FERGUSON SOLIDARITY STATEMENT FROM SOUTH AFRICA

 

February 5, 2015

Ferguson Solidarity Statement From South Africa

Dear Comrades,

We are writing to you from South Africa as a collective of black students, professionals, artists, writers and activists who have been watching the protests in Ferguson and other parts of the United States.

Although we are separated from each other by vast oceans and large tracts of land, our connectedness remains a bond as inextricable as it was the day your forebears made that sad and dreadful voyage through the middle passage. That bond is less a claim of being blood relatives or that we all have roots in the motherland but that our black skin has been marked for violence and death since the beginning of slavery.

Resistance to anti-black violence has historically been crushed each time it emerged, whether on the African continent, in the US or anywhere else in the world. And yet you, knowing this full well, have refused to let the gratuitous violence and murder of black people pass as a condition that is part and parcel of being black in the world. You have chosen to fight back, to put your bodies on the firing line, and it is this courage that has inspired us to write to you.

Development finance helps China win friends and influence American allies

[Each day brings news of the every-sharpening contention between imperialist powers, who have long cooperated but are now more-ready to seize advantage at the expense of each other, and place burdens of more aggressive exploitation and more oppressive conditions on working people inside the imperialist countries (from US/EU to Chinese/Russian and others scrambling to expand their profits at each others expense).  One day, it is the seizure of energy resources, then it is trade routes and shipping, then monetary dominance, then credit dominance and wars, then military eyeball face-offs and surrogate/proxy hotspots, then it is digital battles and cyber wars.  There is no stopping this contention, nor any way for the people to see it but to raise the people’s struggles against all imperialism and all reaction.  Between these imperialists, working people have no horse in this race.  —  Frontlines ed.]

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

Mar 21st 2015 | SINGAPORE | From The Economist

 

STRATEGIC rivalry between America and China takes many forms. Rarely does a clear winner emerge. An exception, however, is the tussle over China’s efforts to found a new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). China has won, gaining the support of American allies not just in Asia but in Europe, and leaving America looking churlish and ineffectual. This month first Britain and then France, Germany and Italy said they hoped to join the bank as founding shareholders. China said other European countries such as Luxembourg and Switzerland are thinking of joining the queue.

Yet America has been sceptical about the AIIB. Its officials claim they have not “lobbied against” it, but merely stressed how important it is that it abide by international standards of transparency, creditworthiness, environmental sustainability, and so on.

UK Hunger Strike Continues Over Refugee Detention Centersrmondsworth Detention Center: Asylum seekers’ hunger strike spreads

[As hundreds of millions of workers and peasants are driven by hunger, desperation, oppressive conditions and displacement to migrate in search of livable and workable conditions, governments worldwide stigmatize, harass, and force into desperate lives, all the better to divide the working class, heighten xenophobia, and exploit in slave-like conditions.  In the UK, migrants, refugees, and asylum-seekers are rounded up and stuffed into detention centers–prisons, by all estimates.   But the migrants have organized and waged collective protests, as prisoners do, because “where there is oppression, there is resistance.”  Here is a report on the huge hunger strike in centers across Britain. — Frontlines ed.]

Source: http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Hunger-Strike-Continues-Over-UK-Refugee-Detention-Centers-20150319-0034.html.

http://www.teleSURtv.net/english, 19 March 2015   

 

Harmondsworth detention center, from where up to 100 detainees were deported to Pakistan this week. | Photo: AFP

The protests began last week, and have spread across several detention centers around the country, with hundreds of refugees reported to be taking part.

Migrants across the United Kingdom continued hunger strikes Thursday in protest against the horrendous treatment of asylum seekers in detention centers.

According to asylum seeker advocacy group Detained Voices, which records stories of the experiences of refugees in detention centers, a number of refugees were sent back to their home countries Wednesday. A source, known only as “Chowdery,” told RT that detainees were calling  for the cancellation of a deportation flight to Pakistan, while another said that 100 asylum seekers were due to be deported.

