Thread by @ostadjaan

Short thread on politics of representations about #Afghanistan.
It has already begun: Reduction of #Afghan people to vulnerable women, children to be saved by white savior (soldiers), & monster men.
As if there is no kindness in the men & no courage in the women. [1/11]

As if those white saviors [however noble their individual characters and actions] have not commissioned by the same system of pillage and proxy wars that drove Afghanistan to this point. [2/11]

It has already begun, the mention of the trillion dollars of minerals under #Afghanistan's soil that "the world" needs, revealing this "world" to be a consumerist monster whose appetite knows no bounds. [3/11]

It has already begun, the asking people to take in a trickle of refugees here and there, before pausing and asking what mad system created the refugees. [4/11]

It has already begun, the reminder that the refugees will not bring us COVID, as if half of all Americans have not refused the very vaccine that much of the rest of the world would walk for miles to receive. [5/11]

It has already begun, the narrative that refugees make "us" richer with kabobs, as if the refugees are anything but bearers of God's spirit, fleeing the disaster that the imperial games of England, USSR & USA, along with Empire-friendly militant forms of Islam created [6/11]

Resist, resist these narratives.
Ask always who created this mess, who benefits from it (diverting hundreds of billions of $$$ of taxpayer money to Military Industrial Complex, e.g. Lockheed Martin). Ask who pays the price (Afghan civilians & also American soldiers). [7/11]

Insist on better. Learn about the history of Afghanistan and her people. Yes, support the refugees, and stand up against the systems of destruction that create refugees. No one leaves their home unless there was no home to call home.
[8/11]

And each time you see a talking head on TV, remember this powerful poem: "This is not a humanising poem", by Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan. [9/11]

We can only "humanize" those who are not already, fully human. The real task is to ask why is it, and how is it, that some of us have failed to see the already present full sanctity of the rest of us. [10/11]

For those of us in positions of comfort and safety, we will not ask the vulnerable, the fleeing, the exhausted, the wounded, and the traumatized, to smile, to sing, to cook, to perform their humanity for us. [11/11]

#Afghanistan #Afghan #refugees #RefugeesWelcome

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