Fwd: [PMARC] Dalits Media Watch - News Updates 11.02.10

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Peoples Media Advocacy & Resource Centre-PMARC <pmarc2008@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Feb 11, 2010 at 1:16 PM
Subject: [PMARC] Dalits Media Watch - News Updates 11.02.10
To: Dalits Media Watch <PMARC@dgroups.org>

Dalits Media Watch

News Updates 11.02.10

Dalit woman panchayat president alleges attack - The Hindu

http://www.hindu.com/2010/02/11/stories/2010021159730700.htm

President's kin usurped land, says court - The Times Of India

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Presidents-kin-usurped-land-says-court/articleshow/5558105.cms

Group Clash

Dhanaks see police bias, hold protest - The Tribune

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2010/20100211/haryana.htm#8

Centre to appoint 'Lok Karmi' in panchayats to help villagers - Zee News

http://www.zeenews.com/news603232.html

'SCs being denied their rightful due' - Indian express

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/scs-being-denied-their-rightful-due/578227/0

Bid to solve caste row in Odisha village fails - Kalinga Times

http://www.kalingatimes.com/odisha_news/news2010/20100210_Bid_to_solve_caste_row_in_Odisha_village_fails.htm

Ex gratia for SC, ST students' parents - Express Buzz

http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=Ex+gratia+for+SC,+ST+students%E2%80%99+parents&artid=vuJsqTCkFg8=&SectionID=mvKkT3vj5ZA=&MainSectionID=fyV9T2jIa4A=&SectionName=nUFeEOBkuKw=&SEO

SC, ST students to get relief in case of death in hostel - The Pioneer

http://www.dailypioneer.com/234975/SC-ST-students-to-get-relief-in-case-of-death-in-hostel.html

The Hindu

Dalit woman panchayat president alleges attack

http://www.hindu.com/2010/02/11/stories/2010021159730700.htm

Special Correspondent

MADURAI: A Dalit woman panchayat president of Sivaganga district has alleged that she was attacked with a knife on the Republic Day by a caste Hindu government employee with the intention of preventing her from hoisting the national flag and convening a meeting of grama sabha.

Narrating the sequence of events at a press conference here on Wednesday, M. Manonmani, an M. Phil. graduate, said that as she was about to leave for the T. Alangulam panchayat office in a car along with her husband, daughter and an Assistant Block Development Officer on January 26, an employee of Paattam panchayat office, confronted her.

Shouting that she should not hoist the national flag, he allegedly attacked her with a knife.

Her husband, who came to her rescue, was also attacked. When an alarm was raised, he fled the scene.

The couple, who sustained serious cut injuries on their hands, lodged a complaint with the Tiruppuvanam police station.

Ms. Manonmani claimed that the employee, who was earlier working in T. Alangulam, used to harass her in many ways and prevented her from discharging her duties. Based on a complaint lodged with the District Collector, an enquiry had been ordered, following which he was transferred to Paattam.

She alleged that the attack was intended to kill her.

Ms. Manonmani wanted the police to register a case under the relevant sections of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and urged the government to provide adequate protection to her family, besides reimbursing her medical expenses.

The Times Of India

President's kin usurped land, says court

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Presidents-kin-usurped-land-says-court/articleshow/5558105.cms

Vaibhav Ganjapure & Vaidehi More, TNN, 11 February 2010, 03:10am IST

NAGPUR: A local court in Maharashtra has upheld a farmer's plea that India's first family had fraudulently usurped a little more than one hectare of his farmland. Surprisingly, the order was made last December 7 but never made public since the order wasn't given to either party until Tuesday.

In the order, the court of Daryapur subdivisional officer Ashok Amankar directed striking off the names of President Pratibha Patil Shekhawat's family from the records and upheld Kishor Bansod's claim that the transfer of ownership was done using fraudulent means.

The SDO, while partly allowing an appeal filed by the aggrieved farmer, cancelled a mutation entry of October 5, 2007, which named, apart from the president's husband Devisingh Shekhawat, family members Siddheshwar, Raghusingh, Bhawarsingh, Kishorsingh and Omsingh Shekhawat.

Devisingh told TOI on Wednesday the allegation was baseless and nothing but a publicity gimmick by the appellant. "The total land of 1.02 hectare was jointly held by Bansod and Siddheshwar Shekhawat and five others," he said.

Devisingh clarified that the court has only partially allowed the appeal while directing revenue officials to measure the land afresh and restore ownership to the original joint owners. Devisingh claimed that Bansod had been illegally cultivating on their piece of land and since he was also working as part-time journalist, was seeking undue publicity. "It might be an error committed by the officials who measured it. I have only one acre of land in my name which I would have donated to any of my family members," he said.

Congress party also rushed to his defence, saying it would be premature to judge him guilty. "It would be wrong to jump to conclusions on the basis of one-sided facts," said party spokesman Abhishek Singhvi.

The SDO also directed superintendent of town planning in Daryapur in Amravati district to measure the disputed tract and asked the Shekhawat family to bear the cost of the exercise.

According to the appellant's counsel Sunil Gajbhiye, Shekhwat family's land was adjacent Bansod's land measuring 1.02 hectares in Chandrapur Khallar village and Shekhawat's wanted Bansod to sell it to them.

Later, revenue officials got the ownership entry in the name of Shekawat family members and it was made official on October 5, 2007 without informing the appellant, Bansod alleged.

Bansod filed an application under Section 247 of Maharashtra Land Ownership Act 1966 before Daryapur SDO's court, demanding immediate stay on the alleged illegal transfer of his land by the Shekhawat family. He contended that after his refusal to sell his land, Shekhawat family members connived with local officials and transferred his land in their names on the key documents.

Only a small bit was left with Bansod as per records.

The Tribune

Group Clash

Dhanaks see police bias, hold protest

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2010/20100211/haryana.htm#8

Tribune News Service

Fatehabad, February 10

Demanding justice, hundreds of men and women belonging to the Dhanak community today held a demonstration against the alleged "partisan" attitude of the police in a case of group clash between their community and Bishnois in Bhirdana village a few days ago.

One person belonging to the Dhanak community was killed in the clash on February 3.

The agitators first gathered at the local grain market and later went in procession to the mini-secretariat, blocking the national highway several times on their way by squatting on the road.

"A reign of terror has been unleashed on us because we are Dalits," alleged the demonstrators, adding that children of their community had been shunted out of the government school of the village to pressure them for a compromise.

