Category Archives: Racism and anti-racism

German government targets anti-nazi pastor instead of nazis

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This is a video about German Protestant preacher Lothar König, speaking at an anti-racist demonstration in Jena.

By Martin Nowak in Germany:

State prosecutors in Dresden, Germany, target anti-Nazi protesters

26 April 2013

The state prosecutor in Dresden is systematically targeting opponents of Nazi groups, in a region that is one of the centres of right-wing extremism in Germany. Along with Mecklenburg-Pomerania, Saxony is the only state where the neo-fascist German National Democratic Party (NPD) is represented in the state parliament. The party also has representation in all city councils and many community councils. Saxony was the epicentre of the National Socialist Underground (NSU), a right-wing terrorist group responsible for at least nine murders between 2000 and 2006.

The trial against a youth pastor from the town of Jena, Lothar König, which began on April 4, is the high point of the campaign by the state authorities in Dresden. König has been accused of serious breach of the peace, obstruction of justice and resisting police officers. He supposedly incited demonstrators to attack the police at an annual demonstration against right-wing extremism in February 2011.

König, who is almost 60, has been involved for years in protests against the extreme right and Nazi groups. With his young followers, he supported protests in the 1990s against right-wing extremism and anti-immigrant chauvinism. At these events, he was known for opposing any sort of violence and intervening to de-escalate situations. His work among youth in Jena is well-regarded, and he has received awards from several anti-racist foundations.

As he has done every year, König travelled to Dresden on February 19, 2011, to demonstrate with a broad coalition of political parties, trade unions and victim-support groups against a march held by neo-Nazis to commemorate German victims of the allied bombing of the city during WWII. In his renovated Volkswagen (VW) bus with loudspeakers, nicknamed “Noisy”, he accompanied roughly 20,000 demonstrators, who protested against some 3,000 neo-Nazis.

In the course of the protest, clashes took place between demonstrators and the police, which according to police sources resulted in 118 severe injuries to officers. In reality, only eight police officers were hurt, while others suffered only minor injuries as they waded in against demonstrators.

Countless eyewitnesses and recordings have confirmed that König sought to de-escalate the situation, even when the police closed off all routes for the protesters. He used the loudspeakers on his vehicle to play music, show demonstrators where to go, and call for peaceful protest against the neo-Nazis.

Nonetheless, the state prosecutor has accused him of encouraging violence, either with declarations he apparently made or merely by his presence. According to officials, with the aid of “Noisy”, König acted as a “communications point and coordinator of violent acts.” “From his vehicle”, they claim, “he called upon leftists to commit violence.” The prosecutor alleges König’s vehicle issued a call to “cover the pigs with stones” and attempted to force a police vehicle off the road.

All of the available video and sound recordings of the demonstration directly contradict the accusations made against König by the state prosecutor.

In a video extract that the prosecution has used against him, König says, “Come on people. There are a lot of us here. Just move on. Go further on. The police have no shields, no weapons.” Then he turned his vehicle around and called for everyone to follow him.

The claim by the prosecutor that König called at this point for violence against the police is absurd. In an interview with ZDF television, Professor Martin Kutscha, an expert on constitutional law who had seen the video, declared, “I have the impression that the pastor tried to encourage moderation among the demonstrators by turning his vehicle around and calling upon them to stay with his car, and certainly did not attempt to incite people to throw stones or something similar.”

The prosecutor is even trying to use the fact that König played music against him. The prosecutor’s office refers to the “aggressive and inflammatory” character of the music—i.e., “Paint it Black” by the Rolling Stones and “Kein Macht für Niemand” (“No Power for Anybody”) by the German group Ton Steine Scherben—which supposedly promoted violence.

The trial of König is such a blatant travesty of basic constitutional principles and democratic rights that no fewer than four human rights organisations have denounced it as a “political trial.”

