It’s not easy to find a tour guide in Gaza. Even clerks at the local Tourism Ministry, a vestige of the 1990s that remarkably still exists, struggle to recommend professional guides, before suggesting a man who hasn’t led tourists around for 20 years.
Ayman Hassouna seems delighted to spend a sweltering day in a suit jacket, showing off the historical sites, colorful markets and delicious grilled fish of his native Gaza — among other unexpected gems made even more precious by the reality that most people in the world are unable to experience them.
Gaza used to be an ancient crossroads connecting Arabia to Europe and, in more recent years, a magnet for international visitors exploring the Holy Land. Today this narrow strip on the Mediterranean Sea is one of the most isolated spots on Earth.
Against this backdrop of perpetual crisis, Modi has perfected the grand, autocratic gesture. In November 2016, he imperiled a sick economy by unilaterally announcing the cancellation of large-denomination rupee notes. This was allegedly done to curb the flow of untaxed income, a ludicrous claim, given the number of his cronies who sit in London and New York after defaulting on massive loans from government banks. The demonetization led to severe misery for a majority of the Indian population, wage laborers, and small traders who conduct their business largely in cash. It transformed everyday life by fiat, with long lines of desperate people outside banks, an eerie mirroring of voters queuing up outside election booths. But Modi’s gesture seized headlines and provided an intoxicating display of power, with the damage to the economy and misery visited upon the majority failing to dent Modi’s popularity. The BJP’s victory margin in last May’s election was even greater than when the party first took control.
Monday’s decision to dissolve Kashmir’s special status is copied from the same template: done suddenly at great cost to a large section of people, but certain to appeal to the Hindutva fanbase. The Hindu right has for decades stoked resentment about Article 370 and its special treatment of Kashmiri Muslims. (At a BJP rally in Kolkata many years ago, I heard a speaker tell the crowd that Kashmiris received subsidized mutton for a special price so low that it would not even buy dog meat in Kolkata.) Targeting Kashmir’s special status is also seen as a blow against the liberal elites who preceded the BJP in governance, and who supposedly lacked Modi’s requisite toughness in dealing with Kashmiri Muslims.
All of this is, of course, fake news. Kashmir, like other border territories absorbed uneasily into the Indian republic, has for decades been treated as a colony by liberal as well as right-wing Indian governments. It is disputed territory, and the special status promised in Article 370 only tells one side of the story. Another side is told by the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, a piece of colonial-era legislation, still in effect in Kashmir, that offers virtual immunity to security forces for all acts of violence. India’s military occupation of Kashmir has unfolded apace under this law, spurring massacres, disappearances, torture, rape, and the deliberate blinding of protesters with pump-action shotguns firing cartridges packed with hundreds of tiny “nonlethal” lead pellets.
As with Modi’s demonetization drive, the apparent suddenness of the decision to remove Article 370 and carve Kashmir up into two administrative units is contrived. The declaration was preceded by the announcement of two fall summits in Kashmir for prospective outside investors. What such investment in Kashmir will look like is easy to guess from a cursory glance at the rest of India: more trash, more cars, more pollution, more concrete, more aggressive Hindu rock music, and ever more ugly assertions of the race spirit that Golwalkar wanted Hindus to learn from Nazis. The BJP wants to allow its Hindu majoritarian supporters to expand into Kashmir. If it looks like settler colonialism, that’s because it is.
I was at a union meeting the other day and the speaker had this great quote
“When you’re a public worker and politicians come around talking about lower taxes, that means they want to lay you off.”
And it’s true. I’m a librarian, so my wages come from tax dollars. Lower taxes means the library has to cut costs, and that means either lowering wages or laying people off. It’s a pretty direct cause and effect.
My dad was a mechanic for public school buses. The first time he took me to vote it was for a local election and he told me even if I did nothing else to vote to pass the budget so they could replace two school busses that were beyond repair so kids were safe.
Politicians who try to sell you on lower taxes are usually just trying to cut social services & public resources and screw over public workers.
“India has deployed tens of thousands of troops across the Kashmir valley in anticipation of a backlash of the revoke.
Indian authorities banned public movements, shut down schools and colleges indefinitely and put two former chief ministers of J&K — Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti — under house arrest ahead of the announcement.
The two leaders took to Twitter to express their disappointment over the decision and warned of consequences.”
For those unaware of what’s going on, the territory of Kashmir has had the rights stripped away from them-undemocratically-by India.
Kashmir has now gone on a lock down, meaning that citizens are not allowed to protest and have no communicate with the outside world. Please spread this to get the news out!
This mask of Tutankhamun is an example of the highest artistic and technical achievements of the ancient Egyptians in the New Kingdom.
Covering the head of the wrapped mummy in its coffin and activated by a magical spell, no.151b from the Book of the Dead, the mask ensured more protection for the king’s body. The exact portrayal of the king’s facial features achieved here made it possible for his soul to recognize him and return to his mummified body, thus ensuring his resurrection.
The head is covered by the royal headdress and the forehead bears the emblems of kingship and protection: the vulture and uraeus, or cobra.
The gold sheets used in this wonderful mask are joined together by heating and hammering. The eyes are of obsidian and quartz and the eyebrows and eyelids are inlaid with lapis lazuli. The broad inlaid collar of semiprecious stones and colored glass ends in falcon heads. Egyptian Museum, Cairo. JE 60672
This blog is mostly so I can vent my feelings and share my interests. Other than that, I am nothing special.
If you don't like Left Wing political thought and philosophy, all things related to horror, the supernatural, the grotesque, guns or the strange, then get the fuck out. I just warned you.
