#western imperialism

[intersectionalpraxis]

Dr. Noelle McAfee:

"Drawing on feminist philosophy, psychoanalysis, and political theory. She holds a PhD in philosophy from the University of Texas (1998), an MA in philosophy from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1990), and an MA in public policy from Duke University (1987)."

"McAfee is the author of over 80 articles and essays and five books, including Fear of Breakdown: Politics and Psychoanalysis (Columbia, 2019), which won the American Psychoanalytic Association’s 2020 Courage to Dream Book award. Her other books include Feminism: A Quick Immersion (Tibidabo Publishing 2021), Democracy and the Political Unconscious (Columbia 2008), Julia Kristeva (Routledge 2004), and Habermas, Kristeva, and Citizenship (Cornell 2000). She is also on the board of officers of the feminist section of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, where she oversees dozens of entries in feminist theory, and co-editor of the Kettering Review."

This is what ALL academics and feminists should be doing -being in strong solidarity with the Palestinian people. Everyone else who has been silent or vocal about supporting imperialism, terrorism, and setterlism -you're complicit in this genocide.

[tikkunolamresistance]

from GoodVibePolitik on X.com

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Montreal, Canada – Human rights advocates are accusing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government of misleading the public over weapons sales to Israel, which have come under greater scrutiny amid the deadly Israeli bombardment of Gaza.

At issue is legislation that prohibits the government from exporting military equipment to foreign actors if there is a risk it can be used in human rights abuses.

But regulatory loopholes, combined with a lack of clarity over what Canada sends to Israel, have complicated efforts to end the transfers.

Dozens of Canadian civil society groups this month urged Trudeau to end arms exports to Israel, arguing they violate Canadian and international law because the weapons could be used in the Gaza Strip. [...]

But advocates say this misrepresents the total volume of Canada’s military exports to Israel, which totalled more than $15m ($21.3m Canadian) in 2022, according to the government’s own figures. [...]

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @politicsofcanada, @vague-humanoid

[politijohn]

Source

[hussyknee]

I woke up to the news about Refaat Alreer. I still feel cold. Imagine seeing someone talking on your TL every day, narrating what the genociders are doing, counting the dead and telling their stories, amplifying his colleagues in Palestinian activism and academia, advocating and pleading endlessly for a ceasefire, delivering blistering witticisms about Zionist propaganda and then...he and his whole family are dead.

Two of my favourite tweets by him, calling out the craven Western media for never naming Israel.

It feels like a funeral today. My whole TL full of his students and Palestinians mourning Refaat alongside writers and journalists and academics from all over the Global South. The only people who matter to us is us.

Meanwhile, Zionists are attacking us under our mourning tweets, circulating the tweet where he laughed at the monstrous lie of Hamas cooking a baby in an oven during Oct 7th, one of the lies that fuelled the slaughter that eventually killed him too.

This was his last tweet.

USAmerican disability activist Imani Barbarin's tweet today was partially motivated by Refaat's death.

I need to go offline for a while.

I leave you with Refaat's last poem that was his pinned tweet for over a month. When a storyteller dies, generations are robbed of universes. When a poet dies, the world loses a piece of its soul.

You can find Refaat's book "Gaza Writes Back" in my gdrive folder of Palestinian literature. I don't know where the royalties will go now, but please also try and find it in a bookstore or library.

[klassicknight]

[rebelcaptain4life]

If you weren't Pro-Palestine already, I hope the fact that the US government is literally trying to censor people that don't agree with them opens your eyes

[queerism1969]

[violottie]

alt text included. from Ricardo Gamboa, 10/Mar/2024:

[intersectionalpraxis]

[workersolidarity]

I mostly just want to highlight this little tidbit from the history of Colonialism and Imperialism:

[muslimintp-1999-girl]

Hollywood rewards predatory and genocidal behaviours

[allthecanadianpolitics]

The Palestinian Youth Movement, which has many chapters and affiliated groups in throughout Canada, decries the terrorist attacks on Yemen by the U.S. and U.K., which Canada has 'provided support' for (Jan 11th 2024). They point out that these attacks coincide with the ICJ hearing against Israel for its genocide, and that these governemnts are mobilizing their ressources to commit terrorist acts against Yemeni civilians rather than to serve their own citizens.

Numerous pro-Palestinian organizations in Canada have already cosigned this statement.