The lead-up to the trial and the course it has run so far make clear that the prosecution of König is aimed at criminalising all opposition to the annual neo-Nazi march in Dresden.

The trial was first postponed from its original start date of March 19. The defence requested this after discovering just a few days earlier that there were up to 170 pages of documents and a CD in the evidence files of which they had not been aware. The prosecution and a spokesperson for the court falsely claimed that this was insignificant material.

The first day of the trial focused on the accusations against König. The defence argued that the indictment should not be read out at the start, stating it was vague and suggestive, and did not even contain a concrete charge. Nevertheless, the charges were read out, after which König and his defence lawyer gave statements in which they accused the prosecution of suppressing evidence, sloppiness, laziness and making allegations damaging to König.

The Dresden state prosecutor has initiated thousands of investigations targeting participants in demonstrations against neo-Nazis. The police collected data from more than a million mobile phones through illegal surveillance. Thousands of charges were brought against opponents of neo-Nazis, including 1,500 alone for alleged offences against a law covering demonstrations.

Special forces commandos have stormed and searched the homes of suspects, in some cases without any permission, including König’s office in Jena. When König was away on a trip to the Alps, police officers broke into his home without any authorisation and confiscated a computer, some CDs and his VW bus, which was parked in front of the house.

The raid on August 10 of last year came just days after König gave an interview to the news magazine Der Spiegel, in which he criticised the authorities in Saxony, comparing their actions to the notorious Stasi security forces in the GDR (former East Germany), and denounced the police for their brutal methods.

The close ties between the authorities in Dresden and the extreme right are so evident that even the bourgeois press has published critical articles. Der Spiegel commented on the large-scale measures taken by the police against anti-Nazi demonstrators at the protest last year. “In fact, it seems like the authorities and the judiciary in Saxony seek to hound citizens who oppose the Nazis with full force, while the extreme right are able to do what they like”, noted the newspaper.

The Dresden district court intends to make an example of König. Just a few months before the beginning of his trial, another anti-Nazi protester, Tim H, was sentenced to 22 months imprisonment without bail for a severe breach of the peace, grievous bodily harm and verbal abuse. In this case, too, neither the court nor the prosecution was able to prove the alleged offences or even any general involvement in criminal activities on the part of the defendant.

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Holocaust denial in British UKIP party

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Anna-Marie Crampton pictured with Ukip leader Nigel Farage

From The Huffington Post United Kingdom:

Anna-Marie Crampton, Ukip Candidate, In Storm Over ‘Anti-Semitic Comments’ Posted Online

By Posted: 25/04/2013 13:20 BST  |  Updated: 25/04/2013 14:14 BST

Ukip is facing calls to sack one of its candidates who apparently denied the Holocaust and promoted wild conspiracy theories online.

A Facebook profile in the name of Anna-Marie Crampton, who is standing for the Eurosceptic party in the local elections in East Sussex next week, posted that the Second World War had been “engineered by the Zionist jews”, adding: “Only the Zionists could sacrifice their own in the gas chambers.”

On Twitter, there were references to the ‘false flag’ conspiracy theory about the Boston Marathon bombings and links to UFO sites.

The Jewish comments, revealed by Brighton’s Argus newspaper, were posted by Crampton’s Facebook account – which includes photos of her with Ukip leader Nigel Farage – on an online forum entitled ‘Was Pope Benedict fired by the Knights of Malta?’

The entry in Crampton’s name said: “Of coure [sic] he was” …

Ukip told The Argus it would not comment until it had contacted Crampton.

And Sam Westrop, director of interfaith organisation Stand For Peace, told the paper: “UKIP, to its credit, has expelled extremist and bigoted members in the past.

“They must also expel Anna-Marie Crampton. Such hatred must be fought at all times.”

Ukip has again been asked to comment but has yet to respond.

Meanwhile, it seems that they have suspended candidate Crampton.

Some Ukip candidates could be BNP members, says leader Nigel Farage: here.

