I pray that this media some day be free. This is a media that did not even bother to cover the torn, dismembered bodies of our children. But it ran to cover the story of a cat in Karachi.”

This state, this society, our privileged elite, our numbed middle class, cannot fathom this language. It cannot hear these truths. It cannot bear to face its complicity in false wars, in real deaths and mass slaughter.

american activist friends, pls learn about kashmir.
…
AS HUNDREDS OF millions of Indians take part in the largest democratic election in the world, residents of the northern province of Kashmir are engaging in what appears to be a historic boycott of the vote. The current Indian prime ministerial election, which runs over the course of a month, pits the incumbent Narendra Modi of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, against Rahul Gandhi of the Indian National Congress. For the residents of Kashmir who find themselves trapped in the middle of a decadeslong rivalry between India and neighboring Pakistan, their lives are unlikely to change regardless of the election’s outcome.

[…] Military control over the province has intensified, with even pro-India Kashmiri leaders saying that the province of 11 million is becoming “an open-air prison.” In such an environment, nationwide elections seem to offer little hope. More here.

so grotesque it feels unreal.

Sarah Abdallah: Imagine the nonstop global outrage if Russia, #Syria or #Venezuela beheaded 37 people in one day, and publicly pinned two of the headless bodies to a pole. Not so much though when it comes to Saudi Arabia, which just did exactly that to its Shia minority.

Yoav Litvin: The ultimate propaganda goal of any nationalistic apparatus is to fuse the perception of “self” with that of “nation” into a cohesive identity that is loyal to the ruling class. Critique of the state becomes an existential threat that warrants defensive responses aimed at ensuring the survival of both personal and collective psyches.

Zionism has been a modern white supremacist movement since its inception. Zionists coopted aspects of Judaism and Liberalism, repackaging them as appeals to identities and propaganda tools to bolster colonial expansion.

The state of Israel is built on the fallacy, enshrined in a Basic Law, that it is simultaneously Jewish and democratic. However, Israel is not a democratic state, as demonstrated by the long list of anti-Palestinian measures including the recent Jewish nation-state law. Nor is it a Jewish state, as exemplified by Israel’s consistent targeting of anti-Zionist Jews and prejudice against Sephardi, Mizrahi and African Jews, as well as its ongoing collaboration with anti-Semitic forces which aim for global apartheid.

The artificial connection between Zionism and Judaism thwarts resistance by deeming critique of Zionism and Israeli policies towards Palestinians as an attack on all Jews, ie anti-Semitic. Further, it fragments anti-colonial resistance by reframing a political struggle over land and resources between an occupying force and an occupied people as a “conflict” among two relatively equal parties.

The Liberal flank of Zionism functions to sanitise and revise the reactionary, settler-colonialist and white supremacist essence of the movement and obscure its motivations – expansionism and apartheid. Duplicitously, it presents Zionism as compatible with democratic and progressive values and human rights, possessing a true desire for peace, justice and complete integration into the Middle East. More here.