They alleged that only three persons had so far been arrested by the police, though over 100 persons were involved in a planned attack on the Dalits in which Madan Lal, a Dhanak, was killed and property worth several lakhs was burnt after the mob set their belongings on fire.

"Those named in the FIR have been roaming free in the village and have been threatening us with dire consequences using caste-based abusive language," the agitators alleged.

Sushil Indora, a former MP, demanded justice for them. The agitators submitted a memorandum to Deputy Commissioner CG Rajini Kaanthan, who immediately sent in to the DEO and asked him to ensure that no child was made to leave the school.

Zee News

Centre to appoint 'Lok Karmi' in panchayats to help villagers

http://www.zeenews.com/news603232.html

New Delhi: With illiteracy being a major stumbling block in implementation of its schemes in rural areas, the Centre is considering to appoint an educated person from SC, ST or minority communities in each panchayat as 'Lok Karmi' to help villagers.

In a draft proposal, the Ministry of Rural Development has also sought to engage NGOs in the ambitious programme by designating them as 'Lok Sewaks', who would in turn appoint and guide Lok Karmis in their territorial jurisdiction, which would not be more than four blocks in a district.

Seeking to secure maximum participation of rural women in the programme, the Ministry has proposed that Lok Karmis should preferably be women and men be appointed if a suitable women in not available in the area.

"Every Lok Sevak must ensure that not less than 50 per cent of the selected candidates are women," the draft Lok Sewak and Lok Karmi scheme of the ministry proposes.

The proposal seeks to support those people in rural areas who are "largely non-literate, poor and at the bottom of the social hierarchy," an official said.

Citing the example of NREGA workers, he said many of them are unable to record their rights or to articulate their demands in a written form as they are not literate.

Indian express

'SCs being denied their rightful due'

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/scs-being-denied-their-rightful-due/578227/0

The Punjab State Commission for Scheduled Castes came down heavily on the state government on Wednesday, alleging that the government was bypassing constitutional provisions and denying the scheduled castes their rightful due during allocation of development funds and reservations in jobs.

PSCSC Chairman Naranjan Singh, while addressing a gathering here, urged the Punjab DGP to review all cases of atrocities against Dalits and take action against erring police officers.

Singh, along with Dalip Singh Pandhi, member of the commission, was here to preside over a seminar of the Dalit community. Singh expressed his concern over the low conviction rate in cases registered under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act in the state.

Pandhi added, "The commission has powers to take action against officers who try to suppress the rights of the weaker sections. Such officials should mend their ways or the commission will be forced to ask the government to remove such officers from service."

Principal Secretary T R Sarangal said there were adequate laws to prevent atrocities against the Dalits, and there was a need to bring awareness among the poor people on their rights.

Former MLA Tarsem Jodhan said that there was a huge gap between the laws and the implementing agencies, which was the main reason for social and economic exploitation of the downtrodden. He claimed that 50,000 families in the state did not have shelter, from which one could well judge their condition of living and the functioning of the government.

Buta summons Kapurthala DC, SSP

JALANDHAR: Chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes, Buta Singh, has summoned the deputy commissioner and SSP of Kapurthala on February 12 in his office at New Delhi for a meeting to explain as to what action has been taken on a complaint addressed to the commission on the alleged infringement of the rights of Joga Singh, sarpanch of Mansoorwal Bet village. The commission has taken cognizance of a complaint sent by Bholath MLA Sukhpal Khaira who had alleged that the said sarpanch, despite being duly elected and having majority in the gram panchayat, was being victimised by Akali workers and was not allowed to function.

Kalinga Times

Bid to solve caste row in Odisha village fails

http://www.kalingatimes.com/odisha_news/news2010/20100210_Bid_to_solve_caste_row_in_Odisha_village_fails.htm

KalingaTimes Correspondent

Kendrapara, Feb. 10: The bid to amicably settle the mid-day meal controversy that has snowballed into a volatile caste-related conflict in a remote village under Rajnagar tehsil of this coastal Odisha district today failed to elicit desired result.

Earlier yesterday the upper caste students had skipped classes in the government-run primary school in Sanamarichapalli village that continues to be embroiled in an unsavoury caste-bound conflict stemming from MDM preparation.

The officials of local tehsil, block besides the school & mass education department held several rounds of discussion with both the groups to solve the tricky issue. But nothing came out of it as both sticking to their stubborn stand, said official sources.

"However stalemate continues despite our best efforts. Both the factions continue to maintain unyielding stand. While upper-caste want that cooking that is being done by dalits be stopped, the other factions remain unrelenting and want the continuation of the practice," said an official.

Meanwhile, the school wore a deserted look for second successive day as more than one hundred upper-caste students skipped classes. Hardly 30 of them turned up to attend classes.

"Small children know little of caste divide. Parents should desist from poisoning their impressionable minds," remarked a schoolteacher.

Since 19 January, the sleepy village in Rajnagar police station area has come under spotlight. The cooking of MDM in the school by scheduled caste women had triggered an ugly row as a section of villagers had stopped the meal preparation and had locked up the women cooks.

Police have so far arrested a member of local village education committee in connection with the incident.

It's pertinent to note that a simmering caste-bound row had erupted in Rajnagar's Keredagada village on 2007 as dalits laid their claim for puja and darshan in the 800-year-old Jagannath temple.

Following timely governmental intervention, the contentious issue was solved with dalits given the nod to enter into the temple and offer puja to lord Jagannath. Prior to the settlement, the Dalits had to peep through the holes along the temple wall to catch glimpse of the deity.

Express Buzz

Ex gratia for SC, ST students' parents

http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=Ex+gratia+for+SC,+ST+students%E2%80%99+parents&artid=vuJsqTCkFg8=&SectionID=mvKkT3vj5ZA=&MainSectionID=fyV9T2jIa4A=&SectionName=nUFeEOBkuKw=&SEO=

Express News Service

BHUBANESWAR: The State Government had decided to pay ex gratia to the parents of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribe students if they die in accidents or of diseases during their stay in hostel while pursuing their studies.

The students will also be eligible for getting compensation if they become permanently disabled during the study period.