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Nazi danger in Europe

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This video says about itself:

Belsen Concentration Camp’s Liberation (1945) WARNING: DISTRESSING FOOTAGE.

Liberation of Belsen Concentration Camp, taken from the1945 British Pathe reel ‘Concentration Camp Footage’.

Unedited footage showing the discovery and subsequent liberation of Belsen concentration camp by British soldiers in Germany. Recent prisoners are seen smiling behind the barbed wire fences, including women and children with numbers branded on them.

Then the camera shows shots of dazed and starving detainees wondering around, or hungrily eating and drinking supplies brought by the British.

This reel then continues to show disturbing images of dead bodies. The full video can be found oin British Pathe’s online archive, it has been cut short for the sake of this YouTube channel. You can see it here.

By Menachem Rosensaft, professor of law in the USA and son of Holocaust survivors:

Ominous Clouds Hover Once Again Over Europe

Posted: 04/24/2013 8:14 am

Speech delivered on Sunday, April 21, 2013, at Bergen-Belsen, Germany, at the commemoration marking the 68th anniversary of that Nazi concentration camp’s liberation.

Standing here in the midst of the mass-graves of Bergen-Belsen, we are inexorably reminded that evil exists in this world. Ominous clouds hover once again over parts of Europe. Sixty-eight years after the liberation of Bergen-Belsen, 68 years after the end of the Holocaust, we may not ignore a disturbing resurgence of racist and neo-fascist political groups in at least three countries that belong to both the European Union and NATO.

In Greece, the viciously racist, anti-Semitic and anti-migrant Golden Dawn party is emerging, in World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder’s words, as “the new Nazis.” And we cannot, we must not, ignore reports that Golden Dawn is at least in contact if not conspiring with like-minded groups in other countries and has opened offices in the United States, Canada, Australia, as well as in Germany.

In Hungary, where 70 years ago hundreds of thousands of Jews were deported to their death in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the government was forced to ban a rally by anti-Semitic thugs in front of the main synagogue of Budapest under the horrific slogan, “Give Gas.” Early next month, while the World Jewish Congress will be holding its plenary assembly in Budapest as a demonstration of solidarity with the Hungarian Jewish community, members of the reactionary anti-Jewish, anti-Roma and anti-gay Jobbik party are planning an “anti-Zionist” demonstration there.

There can be no doubt that, as President Lauder wrote in the Süddeutsche Zeitung earlier this month, the anti-Semitic declarations of Jobbik‘s leaders “deliberately evoke memories of the pro-Hitler wartime regime in Hungary.”

Here in Germany, we note with profound consternation and dismay that the federal government seems to be acquiescing in the legitimization of contemporary far-right extremism by refusing to support efforts to ban the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party, or NPD. Last month, the New York Times quoted Philipp Rösler, the head of the Free Democratic Party as defending his government’s decision not to seek to outlaw the NPD with the comment, “Stupidity can’t be banned.”

Standing here beside the Jewish Monument of Bergen-Belsen which my father dedicated on the first anniversary of the liberation in 1946, we must remind Germany’s political and intellectual leaders that racism, anti-Semitism, fascism, intolerance, homophobia, and the desecration of Jewish cemeteries and memorials to the Nazi deportation of Roma and Sinti should never be dismissed cavalierly as mere indications of stupidity. They are manifestations of evil, of the very evil that led to the murder of the tens of thousands who lie buried in the mass-graves that surround us and the millions who were gassed at Auschwitz, Treblinka, Majdanek and the other death camps of Nazi Europe. We will not, we may not, tolerate their resurrection in any form anywhere, but especially not in Germany.

We are gratified by the news that the Central Office for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes in Ludwigsburg is considering prosecuting some 50 former Auschwitz guards for their role in the genocide of the Jews of Europe, but we cannot ignore the fact that such prosecutions, if they ever take place, will occur many decades too late.