Police In Thailand Lay Down Vests and Barricades In Solidarity With Protestors

[It was a rare moment in people’s movements, some 16 months ago, and we just came across it and wanted to share it, with words of caution:  this was not a movement aimed at revolutionary overthrow of the Thai monarchy, or a severance of relations with capitalists or imperialism everywhere.  It was a militant struggle against corruption and abuse,  over local grievances, perceived inequalities, and many collective frustrations.  The videos above show the intensity of the struggle when protesters confronted the police.  And the picture below shows how remarkable this peaceful protest was, briefly, when the police took off their helmets and dropped their shields in a show of solidarity.  But we urge our readers in the US and internationally:  don’t expect the police to act like this, anywhere, ever, again.  If the instruments of state power ever defect to the people’s side, it will rarely be all at once, and never all together, even for a brief moment.  — Frontlines ed.]

December 6, 2013

In Thailand, riot police laid down their helmets and shields, yielding to the peaceful protesters which they had been commanded to arrest.

In a showing of solidarity, police stood aside and allowed protesters to continue on.

Those who had rallied to protest explained that their goal was to confront and overcome the political apparatus of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Shinawatra is accused of widespread corruption and abuse of power, leaving him with few sympathizers among the police.

Australians March to Save Aboriginal Communities

By Jennifer Baker on 03/19/2015 

By Matthew McLoughlin  @soit_goes – Australia – On March 16, 2015, thousands took action across dozens of cities & smaller regional communities in Australia demanding the government abandon its plan to evict 150 Aboriginal communities in Western Australia. Major city centers in Brisbane & Melbourne were shut down by massive sit-ins while Perth marched on Parliament. Online people used the hashtag #SOSBlakAustralia to show their support for those taking the streets. The day’s actions were organized by a vast group of Indigenous peoples, community organizations, spear-headed by a small collective going by SOS Blak Australia.

This latest attack on Australia’s Aboriginal communities will create up to 20,000 refugees & add another chapter to the history of the Australian government’s attempted genocide of Indigenous peoples. The closures are being done under the guise of budget cuts, Australia’s racist Prime Minister Tony Abbott has gone as far as saying that the government can no longer fund a “lifestyle choice”, referring to Aboriginal people living on their traditional lands. Truth be told it is Aboriginal people who are being forced to fund the government’s “lifestyle” which continues to rely on exploiting stolen land and resources, including fossil fuels. The price they’ve paid includes not only their land but the attempted destruction of their culture.

American terror: Mississippi man found hanging from a tree

by Daniel Rivero, Fusion.net, March 20, 2015

A black Mississippi man who had been missing for over two weeks was found hanging from a tree on Thursday, authorities say.

Claiborne County Coroner J.W. Mallett has not disclosed details of the case, and it is not yet clear if the death was from a homicide or a suicide, the Clarion Ledger reported. The FBI, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and the United States Attorney’s office are investigating the case.

“This is the first time I have witnessed anything like this in Claiborne County,” Claiborne County Sheriff Marvin Lucas told WAPT.

The case has sparked speculation that it could have been a lynching, the last of which took place as recently as 2011 in Mississippi, a state with a troubled history of racial violence. The sentencing judge in that case told the three men who were sentenced last month in that case that they had “ripped off the scab of the healing scars of Mississippi…causing her to bleed again.”

Missouri museum censors Ferguson-Mexico solidarity event for including Palestinians

[Editor:  This article focuses on the St Louis museum officials decision to censor and cancel an event which linked up the resistance to oppression in Ferguson, Mexico, and Palestine.  The action highlighted the standard reactionary response to all protests which reveal the hand of oppressive systems–reactionaries always try to turn protests inward, to break the linkages between common experiences, to make every voice follow the line of narrow self-interest and keep things contained to single-issue orientation.  But those who are repressed or find issues suppressed always seek more.  As one student spoke out against the Missouri museum, “When I heard that they were canceling the panel, I thought it was even more important to come out to voice the fact that we know this is wrong and we can still be united even if we don’t attend a panel,”one student said…..She also said she believed that comparing the various situations would be helpful in making progress toward social justice and unifying people of different races and backgrounds…..“I think obviously there are differences on each one, but it only makes us weaker to divide them, and I think we’re stronger if we find the similarities instead of focus[ing] on the differences between the events,” she added.” — Censorship will fail, as issues, and their linkages, continue to grow. — Frontlines ed.]

electronicintifada.com, 03/20/2015 

The Missouri History Museum in St. Louis canceled a community event scheduled for Thursday after organizers refused to remove Palestinian panelists from the platform.