Announcing this here today, Minister for Scheduled Tribe and Scheduled Caste Development Bijay Ranjan Singh Bariha said it has come to the notice of the State Government that many SC and ST students die in hostels because of diseases, snakebite or other accidents or become permanently disabled. The Minister said that keeping this in view, the compensation amount has been fixed at Rs 50,000 for the parents of the students who die in hostels. Similarly, permanently disabled students will receive Rs 25,000 as compensation. This will benefit students of eight ME Schools under the department, 11 Ekalabya model schools, 19 Orissa model tribal education society and hostels managed by the ST and ST Development Department in schools under the School and Mass Education Department.

In case of a death in the hostel, the headmaster or headmistress and hostel superintendent will have to bring this to the notice of the district collector, village health worker, government hospital or police station immediately.

Compensation will be paid after approval of district collector, he added.

The Pioneer

SC, ST students to get relief in case of death in hostel

http://www.dailypioneer.com/234975/SC-ST-students-to-get-relief-in-case-of-death-in-hostel.html

PNS | Bhubaneswar

If any SC and ST students die while staying in hostel, the immediate kith and kin of the student would be awarded with compensation, Government said in a Press release.

SC and ST Development Minister Bijay Ranjan Singhbariha said the family would be provided with Rs 50,000 compensation. "If the student become handicapped during the stay in hostel would be given a compensation of Rs 25,000," he said.

The school authorities would have to give all information immediately regarding the students' health to the District Collector, Village Health Workers, Government Hospital or the police station. "District Collector will take the final decision on the issue of compensation," Minister said.

--
.Arun Khote
On behalf of
Dalits Media Watch Team
(An initiative of "Peoples Media Advocacy & Resource Centre-PMARC")
..................................................................
Peoples Media Advocacy & Resource Centre- PMARC has been initiated with the support from group of senior journalists, social activists, academics and intellectuals from Dalit and civil society to advocate and facilitate Dalits issues in the mainstream media. To create proper & adequate space with the Dalit perspective in the mainstream media national/ International on Dalit issues is primary objective of the PMARC.

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Re: Palash Biswas requests a review of the knol "Economic Ethnic Cleansing is the Real History"

Asale AMMAR Blog Readership Expand korechhe Bhayamkar Bhabe. Feedback, newsupdate avam Analysiser par mailing er janye  time hochhe na. Tachhada ANEKE Object kare jehetu Net Audiencer Singh Bhag Brahin Mindset e AKRANTA. tara subaltern kichhui bhabte pare na. SPACE dite NARAJ.

Pl visit my blogs:

http://indianholocaustmyfatherslifeandtime.blogspot.com/

On Thu, Feb 11, 2010 at 1:26 AM, Mohammad Hossain <MHossain@yorktech.com> wrote:

Palash Babu:

Ki Khabar? Onek din apnar lekha pi ni.

Thanks,

M. Hossain
USA

-----Original Message-----
From: palashbiswaskl@gmail.com [mailto:palashbiswaskl@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 10, 2010 1:15 PM
To: Mohammad Hossain
Subject: Palash Biswas requests a review of the knol "Economic Ethnic
Cleansing is the Real History"

Hello,

You are invited by Palash Biswas to write a review for the knol:
Economic
Ethnic Cleansing is the Real History. Click the following link where you

can read the knol and decide to accept or decline the request.

http://knol.google.com/k/palash-biswas/economic-ethnic-cleansing-is-the-
real/37io5whq9pds7/6?token=6j1kngkdg0oye6e

--
Palash Biswas
Pl Read:
http://nandigramunited-banga.blogspot.com/

Fwd: MY 52nd OPEN MESSAGE TO ALL PEOPLE OF GOOD WILL

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Benjamin Merhav <benjaminmerhav@hotmail.com>
Date: Thu, Feb 11, 2010 at 6:54 AM
Subject: MY 52nd OPEN MESSAGE TO ALL PEOPLE OF GOOD WILL
To: bob@sourcewatch.org

http://zionisttorture.blogspot.com/
MY 52nd OPEN MESSAGE TO ALL PEOPLE OF GOOD WILL


This is my 193rd post on my autobiography weblogs protesting the zionist Gestapo's ongoing torture of myself by sleep deprivation, and the ongoing psychiatric torture of my daughter and of my son, all here in Australia. Most of my protest posts are on this and on the previous 3 weblogs of my autobiography :

http://5thautobiography.blogspot.com/
http://themissingautobiography.blogspot.com/
http://7thautobiography.blogspot.com/

The hostile silence imposed by Raji Sourani, the Palestinian member of the ICJ Executive Committee, and by his Palestinian cronies, continues with the tacit approval of the rest of the Palestinian leaders, thus encouraging the continuation of the torture by the zionist Gestapo.

Only the indomitable Dalit people of India ( the "untouchables" ) - some 250 million indigenous people who still struggle for justice there ! - continue to show their just generosity and inspiring humanism by republishing my posts on their websites. The following are the latest 6 links to a couple of Dalit weblogs :


http://bleedingindianheart.blogspot.com/2010/02/fwd-my-46th-open-message-to-all-people.html

http://nandigramunited-banga.blogspot.com/2010/02/fwd-my-47th-open-message-to-all-people.html

http://palashscape.blogspot.com/2010/02/fwd-my-48th-open-message-to-all-people.html

http://palashscape.blogspot.com/2010/02/fwd-my-49th-open-message-to-all-people.html

http://palashscape.blogspot.com/2010/02/fwd-my-50th-open-message-to-all-people.html

http://palashscape.blogspot.com/2010/02/fwd-my-51st-open-message-to-all-people.html

I ask again every reader to send immediately protest messages to the following email addresses, and with a copy to my email address (ben.merhav@gmail.com or benjaminmerhav@hotmail.com ).

1. to the Australian government (email r.mcclelland.mp@aph.gov.au;
kevin.rudd@aph.gov.au) a message along the following lines :

" I protest the continuous torture of the Australian citizen Benjamin Merhav by sleep deprivation and his daughter and son by psychiatric torture in Melbourne, Australia.

This torture is perpetrated against Benjamin Merhav directly by the clandestine arm of the State of Israel (the zionist Gestapo), and indirectly by the same culprit against Benjamin's daughter and son.

I demand that the Australian government instruct ASIO to protect these Australian citizens, and stop these terrorist crimes by a foreign government on Australian soil immediately !"