[politijohn]

Kissinger’s Murderous Legacy

3 million+ bangladeshis

3 million+ vietnamese

2.5 million+ cambodians

1.1 million+ iraqis

1 million+ indonesians

900,000+ angolans

300,000+ east timorians

200,000+ laotians

60,000+ mozambiqueans

40,000+ chileans

30,000+ argentinians

20,000+ western saharans

15,000+ egyptians

11,000+ guinea bisseauans

10,000+ indians

10,000+ pakistanis

10,000+ zimbabweans

6,500+ cypriots

3,500+ syrians

Henry Kissinger may have had the biggest hand in mass murder than anyone in human history.

Good riddance.

[hussyknee]

Jesus is Under the Rubble

“This Advent, while global Christians prepare to commemorate the arrival of the Prince of Peace, our Palestinian kin in Gaza suffer unthinkable violence. Their cries of deliverance, echoing those of two millennia ago, seem to be falling unheard on the United States.”

— by Kelly Latimore icons. All proceeds from sales of this digital image will go toward Red Letter Christians trusted partners in Gaza.

Transcript: Christ in the Rubble A Liturgy of Lament Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church Bethlehem Saturday, December 23rd, 2023 We are angry…

We are broken…

This should have been a time of joy; instead, we are mourning. We are fearful.

Twenty thousand killed. Thousands under the rubble still. Close to 9,000 children killed in the most brutal ways. Day after day after day. 1.9 million displaced! Hundreds of thousands of homes were destroyed. Gaza as we know it no longer exists. This is an annihilation. A genocide.

The world is watching; Churches are watching. Gazans are sending live images of their own execution. Maybe the world cares? But it goes on.

We are asking, could this be our fate in Bethlehem? In Ramallah? In Jenin? Is this our destiny too?

We are tormented by the silence of the world. Leaders of the so-called “free” lined up one after the other to give the green light for this genocide against a captive population. They gave the cover. Not only did they make sure to pay the bill in advance, they veiled the truth and context, providing political cover. And, yet another layer has been added: the theological cover with the Western Church stepping into the spotlight.

The South African Church taught us the concept of “The state theology,” defined as “the theological justification of the status quo with its racism, capitalism and totalitarianism.” It does so by misusing theological concepts and biblical texts for its own political purposes.

Here in Palestine, the Bible is weaponized against our very own sacred text. In our terminology in Palestine, we speak of the Empire. Here we confront the theology of the Empire. A disguise for superiority, supremacy, “chosenness,” and entitlement. It is sometimes given a nice cover using words like mission and evangelism, fulfillment of prophecy, and spreading freedom and liberty. The theology of the Empire becomes a powerful tool to mask oppression under the cloak of divine sanction. It divides people into “us” and “them.” It dehumanizes and demonizes. It speaks of land without people even when they know the land has people – and not just any people. It calls for emptying Gaza, just like it called the ethnic cleansing in 1948 “a divine miracle.” It calls for us Palestinians to go to Egypt, maybe Jordan, or why not just the sea?

“Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” they said of us. This is the theology of Empire.

This war has confirmed to us that the world does not see us as equal. Maybe it is the color of our skin. Maybe it is because we are on the wrong side of the political equation. Even our kinship in Christ did not shield us. As they said, if it takes killing 100 Palestinians to get a single “Hamas militant” then so be it! We are not humans in their eyes. (But in God’s eyes… no one can tell us we are not!)

The hypocrisy and racism of the Western world is transparent and appalling! They always take the words of Palestinians with suspicion and qualification. No, we are not treated equally. Yet, the other side, despite a clear track record of misinformation, is almost always deemed infallible!

To our European friends. I never ever want to hear you lecture us on human rights or international law again. We are not white— it does not apply to us according to your own logic.

In this war, the many Christians in the Western world made sure the Empire has the theology needed. It is self-defense, we were told! (And I ask: how?)

In the shadow of the Empire, they turned the colonizer into the victim, and the colonized into the aggressor. Have we forgotten that the state was built on the ruins of the towns and villages of those very same Gazans?

We are outraged by the complicity of the church. Let it be clear: Silence is complicity, and empty calls for peace without a ceasefire and end to occupation, and the shallow words of empathy without direct action— are all under the banner of complicity. So here is my message: Gaza today has become the moral compass of the world. Gaza was hell on earth before October 7th.

If you are not appalled by what is happening; if you are not shaken to your core— there is something wrong with your humanity. If we, as Christians, are not outraged by this genocide, by the weaponizing of the Bible to justify it, there is something wrong with our Christian witness, and compromising the credibility of the Gospel!

If you fail to call this a genocide. It is on you. It is a sin and a darkness you willingly embrace.

Some have not even called for a ceasefire.

