> La Bayamesa (animated)

Here is a cute animated version of the Cuban anthem “La Bayamesa”, with English subtitles.

Adorable…

> Palestine Solidarity Campaign, now in Pakistan!

I am delighted to report the following initiative, and urge readers to join up immediately. Sign the online petition, and if you’re currently based in Pakistan, please use the information provided here to get in touch with the campaign organizers.

We need your support.

Cell phones: 0344-4648479 & 0323-4160352

Email address: PakistanisForPalestine@gmail.com

Pakistanis for Palestine

A Pakistani campaign of solidarity with the Palestinian people has just been launched in Lahore. As its first action of solidarity, the campaign calls on Pakistani academics and cultural workers—artists, poets, writers, singers and filmmakers—to join the growing Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel that is spreading around the world.

We are focusing initially on endorsing the boycott of Israeli academic and cultural institutions, as called for by the PACBI (Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel). In the wake of the recent slaughter in Gaza in winter 2008-09, we oppose any kind of normalization of relations between Pakistan and Israel, including normalization of Israeli discourse about terrorism that masks the realities of occupation and the denial of human rights. We wish to send a message to the Palestinian people who suffer daily dispossession and denial of their rights to sovereignty, that Pakistani people of conscience support them in their struggle for justice and equality as men and women, children and youth, workers and the working poor. We are fully aware that Israel is aided by the economic and military might of the United States, and we oppose their imperialist designs and aggressions that are enabling violence and devastating the region.

Why we believe such a campaign is necessary here in Pakistan:

1. Israel‘s policies are being normalized through the presence in Pakistan of

International/Jewish American organizations that are funding NGO‘s and groups and supporting a pro-Israel agenda
American spokespersons and academics that are advocating Israeli positions, and,
products made in Israel that are marketed by American and European organizations.
2. There is a normalization of Israel‘s brutal policies under the guise of “counter-terrorism” by media commentators and members of the military and political establishment who, implicitly and explicitly, valorize the Israeli military.

All these attempts aim at justifying Israeli crimes and pacifying solidarity with Palestinians among Pakistanis.

> Rage Against the Taliban

There can be no happy man on earth,
No one can work well on this planet
While that nose continues to breathe in Washington
Asking the old bard to confer with me
I assume the duties of a poet
Armed with a terrorist’s sonnet

Because I must carry out with no regrets
This sentence, never before witnessed,
Of shooting a criminal under siege,
Who in spite of his trips to the moon
Has killed so many here on earth
That the paper flies up and the pen is unsheathed
To set down the name of this villain

Who practices genocide from the White House
____________________________________________

Many educated young people today, having been raised in a de-politicized cocoon on a diet of ultra-consumerism, would probably attribute such words to an Islamic fundamentalist. After all, only a raving Jihadist lunatic could be so firmly opposed to US militarism and aggression, right?

But these words are not from the latest video-tape which Osama bin Laden mailed to Al-Jazeera. They were written by Pablo Neruda, the iconic 20th century poet of social justice and passionate love. The practitioner of genocide who he refers to is none other than Richard Nixon.

This is a poet, a sensitive soul, a thinking soul. Surprise, eh? It turns out that all sorts of people can be very angry at the US for its policies in the Third World.

I was immediately reminded of this poetry by a recent New York Times video report, about some Pakistani pop musicians and their opposition to US policies in the region, entitled “Tuning out the Taliban”, by Adam B. Ellick.

For those who haven’t seen it, take a look:

Never in its history has Pakistan been the focus of so much Western media attention. Just recently, Hillary Clinton launched a “charm offensive” against our people, amid a flurry of coverage by the Pakistani media.

Ellick’s original report in the NYT and the Pakistani responses to it have made for a fascinating case study on how political leanings, cultural critiques, music and the media interact in the deadly battleground of America’s War on Terror.

Nadeem Farooq Paracha, aka NFP, a prominent cultural critic (who is interviewed in the NYT video report itself), chooses to dismiss legitimate concerns about American militarism.

> In the next few days…

I plan to do a series of pieces on the War on Terror and Pakistan. This will, of course, tie in with some other posts here, which will not be a part of this series. There will be some overlap, but I hope to make the series on the War on Terror coherent on its own.

This series will be based on my personal observations and experiences, and is based on scribbled passages from my notebooks (which consist of random pieces of paper scattered across my bed).