2. to ICJ-Australia and ICJ Secretariat (emailpresident@icj-aust.org.au,chair@icj-aust.org.au,sec-gen@icj-aust.org.au,
info@icj.dk,info@icj.org ) a message along the following lines :

"I protest your refusal to investigate Benjamin Merhav's complaint against the Australian government's approval of ASIO's violation of the rule of law in Australia, regarding the continuous torture in Melbourne of himself, his daughter and his son , all Australian citizens, by the clandestine arm of the State of Israel (the zionist Gestapo).

I demand your immediate intervention to protect these Australian citizens, to stop the perpetration of these terrorist crimes In Australia, and to end these violations of the rule of law by the Australian government in Australia."

3. to the PCHR and to all the Palestinian leaders in occupied Palestine ( email english@palestine-info.co.uk ;
pchr@pchrgaza.org ) message along the following
lines :

"I protest the betrayal of Benjamin Merhav by Raji Sourani to the zionist Gestapo's torture. I demand Sourani's replacement on the ICJ and on FIDH with a honest Palestinian patriot who would initiate protest action against the torture of Benjamin Merhav, his daughter, and his son by the zionist Gestapo in Australia.

I demand that the Palestinian leaders encourage Palestinians and their supporters to protest this ongoing terrorist torture by the zionist Gestapo, and to demand that it should stop immediately.

---

Browse profiles for free! View photos of singles in your area.

--
Palash Biswas
Pl Read:
http://nandigramunited-banga.blogspot.com/

Fwd: [wvns] Jewish Attack on Black Academics

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: WVNS <ummyakoub@yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, Feb 11, 2010 at 8:04 AM
Subject: [wvns] Jewish Attack on Black Academics
To: wvns@yahoogroups.com

 

Professor Tony Martin & the Jewish Onslaught

Incident at Wellesley College:
Jewish Attack on Black Academics
by Tony Martin
http://www.blacksandjews.com/TonyMartin.html

In 1993, Prof. Tony Martin added the Nation of Islam's book The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews, Vol. 1 to his Wellesley College course on Black History. Thus began the Jewish Onslaught against him and all Black academics in America.

Biography

TONY MARTIN has taught at Wellesley College, Massachusetts, since 1973. He was tenured in 1975 and has been a full professor of Africana Studies since 1979. Prior to coming to Wellesley he taught at the University of Michigan-Flint, the Cipriani Labour College (Trinidad) and St. Mary's College (Trinidad). He has been a visiting professor at the University of Minnesota, Brandeis University, Brown University and The Colorado College. He also spent a year as an honorary research fellow at the University of the West Indies, Trinidad.

Professor Martin has authored or compiled and edited eleven books, including Literary Garveyism: Garvey, Black Arts and the Harlem Renaissance and the classic study of the Garvey Movement, Race First: the Ideological and Organizational Struggles of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association. In 1965 he qualified as a barrister-at-law at the Honourable Society of Gray's Inn (London). He did his M.A. and Ph.D. in history at Michigan State University and the B.Sc. honours degree in economics at the University of Hull (England).

Professor Martin is currently working on biographies of three Caribbean women -- Amy Ashwood Garvey, Audrey Jeffers and Trinidad's Kathleen Davis ("Auntie Kay"). He is also nearing completion of The Afro-Trinidadian: Endangered Species/Oh, What a Nation and a study of European Jewish immigration to Trinidad in the 1930's.

Incident at Wellesley College:
Jewish Attack on Black Academics
by Tony Martin

In January 1993, I was minding my own business and teaching my Wellesley College survey course on African American History when a funny thing happened. The long arm of Jewish intolerance reached into my classroom. Unknown to me, three student officers of the Jewish Hillel organization (campus B'nai B'rith stablemates of the Anti-Defamation League), sat in on my class and remained for a single period only. Their purpose was to monitor my presentation. As one of them explained in a campus meeting later, Jewish students had noticed The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews among my offerings in the school bookstore. The book documents the considerable Jewish involvement in the transatlantic African slave trade, the dissemination of which knowledge they, as Jews, considered an "anti-Semitic" and most "hateful" act.

One hour and ten minutes undercover convinced these three young Jews that I was teaching this book as a legitimate historical work. They seemed to think that it belonged rather in the realm of "hate literature."

There appears to have been some prior collusion between the Hillel students and their adult counterpart, the Anti-Defamation League, for Hillel almost immediately began passing out ADL materials targeting the book. These included, inevitably, an ADL reprint of "Black Demagogues and Pseudo-Scholars" by Harvard University's Henry Louis Gates, Jr., (New York Times, 20 July, 1992), African America's most notorious Judaeophile. In the weeks and months to come, Gates would be quoted in nearly every attack on my use of the book, as proof that "all" respectable, distinguished and right thinking African American scholars condemned it. The Jews unilaterally anointed Gates with the mantle of head African American scholar in charge of Black academia. He became, in their contrived and wishful thinking, the personification of the entire African American community.

The Hillel activists left my class and headed straight for the president, dean and associate dean of the college. They then went to the current chair of my own department, Africana Studies. Like their elders (for example in the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, by whom Hillel operatives are formally trained in the art of deception and dirty tricks), they evinced a bulldog-like instinct for going after the jugular of their intended victims. For the last three decades of Jewish assaults on Black progress, that jugular has usually meant the economic livelihood of Black people.

By the time that four of the Hillel executive and their rabbi director came to see me they had already mobilized those they perceived of as capable of doing me grievous economic harm. Their task was made considerably less arduous by the fact that the dean of the college, incoming acting president, outgoing chair of the board of trustees, incoming chair of the board of trustees, head and deputy head of the student government, most of the faculty holding endowed chairs and a goodly portion of the tenured faculty, not to mention sundry other persons in high positions, were all Jews. The dean of the college is also on the advisory board of the Friends of Wellesley Hillel.

Dr. Martin's Self-Defense

In January 1993, on the eve of the Jewish onslaught against me (for teaching that Jews were implicated in the African slave trade), I already had some interest in Black-Jewish relations. It is difficult not to, if one teaches African American history. I had also done some research on Jewish refugee immigration to Trinidad in the 1930's and '40's. This research was facilitated by the cordial cooperation of Jewish informants in two Caribbean countries. United States Jews encountered in the course of the research displayed the gamut of reactions, from friendliness to suspicion to hostility. The idea of a Black man turning up at a Jewish archive to research Jewish history proved unnerving to some. (On the other hand, Jewish scholars are a familiar sight at Black archives, not only as researchers but sometimes even as staff archivists. One of the most prestigious of the Black archival repositories, the Moorland- Spingarn Collection of Howard University, is actually part-named after a Jew).

