RESPECT TO SISTER ARUNDHATI ROY, A BRAVE AND FEARLESS VOICE IN SOUTH ASIA

Arundhati Roy faces arrest over Kashmir remark

Booker prize-winner says claim about territory not being an integral part of India

was a call for justice in the disputed region

The Guardian

The Booker prize-winning novelist and human rights campaigner

Arundhati Roy is facing the threat of arrest after claiming that the

disputed territory of Kashmir was not an integral part of India.

India's home ministry is reported to have told police in Delhi that a

case of sedition may be registered against Roy and the Kashmiri

separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani for remarks they made at the

weekend.

Under section 124A of the Indian penal code, those convicted of

sedition face punishment ranging from a fine to life imprisonment.

Roy, who won the Booker in 1997 for The God of Small Things, is a

controversial figure in India for her championing of politically

sensitive causes. She has divided opinion by speaking out in support

of the Naxalite insurgency and for casting doubt on Pakistan's

involvement in the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

The 48-year-old author refused to backtrack. In an email interview

with the Guardian, she said: "That the government is considering

charging me with sedition me has to do with its panic about many

voices, even in India, being raised against what is happening in

Kashmir. This is a new development, and one that must be worrisome

for the government."

More than 100 people are estimated to have died in violence in the

Kashmir valley since June amid continuing protests against Indian

rule in a territory where many of the Muslim majority favour

independence or a transfer of control to Pakistan. Hundreds of young

protesters have been imprisoned in a string of clashes with security

forces.

"Threatening me with legal action is meant to frighten the civil

rights groups and young journalists into keeping quiet. But I think

it will have the opposite effect. I think the government is mature

enough to understand that it's too late to put the lid on now," Roy

said.

Earlier the author, who is currently in Srinagar, Kashmir, said in a

statement: "I said what millions of people here say every day. I said

what I, as well as other commentators, have written and said for

years. Anybody who cares to read the transcripts of my speeches will

see that they were fundamentally a call for justice.

"I spoke about justice for the people of Kashmir who live under one

of the most brutal military occupations in the world; for Kashmiri

Pandits who live out the tragedy of having been driven out of their

homeland; for Dalit soldiers killed in Kashmir whose graves I visited

on garbage heaps in their villages in Cuddalore; for the Indian poor

who pay the price of this occupation in material ways and who are now

learning to live in the terror of what is becoming a police state."

After describing her meetings with people caught up in the Kashmir

violence, she said: "Some have accused me of giving 'hate speeches',

of wanting India to break up. On the contrary, what I say comes from

love and pride. It comes from not wanting people to be killed, raped,

imprisoned or have their fingernails pulled out in order to force

them to say they are Indians. It comes from wanting to live in a

society that is striving to be a just one.

"Pity the nation that has to silence its writers for speaking their

minds. Pity the nation that needs to jail those who ask for justice,

while communal killers, mass murderers, corporate scamsters, looters,

rapists, and those who prey on the poorest of the poor roam free."

India's justice minister, Moodbidri Veerappa Moily, described Roy's

remarks as "most unfortunate". He said: "Yes, there is freedom of

speech … it can't violate the patriotic sentiments of the people."

Moily sidestepped questions about the sedition charges, saying he had

yet to see the file on the matter.

Others were less restrained. One person posted a comment on the

Indian Express newspaper website calling for the novelist to be

charged with treason and executed.

Roy said she was not aware of the calls for her death, but said the

comments were part of a "reasonably healthy debate in the Indian

press".

"The rightwing Hindu stormtroopers are furious and say some pretty

extreme things," she told the Guardian.

Roy made her original remarks on Sunday in a seminar – entitled

Whither Kashmir? Freedom or Enslavement, during which she accused

India of becoming a colonial power.

Last week police in Indian-administered Kashmir arrested the

separatist leader Masrat Alam for allegedly organising anti-India

protests. A curfew was also imposed.