I intend to call the series “Things fall apart”. I’m referring, of course, to the praetorian Pakistani state in its current form and the volcanic socio-political pressures which have made its collapse inevitable.

The basic idea I’m working on is that this is a phase of intense transformation for the political entity we know as Pakistan. This entity, in its current form, cannot survive for very long.

The current power structure in Pakistan is now proving untenable, because of a host of factors, both external and internal.

The outcome of this process is difficult to predict.

Will we see a complete break-up of this entity called Pakistan, or will the establishment succeed in holding it together based on a reconfiguration of the socio-political structure? The only thing we can say with confidence, unfortunately, is that it is proving to be a violent, disruptive and chaotic process.

> Back to blogging, I hope…

This time I mean it. Honestly.

But I mean really, while I have been stuck in Pakistan, with visa issues and all, I did learn a lot of things. I’ve done a lot of travelling and a lot of reading. At times I’ve indulged myself. I’ve been ill a little too much. And I’ve done some activism here and there.

Overall, while I do need to get out of Pakistan and back to college soon, I think 20 years down the line, this will have been a very formative period of my life.

And now, I intend to blog again, regularly.

I got this hilarious e-mail from a reader and dear friend, who basically says that he’s sick of finding my blog un-updated for months, and that if I’m not going to post anything new on it, I should just delete it.

**sigh**

Even this godforsaken little corner of cyberspace, where I hang out from time to time, seems to matter to a few people. Or at least one person.

**snigger**

> La historia me absolverá…

It is not just history which will absolve those who take up arms against injustice. The masses of the Third World will do so too. They want to hit back even now, at this very moment.

Our task, if we are opponents of the global capitalist Moloch, is to show them how.

What I’m going to do write now is to type up some things that I wrote in a note-pad some days ago. I felt that I had to try and express these thoughts somehow.

The question swirling around in my mind as I wrote this was: history will certainly absolve those who take up the fight against this existing global order, but will it absolve me?

And yes, this is based on some of my experiences. And yes, I mean every word of it.

As you walk down the manicured boulevards and congested streets of a Pakistani city, take a little detour. Enter the slums, the mohalla, the basti. Ask them what they think of the police. Ask them what they think of “the Law”. Ask them what they think of the Pakistani rulers. Ask them, above all, what they think of the Pakistani elite.

Right now, all you hear is the slurping of pigs as they devour what the masses produce. But there is also something else: the whisper in the heart of the man who has to refer to a swine as “sahib” or “sir”. Some Thing within that man says that this sahib is not fit to be spat upon. Some Thing within that man curses a destiny which placed him at the feet of the sahib.

He brushes it away, that dangerous thought which should not arise. After all, is it not God’s will that things stay as they are?

And what do I say about the woman, who can only be the mother, sister, daughter or wife of this wretched man, and nothing more? What does she say? I don’t know. I cannot enter the domestic cell in which she is kept. And what would I ask her? She has never even seen the sahibs.

But when the orgy of consumption is interrupted by something as mundane as a traffic jam or a suicide blast, make no mistake about it: some Thing within those people smiles, even though they are the greatest victims of traffic jams and suicide bombings.

What does that Thing say? More about it later.

What about me, ungrateful product of consumerism that I am?

Why be grateful to a social order that serves us with blood in a flashy carton? I owe nothing to consumerism, I owe nothing to capitalism, I owe everything to the masses.

I have no human rights, because this social order recognizes only consumers and producers. Humans, if they ever existed, are a thing of the past. I am not a human. I am a consumer, whose search for humanity can only lead to fear and disgust. I therefore ask for no mercy from the masses, if they ever hold me to account.

But they rarely, if ever, hold me to account. They will spend their meagre earnings to buy me a cup of tea, and they will serve it with a warmth which I have never seen in my fellow consumers. Among my fellow consumers, I have only seen a constant hunger which can never be fulfilled.

These are things that I cannot express otherwise. I cannot say them to anyone, because I don’t know how to. All I can do is hope that those producers, the masses, will one day accept me. I hope they see me as someone who is weak, but also as someone who wants to be human.

I do not ask them for mercy. With that cup of tea, they have forgiven me in a way that I would never forgive someone who wronged me. I only ask them to somehow understand that I want to be human.

Ungrateful product of consumerism as I am, I would rather be a hypocritical sahib who speaks the truth, than a sahib who refuses to see it.

An apple is an apple, a pig is a pig, and I am what I am.