At one of the Jewish archives I visited, the lady in charge characteristically put me through the appropriate litmus test. "Do you know Len Jeffries?" she asked, with the mien of one presiding over an inquisition. "I wonder if knowing Len Jeffries automatically disqualifies me from using these archives," I mused to myself. But, like George Washington, I could not tell a lie, so I was constrained to be forthcoming. "Yes, I know him," I replied. "We are professional colleagues. I have known him for many years." She was visibly taken aback by this answer and I feared the worst.

She regained her composure, however, and the interrogation continued. "Have you read The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews?" "I have heard of it," I replied truthfully, "but I have not read it. Funny enough, though, I passed someone selling it on the sidewalk just a few minutes ago." My reading of the book was still a few months into the future, but already I could not fathom what all the fuss was about. "If it is established," I suggested to her, "that white people enslaved Africans, and if Jews were an important part of white society, then why should anyone be upset by a book that illustrates the Jewish role in the slave trade?"

My innocent question now appears to have been imbued with prophetic insight. Or maybe it was simply a case of famous last words. The fact that I cannot remember with precision what her response was, in an otherwise clearly recollected conversation, probably reflects the imprecision of her answer. She could not come up with a coherent rationale for her denunciation of the book. As I reflect in hindsight on that conversation, with the benefit of six months of the Jewish onslaught to guide me, it seems as if the major Jewish agencies issue edicts, as it were. Then the Jewish rank and file simply fall in line. "Theirs not to make reply,/Theirs not to reason why,/ Theirs but to do and die...." The power of the Jewish leadership over their constituency is impressive indeed, the presence of some dissenting voices notwithstanding.

But our conversation was not over yet. It was to take an even more unexpected turn. "Have you heard of the Crown Heights riots?" she enquired, referring to tensions between the Black and Hasidic Jewish communities in Brooklyn, New York. A confrontation had been triggered by the unpunished killing of young Gavin Cato and the maiming of his cousin Angela Cato by a Hasidic vehicle, as the children played on the sidewalk in front of their house. A Jewish student, Yankel Rosenbaum, was killed in the ensuing scuffles. "Yankel Rosenbaum was doing research right here," she said. "He was in here every day, reading the files, just like you. He sat at the same table where we have placed your materials." Even with my own personal Jewish onslaught still many months into the future, this revelation proved a sobering one to me. And as I ponder it with the benefit of a tempestuous hindsight, I wonder what inscrutable fate brought me to this archive, to this conversation, to Yankel Rosenbaum's table, at a time when my authorship of a book called The Jewish Onslaught would have seemed a bizarre improbability.

I could not know then that I would ere long be plunged into an intense reading of Jewish and Black-Jewish history, covering many lands and historical periods, as I sought to bring to my situation a more wide-ranging perspective. The onslaught of the last six months now threatens to turn me into an expert on Jewish history. For that I must thank the purveyors of intolerance with whom I have had to do battle of late.

What I offer here is an involved yet detached look at the onslaught against me, from my unique vantage point as both intended victim and historian. This is written in the heat of battle. Perhaps time, further study and more reflection may either modify or enrich the analysis offered here. But the immediacy of analysis can only be captured now.

Over the last six months I have been fairly deluged with articles, books, newspaper clippings, letters, unpublished documents and references for further perusal. As if obeying the orders of an unseen force, well-wishers (known and unknown) have seen to it that my crash course in Black-Jewish history should not be wanting in resource materials. Even the senders of hate and hostile mail have fit into the plan, for their clippings have been useful and informative.

Editorial Statement

Barely a week after the publication of The Jewish Onslaught, Wellesley's new president, Diana Chapman Walsh, has taken the extraordinary step of issuing a formal denunciation of the new book. In a December 9, 1993 statement disseminated to all students, faculty, staff, alumnae and "friends of the college" she declares as follows -- "We are profoundly disturbed and saddened by Professor Martin's new book because it gratuitously attacks individuals and groups at Wellesley College through innuendo and the application of racial and religious stereotype."

Due to President Walsh's newness on campus, it can plausibly be surmised that she has relied heavily on the opinions of her advisors. The baleful influence of these shadowy figures is plainly evident in the palpable one-sidedness of the presidential proclamation, in its reliance on sweeping derogatory generalizations and in its inability to support its assertions with documentation of any sort. In all these ways and more the presidential statement is reflective of official and quasi-official approaches of the last twelve months.

Our new president has squandered a golden opportunity to bring fresh leadership and even-handed tolerance to the present controversy.

Martin on the Presidential Denunciation of The Jewish Onslaught

The Jewish Onslaught was published as a response to the unprincipled attacks, defamatory statements, assaults on my livelihood and physical threats directed against me for several months. These emanated principally from the Jewish community and its agents and were triggered by my classroom use of a work detailing Jewish involvement in the African slave trade. In The Jewish Onslaught I sought to put my subjective situation into the context of deteriorating Black-Jewish relations of recent decades. I also attempted to evaluate the tactics used against me in the context of the well-documented dirty tricks that the Jewish groups have used against me in the context of the well-documented dirty tricks that the Jewish groups have used against Andrew Young, Jesse Jackson, David Dinkins, Minister Louis Farrakhan, Len Jeffries, Black parents in Ocean Hill-Brownsville (Brooklyn) and any number of Euro-American individuals and organizations.

The Jewish Onslaught is a book of analysis supported by normal scholarly documentation. There is not a single "stereotype" or generalization in it that is not buttressed by evidence, either from my personal experience of the last year or from the historical record. I challenge President Walsh to move from her broad derogatory generalizations to specific instances to prove otherwise.

President Walsh, like many of the Jewish spokespersons, has a problem with my "recurrent" and allegedly "gratuitous" utilization of "racial or religious identification of individuals...." This is her way of saying that Black people are not allowed to respond to Jews as Jews. Even after being attacked primarily by the Hillel Foundation, American Jewish Committee, Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish Congress, Jewish Community Relations Council and every Jewish newspaper and spokesperson for miles around, I am supposed to maintain the fiction that the onslaught against me is ethnically and religiously indeterminate.