Let us never lose sight of the simple fact that Anne Frank, who died here of typhus a month before the liberation, wrote her famous observation — “I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are really good at heart” — while she was still in her hiding place in Amsterdam, while she still felt protected by Miep Gies and the other Dutch Christians who tried to save her and her family. I have no doubt that Anne Frank’s faith in the goodness of humankind was profoundly shaken if not completely erased after she was betrayed on August 4, 1944, and taken first to the Westerbork transit camp, then to Auschwitz, and eventually to Bergen-Belsen.

Which is not to say that we should ever forget those non-Jews like Miep Gies, like Pastor André Trocmé in le Chambon-sur-Lignon, and like former Polish Foreign Minister Władysław Bartoszewski who helped Jews in the years of the Holocaust, often at the risk of their own lives. And we remember with profound gratitude the British officers and soldiers who announced to the inmates of the “horror camp” of Bergen-Belsen on April 15, 1945, that “you are free,” “Ihr seit frei.” Together with the US troops who liberated Buchenwald, Dachau, and so many other German concentration camps in the spring of 1945, and the Soviet soldiers who entered Auschwitz on January 27, 1945, these Allied soldiers gave the gift of life to the surviving remnants of European Jewry, and we are eternally in their debt.

Seventy years ago today, the Warsaw Ghetto was in flames on the third day of the armed uprising, with its heroic Jewish fighters writing a glorious page of defiance into the annals of history. But let us also not forget the thousands upon thousands of Poles in Warsaw who heard the gun fire and saw the smoke but went about their business. And while more than 40,000 Jews died a horrific public death, a merry-go-round was entertaining Poles just outside the Ghetto walls in Krasiński Square.

Today, let us remember that our obligation is to the dead who lie buried here as well as to history and to the future. The Holocaust, the Shoah, was possible because human beings who could have stopped it allowed it to take place, just as they allowed the genocides in Bosnia, Rwanda, Darfur and elsewhere to take place.

We come here every year to assure the dead of Belsen that we have not abandoned them, that we will never abandon them. But equally important, we must recommit ourselves once again in this sacred place to do everything in our collective power not to allow the spiritual and ideological heirs of the National Socialist regime to arise anywhere in the world as a new scourge of humankind.

Menachem Z. Rosensaft, born in the Displaced Persons camp of Bergen-Belsen on May 1, 1948, is General Counsel of the World Jewish Congress and Vice President of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants. He teaches about the law of genocide and war crimes trials at the law schools of Columbia, Cornell and Syracuse universities.

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Dutch xenophobe Wilders invites French fascist Le Pen

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This video says about itself:

Jean-Marie Le Pen, MEP and leader of France’s far-right Front National, outraged assembled members of the European Parliament by repeating his assertion that the Nazi gas chambers were “a mere detail” in the history of the Second World War.

Now, Jean-Marie Le Pen has transferred the leadership of his neo-fascist Front National party, to his daughter Marine, whom he had groomed for that.

This video from France is called Marine le Pen amoureuse du producteur de chants Nazis (extraits musicaux). It is about the production and sales by the Le Pen dynasty/Front National neo-fascist party of albums of Adolf Hitler’s nazi party songs.

And today, NOS TV in the Netherlands reports that Geert Wilders, leader of the xenophobic PVV, has invited Marine Le Pen to come to the Netherlands.

Wilders calls Ms Le Pen “an impressive woman”. Evidently seeing the French fascists as a sister party to his PVV.

So far, Wilders pretended that his xenophobic attacks on immigrants from Muslim countries were not racist, but just ideological criticism of Islam.

With this political marriage to Marine Le Pen, Wilders drops that mask.

Marine Le Pen and Wilders

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New Israeli film on nazi history

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This video is called The Flat, Documentary Film Trailer.

