Azi Khalili—International Liberation Reference Person for South, Central, and West Asian-Heritage People
South, Central, and West Asian-Heritage People
The key issue facing humanity is distress. In the present oppressive class societies, distress is installed on every human mind; no child can grow up distress free and have full access to his or her intelligence and flexible thinking.
Distress limits our sense of possibilities. It makes us forget that defeat is not inevitable, that we can win against oppression, that the situation remains hopeful. It makes us forget the joy of connecting with other humans and that we can unite to address all the challenges we face—climate change, war, classism, racism, genocide, Islamophobia, sexism, homophobia, young people’s oppression, and more.
At this historical moment, humanity must undertake eliminating distress. Co-Counselors can play a central role by spreading the theory, practice, and policies that can help humanity do that and find its way back to rationality and humanness.
PRIORITIZING THE GROWTH OF RC
We need to increasingly take RC into the wide world. We need to share it with activists, grassroots organizers, thought leaders, and everyone who has decent attention and can take it and spread it widely. To do this, the RC Communities need to prioritize growth—especially among People of the Global Majority, working-class people, and young people.
In particular, we need to discharge the racism, Islamophobia, fears of terrorism, and other distresses that confuse us about the true nature of South, Central, and West Asian-heritage people. This will free us to build more relationships in these communities and bring more of their members into RC. And we need to make sure that the conditions are set to enable them to stay in RC and flourish. We need to counsel them well on their early distresses, track their re-emergence, and support them to take RC leadership. We also need to prioritize the expansion of RC in South, Central, and West Asian nations where it already exists and begin it in the nations where it doesn’t yet exist.
We can discharge distresses that limit the growth of RC by working on the following: U.S. identity and the domination of Southern nations by Northern nations; classism and racism; early discouragement and hopelessness; timidity and fear of being visible; “mental health” oppression; courage and integrity; and fear of being attacked, ridiculed, or killed for being connected to RC.
CLIMATE CHANGE AND WAR
Climate change has had devastating effects in South, Central, and West Asia—from the rise in sea level to extreme weather, such as heat waves in Iraq and India, droughts in Central Asia, and floods in Pakistan and Bangladesh. The greatest impact has been and will be on the poorer countries and communities in these regions, as they are the least able to protect themselves and are already suffering from widespread disease and decline in agricultural production.
Climate change in South, Central, and West Asia is happening in the context of an already prolonged crisis that is due largely to the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, the Palestinian territories, and Lebanon. These wars have seriously degraded the local natural environment. They have ruined agricultural lands, contaminated soil, increased desertification, polluted water, destroyed wildlife habitat, and, of course, caused millions of civilian deaths as well as mass migrations.
It is a cycle of destruction. By degrading the environment, war accelerates climate change. Climate change causes drought and famine. Then under these conditions violence, war, Islamophobia, and racism targeting Arabs and Muslims are easily incited. All this makes it more difficult to unite and end war and its impact on the environment.
Despite all the above, the situation is hopeful. It is possible to end war, limit the effects of climate change, and completely restore the environment.
Brooklyn, New York, USA
(Present Time 188, July 2017)