Ending War and Militarization
I do anti-war organizing in the wide world and have been trying to bring my RC Community along [trying to help my RC Community pay attention to it too]—for my own support, and because we need to work on healing from war.
In our current era, anti-Muslim and anti-Arab racism are among the main reasons that people are unable to take a stand against war. In particular, it is easy to look away and not pay attention when the United States is hiding the truth and perpetuating anti-Muslim racism on a daily basis.
For me, a Muslim woman born and raised in Pakistan, there is no way to not care about war. U.S. drones have been dropping bombs on Pakistan since 2004. My earliest memories of war are of seeing images on television and in newspapers of Kashmiri, Palestinian, and Afghan children dying. My family tried to shield me from it, but it was not possible. To this day I remember the first night of the U.S. Desert Storm operation in Iraq.
Fast-forward to today: the United States is now at war with or drops bombs from drones in seven Muslim-majority countries (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, and Pakistan). Millions of Muslims have died in U.S. wars against Muslims (also known as the global “war on terror”). In 2017 alone (the first year of the current U.S. president’s term), the United States dropped approximately 44,000 bombs on seven Muslim countries. That is a bomb every twelve minutes or a hundred and twenty-one bombs a day. These attacks have destroyed my people, our lands, and our water.
As a young person I constantly asked my parents, “Why wars?” and I am still looking for an answer. At least now I know that war is profitable for the owning class and a tool of the imperialist countries for dominating the world.
I encourage everyone to seek more information on war. Look at media sources outside of the United States and Europe. Read books written by people impacted by war. Find out where your money is. Is it invested in a company directly or indirectly connected to war or the military? And then speak up against the wars and work toward ending war and militarization.
Salaam [“Peace” in Arabic],
Acton, Massachusetts, USA
Reprinted from the RC e-mail discussion list for leaders
of South, Central, and West Asian-heritage people