The panel, titled “From Ferguson to Ayotzinapa to Palestine: Solidarity and Collaborative Action,” was organized by the Washington University student group AltaVoz to draw parallels between the struggles against state violence in the US, Mexico and Palestine.

Missouri History Museum’s webpage, before they cancelled the event

AltaVoz was formed in response to the police kidnapping of 43 leftist student activists from the Ayotzinapa teacher’s college in Mexico. The students, who went missing in the city of Iguala while on their way to protest the state’s corrupt education policies, are believed to have been murdered.

Among the panelists were activists from an assortment of social justice organizations in St. Louis, including the Organization for the Black Struggle, Latinos en Axion STL, the Interfaith Committee on Latin America and the St. Louis Palestine Solidarity Committee.

Another Step in Israeli Colonialist Removal of Palestinians

Israel issues demolition order for school near Hebron, 26 February 2015

   

Israeli forces raided the village of Al-Majaz, handing out demolition orders to the village’s main school, attended by dozens of students from neighbouring villages.

Israeli occupation forces this morning distributed demolition orders to a school, some buildings, and tents in the city of Yatta, south of Hebron, the coordinator of the Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlement in Hebron said.

In a statement to the Palestinian Information Centre, Rateb Al-Jabour said that the occupation forces were accompanied by teams from what is known as the Hebron City Administration and they raided the village of Al-Majaz, handing out demolition orders to the village’s main school, attended by dozens of students from neighbouring villages. They also gave out warnings to remove tents belonging to two brothers from the Abu Aram family.

He added that these warnings are part of a plan to seize Yatta territories, amounting to 50,000 dunams (50 square kilometres).

According to Al-Jabour, the school is made up of a number of caravans, which were donated by a European institution in early this year and is attended by 22 students. The Israeli authorities did not set a date for the demolitions.

       

Einstein Spoke Out Against Crimes of Israeli Fascism

by Albert Einstein, Hannah Arendt, Sidney Hook, et.al.,  A letter to The New York Times, published in the “Books” section (Page 12) of December 4, 1948

Among the most disturbing political phenomena of our times is the emergence in the newly created state of Israel of the “Freedom Party” (Tnuat Haherut), a political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties. It was formed out of the membership and following of the former Irgun Zvai Leumi, a terrorist, right-wing, chauvinist organization in Palestine.

The current visit of Menachem Begin, leader of this party, to the United States is obviously calculated to give the impression of American support for his party in the coming Israeli elections, and to cement political ties with conservative Zionist elements in the United States. Several Americans of national repute have lent their names to welcome his visit. It is inconceivable that those who oppose fascism throughout the world, if correctly informed as to Mr. Begin’s political record and perspectives, could add their names and support to the movement he represents.
Before irreparable damage is done by way of financial contributions, public manifestations in Begin’s behalf, and the creation in Palestine of the impression that a large segment of America supports Fascist elements in Israel, the American public must be informed as to the record and objectives of Mr. Begin and his movement.

India: “Protracted People’s War at Hand,” Warns Top Maoist CPI

By Express News Service, 17th March 2015

HYDERABAD: The CPI (Maoist) sees new opportunities to advance ‘protracted people’s war’ with the Central Government  allegedly pursuing pro-imperialist and ‘country-selling’ policies at a faster pace and also advancing a Hindu-fascist agenda in various forms.

CPI (Maoist) general secretary Ganapathy, in an interview to Maoist Information Bulletin (MIB), a copy of which is with Express, spoke of the challenges his party has to overcome and on a host of other issues.