By Fred Mazelis:

The Flat: A family examines a Nazi-Zionist friendship

22 April 2013

Written and directed by Arnon Goldfinger

The Flat, a prize-winning Israeli documentary released in 2011 and now available on DVD, raises important historical issues. While the filmmaker, Arnon Goldfinger, is neither willing nor able to fully explore them, there is still much that is of interest in his story, which deals with experiences of his German-born grandparents that occurred well before he was born.

The documentary begins in the Tel Aviv apartment of Gerda Tuchler. Her grandson has taken on the task, along with his mother Hannah and other relatives, of clearing out his grandmother’s flat after her death at the age of 98. She had lived in the same apartment for 70 years, since arriving in Palestine with her husband Kurt in 1937 as refugees from Nazi Germany.

As they proceed with the difficult and sometimes tedious job of sifting through decades of memories, Arnon and his mother come across what seems to them a startling, almost unbelievable discovery—a carefully preserved German newspaper article from 1934 entitled (in English translation), “A Nazi Travels to Palestine.”

The article comes from Der Angriff ( The Attack ), a leading Nazi publication. It describes a trip undertaken in 1933 by a high Nazi official, Leopold von Mildenstein, and his wife to Palestine, accompanied by Arnon Goldfinger’s grandparents, Kurt and Gerda Tuchler. The article shows the Mildensteins and Tuchlers in Palestine, and includes photos favorably depicting the lives of Jewish settlers.

It is this discovery that leads Goldfinger to make his documentary. He wonders, in his voice-over narration, “What is Nazi propaganda doing in my grandparents’ flat?” The apparent mystery is only deepened when he comes across numerous photos and correspondence showing that the Tuchlers and Mildensteins resumed their friendship after the war. His mother says she knows nothing about these friends of her parents, nor is she very interested in finding out more.

Goldfinger’s parents’ generation as a rule avoided looking too deeply into the fate of their family members in the Holocaust. In fact, it is only during the course of the investigation of his grandparents’ history that the filmmaker learns the details of the fate of his great-grandmothers. Kurt’s mother died in the Theresienstadt concentration camp, and Gerda’s mother, Susan Lehmann, was deported to the Riga ghetto where she perished.

The issue of his grandparents’ friends becomes even more disturbing when Goldfinger examines accounts of the famous 1961 war crimes trial of Adolf Eichmann, which ended with his conviction and execution. Eichmann testified that Mildenstein, an advocate of resettling German Jews in Palestine, was his superior between 1934 and 1937 in the department of the Nazi SS dealing with Jewish affairs.

The relationship between the Tuchlers and Mildensteins obviously haunts Goldfinger. He repeats the above question in different words, and his face registers puzzlement and concern.

The documentary follows Goldfinger’s attempts to trace his grandparents’ history. The search leads him to the German city of Wuppertal, near Dusseldorf, where he visits the Mildensteins’ daughter, Edda Milz von Mildenstein. Edda, a woman who is now about 70 years old, lived in Britain for 30 years after the war and speaks perfect English. She welcomes him warmly and tells him she knew his grandparents quite well, from their frequent visits to her parents in the 1950s and 60s.

This cultured and educated woman, who was only five years old when the war ended, suggests that her father, though he was a Nazi party member early on, left the party and took up a career in journalism during the war. He later became an official for Coca-Cola in West Germany.

Goldfinger finds evidence that contradicts Edda’s account. He speaks to a retired journalist, the author of a 1966 article in Der Spiegel on von Mildenstein that confirmed his membership in the Nazi SS in the mid-1930s. The filmmaker then examines historical archives in Berlin that provide additional information, showing that Mildenstein joined the Nazis before they took power in 1933, and that he never left the party, instead working in Goebbels’s propaganda ministry throughout the war.

As the film proceeds, Goldfinger more and more shifts his emphasis away from examining his grandparents’ motives and instead toward exposing the role of Mildenstein. He goes back to visit Edda and confronts her with the evidence of her father’s fuller career as a Nazi functionary. She at first resists and then claims she was kept in the dark, which may in fact be the case.