As for that Thing I mentioned earlier, this is what it says:

Against the white terror you spread

sans notice

through my settlement

Before your rule

having given notice

openly present

I am a ‘terrorist’

murder me if you can!

After sniffing the fragrance

of flaming revenge ablaze

atop the graves

of my mother

father

grandmother

grandfather,

generation upon generation of my lineage

after spreading the ashes

of yearnings

for a beautiful life

I’ve come

Today I’ve not come

to ask for a thing

I’ve come to stir up

an earthquake of terror

in your heavenly joy

I am the ‘terrorist’ of your heaven

murder me if you can!

> The old man still lives

Yep, he’s alive.

If I’m not wrong, this is an enactment of Marx in Soho, by Howard Zinn.

“The old French order, the Republic…hah, Liberals, they called themselves…they did not dare come into Paris. They trembled with fear, because with the Germans gone, Paris was taken over by the workers, the housewives, the intellectuals, the clerks, the armed citizens. The people of Paris formed not a government but something more glorious, something that governments everywhere fear: a commune, the collective energy of the People. It was the Commune de Paris! [*generous swig of beer*]People were meeting 24 hours a day… everywhere lots of three and four, making decisions together. The city was surrounded by the French Army, threatening to invade it at any moment. Paris became the first free city in the world: the first enclave of Liberty in a world of Tyranny. If you want to know what I mean by the dictatorship of the proleteriat, look at the Commune de Paris… THAT is a true democracy! Hah, not the democracy of England and America, where elections are circuses, where people are voting for one or another guardian of the old order, where whatever candidate wins, the rich go on ruling the country!” [*generous swig of beer*]

In a terrible world which is more conducive to a nihilistic cynicism than anything else, how am I to kill the Communard within myself?

But then again, should I even try to do so?

> Al-Hakim speaks…

In 1970, Dr. George Habash, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) made a speech before American prisoners taken and held at the Intercontinental Hotel in Amman, Jordan.

Here is a well-made video featuring the text of the speech, with photos and music:

Here is the text of his powerful speech, delivered at 5 am, on the 12th of June, 1970:

Ladies and gentlemen;

I feel that it is my duty to explain to you why we did wht we did. Of course, from a liberal point of view of thinking, I feel sorry for what happened, and I am sorry that we caused you some trouble during the last 2 or 3 days. But leaving this aside, I hope that you will understand, or at least try to understand, why we did what we did. Maybe it will be difficult for you to understand our point of view. People living different circumstances think on different lines. They cannot think in the same manner and we, the Palestinian people, and the conditions we have been living for a good number of years, all these conditions have modeled our way of thinking. We cannot help it. You can understand our way of thinking when you know a very basic fact. We, the Palestinians for 22 years, for the last 22 years, have been living in camps and tents. We were driven out of our country, our houses, our homes and our lands, driven out like sheep and left here in refugee camps in very inhumane conditions. For 22 years our people have been waiting in order to restore their rights but nothing happened. 3 years ago circumstances became favorable so that our people could carry arms to defend their cause and start to fight to restore their rights, to go back to their country and liberate their country. After 22 years of injustice, inhumanity, living in camps with nobody caring for us, we feel that we have the very full right to protect our revolution. We have all the right to protect our revolution. Our code of morals is our revolution. What saves our revolution, what helps our revolution, what protects our revolution is right, is very right and very honourable and very noble and very beautiful, because our revolution means justice, means having back our homes, having back our country, which is a very just and noble aim. You have to take this point into consideration. If you want to be, in one way or another, cooperative with us, try to understand our point of view.

We don’t wake up in the morning to have a cup of milk with Nescafe and then spend half an hour before the mirror thinking of flying to Switzerland or having one month in this country or one month in that country. We don’t have the thousands of millions of dollars that you in America and Britain have. We live daily in camps. Our wives wait for the water, whether it will come at 10 o’clock in the morning, 12 o’clock or 3 o’clock in the afternoon. We cannot be calm as you can. We cannot think as you think.

We have lived in this condition, not for one day, not for 2 days, not for 3 days. Not for one week, not for 2 weeks, not for 3 weeks. Not for one year, not for 2 years, but for 22 years.

If any one of you comes to these camps and stays for one or two weeks, he will be affected. He cannot think and handle things regardless of the conditions he will be living.

> I’m no infidel!

I was listening to this awesome song by the famous Lebanese artist Ziad Rahbani. His mother was the famous Fairouz.