A recent article in Black Books Bulletin mentions over twenty books on Black-Jewish relations in the personal library of its author. The author is aware of only two books by Blacks on the subject. If President Walsh (and the Jewish community) are to have their way, then this will forever remain a one-way discourse. I therefore ask again, as I asked in The Jewish Onslaught, "What makes Jews so special? By what dispensation in Adam's will do they enjoy monopolistic privileges over a debate that concerns Blacks as well as Jews? Who has placed them beyond the reach of scholarly enquiry and ethnic identification?"

President Walsh claims that The Jewish Onslaught "violates the basic principles" of, among other things, the "norms of civil discourse." Yet, in her zeal to uncover "innuendo" in my work she seems to have missed the blatant lack of civility in the many articles attacking me. Is she not aware of Professor Marcellus Andrews' Wellesley News reference to me as a "racist Pied Piper?" Did no one show her his description of Wellesley's Black women as "intellectually weak and morally lazy?" Did Mary Lefkowitz, Mellon Professor in the Humanities, neglect to send President Walsh a complimentary copy of her article in Measure (No. 118, September/October 1993), wherein she maliciously and scurrilously alleged that I called a student "a white fucking bitch?" Lefkowitz alleged further that "The young woman fell down as a result of his onslaught and Martin bent over to continue his rage at her." Did President Walsh not see, in her reading of The Jewish Onslaught, the text of a racist cartoon by a Wellesley alumna in the Boston Jewish Times? The cartoonist designated Black women as "Ms. Washington" (no different than the "Hymietown" remark that Jews claimed to be so scandalized by) and seemed to suggest that Black students be taught from the works of segregationists, Ku Kluxers and pseudo-scientific racists. Did President Walsh not read the Jewish hate mail reproduced in The Jewish Onslaught ? "I hate niggers to my very bone marrow," ran a typical sentence. "Not all Jews debate apes. Some of us want them all to die." I have been a veritable oasis of civility in the present debate.

I agree with Justice Holmes, as quoted by President Walsh -- "The best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market." The Jewish onslaught has consistently striven to stifle the "competition of the market" by its defamatory rantings and its demands for my dismissal. The present presidential proclamation regrettably ranges itself alongside this ignoble campaign.

But "the competition of the market" has yet managed to assert itself, as can be seen in the steadily shifting positions of the onslaught. From an initial denial that Jews had any role in African slavery at all, there slowly emerged a reluctant admission of minor and peripheral involvement. As the debate intensified and the Jewish denial of the undeniable threatened to expose its adherents to ridicule, the Washington Post (first among major newspapers, to the best of my knowledge), was finally permitted to admit the full extent of Jewish culpability. In a carefully staged (and not at all pro-Black article) of October 17, 1993 the deniers of Jewish involvement in the African holocaust were shown to be as wrong as they could be.

The present controversy demands honest dialogue, not crude attempts at demonization. If President Walsh desires to extricate herself from the hole into which she has fallen, let her collaborate with me (and with interested students), on the convening at Wellesley College of a serious scholarly conference on the role of Jews in the African slave trade. She can invite Skip Gates, Cornel West and anyone else acceptable to the Jewish establishment to argue their case. I will nominate an equal number of scholars to defend the perspective which I endorse. The spirit of Justice Holmes will be lifted.

As my mother used to say, "One hand can't clap." As Ray Charles was wont to soulfully sing, "It takes two to tango."

Anti Martin Hatred

Internet Threats
Amherst · An Internet computer message suggested the arming of Jews to kill Blacks immediately following a scholarly address on Black history to the University of Massachusetts community. This threat of violence appeared in the Discussion Group for the National Faculty Network, a collection of college professors throughout the United States. The message was posted to the network the night of the lecture in which Wellesley College professor Tony Martin outlined the oppressive structure of the African slave trade. The computer mailbox address indicated that the writer is a Jewish professor at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts who attended the event:

" Shalom all. I am still shaking right now....I just walked in the door....I know with the Hillel here we are together in a great community -- working on a response to the disgusting events of tonight...but for now I am asking all of you for a response. Learn to operate AK-47, and have good supply of ammunition, so you will be ready when they come to kill us....

And how do we stop these anti-semites from speaking? I doubt there is a way to stop them from speaking. They are more numerous and more prepared to use raw brute force. Even if you could take them to court and win an injuction against these bastards, it will just be seized upon by the rest of the blacks as further evidence of a Jewish conspiracy against blacks."

According to campus police, the gathering, sponsored by the Black student organization, was completely peaceful and the participants were law-abiding. Martin is the author of thirteen books and numerous articles and is the world's foremost expert on the Marcus Garvey movement. According to sources, Professor Martin was immediately informed of the threat but would not comment on security operations.

Jew Stalks Black professor
Russian-Jewish stalker claiming to be "on a mission" threatened to attack Professor Tony Martin at his Wellesley College office. Martin, whose best-selling book The Jewish Onslaught examines the role of organized Jewry in a slanderous attack on Afrocentricity, was unharmed and not present during the April 21 incident.

A "profusely sweating" Alexander Nechaevsky, 34, told campus police that after viewing a televised lecture by Dr. Martin he found him to be "rude and a racist" and came to "confront" him about his views. In the lecture Martin outlined the Jewish origin of the Hamitic Myth which claims that Black humans are cursed black by God and which provided justification for the African slave trade.

Nechaevsky ranted that "he was not a Jewish wimp and that he was from Russia where they know how to handle things." He then conversed at length with a Jewish professor who has led the campus onslaught against Martin.

Martin said that he is not surprised at the attack. "Part of the Jewish onslaught against Black thinkers is to create an atmosphere of intolerance which leads to violent confrontations."

Police ejected Nechaevsky and banned him from Wellesley College property. Later, Martin's office received telephone threats saying that "Tony Martin better watch his step."

__._,_.___

--
Palash Biswas
Pl Read:
http://nandigramunited-banga.blogspot.com/

Fwd: [wvns] Cynthia McKinney: My Country Has Been Hijacked

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: WVNS <ummyakoub@yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, Feb 11, 2010 at 8:36 AM
Subject: [wvns] Cynthia McKinney: My Country Has Been Hijacked
To: wvns@yahoogroups.com

 

My Country Has Been Hijacked"
Munich Peace Rally Speech
By Cynthia McKinney
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24641.htm

Thank you for allowing me to come from the United States and participate in this rally for peace.

My country has been hijacked by a criminal cabal intent on using the hard-earned dollars of the American people for war, occupation, and empire.