CPI(Maoist) Gen’l Secretary Ganapathy

“After coming to power, the BJP is implementing pro-imperialist, country-selling policies at a break-neck pace catering to the needs of foreign and Indian big capitalists and big landlords while, at the same time, advancing the Hindu-fascist agenda in various forms. Thus, there is need for uniting all democratic, progressive, secular and patriotic forces. Newer and more numerous classes, social sections, forces of society will be brought into the arena of struggle, and new opportunities for advancing the PPW will open up.“The situation around the world is becoming increasingly favourable for a revolution. “The imperialist world economy is still reeling under a serious crisis and all  fundamental contradictions in the world are sharpening. Consequently, the revolutionary, democratic and national liberation forces all over the world are gaining strength against imperialism and its domestic props. Maoist forces too are consolidating.”

AlJazeera: Bringing Awareness to the Armenian Genocide

Al Jazeera, March 10, 2015

Ronald Grigor Suny, a professor at the University of Michigan, discusses the 1.5 million people killed from 1915-1922

Oakland to Palestine Solidarity Mural

The Oakland Palestine Solidarity Mural adopts the image of the tree as a central motif and global visual signifier of life and resilience to link seemingly disparate issues and distant locations. Spanning 157 feet and reaching 22 feet high, the mural is comprised of nine separate panels, where each artist or team has painted his or her own interpretation of a tree to address social and political issues. These issues include the shared histories of colonization, environmental exploitation, internal exile of indigenous peoples, resilience and resistance to these injustices. The result is a stunning public tribute to the human spirit and its unassailable right to thrive in spite of political oppression and injustice–wherever it is taking place in the world.

The twelve participating artists come from a wide array of backgrounds, ethnicities and cultures. They include from left to right, Nidal El Khairy (Palestinian); IROT (Native American); VYAL (Chicano-Native American); Emory Douglas (African American); Chris Gazaleh (Palestinian American); Erin Yoshi (Japanese American); Deadeyes (African American); SPIE (Asian American); Susan Greene (Jewish American); Dina Matar, who is participating virtually (Gaza); with support from Fred Alvarado (Latino American) and text by Miguel Bounce Perez (Chicano-Pacific Islander American).

For Palestinians, there is no Obama-Netanyahu rift

 by Ali Abunimah, in Huffington Post,  02/28/2015

Palestinians do not see any substantive Obama-Netanyahu rift on life and death matters for them. But there urgently needs to be one. (Chuck Kennedy / White House Photo)

Benjamin Netanyahu’s planned speech to the United States Congress next week has led to much talk of a rift between the Israeli prime minister and the US president, and even between their two countries.

Tuesday, national security adviser Susan E. Rice said the growing partisanship regarding Israel is “destructive of the fabric of the relationship.”

Citing protocol of not meeting foreign leaders too close to an election, President Barack Obama will shun his Israeli counterpart in Washington, and Vice President Joe Biden will stay away from the joint session of Congress when Netanyahu appears.

The dispute has taken on rancorous partisan tones with more than two dozen Democratic lawmakers vowing to boycott the speech. They charge that Netanyahu’s goal is to undermine the president’s diplomacy with Iran, and that Republican House Speaker John Boehner invited the Israeli leader to defy and humiliate the White House.

Yet all those objecting to the speech, whether in the United States, or Netanyahu’s rivals at home, where he faces an election next month, protest that their concern is to guarantee US-Israeli relations on whose strength the very future of Israel is said to hang.

But what all this sound and fury misses is that for the Palestinians, there is no meaningful Obama-Netanyahu rift. Indeed US-Israeli relations have never been stronger, nor more damaging to the prospects for peace and justice and for the very survival of the Palestinian people.

Just look at the recent record. Last December, the Palestinian Authority put forward a tepid resolution in the UN Security Council that did little more than repeat long-standing US policy on the outlines of a two-state solution. Obama’s UN ambassador Samantha Power marshaled all her resources to defeat it.

She claimed that the resolution was “deeply imbalanced” and took “no account of Israel’s legitimate security concerns.”

The next day, after disappointed Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas signed the treaty acceding to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, Obama’s State Department declared itself “deeply troubled,” accusing Palestinians of an “escalatory step” that “badly damages the atmosphere with the very people with whom they ultimately need to make peace.”