I feel sorry for you. We will be okay. Despite the immense blow we have endured, we will recover. We will rise and stand up again from the midst of destruction, as we have always done as Palestinians, although this is by far the biggest blow we have received in a long time.

But again, for those who are complicit, I feel sorry for you. Will you ever recover from this?

Your charity, your words of shock AFTER the genocide, won’t make a difference. Words of regret will not suffice for you. We will not accept your apology after the genocide. What has been done, has been done. I want you to look at the mirror… and ask: where was I?

To our friends who are here with us: You have left your families and churches to be with us. You embody the term accompaniment— a costly solidarity. “We were in prison and you visited us.” What a stark difference from the silence and complicity of others. Your presence here is the meaning of solidarity. Your visit has already left an impression that will never be taken from us. Through you, God has spoken to us that “we are not forsaken.” As Father Rami of the Catholic Church said this morning, you have come to Bethlehem, and like the Magi, you brought gifts with, but gifts that are more precious than gold, frankincense, and myrrh. You brought the gift of love and solidarity.

We needed this. For this season, maybe more than anything, we were troubled by the silence of God. In these last two months, the Psalms of lament have become a precious companion. We cried out: My God, My God, why have you forsaken Gaza? Why do you hide your face from Gaza?

In our pain, anguish, and lament, we have searched for God, and found him under the rubble in Gaza. Jesus became the victim of the very same violence of the Empire. He was tortured. Crucified. He bled out as others watched. He was killed and cried out in pain— My God, where are you?

In Gaza today, God is under the rubble.

And in this Christmas season, as we search for Jesus, he is to be found not on the side of Rome, but our side of the wall. In a cave, with a simple family. Vulnerable. Barely, and miraculously surviving a massacre. Among a refugee family. This is where Jesus is found.

If Jesus were to be born today, he would be born under the rubble in Gaza. When we glorify pride and richness, Jesus is under the rubble.

When we rely on power, might, and weapons, Jesus is under the rubble.

When we justify, rationalize, and theologize the bombing of children, Jesus is under the rubble.

Jesus is under the rubble. This is his manger. He is at home with the marginalized, the suffering, the oppressed, and displaced. This is his manger.

I have been looking, contemplating on this iconic image….God with us, precisely in this way. THIS is the incarnation. Messy. Bloody. Poverty.

This child is our hope and inspiration. We look and see him in every child killed and pulled from under the rubble. While the world continues to reject the children of Gaza, Jesus says: “just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.” “You did to ME.” Jesus not only calls them his own, he is them!

We look at the holy family and see them in every family displaced and wandering, now homeless in despair. While the world discusses the fate of the people of Gaza as if they are unwanted boxes in a garage, God in the Christmas narrative shares in their fate; He walks with them and calls them his own.

This manger is about resilience— صمود. The resilience of Jesus is in his meekness; weakness, and vulnerability. The majesty of the incarnation lies in its solidarity with the marginalized. Resilience because this very same child, rose up from the midst of pain, destruction, darkness and death to challenge empires; to speak truth to power and deliver an everlasting victory over death and darkness.

This is Christmas today in Palestine and this is the Christmas message. It is not about Santa, trees, gifts, lights… etc. My goodness how we twisted the meaning of Christmas. How we have commercialized Christmas. I was in the USA last month, the first Monday after Thanksgiving, and I was amazed by the amount of Christmas decorations and lights, all the and commercial goods. I couldn’t help but think: They send us bombs, while celebrating Christmas in their land. They sing about the prince of peace in their land, while playing the drum of war in our land.

Christmas in Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, is this manger. This is our message to the world today. It is a Gospel message, a true and authentic Christmas message, about the God who did not stay silent, but said his word, and his Word is Jesus. Born among the occupied and marginalized. He is in solidarity with us in our pain and brokenness.

This manger is our message to the world today – and it is simply this: this genocide must stop NOW. Let us repeat to the world: STOP this Genocide NOW.

This is our call. This is our plea. This is our prayer. Hear oh God. Amen.

(Source)

I found these on Twitter a while ago. Original creator unknown.

I can't stop you ascribing hateful, paranoid meanings to these images, but they're not about blaming religions. Jesus was a Jew born to a community of Jews in Palestine, the cradle of the Abrahamic faiths. He was raised and loved by them, betrayed by their rulers* and killed by Romans. He's a Prophet of Islam. End of.

*Y'know, like how the people of the Arab and Muslim nations love Palestine and crying to help them, except their leaders are greedy and rotted to the core. The ruling class will always only serve the empire.

Edit: alt text provided by @this-world-of-beautiful-monsters