As a result, the national leadership of my country, both Democratic and Republican, became complicit in war crimes, torture, crimes against humanity, and crimes against the peace.

As a Member of Congress from the Democratic Party, I drafted Articles of Impeachment against George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Condoleezza Rice. Later, when Democrats voted to support more war rather than take care of the needs of the people, I declared my independence from them and all national leadership; the Green Party nominated me to run for President, which I did on a platform of truth, justice, peace, and dignity.

I watched as Candidate Barack Obama came here to Germany to speak. I saw tears on the faces of many in the crowd who believed that, finally, there was something worth believing in again. That America had turned a page from its evil playbook that had so outraged and disappointed the world. That good was finally about to triumph over evil.

I know that beleaguered people all over the world, victims of cruel and deadly military, economic, imperial policies finally could believe in hope and change. And America could be believed in again.

Everywhere I went all over the world there were pictures of Barack Obama, slogans "Yes, We Can," and the words "Hope" and "Change" plastered everywhere.

And after eight years of George W. Bush, Barack Obama seemed to be the man the world was waiting for.

So when the Candidate became the President, we held our breath in anticipation.

That torture and rendition; spying on innocent, dissenting Americans; war and occupation; crimes against the U.S. Constitution and crimes against the peace would end and that the United States would finally join the community of nations.

Sadly, one year into the Presidency of Barack Obama, that is not the case.

On our front door step we have witnessed U.S. complicity in the overthrow of President Zalaya in Honduras and the hostile takeover of Haiti by 20,000 troops with guns sent in when the devastated people needed food, doctors, and heavy lifting equipment.

President Obama is expanding U.S. troop presence in Colombia, threatening the people's gains in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Cuba, and Nicaragua.

President Obama has drones killing innocent people in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Somalia. And Administration lawyers are trying to figure out how to legally kill U.S. citizens. You even have U.S. assassination teams on German soil!

Sadly, President Obama is guilty of every item I cited in my Articles of Impeachment against President Bush.

Both Tony Blair and President Obama justify war in Afghanistan by citing the tragedy of the September 11th attacks in New York and on the Pentagon. But my government has not told the truth about what really happened that day. Just like they lied to start a war against Iraq.

So what are we to do? Let us work together on behalf of truth, justice, peace, and dignity. I will struggle in the U.S. and I will struggle with you:

Not one more dime for war.


We can't give in and we can't give up. We must take our countries back.

International Peace Conference, Keynote Address

By Cynthia McKinney

The most recent official report on employment states that 85,000 U.S. jobs were lost in the month of December. Everything I have read indicates that things are going to get a lot worse in the United States before they get better.

Already, the United States has slipped to 7th in the world's best places to live, behind France, Australia, Switzerland, Germany, and New Zealand. The U.S. place in the world will slip more than that in the future if the brakes are not put on current trends.

The United States is rapidly becoming a country even more divided:

Over 31% of Puerto Ricans live in poverty, making them the poorest ethnic group in the U.S. Meanwhile the war on Latinos continues with police harassment, racial profiling, and deportations of the undocumented--for driving, if you can believe that.

Approximately 166 legal cases winding their way through U.S. courts target Palestinians in the United States who were trying to help Palestine, and they are being prosecuted with new laws that would have been unthinkable a generation ago—like the Secret Evidence Act. My sister, Lynne Stewart, an activist lawyer of conscience, sits in a U.S. prison right now because she dared to represent a Muslim cleric who ran afoul of the U.S. What a message that sends to other lawyers committed to the notion that everyone at least deserves a fair trial.

According to United for a Fair Economy, whose work I adore, Black unemployment is now at 14.7 percent compared to 8.7 % for whites. And in 2007, for every dollar of white wealth, a black family had just one dime.

From the sub-prime banking scam alone, because of mortgage foreclosures, Blacks and Latinos are currently experiencing the greatest loss of wealth in recent U.S. history because 53% of blacks and 47% of Latinos were saddled with sub-prime mortgages, as compared to only 26% of whites. The greedy banking class were in a feeding frenzy, feeding on black and brown hopes to become a part of the American Dream.

According to a recent study, U.S. schools today are more segregated than in the 1950s. In our most diverse state, California, one-half of black and Asian students attend segregated schools, as do one fourth of Latino and Native American students.

And, young black girls are experiencing unwanted sterilizations and other complications because of forced vaccinations with an experimental drug in these schools.

In 1954, the Supreme Court found that segregation inherently meant "unequal."

Correspondingly, schools in low-income areas are highly unequal with not even the slightest remediation of the root societal causes that strongly affect student performance.

This of course feeds quite nicely into the prison-industrial complex that is a nice money-maker for those with the disposable income to invest in the private prisons of the U.S., or are lucky enough to have a business that contracts with the prisons to employ U.S. inmates for pennies an hour.

Yes, the United States, imprisoning more people than any country on the planet, has become an incarceration nation, but only for certain people. Be suspected of being a Latino driving without a drivers license and you can get stopped and deported for having one tail light bulb that's out; but Presidents George Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama can order the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocents all over the planet and they walk around free without the worry of even a citizen's arrest, let alone a warrant from a real, legal Tribunal.

Incredibly, Whites whose fortunes were sinking in the pile of unkept political promises and debilitating U.S. national debt were proselytized to by special interest media that hatred of the "other" was OK. There was little national outrage when Pat Robertson said that Hugo Chavez should be assassinated and then, more recently, when this man of the cloth opined that Haitians suffered so much because they made a deal with the devil to throw off French slavery.

Incredibly, while a record number of Blacks are seeking emergency food assistance, and people of color are losing not only their homes, but their dreams too, FOX News and CNN propagandize that it is those "others," those people of color who are responsible for the drowning of White America. And that includes President Obama who, one Southern Baptist preacher prayed to God should die. I wonder, who is his God?

True to fashion, the news that is watched by most people in the United States refuses to tell the people the truth of the conditions facing too many in our country and why.

However, according to Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, certain Whites also constitute part of the problem: according to her they are environmentalists and white supremacists. Interestingly, hatred spewing from the likes of special interest television hosts seems OK as long as they buy into the Republican/Democrat political paradigm and stay there.

Napolitano's enemies of the state, White supremacists and environmentalists, left that conformist paradigm over two generations ago. And I believe that any of us who leave that paradigm, and begin to think for ourselves and then act politically on our own independent, critical analysis can begin to put our country on the road to real independence from the special interests that have overtaken every aspect of our governmental, legal, and political apparatus, and like a parasite, has sapped the life from our body politic.