LETTER TO SONS OF MALCOLM ABOUT WHITE SUPREMACIST SNIPER IN MALMO, SWEDEN, FROM A BROTHER THERE

Black communities in Malmö, like everywhere else, stand up with strength, collectively and militantly for your family, friends and communities. Organise street watch teams on every street and hunt this white supremacist terrorist(s). We must not cower and continue to fight for our right to be free - Sons of Malcolm

Dear brother Sukant,

I was contacted by brother K this morning with regards to your

request for information about the situation in Malmö and our

reactions. As you already know, for over a year ago, a woman was shot

dead in her car and a man seating next to her seriously injured.

There has been over 17 similar shootings since then, targeting non

white residence of Malmö.

Please observe that the target group includes people of colour born

and raised in Sweden like my own children but also all non-white

immigrants. Skin complexion and looks seem to be his determining

factor as to who is Swede or not.

Bear in mind that the police have known the nature of the situation

for over a year but decided not to inform the general public of it

until last week, which makes me, wonder if the Malmö police actually

have the intention of protecting us. The police and the media has

until last week blamed gangs for the shootings even though, the

police have always known that it was a perpetrator driven by racist

motives targeting non whites.

Both the police and the media have been calling this perpetrator a

lunatic instead of a what he really is a racist terrorist and the

black community amongst others feel extremely abandoned and not taken

seriously.

I was on the radio yesterday and today trying ask questions to both

the police and the politicians. The police tell the media that they

take this situation to be extremely serious and that they have

invested all they have got to try and find this lunatic. However when

I go through the city of Malmö on my way to work, I do not see any

police cars, police officers or anything indicating their presence i

the city in spite of what they keep telling the media.

I don't feel safe and everyone that looks like me feels the same way.

The question is what would have happened if this was a Muslim man

shooting white Swedes with blond hair? I am sure that the police and

the media would have called him a terrorist and every single

policeman, car, helicopter and intelligence would have been sent to

Malmö.

I keep asking this question but no one seem to know the answer why

this individual/s is not considered a terrorist. I cannot help to

think that its probably because my life a Afro-Swede is not worth as

much as a white blond Swedes life is worth and whenever an immigrant

or a citizen of colour is a victim of a crime, then it is an

integration problem or a gang related problem.

Two days ago, the government sent the minister of integration to

Malmö as if these shootings have to do with the failure of immigrants

to integrate instead of seeing it as a national security problem

where a terrorist is shooting human beings, Swedish citizens and

ordinary human beings who have nothing what so ever to do with gangs

or criminal activities.

The journalist that interviewed me on the radio asked me today what I

would do if the police do not step up their activities, I responded

that if I have to move from my own home country and my children's

home country SWEDEN because I fear that we might be killed, then

Sweden will be considered a failed state and therefore is no better

than Afghanistan or Somalia are any other state when citizens flee

from their countries because the state is incapable of securing their

safety.

I really hope that the government will take its responsibility in

protecting the people of Malmö just as they would do if it were white

blond citizens in the line fire.

THE EDL CHALLENGE TO ANTI-RACISTS AND BLACK COMMUNITIES

EDL, Borne out of Empire pride and New Labour

Lizzie Cocker

Morning Star

26 Oct 2010

Over the past 13 years the relentless promotion of liberal Western

values and multiculturalism in Britain, mirrored by the absence of an

internationalist and civil rights counterweight, has handed a gift to

the far-right which today it is cashing in.

While the values and multiculturalism promoted by the previous Labour

government were always absent of any substance, the English Defence

League (EDL) is joined across the world, including with the US Tea

Party, the Dutch Party for Freedom and the Swedish Sweden Democrats,

in proclaiming that not only has multiculturalism failed but it is a

threat to those values which it is now beginning to define.

Putting discussions about who controls the EDL aside, it stands out

as being the only movement in England that is galvanising young

working-class white people - and fast.