It seems clear that Mildenstein, though probably not an active participant in planning and carrying out the “final solution,” was a longtime Nazi functionary. Like thousands of others who prospered in industry or the state apparatus after the war, including some who occupied far more important postwar positions than he did, Mildenstein paid no penalty.

There is another side to the story, however, one that is also important. Why were the Tuchlers and Mildensteins such good friends in the first place? In the end, Goldfinger settles for a very limited and superficial explanation. He finds a German expert on “Nazi denial,” who speculates that the intense German patriotism of the Tuchlers led them to value their connection to the Mildensteins, and that they “did not know necessarily” that Mildenstein had been a high official.

This may be true. Perhaps Mildenstein resumed the relationship in the postwar period as a way of shielding himself against charges relating to his Nazi past. Perhaps he hid from the Tuchlers the fact that he remained a Nazi until Hitler’s defeat. This still skirts the most important issue: what was the political basis of a relationship that lasted several decades? Why did they hit it off so well? Why were the Tuchlers so willing to accept at face value Mildenstein’s explanation of his wartime career, if that is what happened?

The fact remains that the two couples traveled together on a trip that lasted for months in 1933-1934. This was after the Nazis had come to power, physically smashed the trade unions and the workers’ parties, threw thousands of Communists and other political prisoners into concentration camps and instituted a regime of brutal terror. None of this disturbed the Tuchlers enough to prevent their trip to Palestine with their Nazi friends, a trip that was featured in the fascist press.

Early in the film there is a brief but significant interview, one that Goldfinger chooses not to discuss further. An elderly Israeli historian of German Jewish emigration to Palestine explains that the story of the Tuchlers is not unbelievable at all. He talks about the “common interest” between the National Socialists and the Zionists during the 1930s. Kurt Tuchler, who was a Berlin traffic court judge at the time, was an active member of the German Zionist Federation. This Federation, in an apparent attempt to boost support within Nazi circles for Jewish emigration, sent Tuchler to accompany Mildenstein on the trip to Palestine.

A family memoir cannot deal in depth with historical questions that demand much longer treatment, but the story of the Tuchlers cannot be fully understood without examining the role of Zionism. During this pre-World War II period, it was a distinctly minority viewpoint within the Jewish population, in Germany and everywhere else. Dedicated above all to nationalism and national exclusivism, it drew support primarily from middle class layers, and was hostile to assimilation and above all to a mass socialist movement encompassing all sections of the working class.

It was not unheard of for upper middle class German Jews, including those, like Kurt Tuchler, who proudly wore their medals from the First World War, to voice some “understanding” of the program and the appeal of the National Socialists. Furthermore, the Tuchlers would have favorably compared the cultivated Mildensteins to the Nazi “rabble,” and perhaps have placed their hopes on a moderation of Nazi policies and the emergence of a more “moderate” German nationalism under people like Mildenstein. The tragic fate of European Jewry in the Holocaust transformed the fortunes of Zionism. Many, with their hopes for the future shattered after the loss of 6 million Jews, came to embrace the doctrine of an exclusive Jewish homeland. Major sections of world capitalism, above all the United States, which had emerged as the chief victor from the Second World War, transferred their support to the Zionists.

History was rewritten in accord with the need for a Zionist mythology. Zionism, rather than being a minority view, now became officially synonymous with the Jewish people. Anti-Zionists were depicted as anti-Semites or “self-hating Jews.” The leading role of Jewish socialists and communists in the Warsaw Ghetto and other heroic resistance to the Nazis was pushed aside. Not only was Zionist collaboration with the National Socialists erased, as in the relatively minor example of the Tuchlers, but the German people as a whole were portrayed as collectively responsible for Hitler, as in the notorious book Hitler’s Willing Executioners.

