Speaking Out On Kashmir And Palestine In The US - British
Muslim Member Of Parliament
28 November 2010By Yasmin Qureshi
The United States has become a
battleground for both the struggles of the peoples of
Palestine and Kashmir, for freedom from military
occupation and for justice. Awareness amongst the US
public is broadened as the repression of both
struggles grows ever more violent, and meanwhile those
wishing to stifle debate on these issues in the US
resort to harassment and intimidation.
The same day that renowned activist and writer
Arundhati Roy commented that "Kashmir was never an
integral part of India," for which her home was later
attacked, I was subjected to harassment here in the US
while I spoke about the human rights situation in
Kashmir. Though not threatened in the way that Roy
was, what we both experienced were attempts to silence
us. Forces sympathetic to the same right-wing ideology
as those who attacked Roy mobilized their ranks by
putting out an alert stating: "An Indian Muslim Woman
is speaking about azadi [freedom] of Kashmiris and we
should protest."
After my presentation at the main public library in
San Jose, California last month, I was told by one
member of the audience that "You are the very reason
why we Hindus hate Muslims," and that comment was
followed by many that were worse. I was called an
extremist and told "Your presentation is a lie; this
is India-bashing." The abuse I received will be
familiar to those who have been on the receiving end
of the backlash when speaking about the Palestinian
cause.
Indeed, a week earlier, Palestinian author Susan
Abulhawa was called an extremist by Harvard Professor
Alan Dershowitz at the Boston Book Festival after she
presented well-established facts about Palestine. He
resorted to name calling and ad hominem attacks.
Israel and India are often represented in US media as
bastions of democracy in the Middle East and South
Asia, respectively. Supporters of the policies of both
governments delegitimize any resistance or criticism
and discourage revelation of the truth through
intimidation and personal attacks.
Kashmir is the most militarized zone in the world with
close to 700,000 Indian troops. According to Professor
Angana Chatterji of the California Institute of
Integral Studies (CIIS), between the years of 1989 and
2000, "In Kashmir, 70,000 are dead, over 8,000 have
been disappeared and 250,000 have been displaced …
India's military governance penetrates every facet of
life. … The hyper-presence of militarization forms a
graphic shroud over Kashmir: detention and
interrogation centers, army cantonments, abandoned
buildings, bullet holes, bunkers and watchtowers,
detour signs, deserted public squares, armed
personnel, counter-insurgents and vehicular and
electronic espionage" ("Kashmir: A Time For Freedom,"
Greater Kashmir, 25 September 2010).
Because she has spoken out, Chatterji has become a
target of right-wing Hindutva groups — those espousing
an exclusivist Hindu nationalist ideology in India
that often denigrates and denies the legitimacy of
non-Hindus in India. Hindutva groups in the US and
India have attacked her because of her work tracking
funding to Hindutva groups from the US after the 2002
pogrom of Muslims in Gujarat and more recently as
co-conveyor of the International People's Tribunal on
Human Rights and Justice in Indian-administered
Kashmir. Chatterji told me: "I was threatened with
rape by Hindutva groups in 2005. Since announcing the
Kashmir Tribunal in April 2008, each time I have
entered or left India since, I have been stopped or
detained at immigration." Richard Shapiro, her partner
and chair and associate professor at CIIS, was banned
from entering India on 1 November 2010.
Hindutva groups try to scuttle any broader discussion
about human rights violations in Kashmir, the
conditional annexation by India in 1947 or right to
self-determination by limiting it to the issue of the
displacement and killings of the upper caste minority
Kashmiri Hindu Pandits in the late 1980s and by
insisting that Kashmir is not an international issue.
Similarly, Zionists seeking to draw attention away
from Israel's abuses of Palestinians' human rights
often focus exclusively on suicide bombings or the
rule of Hamas. Their aim is to silence any discussion
of the historic Palestinian demands for the
implementation of the refugees' right of return, an
end to the military occupation in the West Bank and
Gaza Strip and equality for Palestinian citizens in
Israel.
And the front line in the battle to influence US
public opinion towards both the Kashmir and Palestine
struggles can be found at the university campus.
"There is a well-orchestrated and funded campaign of
intimidation and harassment by Zionist and Hindutva
groups on campuses to target academics," says Sunaina
Maira, Associate Professor at the University of
California, Davis campus. Zionist academics tried to
pressure the University of California, Berkeley to
cancel an event last month titled "What Can American
Academia Do to Realize Justice for Palestinians,"
organized by the Students for Justice in Palestine. In
a letter to the school's chancellor, the groups urged
him to withdraw official university sponsorship of the
event and publicly condemn the boycott, divestment and
sanctions movement against Israeli apartheid at the
school's campus.
A similar attempt was made in 2006 by Indian American
members of AIPAC, the powerful pro-Israel lobby, when
they tried to cancel a panel titled "South Asian-Arab
solidarity against Israeli apartheid" at Stanford
University. The objective was to bring South Asians
and Arabs together to take a unified stand against US
imperialism and Israeli apartheid and speak up against
the Zionist-Hindutva alliances. Despite the attempts
by outside groups to stifle free speech, both these
events eventually did take place on the campuses and
were quite successful.
The attempts to silence those who speak out in the US
are not the only thing that Kashmir and Palestine have
in common. Both Kashmiris and Palestinians are
struggling for justice and freedom against
highly-militarized occupations. The recent protests by
stone-throwing Kashmiri youth drew comparisons to the
first intifada in the occupied West Bank and Gaza
Strip.
And it is perhaps the linking of these struggles that
those who stand in the way of freedom for oppressed
peoples fear the most. Notably, Zionists and Hindutva
advocates have adopted a similar Islamophobic language
and worldview that considers any grievances or
struggles by Muslims to be simply a cover for "jihadism"
or "wahhabism" and thus justifies treating all such
movements for justice — however they are conducted —
as "terrorist."
While the situations in Kashmir and Palestine are not
completely analogous, in recent years India and Israel
have fostered political and military links, including
arms sales, joint intelligence, trade agreements and
cultural exchanges.
Historically India has been supportive of the
Palestinian struggle. But in 1992 India established
diplomatic relations with Israel and ties were further
strengthened in 2000 when India Home Minister L.K.
Advani visited Israel; Advani is considered the
architect of the rise of the Hindutva movement in the
1980s and '90s. Today India is the largest buyer of
Israel's arms and Israel is training Indian military
units in "counter-terrorist" tactics and urban warfare
to be used against Kashmiris and resistance groups in
northeast and central India.
The repressive governments of both India and Israel
enjoy a warm relationship with the the US. Bilateral
defense ties between US and India — based on the new
strategic realities of Asia — is one of the objectives
of US President Barack Obama's current visit to India,
according to the National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR),
a Washington-based think tank. The US also gives $3
billion in military aid to Israel annually.
Such alliances between states, which aim to perpetuate
injustice and maintain regimes that are rejected by
those forced to live under them, underscore the need
for education and solidarity among supporters of those
long denied their freedom, equality and
self-determination.
Those in the US who defend the status quo may resort
to tactics of intimidation. But just as state
repression in Kashmir and Palestine has failed to
quell those struggles for freedom, those of us in the
US concerned with justice in Palestine and Kashmir —
and the US government's role in each — will not be
intimidated into silence.
Yasmin Qureshi is a San Francisco Bay Area
professional and human rights activist involved in
social justice movements in South Asia and Palestine.
Her article on Kashmir, "Democracy Under the Barrel of
a Gun," was published in June 2010 by CounterPunch and
ZCommunications.
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