From its beginnings just last year the EDL now claims almost 40,000

members on its Facebook page and has mobilised hundreds of those in

three cities over the past two months.

Not only is this the generation a product of "failed"

multiculturalism, it is the generation of the "war on terror."

Exacerbated by domestic policies which have increased segregation in

communities along ethnic and religious lines, these young people have

rejected the insistence under 13 years of Labour government that

Britain does have its own cultural identity, one which is made up of

many cultures preserving themselves.

But that discourse been accompanied by a whitewash of why those

cultures exist in their various manifestations in Britain in the

first place and so its only success has been in protecting the

sentiment that Britain's imperialist past is glorious.

The flipside of that being that the glory depends on perpetuating a

dehumanised image of those who resisted that imperialism - those

whose cultures, we are assured, are a vital part of Britain's

multicultural identity.

As the war on terror took off, Labour's funding of Muslim pressure

groups in the name of "social cohesion" - vital for the credibility

of multicultural identity - was coupled with its dehumanisation of

Muslims at home and abroad to justify the imperialist pillage of

Middle Eastern and Afghan lands and the oppression of their resisting

peoples.

This created hypocrites out of the Establishment in the eyes of the

white working-class EDL members - the same demographic targeted for

support for the illegal wars and for army recruitment.

After all, for nine years the fear and resentment inducing debate

about an enemy and its drive to Islamify the West has been

relentless.

In reality working-class people in this country, and indeed across

the world, benefit the least from British capitalism and the

US-headed imperialism which since World War II has sustained it.

But in the face of an education system which does little to help

young people understand social problems in their communities,

working-class black, Asian and people from ethnic minorities have

cultures from across the Third World that have and are resisting

imperialism to readily identify with.

This is on top of cultural currents in Britain that have flourished

out of black and Asian resistance to police and far-right brutality.

These cultures open up a range of references for youngsters to

understand the imperialist system in which they live.

Meanwhile the lack of any effective political alternative

historically to that system in the English belly of empire has left

the system able to dictate the culture of white working-class people.

This has left them with little other than cultural references that

make them aspire to a place within that system and does nothing to

help them understand their social conditions.

So the EDL has filled the void. While the media and politicians tell

us extreme Islam is the biggest threat we face, the EDL uses its

criticisms of Islam and the Koran to provide a false understanding of

those social conditions. But just as importantly, it is also using

these criticisms to shape an identity for its members - one which

gives attention to people who have hitherto been ignored.

It is an identity defined by everything the EDL sees as a

contradiction to Islam. This positioning also enables the EDL to

undermine claims that it is a typical, homophobic, neonazi, macho

fascist outfit.

So at a rally of approximately 200 members last Sunday in the heart

of London on Kensington High Street, the pink union jack and rainbow

flag in support of gay rights flew high. And speakers made numerous

references in support of women.

Moreover, in spite of leadership claims to be against the wars in

Iraq and Afghanistan, overwhelmingly EDL members support the fight of

the troops which they see as part of the fight against the spread of

Islamification.

But most significantly, that rally was specifically called near the

Israeli embassy to show solidarity with the zionist mission for a

pure Jewish state free from Islamic influence.

That solidarity was sealed with the invitation of a "distinguished

guest," activist from the far-right US Tea Party movement and

California Senate candidate Rabbi Nachum Shifren.

Before criticising "Hitlerism," EDL Luton division member Kevin

Carroll said: "Israel has a right to defend itself from any

aggressor, Islamist or otherwise. And if those two things make me a

zionist than so be it, I must be a zionist."

Arab and Asian people across the country are already paying the

greatest price for the EDL emerging as the upholder of radical white

working-class identity and are left with no choice but to physically

defend themselves.

And in Harrow, Tower Hamlets and Bradford in particular they have

successfully defended their communities from the physical threat -

albeit with virtually no organisation.

If the EDL would have been similarly embarrassed in Leicester earlier

this month it would have been a potentially fatal setback for them.

