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Ammar Ali Jan

@ammaralijan

4 Mar

I don’t believe my work with workers, students or farmers should shield me from criticism. Even though some of the tweets were both slanderous & rude, I assume there is a serious ideological debate needed on the relationship between progressives, democracy & the current regime.

This is important because right-wing movements world over have mastered the art of strategically using the discourse of socialism, feminism & anti-elite rhetoric to discredit dissent & prop up authoritarian regimes.

There has been a strong decay of center-left parties across the

world. Democrats in US, Congress in India, PPP in Pakistan etc. Corruption & abandonment of their ideological base has led to erosion of support for these parties. Unfortunately, this decay has not been replaced by progressive alternatives but by right-wing forces who mobilized

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Ammar Ali Jan

@ammaralijan

27 Dec 20

It reflects poorly on progressives when they dismiss leaders like Benazir Bhutto as representatives of "feudals" or "dynastic politics." She suffered the loss of her entire family, faced incarceration and threats, received the most vile misogynistic abuse from opponents and

eventually had to be killed by a violent and terrified state. She faced all these hardships not because she was merely a feudal (how many feudals suffer that fate?) but because she chose to take a stand against military dictators, against religious extremists and against

patriarchal prejudice. Her ability to endure the pain and suffering meted out to her reflected the tragic fate of our entire people who are forced to confront the tyranny of a brutal state apparatus.

She made mistakes, compromises and had limitations. But those limitations

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Ammar Ali Jan

@ammaralijan

28 Oct 20

Many liberals are unable to understand the deep-seated racism and Islamophobia that shapes European consciousness today. There is an entire history of segregation, exclusion and occupation of Muslim, Arab and African lands stemming from the colonial era. Countries such as France

not only committed unspeakable crimes in places like Algeria, they refused to ever acknowledge the ways in which they demeaned their fellow human beings in the colonies. In contemporary Paris, working class Muslims/Africans live in "banlieus" where police violence/racism is

rampant & conditions of life extremely brutal. Today, Muslim immigrants tend to support Left-wing & liberal parties across Europe at a time when Far-Right & fascist parties are capturing public imagination. Fascism was and remains the biggest threat to European stability. In the

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Ammar Ali Jan

@ammaralijan

10 Aug 20

Last few days have been very difficult for the working class. A thread.

Yesterday, we went to Faisalabad to meet workers of Ibrahim Fibers. The company has fired over two thousand workers in the middle of a pandemic. The same group owns Allied bank. Workers are organizing a protest on 17th August in Faisalabad.

On Saturday, Brick kiln owners in Jhang refused to free families from bonded labour. Mohammad Shabbir, leader of Bhatta Mazdoor Union, intervened to rescue workers from captivity. However the bosses & district police attacked families to prevent them from leaving.

Read 7 tweets

Ammar Ali Jan

@ammaralijan

20 Jun 20

I sadly announce that I will no longer be teaching at Forman Christian College. Earlier this year, my contract was changed to visiting faculty from the position of Assistant Professor. Now I wont continue as a visiting lecturer either.

After returning to Pakistan in 2016, was

committed to teaching at a public sector university. I joined Government College University and later Punjab University. Both institutions fired me citing "national security" as a reason. Some friends and sympathetic teachers at FCC reached out to me in this most difficult period

of my life and alerted me to a job opening at the university. FCC provided me an opportunity to achieve some financial stability, build an academic community and be away from constant public scrutiny. I finally felt relaxed in Pakistan.

Things began to change near the Student

Read 13 tweets

Ammar Ali Jan

@ammaralijan

12 Apr 20

This year, poor countries owe $25 billion in installments to creditors in rich countries in the midst of a pandemic. Demands for canceling Third World's debt are absolutely rational and just. A thread.

#CancelThirdWorldDebt #COVID__19

The creditor-debtor relation is a direct legacy of loot & plunder under colonial rule. For example, economist Utsa Patnaik estimates Britain stole $45 trillion from India. This explains why financial autonomy was a key demand in anti-colonial agitation.

mronline.org/2019/01/15/bri…

After a brief period of anti-colonial politics, the debt crisis of the 1970s provided another opportunity to Western govts to control the labour and resources of the Third World. Termed the “Washington Consensus”, they pushed Structural Adjustment Programs on debtor states,

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