Power said the Palestinian move “really poses a profound threat to Israel.”

These words are perverse. Israel’s 51-day long attack on Gaza that left more than 2,200 people dead didn’t “damage the atmosphere” as far as the Obama administration was concerned, but any Palestinian effort to use international bodies in pursuit of justice and accountability is tantamount to an act of war.

I challenge Power to go and repeat her words to any of the 100,000 Palestinians in Gaza still living in the damp and freezing rubble of their homes, to the surviving parents of more than 500 children killed in the Israeli attack, or to the thousands who will live with lifelong injuries.

Neither the ambassador nor her president has commented on the findings of Amnesty International, which said that Israel “brazenly flouted the laws of war by carrying out a series of attacks on civilian homes, displaying callous indifference to the carnage caused.”

Few Palestinians will forget that when Israeli fire was raining down on them, the Obama administration authorized the transfer of grenades and mortar rounds to resupply the Israeli army.

Last summer’s war was something even Hamas leaders tried to avoid. After it began, armed Palestinian groups declared that their goal was a ceasefire accompanied by a lifting of the eight-year siege that has devastated Gaza’s economy and isolated its 1.8 million people from the rest of humanity.

Since the war, promises that the siege would be lifted have been broken. Billions pledged in reconstruction aid have failed to materialize. As a result, cash-strapped UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, has suspended repairs on Gaza homes.

Israel’s view tends to be unquestioningly echoed by US officials and media: that Palestinians are at fault for the repeated surges of violence.

Yet even senior Israeli leaders and officers have often acknowledged that Palestinian armed groups, especially Hamas, have meticulously stuck to ceasefire agreements, as they are doing currently.

Despite this, the US put no pressure on Israel to end the years-long blockade.

As a result, the lesson Palestinians have repeatedly learned is that whether they fight or stay quiet, Israel will be allowed to do as it pleases. It can besiege and slaughter them in Gaza, seize and colonize their land in the West Bank, deprive them of their most fundamental rights, and Obama will have Israel’s back.

Just because Obama, Netanyahu and their partisan followers may be peeved at each other does not change the basic dynamic of full US support for Israel’s occupation of millions of Palestinians, the continuation of which guarantees ongoing suffering with regional repercussions.

Sure enough, despite the supposed rift, the US is proceeding with the sale of more of the most advanced F-35 fighter jets to Israel.

That’s why Palestinians do not see any substantive Obama-Netanyahu rift on life and death matters for them. But there urgently needs to be one.

It is long past time for the American people and their representatives to challenge Israel on its seemingly permanent subjugation of the Palestinians.

This post was first published by The Huffington Post.

Israel’s Occupation Now Extended to Washington, DC

Tuesday, March 3rd, 5pm:   Protest War Criminal Netanyahu Israeli Consulate, 456 Montgomery St., San Francisco No to War Criminal Netanyahu! No New War on Iran! End the Colonial Occupation of Palestine! End U.S. Aid to Israel! Israeli prime minister and notorious war criminal Binyamin Netanyahu will be addressing a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, March 3. Netanyahu has presided over many massacres of Palestinians, the latest in Gaza last summer that killed more than 2,100 women, men and children, wounded more than 10,000, and left hundreds of thousands homeless.   The massive theft of and settlement on Palestinian land in the West Bank continues every day.   Much of this death, destruction and dispossession is paid for by our tax dollars, billions of which flow to Israel every year.

“It’s ugly, it’s vicious, it’s brutal”: Cornel West on Israel in Palestine — and why Gaza is “the hood on steroids”

Cornel West speaks with a Stanford professor about the divestment effort and Palestinian activism
David Palumbo-Liu, writing in salon.com, Wednesday, Feb 25, 2015

Cornel West (Credit: Albert H. Teich via Shutterstock)

One of the fundamental questions with regard to the critique of — and activism against — the Israeli occupation: How does this connect up with other social movements, and other struggles? Is the case of Israel and Palestine so specific, so complex, as to resist analogy? And if so, what does that mean for those who would be inclined to sympathize with the plight of the Palestinians, but unable to see their way clear to act in solidarity with them, as they might for others?