Tag: Oppression

Hatred, Intolerance, and Fear

On todays episode of Democracy Now!, in their last segment, Gainesville Muslim Community Organizes Vigils, Teach-Ins to Counter Planned Quran Burning, Moustafa Bayoumi, author of How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being Young and Arab in America, spoke a bunch of words I wish were in the media much more often than not;

… What we find of late, I think, is a disturbing measure of what it means to be an American. I, in fact, think that it’s also important to place the anti-Muslim sentiment that we see today alongside the kind of anti-immigrant feeling that we see today. So I think if we consider the Arizona initiatives, for example, or just the general pervasive anti-immigrant feeling that you have, directed largely against Latinos and Hispanics in this country, alongside the anti-Muslim sentiment — and I would also put in that same parameter the polling data that we see that sees that President Obama is — 20 percent of the population wants to say that President Obama is a Muslim. I think that that’s actually a thinly disguised way of talking about President Obama’s racial background. It’s a way of saying he’s not like us. And so, rather than using the traditional language, the traditional discourse of race in this country, which is to call him an African American or such [like that abhorrent n-word?], they call him instead a Muslim [and a Socialist], which is a[n unjustly accepted, but no less obvious] way of saying he’s not one of us…

Yesterday’s middle part of The Current — the first half, especially — Persecution, rather effectively sets an absolutely frightening context on the lunacy of the anti-Islamic attitudes plaguing America, specifically, but the world, in general. Exactly why are people so afraid of labelling these (and other) acts of hatred, intolerance, and fear for what they so clearly happen to be? And why is it tolerated?

Incredibly Damning

Three points of interest I’ve stumbled upon concerning the G20 Summit, happening in Toronto, this weekend…

  1. First the sweeping power police have been “temporarily” granted. According to The Toronto Star, “[t]he province has secretly passed an unprecedented regulation that empowers police to arrest anyone near the G20 security zone who refuses to identify themselves or agree to a police search.”
    But not only that, this regulation “was made under Ontario’s Public Works Protection Act and was not debated in the Legislature [yay democracy!]. According to a provincial spokesperson, the cabinet action came in response to an “extraordinary request” by Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair. […] The regulation kicked in Monday and will expire June 28, the day after the summit ends. While the new regulation appeared without notice on the province’s e-Laws online database last week, it won’t be officially published in The Ontario Gazette until July 3 — one week after the regulation expires.”
  2. The Security wall erected to “protect” the world “leaders” from protestors. I think the much more relevant question is, where the hell is our protection, from them? But beside the point.
    Stephan Christoff (in his interview on today’s Democracy Now broadcast) said that the “three-layer massive security fence around downtown, [was] constructed by a corporation, SNC-Lavalin from Montreal.” The very same Canadian corporation who “produced millions of bullets between 2003 and 2005 for the U.S. Army at the same time of the invasion of Iraq.” Shocking. That is if you’ve never read Yves Engler’s book The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy, where he details this (I believe), and a number of other instances, where Canada’s was and is, most definitely, involved in the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
    And, “bringing it home,” Stephan went onto say “[s]o this is a corporation that’s inherently tied to the military-industrial complex internationally and also has been tied to the clampdown on dissent here in Toronto.”
  3. And, lastly, the emphasis on violence, and its condemnation in relation to the protests, by my Government, specifically. This is something I made passing reference to in my previous post, the absurd irony of it all. Let’s see, it’s perfectly acceptable for the G20 to turn around and use the very thing they “deplore” to implement the same policies people are protesting?

I don’t know about you, but this is so very interesting, not to mention incredibly damning…

Without Fail

Arriving in my inbox today, without fail, was yet another bunch of extremely relevant words, care of ZNet‘s ZSpace Commentaries. Uri Avnery’s article Kill A Turk And Rest. Labelling them ironic couldn’t do them any damage, either. Just read;

“On the high seas, outside territorial waters, the ship was stopped by the navy. The commandos stormed it. Hundreds of people on the deck resisted, the soldiers used force. Some of the passengers were killed, scores injured. The ship was brought into harbor, the passengers were taken off by force. The world saw them walking on the quay, men and women, young and old, all of them worn out, one after another, each being marched between two soldiers…”

“The ship was called “Exodus 1947”. It left France in the hope of breaking the British blockade, which was imposed to prevent ships loaded with Holocaust survivors from reaching the shores of Palestine. If it had been allowed to reach the country, the illegal immigrants would have come ashore and the British would have sent them to detention camps in Cyprus, as they had done before. Nobody would have taken any notice of the episode for more than two days.”

“But the person in charge was Ernest Bevin, a Labour Party leader, an arrogant, rude and power-loving British minister. He was not about to let a bunch of Jews dictate to him. He decided to teach them a lesson the entire world would witness. “This is a provocation!” he exclaimed, and of course he was right. The main aim was indeed to create a provocation, in order to draw the eyes of the world to the British blockade.”

“What followed is well known: the episode dragged on and on, one stupidity led to another, the whole world sympathized with the passengers. But the British did not give in and paid the price. A heavy price…”

Not a helluva lot I could add to what Uri chose to open his piece with, but, I assure you, it’s well worth the read…