Nonetheless the conditions are ripe for working-class young people

from all backgrounds to be galvanised by any movement that

effectively engages with their plight, however shady their

intentions.

But the anger of those young people will only be focused into

changing those conditions when they are part of a movement which both

deals with the deficiencies of an education system that fails to

harbour understanding of social problems in our communities, and

equips them to deal with those problems.

SONS OF MALCOLM WISHES THE SWEDISH GANGS ALL THE BEST IN CATCHING RACIST SNIPER

Ex-gang members hunt Malmö gunman: report

Published: 25 Oct 10

Ex-members of criminal gangs in Malmö in southern Sweden have taken

up the hunt for an unknown gunman thought to be responsible for

nearly 20 shootings targeting people with immigrant backgrounds.

According to the local Sydsvenskan newspaper, the former leader of

one of the town’s largest criminal networks is among a group of “old

friends who have stuck together”and who are now actively looking

for the gunman which has left Malmö’s immigrant community gripped

with fear.

“He had better hope that we don’t find him first,” a man who referred

to himself as “Leo” told the newspaper during an interview in his

apartment in the city’s Rosengård neighbourhood.

The man believes he and his friends have better knowledge of the area

where the shootings have taken place and will likely find the gunman

before the police.

“It will be much easier for us to catch him than for the police,” he

told the newspaper.

At a Monday morning afternoon press briefing, police in Malmö

expressed urged concerned citizens to leave the investigation to the

police.

"People shouldn't take the law into their own hands," said criminal

inspector Börje Sjöholm.

"It’s totally reprehensible. You can’t have that in a society

governed by the rule of law; it’s the job of the police to uphold law

and order."

Sjöholm added that a number of false alarms had come in at the

weekend.

"We received calls about a number of shootings that didn't turn out

to be shootings," he said.

He explained that a special investigative group was launched after

police concluded that several unexplained shootings in the city may

be related.

“We’ve gone through the shootings we’ve had. When we realized it

could be the same perpetrator we decided to launch this

investigation. We’re talking about 15 shootings or so in the span of

a year,” he said.

However four additional shootings have taken place since the

investigation began which have been added to the original 15

incidents.

Altogether eight people have been injured, and one killed in the

shootings.

“We don’t want to say exactly which shootings,” he said.

Sjöholm also commented on the weapons believed to be used in the

shootings.

“We’ve confirmed that a number of weapons have been used in several

shootings,” he said, although he refused to confirm how many

shootings may be tied to the same gun.

Sjöholm also explained that police believe they are hunting a single

individual.

"The profiling group has gone through all the shootings and things

there is a strong grounds to believe it's the work of one and the

same assailant, but we can't let ourselves get locked into that," he

said.

Police nevertheless hope they have secured DNA evidence from a man

who beat and eventually fired a shot at a tailor and hairdresser in

the Augustenborg district on Saturday night.

“The tailor was headbutted, so we’ve taken swabs, taken clothing and

samples. We’ll send them over to the National Forensics Lab straight

away tomorrow morning for analysis,” Ewa-Gun Westford of the Malmö

police told the Aftonbladet newspaper on Sunday evening.

Police in Skåne county received a number of calls about suspected

shootings on Sunday night.

“Since 8pm, we’ve had eight or ten calls. We’ve gone out to all of

them, but nothing has proven to be acute,” police spokesperson Sofie

Österheim told the TT news agency.

Tensions in the city remain high as one young women learned on Sunday

night when she was stopped by two police officers at Nobeltorget

square.

“A caller warned of a woman wearing dark clothes and shorts who had a

holster on her thigh with a gun in it,” said Calle Persson of the

Skåne county police.

It turned out that the woman was on her way to a costume party.

“We pointed out to her that her clothing was in appropriate,” said

Persson.

Robert F Williams and Mabel Williams. Pioneers of militant self-defence in the Black civil-rights movement. Read of his arguments on the Sons of Malcolm blog HERE.

