June 7, 2015
http://www.newtrendmag.org/ntma1605.htm
At 7am on Tuesday, June 2, a black Muslim man, Usaama Rahim, 26, was shot by Boston FBI and police in front of the CVS in Roslindale, a relatively nice area of Boston. His brother, Ibrahim Rahim, who is an imam in California, stated that Usaama was waiting for the bus to go to work when police and FBI approached him for "questioning." The police claim he wielded a knife, which left them no choice but to shoot him dead.
Not a single community organization in Boston from the Green Rainbow Party to the Muslims have made any kind of immediate attempt at organizing a demonstration or making a statement as one would expect. The news reports that the man was "under investigation" (as we all are). This alone is enough for them to say the authorities killed a "terrorism suspect." There are some reports the man had made some statements online supporting the Islamic Caliphate. He had been trailed by government agents for the past 6 days 24/7 and was said to be visibly nervous.
This event is even more alarming than your average police shooting because, like the case of Ibrahim Todashev, who was killed by Boston police and FBI in his Florida home in 2013, the murder appears to be premeditated. Todashev is also said to have lunged at officers, which somehow resulted in him being hit in every major organ and a final kill shot to the back of the head.
"CNN already has the black Muslim killed by Boston police convicted as "part of terror network" - a "source" said so!" opined Glenn Greenwald that day. "1) Police kill a black US Muslim on the street; 2) anonymously claim he follows ISIS on social media; 3) case closed."
Local clergy were invited to view the videotape of the event. Imam Farooq Abdullah, who is a highly respected local African American leader, stated that the footage was very distant and inconclusive as to whether or not the man had brandished a knife but it was true that the police backed up several yards before shooting him in the chest. He was not, as his brother Ibrahim was told by their father, shot in the back, nor was he talking on a cell phone at that moment.
Nevertheless, there was no need to kill him. The story about him planning to behead a police officer sounds far-fetched, though if true, would indicate that he was either mentally unstable or just making a joke about smoking pigs. If the authorities actually had any evidence of this plot, they could have easily obtained a warrant for his arrest. Approaching him in the street to intimidate him was certainly not the appropriate way to deal with either a dangerous terrorist or a mentally ill person. They could have left their card at his house or called him.
The most worrying aspect of this entire story is the complete silence of the usual activist crowd.
What is the matter with this town? They stopped traffic when police killed a black man elsewhere, but when it happens here at home they don't care? Why, because he is Muslim? I posted a comment expressing concern on Mayor Walsh's Facebook page and was deluged by hateful comments, mostly from Irish people, who are convinced the police must have been justified in killing a terrorist and that by killing him, they saved a lot of taxpayer's money.
Most likely, public sentiment against Muslims has been stoked by the Boston Marathon Bombing trials, which are all winding down this month. On Tuesday, June 2, Dias Kadyrbayev, the Kazakh friend who threw away the backpack, was sentenced to 6 years by Judge Woodlock after agreeing to plead guilty. Azamat Tazhayakov of Kazakhstan and Robel Phillipos of Ethiopian heritage, who both plead innocent but were found guilty, and Khairullozhon Matanov of Kyrgyzstan, who agreed to plead guilty because he knew he would not get a fair trial in Boston, will be sentenced within the week. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's official sentencing is scheduled for June 24. Dias, Azamat and Khairullozhon are expected to be deported after serving out their sentences. Stephen Silva, who sold Dzhokhar the gun, got 7 years. Silva is being held in general population and Robel is under house arrest while the Asian kids are all in solitary confinement. After sentencing they will be moved to other prisons. I pray they will be safe.
Showing posts with label Green Party. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Green Party. Show all posts
Sunday, March 13, 2016
Encounter Groups Organizing Students: Muslims and Zionist Jews
I have for a long time advocated that there is no better way to encourage revolutionary thinking except through student groups, especially nowadays when we have long established student organizations plus new technology to link everyone in the country and abroad on social justice issues. The enemy such as Hillel has top down command structure to organize and energize every Jew in the country to care about any cause even as obscure as "slavery in Sudan" or "sweatshops in Pakistan." As soon as one of their leadership comes up with a game plan, every related student organization is going to get active in trying to convince church and synagogue of the cause they want to promote.
Communist Party groups have a lot of activities that a person could join if they enjoy going to protests or political history group studies. Student groups define public opinion.
The student organization structure is the most important and efficient political organizing tool available for anyone with a cause. The YMCA obviously caught on to this line of thinking because they actually funded my 16 year old son to go to a social justice leadership training program this summer for free, staying in the college dorms of Nazarene College. Naturally they spent one out of five days defining gender as a continuum but what my son understood of the discussion was that you should not be mean to confused people. They also discussed racism, sexism, classism, etc and defined the terms so that the young people could understand the linguistics of their approach, which seems to be leftist.
