A Tale of Apartheid and Settler Colonialism: House Demolitions in Kashmir and Palestine

 A Tale of Apartheid and Settler Colonialism: House Demolitions in Kashmir and Palestine

Tazeen Hasan

In two far-off lands, on opposite sides of the earth, A story of destruction, of homes and hearth, Kashmir and Palestine, both places we know, Where houses are razed, and families made to go.

In Kashmir, the army rolls in with tanks and guns, Bulldozers and explosives, the job has begun, They give no warning, no time to pack, As they shatter the walls, and the roof they hack.

In Palestine, it's the Israeli army's might, The bulldozers come, day or night, With no care for the people, who call it home, Their houses are leveled, to the ground they're thrown.

Both places are scarred, by these acts of violence, As families are left, with no place to find solace, Their memories, their dreams, their hopes and their fears, Are crushed, shattered, in a flood of tears.

The world looks on, with a deafening silence, As the people of Kashmir and Palestine, Are left to bear, the brunt of this hate, Their stories, their pain, they cannot abate.

Yet, amidst all this, they rise up again, With a resilience that's hard to contain, Their spirit, their strength, they will not yield, For in their hearts, a flame still burns, unhealed.

So, let us stand with them, in their darkest hour, And lift our voices, with all our power, To tell the world, that we will not be still, Till their houses are rebuilt, on the same old hill.

Khurram Parvez - A Hero's Struggle for Human Rights in Kashmir

 

Like a hero bold in the Kashmir strife, Khurram Parvez defends human rights with might, Amidst the darkness of oppression's life, He stands with courage and a spirit bright. Settler colonialism, a brutal foe, Genocide and homes demolished with disdain, The fate of Kashmiris, a tragic woe, And yet, Khurram's voice rings clear, a refrain. But fate has dealt a harsh and cruel blow, For he is detained, his voice now hushed, His message buried, a hero's spirit low, Injustice reigns, his spirit crushed. Yet still, his legacy endures with grace, For justice and freedom, he ran his race.

Exclusive: Why Pakistan Re-Instated the Ban on Bollywood?

Tazeen Hasan shedding light on the unfortunate reinstatement of the ban on Bollywood Films and the leading background events.

Being a Pakistani daughter of parents born in different regions of India, I do not regret confessing a strong emotional association with the land and people of our nuclear neighbor. I have never been there but still feel nostalgic about Bhopal, Jodhpur, Kapurthala, Kanpur, and Delhi. I always enjoy chatting with the people who share similar cultural traits and the same language spoken on two sides of the border. In Pakistan, we call it Urdu, while Indians call it Hindi.  Although Hindi is written in Devanagari script and Urdu written in Arabic script,  the grammar and vocabulary are almost identical.


Because of my academic activities, I usually don't get time to watch movies but when I do, like most Pakistanis, my first choice is Bollywood. I believe, the nuance and subtlety of Bollywood movies sometimes outperform Hollywood. No doubt, Bollywood has produced some of the exceptional biopics the world has ever seen consider for instance Amrao Jan Ada starring Rekha, Dil Se starring Manisha Koirala and Misha Vashist, and last but not the least Shakespearean adaptation Haider.   So I feel personally hurt when there is something wrong going on between the film industries across the border. I always feel fascinated by the fact that Padmashree award-winning film, Mother India starring  Nargis,  uses so many Quranic terms in the songs. For instance, 'Na men Shaitan hun, Na men Bhagwan hun, Duniya ju chahe samjhe men to insaan hun.' Very few of us know that Shaitan, Insaan and Duniya, all three are purely Quranic terms originated from the Arabic of prophetic times. This is a fine example of the amalgamation of cultural and linguistic traits which are usually ignored while hostility prevails on either side of the border.


It is heartbreaking to me that, nearly a decade after lifting a 40-year-long embargo on Bollywood films, Pakistan reinstated the ban. The announcement came on the heels of a move by Indian Motion Pictures Producers Association (IMPPA), a trade organization, to ban Pakistani actors and film technicians in India.

The past couple of months have been particularly tense between the two nuclear-armed neighbors. Indian armed forced killed a Kashmiri Commander Burhan Wani, and the seventy-year-old Kashmir crises resurfaced again and became a hot topic in international media. Unfortunately, Indian army used brutal weapons against unarmed Kashmiri civilians which not only killed thousands of Kashmiris but permanently blinded hundreds of them including innocent children. At the same time, the world's most credible human rights organization, Amnesty International was forced to face sedition charges for arranging a protest for Kashmiri broken families in Banglore. A Kashmiri singer was harassed by police and intelligence before his performance in the same Amnesty Seminar.

Furthermore, Facebook pages of those who used Burhan Wani's martyred body as the DP were deleted not only in Kashmir but across the world, as a political weapon to silence the protests. This Facebook censorship stirred international media. Almost every international news outlet mentioned this move in their editorials saves Pakistani pro-Indian news outlets.

And this international coverage was enough to enrage the Modi government. Yet, it was not Kashmiri protest but Indian government and army's brutal repression tactics that drew the attention of media. And consequently, India had to react to save its image. On September 19th, 19 soldiers were killed at an Indian army base in Uri, some 6km from the “line of control”, the de facto border between the two countries in Kashmir. The Indian government claimed--again without any proof--that the attackers came from Pakistan, completely ignoring the insurgency going on in Kashmir.


Next, India not only violated international borders carrying out a  surgical strike but also boycotted a regional summit scheduled to be held in Pakistan and threatened to review Indus Water Treaty, a 65-year-old water-sharing agreement.

Yet, international media and Indian local media is noticing the events in a perspective very different from that of the  Indian government. According to the Economist, "Caught in the cross-fire are those from the Indian film fraternity who have spoken against IMPPA’s decision to ban Pakistani artists. Protesters in Uttar Pradesh burned an effigy of Salman Khan, a brawny Bollywood superstar, for saying that “Pakistani artists are just artists and not terrorists”. MNS, a thuggish nativist political party in Mumbai, threatened violent attacks on Indian film-makers who hire Pakistanis. On September 23rd it gave Pakistani actors 48 hours to leave the country."

The Economist further notes, "For nearly two decades, since the 1999 military conflict near Kargil, a familiar script has played out in India every time tensions rise between the countries. A toxic political climate surrounds so-called “anti-national” behavior, which in this case includes striking a conciliatory tone towards Pakistani movie professionals. In August Divya Spandana (also known as “Ramya”), a South Indian actress was threatened by a lawyer with charges of sedition under a colonial-era law after she remarked that Pakistan was “a good country, not hell”.
Cui bono (For whose benefit?) is a term used in criminal investigations to find out who will benefit the most from the crime and who has a motive. I believe the international media is monitoring the situation very closely to find an answer. The Uri attack, the surgical strike, and the showbiz drama is an attempt to divert world attention from what is really happening in Kashmir.


Media Bites Editorial - Tazeen Hasan
Published on October 22, 2016