#1: You frequently find yourself advocating that the United States send troops, drones, weapons, Special Forces, or combat air patrols to some country that you have never visited, whose language(s) you don’t speak, and that you never paid much attention to until bad things started happening there.
#3: You think globally and speak, um, globally. You are quick to condemn human rights violations by other governments, but American abuses (e.g., torture, rendition, targeted assassinations, Guantánamo, etc.) and those of America’s allies get a pass. You worry privately (and correctly) that aiming your critique homeward might get in the way of a future job.
#4: You are a strong proponent of international law, except when it gets in the way of Doing the Right Thing. Then you emphasize its limitations and explain why the United States doesn’t need to be bound by it in this case.
#6. Even if you don’t know very much about military history, logistics, or modern military operations, you are still convinced that military power can achieve complex political objectives at relatively low cost.
#7: To your credit, you have powerful sympathies for anyone opposing a tyrant. Unfortunately, you tend not to ask whether rebels, exiles, and other anti-regime forces are trying to enlist your support by telling you what they think you want to hear. (Two words: Ahmed Chalabi.)
”Top 10 Signs of ‘Liberal Imperialism’ by Stephen M. Walt
Walt nailed it. I picked out my favorite ones. If you exhibit any such signs of this toxic disease, lock yourself in a room 4eva.
(via globalwarmist)
Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael)
“The enemy keeps us ignorant. Not half-hazardly but by calculated plans.
Go and pick up any textbook that you have that you had as a child. Go now and pick up the textbooks that your children have. The only time Africa is mentioned is that she gave slaves to America, and that the slaves who came from Africa to America should be very happy because the price of slavery, and the oppression of America is better than the ‘barbaric’ life which we lived in Africa. ‘Thank you.’ ‘Very much.’ ‘America.’
You will read in all your textbooks about all the great things the Germans did, the contributions of the French to world humanity, the contributions of the British to world humanity, the contributions of the Italians to world humanity. But Africa? No contributions at all.
They say in the very beginning, the struggle here begins with a fight against ignorance. Not only does the enemy make you ignorant, but then he makes you want to love ignorance and hate knowledge!”
poem: who am i
I am a working progress and regress.
I am living and dying.
I am both known and unknown.
I am in the making.
Let us both enjoy the journey of becoming, and just being.
I am in this life, for the first time, just like you.
I know nothing.
And that is the safest place to begin.
Ask questions, inquiry is our safety net.
Blind faith is no faith at all.
- Laila R., 4/13/13
Thank you ❤
It took me and my colleagues weeks to plan our first ever Freeze Flash Mob to raise awareness about the illegal war in Afghanistan at our school. Spending hours with our volunteers spreading the word, making posters, flyers & flags I am very proud to say that it worked out so well in the end Alhamdulillah. I am so grateful from the amount of great feedback we got for this commemoration. I walked around so proudly with the Afghan flag on my back while everyone looked in wonder. And I thought “wow, finally. FINALLY the afghan people are being remembered. The issue there is no longer secret”
but of course there were people were completely against the idea. One gentlemen said we did it for “pure entertainment” What he means by entertainment, I do not know. But what I do know is what we did was to make a STATEMENT. We came together, all from different backgrounds, and stood against this war in solidarity. WE came together to show our support for the Afghan people, letting them know not everyone has forgotten them. This gentlemen also said these type of “things” are “stupid and pointless” Wrong again. IF we were to sit on our butts and do nothing, allowing the aimlessly killings to take place, THAT would be stupid and pointless. What we did was raised awareness because I can guarantee you that more people are aware now about the war in Afghanistan then they were last week. People now know what the media hid from them. WE made a difference. If we sit forever in our little worlds and ignore whats going on outside, we are going to live a unjust life. I don’t know about him, but for me I’d rather die then to live a unjust life.
Afghanistan will be Free one day, just you watch sir. No thanks to you of course.
Peace, Love, Freedom.
(more pictures should be up soon!)
UK weekly newspaper, The Economist.
Malcolm X - “If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”
practice what you preach.
stop devaluing and dehumanizing other human life.
Treat and respect all life equally. All people of the world deserve peace. #PrayfortheWorld
Photo: Principle Pictures
مسافر: On the Normativity of Labels
I have a huge problem with labels because they can be so incredibly normative, as if there is only one set of desirable and acceptable attributes to be striven for — by whichever standards.
“Spiritual Muslim”, as opposed to “Religious Muslim”, as opposed to “Practicing Muslim”, as opposed to “Progressive Muslim”, as opposed to “Feminist Muslim” etc. etc. It implies that somehow, Islam by virtue of itself isn’t spiritual/progressive/religious/practical/feminist etc. and has to be further accentuated through those adjectives. To create those labels when there are none is to create divides that don’t exist in the sense that there are no neat little boxes without any overlap — a practicing Muslim can be spiritual, conservative, feminist and progressive all at the same time. To label oneself or someone else as, say, a “practicing” Muslim implies that all Muslims who don’t get that adjective are not practicing, or that Islam is possible without being practiced. To label oneself as “progressive”, is to imply that the rest of Muslims aren’t or that Islam in itself isn’t.