My son's basic experience of the summer camp was a lot of emotional support to get the kids to express how they feel about themselves, their background, experience with racism, sexism and so on. It was a chance for them to say what they have never been allowed to say before, in a group situation that was very encouraging. My son felt he broke some boundaries past his fear of public speaking. I learned from hearing about it that he feels that he does not know enough about his ethnic background to even try to represent what people think when they look at him and might want to ask about it. The experience of being expected to explain who one is, can be stressful especially to young people who are still searching for the answer to that question.
Even though I appreciate the goals of race and gender politics, we have to realize that America is like a garbage dump of people who left their country. We are the riff raff of global society. The most important part of being American and coming of age is realizing that nobody cares about you. You are totally on your own. There are beautiful merits to that approach to life too. Think of how much the sea cares about the fishermen catching the food you will later buy. The sea does not care about you and nor does politics. All a person can do is gain skill riding the waves.
Those who feel they benefited from this week long emotional and learning experience are now invited to attend weekly meetings with the goal of establishing student organizations in their various learning institutions, including high schools.
When I was in college, I belonged to the Muslim Students Association. At Wayne State University in Detroit, we had our own mosque, our own building on campus to make wudu, attend jummah, and hopefully organize. The Board of Directors was overseen by the older generation of Egyptian and Pakistani Muslim Brotherhood alumni but completely was run by the students, who even vacuumed and cleaned. toilets. But it was not only about having a place to pray.
The MSA always required a handful of students to volunteer for roles like President, Vice President, General Secretary... I was the Publication Secretary one year late 90s.
The thing with the MSA is like the Green Party today. All you have to do is show up at your first meeting and they want to appoint you to something. They really need fresh blood. Once you have a position you will be affiliated with an organization, which means you have common ground to communicate with other chapters and also you can state that you legally represent your members.
For example, you could send off a fax to your local Representative saying you represent the Muslim Students Association or any organization you decided that you belong to, and you might likely get a meeting to discuss issues with some person representing the government. You cannot do this unless you represent an organization. That is why you must join, or create one.
http://newtrendmag.org/ntma1615.htm
Communist Party groups have a lot of activities that a person could join if they enjoy going to protests or political history group studies. Student groups define public opinion.
The student organization structure is the most important and efficient political organizing tool available for anyone with a cause. The YMCA obviously caught on to this line of thinking because they actually funded my 16 year old son to go to a social justice leadership training program this summer for free, staying in the college dorms of Nazarene College. Naturally they spent one out of five days defining gender as a continuum but what my son understood of the discussion was that you should not be mean to confused people. They also discussed racism, sexism, classism, etc and defined the terms so that the young people could understand the linguistics of their approach, which seems to be leftist.
My son's basic experience of the summer camp was a lot of emotional support to get the kids to express how they feel about themselves, their background, experience with racism, sexism and so on. It was a chance for them to say what they have never been allowed to say before, in a group situation that was very encouraging. My son felt he broke some boundaries past his fear of public speaking. I learned from hearing about it that he feels that he does not know enough about his ethnic background to even try to represent what people think when they look at him and might want to ask about it. The experience of being expected to explain who one is, can be stressful especially to young people who are still searching for the answer to that question.
Even though I appreciate the goals of race and gender politics, we have to realize that America is like a garbage dump of people who left their country. We are the riff raff of global society. The most important part of being American and coming of age is realizing that nobody cares about you. You are totally on your own. There are beautiful merits to that approach to life too. Think of how much the sea cares about the fishermen catching the food you will later buy. The sea does not care about you and nor does politics. All a person can do is gain skill riding the waves.
Those who feel they benefited from this week long emotional and learning experience are now invited to attend weekly meetings with the goal of establishing student organizations in their various learning institutions, including high schools.
When I was in college, I belonged to the Muslim Students Association. At Wayne State University in Detroit, we had our own mosque, our own building on campus to make wudu, attend jummah, and hopefully organize. The Board of Directors was overseen by the older generation of Egyptian and Pakistani Muslim Brotherhood alumni but completely was run by the students, who even vacuumed and cleaned. toilets. But it was not only about having a place to pray.
The MSA always required a handful of students to volunteer for roles like President, Vice President, General Secretary... I was the Publication Secretary one year late 90s.
The thing with the MSA is like the Green Party today. All you have to do is show up at your first meeting and they want to appoint you to something. They really need fresh blood. Once you have a position you will be affiliated with an organization, which means you have common ground to communicate with other chapters and also you can state that you legally represent your members.
For example, you could send off a fax to your local Representative saying you represent the Muslim Students Association or any organization you decided that you belong to, and you might likely get a meeting to discuss issues with some person representing the government. You cannot do this unless you represent an organization. That is why you must join, or create one.
http://newtrendmag.org/ntma1615.htm
Labels:
activism,
Green Party,
MSA,
student,
YMCA
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)