Arnon Goldfinger and his generation were raised on this myth, and that may be why he reacted to the revelations about his grandparents with shock and incomprehension. Coming to grips with this history, however, will be crucial if Israeli Jews are to find an answer to the blind alley and increasing crisis that Zionism has produced for them, decades after the events discussed in The Flat.

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Boston bomb horror, pretext for Islamophobic violence

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Police in Boston, USA, still don’t know who perpetrated the terrible bomb attack on the local marathon. They don’t know the motive for this crime yet.

Barry Grey in the USA writes:

It remains unknown whether the terrible crime was the work of one person or an organization, homegrown or foreign, although even some congressmen have acknowledged that several factors point to a rightwing domestic terrorist. These include the relatively crude character of the bombs, the lack of any prior threat alert or claim of responsibility, and the timing—on Boston’s Patriot’s Day and federal tax day and the same week as the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City.

Senator Saxby Chambliss (Republican of Georgia) said Wednesday, “There are a lot of things that are surrounding this that build an indication that it may have been a domestic terrorist.”

However, the media of phonehacker in chief and burglar in chief Rupert Murdoch and other far Right wingers pretend to “know” that “the Muslims” did this crime.

Let us, for the sake of argument, presume that the culprit, or small group of culprits, was indeed a Muslim, or a small group of Muslims. What would that say about the other 1.62 billion adherents of Islam, making up over 23% of the world population?

Nothing. Like the Oklahoma bombing by the Christian Timothy McVeigh did not make all Christians in the world criminals. Like war crimes by Buddhist soldiers in Sri Lanka do not make other Buddhists who have nothing to do with that, into criminals. Etc.

From ASpoonfulofSuga blog in the USA:

April 18 2013

It Took Two Days for a Random Muslim to Get Assaulted in Boston, Please Retweet

Muslim woman

A Palestinian woman said she was assaulted while taking a late morning stroll with her baby daughter and friend by a man who accused her of being a terrorist. We thought someone would’ve been publicly attacked and berated for secretly planning the Boston Marathon bombings within hours of the explosions, but nope — racists managed to contain themselves for two days. Bravo.

Heba Abolaban told Malden Patch that she and her friend, both wearing hijabs, were walking with their kids when a white male in his thirties punched her left shoulder and began shouting at them:

“He was screaming ‘F___ you Muslims! You are terrorists! I hate you! You are involved in the Boston explosions! F___ you!’” Abolaban remembered. “Oh my lord, I was extremely shocked.”

Taken from Jezebel

______________________

Bangladeshi man beaten at Applebee’s in ‘revenge attack’ over Boston Marathon bombings

New York

A Bangladeshi man has claimed he was beaten at a New York City Applebee’s in retaliation for the Boston Marathon bombings – because of the color of his skin. Abdullah Faruque, 30, says that he was heading out of the restaurant to smoke a cigarette when he noticed a group of Hispanic men who had been at the bar followed him out.They then confronted him.  He told the New York Post: ‘One of the guys asked if I was Arab. I just shook my head, said like, “Yeah, whatever.”‘ Mr Faruque said that when he tried to go back inside Applebee’s, one of the men said, ‘Yeah, he’s a f***ing Arab,’ and they attacked, beating him about the head and body.

______________________

Monday was a difficult day not just for America but for the world. Any time innocents die in the world we as a global community lose out. As an American my immediate sentiments are that we should act in such a way to honour those who have died, and those who are suffering now with the right action. While this sounds like another platitude echoed by countless news-people, I really believe that we should look hard at the suffering caused by the events in Boston. Indirectly that would mean that for me, (another no name blogger) the most important  action for us as  nation and global community, is to look and internalize what has transpired. This I am sure, will be an unpopular course of event. There is a need for justice, there is a need to make sense of these events, there is a need for action.