It’s quite interesting how new these labels are and how they cater to a Western need to categorize Muslims into neat categories of “bad Muslims” and “good Muslims”, of Muslims to vilify and Muslims to tokenize.
- israel: (forcefully sterilizes ethiopian jews)
- america: (silence)
- israel: (demolishes the homes of palestinians on a huge scale)
- america: (silence)
- israel: (segregates buses so that palestinians have to ride separate buses from israelis)
- america: (silence)
- israel: (forcibly makes it so palestinians cannot visit parts of their own homeland)
- america: (silence)
- israel: (kills and oppresses the palestinian people in the name of a pure jewish homeland)
- america: (silence)
- palestinian civilian: (throws a rock)
- america: OMGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG VIOLENCE!
(Source: onlinecounsellingcollege)
The Underachievers
6th Annual Congo Conference - "How much do you know about the DR Congo?"
Saturday, April 27, 2013 - Toronto
Canada is Complicit in Imperialism and Corporate Crimes Prevailing in DRC
By: Laila Rashidie, Congo Research Group (founder)
Published: February 9, 2011 - York University FREE PRESS
The Congo Research Group started in November 2010 after a realization that there was no Congo Week held on York University campus. Congo Week has been an annual event since 2008 when it was originally called ‘Break the Silence’ Congo Week. Friends of the Congo (FOTC) helped to mobilize it in 35 countries and 150 university campuses, participating in a week of actions in solidarity with the people of Congo.
In 2010, the 3rd annual Congo Week took place in over 200 campuses across America and in 50 countries worldwide. FOTC is an advocacy organization established in 2004 and based in Washington, DC. FOTC has two primary aims: 1) to bring an end to the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and 2) to contribute to fulfilling the enormous human and natural potential of Congo. They pursue these aims through three EMS strategies: education, mobilization, and support.
Thanks to the support of FOTC, the Congo Research Group was able to start and expand quickly. Our first event was a film screening of Lumumba held Nov. 22 at York University, with FOTC student coordinator and national spokesperson Kambale Musavuli from New York City as our guest speaker. The event drew a full attendance.
The screening was an introduction into the American and Belgium supported assassination of first-elected Prime Minister of the DRC, Patrice Lumumba, after 11 weeks in office. Lumumba was an anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist who in his early 30s led a movement that successfully brought independence for Belgian Congo. Lumumba was outspoken about Belgian King Leopold II’s genocidal colonization of his people since Belgium attempted and continues to attempt to re-write history. Belgium celebrates King Leopold II as a great civilizer, though in actuality he was responsible for the killing of 8-16 million native inhabitants of the DRC (known then as Congo Free State) between 1885 and 1908 during his private colonization of the DRC in the period known as the Scramble for Africa.
Lumumba wrote in his last letter written to his wife: “History will one day have its say, but it will not be the history that Brussels, Paris, Washington, or the United Nations will teach, but that which they will teach in the countries emancipated from colonialism and its puppets.”
Immediately after his brutal murder, the United States (US) installed and supported the dictator Mobutu Se Seko for over three decades.
Today, as you are reading this, the situation in the DRC is described by FOTC on their congoweek.org website as being “the greatest humanitarian crisis”–a crisis that has brutally ended the lives of nearly 6 million Congolese since 1996. “Half of them being children under five years old and hundreds of thousands of women have been raped, all as a result of the scramble for Congo’s wealth.” It has been the deadliest conflict in the world since World War II, reports the United Nations. A 2004 mortality study done by International Rescue Committee found that 31,000 Congolese die every month, a death toll that has since then increased to 45,000 people per month as reported by FOTC.
The United Nations Mapping Report published in 2010 details in substantial length the crimes occurring in the DRC between the years of 1993 to 2003. The mapping report concludes that foreign mining companies serve as “the engine of the conflict in DRC.” Over the past 14 years, foreign corporations have been deeply involved in the exploitation of the DRC’s mineral wealth. Did you know that the uranium that was used in the nuclear bombs destroying Hiroshima and Nagasaki came from the Congo, supplied to the US by the Belgian government ruling the Congo during that time? Did you know… that the uranium that was used in the nuclear bombs destroying Hiroshima and Nagasaki came from the Congo supplied to the US by the Belgian Government ruling the Congo during thatCongo is known as the storehouse of strategic minerals. It has anywhere from 64 to 80% of the world’s reserve of coltan. Coltan can be found in our everyday digital gadgets; these gadgets are now known as ‘blood gadgets.’
Canada is complicit in the conflict: Congolese victims in Nov. 4, 2010 filed a class action in Montreal against Anvil Mining Limited. Anvil allegedly provided logistical assistance enabling the massacre of more than 70 people in the village of Kilwa by the Congolese military. Musavuli informed us that 80% of the world’s capital in mining comes from the Toronto Stock Exchange. In 2006, a study by Toronto-based Corporate Knights examined six Toronto Stock Exchange-listed mining companies to see whether they followed the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises: Anvil, Banro, First Quantum Minerals, Katanga, Moto Goldmines, and Tenke. Their examination shows multinational companies not adhering to the guidelines and their development perpetuates underdevelopment.
FOTC explains that there are five major forces that are working against the interest of the Congolese people: foreign governments, foreign corporations, multilateral institutions (the World Bank, IMF), neighboring countries, and local elites.