But leaving the acceptable political order puts us in the crosshairs of those whose position and power come from it.

And because the United States today is a rudderless, leaderless, divided society coming apart at the seams, now is the time more than ever that we need to employ what public schools in this country stopped supplying long ago: critical thinking about where we want to stand as a community of nations and where we in the United States want to stand as a country.

And this brings me to the real winners in the midst of this socio-economic collapse. Most people spend so much time looking at the losers in such a scenario, and we must care about the innocent victims that pay the ultimate price in the grand political power plays of our day. But, we must not neglect taking the time to study who it is that is actually sneaking off with the stolen merchandise.

There are real winners and they are the ones whom George Bush called his base: that is, the haves and the have mores.

President Obama has hastened approximately 23.7 trillion of our hard-earned dollars to them. Therefore, the real purpose of our political activity must be to thwart the wholesale theft of a nation under the guise of "Hope," "Change," and "Yes we Can."

That is the only purpose our political activities must now be geared toward.

It means then, that, those of us who have stepped outside of the "acceptable" political paradigm must be willing to break bread with one another and find common ground on which we can operate. My experience has been that such interactions only enhance future opportunities for positive political interactions.

A careful read of the COINTELPRO papers will reveal that the biggest fear inside the government was that the interests of those who pulled the strings would get totally engulfed and swallowed up by Black people and White people coming together during that time, of the civil rights movement and beyond, and successfully pressing for a full justice agenda that encompassed both domestic AND foreign policies. If they were afraid of that then, I guarantee you they are still afraid of it, now.

Secondly, the leadership of this new movement cannot be the leadership that is responsible for the death of the truth, justice, and peace movements inside the United States.

Going to the same people who caused the problem by abandoning their publicly-stated convictions is not going to get us closer to the truth or peace.

This means that we might have to thin our ranks, but we will at least know that those deep in the trenches with us are not sleeping with the enemy.

Finally, we need a voting bloc that places peace and the budget priorities of peace and people's needs above any other special interest. This voting bloc will not support any candidate running for office from The War Party. Because it should be crystal clear to everyone who cares about peace that we can't get from here to where we want to be by doing what those who are responsible for this mess want us to do. We've got to do something different in order to take our country back and make our country better.

The fact is that unless we are willing to step outside of the box of political conformity, we will continue to get what we've always gotten.

Now, finally for the record, let me say that I left Congress, not because I wanted to, but because the special interests and the War Party wanted me out.

What could I have possibly done to raise their ire?

Well, for the twelve years that I was in Congress, I:


1. Filed articles of impeachment against George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Condoleeza Rice;

2. Voted against every Pentagon appropriation, considering it immoral to spend so much money on war when millions of our children go to bed hungry every night;

3. Defied Congressional Democratic Party leaders, by holding a Congressional Hearing exploring the role of race and class in the government's response to Hurricane Katrina and introduced legislation to punish law enforcement that prevented the mostly Black citizens fleeing the floodwaters from crossing over from New Orleans into its mostly White suburbs;

4. Wrote legislation to ban the importation of coltan from the Democratic Republic of Congo into the United States because of the horrific human rights abuses committed during its mining;

5. Was the first Member of Congress to ask the Bush Administration of the September 11, 2001 attack on the United States, what did it know and when did it know it; and I

6. Led the Congressional Black Caucus Task Force at the 2001 World Conference Against Racism, defying President Bush's boycott.

Currently, I am an endorser of the Brussels Tribunal that cooperated in the filing of a lawsuit in Spain against all the U.S. Presidents responsible for war crimes in Iraq.

I participate in the Malaysia Peace Organization's efforts to criminalize war, establish a War Crimes Tribunal, and hold leaders accountable for their wars.

And in December of 2008, I tried to take humanitarian supplies to the people of Gaza after the start of Operation Cast Lead and the Israeli military rammed and destroyed our boat.

In June 2009, I tried to take crayons to the children of Gaza and the Israelis hijacked our boat, kidnapped us, took us to Israel, where I spent seven days in an Israeli prison.

I do with my body what I did with my Congressional office.

I left Washington because the pro-Israel Lobby was able to utilize all of its leverage inside both the Democratic and Republican parties target and oust me. They ousted me because I dared to believe that all human beings, including Palestinians, have human rights.

In 2007, at a peace rally in front of the Pentagon, I did what I am now asking one million U.S. voters to do: I declared my independence from a national leadership that had caused my country to become complicit in war crimes, torture, crimes against humanity, and crimes against the peace.

I joined the Green Party and in 2008, ran for President of the United States. I traveled the length and breadth of my country and now I travel the world carrying a message of truth, justice, peace, and dignity. I spent approximately 10 of the 12 months in 2009 outside of the country.

But, I'm being told now by my friends and supporters that it's time to come back home. That the real heavy lifting is inside our country. That if we want life to be better for the people in the refugee camps all over the world, that we've got to change the policies coming out of Washington, D.C.

My very first campaign theme was "Warriors Don't Wear Medals, They Wear Scars." And I've borne my scars in public for all the world to see.

And honestly, sometimes, I wonder if it's worth it. I take a look at where the world is and I say what could I possibly do to stop this.

And then, I think of the people of Gaza whom I saw after Israel's Operation Cast Lead. I saw in Gaza, the indomitable spirit of humanity. Despite the pain, the murder, the killing, the destruction--I saw life. I experienced love.

But we don't have to go to Gaza to gain inspiration to continue to struggle. If we just dare to look into the eyes of the homeless man looking for a warm bed, or the tired face of a mother on her way to work at 6:00 in the morning when it's still dark, if we would just dare to love the nameless human beings whose lives turn on the policies that powerful politicians choose to support or ignore, I know we can become inspired. And in the process, spark some bit of hope in the desperate and the hopeless.

No one deserves to be hopeless.

So, I've come a long way to be with you. And I thank you for the invitation.

When we were organizing our "Emergency Anti-Afghanistan Escalation Rally" in front of the White House, one of my supporters reminded me of my own saying: "We must never give in when we are right."

Peace is right and we must never give up.

Thank you so much for giving me this time to share with you this evening.

****************************** ***************************************

WORLD VIEW NEWS SERVICE

--
Palash Biswas
Pl Read:
http://nandigramunited-banga.blogspot.com/