He also happens to be a communist, by the way.

In this song, he says something along the lines of “I am not kafir, but hunger is kafir. I am not kafir, but illness/disease is kafir. I am not kafir, but poverty is kafir.”

The word “kafir” refers to someone who is a disbeliever, infidel, etc.

So what he’s saying is that he is not the one who makes people do wrong things (as religious elements in society would have us believe), but that it is hunger, poverty, disease, etc. which causes the problems facing society.

I may be wrong in my understanding of the Arabic words, but he then goes on to say that the true kafir is the one who makes us work the whole week, but prays on Fridays or Sundays (i.e. the typical pious capitalist found in Muslim countries).

This is wonderful stuff. And its quite daring, too.

But then, this is a common theme found in discourse of Third-world communists. They often have to deal with accusations of being enemies of faith, infidels, immoral, dangerous, bad people, etc. In Latin American countries, even priests associated with left-wing movements have had to deal with the wrath of the clerical establishment and the state.

In Muslim countries, the accusation of kufr (denial of a belief in God) has often been hurled at progressives and leftists. I’m sure almost every politically-active leftist in Pakistan has had the experience of being labelled a “dehria” (atheist) at some point during their political activism.

From personal experience, I can say that this is a very annoying accusation. The most aggravating part is that the accusation brings completely irrelevant things into a debate. Instead of the debate being focused on the woes of the masses, it shifts to the personal beliefs of the activist. It’s such a perfect tool for those who want to derail and discredit the work of a left-wing activist in a Third-world country.

Maulana Bhashani, who was one of the most famous leaders of the peasant movement in Pakistan, was often accused in this way, despite his own background as a spiritual leader. I think, and I may be wrong, that it was he who said that if this (i.e. the demand for social justice and change) is “kufr”, then he is a “kafir”.

The reader might not be able to understand the radical nature of this statement, unless they are from a Third-world society where religious sentiments can be inflamed easily.

But I suppose we ought to remember that a major figure in the Islamic faith, Ali ibn abi-Talib, who was the cousin of Prophet Muhammad and later a caliph, is attributed a famous statement about how poverty leads to kufr.

> 20 000 peasants rally in Okara

I had the honor to attend a massive peasant rally yesterday, in the Okara region of the Punjab province. I’ve never seen anything like this before: 20 000 peasants all gathered in one place to defy the Pakistani military and express their unity.

This was in the aftermath of the deaths of 3 peasants in an attack by thugs allied to the Pakistani military. I wrote about that earlier.

The atmosphere was charged, yet somewhat festive.

Thousands of peasants arrived in carvans, waving red flags and singing songs of resistance.

I stood on the side of a dirt-road near the Kalyana Military Estate farm, as throngs of peasants arrived on motorcycles and tractor-trolleys. Each delegation was led by women, who have played an active role in the defense of their lands from the military and its allied landlords.

Leaders of the Okara peasants’ movement have always been open in saying that without the participation of women, their movement would never have been successful. One of the most memorable sights for anyone who attends a rally in Okara is the participation of the famous Thaapa Brigade, which is an affectionate term we use for the women wielding wooden thaapas. These women defended their homes and their men, even using the wooden instruments to attack and kill state forces on some occasions.

It is a wonderful sight to see delegations of women leading the peasant men, banging together thaapas. It is a sound which the military robbers should rightly fear. It is a symbol of our strength, and remains an insult to those cowards.

The peasants were openly hurling insults at the Pakistani military, which has tried to deprive them of their lands. Among the most popular slogans there were:

“Jera waawey:
ohoi khaawey!”

which translates roughly from Punjabi as: “Whoever grows (the crops), they shall eat (of the crops)“

In other words, those who produce in society should be the ones who consume, and not our murderous, lazy and useless elite.

Another one, which I love, of course, was:

“Pukkay nungay mein tey tu:
Lut kay khaa gai GHQ!”

which translates roughly as:

“You and I are hungry and un-clothed,
The GHQ (General Headquarters, i.e. the Military) have robbed us!”

I especially loved a speech by an elderly female leader of the peasants, who roundly abused the Pakistani military for daring to attack those whom she referred to as “our sons” (i.e. the peasant men who were killed by military thugs a few days earlier).

Here is a video of a part of the event:

At one point, I was standing near the gates to a Military-owned farm, a few paces away from the uniformed soldiers standing guard there. Some 50-60 peasants on their way to the rally gathered around us, and we started talking.