I remember the environment in NYC a day after 9/11. There was such an outpouring of love from the world to NYC, from NY’er to NY’er. It was a rather tender moment for me, because for once I could visibly see and participate in actions socially that challenged my cynicism about people coming together and a possibility for racial acceptance and religious tolerance. That moment was short-lived unfortunately. Soon Americans citizen of Middle Eastern decent across America were the targets of hate crimes. Whatever love was given was all to soon gone. Ten years later America as a whole is still recovering not just from the events of 9/11, but from how we chose to respond to the tragedy on our home turf. Two wars, trillions in debt, soldiers losing their homes and coping with PTSD, a great divide economic divide further marginalization of Muslims not to mention Americans of Middle Eastern decent, (to name a few) are some of the many pressing issues we do not have a handle on.

A Personal Lesson Learned

While I will be the first to admit that I do not know how to keep a nation state, I cannot,like many other Americans, help wondering if the two wars and all their political, financial, economic, and diplomatic ramifications worth it ? What have we learned as a nation after 9/11?

I will tell you what I have learned over this past decade. I have seen that (especially after the wake of the most recent presidential election) Americans are too divided  to come together for an extended period of time. I feel we have reduced a  person to just simple instruments to be used for the attainment of ideological goals. Before one is a republican or democrat or libertarian, American or, black white, latino, or whatever other label we like to use, one is a person.  The Saudi national who was initially considered a suspect is a human being too. The Sikh person in your neighbourhood is a person. The Mexican Guy who may be cutting your grass is human being.  The Muslimah that sports the hijab is a person.  Surprising so these people may even be American like you or I which means we share an ideology and a vision.

Of course this is idealistic. Behind the sarcastic statements, the cynical quips, I am a idealist. I am a positive person.  There will always be those amongst us who will will seek to disrupt us, to take from us the most precious things like our sense of security, the want to engage with our fellow human beings and country man, and sadly as the explosion in Boston have shown even our lives.  History is littered with heinous acts, but if we look close enough we will see so many instances of self-sacrifice and benevolence.

An Important Anniversary

Tuesday April 16 was an important anniversary to me. Fifty one years ago on that day  MLK wrote  his letter from Birmingham Jail. That letter has always been a point of inspiration for me. It gave a voice to a sentiment I hold deeply, specifically that we can today with a greater sense of urgency and determination work to make a better America. The bombings in Boston are an opportunity for us to come together as a nation and talk about the human issues we are all facing.

I feel that it was irresponsible for a memo to the New York Post and other media outlets to tell people top be on the lookout for out for “dark-skinned” suspects. I feel, rather I am certain that the news is working people up to a frenzy. The president in a recent speech praised Boston for overcoming the face of evil.. But if Muslims are being attacked have we really overcome the face of evil or have we just brought out another evil face. Fire cannot be fought with fire. We need to change of view on things, we need to deliberate a little more as a whole before anyone else gets heckled or beaten up for being of middle Eastern descent. …

U.S. Muslims mobilize to prevent Boston backlash

It’s a familiar race against time for Muslim groups. Almost as soon as the smoke cleared around Copley Square, they knew from long experience that some would immediately point the finger of blame in their direction.

Still, conservative columnist and Fox News guest Erik Rush quickly sent out tweets blaming Muslims, adding in one, “Let’s kill them,” a post he subsequently deleted. “Jihad in America,” wrote anti-Muslim blogger Pam Geller. Speaking about the bombings on his ”700 Club” program, Pat Robertson was also furious: “Don’t talk to me about religion of peace” – the way Muslims describe their faith – “No way.” On his show, conservative host Glenn Beck opined that “no American citizen blows up random people; that’s a Middle Eastern scene, that’s not an American scene. When our crazies go off, they target the government, not streets that are crowded with people.”

Final Words

While it’s difficult thing to do i will be writing about the ramification of the Boston as I see them in my life with the hope of generating actual discussion instead of hate-speak/News-Speak and double talk. Probably also when all is said and done I will go to Boston and lay soem flowers down , anyone who wants to join is welcome.

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Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial “outside agitator” idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.

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