VIDEO: RACIST SNIPER SHOOTS 18 IN SWEDEN

Black communities and their allies in Malmo in Sweden need to organise militant, extensive, wide and comprehensive community defence and community watch to catch this racist(s).

No one will defend us, but us.

BRIXTON, LONDON - GENTRIFICATION IS RIPPING APART OUR COMMUNITIES

Brixton: regeneration or gentrification?

Paul Dayle

Guardian CiF

It's ironic: Brixton, like Harlem in New York, is feted as a cultural hub just as its identity as a black neighbourhood dissolves

I have always felt that Brixton, London is the centre of the world for people of colour. Now that London's Heritage Lottery Fund and Lord Mayor have unveiled a plan to build the UK's black cultural archives there at a cost of £5m, I have even more reason to think so.

A collage of ethnicities form on Brixton's high street in the middle of any given day. As a newly-minted immigrant from Jamaica, it was here that I first saw a woman in a hijab driving a doubledecker bus. This is the site of Amy Winehouse's tryst in her song "Me and Mr Jones". Brixton: a veritable metropolis for south London's outer boroughs and neighbouring inner cities.

Brixton bears the weight of a chequered history – notoriously, for race-related riots in the 1980s. The names of streets – Coldharbour Lane, Electric Avenue, Acre Lane, to name a few – carry an edginess that captures the stories of generations of Brixtonians. The themes have remained consistent through the years: from Coldharbour Lane describing basic accommodation offered to rough travellers in the 1800s; to Electric Avenue conveying the excitement of being the first street to be lit by electricity in London. This is an area that is defined by progressive change alongside material deprivation.

If that vibe is endemic, it is perhaps not surprising that Brixton became a popular home for the first set of African and Caribbean immigrants who sailed to the UK on the Empire Windrush in 1940s, as well as for succeeding generations. Over the years, it has borne all the contradictions of immigrant communities – unemployment and high levels of crime, with wells of creative brilliance. For many outside looking in, Brixton seems like the unpredictable distant cousin.

The BBC reported this summer that Prince Charles and Camilla visited Brixton market – recently named a listed building of historical interest. The royal couple would have missed a face of the neighbourhood that would not be evident in a midday visit during the business day. They wouldn't have seen the clumps of suited City types who barrel into the subway in the morning, to return at night; and the spattering of early evening joggers darting pass couples walking ornamental dogs on their way to Brockwell park.

Predominantly white and middle-class, the newest residents are the face of a resurgent Brixton, who are mostly taking advantage of the area's proximity to the city. As property prices soared in London's last boom, many homeowners in the area sold and moved further south into the suburbs. The pattern of homeownership has changed dramatically – in favour of the more affluent.

Comparisons with New York City's Harlem are, therefore, appropriate. Both Harlem and Brixton are alike for their large black populations and historical significance. They both have seen periods as a sought-after cultural centre, as well as decades of social and economic decline. The decision by President Clinton to make Harlem the home for his post-presidency office and foundation, and the attendant rise in property values in the area – pricing out many of the neighbourhood's longstanding African American residents – has become emblematic of the gentrification debate.

Does it matter when increased commercial activity leads to radical changes in the ethnic and cultural makeup of communities?

I moved out of Brixton last week, further south into a neighbouring suburb. The recession, and redundancy, made it prudent for me to find a flat elsewhere. One morning about a month ago, as I raced toward the underground – the smell of incense wafting in the air and a street preacher blaring the news of the next coming of Jesus Christ – I looked up to see a fully operational Starbucks coffee shop. It had sprung up so quickly: people were milling around inside as if it had always been there. If there was ever any doubt that Brixton's gentrification is well-advanced, the argument had just closed. I smiled wistfully and descended into the subway.

It would be ironic if Brixton's recognition as an iconic black space in Britain comes just at the point when there is a mass exodus of its black residents.

BLACK THOUGHT CHANNEL's TOP TEN BLACK POWER BOOKS